False Horizon

“All right, let’s get this baby gassed up and get back up there. I don’t want to lose any time.”

He pulled off the headset and hopped out of the plane. Annja unbuckled herself and eased out of the seat and climbed onto the tarmac. She stretched and felt marvelous moving around again. She hadn’t realized how cramped the interior of the plane was until just then.

Mike came walking back, directing a ground crew toward the plane. They dutifully led a hose to the gas tanks and started pumping.

Mike tossed Annja a can of soda. “Last gasp of civilization in these parts. From here on up north into Mustang, it gets downright spooky.”

“Spooky?”

“Well, there’s little up here to remind you of home. Pony caravans carry all the goods and, like I said earlier, most people are on foot or horseback. This is the frontier. Hell, parts of the region we’ll be flying over are off-limits to us on the ground. We’d need someone from the government to tag along.”

“Why is that?”

Mike took a gulp of the soda and then belched appreciably. “Who knows? Maybe the government knows where Shangri-La is and is just protecting it. Or maybe it’s because some of the less intelligent tourists would blunder over the border into Tibet if someone wasn’t around to stop them. No sense having an international incident if you can avoid it.”

Annja took a sip of her soda. “Makes sense.”

Mike watched the ground crew finish pumping the plane full of gas and then paid them from a bundle of cash he had in his pocket. He glanced at Annja and shrugged. “Mr. Tsing thought of everything. You all set to get back to it?”

“Yep.”

Annja climbed into the cockpit and strapped herself in. Mike climbed in a moment later and looked at the back of the plane.

Annja glanced at him. “Everything okay?”

“I guess.”

“What?”

Mike shrugged. “Probably just my mind playing tricks on me. That damned wine took me for a whirl last night.”

“What is it, Mike?”

“Thought I saw movement in the back of the plane.” He shook his head. “Nothing to it. You were climbing in when it happened and you must have jostled the plane. That’s all.” He switched on the propellers and smiled. “Let’s get out of here.”

Annja slid her headset back on and then felt the lurch as the plane started to move again. Mike keyed the microphone and spoke again to air traffic control. In seconds they hurtled down the tiny runway and shot back up into the sky. Annja leaned back in her seat, enjoying the rush of gaining altitude so fast.

Mike climbed and then banked around, continuing on their original northwesterly course. He leveled the plane off and then set a course that would take them farther into the Mustang region.

Annja wondered what the future held in store for them.

8

“The curious thing about Mustang is how the entire region pokes up into Tibet,” Mike said. “It almost looks like a thorn in the side.”

“Hence, the reason it made such a great staging area for the Khampa guerrillas,” Annja said. “They didn’t have to travel as far or retreat as much to get back to safety. It made sense to stage there.”

Mike piloted the plane and brought them over a particular vista. Annja looked down and saw green fields. “That looks rather lush for the area.”

“Concentrated irrigation,” Mike said. “It’s not indicative of the entrance to the garden of Eden.” He smiled. “I know the temptation to call it such, but the farmers up here have adapted quite well to the parameters of their environment.” He pointed ahead of them toward where the mountain called Dhaulagiri rose up like a towering majesty. “I want to fly a little higher. See if maybe we can spot something from up there.”

Annja looked at the peak. She could see storm clouds clustering around it. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? That doesn’t look too inviting.”

Mike nodded. “We’ll be all right as long as we don’t get too close. The most important thing is to get as high as we can in order to observe more than we can see skirting this level. We keep doing this, all we’re accomplishing is burning fuel.”

“If you say so.” Annja leaned back as Mike brought the stick back toward them and the plane responding by climbing. Annja could see snowfields out of the cockpit window. The wind suddenly buffeted the plane. Annja winced. Turbulence was something she didn’t care for.

“It’s a little choppy up here,” Mike said.

“You don’t say.”

Out of the window, Annja thought she saw something glint across one of the snowfields. She frowned and squinted again. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I could have sworn I saw something down there across that last field we buzzed.”

“Like what?”

“A glint of something. Maybe metallic. Maybe someone was signaling us?”

Mike shook his head. “We’re pretty close to the border of Tibet here. I doubt very much there’s a party down there trying to signal us. Doesn’t seem likely.”

“I saw something.”

Mike glanced at the instrument panel. “I can take another pass if you want me to check it out.”

“Might be worth a look.”

Mike nodded. “Hang on.” He banked the plane and Annja saw the vista shift to the left. Mike kept the heading on course and then leveled off. “Over there?”

The snowfield loomed in front of them, about halfway up the side of Dhaulagiri.

“Yeah, just down there,” Annja said, pointing.

Mike eased the stick forward and the plane descended a little. “All right, here we go.”

Annja heard the engines whine as the plane dipped and buzzed the snowfield. They were probably a thousand feet over the top of the field when she saw it again. “There!”

Mike turned his head and frowned. “That looks like—”

“Mike!”

But Mike had already seen the sudden flash and jerked the stick hard to the left. Annja looked back and saw the flare as a rocket went streaking past the right wing. “What the hell!”

“Someone’s shooting at us,” Mike said. He drew the plane back to the right and then angled it so it was in a steep climb. “Hang on!”

Annja clutched at the armrests on her seat as Mike jerked the plane all over the sky, trying to make it a smaller target. Annja strained to look over the back of her seat and see behind them. But the mass of bags in the rear section made it impossible.