Doug: The Silk Road

I live for mornings like this. It’s daybreak, about seven thirty local time and the sun is bursting over the mountains to the east, making it seem as if an inferno is rising behind them. The sparse clouds add purples and oranges to the gold, turning the sky into a tapestry of morning. I rein my horse, Signe, in as we crest a small rise and take a moment to enjoy the sunrise.

We are currently in northwest China, in the middle of the Taklamakan Desert, which roughly translates to mean “Abandonment place”. The mountains to the south and east, the ones the sun is currently rising over, are called The Kunlun Mountains. The Kunluns supposedly are the source of the very first Chinese Dynasty, and contain the mythical Jade Palace of Huang-Di, the Yellow Emperor. We passed through those about two weeks ago.

The mountains to my north and west are called Tian Shan, and we’re going to have to cross them in a few days. I’m not looking forward to it. The Kunlun range was more like a series of small hills, and valleys. Tian Shan is a real mountain range, an extension of the Hindu Kush, which forms the border between Afghanistan and India and is one of the most inhospitable mountain ranges on the planet.

Signe whinnies a little bit and I reach down to pat her shoulder. “I know, I know, we’ll find the least nasty way through those mountains. I don’t care what Jordan says.” The horse snorts doubtfully.

For now I’m just focusing on enjoying the sunlight. I’m about a kilometer ahead of the group. Our local “guide” (politician for ‘spy’), Sima Qian, doesn’t mind if I range out a little bit, as long as I’m still in sight range. There’s a sort of mutual respect between us. He’s seen my Force Reconnaissance tattoo, and I’ve seen the PLA Special Forces patch. I’m not sure, but he and I might have actually shot at each other at one point during some quiet operations in the last brushfire war. It would fit the public deployment record the Chinese government furnished us with when they made him our “guide”. Makes for a weird kind of bond.

Jordan and Ian are sticking close to Rachel, my pregnant sister in law. The brother in me is quite pleased, but the grunt Marine inside is rolling his eyes and kicking breakable objects. The sheer idiocy of it, bringing your wife on a horseback trip across Asia and forgetting to bring birth control. I could shoot Jordan over this mess.

We are about two months into our journey. We started in Shanghai and made our way west, staying north of the Himalayans and keeping our nose out of the Gobi Desert. Countries don’t like it when your tourist publicity stunt spills into their missile testing range. Besides, the Gobi isn’t a pleasant place in the late summer.

Neither is the Taklamakan, if it comes to that. Desert nights are cold, hovering around 40 degrees, but the days get up to around a hundred. This would be a problem but for modern satellite technology and my friends in the Department of Defense. One of the little gifts I had received from the CIA when news of our little venture was made public was a highly advanced GPS tracking and mapping system that looked like a small tablet PC. Naturally the Chinese had confiscated the damn thing the second I entered the country, but gave it back later, probably after taking it apart and installing a few tracking devices.

I didn’t care. The system wasn’t classified, just highly expensive. It used real time imagery from a number of nonmilitary satellites to provide me with a full in theatre picture of everything around me. The display and machine itself was weather and bullet proof, and ran on fiber optically gathered solar energy. In addition to that, it had a rudimentary holographic emitter that could project a 3D terrain map if I wanted it to. I loved it. I know field commanders that would have sacrificed their career for one of these, and I got it for free.

With high tech toys like this, finding things like shade, water, and grazing land were reduced to mere moments studying a display. Which wasn’t to say the trip hadn’t been hard. Riding a horse across the majority of China is no joke. There are more than a few logistical problems, not the least of which is how to feed and water a dozen animals that weigh over a ton. After feeding your mount comes feeding yourself, and clothing, and equipment. With logistics comes strategy, do I cross this desert? Or pass through these mountains? Do I have enough food and water for either? Where can I resupply?

In wartime this gets really complicated, but fortunately no one here is trying to shoot at us. My bet is that lasts until we get to Kazakhstan. Fortunately, the Kazakhstanis have opted to let us travel armed, and my Bushmaster ACR is waiting at the border. Unfortunately, they have opted out of giving us a guide, essentially leaving us at the mercy of the local tribes. I’m going to pose the question to Jordan sometime tonight about hiring our Chinese spy on as permanent muscle for the duration of the trip. He speaks most of the languages where we’re going, and doesn’t seem to harbor any homicidal anti-American sentiment.

If the trip makes it that far. He just yesterday discovered that he was going to be a father, and I could hear the echoes of the thought bouncing around in his skull from a half a kilometer away.
It could be done. Rachel could carry this baby to term during this trip. Ian is a doctor, and we’re expecting to be done in just less than three months anyway. Tack on a month to that in case something doesn’t go to plan (and it never does) and she’ll still only be four or five months along. Nomadic tribeswomen have walked thousands of miles while pregnant, and Rachel would be riding a horse. At the very worst we could drop her off in a major city and have her fly home to the States while we finished the trip.

But doable isn’t the question. I knew she wanted to stick with us. Jordan knows it too. Ian, our doctor and Jordan’s best friend really gets the deciding vote though. If he says it’s a bad idea, which it is, well, Jordan’s going to put the safety of the fetus and his wife first.

While watching the sunrise I silently thank all the dark gods I can think of that I’m not married. Not that I’m exactly single either, but at least mine had the good sense to stay home and coordinate our daily webcasts.

Cameras are mounted to the pack horses, and we’ve each got a digital camcorder which uploads everything it records via satellite transmitter twice a day. Mine is mounted to my pack, which is strapped to Signe. I dismount and hit the record in the same movement.

“Hey honey.” All my webcasts are addressed to her. Fuck all the other people watching. “It’s August 1st, the time on deck is…” I check my watch, a gift from her, “0743, and it’s a beautiful morning here in the Taklamakan. Reminds me of some of the nicer days in Afghanistan, minus the IEDs and constant indirect fire from Taliban insurgents…” I trail off and then refocus. “So, decided I needed some alone time after Rachel’s little announcement last night. I’m about half a klick out, doing some basic terrain recon. Mostly this desert is sand, but occasionally the little magic map,” I indicated my CIA toy, “tells us there’s an oasis. No girls in grass skirts, or even a drink with an umbrella, but there’s usually some kind of running water, and something the horses can munch on. Ain’t that right Signe?” The horse whinnied softly at its name, and swatted a fly, shaking the camera a little. “Easy girl.” I patted her a little. Horses are just like women, if you don’t pay attention to them they kick you the next time you try and ride them. “Anyway, that’s the general low down. I’ll probably write you another letter soon, and by write you a letter I mean send one of these. Hope you and Mara are well; I’ll be back in no time. Keep the bed warm.” I smiled as I reached to turn off the camera. When the red recording light dimmed I swung back up onto Signe.

“All right girl. Time head back. We’ve got some miles to make.” I tipped my field hat to the rising sun, kicked Signe into a trot, and headed back to the small pillar of dust that marked out main party. Just another day on the Silk Road.

-Doug
"If faced with overwhelmingly superior forces the best option is usually simply to disengage and deny the fight. If you cannot deny the fight, up the ante to an unacceptable level of losses for both you and the enemy. Be the asshole who brings the nuclear bomb to the knife fight."
-Maj Crowe