The Mongol Objective [Oct 2011]

by David Sakmyster

  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.

  “Oh, Caleb!” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve found your boy.”

  #

  Caleb ran out into the mausoleum, stepping around the soldiers lying in bloody piles, their skulls expertly perforated. He turned to the sound of Renée’s voice and ran to Alexander, scooping him up before the boy even took the last step down from the crypt.

  “Dad!” Alexander leapt into his father’s embrace and clutched him tight.

  Caleb hugged him tighter and made room for Phoebe, who had run behind him and added her arms to their reunion hug.

  “And this,” said Renée, standing over a kneeling man, “must be Xavier Montross.” She pointed the .45 at the center of his forehead. “Now, give me what you took from him.”

  Montross ignored her, instead smiling over to Caleb. His white teeth glittered in the light from Chang’s flashlight. His red hair had fallen, sweaty, over his left eye.

  “Hello, brother.”

  #

  Nina heard them talking, barely, over the pulse thundering in her ears. She lay perfectly still, her limbs splayed, her neck and shoulders supported by the wall. She had done her part the best she could. Leaving a lone flashlight against the wall ten feet away, then firing from a distance using the night-vision scope, she had taken out seven of them. All but two, and the woman who had emerged last. The FBI agent had seen the light finally, after all the chaos, and fired at it repeatedly. Nina let out a shrill scream, and let herself tumble that way. Hoping it would fool them.

  She was aware of two lights falling on her, dancing across her face, her body. If they don’t see enough blood, I may draw some more fire. But then Montross, God bless him, had drawn their attention away, shooting one of them. Nina hoped it was that bitch, but soon enough she heard the woman’s voice.

  They had captured Montross and Alexander.

  But in another moment, still playing dead, she had to stifle a smile when she heard another voice. Caleb Crowe. Still alive.

  Good, she thought. We still have a score to settle.

  #

  Brother? Caleb gaped at him. Then turned to Alexander, pulled away and looked at him, then Phoebe.

  “It’s true,” Alexander said. “I saw it. Grandpa and another woman. Before grandma.”

  “One big happy reunion,” Montross said, grinning. “I told you, didn’t I? That we’d see each other again, at the Mausoleum?”

  Phoebe choked on a breath. “Then you’re also my—”

  Montross nodded. “Hi, sis.”

  Caleb turned to him. “A brother you might be,”—he clenched his fists, approaching—“but you’re still a killer.”

  “Back off,” said Renée. “As interesting as all this is, let’s first relieve Mr. Montross of this.” She snatched the necklace from his neck, then struck him across the face with the butt of her gun. He moaned and opened his right hand.

  “And these,” Renée continued, grabbing the two glowing triangular pieces from his palm. Chang emerged behind her, stepping down from the crypt. He held the Emerald Tablet in his hands like it was a piece of expensive glass.

  “Put it in its case,” she whispered, hungrily eying the artifact.

  Chang nodded and opened the pack over his shoulder, retrieving a stainless steel briefcase. He popped open the lid, revealing a black foam interior with one large rectangular indentation and custom slots for three smaller objects.

  “So
that’s it?” Orlando asked. “We come all this way. You cause all these deaths. We find him, and that’s it? You take the keys?” He looked over his shoulder, shining the light on the armor-clad, silk-covered Mongol corpse. “What now?”

  Chang offered Renée the open case, where the Emerald Tablet pulsed intently as if aware of its impending confinement and uncertain use. Keeping the gun pointed at Montross, Renée set the stones inside the case and then had him close it and set it by her side.

  “What now?” she said, repeating Orlando’s question. “What now, is I—”

  Something creaked, and a gasping sound echoed in the room.

  Genghis Khan shifted. Phoebe screamed and Alexander jumped back, clutching at her. The corpse turned to them and Chang’s flashlight, which he had desperately snatched back up, caught the mummified face—the hollow eyes, the grinning mouth—as it descended, slowly. Reclining again. Depressing the lever.

  “Uh oh,” Montross said through a mouthful of blood, grinning. “Here comes trouble.”

  #

  Caleb turned to the new sound of moving blocks grinding against the floor. And then a rushing, bubbling noise. He aimed his light and saw the source. About a foot off the ground, the gap left by a single missing block, too small for anyone to squeeze through, had opened in the wall. Eight other holes also appeared, one in each wall, simultaneously and were now letting in the water.

  Letting it in, and filling up the mausoleum.

  “No problem,” Orlando said, heading for the door in the tower. “Just back into here before it might happen to close again.”

  “Wait!” Renée backed away from Montross, heading for the door.

  Caleb looked between them, seeing something out of place: a body crumpled against the far wall. In the shadows, he couldn’t tell, but it looked familiar.

  Nina?

  He closed his eyes for a moment, not sure why he felt what he did. After all, she had tried to kill them. He wasn’t sure, but he felt remorse. And a little curiosity. But Montross didn’t seem worried. He checked him out, his new brother, and saw the red-haired man still kneeling there, apparently at ease.

  He knows something.

  “Nobody moves,” Renée ordered as she scooped up the briefcase. “And now, Commander, the detonator for the C4, if you please.”

  Chang handed the small remote to her, somewhat reluctantly, searching her eyes. “It’s all set below, activated by that trigger. What are you doing?”

  She motioned to Montross. “Tying up loose ends. No need for further bloodshed when the water can cleanse this situation for us.”

  Chang nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

  “But maybe,” said Renée, “we should pay Mr. Montross back for his attack on your men. Go ahead, Commander.”

  “With much pleasure.” Chang approached the kneeling man and lifted his gun.

  “No,” Alexander cried, and Caleb stepped forward as Chang aimed. As much as he’d dreamt of revenge, his visions—his only visions in the last two days—had been of Lydia. Of her calling out to him, not for retribution, but for understanding.

  He was about to call out to Renée to stop when he noticed that Montross still seemed unconcerned, a smile even tugging at his lips as Chang leveled the weapon at him. A slight movement caught his eye, and Caleb realized Renée had just shifted her aim.

  A gunshot.

  Caleb lurched backward, out of the way of the Chinese commander Renée had just shot in the back of the head. Chang fell face-first into three inches of rising water and lay still.

  Orlando put his hand to his mouth. “Holy crap!”

  Renée pointed the gun at each of them as she backed up into the doorway, which for reasons Caleb couldn’t fathom, hadn’t closed. He had already surmised that what had opened the door was Montross’s lifting Genghis up. So it only stood to reason that the corpse’s descent should close the door, yet instead it released the water, apparently to drown them inside.

  Or to force them back through the open door.

  Is that it? Caleb glanced at Montross and saw the left eye give him a wink.

  “Good-bye,” Renée called. She hefted the briefcase. “Thoth has failed, and the vengeance of Ra-Marduk is at hand, although you won’t live to see it.”

  She descended the stairs, and as soon as she was out of sight, Orlando ran for it. Halfway to the door, Phoebe caught him about the waist and pulled him back.

  “No!” he shouted. “We’ve got to stop her!”

  An explosion rocked the mausoleum. Rock and debris hurtled up and out through the doorway. The remaining portion of the tower, including the reclining body of Temujin, trembled, but held.

  The smoke cleared. Flashlight beams found the doorway and delved inside.

  “No chance,” Orlando said, watching the water spill over the doorway and splash onto the rocks and slabs that had blown out sideways. Below them, the stairs ended in an avalanche of exploded debris blocking the way. They all turned, Caleb first, and shined their lights on Xavier Montross.

  He got up, brushing himself off, wringing the water from his pants legs.

  “Now,” he said, “let’s get to work on finding the real way out of here.”

  15.

  Alexandria, Egypt. 9:45pm—Bibliotheca Alexandrina

  Robert Gregory took his keycard from the slot and strode through the elevator doors as soon as they parted. Down in the library’s sub-level, a level unavailable to the public and absent from any maps or designs apart from the one a select few Keepers had drawn up, he headed down a corridor that was dimly lit from edge lights that sensed his presence, glowed, and then turned off after his passing. There was a time when he had been thrilled with the effect, feeling as if his appearance symbolically illuminated the darkness and banished ignorance. There was a time when he had thought like his sister. Like Lydia. And even to some extent, like Caleb.

  But that was before he had learned his true purpose. Before he had discovered certain scrolls and ancient cuneiform texts retrieved from the storehouse under the Pharos. Babylonian in origin, drawing from even more ancient sources, long lost, these scrolls spoke of the true nature of the universe, and how to become its master. Robert had his own opinions as to whether the ancient ones had been truly “gods” or only appeared as such to those whom they controlled, but the scrolls were clear that the knowledge was sacred and bound up in a single tablet, legible only to one with the keys to decipher it.

  He continued walking, feeling the lights alternately bathe and then shade his face, soothing the raw skin which had begun to heal. And as he approached the end of the long hallway and the glimmering golden door at its terminus, he replayed the tales in his mind. The battle for supremacy between chaos and order, between Tiamat and Marduk. And with every step he felt he was becoming like the god of storms himself, ready to don his armor and claim the tablet—and its power—for himself. The power to restore balance.

  What he had discovered, through the translation of five thousand-year-old Babylonian epics never before seen by historians, was that the cult of Marduk had been established in those olden days, much as the Keepers themselves had been initiated, for the purpose of reacquiring those ancient artifacts and ultimately to bring about the return of the ancient god of war. And when he learned that the cult still existed today, he began his search. Subtly at first, putting out feelers, describing himself as a collector, then a believer. And soon, he had discovered how powerful the cult still was, even though it had been relegated to a secretive ceremonial membership involving the usual initiation rites and sexual domination. As such, Robert had soon ingratiated himself into their upper echelons, discovering at the top of the cult’s membership powerful members that included United States political and military leaders.

  Senator Mason Calderon had especially latched onto Robert’s revelation that he was close to fulfilling the prophecy, to acquiring the very artifact that had once been their master’s rightful possession, until it had been rudely snatched away and given
to an inferior for safekeeping. Calderon and his colleagues had chomped at the bit, mobilizing their members, providing Robert everything he needed to fuel his search, including the dangerous gambit of seeking out and working with Xavier Montross. But Robert knew more than enough about the workings of remote viewers like Montross and the Crowes. Knew them to be easily affected with tunnel vision, unable to see the big picture, much less the manipulative strings over their heads.

  Montross had served his purpose, and according to the latest text from Agent Wagner, she had succeeded. The tablet, and now the keys—whose location the agents of Thoth had tried so desperately to hide—would soon be in his possession.

  He smiled, the motion cracking open fresh skin along his cheeks. But he didn’t flinch. His muscles, exhausted from the healing process yet fueled with newfound energy at being so close to the prize, moved faster, and soon, after a retina scan and a fingerprint match, he was inside the vault. The Keepers’ Sanctum.

  Two other Keepers, at their stations inside, worked at translating bits of scanned parchments, line by line, decoding the most esoteric texts, while behind them in hermetically sealed alcoves, thousands of manuscripts, scrolls and tomes remained unread, catalogued but waiting in the queue for attention.

  “Sir.” One of the Keepers, an older woman with sandy hair and a large racoonish face, looked up from her screen. “We received your message. I’ve transferred the translation program to your station. It’s ready, and loaded with First Dynasty and early Egyptian variations. You need only feed the scanned portions of the texts showing both hieroglyphic and the unknown script, and once it has enough of a sample, a cipher will be created.”

  “Perfect,” Robert said. “Keep your channels open. Within the hour, I’ll be leaving for Cairo.” He closed his eyes, took a breath, and then sat at the head of the table and lowered his head. “Soon after that, I will have the Books of Thoth. I’ll scan the side-by-side scripts and upload the data to you here.”