Ancient Echoes (4 page)

Michael flipped on the light on his hardhat as Acemgul
climbed down after him.

The chamber measured ten feet long by eight feet wide. The
rapid flashes from Acemgul's camera created a bizarre, almost strobe-light
effect.
In the center stood a coffin.
The ornately
carved wood was dry and rotting. Two small lidded crates lay beside it. A wave
of exultation filled Michael. They'd done it. The stories and legends were
true.

They'd found the tomb and treasures of Lord Hsieh.

Jerusalem

CHARLOTTE REED LIT a cigarette as
soon as she stepped out of Al-Dajani’s office. A little calmer now, she headed
for the Old City with its ancient arches and stone alleyways. In the Muslim
Quarter narrow, crowded streets wended through the souk where shops and outside
vendors carried fresh produce, crafts, tasteful art objects, and cheap
trinkets. Arab music blared, and the strong scent of shawarma, cumin, and
cardamom enveloped the area.

A lopsided wheelbarrow tilted toward her and she jumped
aside to avoid being struck. As she turned, she noticed a figure dart behind a
hanging rug as if trying to avoid being seen.

She hurried on as old terrors came to mind. The crowd grew
ever larger, closing in on her, jostling, pushing. She gripped her shoulder bag
tight against her side. As an ICE agent trained to go up against art smugglers
and thieves, she always carried a 9 mm Glock 19. It was her constant and most
trusted companion even though she had only fired it once on the job to shatter
a padlock.

Charcoal smoke filled the air and brought tears to her eyes.
Tamarind stung her nostrils. Arab women wearing hijab, Orthodox Jews in black
and white, and Christians wearing everything from jeans and Birkenstocks to
cassocks and habits gave her strange looks.

The sense of being watched strengthened.

At the Wailing Wall she warily took in her surroundings and
the people nearby. Behind her, she heard a muffled din of devotions; to the
left, the piercing call of the muezzin from a minaret; and to the right, the
peal of sonorous church bells. No one paid any attention to her, she told
herself. And why should they? She was a tourist, nothing more.

She chided herself for baseless nervousness, and found an
outdoor café for
kanafeh
and tea.
She took a seat against the
wall facing the street, shook out a Benson and Hedges menthol and lit it as she
carefully watched the passersby.

Soon, she left the Old City and went up to the Mount of
Olives with its magnificent views of Jerusalem. She sat stiffly on a bench near
the Chapel of the Ascension and from that high lookout finally allowed herself
to do what she had both longed for and feared ever since returning to the Holy
Land.

She became lost in the past.

Another saying about the area came to her, this one
attributed to the Hasidic spiritual leader, Rebbe Nachman:
Wherever I go, I
am going to Jerusalem.

In a sense, ever since fleeing the city after her husband’s
horrible death, no matter how much she fought against it, she knew that one day
she would need to face the past.

Memories washed over her. Some felt wonderful, while others
held more pain than anyone should have to bear. She had spent years telling
herself she had moved beyond it, but in reality she simply had refused to deal
with what had happened here thirteen years earlier. Now, she steeled herself to
face it.
To remember.

She attended George Washington University in Washington D.C.
as a first-year graduate student of Middle Eastern art and history when Dennis
Levine entered her life.

Ten years older than her, with short, tightly waved dark
brown hair and glasses, his remarkable intelligence—not his looks—first caught
her attention. His brilliance in her field of studies made her feel like a
complete amateur, grasping at straws and trying to learn through books what
Dennis already knew, lived, and breathed to the marrow of his being.

Their casual coffee dates quickly became serious. Two months
after they met, he asked her to marry him and go with him to Jerusalem where he
worked with the State Department. He needed to return immediately. Without a
moment’s hesitation, she agreed. That was when he added that he was, in fact, a
CIA officer.

They explored the city together, spending endless hours
walking everywhere, learning to love the modern city as well as the ancient
one.

She rose from the bench and turned toward Mt. Scopus for her
upcoming meeting. She didn’t mind the long walk; she wanted to feel the pulse
of the city beneath her feet once more. As she walked, the sights before her
faded,
and in their place were ghosts of the past.

Once in Jerusalem, she had applied for transfer to the
graduate program at the Hebrew University. Dennis's position had a lot to do,
she believed, with the ease with which she'd been accepted. Nonetheless, her
classes on the history, art, language, and culture from Egypt to Sumer
captivated her.

Dennis seemed to think she'd be interested in joining him in
the CIA someday, and that her knowledge of the Middle East would be useful to
the agency. He taught her to use handguns and rifles, and insisted she carry a
small handgun whenever she went out alone. She never did. As a student, she had
firmly believed handguns should be banned and the nations of the world
disarmed. The irony of her now being an armed agent with ICE wasn't lost on
her. Back when Dennis was alive, she had feigned interest in the CIA because he
adored his job and she wanted to make him happy. In truth, such a career held
no appeal for her. She hoped to become a professor and naively wished to use
her knowledge and admiration of this land to help soothe, in some small way,
the international tensions surrounding it. But all her dreams had turned to
nothing.

And now, she found herself in Jerusalem again, alone and
trying to learn what she could about her husband's death.
Ancient
secrets.
A bizarre American professor named Lionel Rempart.
Alchemy.
She found it hard to believe any of them were
connected to her Dennis.

Before she knew it she had reached Al-Dajani's office
building. She tapped on the glass door to get the attention of the guard, and
then plastered the pass Al-Dajani had given her against it. The young guard
read it and with a smile and nod, hit the buzzer to let her enter.

The door no sooner opened when, from behind, she heard
running footsteps coming closer.

Mongolia

MICHAEL COULD SCARCELY believe he
had found Lord Hsieh’s tomb. The exploration had been beset with trouble from
the outset.

Even the way it started was strange.

Michael and his older brother, Lionel, weren’t at all close,
which wasn't surprising given their family and upbringing, so Michael found it
curious when, over a year earlier, Lionel contacted him for help.

Lionel told him a strange story. Many years earlier, a
Chinese foreign exchange student found materials indicating that a medieval
French book on alchemy had been brought to the northwestern United States and
ended up in what is now Idaho. After returning home to China, the exchange
student had apparently become a geneticist, but Lionel could find nothing more
about him.

Since Michael was in Beijing attending a symposium on
archeological discoveries from the Shang dynasty, Lionel asked him to contact
the scientist for more information. The idea that a Chinese scientist might
know anything about an ancient alchemy book in the U.S. sounded far-fetched,
but Michael asked Jianjun to attempt to find the man.

Jianjun succeeded, in a sense.

Dr. Chou An-ming was dead.

“I appreciate your agreeing to talk with me,” Michael said
with a slight bow as he met Dr. Chou’s daughter, who introduced herself only as
Mrs. Yang. She was a plain woman, her clothes as boxy as her build. Michael and
Jianjun met her at her small apartment.

Michael felt awkward about being there, about having to ask
personal questions, and wondered why he had agreed to Lionel's request. “I
understand your father studied in the United States.”

“He was quite proud of his time there,” the daughter said.
“He studied at George Washington University in Washington D.C. He was a good
man, who died much too young.”

“I'm sorry.”

Mrs. Yang nodded. “He went to New York City for a symposium
put on by a big American company, Phaylor-Laine Pharmaceuticals. And also he
planned to meet with his best friend in college, a Danish scientist. Meeting
the Dane, I've heard, truly excited him. Unfortunately, as he crossed a street,
a truck hit him. He died instantly. It was fifteen years ago.”

“He died in the United States?” Michael asked, surprised.

“Yes.
In New York City, near the United
Nations building.
He never got to meet his Danish friend.”

After words of condolence, Michael got to the point of his
visit. “Did your father ever speak about
alchemy,
or
about an ancient text on alchemy being in the U.S.?”

At the word “alchemy,” the daughter turned to Jianjun, who
stood quietly in the background, for a translation. She looked quite bemused
when she got it.

“My father's work involved genetic engineering. He did
botanical and genetic analysis of early Chinese herbal medicine, concentrating
on herbs used in far-flung regions. It certainly had nothing to do with
anything
so
silly as alchemy.”

“Yes, I can imagine,” Michael said with a smile. “But did he
ever mention alchemy at all?”

She thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, he told
me one story, both interesting and sad. I think that's why I remember it. It
obviously moved him deeply.”

She sat stiff and upright as she relayed the story. “During
the Han dynasty, from 206 BC to 220 AD, when the Chinese empire expanded into
Central Asia its major problem soon became control of the newly conquered
population. A wealthy man, Lord Hsieh Ch'en-yu, was named governor of the
northern outskirts of what is now the Xinjiang province. His wife refused to
accompany him to such a barbaric region. One day, as he rode through a village,
he saw a beautiful young woman. He demanded she become his concubine. She had
no choice—if she refused, she and her family would have been killed.

“He forced the concubine to accompany him to the desolate outpost.
She was very much afraid, and for protection brought with her many ancient
herbs and potions to perform her magical arts, namely alchemy. She had been
taught how to use them by her grandmother.”

She paused to see if this was the sort of story Michael
sought. As an archeologist, anything going back two thousand years fascinated
him. He nodded.

She continued. “In Central Asia, Lord Hsieh soon discovered
that he could not hold back the freedom-loving nomads. Swords drawn, they
swarmed over the Chinese. The new governor was among the first killed. As the
Han Chinese soldiers continued to fight, the concubine urged them to flee into
the mountains of what is now Mongolia, to a more desolate area where they might
live. She took Lord Hsieh’s body with her. There, her retainers built an
underground tomb for Lord Hsieh. Stories traveled back to the eastern capital
of the magnificent woman who led her people, trying to find a safe haven for
them. The young woman’s bravery so humbled and impressed the soldiers that—although
a lowly concubine from a poor family—they honored her with the title
‘Lady.’  But soon after her people completed the tomb, nomadic tribes
found them and attacked once more. Lady Hsieh knew there was no hope.

“She told the soldiers they were free to leave, to escape
back to their homes if possible. She also set free all Lord Hsieh’s slaves and
retainers, and then, in the dead of night, she disappeared. Everyone knew she
desperately wanted to live, and many believed she used her magical arts to that
end. To this day, however, no one knows what happened to her or to her
husband's gold and possessions.”

For reasons he did not understand, Michael could feel the
young woman’s terror at facing death far from everything she held dear.

“Over the centuries, the tale of Lady Hsieh slipped into the
mists of time except in Bayan Ölgiy where she escaped. In Bayan Ölgiy it is
believed that whoever finds Lord Hsieh’s tomb will possess untold riches.” Mrs.
Yang folded her hands, her story ended.

Michael soon thanked Mrs. Yang for her time and left.

He reported on Dr. Chou's death to his brother. But the
story of Lady Hsieh haunted him. One of his earliest lessons as an archeologist
was to learn to listen to local legends. Before long he decided to search for
Lord Hsieh's tomb.

Michael first sent Jianjun to the western Bayan Ölgiy area
to see if anyone there could confirm the history behind the tale. The story was
corroborated, and the areas where the tomb might have been located were
narrowed to a manageable degree.

Many difficulties, political as well as geographic, hampered
his plans. Mongolia wasn’t quite as paranoid about strangers as China, but
almost. And, although Mongolia was an independent country, China maintained a
high degree of influence over its government.

By this time, the dig had become an obsession to Michael. He
never considered giving it up and forged ahead with his plans. While Jianjun
located men and heavy equipment, he dealt with the government. Officials told
him “No” for months, then out of the blue, like a drain unplugged, everything
opened up. It seemed nothing short of miraculous, but he took it gladly.

He wasted no time making a site surface survey using
resistivity meters and ground penetrating radar. Echoes from radio pulses
reflected back changes in soil and sediment, and the depth of those changes.
Scans revealed the location of a cavity some twenty-three feet below the
surface with a diameter of ten feet or so.