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“That’s it,” Sam said. “We’ve invaded China.”
The crossing had been decidedly anticlimactic, but soon the landscape began to morph. As Gupta had predicted, the peaks and ridges traded their rounded appearance for exposed and serrated rock; the valley walls steepened and the forests thickened. The most startling difference was the Siang. Here, on the southern edge of the Tsangpo Gorge region, the river’s surface roiled, the waves exploding against boulders and hanging rock walls, sending plumes of mist high into the air. Gupta kept the Chetak as close to the river as possible, and kept below the ridgeline. Sam and Remi felt as though they were on the wildest flume ride on earth.
“Fifteen minutes,” Gupta called.
Sam and Remi shared an anticipatory smile. They’d come so far, gone through so much, and now their destination was only minutes away . . . they hoped.
Karna’s reaction was intense. Jaw clenched, fingers digging into the Nerf ball, he stared out the window with his forehead pressed against the glass.
“You okay, Jack?” Sam asked.
“Never better, mate. Almost there!”
“Approaching the outer edge of the coordinates,” Gupta announced.
Ajay had given their pilot a datum point with a two-mile diameter. The area into which they were flying was dominated by a cluster of flat-topped obelisk peaks, each one varying in height, from a few hundred feet to a thousand feet to three thousand feet. In the gorges below, the Tsangpo River twined itself around the obelisks, a churning white ribbon enclosed by sheer cliffs.
“Haven’t seen any kayakers,” Sam observed. “Or anyone, for that matter.”
Karna looked up from the map he was studying and replied, “I would be surprised if you did,” Karna replied. “You’ve seen the terrain. Only the most determined—or insane—venture here.”
“I can’t decide if that’s an insult or a compliment,” Remi whispered to Sam.
“If we make it back victorious and alive, it’s a compliment.”
Karna called to Ajay, “Ask Gupta if he can give us a better look at these peaks. If my numbers are correct, we’re right on top of the datum point.”
Ajay relayed the request. Gupta slowed the Chetak to thirty knots and began orbiting each of the obelisks in turn, adjusting his altitude so his passengers could make a closer examination. At her window, Remi had her camera shutter on rapid-fire.
“There!” Jack shouted, pointing.
A hundred yards beyond the window lay one of the medium-sized obelisks, at approximately a thousand feet high and five hundred yards wide. The vertical granite slopes were heavily laced with vines, foliage, and great swaths of moss.
“Do you see it?” Karna said, his index finger tracing along the glass. “The shape? Start at the bottom and go upward . . . Do you see where it begins to widen out and then, there, about a hundred feet below the plateau, it flares out suddenly? Tell me you see it!”
It took Sam and Remi several seconds to piece together the image, but slowly smiles spread over their faces.
“A giant mushroom,” Remi said.
40
TSANGPO RIVER GORGE, CHINA
After making several aborted passes because of wind shear, Gupta managed to ease the Chetak sideways over the obelisk until Karna spotted a small clearing in the jungle near the edge of the plateau. Gupta slowed to a hover and then touched down. Once the rotors had stopped spinning, the group climbed out and grabbed their gear.
“Does this remind you of anything?” Sam asked Remi.
“Absolutely.”
The plateau bore a striking resemblance to the paradise valleys they had spotted during their helicopter search of northern Nepal.
Beneath their feet was a carpet of moss, ranging in color from dark green to chartreuse. Here and there, the landscape was dotted with granite boulders speckled with lichen. Directly across from them stood a wall of thick jungle, unbroken save a few tunnel-like paths that disappeared into the growth, rough ovals that stared back at Sam and Remi like unblinking black eyes. The air seemed to buzz with the chattering of insects, and, unseen in the foliage, birds squawked. In a nearby tree a monkey hung upside down and stared at them for a few seconds before skittering off.
Jack and Ajay walked over to where Sam and Remi were standing. Karna said, “Thankfully, our search area is limited. If we split into two groups, we should be able to cover a lot of ground.”
“Agreed,” Sam said.
“One last thing,” Karna said. He knelt beside his pack and rummaged inside and came up with a pair of snub-nosed .38 revolvers. He handed one each to Sam and Remi. “I’ve got one, of course. And as for Ajay . . .”