The Machine (An Ethan Stone Thriller) (26 page)

‘And that is why you will not talk of that place?’ asked Stone, glad to shake off the feeling.  ‘The place which is forbidden?’

The monk nodded slowly.  ‘If I tell you what I know of the place,’ he said.  ‘The words pollute me, but they pollute you also.  It is the place of
samsara
.’ 

‘Try us,’ said Carslake, ‘We’re polluted already.  Trust me.’

In Stone’s case, Carslake could have no idea how true that was.

Giyenchen stood, and pottered about the room in silence, lighting more incense and candles as the darkness gathered outside.  In the end he began to speak through the wisps of smoke, the glow of the candles on his smooth brow.

‘I can say these things,’ he said.  ‘But I must beg you not to interrupt.’

Chapter 45 -
5:36pm 8 April
- Shanglan Monastery, Garzê Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China

The head monk Giyenchen sat meditating for a couple of minutes, eyes closed behind his glasses.  He made a faint humming sound.  Stone and Carslake looked at each other, but neither spoke.  Dusk was closing in outside, and the tiny room was dark save for the glow of the incense and the guttering flames of the candles.

 ‘In 1966,’ said the monk, breaking suddenly into speech, ‘China was not the peaceful place it is today.  It was the Cultural Revolution.  A madness of suffering.  Workers were turned on their managers, pupils denounced their teachers, people of learning were sent to labour camps.  Religion was proscribed.  Temples were closed, Christians and Muslims could no longer worship, and vulgar mobs came to drive the monks from the temples.  Our temple here at Shanglan was abandoned and the monks sent to work in the fields.  For ten years Shanglan lay empty.

‘When the monks returned, they discovered the place the Chinese called the Death Hole had expanded from a few disused mine buildings.  For many hectares nothing grew.  As nothing grows there now.  Whether for reason of poison or evil, we don’t know, but this place is very near to the Shanglan itself…’

‘But what..?’ began Carslake.

Giyenchen held up a palm to silence the American.  ‘Please,’ he said.  ‘Do not interrupt.  There were mines here, it’s true, since the Manchu times.  But not this.  Some say they tested their atomic weapon there.’

‘A nuclear test?’ asked Carslake.

 ‘Others said it was to create a hole for mining, still others said it was an explosion to destroy the mine, to seal the mine forever.  However, the hole is still there, and nothing grows.  One of the Communist leaders, Lin Biao, it is said, ordered the mine dug out again.  He had deep shelters and bunkers dug all over China, convinced the Americans or Soviets would attack with their missiles.  That at least is true.  Lin Biao had the mine begun again in 1969.  Hundreds of miners lost their lives,’ said Giyenchen,  ‘But deep workings were created.  Lin Biao, of course, was an evil creature, swept away in the disturbances of those times.  The popular politician Zhou Enlai ended the work at the mine in 1970.  He ordered it to be fenced and guarded, and so it remains to this day.’

‘It has stayed that way since… 1976, when the monks returned?’ asked Stone.

Giyenchen nodded.

‘No activity in recent times?’

The monk said nothing, but he opened his eyes and looked accusingly.  ‘Let us speak no more of it.  And you must not speak of it to your Chinese companion.’

Giyenchen got up and left.  Stone and Carslake looked at each other in the candlelight.   

‘He said nothing,’ said Carslake.

‘Not true,’ said Stone.  ‘He confirmed the mine is there.  So we know our next move.’

‘No.  I don’t know.’ said Carslake, mystified.

‘We take the radar set you picked up at the Fedex office in Chengdu.  And we use it.’ 

‘Tonight?’ shouted Carslake.  ‘Do we go and do it right now or what?  Why tonight?’ 

‘Not right now,’ said Stone.  ‘We’ll be missed.  Giyenchen may look like a saint.  But he’d be mad not to have us watched.’

‘He’ll be watching Ying Ning more,’ said Carslake.  ‘He doesn’t trust her.  And I don’t blame him.’

Carslake professed to hate Ying Ning.  But he liked her, in spite of himself.  Stone noticed that she did weird things to Carslake, had this strange hold on him.  Carslake hated himself for it.

-oO0Oo-

Which made what Carslake saw at dinner all the more galling.  Ying Ning didn’t only do weird things to Carslake.  She did it to most men.  Now she was getting friendly with none other than the tall muscular-looking monk who’d followed her from the temple.  Name of Panchen.  It all looked like trouble. 

Tibetans are generally much bigger and taller than the Chinese, and Panchen towered over Ying Ning.  Tall, with a wiry muscularity, looking as aggressive and suspicious as he had before.   Veins stood out on the brown skin of his temples, tense and moody, and his jaw muscles worked with some unknown frustration.

 Stone stayed quiet while Carslake talked with Giyenchen.  He wanted to observe this Panchen guy at dinner.  He acted like he was some kind of unofficial leader of the younger monks.  He moved around calmly and slowly, and kind of held court.  He also showed a particular arrogance around Ying Ning.  Having her next to him give him kudos with the other monks.   

The community of monks here had the same dynamic as any human group of males.  Stone saw a relaxed, older leader, and then young, thrusting pretenders to the throne.  The scene at dinner just dripped with testosterone, but there was more to it than that.  Giyenchen and the older monks were Tibetan monks in the sense that people in the West might imagine.  Careful, intellectual, spiritual, determined – but above all spiritual. 

Panchen, it seemed, had taken up the religion of his forefathers as political rebellion.  He was a Tibetan Nationalist who hated the Chinese.  That was his thing.  The Buddhism, prayers and contemplation must bore him rigid.  He’d probably seen the arrival of three visitors with an interest in the Death Hole as an opportunity to cause trouble. 

All of which meant Panchen was a dangerous individual.  Liable to get all three of them in hot water. 

‘At least you know what kind of guy Ying goes for,’ Stone muttered to Carslake, watching how Ying Ning behaved around the young Tibetan.

‘Fuck him,’ said Carslake.  ‘And fuck her.  What’s she hanging out with an ape like that for?’

Ying Ning could handle Panchen.  She could handle most people.  Stone was expecting a spitting episode sooner or later, but was for now it was OK.   She was sitting with Panchen at dinner with a little smile which Stone knew was as insincere as any harlot’s
. 
What was she up to now?

Panchen resembled the young lion, gathering support, getting ready to challenge the king of the pride - the calm, lazy old lion, Giyenchen.  Panchen was using Ying Ning to enhance his image.  Ying Ning would see that and exploit it ruthlessly.  The only question was how.

Was Stone the only man who could see this with Ying Ning?  

-oO0Oo-

Stone’s suspicion was confirmed way sooner than he expected.  ‘Let’s go and check on Ying Ning,’ said Carslake as they returned to the dormitory cells after dinner. 

‘Don’t do it, Doug,’ called Stone as Carslake strode off.  Stone should have stopped him.  But what the hell?  Carslake had to know what he was dealing with.

Carslake knocked on Ying Ning’s door.  No reply.  He knocked again.  No answer.  Stone leant forward from behind Carslake and gently pushed the door open.

Carslake’s eyes told the story.  ‘Oh man,’ he said.  ‘You have got to be kidding me.’  Stone could just make out the naked form of Ying Ning’s legs stretched out on the floor.  ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’

Stone pulled the door closed.  Not even he had expected that.  Not so soon anyway.  Ying Ning’s naked body lay on a sheet on the floor.  Beside her, the muscular form of Panchen, looking somehow even more naked with his shaven head beside the spiky red-black hair of the Fox Girl.

  A man can befriend a fox.  She will let herself be touched and stroked and treated for a time.  But a fox’s nature is wild.  She cannot be tamed.  

Chapter 46 -
9:54am 9 April
- Garzê Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China

The next morning Ying Ning introduced Stone and Carslake to Panchen.  To Stone, Panchen looked like typical peacock alpha male in some nightclub in London or Portsmouth, who took harsh satisfaction from his night’s work of despoiling a Chinese woman. 

Carslake looked at Panchen with mute loathing.  They were in a clearing a few hundred metres from the monastery. 

‘Panchen can find a way to the Death Hole,’ said Ying Ning.  ‘He go there before.’

It sounded dubious to Stone.  He turned to Panchen, speaking slowly.  ‘It is forbidden to the monks.  But you’ve been there?’ 

Panchen held Stone’s eye at first then glanced away as he nodded.  He was bullshitting.  Ying Ning had made a mistake with this guy. He was all talk.

‘Whatever.  You can count me out,’ said Stone.

‘Fuck you, brother.  If this guy knows how to get there, I’m in,’ said Carslake.

Stone rolled his eyes.  The idea of getting into a real UFO site had just trumped sexual jealousy for Carslake.  Carslake would be there, whatever crazy idea the Tibetan had.

 ‘You too?’ asked Stone, looking at Ying Ning.

Panchen shook his head.

Ying Ning spoke for him.  ‘I’m a woman,’ she said with a straight face.  ‘You should go, not me.’

There was a pause.  Stone caught Carslake’s eye to stop him laughing.  This was getting silly.  Ying Ning had far too much savvy to go along with this guy, Panchen.  She’d let him get in her pants, but following him to the Death Hole?  Well.  A girl has her limits.  Yet she was happy to manoeuvre Stone into going along with Panchen.

Perhaps she’d seen through Panchen’s braggadocio – only a few hours too late.  The reason hardly mattered.

‘Why you looking at me?’ said Carslake, looking at Stone with mock sincerity.  ‘I can see the guy’s point.   Going into a mine with a woman, that is some seriously bad-shit
samsara
.’

Panchen disappeared, his new best friend Carslake with him, clapping him on the back in bogus solidarity.  Stone looked at Ying Ning and raised an eyebrow.

‘Did you have to?  Seriously?’

 ‘You need to go.  You have to go with Carslake,’ she said.  ‘He bound to do something stupid.  And anyhow – you come all this way to find the Machine, no?’  A wry smile was finally playing on her lips.  ‘And you shouldn’t worry of Panchen.’  She came up and pinched Stone’s butt hard.  ‘He fucks like a gorilla.’

Stone was unconcerned about Panchen’s sexual technique.  However, he realised he did care about finding the Machine.  When the opportunity arose to use the ground penetrating radar, he was going to take it.  Hopefully without Panchen in the vicinity.

-o0o0o-

The best Carslake could say of Panchen’s plan to get inside the Death Hole was that, “it’s so stupid it might work”.  That was optimistic.  Ying Ning was not exactly “risk averse” as a person, but even she was avoiding the action this time.

‘Rockhead,’ she said.  ‘You should go to drag Carslake and the monks out of there if there’s big trouble.’  Her bogus “concern” reminded Stone of Virginia Carlisle.  It was a poor reason to get involved, but depressingly, a valid one.  Stone would have to go.

And just how many people was Ying Ning manipulating at this point?

The monks knew their way through the forest well enough at night.  The route to the old mine workings was evidently well known.  Panchen led on in determined silence, ready to do battle with the might of the Chinese State, but the gaggle of teenage monks following him resembled a Sunday afternoon picnic.  Mercifully, they were carrying nothing more than a wooden stick or club each and a couple of ten litre drums of oil.  Carslake, on whose credit card the radar set was still secured, sensibly lagged behind with the equipment.  Stone walked with him, trying to enjoy the cold spring air and another night under the stunning Tibetan starscape.  Shooting stars flitted thick and fast above the tree-line and the pale, white banner of the Milky Way was as clear as he’d ever seen it, clearer even than those nights in the high Pamirs.  At least it felt that way.

It took an hour and a half for them to reach the end of the track.  Which might have been a pleasant walk, without Carslake talking constantly. 

‘I asked Ying Ning about this Lin Biao guy the monk was talking about, and the other one…’

‘Zhou Enlai,’ said Stone.  ‘Zhou Enlai was Chairman Mao’s righthand man, his faithful deputy.  One of the good guys.’

‘That’s what she said,’ said Carslake.  ‘How did you know?  Anyhow, Lin Biao is the guy who opened this mine up and started digging into what was going on here after all the monks were kicked out,’ said Carslake.  ‘The thing is, not long after, Lin Biao had gone from nowhere to be the biggest man in China, taking over from Mao.  Remind you of anyone?’

Carslake was speculating wildly here, but Stone let him talk. 

‘Someone who came from obscurity to become the cleverest guy in his country?  But Mao and his men had this Lin Biao dude figured, and got him rubbed out.  So - when Semyonov turns up in China, the top guys know the score, and they rub him out too.’

‘For what it’s worth, Doug, no, I don’t see a similarity between Semyonov and a 1960’s Chinese politician,’ said Stone. 

Ahead of then, the monks had finally halted, and were beckoning to them.  The moon stood big and copper above the horizon as they reached the main highway up to the mine workings.  It wasn’t looking too good.  If the site had been left since the Seventies it would surely be overgrown by now. 

By way of Panchen’s halting English and Stone’s poor Chinese, Panchen explained his plan again.  A truck came up most nights at this time.  They would hi-jack the truck at send it down the road to crash into the fence which apparently surrounded the whole site.  Stone and Carslake could go through in the confusion, he said.  There.  Simple.