"Spear traps were popular in the ancient world. You step on the trigger and a mechanism throws spears or arrows at you. Before you know what's happening, you're dead. Sometimes there's a false floor. It drops away and you land in a pit full of poison spikes or some other nasty surprise. Another trap makes something big and heavy fall on you or roll over you or seal you in somewhere. The Egyptians liked those. We'd be squashed like a bug."
"What do you suggest?" He eyed the innocent looking corridor.
"The spear traps should be relatively easy to spot. There have to be openings in the walls or the ceiling or even the floor, although they might be concealed. It's the floor traps or ceiling drops that worry me. If we can see a trap, we can probably trigger it or find a way through it. If not, we'd better be damn careful. Look out for ramps where something might come rolling down, or anything different about the walls or ceiling or floor."
"You make it sound like walking through a 3D minefield."
"That's a good way to think about it."
They entered the passage. Puffs of white dust rose from their footsteps and Ronnie sneezed. It echoed down the ancient passage.
Carter was strung tight. There was a sour taste in his mouth. This was Afghanistan all over again, except the enemy had been gone for thousands of years and the technology was from another time. It was old, but it could kill you as fast and as dead as anything from today's whiz-bang arsenals.
They moved slowly, scanning the floor, ceiling and walls for signs of traps. Every fifty feet he lit a torch, trying to dispel the feeling he was walking in a dark dream.
The passage curved. "Think we have a trap?" Ronnie said.
Three skeletons lay on the floor ahead. Fragments of old cloth and leather hung from yellowed bones pierced by thin wooden spears. More spears lay scattered and splintered about. Those bones had been there a long time.
Selena pointed at the walls on one side. "You can see the openings where the spears came out. They're all at knee height or above."
"What set it off?" Ronnie got down on all fours and crawled closer. "If you look hard you can see a difference in the floor. There's a thin line in the mortar. I think they stepped on these stones and that did it."
He lay down, reached forward and pressed on the floor. The stone moved. A half dozen sharp wooden shafts whistled out of the walls and splintered against the sides of the passageway. A flat, clacking noise came from behind the walls.
Ronnie inched back. "Automatic feed and reload. Pretty slick."
"If these two found their way in, how come the statue was still covering the entrance?" Selena asked Nick.
"Maybe somebody put it back and left the bodies here as a warning. We'll worry about the statue later if we have to."
They crawled under the kill zone and past the trap. They turned a corner. Ahead was a black opening and the end of the passage.
"We're getting close." Nick gestured at the opening.
He took two more steps and the floor fell away under his feet.
Chapter Forty-One
Elizabeth waved Zeke Jordan to a chair.
"We've got Cathy Chen," he said. "She was booked out of LAX to Hong Kong."
"Excellent. Where is she now?"
"In Los Angeles. She doesn't deny she was at Nick's place. She says she came over to visit an old friend and that Nick and Doctor Connor were drunk and high on something. She claims Connor passed out on the couch and Nick made a grab at her, tripped over the coffee table and landed on the floor. She says she doesn't know anything about a computer and that she got out of there after Nick made the pass. She was going to Hong Kong on business. If she'd known we were looking for her she would have come in voluntarily."
"Sure she would. What a story. Maybe a few days in isolation will help her memory."
"That's the plan."
"Are you any closer to identifying a possible informer?"
Jordan looked unhappy. "We do have someone. We're watching him to see if he makes any contacts. He's put aside a lot of money in an offshore account. I hate to admit it, but you were right."
"When are you going to drop the hammer?"
"As soon as we can tie him to the Chinese. Until then we're monitoring everything he does." Jordan tugged at his collar. "Is there anything new on the book or why the Chinese want it so badly?"
"You're sure this person is the one who tipped off Wu?"
"Why do I get the feeling you haven't told me everything, Director? Yes, I'm sure. This is our guy."
"I didn't want to brief you until you found the mole. We think we know why Yang wants the book. It might have the location of a new source of raw materials for China's nukes program. We're working to stop him."
Elizabeth didn't think Jordan needed to know they were working on stopping him in Tibet. She twirled her pen.
"We're certain Yang is planning a coup and that he's going to use the Triads to initiate attacks here when he makes his move. We think it's set for the Fourth."
Jordan was shocked. "That's only two days away."
"I convinced Homeland Security something was up. I'm not getting any cooperation from State, so that part is going to have to take care of itself."
"Two days isn't much time."
"Our indicators point to something in the Bay Area. That's the best place to focus resources."
Jordan rubbed his nose. "I'm going to have a hard time getting the Bureau to believe the Triads are moving into terrorist activity instead of another criminal enterprise. It's not part of their pattern."
Harker tapped her pen on her desk, thinking. Jordan watched her.
"Maybe we should let Yang know we're on to him. What do you think? He might reconsider his options, give us more time to expose him. We could use your informer. He could learn we're on to the threat. Then he'd try to contact Wu or Yang. It would kill two birds with the same stone. Yang would know we're prepared and maybe call it off. You'd catch your mole in the act and take him down."
Jordan smiled. "I like it. Even if Yang goes ahead, it should rattle his cage. People make mistakes when they get rattled."
"Then we're agreed. You let your mole in on our suspicion of a domestic attack tied to a plot to take over China. He doesn't need to know where the information comes from. Let him pass it along and then bust him. That ought to give more weight to your argument with the Bureau for an all out focus on July Fourth."
"Three birds with one stone."
"We don't have a lot of time."
Jordan stood up. "Then I'd better get on it."
After Jordan left, she brought up the satellite over Tibet. Nick hadn't checked in. If they were underground there was no way to send a signal. She was more concerned about the Chinese.
When the image came up she knew her concerns were real. It was nighttime again on the Tibetan Plateau. Heading toward Moincer was a convoy of four vehicles. They were some distance away, but that many vehicles all at once meant Chinese military. She tried the comm link with no response from the team. She had no choice but to wait for things to play out.
Chapter Forty-Two
Carter felt the stones tremble under his feet and jumped forward with everything he had. He heard Selena shout his name behind him. Pain shot up his spine. The floor fell away into a gaping pit. He caught the far edge of the opening with one hand, grabbed hard with the other and hung on, feet dangling. A cloud of white dust rose around him. He looked down. Twenty feet below, rows of sharpened wooden spikes reached for him like a mouth full of hungry fangs.
The walls of the pit were smooth. He hung above the spikes until he could get his arms over the edge of the opening and pull out to lie on the floor. He lay on his back and took a few, deep breaths, waiting for the pain to subside.