The Prisoner's Gold (The Hunters 3) (30 page)

McNutt was seated at the foot of the main palace structure at the highest point on the eastern side of the building’s base. He’d slipped out of the guesthouse hours before the others. On this mission, he’d be without a sniper rifle. They were too tough to acquire in Tibet. Instead, he’d come out with just an automatic pistol and his wits. He figured if he couldn’t keep an eye on things through a scope, the least he could do was get in position before dawn.

He had been on site when the first tourists began to wander around the property, and he’d been in place when Cobb, Maggie, and Sarah had made their long ascent up the steps to the front door. He’d already learned his way around, finding the blind corners – the perfect places for an ambush – and scoping out the points of ingress and egress. But what he was mostly looking for were more phony cops coming to mess with his team.

The last thing he’d expected was a military convoy.

That is, if these men were actually soldiers.

The guards in Loulan had been heavily armored, too.

McNutt watched as the first AFV turned off the mostly empty Beijing Middle Road onto a side road that ran parallel to the hillside and ended at the Potala’s rear parking lot. He knew he would have to relocate if he wanted eyes on the winding route that led to the palace’s back door.

He whispered into his microphone. ‘Hey, Sanchez. You hear me?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Garcia said.

Before they had arrived in Tibet, McNutt had asked Garcia to check on local police and military personnel in the area. He knew the physical presence of soldiers on the ground was minimal in Lhasa – mostly to mollify protesters and civil rights groups in the international community, not to administer martial law – but he needed details on their positioning. Garcia had learned there was a small handful of men stationed inside the Potala and more in the eastern part of the city at a barracks not far from the team’s guesthouse. Based on the direction from which the AFVs were arriving, McNutt figured that whole reserve group was headed their way. The next largest contingent of the People’s Liberation Army was a garrison out at the airport.

McNutt continued to whisper. ‘Just wondering if you can do your computer thingy and tell me if the army is mobilizing its troops out at the airport.’

‘That’s a negative. They haven’t moved.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m staring at them.’

Shortly after Cobb, Sarah, and Maggie had left the guesthouse, Papineau and Garcia had slipped out the back to a waiting vehicle that whisked them out of town. Cobb had decided that it would be a good thing to have them both ready to go in case the team was attacked again. Garcia was in a private hangar at the airport keeping an eye on the PLA and the arriving flights while Papineau made arrangements with the jet’s pilot to be ready at a moment’s notice.

‘Okay,’ McNutt said, barely relieved. ‘If they move at all, let me know ASAP. I have a bad feeling that this place is about to get rocked.’

McNutt left his post and ran along the base of the building, hoping to slip around the back where he could shadow the lone AFV if it started the ascent up the back road. There wasn’t anything he could do against an armored vehicle with just a handgun, but if he stayed hidden long enough he could confront the soldiers when they climbed out of the personnel carrier.

He crouched low and raced along the rocky soil, keeping an eye on the AFV as it slowly trundled along the road toward the parking area. The idea had occurred to him that this was simply the vehicle used to ferry soldiers up and down from their living quarters at the palace, which would explain the missing cannon on the turret.

Then again, it wouldn’t explain the other three AFVs out on the main road.

Just as he reached the end of the building, McNutt watched as the AFV turned away from the parking lot and up toward the winding road that led to the palace. His determination growing, he climbed over a low wall and dropped seven feet to the dirt on the other side before rushing around the edge of a curved tower to the back of the building. Staying in the shadows of the palace wall and partly cloaked by the morning mist, McNutt moved like a ghost nearer the AFV, which didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. It trudged along at a slow pace, getting closer and closer to the rear entrance of the palace, showing no signs of hostility.

For a brief moment, McNutt began to doubt his feelings of dread.

Are they merely transporting supplies to the palace?

Maybe the other three AFVs are simply running drills.

But those thoughts vanished when he heard the first shot.

McNutt instinctively dove to the rocky ground. With a gun in his hand, he looked up and couldn’t believe what he saw. The gunner on the AFV was slumped forward, half-extended out of one of the twin hatches atop the vehicle. He was missing a sizeable chunk of his head.

A second later, automatic fire erupted from the hillside below and the armored sides of the AFV began sparking so much it looked like a fireworks display.

In a flash, McNutt realized he had gotten it all wrong.

The soldiers weren’t firing at him or anything else.

Someone was shooting
at
the goddamned army.

Kunchen tried to suppress his alarm as he rushed into the library, but the look on his face gave away his emotions. He was quite concerned about the outbreak of violence.

Maggie pressed her palms together and apologized before he had a chance to catch his breath. ‘I am so sorry, Kunchen. I understand from a friend of mine that soldiers are coming. We have brought suffering to your home and to your friends.’

The old man’s eyes were kindly. ‘Yes, they are most likely here for you, but we will do what we can to help. You have been a strong supporter in the past, Miss Maggie, and we know your heart is pure. The soldiers will shout and intimidate. They may even damage things. But they will not physically hurt my brothers. There was a time they would, but this younger generation is better. The soldiers do not know of this library at all, but the possibility exists that they will find it on one of their searches. For that reason and that reason alone, I suggest we move you.’

‘Thank you,’ Cobb said with a bow of his head.

‘Come,’ Kunchen said, and he led them through a hidden door they hadn’t seen in their search of the library. It connected to a long narrow hallway.

‘Chief,’ McNutt said from outside the palace. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I’m pretty sure the army isn’t here for us.’

Cobb stopped at once. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The soldiers are exchanging fire with a bunch of tourists. Actually, the tourists opened fire on them. I think our Guangzhou bad guys are here. The front steps are turning into a war zone.’

‘Shit,’ Cobb said. ‘The army will call in reinforcements to stop the gunfight.’

Garcia’s voice cut in. ‘That’s confirmed. A large force just mobilized out of here at the airport, and they’re hauling ass. You better get out of Lhasa before they arrive.’

Cobb nodded. ‘We’re going to need an exit, Josh.’

‘I’m on it. Give me two,’ McNutt replied.

Kunchen stopped when he realized Cobb, Sarah, and Maggie were no longer following him. He hurried back to see what was wrong.

‘Papi, you listening?’ Cobb asked, concern creeping into his voice. They were deep in the bowels of the building with a lot of troops bearing down on them.

‘Yes, Jack,’ came the Frenchman’s reply.

‘Get the plane in the air immediately. Pay what you have to pay.’

‘Way ahead of you, Jack. Palms have been greased, so we can leave at a moment’s notice. Are you sure we shouldn’t wait around for you?’

‘No,’ Cobb growled. ‘Leave now!’

‘Wheels up in less than five,’ Papineau assured him.

‘Good,’ Cobb said. ‘Hector, how will this affect the comms?’

Garcia answered quickly. ‘I amplified the field communications gear to handle the distance from the airport to the Potala, but your voice is faint on my end. Josh is much clearer than you. I’m hoping once you’re outside, we’ll be able to stay in touch from the air.’

Cobb turned to Kunchen and held up one hand, asking the man to wait. ‘Josh? Which exit should we take? We need to move now.’

‘Go to the western end of the building where the buses let off,’ McNutt replied. ‘Even if you’re attacked, it will cause the least structural damage. I’m assuming that’s a preference.’

Cobb, Sarah, and Maggie all said ‘Yes’ at the same time.

‘Thought so,’ McNutt said. ‘Be there in one.’

Cobb turned to Kunchen. ‘It’s worse than I thought. Other men –
evil
men – are here for us. They’re engaged in a gunfight on the front steps with the army. More troops are coming from the airport for ground support. This could get really bad, really fast.’

Kunchen frowned at the thought of a gunfight in front of the palace. They were too deep in the building’s thick walls to even hear the sounds of automatic fire. ‘How can I help?’

‘We need to get to the western exit where the buses come up. If we’re spotted, that should limit damage to the Potala.’

‘Come.’ Kunchen led them toward a spiral wooden staircase that took them several floors higher. The monk said nothing as he opened hidden doors and wound through darkened passageways that seemed to go on forever. Soon they could hear the automatic fire beyond the palace walls, as well as single isolated pops of handguns.

Kunchen started sprinting – something they had thought the old man was incapable of – down a long hallway that took them past several brightly decorated rooms. To their amazement, no one was present in any of the areas that they passed.

‘Where are the other monks?’ Cobb asked.

‘They have gone to a special hiding place, deep in the bowels of the building. In the West, I believe you call it a “panic room”.’

McNutt sighted his pistol on the Chinese gunman on the slope of the hill.

One of the men that he had pegged earlier as a harmless tourist had pulled a bullpup-style rifle from his coat and had sprayed the AFV with magazine after magazine of random shots. It had been sheer luck that the crazy bastard had killed the gunner in the turret. But with the dead soldier temporarily blocking access to the machine gun for crewmen inside the AFV, this idiot – gangster, tourist, whatever the hell he was – was a major threat.

McNutt shadowed him in silence, ready to dive for cover if one of the AFV’s occupants managed to move the corpse and get control of the heavy mounted gun. McNutt waited until he had closed the distance to a hundred feet before he fired three shots from his pistol. Each hit the crazed gunman, spinning him in a semicircle before he had the good sense to fall down.

McNutt knew if the crewmen inside were watching, he only had a few seconds to get down to the vehicle before the Chinese troops came streaming out; and if that happened, chaos would ensue. He poured on the speed, leaping over large rocks on the hillside and sliding down loose stones while keeping his weapon up the entire time.

When he reached the bottom, he jumped onto the tire of the AFV, then scrambled up onto the top of the turret. Using the butt of his weapon, he banged on the metal surface twice, and waited, his gun trained on the twin side-by-side hatches: the opened one with the dead body, and the other, still closed. When nothing happened, he decided to change his tactic.

He knocked again, but this time he shouted out his favorite Chinese phrase. Other than ‘thank you’, it was the only one he knew.
‘W
ǒ
néng y
ǒ
u y
ī
gè píji
ǔ
ma?’

Loosely translated, it meant:
Can I have a beer?

A few seconds passed before the lock on the closed hatch clunked and rattled. McNutt tensed, ready for anything. The lid slowly opened, and a confused kid of barely eighteen raised his empty hands first before peeking out of the hole like a prairie dog looking for its mother. He was wearing a huge helmet with a headset that signified he was the driver.

‘Where’s my beer?’ McNutt asked, stunned that his tactic had worked.

The kid stared at him, trembling.

‘Out,’ McNutt said as he motioned to the kid with his pistol. He scrambled out of the vehicle and onto the top of the turret. ‘Anyone else in there?’

McNutt sensed the kid couldn’t speak English, so he pointed at the military insignia on the young man’s uniform then toward the AFV under their feet. The soldier understood the question and shook his head to indicate that he was alone.

‘Good,’ McNutt said with an exaggerated thumbs-up.

The teen grinned and mimicked the thumbs-up sign.

McNutt laughed and flipped him off, just for fun.

He mimicked the sign and flipped McNutt the bird.

McNutt laughed louder. ‘Listen, kid. You’re a riot. You’d be awesome at charades. But my friends are waiting for me, and I need to borrow your ride. I’m sorry about this next part.’

This time, McNutt stepped forward and punched him squarely in the jaw – an act of kindness that was done with the young soldier’s welfare in mind. His helmet went flying and so did he. The unconscious youth bounced off the side of the AFV and rolled safely to the wet turf below where he would remain safe from harm for the rest of the skirmish.

Plus, he’d have a great story for the rest of his life.

McNutt was about to slip into the open hatch when the crazy gunman began to stir on the ground. He looked down at the man and saw he was bleeding from his shoulder and his leg.

‘You’re still alive,’ McNutt said as he leaped off the AFV and hovered over the injured man. He quickly eyed the bullpup-style rifle that had fallen from his target’s grasp. ‘Either my aim is getting worse, or my pistol is a piece of shit. I’m betting on the latter. I’ll tell you what: if you let me borrow your gun, I’ll give you a lift in my fancy truck. What do you say?’

* * *

Cobb followed Kunchen through the palace until they reached an exterior door. Kunchen unlocked it, then stepped back until Cobb made sure the coast was clear. A light mist was falling, and the air was filling with smoke from the repeated small arms fire all around the Potala.