Chapter 44
The captain watched as the flare began under the missiles.
And then flared out. Nothing. The missiles went dormant.
She stared. They all stared.
“Christ,” she commanded. “Stop the jets.”
“Too late, they’ve fired!”
“Countermeasures!”
They stared at the radar. At the incoming. Incoming. They braced. A series of almighty explosions hit them. The lights went out. The captain and everyone else were sent flying …
Alice stared at the throbbing curser, and the frozen countdown.
It worked! It had stopped at two …
Her relief was short-lived. The heavy steps were almost upon her. And then they stopped and a shadow fell over her.
Qin Shi Huang was there.
Chen took a deep breath, stood tall, held the salute firm. Looked into the eyes of the young men and women who were about to die with him.
Closer, louder. Closer, closer. And then the missiles were upon them …
Chen wanted to squeeze his eyes closed but forced them open.
There was a whoosh. Chen winced. Tensed.
And then … the sound retreated.
He looked up.
Those watching him in person, along with the hundreds of millions watching on television, saw something they didn’t think was possible.
Eeyore was laughing.
What, they wondered, was so funny about the flypast of China’s newest fighter jet, nicknamed the Mighty Dragon?
The monitor in Wang’s office was tuned to China Central TV, the official channel. The camera was fixed on President Chen, standing erect on the viewing platform.
Twenty-four minutes past eight, and still nothing had happened.
Though in Wang’s office, plenty had happened. Liu had found what he was looking for. He’d sent an urgent message to Vivien and Alice, in the hopes they were alive and could receive it. And act.
The code to stop the attack was in Nüshu, the secret language of women, often embroidered into clothing, or blankets, or fans, to hide it.
He didn’t know what the exact code was, but Liu did know that the embroidery held by the little girl was the key. The longer he looked at it, the more familiar the girl became.
He glanced up from his phone long enough to see Chen on the monitor, laughing.
Laughing? Did that mean…? The attack had been stopped? Was it possible?
He didn’t dare hope. Not yet.
He dropped his eyes to his phone, desperate for a message from Alice or Vivien.
The thought of them jarred a memory loose of that photograph his daughter had shown him of Liam on the boat, minutes before he died.
That was where he’d seen the dots and slashes before. It was on a coconut bun. The one Liam held. No. That was the old stamp Auntie Gugu used.
But this memory was linked somehow to that bun. An eloquent bun if there ever was one.
“Mr. President,” the Secretary of Defense shouted through the locked door to the Situation Room. “There’s been an explosion on board the USS Ronald Reagan. Please, for God’s sake, let me in!”
“Christ!” Pardington stepped toward the door again, then backed away. “Proof. Send me proof.”
He sat down at his laptop. And waited.
Within ten seconds, the email arrived from the Secretary of Defense. It was a message, forwarded by the officer who was second-in-command.
Pardington’s finger hovered over the pad. He looked at Kathleen, whose brow was furrowed, clearly also wondering if this was a trick by Joanne Clavelle.
In opening this, he wondered, could he set off a string of events? Was this the trigger? One that would, in the postmortem, be traced back to the US. To him.
He closed his computer. It was not worth the risk.
Kathleen collapsed into one of the swivel chairs and put her head in her hands.
Alice stood up.
She didn’t know if all the arrows had been shot from the traps the mad emperor had set, and right now, it didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps best to go quickly. Shot through the chest.
Would there be an afterlife?
Would she have to spend it with Vivien?
She could now make out, in the darkness of the long corridor, a greater darkness.
She was unarmed and exhausted. Still, she would not just give up. She couldn’t go farther down the wide corridor—that was certain death from the unsprung booby traps. But she could dash back the way she came and hope she could get by the risen corpse.
And then the darkness moved so swiftly, Alice had no chance to react. It was upon her, around her. There was a horrific reek, of decay, of death.
She struggled for a moment before she realized she wasn’t being attacked, she was being embraced. Hugged.
“Oh, dear child,” whispered the darkness. “I found you.”
“Mom?”
Was she already dead? Was this heaven? She hoped not. That would be bad.
Her mother was sobbing, and now Alice felt her own eyes burning and her throat fizzing. She didn’t know what was happening, just that she was in her mother’s arms. That was all she needed to know.
Alice held on tight and dropped her head onto her mother’s shoulder. Between sobs, she managed, “It’s stopped. I stopped it, Mommy.”
Vivien squeezed her tighter and just kept repeating, “You’re alive. Oh, my dear girl, you’re alive.”
“No time for that.” Hands, large, strong, separated the two women. “Come on.”
It was Captain Hu, the senior MSS agent. He took Vivien, while Corporal Song took hold of Alice.
“Wait.” She grabbed the laptop, then hurried back down the hallway. “How…?”
“We found the way in,” the young man explained as they jogged. “The one the terrorists use. It’s on the far side of the burial mound. Not yet excavated.”
They’d been telling the truth. They hadn’t run away.
“They saved Kai-wen and me,” said her mother.
So those were the shots Alice had heard. “Where is he?”
“Waiting for us outside the temple.”
“Ming-na…” Alice began, not sure how to say it.
“What about her?” said Vivien. “Where is she? We haven’t seen her.”
“I think she’s … gone. She distracted the terrorists so I could stop the attack.”
Just then, ahead of them, there was the unmistakable sound of armor. Of metal-clad legs, feet. Clanking toward them. Then, worse, there was a startling silence.
“Oh, shit,” whispered Alice, slowing down to a stop. “It’s him.”
“Who?” demanded the captain, tugging at her. But Alice refused to move.
“The emperor. Qin Shi Huang.”
“That’s ridiculous,” snapped Vivien. “He’s been dead for—”
And there he was, in Captain Hu’s beam. Looming ahead. Immense. Tree-trunk legs astride. Feet planted firmly. His arms spread. Blocking their way.
Beyond the intricate strings of gems, they could see sunken, burning eyes.
“It can’t be,” said the senior agent, though they could hear the fear in his voice.
“It isn’t.” Came a voice from behind the creature.
There was a resounding whack, and the emperor staggered forward and fell, face first, to the floor. Revealing Ming-na, holding Qin Shi Huang’s rod. With which she had walloped him.
They stared at each other for a moment, a tableau, before Alice and Vivien rushed forward to embrace her.
“How?” asked Alice.
“Who?” asked Vivien, looking at the body.
“Where’s Kai-wen?” Ming-na was looking around.
“Waiting for us outside,” said Vivien.
“How did you get here?” said Alice.
“I ran after you but lost you in the maze. I ended up at the burial chamber. It’s incredible—”
“Focus,” said Vivien, though not unkindly.
“Qin Shi Huang’s sarcophagus has been broken into and his armor stolen. I don’t know who this is”—she looked down at the body on the ground—“but it isn’t a two-thousand-year-old emperor. He’s still dead.”
Corporal Song had rolled him over and taken off the headdress. A stunned face stared up at them. A man. Just a man. A member of Pangu. Scary enough, but no ghoul.
Now they heard footsteps coming toward them. The Pangu guards they thought they had left behind.
“We have to go,” said Hu. “Leave him. Come on.”
They ducked into a side room filled with treasures. Ming-na reached out to touch them, then drew her hand back in when she noticed the MSS agent looking at her.
For her part, Alice was looking at the walls. They were covered in intricate designs. Some looked like equations, some were drawings.
When the guards passed, they ran out, back down the corridor.
Once out of the temple, they heard Kai-wen hiss, “This way, quick. They’re coming.”
He was at the corner of the temple, waving at them.
The terrorists, mad as they might be, seemed to know that if these intruders escaped, their own days would be numbered.
Ming-na grabbed Alice’s hand, while Alice clung onto Vivien’s. The three of them ran after the MSS agents down the steps and across the fields. They moved as fast as they could, but they were exhausted, and falling behind the agents.
“Come on, come on!” Captain Hu snapped. Waving at them as though they were ambling along on purpose. Tourists in the tomb.
They limped and plodded forward, and finally, making it to the village, they staggered through the complex warren of alleys. Each moment, Vivien expected the MSS agents to leave them behind. But they didn’t.
Suddenly, the captain thrust out his arm, his hand up. Stop. Silence.
He edged forward and peered around a corner. Then brought his head quickly back.
“I see it. There’s no one around. We have to hurry. They’ll be on us soon.”
He nodded to Corporal Song to take the lead. The other four followed him to what looked like the entrance to a walled garden. It was a trompe l’oeil, drawn on the wall long before French designers created the trick of the eye.
To their surprise, the corporal moved a terracotta gardener aside, and an opening was revealed.
He ducked through, and Ming-na and Vivien followed him into the narrow passage. Then it was Alice’s turn.
Just before entering the tunnel, she stopped.
“Go on, hurry!” The panic in Captain Hu’s voice was palpable and transmitted itself to her. Alice’s fear ratcheted up to terror, but still she didn’t move.
Then she shoved past him back into the tomb.
“What the fuck are you doing? Are you mad?” Had, he clearly wondered, the mercury already begun its terrible work on her brain?