A clump of brush lay even nearer the ancient stone stairway to nowhere Cromwell used as his podium. She felt confident she could reach it but she wouldn't. It was too obvious a lie-up for a sniper. The guards'd be on her in an instant like terriers on a rat.

Cromwell was working himself into a frenzy.

Wrapping the sling snugly about her left forearm, Easy propped herself on her elbows. She pulled the lightweight synthetic stock's steel b.u.t.tplate firmly against her right shoulder. Keeping both eyes open, she sighted. She drew a deep breath, let half of it go.

The trigger surprised her when it broke. It surprised others even more.

The front of Cromwell's big oblong forehead blew out in a spray of blood and bone.

Easy let go of the rifle. It would serve no purpose now save to enc.u.mber her, for all its lightness. Instead she slid backward as quickly as she could and still remain relatively quiet. It was time to go. If she could.

Not that the noise she made particularly mattered. After a moment of staring in stunned silence at their living prophet, struggling to absorb the shocking fact of what they'd witnessed, the Wa faithful began to babble in terrified excitement.

The surrounding stone walls' amphitheatric effect abetted the already poor directionality of human hearing. Unable to tell exactly where the killshot had come from, the martyred prophet's bodyguards reflexively opened up with their a.s.sault rifles on the most obvious threat-Cromwell's own congregation.

29.

The captor behind Annja's left shoulder gave her a rough shove. She stumbled. It was difficult to keep her balance with her hands tied behind her back. She went down hard, sc.r.a.ping her bare knees on eroded but still abrasive red paving stone.

The man who stood at the top of a brief broad flight of time-crumbled steps looked down on her with an expression she could only describe as quizzical on his mustached face. Behind him rose a largely intact building about the size of a suburban ranch-style house. Its doorway was an oblong of shadow. The self-styled Marshal Qiangsha, unquestioned commander of the outlaw Grand Shan State Army, looked younger than Annja expected.

When he spoke his own dialect, his voice was a well-modulated baritone. His tone was low but penetrating. His voice gave the impression of being held in tight control.

I could be in trouble, she thought, if he turns out not to be the impulsive Third-World warlord type.

But then, she was neck deep in trouble anyway.

They had caught her that morning. Though she wasn't the skilled tracker and woodswoman Easy Ngwenya was, she had skills of her own. She had infiltrated past the Shan patrols circling outside the perimeter of their central encampment with relative ease. The Shan militiamen seemed preoccupied with not stepping into any punji punji traps, being crushed and impaled simultaneously by diabolical deadfalls or getting picked off with silent darts. traps, being crushed and impaled simultaneously by diabolical deadfalls or getting picked off with silent darts.

But the guards closer in to the great man's headquarters were more alert.

The first guttural shout from behind her confirmed she'd been caught by Shans. Surprisingly, the militiaman followed his challenge with, "Stop! You! Hands on head now!"

Kneeling, Annja straightened and clasped her hands obediently behind her neck. She had been crouching in what she thought was pretty good concealment, actually, a minivan-size clump of vegetation growing beside a roughly triangular, free-standing fragment of wall, eight feet tall and made of weathered three-foot blocks. All around her ruined stones rose like a Cubist rock garden. The marshal had chosen one of the more intact concentrations of ancient structures in the area, a mile or two from the central complex, as his current base of operations.

"Come out now," the Shan commanded. Annja stepped gingerly from the brush.

She found herself surrounded by the muzzle brakes of at least four AKMs. Annja wasn't the tactician Easy was. But she knew face-up fighting-and firearms handling. She knew perfectly well that if she simply dropped down flat on her face her captors would immediate cross-fire each other, dumping their entire magazines basically into one another at point-blank range.

She also knew the odds were pretty good at least one of them would be left functional. The thought of what he'd do to her for pulling a stunt like that drove the notion right out of her mind.

"You spy," her interlocutor said in his rough-and-ready English. "CIA." He grinned at her.

"I'm a photographer," she said. She used as thick a French accent as she thought might be understood by a guy whose English comprehension probably wasn't the greatest, and who was almost certainly used to hearing it spoken exclusively with an American accent. Burma's British colonizers had left a long time ago; the Americans had played in this particular murky pool way more recently, not to mention their culture covering the world like an old-time paint ad.

As for playing French, she guessed it was a fifty-fifty split whether the GSSA currently hated Americans or loved them.

She nodded toward the camera hanging on a strap around her neck. "I am a photographer," she said. "Une journaliste." "Une journaliste."

The guy grinned and nodded. He was short a front incisor. The beard that fringed his mouth was scraggly.

"You spy," he affirmed cheerily.

A hand grabbed her arm. By reflex she pulled back.

It was a bad move. She knew that even before a Kalashnikov b.u.t.tplate slammed into her right cheek. The stroke blindsided her, caught her totally off balance. A fat yellow-white electric spark flashed through her skull, behind her eyes but dazzling her like lightning hitting twenty feet away. She went down hard. She hardly felt the jar on her tailbone.

As she sat there shaking her head slowly and trying not to vomit from the nausea that roiled like a storm-tossed sea in her belly, she became vaguely aware, above the ringing of her ears, of somebody shouting in Shan. She couldn't be sure but it sounded like abuse. Apparently the English-speaker was the patrol leader, and giving the man who'd unloaded on her a good ranking-out.

That encouraged her. Reputedly Marshal Qiangsha had an eye for long-stemmed Western roses. The squad leader's fury suggested she was going to live a bit longer-be marched into camp, probably into the presence of the man himself. Instead of being marched fifty yards or so into the jungle and shot.

Hands caught her arms, hauling her to her feet. This time she was ready, more or less. She wouldn't have fought them even if she could. But the way her head reeled, it was all she could do not to pitch straight forward.

Her captors held on firmly, pressing their hips against hers to keep her upright. They jerked her hands behind her back. Something hard and narrow was looped around her wrists and yanked painfully tight. By the way it bit her flesh, thin on the bone there, she guessed it was a nylon tie.

THE MARSHAL EXCHANGED clipped phrases with the men who had captured Annja.

Given the way the man's shoulders slumped, the big boss was taking his turn dressing down the guy who'd hit her with his rifle. It wasn't very satisfying as moral victories went. She feared she'd gotten concussed. And she doubted Qiangsha was going to let her go by way of compensation for the abuse she'd suffered at his minion's hands.

He turned to look at her. He was actually somewhat handsome, in a lean and hungry way. His head was bare. His olive-drab uniform was crisp and clean and pressed to knife-edge creases. Apparently the job description of marshal of the Grand Shan State Army did not include belly-crawling through the jungle.

"You are American?" he asked, in clear English.

She made a snap decision. "Yes," she said. Disoriented as she was, she hoped that was the right thing to say. Clearly he wasn't an illiterate bandit toting ten pounds of wood and stamped Russian steel in lieu of a spear like the goon who'd hit her, or even the English-speaking squad leader. She didn't trust herself to match wits with him just this moment.

His high brow furrowed as he studied her. The whole right side of her face felt numb, as if she'd had a shot of dentist's Novocain. All too soon that would give way to a headache like a wedge being driven into her skull. She suspected half her face was puffed like a blowfish's.

Still, the marshal seemed to like what he saw. A spill of her hair had come loose and hung down over her left shoulder. She wore a lightweight and light-colored blouse, its floral pattern serving as minor camouflage in the brush, breaking up her silhouette a bit. It was tied up to bare her flat midriff and a generous expanse of lime-green sports bra. Cargo shorts left her long legs mostly bare.

Though she usually preferred to wear short pants and sleeves in the bush anyway, she was dressed that way on purpose.

Qiangsha weighed the camera in his hand. "Nice," he said. "I haven't yet seen this model. I'm an amateur photographer myself."

"I'm not a spy," she said. "I'm a photojournalist. Uh, freelance."

For a moment she thought he might smash Patty's camera. Instead he handed it to a subordinate. He had just acquired a new tool for his hobby.

"And the difference between that and a spy is what?" he enquired.

Annja's normally quick wits now seemed to have their feet stuck to flypaper. She had no answer.

"What's your name?" he asked.

Again, the risk of a lie didn't seem worth the downside if he caught her. "Annja Creed. I work for the Knowledge Channel."

He smiled warmly, almost welcomingly. Her heart rose.

"Outstanding," he said. "They'll doubtless be willing to come up with a most handsome ransom. In the meantime-"

A shout brought his head around. His face clouded. Annja turned her own head, at the risk of both a clout from one of the guards still hovering near to her.

A party of eight or ten men had swung into view around the corner of a structure wholly overtaken by the forest. They were led by a small man, even for a Shan, with a large head, who wore a simple blue band instead of a turban. From the way he swaggered, and the fact he wore a handgun holstered at his hip the way the marshal himself did, Annja guessed he had more than just a small-man's complex going on. Nor was he a mere noncom like the man in charge of the group that captured Annja. Such would never dare carry himself that way for fear of being swatted down hard. He had to be one of Qiangsha's chief lieutenants. Not the best beloved of them, by the look he exchanged with his leader.

The newcomer gave her a quick glance. For all its swiftness she had the feeling it had totally undressed her. He spoke to his nominal master in Tai Shan.

Qiangsha's answering tone sounded pleased. They exchanged a few more words. The lieutenant and his entourage wheeled smartly and strutted away.

Despite what even a befuddled Annja thought was a pretty impertinent departure, Qiangsha now was smiling.

"It seems, Ms. Creed, your countryman, that nitwit Cromwell, has met with sudden misfortune," Qiangsha said. "It's given me the chance to see off those headhunting little Wa b.a.s.t.a.r.ds once and for all. Then we'll settle with the local savages who have been giving us fits, and finally get settled in."

He looked past Annja to her guards. "Put her in my quarters," he commanded, still in English. "Guard her well. If anything happens to her, or she escapes-"

He continued his instructions in his own tongue. The stained-oak face of the man at Annja's side went ashen.

Qiangsha nodded briskly and strode off down the steps. The guards seized Annja's upper arms and thrust her up time-eroded stone steps and into cool darkness.

30.

The rectangle of light that was the doorway was no longer the blinding white glare it had been for what felt to Annja like days. Evening had settled onto the cl.u.s.ter of semipreserved buildings where Marshal Qiangsha had set up his headquarters. The sky through the opening was dark blue brushed with pink and yellow.

Lying on her side on a woven rice-straw mat, which offered no more cushion from the cold, hard stone beneath than a sheet of paper, Annja had drifted in and out of consciousness all day. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the cavern gloom. She knew she shared the chamber with the marshal's surprisingly Spartan personal furnishings-a cot with a footlocker beside it, a folding table that evidently served as a desk, with a folding chair next to it. A low table next to the cot held a Coleman lantern, currently unlit, and what looked like a couple of paperback novels.

A second door led through the rear wall against which she lay. It was a blank square of blackness. She thought she felt a slight draft, indicating it led to another opening to the outside. She had writhed around earlier to peer down it, but had only seen the dark.

Annja might have gotten to her feet, explored where it led, searched Qiangsha's trunk, the papers on his desk. No one had so much as peeped in at her since she was hustled inside, although she had heard voices off and on throughout the endless afternoon, and smelled periodic cigarette smoke.

But movement still made her dizzy. She saw no reason to take either the effort or the risk. She wasn't here on an intelligence mission.

Whether it turned out to be an intelligent mission was a different question entirely. Right now it looked...not so much.

Marshal Qiangsha had commanded a sizable and relatively effective fighting formation for over ten years, according to Easy. Moreover, he had survived under the most intensely Darwinian conditions, facing constant threats from rivals-Karens, enemy Shan formations, the Tatmadaw Kyee, even the American DEA, which Annja gathered the common folk of Thailand and Burma regarded as just another ruthless ethnic army, no better than any other-and potential challenges from his own subchiefs. Like the c.o.c.ky low-rent Napoleon who'd brought the news of Jerry Cromwell's sudden fall from grace. Qiangsha had to be smart to have survived. And he was clearly a thoroughgoing professional, in his way.

Historian that she was, Annja knew disease killed far more soldiers than bullets or sh.e.l.ls did. Even though they were natives, relatively inured to local contagion, plague would have winnowed the GSSA ranks if Qiangsha had not clamped an iron hygiene discipline on his troops. Whether he'd known it at the outset or had to learn it, Qiangsha clearly understood that.

He understood way too much, Annja feared.

She had taken a calculated risk coming here. Now she wondered in her aching head if she'd calculated well at all. Easy said they were much alike. Which, aside from strongly differing views on professional ethics and even more wildly divergent backgrounds, increasingly struck her as true.

And maybe that means I share Easy's propensity for intellectual arrogance, just a wee little bit, she thought. Or was it some kind of smug subconscious racism that made me underestimate Qiangsha?

One thing was clear to her-if she did not see, and seize, some opportunity soon, she was lost. And so too were the Protectors. And the vast, untold trove of cultural heritage that was the temple complex. And the priceless Golden Elephant.

Overwhelmed, she lost consciousness again.

THE SOUND OF A BOOT crunching on stone roused her. Annja rolled over from facing the stone wall.

Light flared orange, then yellow, then white. Marshal Qiangsha straightened up from where he had just lit the lantern beside his bed. He smiled.

"It has been a good day," he said. A flare of orange light from the doorway caught her eye. She glanced out to see a bonfire blaze up before the building he had chosen as his personal billet. Voices shouted and laughed to one another outside. "The Wa barbarians have been routed. We've won," he proclaimed.

From the slight overprecision with which he spoke, Annja guessed he was drunk. That could be very good for her. Or very bad. Like, basically, everything here and now, she thought.

She forced herself to sit up. Though her head had mostly cleared, the exertion drained her; she slumped back against the wall.

Her shirt was untied and fell open. She still had the green sports bra on, and it was a pretty effective sight barrier. Still, she arched her back to thrust her cleavage, such as it was, toward her captor.

"I know where I stand," she told the startled-looking marshal. "I'm completely at your mercy here. If I just vanish, who'd ever know?"

He blinked at her owlishly. "This is true. But why tell me this? Isn't it against your interests?"

She smiled as seductively as she knew how. Given her track record, that wasn't very. "I figure my best chance is to earn your goodwill. So I want to show you a victory celebration you'll never forget," she said.

Cross my heart and hope not to die.

"Ah," he said.

"Do you want me tied?" She tossed back her hair. "I can do much better for you if my hands are free."

He stared at her with one brow arched.

Did I overplay my hand? she wondered as the moment stretched toward infinity.

Then inspiration hit. "Or are you afraid? You can't take us Western women lightly, you know," she said, challenging him.

He glared at her. Now Annja feared she had pushed too hard. Then he laughed. His laughter had a ragged edge to it. An ugly edge.

"You Western women," he said, swaggering toward her, "are arrogant and spoiled. You always overestimate yourselves. As you underestimate us Asians."