The Kingdom fa-3 Page 27

  “It won’t be our fate,” Sam replied. “A fiery balloon crash, maybe, but not this.”

  “Very funny.”

  Remi stooped over and picked up one of the bamboo tubes. It was as big around as a baseball bat and five feet long. “Sam, there’s writing on this. It’s scratched into the surface.”

  “Are you sure?” Sam looked over her shoulder. He was the first to recognize the language. “That’s Italian.”

  “You’re right.” Remi ran her fingertips over the etched words while rotating the bamboo in her opposite hand. “This isn’t, though.” She pointed to a spot near the tip.

  No taller than a half inch, a square grid framed four Asian symbols. “This can’t be,” Remi murmured. “Don’t you recognize them?”

  “No, should I?”

  “Sam, they’re the same four characters engraved on the lid of the Theurang chest.”

  35

  NORTHERN NEPAL

  Sam opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. Remi said, “I know what you’re thinking. But I’m sure, Sam. I remember drinking tea and staring at these characters on Jack’s laptop screen.”

  “I believe you. I just don’t see how-” Sam stopped and furrowed his eyebrows. “Unless . . . When we landed here, how far were we from the last set of coordinates?”

  “Hosni said less than a kilometer.”

  “Maybe a half mile from the path Dhakal would have taken on his journey. What if he died near here, or ran into trouble and lost the Theurang chest?”

  Remi was nodding. “And then our balloonist friends come along centuries later. They crash-land here and find the box. When was the earliest manned balloon flight?”

  “Just guessing . . . late sixteenth-early seventeenth century. But I’ve never heard of a dirigible from that period as advanced as this one. This would have been way ahead of its time.”

  “Then at the earliest, it crashed here almost three hundred years after Dhakal left Mustang.”

  “It’s plausible,” Sam admitted, “but hard to swallow.”

  “Then explain these markings.”

  “I can’t. You say they’re the Theurang curse, and I believe you. I’m just having trouble wrapping my brain around it all.”

  “Join the club, Sam.”

  “How’s your Italian?”

  “A bit rusty, but I can give it a try later. Right now let’s concentrate on getting out of here.”

  They devoted the morning to checking the guylines, setting aside those that looked too frayed or decayed; these Sam cut away with his Swiss Army knife. They repeated the process with the wicker-and-bamboo struts (all of which Remi checked for engravings but found none), then turned their attention to the silk. The biggest piece they found was only a few inches wide, so they decided to braid the usable fabric into cordage, should it be needed. By lunchtime, they had a respectable pile of construction materials.

  For added stability, they decided to fasten eight of the dirigible’s balloon-cage struts to the interior of the dome. This job they accomplished in assembly-line fashion: Sam, using his knife’s awl, poked double holes in the canopy where each strut was to go followed by Remi inserting twelve-inch lengths of sinew thongs into the holes. Once done, they had three hundred twenty holes and one hundred sixty thongs.

  By late afternoon Sam began cinching the thongs closed using a boom hitch. He’d secured almost a quarter of the thongs when they decided to call it a night.

  They were up with the sun the next day and returned to the dirigible’s construction.

  During the five hours of usable afternoon light they turned their attention to sewing closed the mouth of the parachute/balloon with strips of silk knotted around a barrel-sized ring Sam had fashioned from curved pieces of wicker.

  After savoring a few crackers each, they retired to the gondola cave and settled down for what they knew would be a long night.

  “How long until we’re ready?” Remi asked.

  “With luck, we’ll have our basket ready by late morning tomorrow.”

  As they labored, Sam had been working and reworking the engineering problem in the back of his mind. They had slowly been cannibalizing the gondola for firewood, which they used not only to cook but to occasionally warm themselves throughout the day and before going to bed at night.

  As it stood, they had ten feet of gondola left. Based on Sam’s calculations, the remaining wicker combined with the chemical concoction he had in mind would be enough to get them aloft. Much less certain was whether they could ascend high enough to clear the ridgeline.

  The one factor Sam was not worried about was wind. So far, what little they’d gotten had come from the north.

  Remi voiced yet another concern, one that had also been nagging at Sam: “What about our landing?”

  “I’m not going to lie. That could be our bridge too far. There’s no way to tell how well we’ll be able to control the descent. And we’ll have virtually no steering.”

  “You have a Plan B, I’m guessing?”

  “I do. Do you want to hear it?”

  Remi was silent for a few moments. “No. Surprise me.”

  Sam’s timetable estimate was close. It wasn’t until noon that they had the basket and risers completed. While “basket” was an overly optimistic word for their construction, they were nevertheless proud of it: a two-foot-wide bamboo platform bound together and secured to the risers by the last of the sinew.

  They sat and ate lunch in silence, admiring their creation. The craft was rough-hewn, misshapen, and ugly-and they loved every inch of it.

  “It needs a name,” Remi said.

  Sam of course suggested The Remi, but she dismissed the idea. He tried again, “I had a kite when I was a kid called High Flier.”

  “I like it.”

  The afternoon was spent implementing Sam’s scheme for a fuel source. Except for a three-foot section in which they would huddle that night, Sam used the wire saw to dismantle the remainder of the gondola, cutting away as he stood inside it and handing up chunks to Remi. They managed to lose only three pieces to the bowels of the crevasse.

  Using a stone, Remi began grinding the wicker and the remaining sinew into a rough pulp, the first palmful of which Sam dropped into a bowl-shaped section of the Bell’s aluminum skin. To the pulp he added lichen they’d scraped from every stone and clear patch of granite they could find on the plateau. Next came dribbles of aviation fuel followed by dashes of gunpowder Sam had extracted from the pistol’s bullets. After thirty minutes of trial and error, Sam presented Remi with a crude briquette wrapped inside a swatch of silk.

  “Do the honors,” he said, and handed Remi the lighter.

  “Are you sure it won’t explode?”

  “No, not at all sure.”

  Remi gave him a withering stare.

  He said, “It would have to be packed inside something solid.”

  At arm’s length, Remi touched the lighter’s flame to the brick; with a barely perceptible whoosh, it ignited.

  Grinning broadly, Remi leapt up and hugged Sam. Together, they sat crouched around the brick and watched it burn. The heat was surprisingly intense. When the flames finally sputtered out, Sam checked his watch: “Six minutes. Not bad. Now we need as many as we can make but bigger-say, about the size of a filet mignon.”

  “Did you have to use that analogy?”

  “Sorry. The moment we get back to Kathmandu we’ll head for the nearest steakhouse.”

  Buoyed by the success of their ignition test, they made rapid progress. By bedtime, they had nineteen bricks.

  As the sun began to set, Sam finished the brazier by notching into its base three short legs, which he then attached to a double-thick aluminum bowl by crude flanges. As a final step, he cut a hole into the side of the cone.

  “What’s that for?” asked Remi.

  “Ventilation and fuel port. Once we get the first brick going, airflow and the shape of the cone will create a vortex of sorts. The heat will gush through the t
op of the cone and into the balloon.”

  “That’s ingenious.”

  “That’s a stove.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s an old-fashioned backpacking stove on steroids. They’ve been around for a century. At last my love of obscure knowledge pays off.”

  “In spades. Let’s retreat to our bunker and try to rest up for the maiden-and final-flight of the High Flier.”

  They slept fitfully for a total of two hours, kept awake by exhaustion, lack of food, and excitement. As soon as there was enough light to work by, they climbed out of the gondola and ate the last of their food.

  Sam dismembered the remainder of the gondola save the last corner, which they pried free with the piton and knotted rope. Once the sawing was done, they had a pile of fuel that was as tall as Sam.

  Having already chosen a spot on the plateau that was virtually free of ice, they carefully dragged the balloon to the launchpad. Onto the platform they stacked ballast rocks. In the center they placed the brazier, then secured it to the platform with sinew thongs.

  “Let’s get cooking,” Remi said.

  They used wads of paper and lichen as tinder, on top of which they placed a tripod of wicker chunks. Once they had a solid bed of coals, they continued to feed wicker into the brazier, and slowly flames began licking upward.

  Remi placed her hand over the brazier’s flue. She jerked it back. “Hot!”

  “Perfect. Now we wait. This is going to take a while.”

  One hour turned into two. The balloon filled slowly, expanding around them like a miniature circus tent, as their fuel supply dwindled. Beneath the canopy the sunlight seemed ethereal, hazy. Sam realized they were fighting time and thermal physics, as the air cooled and seeped through the balloon’s skin.

  Just before the third hour, the balloon, though still lying perpendicular to the ground, lifted and floated free. Whether reality or perception, they weren’t sure, but this seemed to be a watershed moment. Within forty minutes the balloon was standing upright, its exterior growing more taut by the minute.

  “It’s working,” Remi murmured. “It’s really working.”

  Sam nodded, said nothing, his eyes fixed on the craft.

  Finally he said, “All aboard.”

  Remi trotted to their supply pile, snatched up the engraved length of bamboo, slid it down the back of her jacket, then jogged back. She removed rocks one by one until she had room to kneel, then sit. The opposite side of the platform was now hovering a few inches off the ground.

  Having already stuffed the emergency parachute pack with some essentials, and the duffel bag with their bricks and the last armload of wicker, Sam grabbed both, then knelt beside the platform.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  Remi didn’t blink an eye. “Let’s fly.”

  36

  NORTHERN NEPAL

  The flames leapt up in the brazier’s interior, disappearing through the balloon’s mouth, until Sam and Remi were floating at knee height above the plateau.

  “When I say so, push with everything you’ve got,” Sam said.

  He stuffed the last two pieces of wicker into the brazier and watched, waited, eyes darting from the brazier to the balloon to the ground.

  “Now!”

  In unison, they coiled their legs and shoved hard.

  They surged upward ten feet. Then descended just as rapidly.

  “Get ready to push again!” Sam called.

  Their feet struck the ice.

  “Push!”

  Again they shot upward and again they returned to earth, albeit more slowly.

  “We’re getting there,” Sam said.

  “We need a rhythm,” Remi replied. “Think, bouncing ball.”

  So they began bouncing over the plateau, each time gaining a bit more altitude. To their left, the edge of the cliff loomed.

  “Sam . . .” Remi warned.

  “I know. Don’t look, just keep bouncing. Fly or swim!”

  “Lovely!”

  They shoved off once more. A gust of wind caught the balloon and shoved them down the plateau, their feet skipping over the ice. Remi’s leg slipped off the edge of the cliff, but she kept her cool, giving one last united shove with the other leg.

  And then, abruptly, everything went silent save the wind whistling through the guylines.

  They were airborne and climbing.

  And heading southeast toward the slope.

  Sam reached into the duffel and withdrew a pair of bricks. He fed them into the brazier. They heard a soft whoosh as the brick ignited. Flames shot from the flue. They began rising.

  “Another,” Remi said.

  Sam dropped a third brick into the brazier.

  Whoosh! The balloon climbed.

  The pine trees were a few hundred yards away and closing fast. A gust of wind caught the balloon and spun it. Sam and Remi clutched at the guylines and tightened their legs around the platform. After three rotations, the platform steadied and went still again.

  Looking over Remi’s shoulder, Sam gauged the distance to the slope.

  “How close?” Remi asked.

  “About two hundred yards. Ninety seconds, give or take.” He looked her in the eye. “It’s going to be razor thin. Go for broke?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Sam stuffed a fourth brick into the brazier. Whoosh!

  They both looked over the side of the platform. The tops of the pine trees seemed impossibly close. Remi felt something snag at her foot, and she tipped sideways. Sam leaned forward, grabbed her arm.

  He added another brick. Whoosh!

  Another. Whoosh!

  “A hundred yards!” Sam called.

  Another brick. Whoosh!

  “Fifty yards!” He grabbed a brick from the duffel, shook it in his cupped hands like dice, and extended it toward Remi. “For luck.”

  She blew on it.

  He dropped the brick into the brazier.

  Whoosh!

  “Raise your feet!” Sam shouted.

  They felt and heard the tip of a pine tree clawing the underside of the platform. They were jerked sideways.

  “We’re snagged!” Sam called. “Lean!”

  In unison, they tipped their torsos in the opposite direction, hanging over the edge while clutching a guyline. Sam kicked his leg, trying to free them from whatever lay below.

  With a sharp crack the offending branch snapped. The platform righted itself. Sam and Remi sat up, looking down and around and up.

  “We’re clear!” Remi shouted. “We made it!”

  Sam let out the breath he’d been holding. “Never doubted it for a second.”

  Remi gave him the look.

  “Okay,” he said. “Maybe for a second or two.”

  Now clear of the ridge, the wind slackening slightly, they found themselves heading south at what Sam estimated was ten miles per hour. They had traveled less than a few hundred yards before their altitude began bleeding off.

  Sam dug another brick out of the duffel. He dropped it through the feed hole and it ignited. They began rising.

  Remi asked, “How many do we have left?”

  Sam checked. “Ten.”

  “Now might be a good time to tell me your landing Plan B.”

  “On the off chance we don’t manage a perfect, feather-soft touchdown, our next best chance is pine trees-find a tight cluster and try to fly straight in.”

  “What you’ve just described is a crash landing without the land.”

  “Essentially.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, exactly. We hold on tight and hope the boughs act as an arresting net.”

  “Like on aircraft carriers.”

  “Yes.”

  Remi considered this. She pursed her lips and puffed a strand of auburn hair from her forehead. “I like it.”

  “I thought you would.”

  Sam dropped another brick into the brazier. Whoosh!

  With the late afternoon sun at their backs, they
glided ever southward, occasionally feeding bricks into the brazier while keeping a sharp eye out for a landing spot. They’d traveled approximately four miles and had so far seen only scree valleys, glaciers, and copses of pine trees.

  “We’re losing altitude,” Remi said.

  Sam fed the brazier. They continued to descend.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Dissipation, I think. We’re losing the sun, along with the temperature. The balloon’s bleeding heat faster than we can put it in.”

  Sam dropped another brick through the hole. Their descent slowed slightly, but there was no denying it: they were on an irreversible downward glide path. They began gaining speed.

  “Time to make a choice,” Sam said. “We’re not going to make a meadow, but we’ve got a Plan B coming up.”

  He pointed over Remi’s shoulder. Ahead and below was a stand of pine trees. Past that lay another boulder-strewn valley.

  Sam said, “Or we can stuff the rest of the bricks into the brazier and hope we find a better spot.”

  “We’ve pushed our luck too far. I’m ready for terra firma. How do you want to do this?”

  Sam checked the approaching tree line, trying to gauge speed, distance, and their angle of approach. They had three minutes, he guessed. They were traveling at perhaps fifteen miles per hour, and that would likely double by the time they reached the trees. While a survivable crash inside a car, on this platform their chances were fifty-fifty.

  “If only we had an air bag,” Sam muttered.

  “How about a shield?” asked Remi, and tapped their bamboo platform.

  Sam immediately grasped what she was suggesting. “Dicey.”

  “A lot less dicey than what you were just mulling over in your head. I know you, Sam, I know your expressions. What do you put our odds at?”

  “Fifty percent.”

  “This may give us a few more points.”

  Sam’s eyes darted to the tree line, then back to Remi’s eyes. She smiled at him. He smiled back. “You’re a hell of a woman.”

  “This, I know.”

  “We don’t need this anymore,” Sam said. He sliced the straps holding the brazier and shoved it off the platform. Amid a plume of sparks, it hit the ground, tumbled down the valley, then crashed into a rock.