Tomb of the Khan

by Matthew J. Kirby

  The next morning, Victoria met them in the lounge by herself. She checked her tablet and suggested that Sean continue with the simulation of his Viking ancestor, who was apparently named Styrbjörn. Grace still wasn’t sure she was ready to go back in, and as for Owen, Victoria said he could contribute to the effort through a simulation of his own. That only felt as if they were trying to distract him.

  “I’m not doing anything to help you until I get to see Monroe,” he said.

  “I’m not sure that will be possible.”

  “Why not? Isaiah promised me I could talk to Monroe.”

  Victoria looked down at her tablet. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”

  The Templar leader had lied to him. “Then go get Isaiah.”

  “I’m afraid Isaiah is occupied.”

  “Occupied?” Owen raised his voice a little. “With what?”

  “That is none of your concern,” she said, frustration cracking some of her shrink veneer.

  “He’s leaving, isn’t he?” Grace said. “After what happened last night, he’s going after the prong.”

  Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t say—”

  “Then he’s going to China,” Owen said. “Or Mongolia.”

  “How do you know that?” Sean asked. “You haven’t talked to Natalya.”

  Owen looked directly at Victoria. “Because I was there.”

  With that, the woman dropped the rest of her forced gentility. “Do you know where the prong is?”

  “No,” Owen said. “My DNA was a dead end, otherwise the Assassins would already have it.”

  Victoria narrowed her eyes at him. “Your reunion with Monroe will have to wait until Isaiah returns. In the meantime, I will be here to guide you through further Animus simulations. Isaiah wanted me to tell you he is particularly hopeful about your current ancestor, Sean.”

  Sean looked up. “He is?”

  Victoria tapped her tablet again. “Yes. We believe the Ptolemaic prong was the one you all discovered in New York. The Seleucid prong is the one we hope to find in Mongolia. That leaves the Macedonian prong. Our researchers have modeled some hypothetical routes it might have taken through history, and one of the strongest candidates puts the final piece of the Trident somewhere in Scandinavia.”

  Sean actually grinned at that. Like a fool. He had the look of an addict.

  “When is Isaiah leaving?” Grace asked.

  Victoria turned and walked toward the door. As she opened it, she said, “He may be gone already. Cole is in charge now.” And then she left.

  As soon as the door closed, Owen turned to the others. “Monroe is somewhere in the Aerie. Do you know where he might be?”

  “Why?” Sean asked, but Owen ignored him.

  “There are five buildings,” Grace said. “We haven’t seen them all.”

  “I think I saw three of them last night,” Owen said. “I’m guessing they’re keeping Monroe in one of the other two.”

  “Wait!” Sean leaned forward, his voice raised in alarm. “What are you going to do?”

  “Relax,” Owen said. “You just stay on your trip.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Owen turned to Grace. “What about you?”

  She looked hard at Owen, and took her time in answering him. “Why? Are you thinking of busting him out?”

  “That’s the idea,” Owen said. “If Isaiah’s going to Mongolia, I know I’m not staying here.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip, and Owen smiled. “We already know we make a good team,” he said.

  “Eliza and Varius made a good team,” she said. “You and I? That’s not a settled question.”

  But Owen could sense the frustration in her, too. He saw it in her face when Victoria told them that Isaiah might have already left. “I know you don’t want to be left behind,” he said. “Besides, chances are good Griffin is headed that way, too, and David will be with him. I know you’re still worried about him.”

  “That is a low blow.”

  Owen held up his hands. “It’s the truth.”

  Grace stared at him for another full minute, and Owen just left the question sitting there on the table the whole time, waiting patiently.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “I’m in.”

  Owen nodded. “Good.” Then he turned to Sean, who’d been silent for a while now. “What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m staying here,” Sean said.

  “Of course you are.” Owen really hadn’t expected him to say anything different. “Can we at least trust you not to rat us out?”

  Sean shrugged. “I don’t speak for you. You don’t speak for me.”

  Owen decided that would have to be good enough. “Okay, then.”

  Grace leaned on one of her elbows. “You have a plan for how to pull this off?”

  “I think so.”

  “And what am I going to think of this plan?”

  Owen smiled again. “You probably won’t like it.”

  Javier could tell that Griffin still boiled at what Natalya had done in the simulation, but apparently he’d accepted there wasn’t anything he could do about it and he’d moved on to preparing them for the trip to Mongolia. He’d spent more time on the video chat with Gavin and some other members of the Brotherhood, and now Javier helped him pack up weapons and equipment, most of which Natalya refused to handle, while David had to be constantly reminded not to touch anything.

  “So how are we getting there?” Javier asked. “Does that Templar car fly?”

  Griffin didn’t give him anything for that. Just silence. “I’ve arranged a plane.”

  “What, like a private jet?”

  The Assassin stopped packing. “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  Javier nodded and returned to what he was doing, loading up a crate with anything he could fit inside it. Each of them also stuffed a backpack. They grabbed food, the sleeping bags, and also some warm gear, though most of the clothing in the basement was a bit large for Natalya and David. When they’d finished, Griffin had them bring it all out to the barn, and then he shut everything down and secured the basement lair.

  The car had some storage space, in two rear compartments on either side of the jet turbine. They loaded what didn’t fit in those into the backseat, or carried it on their laps. Javier sat up front with Griffin, while Natalya and David sat behind them.

  It was nearing evening as they pulled out of the barn and down the driveway, and Javier took one last look at the ghost house before they rounded a bend and it disappeared in the trees. Griffin drove them to the highway, and then turned them south, toward the airport, which was a good hour away. Fellow travelers stared at the car as it passed them. Javier smiled at that for a little while, and then watched the sun’s slow-motion fall to the horizon, and had almost drifted off to sleep when Griffin took an exit, waking him up.

  “This isn’t the airport,” David said.

  “Sure it is,” Griffin said.

  David pointed out the window. “No, I can see the terminal over there.”

  “We’re not taking that kind of plane.”

  Javier frowned, but decided to keep quiet, wait, and see.

  Griffin drove them through a series of warehouses and other industrial buildings, finally pulling into a small, empty hangar. Two men waited inside with an airport luggage truck. Griffin stopped the car but left it running.

  “Keep it somewhere safe,” he said to one of the men. “I’ll be back for it.”

  “You got it.”

  The second man helped them load all their bags and gear onto the luggage truck, and after they’d emptied the car, Javier watched the first guy pull it back out of the hangar and drive away.

  Griffin motioned them all to climb onto the luggage truck, and the stranger drove them out onto the tarmac. Javier breathed sulfurous exhaust the whole way, the engine of the truck both loud and obnoxious after the purr of the car. There weren’t many jets waiting that Javier could see, and he tried to figu
re out which one they might be headed toward. But when the luggage truck came to a stop in front of a big cargo plane of some kind, Javier realized the flight would probably not be what David had hoped for.

  “What is this?” David asked, pushing up his glasses.

  “This is your private jet,” Griffin said.

  David shook his head. “That is not what this is.”

  “Sure it is.” Griffin pointed at the plane’s wings. “Those are jet engines, and we’ll have the entire thing to ourselves. Unless you count all the packages.”

  “Packages?” David asked.

  “Packages.”

  “You’re mailing us to Mongolia?” Javier said.

  “By way of China.” Griffin clapped his hand on Javier’s back. “Hide in plain sight.”

  The inside of the plane matched the idea of a private jet even less than the outside. Their seats were made of canvas sewn around a metal frame. Basically, deck chairs bolted to the bulkhead. But the hold was pressurized and heated, and there was actually a bathroom. The drone of the engines made it a bit difficult for Javier to talk without raising his voice, but they weren’t so loud he couldn’t think.

  After they’d been in the air for a few hours, and Natalya and David had both somehow fallen asleep, Javier leaned over and asked Griffin who the men back in the hangar were, and how the Brotherhood had arranged this flight.

  “Abstergo has many enemies,” Griffin said. “Not all of them are Assassins. We sometimes work together toward a common goal.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Javier said.

  “You could say that.” He regarded Javier for a moment, nodding to himself. “In spite of your recklessness, you’ve impressed me.”

  “Is that hard to do?”

  “Very.”

  Javier nodded back, but he hadn’t made any of his choices to impress Griffin.

  “I’ve spoken to Gavin about you, and he agrees. If you’re looking for a place and a purpose, you may have found it.”

  “In the Brotherhood?”

  Griffin nodded.

  “Is this a formal invitation?”

  “If you want it to be.”

  Javier found the idea appealed to him more than he would have expected it to. The Assassins represented choice. Equal rights for everyone, everyone free to exercise their individual agency. That vision of the world seemed better than the world in which Javier lived, where he didn’t yet feel free to openly be himself.

  “Is there an initiation?” he asked, half joking.

  “An induction,” Griffin said. “Then your real training would begin.”

  Javier nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Do.” Griffin closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the bulkhead. “But try to get some rest, too.”

  Javier was tired, but after that conversation he found it difficult to sleep. He wondered what Owen would say about all this, and then he wondered if that should even matter. This was Javier’s choice. This was about finding the place where he belonged.

  Many hours later, the plane landed in Beijing, and Griffin led them out onto the tarmac. A persistent, gray haze stole the horizon away in every direction. They might have been surrounded by mountains, or on an island, and Javier wouldn’t have known it.

  Before they’d gone far, an SUV pulled up, and a woman got out. She appeared Chinese, approaching middle age, with long black hair, and she wore a fitted white outfit that looked like a cross between military and Olympic athlete. Unlike the two men from before, she seemed to Javier exactly like an Assassin.

  “Griffin?” she said.

  Griffin nodded and shook her hand. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Yanmei.”

  “Please.” She gestured toward the SUV. “Come with me?”

  “Let us grab our gear.”

  “Of course.”

  Yanmei helped them load their bags and crates into the back of her vehicle, and then they all piled in, Griffin in the front passenger seat, Javier and the others in back, while Yanmei drove. Javier noticed her scrutinizing all of them in the rearview mirror.

  “Gavin didn’t explain what this is about,” she said. “Why are you here?”

  “A Piece of Eden,” Griffin said.

  Yanmei whipped her head toward him, and then slowly returned her gaze to the road. “He could have mentioned that,” she said. “He didn’t think we could retrieve it on our own?”

  “It’s a unique situation.”

  “How so?”

  Griffin turned around. “Natalya, here, has seen it.”

  Yanmei paused. “In the Animus?”

  “Shaun obtained blueprints and a processor in Madrid,” Griffin said. “We’re actually trying to locate three different Pieces. The prongs of a Trident. These kids, and three others, are connected to it. You’ve heard the name Isaiah?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s tracking something he’s calling an Ascendance Event, and the six of them are a part of it.”

  “I see.”

  “Isaiah is probably on his way here now. Have you seen any increased Templar movement?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s been quiet.”

  “That’s odd.” Griffin ran a hand over his shaved head. “That’s very odd. You’d think they’d be raising an army …”

  “Gavin said I need to get you to Mongolia. The Burkhan Khaldun?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I have a private jet standing by.”

  “Finally!” David said.

  Javier and Natalya laughed at that, and even Griffin chuckled.

  When the SUV reached the far side of the airport, Yanmei pulled it up to a plane that would probably make David very happy. Javier didn’t know much about jets, but this one looked fast, with the sleek lines of an arrow. They unloaded their gear from the SUV, and then they boarded. Inside the cabin, the leather upholstered chairs welcomed them with wide arms and reclining backs. The seats ran down the sides of the plane, grouped in two’s that faced each other.

  “Where’s the rest of your cell?” Griffin asked.

  “Tibet,” Yanmei said. “I didn’t have time to recall them. Gavin didn’t give me much notice.”

  “He didn’t have any. This has really developed over the past thirty-six hours.”

  Yanmei headed up to the front of the plane. “Let me make sure all the preflight checks are done, and we can be on our way.”

  Javier settled into a chair facing Natalya, while David sat farther down from her, on his own, staring out through the little window at the runway. Before long, the plane moved, and Yanmei returned to the cabin. She buckled into a seat opposite Griffin, on the other side of the plane from Javier and Natalya.

  “Introductions?” she said.

  “Sure.” Griffin pointed at Javier, Natalya, and David in turn, giving the Assassin their names.

  She smiled at each of them. “And Natalya, you’ve seen this prong from the Trident?”

  Natalya nodded.

  “What does it look like?”

  “A weird dagger,” David said. “We saw the first one in New York.”

  “The first one?” Yanmei frowned. “Perhaps you should brief me from the beginning.”

  So the three of them took turns, Javier doing most of the talking, David doing most of the interrupting, in explaining first Monroe, and the Draft Riots simulation, followed by the events of the past few weeks. Natalya described her memories of her Mongol ancestor, and Yanmei listened to it all patiently, without asking questions until they were through.

  Then she sat for a moment with her index finger pressed to her lips. “One thing you didn’t say is whether you know where Möngke Khan was buried.”

  “We don’t. No one does.” Griffin grunted. “Natalya elected not to find out.”

  “What do you mean?” Yanmei asked.

  “She intentionally desynchronized.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she believes that no one should have the Piece of Eden,”
David said.

  Natalya turned around to face him. “I can speak for myself.” Then she turned to Yanmei. “I just think it might be better if it stayed hidden.”

  Yanmei nodded. “I don’t actually disagree with that. But I don’t think that’s the situation we face, is it? That’s not a choice we have. From what you have said, it doesn’t seem to be a question of if it’s found, but by whom.”

  This older Assassin had a much better bedside manner than Griffin did. Natalya actually seemed to be listening to her, thinking about what she said, instead of arguing and shutting down.

  “You know where it is,” Yanmei said, “don’t you, Natalya?”

  She paused. “Not exactly.”

  “I have an idea,” Griffin said. “I saw enough before she killed the simulation, I think I’ll be able to get us pretty close.”

  Yanmei nodded, but she didn’t take her eyes from Natalya, who had pulled her feet up onto her seat, hugging her knees. She stayed that way for the rest of the flight, as the Chinese countryside passed beneath them, and they flew up, over mountains, above a wide and rugged plateau.

  “The Mongolian steppes,” Yanmei said. “I don’t know what it is about this land, but it breeds conquerors. Attila the Hun. Genghis Khan—”

  “Isaiah,” David said, but fortunately thought better of adding Griffin to that list.

  “We should land at Möngönmorit in another hour or so,” Yanmei said. “Burkhan Khaldun is another fifty miles or more from there.”

  “Maybe we should circle around the mountain,” Griffin said. “Get a look at things.”

  Yanmei nodded. “I can instruct the pilot.” Then she unbuckled and walked up toward the front of the plane. A few minutes later, she returned. “We’ve updated the flight plan for a slight detour over the target.”

  Not long after that, the steppes gave way to hills, and the hills became tree-covered mountains with winding rivers and wide valleys.

  “This region is sacred to the Mongolian people,” Yanmei said. “It has been since before Genghis Khan. Foreigners aren’t even allowed to climb the Burkhan Khaldun.”

  “I don’t think Isaiah will respect that boundary,” Javier said.

  “No,” she said. “But it would be wise for us to tread lightly.”