Part 9 (1/2)

”I know! I know!” West was rummaging around inside the shed. ”Here!”

He hurled something out through the doorway and into Stretch's arms: a pack of some sort.

A parachute.

”Safety precaution for a helipad this high up,” West said, emerging with two more parachutes. He flung one to Astro. ”Again, welcome to my world.”

They strapped the chutes on and hurried to the edge of the helipad, railless and dizzyingly high, eighty stories above the ground.

The building's steel skeleton shrieked once more. The air around it began to s.h.i.+mmer in the heat. It was about to collapse- ”Jump!” West called.

And they did, together, the three of them basejumping off the burning building, plummeting through the s.h.i.+mmering sky, the building beside them blurring with speed- -a bare instant before the whole top third of the Burj al Arab Tower came free from the rest of the building and toppled off it!

The building's great spire, its helipad, and its top thirty floors all tipped as one, falling sideways like a slowfalling tree, folding at the point where the plane had hit it, before tearing free of the main structure and falling off it, chasing the three tiny figures that only an instant before had leaped off the helipad.

But then abruptly three parachutes blossomed to life above the three figures and they sailed clear of the peak of the tower. They flew away to landward as the now upsidedown spire of the building came cras.h.i.+ng down into the sea with a momentous earsplitting smash.

The incredible sight would appear in newspapers around the world the following day, images of the halfstanding tower.

The culprit: an angry American loner, Earl McShane, seething for revenge for 9/11. h.e.l.l, he'd even written to his local paper after September 11 calling for vengeance.

And so he'd decided to exact his own form of revenge on an Islamic country in exactly the same way the Islamist terrorists had attacked America: by flying a plane into their biggest, most wellknown tower.

Thankfully, all the papers reported, owing to the professionalism of the hotel staff, their flawless evacuation procedures, and their rapid-almost forewarned-response to the news of the incoming cargo plane, not a single person was killed in the fiendish attack.

In the end, the only life McShane took was his own.

Naturally, in the hours following the event, all air traffic in the region was grounded pending further notice.

The skies above the Emirates remained eerily empty for the entire next day, all flights canceled.

Except for one.

One plane that was given permission to take off from a highsecurity military air base on the outskirts of Dubai.

A black 747, heading east, for China.

The first plane out the following day was a private Learjet belonging to Sheik Anzar al Abbas, carrying three pa.s.sengers-Zoe, Lily, and Alby.

After a quick exchange between West and Alby on the tarmac of the military base the previous day, it was decided that the team would split here, with Zoe and the two children heading in the opposite direction: for England.

AIRs.p.a.cE OVER SOUTHWESTERN CHINA.

DECEMBER 5, 2007.

THE HALICARNa.s.sUS soared over the Himalayas and entered Chinese airs.p.a.ce.

Its black radarabsorbent paint and irregular multiangled flanks would ensure that it did not show up on any local radar systems. These features, however, would not protect it from being spotted by other, more advanced, satellitebased systems.

Not long after their takeoff from Dubai, Jack had turned to his two newest team members, the American Marine, Astro, and the Saudi spy, Vulture: ”OK, gentlemen. Time to show me what you know. The subject is Xintan Prison.”

The young American lieutenant replied with a question of his own. ”Are you sure this is a wise course of action? You seem to work just fine without this Wizard guy. Why not go straight for the Stones and the Pillars? Going after Wizard will only serve to antagonize the Chinese.”

Jack said, ”I only know what Wizard has told me or written down. The vast stores of knowledge in his brain on this subject are the only thing that'll successfully get us through this. That alone is worth antagonizing China for. There's also another reason.”

”And that is...?”

”Wizard is my friend,” Jack said flatly.Just as Fuzzy was my friend, and look at what happened to him. Jesus.

”And you'd risk our lives and our nations' reputations just to save your friend-”

”Yes.” Jack didn't even blink. The image of Fuzzy's head in that box flashed through his mind, a friend he hadn't been able to save.

”That's some loyalty you have there,” Astro said. ”Will you risk all that forme if I get into trouble?”

”I don't know you that well yet,” Jack said. ”I'll let you know later, if you survive. Now.

The prison.”

Vulture unfolded some maps and satellite photos he'd brought from Saudi Intelligence.

”The Chinese are keeping Professors Epper and Tanaka at the Xintan Hard Labor Penal Facility, a Grade4 penitentiary in the remote western region of Sichuan Province.

”Xintan is a special facility reserved for political prisoners and maximumsecurity inmates. Its prisoners are used to dig the tunnels and high pa.s.ses for China's highalt.i.tude train lines, like the QinghaiTibet Railway, the socalled Roof of the World railway. The Chinese are the best railroad builders on Earth-they've built tracks over, under, and through the most mountainous terrain on the planet, many of them connecting the mainland provinces to Tibet.”

At this point, Pooh Bear's brother, Scimitar, joined in. ”They're using the new railways to flood Tibet with Chinese workers. Trying to wipe out the local population by sheer weight of numbers. It's a new form of genocide. Genocide by overwhelming immigration.”

Jack a.s.sessed Scimitar. He could not have been more unlike his younger brother. Where Pooh Bear was rotund, bearded, and earthy, Scimitar was lean, cleanshaven, and cultured. He had pale blue eyes, olive skin, and an Oxford accent. The cla.s.sic modern Arabian prince. Jack noticed that he had put China's railwaybuilding into a political context.

”In any case,” Vulture said, ”building the railways is very dangerous work. Many prisoners die doing it and they're just buried in the concrete. Epper, however, was taken to Xintan because it features an interrogation and debriefing wing.”

”Torture chambers?” West asked.

”Torture chambers,” Vulture said.

”Xintan is notorious for its torture wing,” Astro said. ”Fulin Gong devotees, student protesters, Tibetan monks. All have been 'reeducated,' as the Chinese put it, at Xintan.

The thing is, by virtue of its unusual terrain, Xintan is uniquely positioned to be a perfect interrogation facility. You see, Xintan is built on top of not one but two adjacent mountain peaks known as 'The Devil's Horns.'

”Xintan One, the main prison, is located on the primary peak and is entered via a high alt.i.tude railway line that pa.s.ses directly into the prison via a huge iron gate.”

”Sounds like Auschwitz,” Stretch said.

”Similar, but not entirely,” Astro said. ”After dropping off its cargo of new prisoners at the main prison, the railway line continuesall the way through Xintan One, emerging from another gate at the far end. There the railway line crosses a long bridge and arrives at Xintan Two, the smaller wing, the torture wing, situated atop its own peak. The railway enters Xintan Two via a third ma.s.sive gate and there it ends. Apart from that gate, there is no exit from Xintan Two.”

”Like Auschwitz,” Stretch said again.

”In this respect, yes it is, Jew,” Vulture said.

Sitting nearby, Pooh Bear looked up sharply. ”Vulture. I honor you as my brother's friend. I would ask then that you honor my friend. He is known as Cohen, Archer, or Stretch. You will not call him Jew again.”