“We found Lev Sokolov. He’s on his way here.”

SIXTY-FIVE

KASHGAR

XINJIANG AUTONOMOUS REGION

FRIDAY, MAY 18

1:00 AM

TANG EXITED HIS JET AND STEPPED OUT INTO THE EARLY morning. The flight west across the Taklamakan Desert had been uneventful, the air tranquil. He noticed that the clocks outside the airport were set two hours early, an unofficial defiance of the decree that all of China run on Beijing time. The present government had been tolerant of such slights. He would not be as generous. The riots and unrest that permeated the western portion of the nation would be quelled. Separatist leanings would be punished. If need be, he would raze every mosque and publicly execute every dissident to make the point that this land would remain part of China.

Viktor followed him off the plane. They’d spoken little on the flight, both of them sleeping a few hours, readying themselves for what lay ahead.

He needed to speak with his office, but had been unable to make contact.

A military chopper waited a hundred meters away, its blades already whirling. The flight south, into the mountains, was only three hundred kilometers and should not take long.

He gestured and, together, he and Viktor trotted toward the helicopter.

CASSIOPEIA HAD BEEN THRILLED TO SEE LEV SOKOLOV. THEY’D waited for him at the airfield in Xi’an. Her friend appeared tired and fragile, but otherwise in good spirits. As soon as Sokolov arrived, she, Malone, Sokolov, and Ni Yong boarded a Chinese turboprop, commandeered from Sichuan Airlines. With room for sixty and only four aboard, they’d been able to stretch out and sleep, even eat a little something, as the galley had been stocked before they left. Before crossing the Taklamakan wasteland, they’d stopped once for fuel.

During the flight they’d listened as Sokolov explained about his capture by Tang, the torture, then imprisonment in the lab. Earlier, Ni’s men had stormed the facility, surprised the guards and freed him, killing two of Tang’s associates. Sokolov’s only concern seemed to be his son, and his spirits lifted when Cassiopeia told him that they may well know the boy’s whereabouts.

“Why are you so important to Karl Tang?” Ni asked.

“I hate you Chinese,” Sokolov spat out.

“He’s here to help,” she said. “Tang tried to kill him and me.”

“I understand your resentment,” Ni said. “But I did not have to bring you along, nor did I have to rescue you. I chose to do both, so I’m hoping that says something for my intentions.”

Sokolov’s face softened, his eyes cooled.

“I discover oil is infinite.”

TANG LISTENED THROUGH THE EARPHONES AS HIS SUBORDINATES reported what had happened in Xi’an after he departed, and what had happened at the laboratory in Lanzhou.

“Sokolov was flown south to Xi’an,” his chief aide stated. “Minister Ni is on his way west, with two foreigners and Lev Sokolov.”

“Do we know where?”

“No, sir. They filed no flight path.”

“Locate the plane. Sichuan Airlines has transponders. I want to know where they land.”

His aide acknowledged the order.

Time for some preventive measures.

“Connect me to the Pakistani defense ministry,” he told his subordinate. “Now.”

Viktor had been listening to the conversation through his own headset. While Tang waited for the call to be made, he said, “Ni has decided to utilize Malone and Vitt. Make them his allies.”

Viktor nodded. “Smart play. But Malone is a problem. Ni doesn’t understand what he’s dealing with.”

Tang didn’t like any of this. He was being forced to take ever-bolder steps. So far he’d been able to operate within the confines of Party secrecy where no one questioned anything. But this was not Beijing.

He felt vulnerable.

“You want me to go handle Malone and Vitt?” Viktor asked.

“No. This time I’ll do it myself.”

NI HEARD THE WORDS THAT LEV SOKOLOV HAD SPOKEN. “EXPLAIN yourself.”

“Oil is infinite. It comes from deep in earth and can be replenished. Its origins are abiotic. Biotic oil all consumed long ago.”

“Is that why Tang wanted the lamp with the oil?” Cassiopeia asked.

The Russian nodded. “I need sample for comparison test that would prove theory. Some oil taken from ground long ago, at defined spot.”

Ni’s mind reeled. “Tang knows this?”

Sokolov nodded. “That why he took my child. Why”—the man gently touched his shirt above his abdomen—“he torture me.”

“You have a way to prove that oil is infinite?” Malone asked.

“I do. It’s my lifework. My friend Jin Zhao was killed for it.”

Which explained why Karl Tang had been so interested in Zhao’s execution. Ni told Malone and Vitt about Zhao’s charges, trial, and death sentence, which Tang had personally overseen.

“He was good man,” Sokolov said. “Slaughtered by you people.”

“Not by me,” Ni made clear.

“Your whole country rotten. Nothing about it good.”

“If you feel that way, why immigrate?” Malone asked.

“I love my wife.”

Ni wondered how many people the Chinese Communist Party had similarly alienated. Millions? No. Hundreds of millions. Not counting the tens of millions who had been butchered for no reason other than to sustain power. The past few days had opened his eyes, and he did not like what he was seeing.

“China’s view of the world,” Ni said, “has always been clouded by a belief of superiority. Unfortunately, our vulnerabilities are exaggerated by this conceit. Taiwan is an example. A small, insignificant island yet it has dominated our thoughts for decades. Our leaders have proclaimed that it must be reincorporated into China. Wars have been threatened, international tensions heightened—”

“And oil is your weakest point of all,” Malone said. “China couldn’t survive more than two weeks without foreign oil.”

Ni nodded. “That is no secret. When Deng Xiaoping modernized us we became utterly dependent on oil, most of it foreign, which is why China was forced to engage the world. In order to produce the goods for sale, to accommodate a billion and a half people, we must have energy.”

“Unless the oil coming out of the ground, inside China, is infinite,” Cassiopeia said.

“China oil is abiotic,” Sokolov said. “I test every well. It is consistent with theory.”

Ni shook his head. “Knowing we are no longer dependent on imported energy would dramatically change our foreign and domestic policies.”

Malone nodded. “And not for the good.”

“Right now, we bargain for oil. Knowing he did not have to bargain, Tang would move to fulfill territorial dreams that China has harbored for centuries.”

“Like Taiwan,” Malone said.

Ni nodded. “Which could start a world war. America would not allow that to go unanswered.”

“Is my son really where we go?” Sokolov asked.

Cassiopeia nodded. “We think so.”

“But we’re taking the word of an e-mail from Pau Wen, a pathological liar,” Malone said.

Ni felt compelled to say to Sokolov, “We will find your son. Know that I will do all I can to locate him.”

“And will you kill Karl Tang?” Sokolov asked.

A question he’d asked himself repeatedly, ever since fleeing Qin Shi’s tomb. Tang clearly wanted him dead. That was why he’d been lured underground.

“You need to know,” Cassiopeia said to Sokolov, “the Russians are involved.”

Alarm filled the man’s tired eyes.

She explained how they’d entered China with Russian help.

“They thought me dead,” Sokolov said.

“Not necessarily,” Malone said. “They want me back?”

Sokolov seemed to grasp the implications. So did Cassiopeia Vitt.

“Viktor’s here to kill him, isn’t he?” she asked Malone.

“Like I said. Having him back is good, but a lid on this is better.”

SIXTY-SIX

TANG SAT SILENT DURING THE FLIGHT, THE HELICOPTER BUFFETING across what he knew to be ever-thinning air into the western highlands. They were most likely following the Karakoram Highway, which connected Kashgar with Pakistan through a mountain pass nearly five thousand meters above sea level. This had once been the route used by caravans traveling the Silk Road, patrolled only by bandits who took advantage of the impossible terrain to slaughter and plunder. Now it was a forgotten corner of the republic, claimed by many, controlled by none.

He’d left the headphones on as a way not only to buffet the rotor’s drone, but also to avoid talking to Viktor Tomas. Luckily, the man had closed his eyes and dozed off, his headset removed.

For a decade he’d intentionally avoided the Hall for the Preservation of Harmony. Only a few brothers still lived there, mainly to perpetuate the illusion of a mountain monastery, a home to holy men who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

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