The Eye of God (15 page)

“Not that there’s much
sea
left in the Aral Sea,” Rachel said with a smile. She had traded her Carabinieri uniform for a red turtleneck sweater, jeans, and hiking boots.

“Ah, but that’s not the fault of geology, but the hand of man. The Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest lake in the world, about the size of Ireland. But then the Soviets diverted its two main rivers for irrigation back in the sixties, and the sea dried up, losing ninety percent of its water, becoming a salty, toxic wasteland, dotted by the rusting hulks of old fishing boats.”

“You’re not selling this upcoming tour very well.”

“But Father Josip must believe the place is important. Why else summon us there?”

“Besides the fact that he might be crazy? He’s vanished for almost a decade.”

“Perhaps, but Director Crowe has enough confidence in this venture to supply us with field support.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms, scowling her dissatisfaction. After the attack at the university, she had been against this venture entirely, even threatening to lock him up in order to keep him in Rome. He knew the only reason they were seated at the edge of the Caspian Sea was because of Sigma’s conditional support.

Yet Director Crowe hadn’t explained
why
he had agreed to supply this help—not to Vigor or Rachel—which was troubling to both of them. The director had only expressed that he might need their help afterward as a cover story for a mission in a restricted area of Mongolia.

Mongolia . . .

That fact intrigued him.

His eyes drifted again to the DNA report concerning the relics—the skull and the book—but Rachel reached across and shifted the papers to the side.

“Not this time, Uncle. You’ve been looking at those for hours, and only growing more frustrated. I need you to focus on what’s ahead.”

“Fine, but then let me talk it out. I’m sensing I’m missing something critical to all this.”

She shrugged, conceding.

“According to the initial report compiled by the lab, the DNA is consistent with an East Asian ethnicity.”

“You mentioned that already. The skin and the skull came from the same guy, someone from out in the Far East.”

“Right, but from the autosomal study that was faxed overnight, the lab compared our sample to various known ethnicities. From that, they were able to compile a rank of the top possibilities of race.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Han Chinese, Buryats, Daur, Kazakhs—”

Rachel interrupted, “As in the people of Kazakhstan.”

“Right. But at the top of the ranking was
Mongolian
.”

She sat straighter. “Where Painter’s team wants us to go.”

“That’s what has got me so obsessed. I know there’s a connection I’m missing.”

“Then let’s start there,” she said. “Did Director Crowe say exactly
where
his team was planning to head in Mongolia?”

“Somewhere in the mountains northeast of their capital . . . the Khan Khentii Mountains.”

“And that’s a restricted area.”

He nodded.

“Why?”

“It’s both a nature preserve and historically significant.”

“Why
historically
?”

Vigor opened his mouth to answer—then went cold as a frightening possibility struck him. For a moment, the insight blinded him to his surroundings, so filling his brain he could not see.

“Uncle . . .”

His vision snapped back, as he recognized the mistake he’d made. “I’ve been looking at the trees and missed the forest . . .”

He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He dialed the DNA lab and demanded to speak to Dr. Conti. Once the researcher came on the line, he told him what he needed done to confirm his fear. It took some convincing, but Conti finally relented.

“Check those Y chromosome markers,” Vigor finished. “And get back to me as soon as you can at this number.”

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked as he hung up.

“The Khan Khentii Mountains. They are sacred to the Mongolian people because those peaks are said to hide the lost tomb of their greatest hero.”

Rachel was versed enough to guess the identity of that hero. “Genghis Khan?”

Vigor nodded. “The Mongolian warlord who forged an empire under the might of sword and will . . . an empire that extended from the Pacific Ocean to the waters outside this window.”

Rachel glanced out and back. “You don’t think the skull is—?”

“That’s what I’ve asked Dr. Conti to confirm.”

“But how can he even do that?”

“A few years back, a well-documented genetics study showed that
one out of two hundred
men in the world carry the same unique Y chromosome, a chromosome with a set of distinct markers that trace their roots to Mongolia. That number climbed to
one out of ten
in regions that were once part of the ancient Mongol Empire. The report concluded that this Super-Y chromosome came down from
one
individual, someone who lived approximately a thousand years ago in Mongolia.”

“Genghis Khan?”

Vigor nodded. “Who else? Genghis and his close male relatives took multiple wives, had even more offspring through rape and conquest. They conquered half the known world.”

“And spread their genetic stamp.”

“A stamp we can verify. Those Y-chromosome markers are well known to geneticists and easy enough to compare to our sample.”

“That’s what Dr. Conti is doing right now?”

“He said he could have the results almost immediately, as the DNA sequencing on our samples had already been completed.”

“But if you’re right and the markers match, what does that tell us? Like you said, many men carry this Y-chromosome.”

“Yes, but Genghis died in 1227.”

“The thirteenth century . . .” Her brows knit together. “The same age as the skull.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “How many men back then carried that specific chromosome?”

Rachel did not look convinced.

Vigor pressed his case. “After Genghis died, his followers slaughtered his entire funeral procession. Those who constructed his tomb were also killed. So were the soldiers who oversaw its construction. And apparently such bloody efforts were effective in keeping it secret. Despite centuries of searching, the location of his tomb remains a mystery to this day. A tomb said to hold all the riches from his conquered lands.”

“The discovery of which might be worth killing someone over,” Rachel said, plainly referring to the grenade attack.

“We’re talking about a treasure that would put Tutankhamen to shame. The world’s greatest treasures flowed into Mongolia and were never seen again, the vast spoils of war from China, India, Persia, Russia. The royal tomb was even said to hold the crowns of the seventy-eight rulers he conquered. Not to mention the priceless religious artifacts pillaged from countless churches, mostly those of the Russian Orthodox.”

“And nothing was ever found?”

“More important to us, his
body
was never found.”

Before Rachel could respond, Vigor’s phone rang. He snatched it up to find Dr. Conti on the line.

“I did as you asked, Monsignor Verona. We compared the twenty-five genetic markers that make up the Genghis Khan haplotype to your sample.”

“And how many match?”

“
All
twenty-five.”

Blood drained from Vigor’s face. He stared down at the rolling case at his feet, realizing what it might hold. He understood now why someone might kill to possess what it contained, how the contents inside might hold clues to the world’s greatest treasure. Inside his suitcase, he perhaps held the skull and skin of the world’s greatest warlord, a man revered as a semigod by his people.

The relics of Genghis Khan.

2:10
P
.
M
.

“You were right,” Duncan said. “Our Italian friends picked up a tail.”

He stood with Monk Kokkalis at a beachside barbecue stand. Cold sunlight shone off the neighboring sea. The day was chilly, but the wood and charcoal grill—where skewers of meat, fat, and vegetables sizzled—cast off enough heat to make even Duncan’s light jacket feel too warm. The burn of Persian spices and oils also wafted over him, stinging his eyes with every gust off the sea.

After landing at the Aktau International Airport, they had shuttled Dr. Jada Shaw to their chartered helicopter at a neighboring private airfield. Once she was secure, Monk and Duncan had headed to the central district of the small port town to retrieve the final additions to their team. Duncan had been informed about the attack on the pair, and Monk had suggested caution in approaching them, to make sure the two weren’t being tracked from Rome.

If they’re dragging a tail,
Monk had said,
let’s cut it off now.

It proved to be a smart precaution.

Duncan recognized that he could learn a thing or two from this more seasoned Sigma operative.

“How do you want to play this?” he asked.

During their twenty-minute vigil on the restaurant, they spotted a pair of people showing an inordinate amount of interest in the couple seated at the window. The restaurant bordered the beach’s pedestrian thoroughfare, where joggers and bikers vied for space on the narrow strip of asphalt. Though it was November and the off-season, this central district of the town still bustled with activity. So it was easy to spot anyone suspiciously lingering by the restaurant.

A dark-haired man, clearly Asian, had settled onto a bench on the far side of the restaurant, at the edge of the beach. He wore a knee-length coat, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his back to the view, seldom taking his eyes off the restaurant.

Not exactly sophisticated.

The other, a woman, matched her partner’s hair and features. She wore a black woolen cap, and a shorter version of the man’s brown coat. She was slim and not unattractive with high cheekbones and smoldering eyes. She leaned against a light pole on this side of the restaurant.

“I’ll go along the beach,” Monk said. “Approach the man from behind. You get close to the woman. Wait until I’m in position. Upon my signal, we’ll grab them both.”

“Got it.”

“And keep your weapon hidden, march them over to our SUV. Be discreet. We’ll secure them there and question them en route back to the airfield. I want to know who the hell they are and why they tried to blow up my friends.”

“Why do you think they’re watching now versus attacking?”

Monk shook his head. “Might be too public to act in broad daylight. Or maybe they’ve been ordered to follow them, to discover why the pair traveled from Rome to Kazakhstan? Either way, it ends here for them.”

Monk set off, moving onto the sand and casually strolling down the beach. He never looked once toward the seated man. Once his partner was halfway toward his target, Duncan pushed away from the counter and headed toward the woman. He did his best to match Monk’s pace, to time his approach so that they’d reach their respective targets at the same time.

That was the plan—until the ring of a bell drew Duncan’s attention to the asphalt path. He glanced back to find a bicyclist signaling him out of the way. Only steps away, the woman also stirred.

As the bicycle swept past, she followed, as if drawn in its wake, heading toward her partner. In an unfortunate set of circumstances, Monk chose that moment to shift from the beach toward the bench.

The woman’s shoulders stiffened. She stopped, clearly sensing something amiss. She swung around, her eyes immediately locking onto Duncan’s. Whether it was some telltale giveaway in his face or the fact that he was clearly American, like the other closing in on her friend, she reacted instantly.

She bolted straight for the restaurant.

Damn it . . .

Duncan lunged after her, his arm outstretched, his hand grabbing for the tail of her coat. Waterproof fabric slipped through his fingertips. A jogger got in her way, bouncing her to the side like a startled deer. The brief stumble gave Duncan the extra moment to catch and grab a firmer hold. He yanked her back to him, hugging his other arm around her chest.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Monk slamming his target back down onto the bench as the man tried to stand.

So much for being discreet.

The flow of pedestrians slowed, stirring away from the commotion.

Duncan shifted his arm, getting a better grip. But where he should have felt soft breasts, he found only stiff, rigid contours. Worse still, his fingertips buzzed as the tiny rare-earth magnets registered a strong electrical current hidden under the coat.

He immediately knew
why
the woman was running headlong toward the restaurant. Lifting her off her feet and twisting at the waist, he flung her bodily back toward the sand. Her small form flew high and far.

“Bomb!” he hollered to all around him, especially his partner.

As people scattered or froze, he sprinted toward the restaurant window. Monk vaulted the bench, throwing an elbow into the man’s face, knocking him backward—then followed.

Duncan had his pistol out. He shot two rounds into the plate glass, aiming away from any diners. With the glass weakened, he leaped and hit the window with his shoulder, shattering through it.

Glass scattered in a tinkling rain around him as he landed inside. With his next bound, he bowled into the two Italians, clotheslining them both to the ground.

He turned to see Monk dive headlong through the same hole—followed on his heels by a thunderous blast.

The entire wall of windows blew out, accompanied by a rain of rock, sand, and smoke. Monk shoulder-rolled amid the carnage across the restaurant floor. Duncan sheltered the two civilians.

Before the glass even stopped bouncing across tabletops and floor tiles, Duncan got his two charges up on their feet.

“Move it! Out the rear!”

The old man resisted, his arm reaching for a roller bag.

Duncan grabbed it versus arguing. Feeling like the most overpaid bellhop, he rushed the pair through the smoke toward the kitchen. He collected Monk along the way. The man bled from several lacerations, an imbedded shard of glass still poking out of his coat.