“Foreigners like us?” Alexander said in a low voice.
Montross cut off Nilak’s response with a question. “Forbidden because the tombs of the great Khans are supposed to be here?” He spoke in a rushed voice, trying to sound like a naïve tourist. “Genghis, his sons Jin and Odai, and grandson, Kublai Khan?”
Nilak smiled, and in the dying light over the cooling winds, Montross could see the tattoo just peeking out over the guide’s sweater. “Yes,” Nilak said. “But it is sacred for many reasons. Its closeness to the great Blue Heaven, for one. Its majestic scenery, the life-giving rivers: the Kherlen and the Odon. But also it was here that Temujin, Chinggis Khan himself, while still a boy, evaded the vengeance of his father’s killers. The mountain sheltered him among its forests and hills, preserving him for his destiny.”
“So it was a place he never forgot,” Montross said.
“His father was killed,” Alexander said, repeating what he had heard. “And he survived? Now I see what made him so cruel to everybody.” He shivered in his hooded red sweatshirt.
“Not cruel,” said Nilak defensively, “merely just. He was no sadist. While other conquerors delighted in the torture and debasement of their defeated enemies, Temujin only doled out justice to those who had defied him. He once said to the sultan of the Kharmezhm Empire, ‘You have greatly sinned upon the world and your own people. Why else would God have sent someone like me to destroy you?’”
Alexander smiled, then gave Montross a cold look. “I like that. A lot.”
“Yes, it’s all very Homeric.” Montross pulled back strands of his red hair into a neat ponytail. “But still a little paranoid, right? He made sure no one could ever find his grave, venerate his body.”
“Oh, we venerate him,” Nilak said, fingers balling into fists. “Through his relics, his statues. His mausoleums. There are specific holy days of worship. Incense and songs, rituals.”
“And what of his body?” Montross glanced at the hills and the steep ascent of the sacred mountain before them, rising to a flattened peak about seven thousand feet high. “Where is it?”
Nilak regarded him coolly as the breezes let up. “No one knows.”
“But there are many theories, right?” Montross’s voice had lost its naiveté. “And these other camps here — Americans? Come looking for the same thing?”
“They have gone,” Nilak said with a dose of satisfaction. “Last month, and left their tents, some of their supplies. Gone the way of the Japanese archaeologists in the 1990s, who brought their ground-penetrating radar, their satellite survey maps and their tools, and found nothing. Some graves, but only of those more recent burials.”
Xavier turned his face to the mountain, listening to the wind sizzling through the firs. “They were looking in the wrong spot.”
He gazed at the deceptively difficult ascent, to be undertaken only with practiced horses who could navigate the steep rocky hillsides. “The Wall, right? Almsgivers Wall. Discovered by that Japanese team and dating to a much older era. It was the only area the government permitted them to search. They weren’t allowed on the peak or at the southern area called the Threshold, where hundreds of stone piles remain and lingering traces of a temple can be seen. And, what of other requests by similar, well-funded projects? Teams hoping to use satellite magnetometry to search for subsurface disturbances in the soil, a technique that would indicate areas that might have ditches — or tombs carved out of the ground? What about those? Why are the permissions not coming? What are they hiding?”
Nilak’s eyes turned cold, the blue leeching out into black, mirroring the great expanse of cloudless sky overhead. “Who are you, sir?”
Montross spread out his arms, smiling innocently. “Just a man and his son, out for a grand hike into history.”
Nilak stared at Alexander, considered the boy for a moment, then raised a hand, clenching his fingers into fists. At once, two Mongolian men emerged from the nearest tent.
Both had AK-47s slung over their shoulders, weapons which they promptly unhooked and turned toward Montross as they approached.
Montross noted the tattoos on their necks. “Ah,” he said, “the Darkhad come to greet us.”
Nilak held out a restraining hand and his men paused. A dog whined from inside the nearest tent, sounding more like a wolf, and Montross wondered if there were more men inside.
“You’ve come for the Great Khanite, the valley of the Khans,” said Nilak. “It was obvious the moment you landed in Ulaan Baatar. And your son here is no son. Although, he bears some resemblance.”
Alexander frowned. “What?”
“But it does not matter. The grave of my lord will never be found. He will remain undisturbed for all time.”
Montross blinked at him. “Why?”
“It was his wish.”
Shrugging, Montross said, “Wishes usually go unfulfilled. Now tell me, where is it?”
“You think we know?”
“Of course, you do,” Montross said. “You — I also knew you from the moment you volunteered to be our guide. You are of the line of Mubuqoi and Boroochi, Temujin’s favorite generals. The leaders of five hundred families who tended the lands in this area. Your master gave your ancestors special privileges in return for your promise to guard his remains, his relics, and to continue his worship.” Montross lowered his head, his eyes drilling into Nilak’s. “You know.”
“That was eight hundred years ago. So many generations. Memories fade.”
“Not this memory,” Montross said. “You’ve succeeded in a great game of deception, clouding the minds of your leaders and your people, the people of China and Mongolia alike, as well as the world. From the beginning, the Darkhad created false rumors, inciting historians and explorers, such as Marco Polo himself, into quoting prefabricated fantasy and outright misdirection. Throwing out names of fake mountains and imaginary rivers, providing fodder for future treasure seekers to chase their proverbial tails. Classic misdirection.”
Nilak’s gaze never wavered. “Who are you? How do come by such beliefs?”
Montross merely smiled.
“Very well,” said Nilak, glancing around at the wide expanse of the hills, the steppes where once the Golden Horde, the greatest army in the world, had launched their campaigns, conquering kingdom after kingdom and ruling the largest collection of people that had ever fallen under one leader. Nilak looked over the vast grasslands, hills and bogs; the empty, skeletal forest of pines burned in a great fire decades ago. Desolate but for a few packs of roving sheep and cows.
Nilak sighed and spoke two words.
“Kill them.”
Alexander cried out as the men raised the machine guns, looking to Montross for help, for some sort of saving word or plea, but Xavier just stood with his arms outstretched, still smiling.
He’s insane, completely whacko! Alexander thought, believing it was to be the last thought of his too-short life, before joining his mother, hopefully in Heaven.
Two gunshots snapped the night air. Crisp, loud, echoing off the hills of the Burkhan Khaldun. Alexander clenched his eyes shut, but not before first seeing something out of the corner of his eye: a dark form slipping out from the back of the jeep, from under the tarps and equipment they had packed in the cargo hold at Ulaan Baatar.
His eyes popped back open just as Nilak’s head whipped around to see his companions drop silently, guns unfired.
“Thank you, Nina,” said Montross, lowering his arms. His gaze never left Nilak’s. And his smile never wavered, not until Nina walked right up to their guide and placed the muzzle of her still-warm Beretta against the back of his head.