“Because dark energy and gravity are intimately entwined concepts,” he said, this time quoting her.
“Exactly. Only this time, instead of a wrinkle of space-time, it will create a chute, down which a rain of meteors will roll, like marbles along a slide.”
“That’s a cheery thought.”
“It’s only a theory.”
But seeing her expression, Duncan could tell she believed it.
Afterward, she remained silent for too long, as if something was bothering her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Seems like I’m still missing something.”
Before they could look deeper, a shout drew their attention forward. They had reached the end of the precarious ledge, and a wide plateau opened before them. Directly ahead rose a sharp mountain peak.
Sanjar thundered back to them, trailed high by his falcon. “We’ve reached the Wolf Fang!”
“See, the ride here wasn’t so bad,” Duncan reassured her. “The worst is over. It should be smooth sailing from here.”
3:34 P.M.
“We found them,” Arslan reported over the phone.
Batukhan sat in his office in the parliament building and waved his secretary out, a young thing in a tight dress and jacket. While her outfit was distinctly of the West, not traditional in the least, he appreciated its form-hugging cut. Some customs of the West would be welcome in the new Mongolia, an empire he planned to create with the treasures of Genghis Khan.
He already envisioned what he would do when that tomb was found. First, he would handpick and smuggle out the most valuable items, treasures that could be melted down or stripped of gems and sold on the open market. Then he would announce his discovery to the world, turning that fame into power. He wanted to be the wealthiest man not only in Mongolia, but in all Asia. He would conquer the world like his ancestor had in the past, creating an empire of wealth and power, with himself at the helm.
But there were a few loose ends to clean up first.
After the storm had blown over in Kazakhstan, a member of Arslan’s crew had returned to the Aral Sea to confirm the deaths and salvage the abandoned helicopter—only to find the aircraft gone.
No one knew if the pilot had escaped alone or if anyone else had survived. Batukhan had no fear of repercussions personally—as only Arslan knew his identity. Still, as a precaution, he had planted spies throughout the lower steppes between Ulan Bator and the Khentii Mountains. He wanted all roads into the region watched, in case any survivors attempted to continue their search for Genghis’s tomb by heading into those sacred mountains.
Truthfully, he had not expected to catch anything with this net. The spies were placed mostly to guard those mountains—where he still believed Genghis was buried—until such a time that he could study the stolen relics and discern the tomb’s location.
It was a shame Father Josip had to die before Batukhan could question him. Genghis abhorred torture. Batukhan considered this to be the khan’s biggest fault.
Now came this news.
“What do you wish me to do?” Arslan asked.
“How far ahead of you are they?”
“They have an hour’s lead, but so far, they make no effort to hide their passage.”
“Then another thirty minutes will make no difference. Gather your most loyal men, those who show the most skill with sword and arrow. Form a full mounted battle group. I will join and lead you.”
“Very well, Borjigin.”
Desire rang loudly in Arslan’s voice.
It sang to Batukhan’s own bloodlust. In the past, the clan’s practice skirmishes out on the steppes had been with props and stand-ins. The worst injury sustained had been a broken arm when someone fell from a horse. Batukhan found it fitting that his ascendancy to the throne of the new Mongol Empire would require bloodshed.
But more important, he had also always wanted to put an arrow through someone’s chest. Now was his chance.
“I should also inform you,” Arslan said, “the traitor Sanjar is among them.”
Ah, now I understand the fiery hatred in your tone.
Batukhan pictured Arslan’s face after the man had returned from Kazakhstan. His scalp had been ripped down to bone, a cheek punctured clean through by a talon. The man clearly wanted revenge for his disfigurement.
And he would get it.
Traitors must be taught a lesson.
His intercom buzzed. “Minister Batukhan, I have the two representatives from the mining consortium here for their four o’clock appointment.”
“Hold them there a moment.”
He finished with Arslan and considered canceling this meeting, but this could be a very lucrative contract, one that could pay off handsomely and be yet another brick in his road to a new empire.
He buzzed back and said, “Send them in. And bring us tea.”
These were Westerners, so they would probably prefer coffee, but he had never acquired a taste for that brew, preferring traditional tea.
It is high time Americans grew accustomed to our traditions.
The door opened and a tall man with storm-blue eyes and a hard face entered. Batukhan felt the twinge of a challenge, sensing a worthy adversary in this one. Behind him came his aide, a handsome Eurasian woman in a prim suit. Normally he felt no threat from the softer sex, but with her, his hackles rose even higher.
Interesting.
He waved them to a seat.
“How may I help you?”
20
November 19, 3:50 P.M. ULAT
Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Gray knew an enemy when he faced one.
On the far side of the desk, Batukhan put on a friendly face, showing all the common courtesies. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, fit and hard for someone in his late fifties. But Gray caught peeks of someone else, cracks in his mask: a hungry glint in his eyes, an overlong and dismissive glance down Seichan’s form, an unconscious clenching of a fist on his desk.
During their discussion of mineral rights, oil futures, and governmental restrictions, the man was on edge the entire time. Gray caught him glancing at his watch once too often.
Seichan had already planted a wireless bug on the underside of his desk, so they could track any conversations following this meeting. But for that bug to attract the spider, they needed to tweak its web.
Gray shifted in his seat, noting a cabinet of Mongolian artifacts to the left of Batukhan’s desk. It held pottery, weapons, and a few small funerary statues. He also noted a pair of carved wooden wolves.
“Excuse me,” Gray said, cutting the minister off in midsentence, irking him purposefully. He pointed to the cabinet. “May I take a closer look?”
“Certainly.” His adversary puffed out his chest a bit with pride at his collection.
Gray stood and crossed to the glass case. He bent his nose close to the small carvings. “I see wolves all over the city. Lots of places carry the name Blue Wolf.”
In the reflection in the glass, he saw a sly tightening of the corner of the man’s lips, someone savoring a secret.
Hmm . . .
“What’s the significance?” Gray asked, straightening and facing the man.
“It goes back to the creation mythology of our people, where the Mongol tribes are said to be descended from the mating of Gua maral, a wild doe, and Boerte chino, a blue wolf. Even Genghis Khan took the clan title of Master of the Blue Wolf.”
He heard the telltale catch in the other’s voice.
Gray had no doubt this was their man, the mysterious Borjigin.
“And why this continuing fascination with wolves?” Seichan asked, clearly noting the same. She stirred and stretched a long leg, baring her ankle.
“They are a good luck symbol here, especially for males.” He had to clearly pull his gaze from her leg. “Wolves also represent a lusty overabundant appetite.”
“How so?” Seichan asked, crossing her other leg, keeping the guy distracted.
“A wolf kills more than he can eat. According to our stories, God told the wolf that he could eat one out of every thousand sheep. The wolf misheard him. He ate one out of every thousand sheep he killed.”
Gray heard a hint of envy in his words, also maybe threat.
Batukhan made a show of checking his watch. “Perhaps we should finish our business, as the day grows late. And I have other matters needing my attention.”
I’m sure you do.
Gray quickly concluded their business and made their good-byes. Once out of sight of the office door, he slipped a small earpiece into place.
Seichan mumbled next to him, “Do you think we got him suspicious enough with all that talk of wolves?”
Gray had his answer quickly enough. He heard Batukhan speaking to his secretary, canceling the rest of his day. Then he was on the phone again, his voice taking a harsher edge of command.
“I’m heading out of the city,” he said. “While I’m gone, keep the packages under guard at the warehouse at all times. Around the clock.”
He gave Seichan a thumbs-up.
Gray had thought they could unsettle the man enough to get him to lead them to the stolen relics, but this was good enough. From Kat’s review of the Mongolian minister’s holdings, he had only one warehouse in the city.
Back out on the street, Gray hailed a cab. They quickly crossed a city that was an odd mix of ornate Mongol palaces, blockish Soviet-era buildings, and serene Buddhist monasteries. Over it all hung a shadowy pall, courtesy of the city’s pollution and smog.
He leaned next to Seichan, slipping his hand into hers, and whispered like a lover in her ear, “Feel like climbing through some sewers?”
She smiled. “You always know how to make a girl feel special.”
4:28 P.M.
With the sun low on the horizon, Seichan stood next to Gray as he pried open a manhole cover, exposing the steam tunnels that crisscrossed beneath the world’s coldest capital city. A waft of hot air blew up from the city’s bowels.
Along with it came faint singing, like a distant children’s choir.
It was disconcertingly sweet coming from this steamy netherworld.
“People make their homes down there,” Gray said.
Seichan had spent her fair share of time in such hiding places, fleeing the cold, finding company with other children of the street. With the city’s high level of unemployment, coupled with its struggle to make the transition from communism to democracy, people fell through the cracks, including lots of homeless children.
Gray headed down first. Their actions were hidden by the shadow of a neighboring apartment complex. It lay only a couple of blocks from their goal. Back in D.C., Kat had pulled blueprints for the warehouse from city records. They discovered this set of steam tunnels led directly under the building and offered access to it via heating ducts.
Seichan descended the ladder, quickly abandoning the bright, cold day for the warm, dark tunnels. With each rung, it got hotter, quickly becoming nearly unbearable. And then there was the overbearing stink of refuse and waste, some of it human.
Gray clicked on a flashlight and dropped to the tunnel floor below.
She joined him, hunched down, coming close to burning herself on a pipe overhead. She switched on her own flashlight and swept its beam down the tunnels that branched in four directions. Down one, she spotted a scurry of motion, a flash of a small, scared face.
Then nothing.
Even the singing had stopped.
She expected the tunnels were regularly raided, the children rounded up and likely sent to detention centers that were little better than the North Korean prison.
No wonder they ran.
“This way,” Gray said and headed in the direction of the warehouse.
The path was not straight and required checking their map twice. Finally, Gray waved her low.
“That next ladder should lead up to the main warehouse floor. We’ll only have the element of surprise for a short time, and we don’t know how many guards we’ll find up there.”
“Got it.”
In other words, move fast.
She adjusted the night-vision goggles atop her head. Gray wore a matching set, looking like he had the disarticulated eyes of an insect.
She waved him forward, having to go on hands and knees from here. As Gray departed, Seichan felt something grab her ankle.
She twisted around, a pistol in her hand, elongated with a silencer.
She found herself facing a small girl of nine or ten, with almond eyes and wide cheekbones, as if looking in a mirror of her own past. The child cowered from the weapon.
Seichan pulled the pistol away, freeing her leg from the girl’s fingers.
“What do you want?” she whispered in Vietnamese, knowing it was close to Mongolian.
The girl looked after Gray, or at least in the direction he was headed. She shook her head and tugged the edge of her pant leg as if to pull her back.
It was a warning of danger.
The children living here must have surmised she and Gray were not with the police. Then, tracking the two of them, they must have realized their goal. Clearly the children down here must have had encounters with the warehouse guards—and not pleasant ones. The effort to warn them was likely less about concern for her and Gray than it was for themselves. Whatever transpired, it was likely to have dire repercussions for the street kids down here.
And they were probably right.
Retribution might be exacted upon those living down here after they left. But there was little Seichan could do about that. She couldn’t change the harsh and unfair ways of the world. She’d had that beaten into her enough times to know.
I’m sorry, little one. Get as far from here as possible.
She tried to communicate that.
“Ði,” she said in Vietnamese. Go.
With a final scared flash of her eyes, the child vanished into the darkness, a shadow of her former self.
Gray hissed for her from the foot of the ladder, oblivious to what had transpired. She hurried over to him. He silently climbed the rungs and secured tiny charges to the locked grate up top.
Dropping back down, they both ducked to the side as he hit the detonator.
A fast bang echoed. It was not much louder than a firecracker, but it would surely draw any guards in the warehouse.
Gray rushed up with Seichan behind him. He hit the smoking grate with the palm of his hand, knocking it open. With his other hand, he expertly tossed in two smoke grenades, rolling them in opposite directions. As the bombs blew with a flash of fire and a blast of smoke, Gray and Seichan rolled out onto the warehouse floor.
She already had her night-vision goggles in place. Lying on her back on the concrete floor, she targeted every light she could see through the smoke.
Firing rapidly she took them all out, sinking the warehouse into deeper darkness.
Gray was already moving, running for the office. It was the most likely place the relics would be secured. If they were wrong, they would force one of the guards to talk.
Muffled blasts of suppressed fire marked Gray’s progress across the chasm of the warehouse. She stayed on her back, hidden by the smoke, holding their exit. She toggled her scope to infrared, picking out the heat signatures of guards rushing from the far side of the warehouse. She aimed her pistol.
Pop, pop, pop . . .
Bodies crumpled.
Others scattered, seeking cover, firing back blindly.
Seichan knew the smoke cover would only last a few more minutes, then she would be left exposed out here.
Don’t take too long, Gray.
4:48 P.M.
Sweeping through the smoke, Gray fired upon anything that flared through his scopes. He took out two men on the floor and another on the open stairs leading to an office that overlooked the warehouse. He climbed two steps at a time, staying low.
A bullet pinged off the stair rail.
He swung toward the
source, identified the heat signature, and fired.
The shooter fell.
Clambering to the top landing, he shot out the door lock, not even bothering to pause to check if it was unlocked. This high up, he was clear of the smoke.
Proving the danger, a burst of rounds peppered the front of the office.
Not slowing, he shouldered through the door and rolled low inside. He kept away from the windows and kicked the door closed while still on his back. At the same time, he swept his pistol across the small space. A door at the back led out to more administration spaces and a conference room.
Finding the room empty, he stayed crouched and checked that back door.
Locked.
Good.
He didn’t want any surprises from that direction.
The desk was not in direct view of the windows so he stood up, noticing the boxes and cases stacked there. The largest was tied up in a blanket. It was the right size from Vigor’s description. A peek through a fold revealed tarnished silver.
Gray pawed through the rest but failed to find the other relics. He tried the desk drawers. In the bottom one, he discovered a wolf mask staring back up at him.
So Borjigin had been here, likely savoring his new treasures.
While bent down, Gray spotted a small army duffel tucked into the knee well of the desk. He unzipped it and found the skull and the leather book inside. Relieved, he tossed the duffel over a shoulder and lifted the box under one arm. It was heavy and awkward, but it left one hand free to hold his pistol.
A quick glance out of the window showed the smoke beginning to clear.
His search had taken too long.
Using a toe, he nudged open the door. He spotted two men running up the steps toward him, both carrying submachine guns with flashlight undermounts. Beyond them, a firefight was under way in the fading smoke as Seichan kept the rest of the warehouse at bay.
Thinking quickly, Gray ripped off his night-vision gear, rushed back to the desk, and opened the bottom drawer. He grabbed the wolf mask and tugged it over his face. He snatched his pistol back off the desktop—just as the door was kicked open.
As he turned, two men burst inside, submachine guns at their shoulders. Their flashlights blinded him, but the sight of the wolf mask startled them. Fear of its mysterious owner made them pause for a fraction of a heartbeat.