Then he turned toward the three waiting Americans and approached with a big smile on his narrow face. His iron-gray hair swept back from aquiline features. His eyes were curved slits.

"If he unscrews his hand," Patty whispered, "I'm bolting."

19.

"I trust you slept well," Master Ma said, entering the breakfast nook, lit up by morning sunlight streaming over the rooftops of Kamphaeng Phet and the walls of the compound. The strains of a Vivaldi concerto floated on cool jasmine-scented air.

The previous night they had dined to Rachmaninoff and candlelight, on local delicacies exquisitely prepared by Ma's silent, a.s.siduous staff. It made Annja privately wish she had the suave, vivacious Giancarlo Scarlatti with her instead of her current companions. Not that they didn't each have an individual and peculiar appeal. Even the dour Dr. Kennedy, almost puritanical in his disapproval of the modern age, the West and just about everything Annja did for a living.

I wonder what he'd make of what I really do? she thought. But she had no intention of allowing him, or anyone else, to learn of the Sword and of her uncomfortable and unsolicited destiny.

As for Giancarlo...she felt guilty about wishing him beside her in such impossibly romantic settings. She was trying hard not to let loneliness draw her into any more complications or entanglements for at least a while.

His ominous appearance notwithstanding, the soft-spoken Ma could not have been a more pleasant-gracious dinner host. As they ate he had asked after their recent travels and their backgrounds in flawless upper-cla.s.s British English, then asked each in turn informed questions about his or her interests. He spoke with Patty Ruhle on technical points of photography in risky, fast-developing situations, Philip Kennedy on tribal shamanism in Myanmar, and Annja on the Italian Renaissance. In each case he had masterfully established having some grounding in the subject without in any way challenging his guest's superior knowledge.

He may have been no more than a good little student of Dale Carnegie, and nipped into his office while the staff were squiring the newcomers to their well-appointed and comfortable rooms on the second floor of the fortified manor for a quick Google search, but the effect still put Annja at her ease.

"I slept great," Eddie Chen said. "Like a little kid. Dreamed I was back in California."

Annja ate smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, with fresh-cut melon, blueberries and bananas. Patty and, to Annja's surprise, Phil had opted for bacon instead of salmon, which was duly provided and on the evidence, delicious. Even Phil was forgetting to bemoan the nonlocal repast as a sign of rampant globalization this morning. Between bites she and the others murmured acknowledgment that they, too, had slept well.

"Splendid," Ma said. "Edward, I do wish you had informed me in advance of your coming. I would have prepared properly to receive you and your friends."

"Oh, thanks, Sifu Ma," Eddie said. "But it was kind of a short-notice thing."

"It pleases me you decided to honor me with your presence," Ma said. "I would not have heard of you staying elsewhere while you were in Kamphaeng Phet. I trust you will bear my best wishes back to your esteemed father."

"You bet."

If the boyish guide's informality offended him, their host showed no sign. Instead he said, "I regret that I must default upon my duties as host and withdraw. The recent border closure by the State Peace and Development Council has rather complicated my firm's affairs. I fear my commitments to my princ.i.p.als must in this case outweigh even the demands of hospitality. I can only pray my guests forgive this unworthy one, and permit me perhaps to make amends at some future time."

"It's we who're in your debt, sifu, sifu," Annja said. "Thank you so much."

"It is nothing. I wish you a safe and harmonious journey. Should you require anything at all, please inform my servants. They will be delighted in tending to your needs."

He bowed and withdrew. A gong didn't really sound, but Annja thought it should have. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, she turned to Eddie.

"All right," Annja said, "what's the State Peace and Development Council?"

"Myanmar government," Eddie said, still shoveling in the chow. "SPDC."

"Totalitarian thugs," Patty said.

"Indeed," Phil said.

Annja glanced around to make sure their departed host had left. She sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "But he still reminds me of Master Han."

Eddie shrugged. "To get any kind of money or power in Asia," he said, "much less hang on to it, you pretty much have to have a little Master Han in you."

"Which only makes Asia about the same as everywhere else," Patty said dryly.

"Master Han?" Kennedy asked.

"Never mind," Patty said. She reached to pat his bearded cheek. He looked annoyed.

Annja looked at Eddie with fresh appraisal. He looked and acted like a goofy adolescent-protracted adolescent, given his age. Yet she was tempted to say he'd already earned a big chunk of the money she'd laid out for his services by sparing them a night locked in some sweatbox storage room that smelled like a thousand armpits while the celebration raged joyously outside in honor of the almighty banana.

She also had to wonder at his father's exact relationship to Ma and North Wind Trading Company. Was he an investor? Or were his ties upstream in China?

She shook off the speculation. None of that mattered. A fresh sense of unease and urgency crept over her, like a thousand ants crawling out of the pit of her stomach and making their way to her skin, biting with tiny insistent jaws.

I wonder what Easy Ngwenya's doing now? she thought. She could as easily envision the remittance woman and adventuress spending the night in settings that would put these to shame, or sleeping under a bush somewhere.

Annja was convinced Ngwenya would waste no time on her way to despoil the Temple of the Elephant of its fabulous treasures. In the very best case she could not be far behind Annja, possibly no more than hours. At the worst- Annja shook her head. At worst it was already too late.

I can't afford to consider that possibility. It could only sap her will for the trials she knew lay ahead. And despite the cheery comfort of their current surroundings she expected them to be as severe as any she had faced, even in these past few years, fraught with discomfort, danger and sheer terror as they had been.

"If only I didn't feel like Frodo eating his last meal at Rivendell before setting off to sunny Mordor," Patty said.

Phil Kennedy halted a forkful of melon halfway to his mouth. "For someone who's always making jokes, you seem remarkably pessimistic."

"And this is inconsistent how? One laughs to keep from going bat-s.h.i.t crazy, Philip dear."

"WE HAVE TO LEAVE the car here," Eddie said. "We gotta hump it for a while. At least through the pa.s.s. Then I think we can get a ride on a truck."

He had pulled the car off the main highway, such as it was-paved, at least, if not particularly well maintained-onto a dirt siding that ran a mile or so into steep, forest-clad northern Thailand hills. The station wagon sat parked off the track in the shade of a grove of saplings. A little village was nestled in a fold of the hills not far away.

Eddie nodded toward it. "I know these people. They'll watch the car for me."

"The road continues into the mountains," Phil Kennedy said. He didn't sound querulous, merely curious. It might have surprised Annja, given his usual sour take on things. But she had picked up a feeling for her companions and considered herself either good or lucky in her choices.

They started unloading the car and packing up the stores into their backpacks. From the very outset when she had e-mailed and texted the queries to friends and contacts throughout the archaeological and anthropological worlds, as well as to other adventure-oriented types she'd b.u.mped up against on digs and with the show, she'd made it clear she wanted seasoned field types only. Not just physically fit for a demanding expedition, though that was vital. But ones who weren't illness or accident p.r.o.ne. There were never any guarantees on a trip like this, especially one that would likely involve hiding from bands of well-armed strangers with bad intentions.

Almost as important as physical and academic qualifications was att.i.tude. From gruesome experience Annja knew how a whiner or chronic complainer could demoralize and factionalize even a low-stress dig, where everyone slept in air-conditioned hotel rooms or even their own beds.

So far, for all their foibles Annja's companions seemed to fit the bill. Foibles didn't faze her-people without quirky personalities did not wind up on lengthy expeditions. Much less ones that involved illegal border crossings.

It made her wonder about herself sometimes. In her own eyes she was a boringly normal, modern young American woman.

None of her three companions showed signs of excessive complaining. Phil wasn't shy about showing his many disapprovals. None arose from inconvenience or physical discomfort. To the contrary-those were things he did did approve of. approve of.

Little frictions happened, such as the way Patty and Phil ground against each other, despite the fact that the photographer had recommended Kennedy in the first place on the basis of long acquaintance. Or perhaps despite long acquaintance. That didn't bother Annja. You didn't get far against adversity with companions who lacked strong personalities. Of course, there were people with strong silent silent personalities. personalities.

Then again, Annja had never run into that many of those.

"There's a refugee camp up ahead," Eddie explained, stuffing food packets into his bag. They hadn't had to dip into their stores yet. Master Ma's chief servant had pressed upon them a whole cooler full of food and drink when they set out the day before. "We want to give it a miss."

Their route had taken them through Chiang Mai, largest city in the north of the kingdom, with impressive wats wats and gracious streets following tree-shaded ca.n.a.ls. They forged on. As the land rose around them they left the major arteries behind for dicier backcountry roads. They also parted company with the Ping. They had found a fairly remote and suitably rustic mountain inn to pa.s.s the night. and gracious streets following tree-shaded ca.n.a.ls. They forged on. As the land rose around them they left the major arteries behind for dicier backcountry roads. They also parted company with the Ping. They had found a fairly remote and suitably rustic mountain inn to pa.s.s the night.

"They're Karens," Eddie went on. "Out of Myanmar. Supposedly the Tatmadaw Kyee has been suppressing rebels. But it's starting to look like full-on ethnic cleansing."

"What's Tatmadaw Kyee?" Annja asked.

"Burmese army," Eddie said. For once his chipper nature didn't show.

"Yangon's squatting on so many of their ethnic minorities," Patty said, "it takes less time to say who they're not picking on than who they are." She paused. "If that's anybody."

"They oppress their own people, the Burmans, as much as they do their other ethnic groups," Phil said.

"Lovely," Annja said.

"Nice people," Eddie said, "to stay well away from."

Patty patted him on the shoulder. "That's your job, junior."

"So why avoid the camp?" Phil asked, hefting a pack experimentally. Despite his narrow frame he showed no sign of being overloaded by the well-stuffed pack.

"They're full of Thai government representatives, media and solicitous NGO types," Patty said. "Do-gooder busybodies. Not so good for avoiding attention on a clandestine kind of mission like this one."

Annja half expected Phil to leap to the defense of nongovernmental organizations engaged in refugee relief. Instead he curled a bearded lip.

"Ego-tripping dilettantes and corporate tools," he said. "Worse, they keep the refugees bunched up-the worst possible thing to do. It prevents them doing anything to help themselves, keeps them dependent on aid. The only thing it makes easier is the spread of disease."

Annja had heard the latter complaint before, not infrequently from former aid workers.

"More to the point," Eddie said, "camps like this are crawling with Burmese spies. They think some of the refugees are running guerrilla ops back across the border. Which they totally are. We sure don't want them wondering what we're up to, out here in the back of beyond."

"Amen," Patty said.

She strapped on a web belt laden with sundry survival and photographer's gear. Prominent was a sheath holding a sizable Ka-Bar style knife. "A gift from the brat," she said in response to Annja's querying look. Annja wondered if her son, Jeremy, had offered her a few pointers in its use in combat.

She laughed to herself. Just as likely the lifelong combat and crisis photographer could have given her son a tip or two.

Patty squatted to heft her own pack dead-lift style. It looked almost as big as her. Annja raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"St.u.r.dy legs and a good core," Patty said. "Pilates helps."

Annja's own burden seemed to be driving her st.u.r.dy walking shoes into the black soil. She decided she wasn't going to be the one to gripe about it.

Eddie shouldered his own pack and slammed the car's rear hatch. "All righty, then," he said, puppy-eager as always. "I'll check in with my dudes in the village. Then it's off on a nice mountain hike!"

20.

"Admit it, Annja Creed," Patty said from behind her. "This is what life's all about."

From a distance the elephant Annja shared with the photographer had looked disappointingly small. Swaying side to side with her long legs straddling the broad gray back, the beast seemed immense, its power incalculable. It was a female, perhaps seven feet high at the shoulder; Annja was told she weighed about three tons.

Her heavy trunk wagged in time to her paces. Her ears, small in comparison to an African elephant's but still big as beach towels, flapped against the insistent attentions of the flies and other swarming bugs. The mahout, a man not much larger than a child to Annja's eyes, was dressed in a grubby white blouse and a white turban loosely wound around his head.

The Salween River, its water almost reddish-brown with runoff from rains in the north, slogged and sloshed and gurgled around the animal's churning legs, and the sun began to spill its radiance above the dark ma.s.s of the Taunggyi Range behind.

Perhaps a quarter mile ahead of the three elephants stretched bare roan mudflat. Beyond and on a sh.o.r.e imperceptibly higher at this range sprouted palm trees with fronds beginning to stir lazily in the sunrise breeze. Beyond them the brush closed in, forming a lower rampart to a green wall of hardwood forest.

Over all loomed another ma.s.s dark with remnant night-the Shan Plateau, on whose heights their destination awaited.

Annja drew in a deep breath. In the middle of the river it mostly drew in the smell of the muddy water, not decaying vegetation. As she drew in another lungful of the fragrant morning air, Annja thought Patty was right.

This was almost perfect.

"HERE COMES EDDIE," Patty called.

Annja paced up and down on the gra.s.s alongside the impressive set of ruts currently baked into the yellow clay of the nominal road. Small peaks poked up sharply on three sides of them. The fourth was the way back to the wide, slow river. She had her arms folded tightly beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a crumpled boonie hat was crammed tightly down on the tight French braid into which she often wound her long hair in the field. She felt anxiety crawl along her nerves. She was so distracted she didn't notice the real bugs that swarmed around her.

They were in hostile territory. The Shan elephant drovers had wasted no time mounting up to head back across the Salween after depositing them. Somewhere ahead were the Tatmadaw Kyee, angry and active as roused-up wasps.

Though of a different ethnicity and no great friends of the Karen, the Shan mahouts hadn't seemed comforted by the fact the Tatmadaw was not hunting for them. Myanmar's army had a vivid reputation for shooting first.

Fortunately none of Annja's companions harbored the futile illusion their American pa.s.sports would stop bullets or sh.e.l.l fragments. Of course, that awareness wouldn't turn away hostile fire, either.

Eddie smiled as he came down the path. As usual he bobbed his head up and down between hunched shoulders as he walked. But now his L.A. Dodgers baseball cap bobbed more energetically than usual. Even fifty yards off Annja could see a big grin on his face.

"Got it," he called. "There's a stake-bed truck coming from the village down the lane. They can get us to the base of the plateau, no problem."

Patty grunted. "I'd say the 'no problem' part is more up to the Tatmadaw. And the G.o.ddess."

Phil Kennedy squatted in the shade of a palm tree just outside the transition zone where the underbrush of a hardwood forest gave way to the long green roadside gra.s.s. He rose like a stork departing her nest. He cleared his throat.

"Ms. Creed," he said, with unusual formality. "If I could talk to you a moment in private, please?"