“And us, them, with whatever we find. Your shoes, quickly!”
“Shoes? That is beyond bounds, sir!”
“Be happy I’m only slowing you, not shooting you.”
Then, the vehicles commandeered, the Germans sped on toward the mysterious mountains of the north. Eight British soldiers and their three accompanying porters were left standing, barefoot and disarmed, a humiliating hike from Lhasa. Except for the Reting’s limousine, there were no other cars in all of Tibet.
In the backseat of the lead motorcar, Raeder regarded his new captive. She’d betrayed him exactly as he’d expected, and led the British away from the protection of the Tibetans. Fortune was smiling on the Ahnenerbe.
“How sweet to complete our reunion,” he told her.
She turned away. “Beware what you desire.”
He laughed. Buddhist rubbish. Then he pounded Diels on the shoulder. “Drive faster!”
20
Flying to Lhasa, Tibet
September 10, 1938
O n the third day of Hood’s flight from Hankow, China began to rise like a lumpy loaf of bread. Hills became a universe of forested mountains, cut by deep, shadowy valleys that were seamed by rivers. He and Calloway crossed the upper reaches of the Yangtze and the Mekong. The little biplane jounced as it cleared each ridge crest, land falling dizzyingly away and carrying Hood’s stomach with it.
If Ben couldn’t catch Raeder in Lhasa, it was going to be hard to track him in the vastness that was Asia.
The trees thinned and then largely disappeared. Clouds scattered, and the sky became a vast bowl of blue. Snowy ranges occupied the horizon in all directions, like distant whitecaps. Their plane was an insect buzzing across eternity.
Ben was jostled from a doze when Beth pounded him on the shoulder. “Check the gas!”
The fuel tank was in the upper wing and fed the engine by a tube strapped to a strut. Next to it was a glass gauge that gave a simple eyesight reading of how much gasoline was left.
“We’re almost empty!”
“See why we needed those cans?” She glanced around. “There’s pasture in that valley. Maybe flat enough to land.” The biplane began to descend.
It was like entering a room, the mountains rising around them as they sank, narrowing the sky. Hood could see a few tents at the upper end of the valley and was uneasy about landing where there were people. Farther on, animals grazed. Calloway swept down over the herdsmen and sped down the length of the valley, dropping until the plane was skimming only twenty feet off the ground. She leaned out, studying. Rocks and bushes flashed by. To Hood, it looked like the kind of place where once you landed, you didn’t leave.
“Looks risky!” he shouted.
She pulled on the stick, climbed, and banked. Empty mountainside flashed by the wingtips. They’d stirred the herdsmen’s camp and people were running, pointing, and fetching horses. A final tight turn at the valley’s head and Beth was aimed down the valley again, her touchdown picked.
“I saw a red flag back there!” she warned.
“So?”
“Those aren’t just herdsmen. They’re Communist mercenaries!”
“So?”
“Drafted bandits. Hang on!”
They drifted down the last few feet as the plane felt for safe purchase. Hood could hear grass whickering at the spinning wheels. They touched, bounced, touched, and bounced again, and then they were roughly down. A boulder loomed ahead but the plane slewed to miss it, coming around to point back toward the tents at the head of the valley. The engine coughed and stopped, the propeller jerking to a halt.
“We’ll take off into the wind,” she said. The breeze blew exhaust smoke back into their faces. “Get out and pass up those petrol canisters.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ben opened the compartment behind the pilot and boosted the five-gallon cans up to where Calloway balanced by the upper wing. She used a funnel to pour the precious fuel, its color a whiskey peat. Periodically she glanced up-valley like a wary bird.
“Company,” she finally said, pointing.
A party of men on tough little ponies was galloping toward them.
“What do you think they want?” Hood asked.
“Whatever they can take, I imagine. Or to arrest us and steal the plane, if a commissar is looking over their shoulder.”
“Then let’s get the hell out.”
“Not until we’re refueled.” She sounded grim. “You’d better figure out a way to slow them down.”
Hood took his rifle out of the cockpit. He’d shot at animals a thousand times, but China was his first war. His gun had a German Zeiss scope. He rested it on the fuselage and sighted. The horsemen were carrying their own rifles.
“Should I try scaring them?”
“If you just want to make them angry.”
“Maybe we can negotiate.”
“With what? Me?” They were bandits impressed as guerrilla soldiers, she explained, and their idea of mission and discipline devolved from the Mongol hordes.
“Big target to start,” he muttered. Hood aimed at the breast of the lead horse, held his breath, and squeezed. The rifle bucked. The horse jerked out of his scope’s view and he looked up. The animal had fallen, its rider tumbling. The others reined up in momentary confusion. Dust swirled. He could hear surprised, angry shouts.
“Are you done?” he called impatiently.
“Still pouring. We don’t want to have to do this again.”
“Christ.” Now there was the sizzle of bullets whipping by, the bandit rifles thankfully inaccurate at five hundred yards. Then pops as the sound of the shots reached them. Puffs of smoke hazed their attackers. The Communist cavalry was fanning out into a semicircle.
“I told you you’d just make them mad. They’ll rape me and bugger you before they kill us. The killing part will take a day or more.”
“Great airport you picked.” He aimed again. They were riding hard now, an arc converging on their plane.
“I was told you were a great shot.” Her voice was cool, but there was just a tremble.
He fired, worked the bolt to feed another cartridge, swung his muzzle, and fired again. And again. And again. One, two went flying from their mounts. Just three hundred yards now. He could hear the whap of bandit bullets hitting their airplane and he unconsciously tensed, waiting for one to strike his own flesh.
Beth pulled a pistol and rattled off several shots from her wing perch while a funnel finished draining, not really trying to hit anything. Then she leaped down, ramming the empty cans back into the fuselage. She vaulted into the cockpit and set the ignition. “Now, now! Crank the prop!”
Hood shot and a pony went tumbling. He threw the Winchester into his own cockpit and ran to the propeller, giving it a heave. The engine roared. The plane was already moving when he sprang onto a lower wing and hauled himself aboard. They bounced over the lumpy field, aiming at their assailants. Yips heightened. Still at least a dozen of them.
He climbed into his own seat. “I can’t aim with all this bouncing.”
“Neither can they, I hope.” But then a bullet shattered part of the windshield above her instruments, fragments bright as they flew. “Dammit, that stung! Throw off their aim, Ben!”
Hood scooped up his shotgun, an over-and-under with two barrels. The plane was slowly gaining speed as it
