the side.”
“Hence, the reason it made such a great staging area for the Khampa guerrillas,” Annja said. “They didn’t have to travel as far or retreat as much to get back to safety. It made sense to stage there.”
Mike piloted the plane and brought them over a particular vista. Annja looked down and saw green fields. “That looks rather lush for the area.”
“Concentrated irrigation,” Mike said. “It’s not indicative of the entrance to the garden of Eden.” He smiled. “I know the temptation to call it such, but the farmers up here have adapted quite well to the parameters of their environment.” He pointed ahead of them toward where the mountain called Dhaulagiri rose up like a towering majesty. “I want to fly a little higher. See if maybe we can spot something from up there.”
Annja looked at the peak. She could see storm clouds clustering around it. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? That doesn’t look too inviting.”
Mike nodded. “We’ll be all right as long as we don’t get too close. The most important thing is to get as high as we can in order to observe more than we can see skirting this level. We keep doing this, all we’re accomplishing is burning fuel.”
“If you say so.” Annja leaned back as Mike brought the stick back toward them and the plane responding by climbing. Annja could see snowfields out of the cockpit window. The wind suddenly buffeted the plane. Annja winced. Turbulence was something she didn’t care for.
“It’s a little choppy up here,” Mike said.
“You don’t say.”
Out of the window, Annja thought she saw something glint across one of the snowfields. She frowned and squinted again. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I could have sworn I saw something down there across that last field we buzzed.”
“Like what?”
“A glint of something. Maybe metallic. Maybe someone was signaling us?”
Mike shook his head. “We’re pretty close to the border of Tibet here. I doubt very much there’s a party down there trying to signal us. Doesn’t seem likely.”
“I saw something.”
Mike glanced at the instrument panel. “I can take another pass if you want me to check it out.”
“Might be worth a look.”
Mike nodded. “Hang on.” He banked the plane and Annja saw the vista shift to the left. Mike kept the heading on course and then leveled off. “Over there?”
The snowfield loomed in front of them, about halfway up the side of Dhaulagiri.
“Yeah, just down there,” Annja said, pointing.
Mike eased the stick forward and the plane descended a little. “All right, here we go.”
Annja heard the engines whine as the plane dipped and buzzed the snowfield. They were probably a thousand feet over the top of the field when she saw it again. “There!”
Mike turned his head and frowned. “That looks like—”
“Mike!”
But Mike had already seen the sudden flash and jerked the stick hard to the left. Annja looked back and saw the flare as a rocket went streaking past the right wing. “What the hell!”
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Mike said. He drew the plane back to the right and then angled it so it was in a steep climb. “Hang on!”
Annja clutched at the armrests on her seat as Mike jerked the plane all over the sky, trying to make it a smaller target. Annja strained to look over the back of her seat and see behind them. But the mass of bags in the rear section made it impossible.
“I can’t see!” she shouted.
Mike banked the plane now. They’d climbed in altitude and he swung the plane to the left. “We should have an angle on them in a second,” he said.
But as they came around again, Annja saw nothing to cause concern. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I, but someone very obviously shot a missile at us.” Mike keyed the microphone and cleared his throat to speak to air traffic control. Annja listened as he relayed what had happened and notified the tower that they were returning to Jomsom. He switched off and turned to Annja. “It’s too risky for us to be out here. If someone’s got missiles and they’re shooting at us—”
“But why would they?” she asked.
Mike shook his head. “Damned if I know. But we can’t risk our lives trying to figure it out. The best thing to do is land and see if we can get some information from somewhere about this. Maybe Tsing can help us.”
“Tsing? Why would he—?”
“Because he wants to find this place as badly as we do. And if someone is causing us problems, then they’re causing Tsing problems, too. He won’t tolerate that. And I’m sure he can bring some muscle to bear on it.”
Annja frowned. “Seems like we’re getting deeper into debt with him if we do that.”
“You’ve got a better suggestion?”
Annja sighed. “I guess not.”
Mike nodded. “I know it’s not ideal. But we’ve got to use what we have. And if Tsing is desperate to find Shangri-La and can figure out who wants to blow us out of the sky, then that’s all the better. Like you said, we can handle Tsing later on. What I don’t want to handle right now is a missile while I’m flying over one of the largest mountains in the world.”
“I understand,” Annja said. “And you’re right. We should land and get out of danger. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to shoot at us.”
“It’s worthless trying to figure it out now. We don’t know anything about who it might be. We’re wasting time up here.”
He banked the plane again and brought them on a course away from Dhaulagiri, back toward Jomsom. “Won’t be long now,” he said.
In the next moment, Annja heard a sudden explosion off the right side of the plane. The plane jumped from the impact of the rocket as it struck the right wing. Alarms sounded from the cockpit instrumentation. Mike shouted for Annja to hold on.
They were already rapidly losing altitude. The plane started spinning and plummeting toward the earth. Annja looked at what was left of the right wing and saw it was on fire. Black smoke poured out, swirling about them as they spun and fell through the sky.
“I can’t control it!” Mike shouted. “We’re going down!”
Annja grabbed the microphone and switched it on. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is—”
She could barely hear herself talking. The alarms were so loud. Looking out of the cockpit through the dense black smoke she caught brief glimpses of white snow. And then of Dhaulagiri looming in front of them again. The plane almost seemed to be climbing, but that couldn’t be possible. She glanced at Mike and saw him straining to pull the stick this way and that, trying to fight the plane to a softer landing than the one Annja expected them to receive.
The plane toppled through the sky; the altimeter needle spun like a pinwheel and the numbers shot past. Annja tore her eyes away and braced for impact.
When it came, the plane slammed into the side of the mountain with a deafening sound of metal being crushed and torn apart. The cockpit window shattered and cold snow and ice filled the plane.
The plane seemed to keep sliding for a distance and then, at last, it came to a merciful halt.
Annja heard herself screaming.
And then saw nothing but blackness.