The Mongol Objective (31 page)

Alexander reluctantly put it in his pocket. “When?”

“You’ll know when.” He sighed and returned his attention to the tower and the crypt at the top. “Why don’t you two figure out how we get up
there
?”

Nina glanced around, scouting out the walls and the floor, looking for anything out of place. “There’s got to be something that would lift us up there.”

“Or,” said Alexander thoughtfully, “bring
it
down here.”

Montross clapped his hands. “Now that sounds more like it.” He considered the walls, the dome, thinking. But Alexander was ahead of him.

“The animals,” he said, pointing to the base around the minaret. He turned on his flashlight again to get a better look. “The creatures nearest the tower? In the first row, they’re all set up inside circles, see? And I noticed when I stepped on this dragon-creature here, the floor dropped slightly, and I heard a click.”

He stepped away, and it slowly rose back up with his weight off it. “See?”

“We see,” Nina said, turning on her light and shining it around the other animals, then to the walls. “You look for those stepping stones, I’ll look for the traps that waste you when you step on them in the wrong order.”

Montross stepped back, watching his footing. He thought for a moment, and then set down the Emerald Tablet, pulled out his necklace, so it dangled down his chest. It seemed to be vibrating, tugging alternately between the floor and its brothers, higher above. “We’re almost there. Hurry.”

He closed his eyes and winced. Held his head as he shook it. “Still there, damn it. Still there.”

“What?” Alexander asked, distracted as he moved around the tower.

Montross trembled, then waved a dismissive hand. “Something in the future.”

Alexander poked his head around the tower, then disappeared again. “Is it where you’re killed?”

“Of course. But this one in particular, this death . . .” Montross was still shaking his head. “It’s not cleared yet. I had hoped it would be, just by getting this far, but now it seems there’s more to do. It won’t be enough to find all the keys. We have to use them somehow.”

“I got it!” Alexander yelled. In a few seconds he appeared again. “At least, I think I do.”

“Do you or don’t you?” Nina snipped. “Did you RV it? Because if not, I’d rather you didn’t guess.”

“I didn’t, but I don’t think I need to. Look,” he insisted, “I might not have seen all the clues back at our lighthouse, but it’s like it was made for a young boy. A kid like me.”

“How so?”

“The animals, there are nine “normal” ones. You know, a monkey, a giraffe, a horse and a rhino.”

“Yes, normal,” Nina said, “if you’re in the zoo.”

“Well, normal compared to three creatures that I’d say don’t belong.”

“Three?” Montross perked up.

“Yup.” Alexander rubbed his hands. “See, it’s also almost as if he knew we’d be coming, and that there would be three of us. Just like the three keys.”

“Or,” said Montross, “he knew it would take a different form of three to do what has to be done after gaining these keys.”

“The three brothers,” Nina whispered. “So where are these three special creatures?”

Alexander shrugged. “Well, there’s the dragon, which I already found. And then there’s a gryphon and a centaur.” He looked up sharply. “Hm. So, if they’re supposed to represent the brothers, I wonder which one you are? And which one’s my dad?”

Montross smiled. “Well, since I’m the only one here, I’m picking the one I like.” He circled around until he found the centaur and stood on it. “Nina, be so kind as to set your feet upon the gryphon. And Alexander?”

“The dragon, I know.”

“So we’re sure about this?” Nina asked, standing outside the boundary of the gryphon, its forepaws raised up in attack, its jaws wide.

“Sure about nothing,” Montross said, “except that I don’t die in the next few hours. If this doesn’t bring down Genghis Khan, then we’ll need to think of something else.”

“But what about me?” Alexander asked, suddenly shivering. “Will I die?”

Montross shrugged. “No, only one of us will, and very soon.” He shot a glance to Nina.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Ready for this too.” She took a step, then brought both feet onto the gryphon’s body. It dropped, then all three circular stones turned
.

Suddenly, they were all facing outward, and there was a wind, a rush of air—and all the lights went out except their two flashlights.

The main door slammed shut and something slid across it with a grating sound.

The tower rumbled and shook. Then it began to lower into the floor.

#

They ducked and winced, afraid of being hit by some kind of protrusion as the tower descended. It fell with incredible speed, grinding through the hole.

Shielding his eyes, Montross looked up, keeping his attention on the golden centerpiece as it roared down to their level.

I hope it stops,
he thought, just as the entire structure jarred to a thundering halt. About six feet of structure remained, six feet of the tower structure until the apex upon which lay the glorious funeral barge under an open tent of white cloth. The coffin itself was more like a curved boat, carved with circles and sun-wheels and crescent moons, but no text.

As for the body that lay regally upon it, all Montross could see from this angle was an array of extravagant silk coverings and the shadowy silhouette of armor made of leather and fur, a helmet containing a grizzled face gazing skyward.

On the side he was facing, he saw three vertical indentations. Footholds.

“Nina. Now’s the time. Take your position.”

“Can we step off the circles?”

“I believe so.”

“Let’s try,” Alexander said, moving off it. In a moment, he and Nina were together with Montross.

“It’s not rising,” Nina said.

Montross set one foot in the lowest groove. “It doesn’t appear so. Maybe it was only designed to descend once. But one thing is for certain. Come with me, Alexander.” He pulled himself up to the second rung, then reached out a hand to the boy.

“I’m not going up there.”

“Yes you are. And I’ll tell you the one thing I have
seen
for certain.”

Alexander took his hand, and Montross pulled him up. “When I take these keys, when I lift the body of the great Genghis Khan to retrieve them, a door will open and we’ll see your father again. Along with a lot of trigger-happy soldiers.”

Nina walked away, into the deeper shadows against the farthest wall, taking from her pack the sniper rifle and night-vision scope.

And a lot of ammo.

14.

“Look out!” Phoebe yelled, pulling Orlando back as Caleb leapt out of the way, amazed. The door suddenly burst apart in a blur as something immense dropped into the chasm. And kept dropping. The noise was deafening. Some of the soldiers turned and fled, believing at last the curse of Genghis Khan had caught up with them.

“What the hell?” Renée yelled, her voice barely audible over the cacophonic sound. She splashed backwards through water that was swiftly rising .

“Oh no!” Caleb shouted. “The cylinder. It’s displacing the water from the tunnel.”

Phoebe fought a wave that had risen almost to her shoulders.” Displacing it onto us!”

Orlando reached out and caught her hand, just as Caleb grabbed his collar. They stood fast against the swirling waters rising up to their chins, and Caleb immediately had a flashback to the room under the Pharos.

Stop!

As if on cue, the corridor rocked and jarred with a thud as the cylinder seemed to have hit bottom. Pebbles and dirt dropped from the edges on the ceiling, and the rounded portion of the block in front of them trembled. And as the lights above the water aimed at it, something appeared. An outline.

“A door!” Renée said, pointing.

It shook, trembled again, and then the rectangular section opened, sliding upward and letting in the water.

“It’s draining,” Caleb said, dropping after trying to stand on his toes. He directed his light into the opening. There was a ladder of sorts, but the rest of the wide cylinder looked like the interior of a hollow tunnel, sucking in the water down into its base.

Renée splashed forward first and shone a light inside and then up. “Stairs rising in a spiral. Only one direction, so at least we don’t have to make any more choices.”

“What’s up there?” Chang asked, getting closer, shaking the water out of his gun.

“Would you believe,” said Renée, “another door?”

#

Alexander climbed up after Montross and he stood in the only spot left, right between the body’s feet. “What are you doing?” he whispered, shining his light up to where Montross was fumbling with something around the corpse’s head.

The corpse . . .

Alexander shuddered, squeezing his legs together and trying not to touch anything, not even to brush against any part of the body.

“Just wait,” Montross said. Then as Alexander’s light reached him he snapped, “And shut that off!”

Alexander flicked off the light. But not before it had flashed onto the face under the helmet. Alexander had seen mummy movies before and read his share of archeological articles with photos showing unearthed Incan kings and Egyptian burials, where they’d peeled off the funeral masks and revealed the leathery, grizzled faces, the sunken eye-sockets, the browning flesh, the long teeth and hair that had continued to grow. This face was similar, and yet more regal, more peaceful.
He’s held up pretty good down here,
Alexander thought as he shut off the light.

And then the eye sockets began to glow with a green aura. Temujin’s entire face seemed to pulse with light flickering from within the eyes and seeping out from between his mummified lips, from the cracked teeth still set in the dried gums retreating in a wide smile.

“Damn,” said Montross, whose necklace with its pyramidal stone glowed and pulsed to an unheard heartbeat. “Looks like the keys are in his head.”

Alexander bent forward and tried to look into the mouth, but couldn’t see anything down in the throat. It seemed more like the light pulsed from higher, behind the eyes. “They may have drilled into the back of his skull. Saw that in a
National Geographic
special once.”

Montross held the tablet in his left hand, then set it on Genghis Khan’s chest, over the folded arms. “Here, hold this a sec, Genghis. Sorry, but I’ve got to lift you up.”

“Wait,” said Alexander. “I think there might be another trap.”

Montross pulled up the body by its shoulders. “I know,” he said as a lever, previously kept down by the weight of the Khan’s body, now rose, making a grinding sound as if gears somewhere were turning, spinning.

Opening a door beneath them.

“Nina!” Montross yelled to her out in the darkness, beyond the emerald glow. “It’s time.”

#

“Go!”

Caleb heard Renée shout, and then the men were rushing up the spiral steps and bursting out of the newly opened doorway. The interior section had suddenly shaken and made a shrill scraping sound before it separated and descended, hauled below by inner gear works triggered by something above.

All the soldiers ran through, their flashlights secured to their weapons, their heads down. Then Renée went up—after first hesitating.
Probably waiting for the screams
, Caleb thought. He couldn’t believe she had them just rush in.
Getting desperate?

Only Chang had stayed behind, and he promptly jabbed Caleb in the back. “Move. You three. Now—”

But that’s when the automatic gunfire started, and the echoes of screaming men tore through the entrance and into the empty tower.

#

Alexander cringed and tucked himself into a ball, right on the edge of the funeral platform next to the great Khan’s legs, and right in front of those glowing eyes. Eyes in a head lolling forward with Montross’s less-than-ceremonial treatment. A head shaking side to side in violent denial as Montross rooted around within the hollowed-out hole in the back of the corpse’s skull and dug out his prizes.

Gunshots. Men crying out. Swift, precise death zipped across at the soldiers. Nine men stumbled about with crisscrossing flashlight beams and automatic gunfire erupting chaotically. Everyone trying to find out who was shooting at them. Alexander ducked lower and toppled sideways as a shot zipped past and took out a chunk out of the Khan’s shoulder, exploding powdery flesh into his eyes. He crunched into an embrace with the body, screamed and then felt Montross’s arm around his back, his body in front of him protectively.

He shouted something lost in the gun blasts.

Alexander glanced over the side and saw another flashlight beam spin around, then crash onto the floor as its wielder fell. Another scream and a soldier was thrown back against the stairs Alexander had just climbed, blood spraying from a punctured skull. Alexander had a sudden moment’s fear that all Genghis needed to be reawakened was human blood.

But nothing moved, no life stirred in his bones, no heartbeat throbbed in the chest pressed against Alexander’s ear.

Another scream, then more gunshots, this time concentrated toward one section. “There!” Someone yelled. A woman’s voice. Followed by a single-fire weapon, blasting off round after round.

Another scream. Alexander cringed. That sounded like Nina.

She’s been hit!

“Stay low,” Montross said as he pulled free, stood and withdrew the Ruger from his waist. He aimed and fired at the one soldier in view, taking him down. Then he turned and froze in the beams of light immediately brought to his location.

“Drop it!” someone yelled with a thick Chinese accent.

And Alexander could see the lights blasting into Montross’s eyes, blinding him. He lifted his gun and his other hand to ward off the light.

And then someone was climbing, rustling up the steps behind him, standing over him and snatching the gun from Montross in one quick movement. Then Montross was grabbed and hurled to the mausoleum floor.

A woman wearing a thick black vest and a shiny gold badge turned to Alexander, where he was still locked in a death-embrace with the great Mongolian conqueror.