Another flash of white, and the horse was bounding away, even as Nina let loose with her Beretta.
“Damn,” she hissed. “Gone. And this one dead.” She nudged Nilak’s body with her foot. “So much for the easy way.”
Montross sighed, thinking for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. Our visions were clear. I saw the coffin buried inside this mountain. The funeral procession was led up these very hills. We’re on the right track. It’s at one of two probable locations up near the southern side of the summit. Once the rest of the team joins us with all our gear, we’ll proceed and narrow down the search.”
Nina kept her eyes on the hill, on the shadows within the forest. “I’ll go on ahead with the night-vision goggles.” She tapped her gun, caressing the newly installed LaserMax sighting device attached to the barrel. “I’ll find her.”
“Ah yes, your precious Beretta. Sometimes I think you love that weapon more than me.”
“It’s never let me down. And besides,” she said with a cold stare, “I know your heart belongs to another.”
Montross was silent for a moment and his eyes lost focus before snapping back to her. “Yes, well then. You take care of our Darkhad antagonist up there, but capture her if possible. And while you’re busy, Alexander and I will try again to remote view our long-buried friend.”
Qara Lan-Naatun watched from behind an ancient pine tree, gnarled and drooping with age. Watched as the intruders stood over the body of her brother, Nilak.
Her brother. She closed her eyes, praying that his soul now journeyed to the Blue Heaven, and would soon be at peace, rewarded for his lifetime of faithful service to the Master. But her heart ached for him, overwhelmed by the immensity of what she had done. What she had to do.
They would have tortured him, and Nilak was not as strong as some. She couldn’t risk that pair tearing him open for the secret. It was up to her now. Especially after the news from Bodrum. Alexia Nomantu had been killed defending the Third Key. Whoever they were they were strong, prepared and ruthless. And yet, this man and his “son” seemed different. Not archaeologists, nor scholars. Not warriors either, although the woman displayed enough skill. Yet the man she had overheard talking to Nilak. He possessed certain knowledge. Dangerous knowledge.
And that artifact… could it really be the sacred stone, the tablet itself? The one Chinggis sought all his life?
Still, it didn’t matter. The traditions were clear. No one was to disturb the Khan. No one. It wasn’t a matter of gold, of treasure and plunder. The rules, passed on for more than sixty generations now, were clear. Temujin must be protected so that he might continue his service to heaven. Even in the afterlife, Temujin was still protecting what he had rightfully earned.
And all Qara knew was that given the timing of this team’s arrival here, coming just hours after the news of Alexia’s death and the likely theft of Mausolus’s Key, Temujin’s secret was in jeopardy as never before. And if these invaders should succeed, she had no doubt the keys would be used to open something her Lord and Master — and sixty previous generations — had deemed too dreadful to allow anyone else to possess.
But as she watched the team below, and even as she saw the distant trio of jeeps heading her way, likely bringing men as well as heavy equipment, she couldn’t help but smile.
After all, despite the presence of the Emerald Tablet, despite what these invaders had said and believed they knew, the secret was still safe. The ruse still held.
They were looking in the wrong place.
2
Caleb and Phoebe ascended the steps and, after catching their breaths, took a moment to gaze over the three grand halls of the Mausoleum, three structures shaped like Mongolian yurts. White walls with red doors and domed roofs painted with blue and yellow designs. Caleb looked back the way they had come, down the stairs and across the concrete pathway to the well-trodden parking area where their minibus and two jeeps idled. Orlando and Renée were inside the minibus, working on the route for the next leg of their journey. And behind them: the vast expanse of the Ordos Desert.
They were 180 miles southwest of Beijing.
And a hundred miles away from the Mongolian border.
“So why are we here?” Phoebe asked, tugging Caleb’s shoulder. “It wasn’t really on the way.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said, contemplating the Main Hall, the largest of the yurts.
“And we don’t really have the time. Montross has Alexander, and the longer we take…”
Caleb started walking, heading inside, behind two older women, heads bowed, carrying beaded necklaces and small bottles of something that looked like milk. “Montross needs Alexander. Needs us, I think. Agent Wagner confirmed that someone matching his description was seen leaving the airport at Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia. So he’s got to be heading for the most likely location — Burkhan Khaldun, the Sacred Mountain in the northeast. Poor Xavier. He must have let the literature and history lead his thoughts, control his visions. He asked himself the wrong questions.”
“But how sure are you that you’ve asked the right ones?”
“I’m not. You had the visions, not me. That ability is still inaccessible.”
Phoebe gave him a sympathetic look. “Well, you knew enough to pose the question to us. To ask to be shown what was inside funeral procession’s great white tent that marched across the Gobi in 1227.”
“And you saw it.”
“Well, Orlando mostly. We complemented each other, built on each other’s visions.” She blushed. “Sometimes we do that.”
He opened his mouth, about to ask an awkward question, but then thought better of it. “In that huge funeral procession back into Mongolia, to the Sacred Mountain, you saw through the fabric of that tent, through the wooden box itself, the knock-off golden coffin, with nothing inside. You confirmed that they wanted it to look like he was going back there and did everything to ensure the myth, including the massacre of eyewitnesses and those who made the long march.”
Still listening, half-seeing it again for herself, Phoebe bowed her head as she entered the faux mausoleum, mimicking what the other visitors had done. She stepped inside first, ahead of Caleb. “But we also know it’s not here. This is just ceremonial.”
Ahead of them, in the center of the hall, stood a thirteen-foot-tall white marble statue of Genghis Khan in all his triumph. On the wall behind this statue was a map of the Yuan Dynasty and the vast territory he and his sons had conquered.
“Yes,” Caleb agreed. “Ceremonial, but also spiritual. I believe it’s vital to honor the memory of Temujin.” He pointed past the statue, past the corridors leading in either direction, covered with frescoes of the Khan’s life, one passage leading to a hall filled with relics from his life, the other containing the coffins commemorating his three sons and his first wife.
“Come on,” he said, moving forward. “His coffin’s down here. We’re going to pay our respects. Honor tradition. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some hints about where his actual resting place is.”
Phoebe nodded and then, afraid that the group of milling tourists and worshippers might overhear, she whispered, “And then apologize for what we’re going to do next?”
He gave his sister a reproachful look at first, one that soon gave way to a smile when he saw the excitement bubbling in her eyes. “Most definitely. And pray his spirit forgives us.”
Back in the minibus, Orlando leaned forward in his seat from the second row and looked over Agent Wagner’s shoulder. Renée was in the driver’s seat, ticking away at her laptop, scrolling over field reports, maps and other intel.