The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan (7 page)

“But that was just one of the properties of the Hotaniya crystals. Incidentally,
Hotaniya
is Chinese for ‘gunpowder.’ Legend had it that using these Hotaniya crystals, Xuanzong could actually stir sleeping volcanoes into life, and that he
had actually intended to bring about these ten thousand days of fire by bringing back to life the Emeishan volcano of southwest China.”

“Never heard of it,” said Axel.

“Me neither,” said John.

“Perhaps not,” said Nimrod. “But if you want to know why the name of Emeishan is important, then here’s a fact that might interest you: There are some scientists today who believe that it was not a meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs and all life on earth, but a catastrophic eruption of Emeishan some two hundred and sixty million years ago.”

Nimrod paused for dramatic effect.

“Holy smoke,” said John. “It’s all beginning to make sense. And you think that someone has gotten hold of these Hotaniya crystals and may be deliberately making all of the world’s volcanoes simultaneously active? Is that it?”

“As usual, you cut straight to the heart of the matter, John,” said Nimrod. “But, in a nutshell, yes, I do think it’s a possibility.”

“Holy smoke,” repeated John.

“My theory is not without its problems, however,” admitted Nimrod.

“To put it mildly,” added the professor.

“For someone to have gained possession of these ancient Hotaniya crystals,” said Nimrod, “they would first have to have found the tomb of Genghis Khan, which has been lost ever since his death in
A.D.
1227.” He shook his head. “Over the centuries many people have looked for it, and failed.”

“But is it such a big deal if a lot of volcanoes become more active?” said John. “After all, back at the hotel, you said yourself that there are at least fifty eruptions every year. And six or seven hundred volcanoes that are active today.”

“He’s right,” said Philippa. “You made it sound like we have learned to coexist with volcanoes. In fact, I think you actually said that.”

“Perhaps I did,” admitted Nimrod. “And in a way, that is true. However, underneath what anyone including myself says about volcanoes and man coexisting on our planet, there must always be a strong note of caution. Eruptions like the one at Mount St. Helens, in Washington State, back in 1980, remind us all of the incalculable destructive power of the planet we live on. That was the deadliest and most economically devastating volcanic event in the history of the modern United States. If all of the earth’s major volcanoes suddenly became active at the same time and erupted with the power of Mount St. Helens, we would face a cataclysm beyond human imagination.”

“What your uncle says is no exaggeration,” the professor told the twins. “That amount of volcanic ash in our atmosphere would affect everything. It would blot out the sun, and cause huge electrical storms. Transportation, communication, and energy systems all over the planet would be paralyzed. The world’s weather patterns would be severely affected and affect the growth of crops. Millions of people would starve. Or die of thirst from lack of clean water. That might sound like science fiction, but it isn’t.”

“So,” added Nimrod, “if there’s one chance in a hundred that all this new volcanic activity is man-made, then I have to do something about it. We all do.”

The professor was nodding but the twins knew their uncle’s words were really meant for them and them alone. Neither had forgotten the gist of what he had said earlier in the morning: that in some frightening and predestined way it was down to them as djinn, and to their tribe in particular, to save the world.

T
wo men stepped out of the second ice-cream van. Neither one of them looked particularly friendly.

One, smoking a cigarette, jostled past Bruno and ducked into his van. There he inspected the ice-cream drum, which was full of vanilla flavor, switched it off, and then, as if to make sure that it was spoiled, tossed his cigarette inside.

Groanin thought this was a bit unnecessary. All the same, he smiled and tipped his bowler hat to the other, larger Italian walking toward him. The man was carrying Bruno’s shotgun, which was the main reason Groanin felt an extra obligation to be courteous. In Groanin’s opinion it always paid to be polite to a man carrying a gun, especially in a foreign country.

“Good morning, kind sir,” he said cheerily. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Perfect for selling ice cream, I should have thought. Not that we were doing that, of course. I said, not that we were doing that. We only stopped to ask for directions to the airport, which is where I am going. We certainly didn’t stop to sell any actual ice cream, you understand. Indeed, the fact
that my friend here is driving an ice-cream van is incidental to the fact that he is acting in the role of taxi driver, there being no taxis to be had in the whole of Naples, what with rail strikes and volcanic ash and so on. It could just as easily have been a furniture van. Or a grocery van. The important thing was that I might travel back to England as soon as possible. I have important business I need to attend to. In Manchester. I don’t even like ice cream very much. It’s too cold for my stomach, you see.”

While Groanin was explaining himself, the man from the Mafia — whose name was Vito — looked the butler up and down with some incredulity. He saw an Englishman with pin-striped trousers, a dark jacket and matching vest, a crisp white shirt and black tie, and a bowler hat. In short, he looked very like a picture the Mafioso had once seen of Sir Winston Churchill, a former British prime minister. And it was very evident to the Mafioso that Groanin must be someone equally important. Surely only someone important would have dressed in this ridiculous and absurdly formal fashion. This impression was underlined when the Mafioso searched Groanin’s bags and found one of them full of money.

“You speak any Italian?” Vito asked Groanin.

“I’m afraid not,” said Groanin. “Just English.”

“That’s all right,” said Vito. “I speak the English pretty good, eh?”

“Yes,” agreed Groanin. “You speak the English very good.”

Vito called the other, smaller Mafioso over and, for a moment or two, they discussed the cash, in Italian.

“How come you have so much money?” Vito asked Groanin. “What do you do for a living, Englishman?”

“I’m a butler,” said Groanin.

“What is a butler?” asked Vito.

“A servant,” said Groanin.

“For someone very important?”

Suddenly, Groanin thought it best not to be unemployed but to be someone who had an influential employer.

“Oh, yes,” said Groanin. “Very important. And very powerful, too. You’ve no idea how powerful. If anything happens to me, this person will be furious.”

“Is this his money, or yours?”

“It’s his,” said Groanin. “I’m looking after it for him.”

“So this person you work for, he’s rich, yes?”

Groanin laughed bitterly. “Oh, making money’s never been a problem for him. If he wants some money, he makes it.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Maybe this man you work for might pay us a reward for looking after you. For protecting you, yes? For delivering you safely back to him.”

“Perhaps,” said Groanin. “Yes, it’s possible. But I’m not in need of any protection right now, thank you. What I do need is a ride to the airport.”

Vito put his hand on Groanin’s shoulder.

“Everyone needs protection,” insisted Vito. “Especially ’round here. This is not a safe area, Englishman. It’s full of thieves and robbers who might steal your money. But don’t worry. Me and my little friend Toni here, we look after you good. Eh, Toni?”

Toni grinned a gap-toothed grin and nodded.

“Rome airport is closed,” said Vito. “All airspace in Italy is now closed. Because of the volcano. But we take you to a place where you can get on a truck, or a boat, yes? And then maybe you can telephone your boss and tell him you are all right, and your boss will give us a reward and everything will be fine.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Groanin. “If you’re sure that it’s no trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” insisted Vito. “You get in the van and I drive you somewhere safe.”

Thinking that the Mafioso might just be as good as his word, Groanin stepped into the second ice-cream van and waited while Vito and Toni spoke in Italian to Bruno. Everyone bit their thumbs at each other in compliance with what Groanin assumed must be some sort of local custom, and then the two Mafiosi got into the van alongside Groanin.

They drove for several minutes before Vito asked Groanin if he had a cell phone. When Groanin said he did, Vito suggested he might like to call his boss and tell him that he was all right and being well taken care of.

Groanin hardly wanted to call Nimrod so soon after resigning, since it would look like he was already eating humble pie and begging for his old job back. Vito was very insistent, however, and since Groanin hardly wished to offend someone who was offering him protection, he quickly complied and dialed Nimrod’s number.

Without success.

“That’s strange,” he said, looking at his cell phone. “I can’t get a signal.”

Toni inspected his own cell phone and said he couldn’t get a signal, either; and when Vito confirmed that he, too, was unable to use his cell phone, Groanin suggested it might have something to do with all the volcanic ash in the atmosphere.

“I was watching television last night,” he said, “and they said that volcanic ash particles are always saturated with electrical charge, which affects mobile phone signals.”

Glancing out of the window, they all saw that a small electrical storm was already in progress in the darkening purple sky above their heads.

After a while, Vito stopped the ice-cream van and tried using a pay phone to call Nimrod but once again failed to make contact.

“All the local landlines are down,” said Vito. “’Cause of the electrical storm.”

This seemed to irritate Toni and, speaking Italian to Vito, he said, “If we can’t even call this Nimrod guy, then how can we make a ransom demand for his fat friend here?”

“I dunno,” confessed Vito.

Toni looked at Groanin and smiled reassuringly.

Only a little reassured, Groanin nodded and smiled back, understanding not a word of what was being said about him.

“Some kidnapping this is turning out to be,” said Toni.

“You’re right. I thought it would be easy.”

“You know what I think? I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I think we should be happy with stealing all of the money he has in his bag and no more. We should dump this guy by the side of the road and forget about trying to extort a ransom
from this Nimrod guy. Everything is against us. The volcano. The weather. The phones.”

“I got a better idea, Toni,” said Vito. “We should sell him.”

“Sell him?” Toni looked critically at Groanin. “Why would anyone want to buy him? A bald, fat Englishman?”

“I was thinking that if this guy’s boss is as rich as he says he is, then he’s worth something, surely,” said Vito. “I was thinking we could sell him to the Romanian Mafia. Those guys will buy anything if they think there’s a possible profit in it. They’re much more ruthless than we are.”

“Good idea,” said Toni. “Besides, kidnapping is their special thing.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know anyone in the Romanian Mafia?”

“Sure. You remember that Romanian kid. What was his name? Decebal?”

“The fourteen-year-old who runs Guidonia? Sure. How could I forget? He’s just about the most famous gangster in Italy since he was on that TV program. But he’s ruthless, Vito. A madman. They don’t call him the Wolf of Guidonia for nothing. He bites people. It’s dangerous for us even to go to Guidonia and talk to that kid.”

“Relax.” Vito chuckled. “I’ll give him and his friends a free ice cream.”

Both Italians looked at Groanin sandwiched between them like a slice of salami, and smiled.

Groanin smiled back but inside he was beginning to suspect that he was in deep trouble.

S
o what
are
we going to do?” Philippa asked her uncle.

“We need to get to Mongolia and look for the grave of Genghis Khan as quickly as possible,” said Nimrod. “Only by going there will we discover if someone has indeed found his grave and those Hotaniya crystals. And if that proves to be the case, then we may well find some clues as to who that someone might be. And what they’re up to.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” said Axel, pointing at the television. “All European airspace is now closed because of volcanic ash. And Mongolia is quite a distance from here.”

“You’re not kidding,” said John.

“To be exact, the distance between Naples and Ulan Bator, which is the capital of Mongolia, is six thousand nine hundred and forty-four kilometers,” said Nimrod. “About four thousand three hundred and fifteen miles.”

“And there’s a rail strike,” said John.

“I think we’re going to have to travel rather more quickly than any transcontinental train,” said Nimrod.

“What do you suggest?” The professor uttered a dry laugh, which sounded even drier by being uttered from behind a mask. “A magic carpet?”

“You know? I was thinking the exact same thing,” said Nimrod. “Especially now that it’s no longer safe to travel by whirlwind. Which means we’ll have to get ourselves to Morocco first. So that we can buy a carpet from the Very Special Rug Emporium of my old friend Asaf ibn Barkhiya. In the old city of Fez.”

Nimrod stood up and went over to a map of the Mediterranean on the laboratory wall. “We need to charter ourselves a boat from Naples to Nador, as quickly as possible,” he said. “Come to think of it, the U.S. Navy has a hydrofoil at Naples. I saw it entering port just the other day. We can probably borrow theirs. That’s what, about one thousand and twenty-two miles, door to door. So we’ll probably have to refuel in Cagliari on the island of Sardinia. With any luck we can be in Nador in, let’s see, about seventeen hours from now.”

“This is no time for jokes, Nimrod,” said the professor.

“I agree.” Nimrod glanced at his watch. “It’s two o’clock. We can arrive in Nador by, say, eight tomorrow morning. No, wait, six o’clock. Naples is two hours ahead of Nador.”

“Where’s Nador?” asked John.

“It’s a Rif port on the Bhar Amzzyan lagoon,” said Nimrod. “And the major trading center in Morocco. Rather a nice town, as it happens. A taxi from there to Fez is about one hundred and forty miles. So that’s three hours.”

“Really, Nimrod,” protested Professor Sturloson. “None of this is at all helpful.”

“Which means we can be in Mr. Barkhiya’s shop in time for lunch.”

The professor walked over to Axel, shaking his head. “The man’s taken leave of his senses.
Hann er brjálaður
.”

“
Ég held pað líka
,” said Axel. “Must be the heat. It affects the English differently from other people, I’ve heard.”

“Professor. Axel.” Nimrod beamed at the two Icelanders. “My apologies. I know it must seem that I’ve taken leave of my senses, gentlemen, but rest assured, dear sirs, I haven’t. There’s something important I have to tell you. About myself and my young friends here. And I apologize for not having told you before; however, when I
do
tell you, you will understand why not, I think. It simply isn’t the sort of thing an Englishman mentions unless he really has to.”

Nimrod sighed and held out an empty hand.

“As the great Tariq Ali once said, a demonstration is better than a long speech. So, please watch carefully and, for the present moment, I would ask you to postpone all of your questions just as I shall postpone all my explanations and, for now, I merely say the following: QWERTYUIOP.”

No sooner had Nimrod uttered his focus word — all djinn use a word to focus their powers — than a set of car keys appeared on his palm.

“That’s a pretty good trick,” said the professor. “But what is the relevance, please?”

“The relevance is quite simple, my dear Snorri,” explained Nimrod. “These are the keys to a brand-new Humvee A2 of the kind used by the U.S. military. A vehicle like this will make it much easier for us to drive through the
navy checkpoints in the port of Naples on our way to commandeering a hydrofoil.”

Axel looked astonished.

The professor would have looked astonished, too, if he hadn’t been wearing a mask.

“You can’t be serious,” said the professor.

“I’m very serious,” said Nimrod. “The Humvee is now parked immediately outside the front door.” Nimrod and the children were already heading toward the door. “Shall we go? I suggest we use it to drive to the port as quickly as possible.”

“There’s no Humvee out there,” said Axel. “We’d have heard one arrive. Surely.”

Even so, Axel and the professor still followed Nimrod outside where, as Nimrod had said, a brand-new Humvee now stood immediately in front of the door, gleaming in the sun, where no Humvee had been standing before.

John shook his head. “If I might make a suggestion, Uncle?”

Nimrod nodded. “By all means, my boy.”

“The U.S. Marines would never take delivery of a Humvee without a camouflage pattern,” said John. “This one’s still wearing a standard factory paint job.”

“Good point,” said Nimrod. “Perhaps you would care to fix that yourself.”

“Sure,” said John. And uttering his own focus word, ABECEDARIAN, he fixed the problem in the blink of an eye.

“This is better,” he said. “It’s what the U.S. Marines call Woodland Digital Camouflage.”

“And doubtless they think it’s a modern masterpiece,” said Nimrod, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“This isn’t happening,” said the professor.

But a few minutes later the three djinn and two mundanes were driving down the western slope of Vesuvius in the general direction of Naples.

“Remind me of why we’re going to Morocco, when we really want to go to Mongolia,” said the professor.

“To get ourselves a magic carpet, of course,” said Philippa. “Only, correct me if I’m wrong, Uncle Nimrod, but I thought you said that magic carpets didn’t exist.”

“That was also my impression,” the professor said weakly.

Nimrod shook his head. “I said nothing of the sort, Philippa. Previously, I said that nearly all modern djinn prefer to travel by whirlwind. Or airplane. And of course we did. But since it’s no longer permitted for good eco-minded djinn to travel that way, and since it is difficult at the best of times to get to Mongolia, we must look to more old-fashioned methods of transport. Such as a flying carpet. Of the kind described — as I’m quite sure you will both remember — in night number five hundred and seventy of the
Arabian Nights
.”

Professor Sturloson groaned. “This isn’t happening.”

“And please don’t let me hear either of you twins describing it as a magic carpet,” insisted Nimrod. “You know my views on the use of that word. It’s a flying carpet. I know, I know — a djinn on a flying carpet is vulgar, clichéd, embarrassing. John, you would probably say it was corny, but I can now see no alternative to us owning one. A flying carpet
must be procured if we are ever to get to Mongolia. Which is why, before we do anything, we must visit Mr. Barkhiya, in the Medina, which is the old part of Fez.”

Forty minutes later, they reached the port of Naples, followed all the signs for U.S. naval forces in Europe, and soon they found themselves approaching a security checkpoint.

“We are just going to drive through, are we?” inquired the professor.

“Something like that,” said Nimrod, and quietly muttered his focus word.

The professor glanced momentarily out of the window and when he looked at Nimrod again he was surprised to see that the Englishman was now wearing the uniform of a U.S. Navy admiral.

“How did you do that?” he gasped.

“Mind over matter,” Nimrod said breezily and, drawing up at the checkpoint, he smiled at the two marines manning it and handed over his identification document. In fact, his documents were nothing more than a guide to Pompeii that Nimrod had picked up at the railway station earlier that same morning, but when the marines looked at it Nimrod made sure that they only saw what they wanted to see, and no one wants to see an admiral with the wrong document.

“I don’t believe it,” exclaimed Axel as the security barrier lifted and Nimrod drove the Humvee into the naval base.

“No,” said Nimrod. “But the important point is that
he
believed it.”

Some of the U. S. Sixth Fleet was anchored in the harbor and while Nimrod was certain he knew what a hydrofoil
looked like when it was moving at speed above the water, he was less confident of identifying one when it was stationary. Once again, he muttered his focus word and this time the result was that he handed John a copy of
Jane’s Fighting Ships
, an annual reference book of information on all of the world’s warships.

“Here,” he said. “You have keen eyesight, John. See if you can find the ship we’re looking for in there.”

John studied several silhouettes and photographs and then shook his head. “I dunno,” he said. “They all kind of look the same.”

“True.”

Nimrod slowed the Humvee next to some military policemen and leaned out of the window. The policemen all saluted and listened as Nimrod, now speaking with a convincing American accent, addressed them to ask for directions to the hydrofoil.

“Is there anything he can’t do?” the professor asked Philippa.

“Sure there is,” said Philippa. “We’re djinn, not gods or mutants or anything weird like that. And mostly it’s like he says: It’s mind over matter. You see, whatever is possible in logic is also permitted in physics. A thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the thought. So what is thinkable is possible, too.”

“You make it sound like I could do it,” said the professor. “Could I? Could you teach me, perhaps?”

“Well,” said Philippa, “I expect you could do something. Like move a pencil across a desk. Something small. But not
this kind of stuff. Only a djinn can make things appear out of thin air. Like three wishes and stuff like that.”

“I see.”

“But we have to learn how to do it,” continued Philippa. “To develop the part of the brain where our powers are focused. The part that we djinn call the Neshamah. You just don’t have a part of your brain like that. Sorry.” She shrugged apologetically. “Everyone’s different.”

“If you want to know the way, ask a policeman,” said Nimrod, when they were moving again.

“You speak pretty good American, Uncle Nimrod,” observed John.

“What is English as spoken by an American?” remarked Nimrod. “Simply a rhotic consonant dropped like a plastic rattle from a baby’s pram. The lazy merger of vowels, such as
a
and
o
, which like a middle C and D are played at the same time by the clumsy forefinger of some ham-fisted pianist. And a whole load of compound badland, flatland words, and incompetent nouns that properly are verbs. All in all, American is to English what the hamburger is to beef: ground-up meat in an outsized and unnecessary bun.”

“Gee,” said John. “And I thought you liked us.”

“Oh, I do like you,” said Nimrod. “Some of my best friends are American. I just wish you could all say the word
water
without sounding like you were asking a rather tentative question.”

Nimrod stopped the Humvee in front of a gangplank that led off the dockside onto the USS
John Thornycroft.
The gangplank was guarded by two more military policemen.

“They’re not going to like my mask,” said the professor.

“And they’re going to wonder why you are accompanied by two kids,” said Philippa.

“Ye of little faith,” said Nimrod.

“They’re right, though,” said John. “We’re hardly a conventional bunch of visitors, are we?”

“The military mind,” said Nimrod, “is especially susceptible to one thing in particular: orders. It’s simply a question of making the orders appear to be from the highest authority and therefore quite incontrovertible.”

Nimrod thought for a moment, imagined that he had a smart U.S. Navy briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, which was full of impressive, laminated passes for the professor, Axel, and the twins, and some top secret orders, and it was so — at least it was as soon as he had uttered his focus word.

He handed around the passes and waited for a moment while everyone got their curiosity out of the way and examined them.

“A good likeness.” The professor stared at a photograph of himself in the black mask and chuckled.

“Forgive me for asking, Professor,” said John as he and the others followed his uncle out of the Humvee. “But couldn’t you have had a face transplant, or something? A better mask, perhaps.”

Philippa threw up her eyebrows to hear this. Her brother was always keen to walk where good manners seemed to forbid that anyone should tread.

“I thought about it,” said the professor. “But that kind of surgery is very time consuming, John, and really, I’m much
too busy with my work to spend months and months in a hospital having someone mess around with something so inconsequential as my appearance.” He tapped his head and then his heart. “It’s in here where things matter. It’s in here that being human counts most of all. Don’t you think?”

“Er, yes,” said John, who thought that not having a face would have mattered a great deal to him. Until he remembered what had happened to his mother and how she now had a completely different face to the one he’d known just a few years ago.

“Besides,” added the professor, “not having a face to speak of hardly seems to matter since there are so very few people where I live, in Iceland. And hardly any mirrors. Icelanders aren’t much given to looking at themselves. They’re rather more introspective, like I was saying. And it’s only when I visit other countries that it starts to assume greater importance. The people at customs can be rather vexing, to say the least.”

“I’ll bet,” observed John.

“I remember one time at customs in New York, a rather belligerent immigration officer made me take off my mask and fainted after I’d done so. And she sued me for nervous shock.”