"All right, old boy," he muttered at the tomb. "Let's see if you've got one more conquest left in you."
-62-
The feeling was just returning to Pitt's feet with a painful tingle as he climbed out the back of the sanctuary and into the corral. He staggered to the side and quickly yanked several timbers off the wooden fence to clear an opening. Tossing boxes and crates aside, he burrowed a wide path through the junk and debris until he reached his objective, the dust-laden old car.
It was a 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost open tourer, with a custom body by the English coachmaker Park Ward. Decades of dirt and grime covered a unique eggplant purple body paint. Long since faded, the color once complemented the car's burnished aluminum hood and wheel covers. More familiar on the streets of London, Pitt wondered how such a grand auto had ended up in Mongolia. He then recalled that T. E. Lawrence had acquired a Rolls-Royce armored car built on a 1914 Silver Ghost chassis, which he used in his desert campaign against the Turks in Arabia. Pitt wondered if the car's reputation for durability in the desert had reached the Gobi years before. Or perhaps a car built before the Mongolian revolution was the only vehicle of opulence that the Communist Party would allow Borjin's family to own.
None of that mattered to Pitt. What did matter was that the Rolls had a silver-handled crank protruding from its snout. Equipped as a backup for the early electric starters, the crank gave Pitt a small hope that he could start the car, even with a long-dead battery. Provided, that is, that the engine block wasn't frozen solid.
Pitt opened the right-side driver's door and placed the gearshift in neutral, then stepped to the front of the car. Leaning down and grabbing with both hands, he pulled up on the crank, driving with his legs. The crank held firm, but Pitt grunted out a second effort and the handle inched upward. He rested for a second, then gave another heave. The crankshaft broke free with the extra push, driving the six pistons up and down in their cylinders.
With his own small collection of antique cars at home in Washington, Pitt was well versed with the intricacies of starting up a vintage vehicle. Climbing back into the driver's seat, he adjusted the throttle, spark, and governor controls, which were set by movable levers mounted on the steering wheel. He then opened the hood and primed a tiny pump on a brass canister, which he hoped contained gasoline. He then returned to the crank and proceeded to manually turn the engine over.
Each pull of the crank led to a series of rasps as the old motor tried to suck in air and fuel. Zapped by exposure to the cold, Pitt's strength waned on every pull. Yet he willed himself to keep trying in the face of each dying wheeze from the engine. Then on the tenth pull, the motor coughed. Several more pulls produced a sputter. With his feet frozen, yet beads of sweat on his brow, Pitt heaved again on the crank.
The crankshaft spun, the air and fuel ignited, and with a put-put-put sound, the engine labored to life.
Pitt rested briefly as the old car warmed up, spouting a thick cloud of black smoke out its rusty exhaust pipe. Rummaging around the corral, he found a small barrel filled with chains, which he tossed in the backseat. Taking his place in the driver's seat, he slipped the car into gear, released the clutch with his numb left foot, and drove the Rolls shakily out of the corral.
-63-
It's been well over an hour," Gunn remarked, looking glumly at his watch.
He and Giordino stood on the rise, watching the scene of devastation below. The laboratory fire burned in a blazing tempest, consuming the entire building and adjacent garage. Black smoke and flames leaped high into the sky, casting a yellow glow over the entire compound. Across the landscaped grounds, a large chunk of the residence was missing, replaced by rushing water where the northern wing of the house previously stood.
"Let's take a quick drive down," Giordino said. "Maybe he's injured and can't walk out."
Gunn nodded. It had been almost an hour since they heard the automatic fire from inside. Pitt should have made it out long ago.
They started to walk toward the car when a low rumble shook from below. No earthquake this time, they knew, but rather the erosive effects of the flooding waters. They stopped and stared, dreading what they knew was next. From their vantage, it resembled a collapsing house of cards. The northern end of the structure began toppling one wall at a time. The structural failure seemed to build momentum, moving across the residence in a rippling wave of destruction. The central section of the residence simply folded in on itself with a grinding crash, then disappeared under the water. The large white spire over the entrance melted away, disintegrating into a thousand bits under the floodwaters. Gunn and Giordino could only see chunks of debris poking through the water as the bulk of the residence slid off its ledge and washed down the mountain. In just a few seconds, it was gone. Only a small section of the southern wing survived, standing next to a wide flow of water where the rest of the house had once stood.
With the destruction of the house, all hopes for finding Pitt alive had vanished. Gunn and Giordino knew that no one in and around the residence could have survived. Neither man said a word nor made a move.
Together, they stood and solemnly stared at the altered river as it glided over the foundation of the house and roared down the cliffside beyond. The rushing of the wild waters competed with the crackling from the lab fire to disrupt the otherwise quiet late-night hour. Then Gunn's ears detected another sound.
"What's that?" he asked. He pointed a finger toward a small chunk of the southern wing, which stood on dry ground and had survived the collapse of the main residence. The whirring pitch of a high-revving engine rumbled from the hillside behind. The motor sporadically coughed and stuttered but otherwise sounded like it was operating at its redline. The roar grew louder until it was matched with a pair of lights that slowly crept over the hill.
Through the smoke and flames of the burning laboratory, the object appeared like a giant primordial bug crawling out of a hole in the ground. Two round but dimly illuminated lamps probed the night like a pair of large yellow eyes. A shiny metallic body followed behind, clouded by dirt and dust kicked up by its clawing rear appendages. The living beast even breathed vapor, a white cloud of smoke rising from its head.
The creature, lurching with great effort, finally clamored over the hill, seeming to fight every step of the way. A sharp gust of wind suddenly blew the smoke and dust away, and, under the light of the burning fire, Gunn and Giordino could see that it was no overgrown insect but the antique Rolls-Royce from the corral.
"Only one guy I know would be driving an old crate like that at a time like this," Giordino shouted with a whoop.
Jumping into the Range Rover, Gunn charged the car down the hill and stormed back into the compound. Shining their headlights onto the Rolls, they saw that the old car was still struggling to lurch forward, and had a line of chain stretched taut off the rear bumper. The old beast was trying desperately to pull something up the side of the hill.
Inside the Rolls, Pitt threw a thankful wave toward the approaching Range Rover, then turned back to coaxing the old auto forward. His numb right foot held the accelerator to the floor while the gearshift lever was still locked in first gear. The rear wheels spun and clawed at the ground, the worn, airless tires gamely trying to find a grip. But the weight behind was too great, and the big car seemed to be losing the battle. Under the hood, the overworked engine began to protest with loud knocks. What little coolant that existed in the block and radiator had nearly all boiled away, and Pitt knew it wouldn't be long before the engine seized.