Their path ended up at a curved stretch of beach, dusted with snow and fringed by ice that swept out a good ways into the bay. Sections had been shattered by past wave action, turning into knee-high shards of blue glass.
Beyond the frozen border, the early sheen of the day cast the waters an indigo blue. The water was so clear it could be drunk without fear of intestinal upset. In fact, if you swam in it, local legends claimed, it would add five years to your life.
If only that were true, Vigor thought, I’d dive in despite the cold.
Still, he was glad that he’d finally told Rachel the truth about his cancer. He had words that needed to be spoken, and he was glad that he had the time to share them. He did not fear death so much as he did the loss of the years he would have with Rachel: to see her grow, get married, have kids, to see them flourish.
So much he would miss.
But at least he got to tell her how much she meant to him.
Thank you, Lord, for that small blessing.
Ahead, Kowalski swerved and skidded his all-terrain vehicle, seemingly determined to test its limits against rolling over. Only the young were convinced of their own immortality, willing to challenge death with such abandon. Age eventually wore down that confidence, but the best of us still kept tilting at windmills despite that knowledge—or maybe even because of it, appreciating each day, living to the fullest, knowing one day there would be no more.
As they hit the beach, Gray slowed to ride alongside Vigor, drawing him out of his cold reverie. He pointed ahead toward a tall rock jutting out from the ice field and rising high and pointing at the sky.
“That’s Burkhan Cape?” Gray asked.
It was also called Shaman’s Rock, home to the gods of the Buryats, known as tengrii. The site was considered one of Asia’s ten most sacred places.
Vigor nodded, shouting into the wind blowing off the lake. “The ceremonial grotto is on the far side, facing the water. That’s where the shaman will meet us. At the end of this beach, there should be a narrow isthmus that runs out from the shore to the cape.”
Gray nodded and sped up. He reined Kowalski in, and they swept around the curve and onto a thin strip of land that extended across the ice to a rise of craggy white cliffs, frosted with red moss.
A small figure stood at the end of the isthmus, guarding passage onto the promontory. He was a skinny young man in a long sheepskin jacket over a blue belted robe. He carried a hide drum slung over one shoulder. He waved for them to stop and turn off their engines, not looking happy about the racket. Vigor knew that in the past visitors used to cover the hooves of their horses with leather, so as not to disturb the gods of the cape.
“My name is Temur,” he said in strained English, bowing slightly. “I am to take you to Elder Bayan. He is awaiting you.”
Kowalski manhandled the duffel from the back of Vigor’s bike and they set off after the young man along a narrow path through the broken rock and up some icy hand-hewn steps in the rock face. A large cave mouth opened above them, facing the lake.
Vigor found himself wheezing by the time they had scaled the cliff and entered the cavern grotto. Flanking the entrance were two stone cairns, wrapped in colorful scarves and flags that flapped in the steady wind off the water. Between them knelt a wizened old man of indeterminate age. He could be sixty or maybe a hundred. He was similarly attired as the younger man, only with the addition of a tall peaked hat. On his knees, he was attending a fire, tossing in dried juniper branches, casting forth an indolent smoke that swirled about the cavern.
Farther back, a tunnel led deeper into the promontory, but Vigor doubted even his Vatican credentials would gain them access back there.
“Elder Bayan wishes you to kneel to either side of him and turn your faces to the lake.”
Gray waved them forward to obey.
Vigor took to one side, his friends the other. The smoke stung his nostrils and eyes, but it smelled oddly sweet. Temur began slowly beating his drum while the shaman recited prayers, wafting a burning juniper branch in his hand.
Beyond the mouth of the cave, the dark lake slowly brightened, turning the waters from a deep indigo to a sky blue. Ice glistened in a thousand hues of cobalt and sapphire. Then in a flash, fire spread across the water and ice, ignited by the first rays of the sun, flowing like molten gold.
Vigor let out a small gasp at the sight, feeling privileged to witness this. Even the wind died down for a breath, as if awed by the sight.
Then with a final loud bang on his drum, Temur turned to them. “It is done. You may now speak to Elder Bayan.”
The shaman stood, motioning them to their feet.
Properly blessed, Vigor climbed up and bowed to Elder Bayan. “Thank you for meeting with us. We have a matter of urgency and seek someone who has great knowledge of Olkhon.”
Temur translated their conversation, whispering in Bayan’s ear.
“What do you wish to know?” the young man asked for the elder.
Vigor turned to Gray. “Show him the relics.”
Taking the duffel from Kowalski, Gray unzipped the bag and carefully removed the objects, placing the skull and book down, alongside the tarnished silver box. Gray opened the lid and revealed the boat inside.
The only reaction from the elder was a slight widening of his eyes.
“What is all this?” Temur asked, but the question didn’t come from the shaman, only from the young man’s curiosity.
Instead, the shaman stepped forth and hovered his hands over each object, again whispering prayers.
Finally, he spoke again, and Temur translated. “The power is old, but not unknown.”
Vigor stared at Bayan’s wrinkled hands.
Did he feel the same energy as Duncan?
The shaman ended up with his palm resting above the skull.
“We know what you seek,” Temur continued, speaking for Bayan. “But to trespass there is with great danger.”
“We will be happy to face that danger,” Vigor said.
Bayan frowned once this was whispered in his ear. “No, you will not.” Temur turned specifically to face Vigor. “Elder Bayan says you are suffering much, but you will suffer more.”
Misgiving rang through Vigor. He glanced at Gray.
Temur continued, “I am to take you to what you seek.”
Vigor should have been overjoyed by this offer, but instead he found himself growing colder as the shaman continued to stare at him, his ancient face a mask of sorrow.
Vigor had accepted his death as inevitable. But for the first time in many months, he began to fear what was to come.
8:07 A.M.
Rachel walked through the horse barn at the back of the property. She tugged the zipper of her parka down. She had meant to take a walk after breakfast, needing to burn off nervous energy but also to think about her uncle.
She fought against wanting to control his disease, making lists in her head: which doctors to call, which clinics to consult, which new therapeutic trials to enroll in. But in the end, she knew she must simply let that go. Vigor had clearly made his peace. She must, too.
But she could not sit still in the quiet inn. She also didn’t know what to say to Seichan after seeing her leave Gray’s room. It was too awkward, so she went for a walk—until the cold drove her back to the inn, with her nose numb and her cheeks burning from the blustery weather.
Rather than immediately going back inside, she ended up in the barn, where she could escape the wind. Shadowy horses heated the space, nickering softly at her intrusion. The place smelled of hay, manure, and musty sweat. She walked the length, rubbing a velvet nose of a mare over a gate, offering a handful of grain to another.
Once warmed up, she headed back to the barn door and swung it open. The cold struck her with a gust of wind.
She bent against it and began trudging back to the inn.
A loud crack raised her head, echoing away. It sounded like a loose shutter banging in the wind. More blasts followed.
Gunfire.
She stopped, confused—when an arm closed around her neck from behind, clamping over her throat.
She felt the cold muzzle of a gun at her temple.
8:10 A.M.
Seichan only had a moment to react.
Attuned to her surroundings, she had felt something was wrong. Over the course of the morning, up in her room, she had learned the rhythms of the quiet inn: the murmur of the husband and wife below, the clank of pans, the whistle of wind through the eaves. She had heard the door open off and on, either one of the owners taking out the garbage, or the last time, Rachel leaving to explore the village.
When the door had opened a half minute ago, she had thought it was Rachel returning, but the noises below grew hushed, except for the clatter of a plate to the wooden floor.
She had tensed, muscles going hard, every sense straining. Even the dust in the air seemed to hold motionless in anticipation.
Then a creak on the stair—
She bolted, stopping only long enough to grab her SIG Sauer, still in its holster on her nightstand. She burst out the door, shaking the semiautomatic pistol free. She fled away from the stairs, toward the window at the end of the landing. With her weapon pointed behind her, she saw a shadow rise by the stairs, too furtive. Then a shape appeared, dressed all in winter camouflage.
She fired backward twice, while leaping and striking the window with her shoulder. A cry rose behind her. She had only winged the man, but it offered her enough of a delay to fly out the window in a shower of glass and splintered wood. She landed on the overhanging eave of the first-story roof below and rolled down its side and over the edge.
She fell through the air, twisting around to land on her legs, falling to one arm. She kept the other up, pointing the pistol all around. She had come out behind the house. A patch of forest beckoned across a small yard. She fled toward it—only to see a group of armed men, also in camouflage, appear out of the tree line.
She veered to the right, where she knew a deep culvert ran along the neighboring road. She needed cover and a way to break through the cordon that had clearly been set up around the inn.
She sprinted as gunfire tore the frozen turf around her, blindly firing back toward the woods. She might still be able to make it to safety.
Then a familiar voice rang out past the gunfire.
“STOP OR I WILL KILL HER!”
She didn’t. She leaped the last distance and slid on her belly into the culvert. Ice cracked under her as she swung to face the man who had shouted. Keeping hidden in the deep gutter, she trained her pistol.
Across the yard, by the barn, she spotted a large, powerful-looking man gripping Rachel around the throat.
Ju-long Delgado stood to one side of her.
On the other, Hwan Pak.
The North Korean scientist held a pistol to Rachel’s ear.
“Come out now! Or I will blow her head off!”
Seichan struggled to make sense of the situation. How could they be here? She noted the facial features of the team in camouflage, all North Korean, likely their country’s elite special forces. But how had Pak found her?
Rachel yelled to her, “Run! Just run!”
Her captor cuffed her roughly in the head. Still, she struggled, strangling in his grip.
Knowing they would certainly kill Rachel if she attempted to flee—a course that looked less and less likely to succeed anyway—she finally raised her arms in the air, showing herself.
“Don’t shoot!” she called back.
More soldiers came up from behind her, appearing like ghosts from hiding spots. She scanned their numbers. It seemed Pak had brought an entire assault team with him.
Why?
She was stripped of her weapon and marched over to Pak.
As Seichan approached, Rachel met her eyes. Rachel looked more angry than scared, apologetic for putting Seichan into this situation.
But Seichan could not hold the woman at fault. This was all her own responsibility, a danger she had dragged to this icy doorstep.
The brute holding Rachel must be the military team leader. He wore mirrored sunglasses with a hood pulled low, showing little of his face—what did show looked mean, displaying a cross-hatching of scars. She could smell the threat off the man. He was no new recruit, but a battle-hardened warrior.
Pak turned to her when she arrived. He smiled coldly, promising pain and sorrow.
“Now you will tell us where the Americans are.”
28
November 20, 8:12 A.M. IRKST
Olkhon Island, Russia
Back on the ATVs, Gray led the way with the shaman’s apprentice, Temur, riding behind him. They headed north from the crags of Burkhan Cape, driving atop the thick shore ice, following the coastline.
Kowalski and Vigor kept close behind on their own vehicles.
The morning brightened rapidly, turning the ice into glass, some places so clear it looked like open water. A dusting of dry snow and ice skirted in streams across the surface, pushed by the wind like the crowns of whitecaps.
“Around that tumble of rock ahead!” Temur called. “Another mile or so.”
Using that landmark, they continued along a deserted section of the island, where sheer cliffs rose straight out of the water, topped by dense fir forests. Temur urged them closer to the shore, shadowing his eyes with his hand and studying the coastline.
“There!” he finally called. “That opening. We go in there!”
Gray spotted the mouth of a sea cave. It looked large enough to drive a minivan inside, except rows of massive icicles speared down from the upper edge, like a set of fanged jaws closing down to take a bite out of the ice shelf below. The remaining opening was only large enough to allow their ATVs to enter, if they went single file.
Gray angled toward it, slowing their speed to a crawl. He flicked his headlamp on and cast its light into the dark cave. White frost reflected off every surface, revealing a tunnel leading deeper. Stalactites of ice covered the arched ceiling in a solid mass. Streams of water froze in place on the walls, forming sheets of rippling crystal.
“We’re not going in there, are we?” Kowalski asked, plainly leery. “Caves are one thing, but ice caves . . .”
As answer, Gray ducked his head below the first row of icicles and crawled his ATV inside, following the beam of his headlamp.
Inside, the space was even more wondrous. The ice under the tires was so clear he could see the mossy rocks far below, spot fish in the flowing water under the ice.
“Looks like it continues a ways!” Gray called back.
He headed deeper upon Temur’s instructions. The tunnel grew larger, the walls sweeping to the sides, the ceiling rising higher. About thirty yards in, the sea tunnel ended at a large cavern, a cathedral of ice. Glistening blue-crystal chandeliers filled the domed roof, while diamond columns rose all around.
As they entered, the pressure of their passage made the ice beneath them groan and pop, the sound amplified and echoed by the sheltering walls. A few fragile branches of the chandeliers broke free and shattered to the ice, tinkling away with a dance of shards.
Across the room, a thick curtain of ice flowed in heavy ripples down the far wall, where a spring-fed waterfall had frozen over. A few trickles still ran down its surface, polishing the ice to a quartz shine, before freezing below.
Closer at hand, in the middle of the floor, a darker stain marred the pristine surface, marking a hole through the ice to the open water below. The steeply sloped sides were stained, worn in some places to form small chutes.
Gray had caught sight of a sleek brown body sliding down one of them as they had first entered. This must be a breathing hole for the most famous mammal of Baikal Lake, the nerpa seal.
With nowhere else to go, Gray stopped his ATV. Kowalski and Vigor joined him, flanking him on either side.
“Where are we?” Kowalski asked.
Temur answered, “This is a birthing chamber for our Baikal sea
ls, where pups will be sheltered in deep winter. It is considered very special to our people. It is said we are descended from the spirit of such hardy, noble creatures.”
“But why have you brought us here?” Gray asked, searching around. He wasn’t in the mood for the full Baikal nature tour, not with the clock ticking down.
“Because Elder Bayan told me to bring you to this cave,” Temur said. “That is all I know. I do not know why he asked me to do so.”
Gray turned to Vigor, who looked equally baffled.
“Maybe the old guy just likes seals,” Kowalski commented.
“Or it’s a test,” Vigor said. “All Genghis Khan’s other sites were well hidden, often where land meets water, like this. But they were made somewhat easier to find because of the drought in Hungary or the ecological disaster of the dry Aral Sea.”
“Well, nothing has changed in this region for millions of years,” Gray said. “We’re getting no free passes here.”
“So it would seem.”
Gray searched the ice-encrusted room, forcing himself to remain calm, realizing one fact. The shaman had not sent them here entirely without resources. Gray remembered Bayan instructing Temur where to take them. It was done with only a few words, yet Temur knew exactly where to go. That could only mean one thing.
“Temur, do your people have a name for this cavern?”
He nodded. “In our native language it is Emegtei, which means a woman’s belly,” he said, pantomiming a swelling on his own stomach.
“A womb,” Gray said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Temur said. He then bowed and backed away. “I hope you find what you seek. But I must now go.”
“My friend can drive you back to Burkhan Cape,” Gray offered, motioning to Kowalski.
Temur shook his head. “Not necessary. I have family not far.”
As the man departed, Vigor motioned to the breathing hole, drawing back Gray’s attention. “A womb. That makes sense. This place is a birthing chamber for the island’s spirit animal.”