The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake Book 16)

by David Leadbeater

  Drake tried to glean the relevant points. “Kill code? I really don’t like the sound of that. And the ‘true last judgment.’ So even if we neutralize the first three, the last will be a true humdinger.”

  “For now,” Lauren said, referring to the research in front of her. “The DC think tank has come up with a few ideas.”

  Drake tuned out for just a second. Every time he heard a reference to research, every time the think tank was mentioned, just two words flashed through his brain like billboard-sized, red neon lights.

  Karin Blake.

  Her continued absence did not bode well. Karin might well have to be their next mission. He pushed the worry gently aside for now.

  “... the second Horseman is Conquest. The second description mentions the Khagan. From this we deduce Genghis Kahn is Conquest. Genghis was born in 1162. He is, literally, conquest. He conquered most of Asia and China as well as lands further afield, and the Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in history. Kahn was a reaper; he swept through most of the ancient world and, it’s been said before, one out of every two hundred men alive today is a relative of Genghis Kahn.”

  Mai clucked. “Wow, Alicia, he’s like the male version of you.”

  Drake nodded. “The guy sure was proliferate.”

  “The man’s real name was Temujin. Genghis Kahn is an honorific. His father was poisoned when the boy was only nine, leaving their mother to raise seven sons alone. He and his young wife were also abducted and both spent time as slaves. Despite all this, even by his early twenties, he was established as a fierce leader. He personified the phrase ‘keep your enemies close’, as most of his greatest generals were former enemies. He never left a score unsettled and was supposedly responsible for the deaths of 40 million people, reducing the world’s population by 11 percent. He embraced diverse religions and created the first international postage system, using post houses and way stations located throughout his empire.”

  Drake shifted in his seat. “A lot of information to take in there.”

  “He was the first Khagan of the Mongol empire.”

  Dahl turned from staring out the window. “And his resting place?”

  “Well, he was buried in China. In an unmarked grave.”

  Alicia snorted. “Yeah, shit, of course he was!”

  “So first Africa and now China represent two of the four corners of the earth,” Mai wondered aloud. “Unless it’s Asia, and we’re talking continents.”

  “There are seven,” Smyth reminded her.

  “Not always,” Lauren replied cryptically. “But we’ll come to that. The questions are: What is the weapon of conquest and where is Genghis’s resting place?”

  “I’m guessing one of the answers is China,” Kenzie murmured.

  “Genghis Kahn died in mysterious circumstances around 1227. Marco Polo stated it was through infection, others poison, still others by a princess taken as war booty. After death his body would have been returned to his birthplace, Khentii Aimag, as was custom. It is believed he was buried at the Burkhan Khaldun mountain near the Onon River. However, legend states that anyone that came into contact with the funeral procession was slaughtered. After that a river was diverted over the Kahn’s grave and all the soldiers that made up the procession were then also killed.” Lauren shook her head. “Life and living had little value back then.”

  “As, in some places of the world, it does now,” Dahl said.

  “So we’re diving again?” Alicia scowled. “Nobody said anything about diving again. It’s not my best talent.”

  Mai somehow managed to swallow the remark that looked set to come out of her mouth, coughing instead. “Not diving,” she finally said. “It could be on the mountain too. Wasn’t a particular area sealed off by the Mongolian government for hundreds of years?”

  “Very true, and so we’ve set a course for China,” Lauren said. “And the grave of Genghis Kahn. Now, to keep you up to date, the NSA and CIA are still using dozens of methods to glean information about our rivals. The French did indeed lose a man. The British departed at the same time as us. The Russians and the Swedes later, caught up in a quicker than expected Turkish sweep of the area. We’re not sure about Mossad or the Chinese. Orders remain the same. One thing though ... I do now have Secretary Crowe on the line.”

  Drake frowned. It hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind that Crowe might be listening in to their conversations with Lauren, but it should have. Their team, their family, had secrets like any other. As he looked around it was clear that the others felt the same, and that this was Lauren’s way of making them aware.

  DC always had its own agenda.

  Crowe’s voice came across strongly. “I won’t pretend to know more than you about this particular mission. Not on the ground. But I do know it’s a political minefield, with twist and sub-twist and schemes at the very highest levels of some of our rival nations.”

  Not to mention the US, Drake thought. What ... never!

  “Frankly, I’m surprised at some of the administrations involved,” Crowe said openly. “I thought they might work with us, but as I mentioned, all may not be as it seems.”

  Again Drake considered her words in a different way. Was she talking about the Horseman quest? Or something more personal?

  “Is there a reason, Madam Secretary?” Hayden asked. “Something we don’t know?”

  “Well, not that I’ve been apprised of. But even I don’t necessarily know the whole of it. Unabridged is a rare word in politics.”

  “Then it’s the weapons themselves,” Hayden said. “This first supergun. If built, if sold to terrorists, it could have held the world to ransom.”

  “I know. This ... Order of the Last Judgment—” she spoke the title distastefully “—clearly worked out a master plan, leaving it for future generations. Luckily, the Israelis shut them down long ago. Unluckily, they didn’t find this particular blueprint. This scheme.”

  So far, Drake saw no purpose to the call. He sat back, eyes closed, listening to the conversation.

  “You have a leap on some of the others. Only Israel and China are MIA. The usual rules apply, but get to that weapon and get it first. America cannot trust it falling into the wrong hands, any hands. And watch your backs, SPEAR. There is more to this than meets the eye.”

  Drake sat up. Dahl leaned forward. “Is that a warning of a different kind?” he whispered.

  Drake studied Hayden, but their boss showed no signs of disquiet. Watch your backs? If he hadn’t heard that American twang earlier he too would think nothing of the phrase. His thoughts turned to Smyth and the death of Joshua in Peru. It measured the depth of their insubordination. As a normal soldier, and with a soldier’s outlook, he’d be mightily worried. But they were no longer soldiers—they were forced to make the hard choice every day, out in the field, under duress. They bore the weight of thousands of lives on their shoulders, occasionally millions. This was no ordinary team. Not anymore.

  You’re only as good as your last mistake. You’re only remembered for your last mistake. Workplace ethics the world over. His preference was to keep working, keep fighting. Head above water—because there were millions of sharks in the world constantly circling, and if you stood still you’d either drown or be torn to pieces.

  Crowe signed off with a strained pep talk, and then Hayden turned to them. She touched her comms and made a face.

  “Don’t forget.”

  Drake nodded. Open channel.

  “I am thinking this is going to be very different from the usual tomb raider stuff.” Yorgi spoke up. “We face government soldiers, experts. Unknown factions, possibly traitors. We search for men lost in time, born years apart. We chase some old war criminal’s prophecy, exactly how he wanted us to.” He shrugged. “We are not in control.”

  “I’m about as close to a tomb raider as you’ll ever get,” Kenzie said with a smirk. “This ... is completely different.”

  Alicia and Mai stared at the Israeli. “Yeah,
we tend to forget about your nasty little criminal past, don’t we ... Torsty?”

  The Swede blinked. “I ... umm ... I ... what?”

  Kenzie stepped in. “And I guess circumstance never forced you into any compromising positions, eh Alicia?”

  The Englishwoman shrugged. “Depends if we’re still talking criminal. Some compromising positions are better than others.”

  “If we’re still awake and alert,” Hayden said, “could we start to read up on Genghis Kahn and the location of his grave? A think tank back in DC is all well and good, but we’re on the ground and we’ll see things they won’t. The more information you can absorb, the better chance we have of finding the second weapon.”

  “And coming out of this alive,” Dahl agreed.

  Tablets were passed around, barely enough to share. Alicia shouted up first about checking her emails and Facebook page. Drake knew she didn’t even have an email address let alone the first clue about social media, and gave her the look.

  She pouted. “Serious time?”

  “That, or get some rest, love. China ain’t exactly gonna welcome us with open arms.”

  “Good point.” Hayden sighed. “I’ll get on to the local teams, and ask them to ease our entry. Everyone good with the plan so far?”

  “Well,” Dahl spoke off-handedly. “I never thought I’d be chasing down Genghis Kahn in China whilst trying not to get into a fight with half-a-dozen rival nations. But hey,” he shrugged, “you know what they say about trying something different.”

  Alicia looked over, then shook her head. “No comment. Too easy.”

  “Right now,” Drake said, “I’d prefer to have a bit more information.”

  “You and me both, Yorkie.” Dahl nodded. “You and me both.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The hours slipped by. The chopper was forced to refuel. The lack of news about the other teams became frustrating. Hayden found her best recourse was to lose herself in the wealth of information pertaining to Genghis’s tomb, but found it hard to discover anything new. The others clearly tried the same for a while, but a few grew tired and chose to grab a little rest, whilst others found it easier to turn to their personal concerns.

  In their close quarters it was impossible to tune it out, and truth be told, by now the team were close and familiar enough to take it all in their stride.

  Dahl called home. The kids were happy to hear from him, causing Dahl to break out into a big smile. Johanna asked when he would be home. The strain was clear, the upshot not so much. Hayden took a moment to watch Kinimaka whilst the big Hawaiian swiped at a tablet’s screen. She smiled. The device looked like a postcard in his large hands and she remembered those hands touching her body. Gentle. Stirring. He knew her so well, and that enhanced their intimacy. She stared down now at the ruined tip of her finger, the one she’d been forced to ingest during their last mission. The shock of the situation had opened her eyes. Life was infinitely too short to battle wills against someone you loved.

  She caught her breath a little, unsure if she really believed it. Damn, you don’t deserve it. Not after all you said. She didn’t justify a way back, and had no real clue where to start. Maybe it was the battle, the situation, the job. Maybe it was each and every moment of the history of her life.

  People made mistakes. They could atone.

  Alicia’s done it.

  The notion sent her gazing in the Englishwoman’s direction as the chopper barged its way through the skies. Sudden turbulence made her clutch a strap tighter. A second of free fall sent her heart into her mouth. But it was all good. It imitated life.

  Hayden’s instincts were always to lead, to get the job done. She saw now that those instincts were getting in the way of other, important, aspects of her life. She saw a bleak future.

  Drake and Alicia were happy, smiling, tapping at a shared tablet. Mai was letting Kenzie borrow hers, the two women taking it in turns. It was interesting how uniquely different individuals handled similar situations.

  Smyth had moved in close to Lauren. “How ya doing?”

  “As good as can be, you smooth bastard. This isn’t the time, Smyth.”

  “You think I don’t know that? But tell me. When is the time?”

  “Not now.”

  “Not ever,” Smyth said sulkily.

  Lauren growled. “Seriously? We’re at an impasse, man. You hit a brick wall and can’t get past it.”

  “A wall?”

  Lauren snorted. “Yeah, it has a name.”

  “Oh. That wall.”

  Hayden saw the way they were both skirting the issue. It wasn’t for her to judge or interfere but it did make clear how any kind of impediment could derail and damage any relationship. Smyth and Lauren were an unorthodox pair to say the least, so unusual that they might work well together.

  And yet the most untraditional of obstacles now stood in their way.

  Smyth tried a different tack. “Okay, okay, so what has he given you lately?”

  “Me? Nothing. I don’t go there for information. That’s the job of the CIA, or FBI or whatever.”

  “Then what do you talk about?”

  It was a step forward for Smyth. An open, non-confrontational question. Hayden felt a little proud of the soldier.

  Lauren hesitated just a little. “Crap,” she said. “We talk crap. TV. Movies. Books. Celebrities. The news. He’s a builder so he asks about projects.”

  “What projects?”

  “From all that you ask the guarded question. Why not which celebrities, or which movies? Are you interested in buildings, Lance?”

  Hayden wanted to tune it out, but found she couldn’t. The cabin was too confined; the question too serious; the mention of Smyth’s first name too engaging.

  “Only if someone wants to damage them.”

  Lauren waved him away, conversation dead. Hayden wondered if Lauren might be breaking some law, slipping away to converse with a known terrorist, but couldn’t quite decide how to phrase the question to Lauren. Not yet anyway.

  “Less than an hour out.” The pilot’s voice came over the comms.

  Drake looked up. Hayden saw the determination in his face. Same with Dahl. The team were fully invested, always enhancing and perfecting their skill sets. Look at the last op for example. They had all come through a violently different mission, faced evil incarnate, with nary a scratch.

  On a physical aspect, at least. The mental scars—her own in particular—would never heal.

  She spent a moment rifling the papers before her and trying to absorb a little more of the history of Genghis Kahn. She looked over the Order’s text, singling out the lines: Go to the Four Corners of the Earth. Find the resting places of the Father of Strategy and then the Khagan; the Worst Indian Who Ever Lived and then the Scourge of God. But all is not as it seems. We visited the Khagan in 1960, five years after completion, placing Conquest in his coffin.

  Four corners of the earth? Still a mystery. Luckily, the clues to the identity of the Horsemen had, so far, been distinct. But had the Order found the tomb of Genghis Kahn? It seemed so.

  As the chopper continued to blast through the thin air, Yorgi rose and then stepped forward. The thief’s face looked drawn, the eyes hooded, as if he hadn’t slept a wink since his outburst in Peru. “I told you I was a part of Webb’s statement, his legacy,” the Russian said, his tone revealing he was terrified of what he was about to say. “I told you I was the worst of all those mentioned.”

  Alicia tried to lift the sudden atmospheric dampener with a huffy grunt. “I’m still waiting to hear who the bloody lesbian is,” she said brightly. “Truth be told, Yogi, I was hoping it’d be you.”

  “How ...” Yorgi stopped mid-sentence. “I am male.”

  “I’m not convinced. Those tiny hands. That face. The way you walk.”

  “Let him speak,” Dahl said.

  “And y’all should know that I’m the lesbian,” Lauren said. “It’s not a bad or shameful thing to be, you know.”


  “I know,” Alicia said. “You should be whomever you want to be, and embrace it. I know I do. I was just hoping it’d be Yogi, that’s all.”

  Smyth was staring at Lauren with a confused but otherwise unreadable look upon his face. Drake thought the reaction was admirable, considering the surprise.

  “So only one remains,” Kinimaka said.

  “Someone who is dying,” Drake said, staring at the floor.

  “Shall we let our friend speak?” Dahl urged.

  Yorgi attempted a smile. He then clasped his hands in front of him and glared at the cabin roof.

  “It is not a long story,” he said, accent thick. “But it is a hard one. I ... I killed my parents in cold blood. And I am thankful every single day. Thankful that I did.”

  Drake held up a hand to catch his friend’s eye. “You don’t have to explain a thing, you know. We’re family here. This won’t cause an issue.”

  “I understand. But it is for me also. Do you understand?”

  The team, to a person, nodded. They understood.

  “We lived in a small village. A cold village. Winter? It was not a season, it was a mugging, a pounding, a thrashing from God. It beat our families down, even the children. I was one of six, and my parents, they could not cope. They could not drink fast enough to make the days go easier. They could not knock back the right amount to make the nights survivable. They could not find a way to cope and care for us, so they found a way to rearrange the picture.”

  Alicia couldn’t keep a lid on her feelings. “I hope that’s not meant the way it sounds.”

  “One afternoon we all bundled into the car. A promise of a trip to the city, they said. We had not visited city in years and should have questioned but ...” He shrugged. “We were kids. They were our parents. They drove away from the little village and we never saw it again.”

  Hayden saw the faraway sadness on Mai’s face. Her younger life may have been different to Yorgi’s, but it held a sad similarity.