The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan

by P. B. Kerr

  “I mean a helicopter seems so inherently non-aerodynamic,” said Nimrod. “Just the nickname chopper sounds like it could be you that gets the chop, if you see what I mean.”

  “I’m not talking about the chopper,” said John. “Nimrod? Are you saying you are losing your powers?” “What happened to Dybbuk can happen to us all,” said Nimrod. “He exhausted his Neshamah: the source of all his djinn power. He used it all up in sheer vanity, with trying to be a cheap cabaret magician. Remember?”

  “How could I forget? But you’re not saying that this is happening to you? Are you?”

  Nimrod sighed loudly. “I suppose I am rather. Really, it will be all I can do to get us back to Fez to see Mr. Barkhiya and collect those other carpets we ordered.”

  “Don’t say that,” said John. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Is there?”

  “No one can keep going forever,” said Nimrod. “And it’s not that I’m losing all my powers, John. It’s just that, like dear old Mr. Rakshasas, it’s not what it was. Nor am I. I get tired more easily after using it. I need to rest more than of old.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “In case something happens to me. Like poor Charlie. And Axel. I’m afraid they’ve been on my mind, rather. Which is something else that happens when you get older.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, Uncle,” insisted John.

  “Let’s hope so. Look, what I’m saying is this: that I can’t do this without you, John. Or Philippa. Whatever lies ahead of us, I’m going to need your joint strength to help me through it. For all our sakes, you must promise me not to give up on the world of mundane. They have need of us now more than ever, my boy.”

  “Of course, I’m not going to give up on them. My dad’s a mundane. And yes, I promise.”

  “Good. Come on. Let’s go and snoop around. I think we’ll head belowdecks and look for Mr. Rashleigh Khan himself, shall we? Follow me.”

  “How shall I do that? That is, follow you.”

  “Oh, yes. I was forgetting. Tell you what, I’ll hum. That’s it. Just follow my humming.”

  “And if someone hears you? I thought you were worried that some poor mundane might think us a ghost.”

  “That’s their problem. Now that I’m here and see the size of his boat, I realize I’m too tired to care much about the feelings of the people who work for Mr. Rashleigh Khan.”

  “What will you hum?”

  “That’s an excellent question, John. Let me see, now. It ought to be something appropriate, I think. Ah, yes. How about ‘Coming Through the Rye’?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Of course you do. You just think you don’t.”

  They went down the polished wooden stairs into the dining room with John following the sound of Nimrod humming “Coming Through the Rye,” which, of course, he did recognize. A couple of times in the yacht’s narrow gangways and passageways, they passed close by members of the Schadenfreude’s smartly uniformed crew who, hearing the sound of Nimrod humming, looked around nervously to see from where it was coming.

  After several minutes, Nimrod stopped abruptly in what looked like a finely furnished study and, for a brief second, John passed straight through his uncle’s spirit. Momentarily, he experienced his uncle’s great worry for the world as well as a little of the weariness he had been talking about, and he let out a gasp as he felt the weight of them on his uncle’s shoulders.

  The study was like a museum and decorated with many Mongol treasures in glass cases that had obviously been looted from the grave of Genghis Khan: a golden breastplate, a shield, a golden helmet, several Mongol swords, and a collection of priceless Mughal paintings. A small man sat in a big leather chair behind a large custom-made desk on which was ranged a whole battalion of telephones. He looked European but he wore an Asian-looking chin beard. And he was wearing a pair of chocolate-brown silk pajamas on which was the monogram RK.

  “I think that’s our man,” whispered Nimrod as the man got up from his chair and knelt down beside a safe from which he took an ancient-looking gold box. The box was inlaid with the design of an erupting volcano and looked Chinese.

  “The Hotaniya crystals,” whispered John. “It has to be them.”

  For a moment, the man stopped and looked around, as if he had heard something; but then he shook his head, closed the safe, and left the room.

  “Come on,” whispered Nimrod. “Let’s follow him.”

  John and Nimrod followed Rashleigh Khan into the center of the ship, where there was a sort of control room with a large indoor pool. But the pool was not for swimming. Floating in the bright blue water was a small submarine. Khan climbed aboard, followed invisibly by John and Nimrod; a few minutes later one of the submarine’s crew members closed the outside hatch and they began their enclosed and rapid descent.

  It was a short voyage to the bottom of the sea — no more than five minutes — where the midget submarine docked again with some other vessel. And this time, when the outside hatch opened, the two djinn were met with an astonishing discovery.

  Anchored on the seabed underneath the Schadenfreude was a submersible drilling platform equipped with a viewing bubble, a small crew, a gymnasium, and a radio-control room. The drilling platform was tethered to the hull of the ship by several long cables which, thought John, probably explained why it was that the Schadenfreude never moved from its anchor.

  Rashleigh Khan greeted the men aboard the drilling rig with an affable silence and carried on walking through a set of double doors that opened automatically and then closed behind him, but not before, once again, John and Nimrod had followed; as soon as they felt themselves rising slowly to the leather-lined ceiling, the two djinn realized they were in an elevator car and that this time they were descending at some considerable speed into a borehole made by the drill rig.

  Their descent lasted almost fifteen minutes, by the end of which John was feeling decidedly queasy and told himself that if he’d had a stomach, he might have thrown up; it was only when the elevator car stopped moving and they emerged into a small and very warm cave that John realized he was actually feeling claustrophobic.

  Other than Rashleigh Khan himself, there was only one person in the dimly lit cave: a short, fair-haired woman with a pointy nose and glasses. She was dressed in a white coat and holding a clipboard and, according to the name badge she wore on her breast pocket, her name was Dr. Björk Sturloson.

  This was not a common name and John wondered if she might be related to the professor.

  On the floor of the cave was a metal hatch like the one in the submarine and, once Khan arrived, the woman in the white coat put on a pair of thick leather gauntlets and began to turn the wheel on the hatch to open it.

  As soon as the hatch was laid open, a wave of intense heat filled the undersea cave. Undeterred by the temperature, Khan put on some goggles, knelt beside the hatch, and carefully opened the inlaid golden box he had brought from the surface. Inside was what looked like a handful of small, uncut yellow diamonds.

  John thought they might easily have been part of a meteorite from outer space; they looked to have an extra luminosity and sparkle that no terrestrial, earthly diamond ever had.

  He glanced down the hatch and saw, at the bottom of a deep drill hole, a point of intense light that resembled a little sun, and it was a second or two before John realized he was looking into the actual molten bowels of the earth.

  “Let’s have some fun with Mr. Khan,” whispered Nimrod.

  “Yes, let’s,” whispered John.

  “Did you say something, Mr. Khan?” asked Dr. Sturloson. “No.”

  “My mistake.”

  Khan removed one of the crystals from the golden box and held it up to the light for a moment; he was about to drop it down the drill hole when the hatch closed abruptly with a loud bang.

  “I think not, Mr. Khan,” said the woman in the white coat. But the voice was not a woman’s. It belonged to Nimrod and as soon
as he heard it, John realized that his uncle had taken possession of Dr. Sturloson’s body. “This horrible endeavor is now at an end.”

  Rashleigh Khan stood up and frowned.

  “What on earth’s the matter with you, Björk?” he said. “And why in the name of Sam Hill are you speaking in that ridiculous English voice?”

  John almost laughed because Mr. Khan’s own voice — thin, lisping, effete, with a distinct flavor of the American Deep South — was almost cartoonish in its delivery, and reminded John most of Droopy Dog.

  “Well? I’m waiting. Explain yourself.”

  “I’m afraid that would take much too long to explain now,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “Let’s just say that I’ve had a complete change of heart about what we’re doing here.”

  “Look, Doctor,” said Khan, “if this is some elaborate scheme of yours to persuade me to pay you more money, it isn’t going to work. Considering all you have to do is keep an eye on the magma level and the temperature in the shaft, I think I pay you quite handsomely already.”

  “Next to the billions you’re making from this criminal enterprise?” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “It’s chicken feed.”

  “So it is about money.” Khan smiled. “I thought as much. Where I am involved, it’s always about the money. Sometimes it seems as if I’ve spent my whole life walking three steps behind my wealth.”

  “Stop, I almost feel sorry for you,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “If you carry on like this, I shall have to take out my violin and play ‘Hearts and Flowers.’ ”

  “How rude you are. Well then, let’s negotiate. I’m not an unreasonable man. Just an obscenely wealthy one. Only let’s drop the soppy, stern, limey voice, shall we? Perhaps I do owe you something more than our agreed fee. After all, it was your idea to drill down into the gap between the Eurasian tectonic plate and the African tectonic plate. So, how much? Shall we say another hundred million dollars?”

  Nimrod hesitated for a few seconds, just long enough to read what was in Dr. Sturloson’s mind.

  “Yes, of course, I see now,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “You’ve been dropping the Hotaniya crystals into the magma that’s produced by the subduction of one tectonic plate below another. That magma also flows into the planet’s surrounding mantle and produces the startling effect on all of the earth’s volcanoes. It is clever. Clever but completely reprehensible and horribly criminal. And you’ll probably get life in prison for this.”

  Rashleigh Khan sneered. “What is this? An attack of nerves? A crisis of conscience? Guilt? Or have you just lost your mind?”

  “Like I said, it would take much too long to explain.”

  Nimrod read a little more of Dr. Sturloson’s mind. “And that’s how you’re going to make money out of this? From owning the world’s entire supply of chocolate?” Nimrod shook Dr. Sturloson’s head and gasped. “I’m not often shocked, Mr. Khan. But this is shocking. I can’t believe anyone could be so selfish. Or greedy. Or trivial. That you should be prepared to risk millions of people dying of starvation for chocolate.”

  “You know? Now that I come to think of it, that voice suits you better than the Icelandic quaver I’d gotten used to. I do declare I prefer it. There’s something annoying about anyone that can’t actually pronounce the word actually.” Khan shook his head. “And what do I care if millions of people starve?” He laughed cruelly. “Let them eat cake. The earth has an unsustainable level of population, anyway.”

  “Think of the world’s children. What about them?”

  “Children?” Rashleigh Khan’s face wrinkled with disgust. “Children? I hate children. Always did. What do I care about children? They’re nasty, horrible, greedy, dwarfish little creeps. Always whining. Always asking for more. ‘I want I want I want.’ Revolting. None of them has ever done a day’s work. Oh, no. They want stuff, but are any of them prepared to find a job in order to get it? Not a bit of it. They’re like locusts, I tell you. Parasites. It beats me why people have children. All they do is eat and consume and watch television and sleep until midday and live off the work of adult people. No, I hate children more than anything in the world. Besides the money, the reason I’m doing this is to spite all those horrible kids the world over.” He laughed a cruel little laugh.

  Nimrod had heard enough. He made Dr. Sturloson tighten the wheel on the hatch and then throw the leather gloves into the back of the cave.

  Rashleigh Khan laughed. “What is this? You really think that’s going to stop me?”

  “It’s over, Mr. Khan,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “I just want you to know that before we take your helicopter and fly to the police station in Naples. I believe there’s a helipad on the city carabinieri roof, so that should make things nice and convenient for you. I know you value your own comfort and convenience above almost anything. Except money. And chocolate, of course.”

  Rashleigh Khan turned away and pressed the button on the elevator door. “This conversation is over,” he said quietly. “And so are you, Dr. Sturloson. I do believe I will have some of my men come back down here and lower you very slowly, an inch at a time, into that magma shaft.”

  “John,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “Take control of Mr. Khan, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What?” Rashleigh Khan looked above his head. “What is this? What is going on here?”

  But it was too late. John dropped off the ceiling and slipped into the billionaire’s body and nodded back at his uncle.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m in, sir.”

  Quickly, he read Rashleigh Khan’s thoughts, which were all about Genghis Khan, and making money and yet more money, and chocolate, of course. Khan seemed to like that more than anything. John had never before encountered anyone who seemed to like chocolate better than Rashleigh Khan. So much that he was quite prepared to —

  “What?” he said out loud. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I assume you’re referring to Mr. Khan’s scheme, John.”

  “I am. Let me get this straight in my own mind. Well, in Rashleigh Khan’s mind. But you know what I mean, Uncle.”

  “Yes, John.”

  “Rashleigh Khan has three obsessions in life: making money, Genghis Khan from whom he believes he is descended, and chocolate. Which is why he already makes the most expensive chocolate in the world.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Having already tried and failed to buy up all of the major cacao tree plantations in the world, he did the next best thing: He bought the world’s entire supply of cacao beans, from which chocolate is made. But not content with this, he then set about with his plan to destroy all of the cacao trees in every plantation on earth, using the Hotaniya crystals to drastically affect the world’s weather.”

  “That’s about the size of things, yes,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “It’s simple market economics. Having control of the supply, he then tried to drastically affect the demand.”

  “And in this way, he planned to raise the price of chocolate from the current level of four thousand dollars a ton to four hundred thousand dollars a ton; so that a chocolate bar currently costing a dollar would in the future cost a hundred dollars. He was actually planning to have cameras installed in candy stores around the world so that he could photograph the faces of kids who couldn’t afford to pay a hundred bucks for a chocolate bar.”

  “Horrible.”

  John shook Rashleigh Khan’s head. “But would anyone actually pay that kind of money for a chocolate bar?”

  “I’m afraid that there’s no limit to what people will pay for things they like. Caviar is nothing more than lightly salted fish eggs. But it’s the scarcity that makes it expensive. Years ago, American bars used to serve it as a free snack to make customers thirsty. These days, it’s three hundred dollars for just an ounce and three quarters.”

  “This whole scheme is the most evil thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “It’s pretty bad, isn’t it? But tell me, John. Dr. Sturloson — who,
as you may have gathered, is the professor’s estranged wife — she has no idea how any of this can be prevented. Is there anything you can see in Rashleigh Khan’s mind that tells you exactly how this might be achieved? If any of this can be reversed?”

  John thought for a moment, which is to say he looked through some of what was in Rashleigh Khan’s memory.

  “There was something in the box that contained the Hotaniya crystals,” said John. “Something in the safe. A parchment. Only Khan hasn’t a clue what it means or how it works.”

  “Well, let’s hope it does work. For all our sakes. Right you are, my boy. We’ll collect that parchment on the way to the police station in Naples.”

  “But what are we going to tell them?” “As Dr. Sturloson and Rashleigh Khan, we shall simply make a full and frank confession of everything. Make a clean breast of it. The whole dirty, rotten scheme.”

  John hesitated as, for a moment, one of Rashleigh Khan’s own selfish thoughts managed to intrude upon his own.

  “Do you think they’ll believe us?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Dr. Sturloson/Nimrod. “I speak fluent Italian. And I can assure you, John, that there’s nothing or nobody the police in Italy like more than a billionaire who walks in off the street and confesses to a major crime.”

  CHAPTER 41

  AUBADE

  John and Nimrod returned Dr. Sturloson and Rashleigh Khan to the Schadenfreude, where the billionaire immediately ordered his pilot to make ready the helicopter for a flight to Naples. Then they went back to the study to retrieve the parchment from the safe.

  The combination was the date of Rashleigh Khan’s birthday, which was easy enough for John to recall. But the actual script on the ancient yellow paper was quite incomprehensible to both him and Rashleigh Khan. But luckily, Nimrod was able to understand it.

  “I thought it would look a bit more Chinese,” said John. “But it doesn’t look even remotely Asian. Frankly, it looks more like Elvish.”