down. As quickly as he could, he made his way past the strewn about brass, past the dead horses, toward his Special. And he looked at the luminous black face of the Rolex on his left wrist. In a little while, it would be light, perhaps making the task of finding out what was happening a little easier. But somehow, the thought of the sun rising made him shiver.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Han Lu Chen moved through the sparse crowds of those who were up before the rest of the Second City, There were old Mongols, too old to fight as merce- naries, not old enough to make a living as beggars, I carrying harp shaped frames made of plastic or old pieces of metal tubing, trinkets and baubles, even food hung from them, trying to peddle their wares to others like them, the real customers not yet on the streets, likely not yet awake.
He shifted the weight of the pistol belt which carried his cloak and his saber, hooking his thumbs in the belt as he stopped to admire a piece of cheap jewelry.
The word was everywhere on the streets that at dawn there would be the execution of two foreign devils, one of the victims a Russian, the other an American. Most of the conversation that he overheard which did not gleefully focus on the means of execution focused instead on what an American might be. This was the first time he had ever penetrated into the Second City beyond the outer perimeter that lay just inside the gates. Han cared little what befell the Russian, but the American had to be Michael Rourke. In casual conversation around Mongol campfires, the Mongols had joked concerning the religion here in the Second City, that they worshipped a silly post.
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But as he entered the common square, Han Lu Chen stopped, stared, powerless to do otherwise. He had never seen one fully assembled, standing, only the crated parts that time aboard the train. But he had seen pictures of such things.
These people did not worship a post, as the Mongols had joked about. What he saw upthrusting from the center of their temple was a ballistic missile.
A vendor offered him oral sex with a young girl for only a few coins. Han told the man, “I do not want her.”
“A boy, then —I have two boys — ”
“No,” and he shrugged past the old Mongol. The Second City had its missiles, and they were about to execute Michael Rourke. He would have glanced at his watch, but to do so would have aroused suspicion since few Mongols told time by any means other than a sundial or an hourglass. It was only within the last dozen years that the Mongols had been elevated to their present exalted status of mercenary soldiers, before that a violent subculture treated as racial inferiors and afforded not even the most rudimentary learning.
And it couldn’t be long now until dawn would come . . .
Otto Hammerschmidt had nearly given up hope. But he saw the Chinese Intelligence agent coming now, climbing up into the rocks, looking warily over his shoulder every few steps. Hammerschmidt wanted to shout to him, but a shout or any loud noise was well within earshot of any guards at the outer gates
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into the mountain and to betray his position would mean his own death and Han’s as well. Any chance to locate Michael Rourke would die with them.
Hammerschmidt lit a cigarette, careful to shield the flame in the pre-dawn darkness, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. Where were the Russians? Even they were better than these, these savages.
Or, perhaps, the Soviet commander’s men had not gotten through, perhaps been intercepted by more of the Second City military forces. There were two many things unresolved. Was Michael inside the Second City, dead or soon to be? Or was he somewhere in this vast rock wilderness, perhaps dead or dying by a mountain pass after the Mongols had tortured him?
Hammerschmidt admired H’an Lu Chen’s courage, to mingle among such devils as these. Hammerschmidt had seen the bodies left behind at the gap. It was not a battlefield, but a slaughterhouse, he thought.
He dragged heavily on the cigarette, Han almost out of sight of the entrance, almost up to him. He risked a loud whisper, “Well?”
Han didn’t answer, clambered up over the high rocks in which Hammerschmidt had taken shelter, then dropped down into a crouch. “Michael Rourke is to be executed at dawn. He and a Russian officer will be taken out there into the open field before the main gates,” and he gestured expansively toward the mud and rocks which dominated the landscape before the high gated main entrance into the mountainside, “and their wrists and ankles will be tied to Mongol saddles and General Wing, who commanded
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the army which captured them and killed all the others, will give the order for the Mongols to ride to the four winds. And Michael and the Russian officer will be torn lirnb from limb. A man can live for a short time after that, it is said, a very short time that would seem like an eternity. If nothing else, perhaps we could attempt to shoot them, mercy for them. But the distance is too far for the guns we have. And there is something else. They have the missiles, or at least one. They have it as an object of worship.”
“An object-”
“Yes, Hammerschmidt. That is the cult started by the woman of the dragon robes. For years, it has been rumored that Mao himself no longer rules, but that a woman controls his every thought and that she had begun some strange religious cult. It is she who started using the Mongols as more than brigands. I — I — I do not know what to say. We —we must try, of course, must attempt to save their lives or kill them —but —but I cannot say how, Hammerschmidt.” And Han Lu Chen bent his head into his hands.
Hammerschmidt, gently, then roughly, touched his hand to Han Lu Chen’s shoulder.
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CHAPTER THIRTY
The food was largely vegetarian, the meat so unidentifiable Michael Rourke elected not to touch any of the food. Vassily Prokopiev became nauseated merely looking at it. There were chopsticks for utensils. He knew now why they had returned his watch, so that he and Prokopiev could count the minutes remaining until their deaths.
And less than an hour’s worth of minutes, at the outside, remained. And there was no way to tell how soon before that the guards would come for them.
When Prokopiev’s vomiting subsided, Michael Rourke, able now to walk quite well, the pain in his head constant and unforgiving but manageable, squatted down in front of the chair into which Prokopiev had sunk. “Are you game to try?”
“There is nothing to lose. Yes. What is your plan, Michael?”
“Take that bucket you puked into, spill the contents onto the floor over by the window and lie down on the floor near it. I’ll get them in here, somehow, and when they go to look at you, I jump them both. As soon as you hear it go down, try
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and give me a hand. Okay?”
“But-”
“These chopsticks can make excellent thrusting implements. Centuries ago, there were men who could throw them and used them as weapons. I don’t know how to do that, but to a weak part of the neck, to the solar plexus, the groin, into an eye or ear—they’ll do some damage, maybe enough so we can get a gun or a blade. Then we play it by ear. Odds are good we’ll get killed trying, but a death like that beats what they’ve got planned, right?”
“Yes. Should I lie down now?”
“Yes.”
“Should we survive —”
“What?”
“I would regret someday killing you.”
Michael Rourke clapped Prokopiev on the knee and smiled, “Well, you think you’d regret it!” He helped Prokopiev to his feet, then over toward the window, Prokopiev flexing his left fist in order to restore circulation.
They stopped beside the window, Michael looking down into the commons below. The missile was clearly in altar. Looking nearly as small as ants —he remembered the creatures from the time before the Great Conflagration-—were women, performing some ritual before it.
He helped Prokopiev down, then went for the bucket which had been provided for their toilet use, which was now filled with vomit. Trying to close his nose —he felt nauseated himself—he spilled the contents across the floor near where Prokopiev lay. “Be
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ready, Vassily,” Michael Rourke .hissed.
The chopsticks, both sets, made of a type of plastic rather than wood, but rigid, were concealed up his sleeves. On impulse, he ran across the room and picked up a bowl of what could have been soup. It was still hot. He went back beside the door, looking for a place to put the bowl, at last setting it on the floor within reach, placing a cushion over it. There was no hard furniture of any kind. The food had been brought in by two regular army enlisted men, the bowls carried on trays, the trays taken away, the bowls set on the floor.