The buzz of cicadas wailed over the record Jigme had put on to soothe his nerves. He wished he could close those doors, but ventilation required him to keep them open or boil to death over the marble floors and deeply-lacquered, beautifully embroidered furniture. Sweat dripped down his brow with great intensity as he read some novel from the west, attempting to soothe his nerves. If it went wrong now everything would be jeopardized, even with the Nikaya, and he couldn’t risk getting in trouble with the Nikaya. If this little stint worked out though; if his soldier’s reports in Tibet were accurate and factual, well he’d be one of the most powerful men in Asia.

Hundreds of millions were being put into this project. Weapons were hard to come by in Burma and Bhutan, so he had ordered them from the western Chinese contractors and Japanese warlords. It hadn’t been cheap, even with generations of stored wealth in the mountains it wasn’t cheap.

Now or never, he thought, glazed with a sort of melancholy turmoil that always develops before a calculated risk reveals its spoils… Or doesn’t reveal anything.