False Horizon (13 page)

The ringing of the phone echoed in Tuk’s ears as he pitched and fell headlong through the doorway into the blackness beyond. His hands instinctively shot out, reaching, grabbing for anything to help break his fall. He felt a weird fabric brush against his hands and he clutched at the material before it gave way under his body weight. It enshrouded him as he continued to fall forward until he hit his face against something hard.

For a moment, he lay there unsure of what had just happened. His phone had rung and then he’d been shoved from behind. But had his own father pushed him through the doorway? That didn’t make any sense.

Tuk heard a heavy rumbling sound and yanked off the black material in time to see a giant slab of stone slam shut, enclosing him in a small ten-by-ten-foot room.

“Hey!”

Tuk’s voice echoed back at him. He could tell the walls must have been exceedingly thick. He didn’t think any bit of sound would escape this room no matter how hard he tried to shout.

He looked around at the sparse room. It resembled a prison cell. Overhead, a single light illuminated the room behind what looked to be a Plexiglas housing. This suddenly didn’t look very much like Shangri-La.

Had he come across some kind of gap in time and space and he was back on the other side in some strange location? This certainly wasn’t the mountain cave they’d come through.

So where was he?

He paced off the room, confirming in his own mind the measurements. Other than the light fixture, there was nothing else in the room with him. Tuk was, for all intents and purposes, in a perfectly square stone box.

His mind raced. Surely his own father hadn’t done this to him, had he? He felt like a prisoner and he was rapidly suspecting that he’d somehow been betrayed. Was everything a hoax here? Was this place just a fraud? And if it was, then that meant that Annja and Mike were in serious trouble.

He pounded on one of the walls but found it as solid as he thought it might be. His hand came away badly scraped. Tuk sucked it for a moment and then sat down on the floor, trying to make sense of things.

Garin was obviously attempting to get in touch with him again. But why? Had he learned something that would help? Or was he calling to see if Tuk had managed to find a way for Garin to cross over?

Either way, things didn’t look good.

Tuk leaned against the wall and folded his arms. Nothing made sense except for the fact that he’d passed through a doorway and into some type of prison cell, cut off from his friends, and seemingly at the mercy of his so-called father.

Perhaps his father didn’t really want him back, after all. Maybe Tuk was a threat to his rule.

No.

Tuk shook his head. His father was old. Guge himself had said how happy they were about his return.

But why?

If that was how they showed their happiness, then things were truly askew.

Tuk examined his hand again and made sure that the bleeding was minimal. It wouldn’t need any medical attention, but it hurt for the time being.

“You shouldn’t have punched the wall like that.”

Tuk looked up and saw that a section of the stone wall had slid back, revealing a piece of Plexiglas. It looked to be some type of observation window. And Tuk couldn’t see beyond the one-way glass into the other room.

“Father?”

He heard laughter. “He still thinks you’re his father.”

“Who is that?” Tuk got to his feet, feeling his heart thunder in his chest. Now they were mocking him. He felt his face redden at the thought of it.

“Sit down, little man. Sit down and listen.”

Tuk sat, still feeling furious.

“It’s a shame you had to be so curious about things. We were hoping you would hold out long enough for us to complete what we’re working on here.”

“I only asked a question,” Tuk said.

“Yes, but you asked the question we didn’t want you to ask. Don’t you see? And now you’re paying the price for that curiosity.”

“Where is my father?”

More laughter sounded. Tuk got back to his feet. “Stop laughing at me!”

He heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. Guge. “I’m here, Tuk. What can I do for you?”

“You can explain yourself. All of this. Tell me what is going on here. I want to know.”

“Yes, I know you want to know. The thing is, I can’t tell you just yet. I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more patient. When everything is done, you will be allowed to see it.”

Tuk stopped. “I will?”

“Certainly.”

Tuk didn’t like the tone of his voice. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch…son.”

Tuk frowned. “You’re not my father.”

“Oh, now don’t take it so personally. It was important for us to make you feel welcome when you first arrived. After all, it wouldn’t do to have you come here and not roll out the welcome mat.”

“Why, though? You could have just left us alone in the cave on the mountain.”

“No. Unfortunately, as much as we would have liked doing just that, we couldn’t leave you there.”

“Why?”

“Because the woman you are with is far more adept at ferreting out things than we would like. And inevitably you would have located the passageway that bridges us with the mountain entrance.”

“So you took us over with the intention of doing what?”

“Sending your friends back on their way when the one called Mike was healed. And keeping you here.”

“Why keep me?”

“We have our reasons.”

Tuk sighed. “Well, now you’ve got me. Are you going to let Annja and Mike go?”

“I’m afraid things have progressed beyond us being able to do that now.”

“Why?”

“Your cell phone for one. Who is the man you are speaking with on the other end of the line?”

“None of your business.”

“Tsk, tsk, Tuk, that’s no way to treat your friends.”

Tuk sniffed. “Friends…right.”

“We need to know. We must ensure the secret is still safe. Does he know where you are?”

Tuk frowned. “I don’t even know where I am. How would I be able to communicate anything to him?”

“All right.”

Tuk rubbed his hand. “So how long are you going to keep me here?”

“Just a little while more.”

“My friends aren’t going to stand for this. Once they see that I’ve gone, they’re going to start asking questions.”

“Yes, Annja is already being somewhat troublesome.”

Tuk smiled. You have no idea what she’s capable of, he thought. “Oh, really?”

“Indeed. And we have another problem.”

“Good.”

“Don’t be like that, Tuk. This can all go so much smoother if you simply cooperate and answer our questions. If you do that for us, we’ll make sure your time with us is relatively comfortable. And painless.”

“You’re going to torture me if I don’t talk? How refreshingly original.”

“Torture tends not to work that well. The results are usually mixed. Unpredictable, even. But there are other alternatives.”

Tuk frowned. “I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

“Where is Mike?”

Tuk looked back at the one-way Plexiglas. “You lost him?” He couldn’t help it and a smile broke out across his face. “That’s fantastic. You guys must be so proud of yourselves.”

“Tuk, this isn’t helping us.”

“You are absolutely correct. It’s not helping you. And you can bet there’s more where that came from.”

Another voice spoke now but it wasn’t directed at Tuk. “This is getting us nowhere. I told you he wouldn’t cooperate.”

Guge’s voice broke into a different language. Tuk frowned. Mandarin Chinese. He heard the tones and had spent enough time around some of the Chinese transplants in Katmandu that he knew how the language sounded even if he didn’t understand a word.

The conversation continued for several minutes and sounded quite heated. Tuk leaned back against the wall with a smug look on his face. Good, he thought, let them get annoyed with me.

“Tuk.”

“What?”

“My comrade here thinks we would be better served if we simply started making you as uncomfortable as possible right now. He thinks I am wasting my time trying to talk to you like a civilized human being.”

“Maybe you are.”

“Don’t say that, Tuk. Things can grow truly unpleasant here. You have no idea how enterprising some of my colleagues can be. And I mean that in the worst possible way.”

Tuk sighed. “I’m done helping you. Until I get some answers, I’m not saying a thing.”

“Where is Mike, Tuk?”

“I don’t know. And that’s an honest answer. Seriously. I will give that one to you for no charge.”

“Where is he?”

Tuk patted the stone walls of his cell. “You guys are about as thick as this wall, aren’t you? I just told you the truth. I don’t know where he is. The last I saw of him was right after Annja spoke to him and he went off in a huff about something. I don’t know anything else.”

Guge and his colleague exchanged another battery of Chinese conversation. Back and forth for a minute this time and then, finally, Guge’s voice came back on.

“All right, Tuk. That’s fine for now. We will see if your story checks out. If I were you, I’d spend my time praying that it does.”

“Really?”

“Oh, most definitely. Because if we find out you’ve been lying to us, there’s going to be little I can do to stop my colleagues from exerting themselves upon you in a most terrible fashion.”

Tuk bunched his knees up and leaned his head back against the wall. “I have nothing to hide. I’ve told you the truth.”

“Let us hope so.”

“How soon can I get out of here?”

“I told you. When we are finished. Not a moment before that time.”

“And then you’ll let me go?”

There was a pause. “We never said anything about letting you go, Tuk.”

“I’m no use to you here. Let me go back to Katmandu. Or better yet, let me leave the country. I’ve got a little money. I can go anywhere. Trust me, I’m no bother to you here.”

“You won’t be a bother.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, there’s one thing we agree on, Tuk.”

Tuk nodded. “Good.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t agree on how to make sure that you do disappear.”

“I just told you that I can vanish.”

“It’s too risky, my little friend.”

Tuk swallowed. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”

“Then perhaps you should stop talking. Before your worst fears are confirmed. Good night, Tuk.”

And the room plunged into darkness again, leaving Tuk very much alone in the cold stone cell.

Annja ran through the deserted corridors of the temple searching for her adversary everywhere, but to no avail. She paused, the sword still gleaming in the night air. There was no way she was going to release her blade until she knew exactly what the hell was going on around here.

But after a full minute with no action, Annja calmed her heartbeat down and retraced her steps to the courtyard. The night seemed even more still than it had before.

Something was definitely not right.

And where was Mike?

Annja wanted him around now especially so since there was apparently some kind of assassin in the grounds. Was it the Hsu Xiao character that Garin and Tuk had mentioned? Or was it someone else eager to dispatch the outsiders who had come into their land?

Annja headed left of the courtyard, following her gut instinct. Ahead of her, she could see flickering torches in the distance, illuminating aspects of the stone corridors. She passed the giant carved Buddhist sculptures and bizarrely colored tapestries and paintings all showing universal conflicts.

Where the hell was everyone?

She walked faster and then heard something in the distance.

Voices.

She slowed to a stop and strained her ears to pick up anything of importance. She frowned. They weren’t speaking English.

She listened closely.

Annja frowned. Someone was speaking Chinese. Did that mean they were on the wrong side of the border? And if that was the case, then Annja was in serious trouble.

She stalked farther ahead, keeping the sword tucked behind her back to avoid its gleam giving her away. She stayed in the recesses of the shadows and hugged the wall farthest away from the torch brackets.

Annja could hear them more clearly now. They seemed to be arguing. And one of the voices sounded familiar.

Guge?

She waited and then almost gasped when she saw Guge stalking away from someone dressed in combat fatigues. A lone red star appeared on his shoulder epaulets. Chinese military.

Here?

But this was supposed to be a sacred land far removed from the outside world. How was it possible that the Chinese were here? And if they were, why so? What was their purpose?

What did the people of Shangri-La have that would interest the Chinese military so much? She sighed. Maybe the geothermal theory was right. Maybe the Chinese wanted free energy to run part of their country. Already the global economy had hit China hard. Thousands of laborers had been laid off from shuttered factories reliant on American consumerism. And with so many people to take care of, energy costs might push the government to the brink of almost anything. If they couldn’t keep their people happy, they’d have a serious revolt on their hands. And China couldn’t afford bad will. Another Tiananmen Square incident would turn the world against them. And that would cost them billions upon billions of dollars.

So what was the alternative? Find Shangri-La and plunder its geothermal supply for Chinese use only?

Annja frowned. She really needed Mike.

And it wouldn’t hurt to have Garin along, too.

She knew how much he would have loved to hear Annja say that to his face.

Fat chance of that happening.

Annja snuck down the corridor closer to where she’d heard the men speaking. She could feel the cold air now. How deep was she into the mountain? It almost felt as cold as it had back in the cave they’d been taken from.

Guge strode away from the Chinese soldier, leaving him behind. He seemed to be intently watching something through a pane of glass. But what? And where had Guge gone?

Annja decided she couldn’t worry about him right now. She needed to see what the soldier was looking at. Perhaps it would clear up this mess.

But how was she going to get close enough to do it?

She could just run him through with the sword, of course. But, despite her apprehension at the appearance of the Chinese military here, so far they hadn’t done anything to warrant murder.

Annja might even be the one breaking the law if she was on sovereign Chinese territory. She could just imagine the scope of the international incident if she attacked the solider for doing nothing other than peering through some glass.

Still, she needed—wanted—to look and see what he was watching. She regarded the soldier. He was armed with a pistol on his right side, but otherwise, there didn’t seem to be another weapon about. Annja figured him for an officer. They were the ones who normally wore sidearms.

Annja returned her sword to the otherwhere and then flexed her muscles. She would sneak up and take him down with a choke hold. She’d been practicing some of them at the traditional jujitsu school that had recently opened in Manhattan. But this form of jujitsu wasn’t like the mixed martial arts silliness. This was authentic jujitsu from Japan, with holds and chokes designed to immediately incapacitate or kill an opponent.

Annja stole down the corridor toward the solider. She prayed he wouldn’t turn around and see her.

She drew closer.

And then she immediately leaped up and onto his back, wrapping her left arm around his windpipe and using her right arm to tighten the hold. She positioned her head down at the base of his skull.

The soldier’s instant reaction was to snap his head back, trying to head butt Annja in the face to make her release him. When that didn’t work, his right hand scrambled for his pistol.

But Annja twisted him off his feet and brought him down to the ground. She could feel his strength waning already as he convulsed once, twice and then went still.

Annja kept the hold on for a few seconds longer and then released him. She checked his pulse and breathing. Both of them seemed fine. The soldier would recover in a few minutes.

But it didn’t give Annja much time.

She rose and looked through the glass.

“Tuk?”

He sat there on the stone floor in almost complete darkness. What the hell was Tuk doing in there?

Annja searched, trying to see if there was a button she could punch so she could speak to Tuk. She found one and keyed it. “Tuk? Can you hear me?”

She saw him scramble to his feet. “Annja? Is that you?”

“Yeah, what the hell is going on around here? Why are you in this…whatever it is?”

“I asked Guge how to cross over and then he pointed me to this doorway. My phone started to ring and then he pushed me through here. I don’t know what’s going on!”

Annja looked around but saw no way to free him. “I can’t see how this cell works. Is there a door in there?”

“None that I can see. Annja, what is this all about?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll get some answers. Do you know this place is deserted out here? I saw your father speaking Chinese to a soldier.”

“They want to know where Mike is. And who Garin is. I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Not much to tell,” Annja said with a grunt. “I don’t know where Mike is and trying to explain who Garin is would take a very long time.”

She kept looking for a release button or panel or something that would free Tuk but she saw nothing. What kind of place was this?

She looked back inside. Tuk was right up against the Plexiglas and he looked scared. “Annja, I don’t think that’s my real father.”

“I’m starting to think that, too.”

“I can’t see you, by the way. This glass is one-way.”

“All right. I’m trying to get you out, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to trip the door release.”

“If there even is a door,” Tuk said. “I can’t see anything in here to tell you where it might be. The four walls appear completely solid.”

Annja frowned. “Well, there’s got to be a release somewhere. Just hang on.”

“Garin was trying to reach me when I was put inside. Find my phone and maybe you can guide him here.”

Annja shook her head. “I have no idea how I’d even do that, Tuk. I’m not sure where we are anymore. If I even knew at all.”

“We’ve got to be somewhere close to the mountain we stayed in. They couldn’t take us too far, could they?”

“There’s no telling how strong that gas was they used on us. We could be in Brazil now and not know it.”

Tuk sighed. “You’re right.”

“I’m going to keep searching, but you just—”

Annja felt her legs kicked out from under her. She crashed to the ground and nearly snapped her head against the stone floor.

“Annja?”

She rolled, ignoring Tuk’s voice, and concentrating on the Chinese soldier who had a quicker recovery time than she’d given him credit for.

As she rolled she saw the pistol in his hand and immediately lashed out her leg, knocking the firearm out of his grasp. It skittered away across the stones. He watched it for a second, determined it was too far away to go after and then glanced back at Annja with a grin on his face.

“So, the mighty Annja Creed makes her appearance at last.”

Annja groaned. “I’ve been here all day. It’s not my fault you’re late to the game.”

He whipped out a knife and the blade caught the flickering torchlight. “It will be my pleasure to kill you,” he said.

Annja blinked and had her sword out in the next instant.

The soldier’s eyes went wide with awe. “So, it is true.”

“What is?”

“The sword. The mystical sword we’ve heard rumors of.”

Annja slashed at him. How had they heard of the sword? As far as Annja knew she’d managed to keep its existence secret from all but a few individuals over the years. And now this Chinese soldier was telling her that he knew of it?

“What have you heard?”

The soldier ducked and came back at Annja with a stabbing shot aimed at her heart. Annja deflected the blow and the soldier caught her with another quick kick that scraped Annja’s shin and sent pain echoing through her body.

“You’ve been in too many battles for your enemies not to notice the sword’s existence, Annja. And not all of your enemies died as you thought. It’s funny what people tell you when you help them live for vengeance.”

“Vengeance?”

The soldier cut back at her. “How do you control the sword? Where does it come from?”

“If you don’t know, why should I tell you?”

He smiled. “Because I’m not going to kill you, Annja. I’m going to disable you and then torture you until you tell me every last secret of that blade.”

“You think so?” Annja cut down at him again but he managed to vault out of the way. Whoever the solider was, he’d been extremely well trained in hand-to-hand combat.

“I know so. You can hold out for a little while, but eventually you will cry and weep with joy when you tell me what I want to know. When I’m done with you, you will give me the sword.”

Annja smiled. “I’ll give you the sword right now.”

The soldier stopped. “You will?”

Annja plunged the blade directly at him so fast, the soldier had no time to react and the blade stabbed through his fatigues and directly into his heart. Blood spurted out, coating the floor. The air was thick with the smell of copper and death.

Annja yanked her blade back out and let the soldier slide down to the floor, his eyes already wide-open and unfocused as he died.

“You should be careful what you wish for,” she said.