Land Of The Thunder Dragon Read online

  “ ‘Oh no sir,’ insisted Sanjay, ‘I am very sorry but I have not informed you fully yet sir, England and the east coast of Australia is gone sir, and their forces have now landed, both in the Bay of Bengal and the West coast of India with the plan to intercept your mission and take,’ he gulped, ‘the young boy into custody sir. This happened one week ago. They are at most four days from here as we speak’.”

  “Jack stuttered, “When you say gone?”

  “Obliterated from orbit sir. The North American Alliance took out the African’s orbiting weapons platforms within minutes, but right at this moment, millions have died, and the Commonwealth is without leadership. It is up to us now sir, what are your orders?”

  “Jack Senior, shocked, looked up past Sanjay, to see the Yak train and the other members of the expedition disappearing over the pass back towards Gangtok.”

  “ ‘Oh well, at least we don’t have to worry about them I suppose,’ Jack senior mused. ‘It’s just the two of us now,’ Jack said looking down at me. A tear formed in both our eyes, thinking of all the people who had just died, for what?”

  “Sanjay continued, ‘I am very pleased to inform you sirs, that the very good news is that there is three of us, not two. I Sanjay, pledge my allegiance to you and your mission, and I will do anything to help you achieve that goal. I am at your service’.”

  “ ‘Thank you Sanjay, we really appreciate your help, but we don’t even know yet, what that mission is to be, we were to be contacted during this expedition,’ Jack Senior said. ‘All we know is that Jack Junior here is required to operate some device. We don’t know where it is or what it does’.”

  “All the while, I was just standing there completely confused, I was not aware of any mission other than the Jomolhari Expedition. And of course, why would the African Union blow my country up from orbit and want to take me, eleven year old Jack Matson Junior into custody. I was quite sure that I had done nothing wrong. Ok, there was that incident with the slingshot and the neighbour’s cat, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the issue.”

  “OK Sanjay, the question is which way from here. We have no gear, only what we are wearing, ourselves, and one very dodgy motorbike to share between three of us,’ said Jack Senior.”

  “We must get to Paro, in Bhutan as quickly as possible. We can take my motorbike as far as it will go, but then we must cross the Himalayan Range by foot, there is a pass, south of Mount Jomolhari. This path will lead us into the Paro river Valley and from there it will take us two days to walk to Paro. We have many friends along the way, we will not need to worry about food. So, one day on the motorbike and then five days by foot.” Sanjay looked down at his feet as if trying to decide whether he should divulge further information.”

  “Jack Senior picked up on this and suggested that he should continue with the information, “Don’t hold anything back please Sanjay, it will not serve us well to be ill-informed.”

  “Sanjay looked up and said, “There are two very serious problems. Firstly, Jack Junior cannot activate the device until his eye colour has changed, this by all accounts will not happen until his birthday, and if I am not mistaken that is not for seventeen days yet.”

  “Jack nodded, confirming Sanjay’s calculation.”

  “Secondly,” Sanjay continued, “The unit that is en-route from the Bay of Bengal landing site, has an Ethiopian Patrol with them.”

  “Jack turned away from them both and took a deep breath, I am not sure to this day, whether he was trying to hide his concern from me, or if he was simply planning the task ahead of us. I asked him, “Grandpa, what does it mean that they have an Ethiopian Patrol with them?”

  “Jack Senior turned back to me, and said, “In the more civilised times, we used to have sporting games called the Olympics. The final event of the games was always the Marathon, a run of forty-two kilometres. Once it was discovered that Ethiopian and Kenyan runners, who were born at altitude, and had the best physique for ultra-long-distance running, they could not be beaten in this event. The Ethiopian Patrol, that Sanjay has mentioned, is an elite group of soldiers who are effectively long-distance runners, formed by the NAU as a sort of Special Forces unit. They exist for one reason only, to relentlessly run down their prey on foot in extreme terrain. They travel light, they carry only one weapon, a carbon fibre knife. They live off the land or steal what they need until they have their man. However, we have some advantages too, we are also acclimatised to altitude now, we know where we are going, they don’t, and of course, we will have the support of the local people.”

  “Jack continued, “Sanjay, I have one question. Where does the King of Bhutan and his people stand in this fight?”

  “As is always the case, their official standpoint is that they are Neutral,” Sanjay said. “But I can assure you unequivocally, that the King himself stands behind our mission and that while he may not declare war on the African Union, he regards Australia and India as Bhutan’s closest friends.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” said Jack. “Before we go off grid, which we must do if we don’t want to be tracked, I need to speak with the King directly.”

  “Sanjay said, “But your call could be monitored, and what makes you think that the King would talk with you personally?”

  “As Jack Senior switched his comm set on he replied, “To your first question Sanjay, I am counting on it. To answer your second question, no expedition gets to climb mountains in Bhutan without me being involved in that expedition. We are old friends.”

  “With that, Jack turned away, as his call was obviously answered at the other end. They talked for quite a while, all the time, Jack’s face looked alive and bright, as if this was what he lived for.”

  “When the call ended, he came over to talk to me. We sat down on a nearby rock, facing each other. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Well this is going to be an adventure, there is nothing quite like the focus you gain by being the hunted. I want to assure you Jack that it is quite within our capability to get to Paro in one piece.” He looked up at Sanjay and then back to me. “The King thoroughly recommends young Sanjay here as a most excellent and resourceful companion on our mission ahead. He spoke of him very highly.” He once again looked to Sanjay and winked.”

  “I instructed the King that we would head directly over the Jomolhari La, and that he should dispatch a troop of Mountain Guerillas to meet us there and prevent the North Africans from crossing the border at that point, or any other pass south of there, that could allow them into the Paro Valley. The reason the Kingdom of Bhutan has stood as an independent country for so long is that it is easily defended on land. It is very easy to defend the mountain passes with small numbers of troops. The North American Alliance is enforcing a ‘No Fly Zone’ globally. So, all we have to do is get across one of the passes and we should be safe.”

  “Sanjay asked, “So the King just agreed to all of this, with one phone call?”

  “Agreed yes, believed no. Not for a minute are we going to stick to that plan gentleman, but hopefully our dumb arsed enemies will fall for the ruse and buy us some time,” he laughed.”

  “With that he said, “So now all we have to do is work out how to fit three of us on that clapped out old motorbike. We have to waste seventeen days getting to Paro, we don’t want to be there early, as we would be sitting ducks.” With that, Jack Senior noticed a Yak train approaching heading in the direction of Gangtok. He asked Sanjay to hand over his communicator, which he did so reluctantly. He then went over to the Lead Yak Herder and started a very casual conversation with him, chatting away, but out of earshot from Sanjay and myself. As the yak herder got under way again, Jack walked back over to us with a giant smirk on his face. “What did you say to the Yak Herder Grandpa,” I asked.”

  “Laughing loudly, Jack Senior said, “I asked him if he could take Sanjay’s communicator back to the consulate at Darjeeling after he delivers his current contract. I told him that it was important war busine
ss and that he would be well rewarded by the consulate when it was safely delivered. I suggested that he not take the most direct route, as people could be looking out for it.” And then as the last yak went past us, Jack senior took his own communicator out of his pocket and placed it inside a basket on the Yak’s back.”

  “Sanjay cracked up laughing, “Your Grandfather is a most clever and resourceful man young Jack, I think he just bought us an extra day or two. Very clever.”

  “Let’s go climb a mountain Gentlemen,” said Jack enthusiastically.”

  Chapter 11

  “A Bit of a Distraction”

  Grandpa Jack suggested everyone should have a quick break, and then he would continue. But no-one moved, they were all wide eyed and glued to Grandpa Jack’s eyes, urging him to carry on. They didn’t want to miss anything.

  Jack assured all of them that he wouldn’t continue until everyone was back, and suggested to Flynn that he should get Lurch plugged in and re charged. “I’ve got a feeling that Lurch is going to come in very handy in the days ahead. Maybe you could head down to the lab and introduce him to Bazz. I think he will find him very interesting.”

  Flynn looked at Grandpa Jack and said, “There’s a lab on this plane?”

  Grandpa Jack nodded, “Yes, the whole lower deck is a tech lab and workshop, you are going to be very happy when you head down those stairs Flynn.”

  Flynn was one step ahead of Grandpa Jack and had already plugged Lurch in to the power supply, he was nearly fully charged already. But Flynn wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to check out the lab and to meet this mysterious person Bazz, so he headed for the tiny internal staircase and motioned for Lurch to follow him down once he had re-booted.

  David had been internally agonising over something, Jack couldn’t tell what, so he decided it was time to confront him. He walked over to where David was sitting and sat down next to him and put his arm around his shoulders. “Ok” said Jack, “spill the beans, what’s up?”

  All David could think about, was what was about to be expected of him. If his amazing Grandfather had previously failed his attempt at this mission, what chance did he have of succeeding? But he also didn’t want to worry Grandpa Jack or put him off continuing his story, information was what David needed right now and he didn’t want to interrupt the flow. But there was one other thing that was really bugging him. “Grandpa Jack,” David hesitated, thinking his words through before he spoke them, “What is the significance of the acorns?”

  Jack smiled at David, took a deep breath and said, “The oak trees that you collected those acorns from were grown from acorns that I collected while on our little jaunt through the mountains with my Grandfather. Much of Bhutan’s forest was destroyed when the Chinese invaded during the war that followed these events. Bhutan’s forests were vast and magnificent David, but the Chinese cut it all down and sent all the logs back to China for processing. They left nothing. What wasn’t useable timber they shredded up to make paper and burnt the rest. Several years ago, the Chinese occupiers left Bhutan, as they had exhausted its natural resources completely, they had no further use for it, so they just left and handed the country back to it’s people. Those acorns David, were of a particular variety that the government had not been able to find anywhere else, and it was my plan to use them to sow a small starter forest while we were there, as a nice thing to do. But I suppose that is a lost cause now, the acorns fell with the car and all of our gear,” Grandpa Jack lamented.

  David’s face burst into a beaming smile as he stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets, “I have a gift for you Grandpa Jack, I couldn’t fit these in my bag, so I filled my pockets with them.” And he spilled a half bucket of very rare Bhutanese acorns onto the floor. “The forest lives on Grandpa Jack.” Grandpa Jack beamed the most incredible smile, and that was all that David needed to give him the confidence that he needed to take the next step.

  Meanwhile, in the lab on the lower deck, Flynn was introducing Lurch to Bazz. While Flynn was talking to Bazz, he couldn’t help but be distracted by everything in the very large lab. There was everything Flynn could imagine that he would need to invent or make any piece of technical equipment he could imagine. Many machines that he didn’t recognise, but in the corner at the rear, a rather large looking bit of gear, stood a gantry, taller than himself. Flynn pointed and said, “Is that what I think it is Bazz?”

  “Ah, I see you’ve spotted our 3d replicator,” said Bazz, very impressed. “This unit” he continued, “Is the next step up from 3d printing. If you don’t have the plans for something that you would like to copy, as long as it will fit under the gantry, this machine will scan it in 3d and then replicate it. Including exact material specifications. I could put your synth in there, and in about four hours would have an exact copy, even the software, Lurch 2.0,” He laughed. “On that, I am very impressed with what you’ve done with him. Building him from scratch is an amazing achievement, well done Flynn.”

  Bazz was an interesting guy, he certainly didn’t look like your average tech nerd. He was tall, very sharp looking and extremely fit. He didn’t even wear glasses. He had a very strong Scottish accent that Flynn thought sounded totally awesome, even if he was a bit hard to understand.

  An icon for a message from Grandpa Jack appeared in his retina display. Flynn opened it and found that Grandpa Jack was ready to start again, so he excused himself from Bazz and commed Lurch to follow as he headed up the stairs.

  Flynn sent another note to Lurch, to make sure that he was recording everything that Grandpa Jack said, in case they needed to recall the data later.

  Chapter 12

  “Brothers of The Thunder Dragon”

  Grandpa Jack continued.

  “Instead of heading directly over the Jomolhari range as expected, Jack senior led us North, up to the Tibetan Plateau. He wanted to cross back into Bhutan, North of Mount Jomolhari, and head onto what used to be called ‘The Snowman Trek’, joining the trail at Laya and following it to Bumthang and then on down to the capital of Bhutan, Thimphu. He explained to me that this trek was known as probably the most difficult mountain trek in the world. But, that I should be excited, as no foreigner had been permitted to do this trek in many years because of tensions with China. And if we could put out of our minds the insane fact that we were being hunted by knife wielding Ethiopians, we would experience something very special.”

  “I will begin to condense the story now, needless to say, this was a most wonderful time to spend with my Grandfather. We walked and talked. I learnt so much that I still hold dear today. We talked about mountains and the environment, politics and economics, peace and war. I learnt that these things are all related. My Grandfather believed that Humans stuffed up when they couldn’t find an economic model that didn’t involve growth in population. Oh, the arguments that were had. But no-one in power could answer the question of what happened to us when the resources of the planet ran out. He thought that most religious people believed that ‘their god’ would sort things out. The interesting thing is that ‘their god’ had already allowed thousands of species to become extinct over the years and that Humans are just one more animal species on this planet. What made us any different? It was up to us, as humans, and supposedly the most intelligent species on the planet to come up with our own solutions to our long term survival.”

  “We trekked on. Across high passes with views to Mount Kanchenjunga and beyond. Through deep river valleys with ice cold mountain rivers that had to be crossed. The mountain people of this region greeted us with open arms, fed us, and allowed us to stay in their homes when we passed through villages. We were travelling light, we had no choice, but this is a great way to trek. When we got to Laya, we were able to hire a few yaks to carry some cooking equipment and a yak wool tent and blankets to keep us warm at night when we were between villages.”

  “Fifteen days later, we reached the trail head above Thimphu to find a very flash looking car parked on the side of a lonely
mountain road. By this time, we had adopted the dress of the local yak herders and looked really no different to the locals. Grandfather told me to wait with Sanjay while he approached the car. A man in fine clothes got out of the driver’s side and walked with confidence toward my Grandfather. He opened his arms wide and called loudly, “Jack Matson my friend,” and they embraced each other and then held each other at arm’s length and looked each other in the eye with pure joy at their re-union.”

  “Grandfather turned toward me and said, “Jack, I would like you to meet one of my best friends, His Royal Highness, King Namgyel Wangchuck, The Seventh Dragon King of Bhutan.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I was to bow, curtsy, shake hands or kneel before the Dragon King. I was nervous, but I had just trekked across the Himalayas chased by mad men, and I had decided that I should be able to bear myself with confidence.”

  “I walked up to him, past Sanjay who was prostrate before the King. This blew my confidence. Was that what I was meant to do? My Grandfather had simply shook hands and then embraced the King.”

  “Feeling very awkward, I forced myself to continue past Sanjay and held my hand out in offer to The King.”

  “He noticed my trepidation and made it easier for me by moving forward and holding out his hand to take mine. “I am so pleased to meet you young Jack, I can’t wait to hear every detail about your grand adventure.” He then looked past me and said “Sanjay, please get up my friend, you have earned the right to stand in my presence, please don’t ever feel the need to prostrate yourself in my presence again.”

  “The King snapped back to the immediate, “Please, if everyone could get into the car, we are not safe, even here, we must keep moving.”

  “With that, we thanked the Yak Herders, and the King offered them a generous payment which they declined to take, saying that they were honoured to serve the Dragon King by helping in this small way. The King bowed to them graciously and shook each man’s hand before rushing back to the car and got in.”