The Emperor's Tomb [antikvár]

PROLOGUE NORTHERN AREAS, PAKISTAN FRIDAY, MAY l8 8:IO AM A BULLET ZIPPED PAST COTTON MALONE. HE DOVE TO the rocky ground and sought what cover the sparse poplars offered. Cassiopeia Vitt did the same and they belly-crawled across sharp gravel, finding a boulder large enough to provide the two of them protection. More shots came their way. "This is getting serious," Cassiopeia said. "You think?" Their trek had, so far, been uneventful. The greatest congregation of towering peaks on the planet surrounded them. The roof of the world, two thousand miles from Beijing, in the extreme southwestern corner of China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region—or the Northern Areas of Pakistan, depending on whom you asked—smack up against a hotly disputed border. Which explained the soldiers. "They're not Chinese," she said. "I caught a glimpse. Definitely Pakistanis." Jagged, snowy summits as high as twenty thousand feet shielded glaciers, patches of green-black forest, and lush valleys. The Himalaya, Karakoum, Hindu Kush, and Pamir ranges all merged here. This was the land of black