by Rob Jones
“Such respect for ancient art,” Lea said.
“Needs must when the devil drives,” he said. “So, what our man Pliny worked out was that all you had to do to reveal the hidden message was simply apply a little post-combustion residue powder of some description.”
Lexi looked confused.
“He means ash,” Lea said. “That’s how Ryan says ash.”
“Ah – ash!” Lexi said.
“So drop hot ash all over an ancient parchment?” Scarlet said. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Let him finish,” Hart said firmly. “I for one am intrigued.”
Hawke stepped forward. “I agree – do your best, mate.”
Ryan flicked some of the ash in his hands and handed Scarlet the cigarette. He rubbed his hands gently together and then smeared them slowly over the back of the portrait.
And there it was, slowly emerging from the past into the present.
“It’s a message!” Lea said.
Hawke laughed loudly. “You clever, smug bastard!”
“What does it say?” asked Hart.
They all peered in and looked at the message, barely legible, the milk weak after so many centuries. They were looking at a series of Chinese characters.
“Lexi?” Hawke asked.
Lexi Zhang looked hard at the characters. “It says...” she said, almost in a whisper, “it says, The Great Khan’s Secret is in His Thirteenth Chapter.
“That’s good to know,” Scarlet said, turning to face the city and taking a long, deep drag on the cigarette Ryan had handed her. She shook her head in disappointment and leaned over the balcony to look at the street below.
“What does it mean?” Hawke asked Ryan, who for once looked lost for words.
“Not entirely certain. As hard as this might be for you all to understand I do not actually know everything.” He went back to his laptop and typed a few words into Google. “But my best guess at this point is that our next stop is going to be Ulan Bator.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Later that night Hawke was cruising in a private jet arranged by Sir Richard Eden’s London office. He watched the lights of China gradually fade away as the plane ascended to forty thousand feet and crossed over into the empty plains which stretched into Mongolia to the north. It hadn’t taken Ryan long to work out that anything involving Genghis Khan meant going to Ulan Bator, and they were packed and on the plane within three hours.
But now, his mind raced with problems, worries and deceits. What was Sheng Fang really up to? Yes, he was a dangerous criminal, and his status as one of the richest men in the world made that danger positively lethal. Could he really be diverting millions of dollars into the search for a map that might not even exist?
He was struggling to keep things together. He’d asked Ryan and Sophie to stay at the hotel with Commodore Hart with a view to maintaining the safe HQ they’d established – somewhere they could work on the research undisturbed. It was Lea’s idea, and Sophie in particular had objected at first, keen to get in on the action in Mongolia, but the team decided it was the right thing to do.
That at least was progress, but Hawke’s mind still buzzed with confusion. He still didn’t know who he could trust. Lea Donovan had tried to tell him something about the elusive Sir Richard Eden when she thought they were about to die back in the Greek cave system, but she had backed away from it when she realized Cairo Sloane could hear what she was saying. He thought about that and what Eden himself had told him back on the phone in London. He wondered how close he was to learning the truth.
To make matters worse, he thought he was falling in love with Lea, but she would have to be honest with him if she wanted him to take her seriously and make any kind of commitment. After Hanoi, it hadn’t been easy for Hawke to get close to anyone else, and this was as far as he had gone. And yet... what she was keeping from him was on his mind all the time and he resented the control Eden seemed to have over her.
Then there was the fact that both Cairo and Sophie were lying about their involvement in MI5 and the DGSE. That was another little wrinkle he had to iron out before he could really trust either of them. He wondered once again if Sophie had spoken to Ryan about her true story, and decided he would ask him about it next time there was a moment when they could speak privately. If Ryan could ever pry himself off of his new French lover, that is.
His mind snapped back to the mission. The last thing Ryan had told them was to start at the Genghis Khan Statue Complex just east of the capital. It was a long shot, but there was so little left of the ancient Mongolian Empire it was all he could think of. They kept a small collection of materials relating to the Khanate and it was the best shot they had to get to the bottom of anything to do with the Great Khan.
Now, Cairo was sleeping and Lexi was up front talking with the pilots, no doubt regaling them with tales from her colorful and sordid past. He watched her drape an arm over the first officer. Beside him, Lea’s eyes were closed but he knew she was awake.
He poured a shot of vodka and sank it down in one. He wished it were whisky, but it was all he could find in the on-board drinks cabinet. He looked at Lea again and decided now was as good a time as any to ask her what was really going on.
“What were you going to tell me about Richard Eden, Lea?”
She didn’t flinch and kept her eyes closed.
“When was that?”
“Don’t play games,” he said. “Back in Kefalonia, in the cave system – we were watching the now dearly departed Hugo Zaugg pumping water from the defensive tunnel leading into the vault of Poseidon. You said there was something important you had to tell me about Eden, but then you glanced at Cairo and something made you stop. I’m sure you remember.”
“Of course, but...”
She opened her eyes and faced him for a second before turning away and studying the digital readout that gave the passengers flight information: forty thousand feet, one thousand kilometers per hour.
“What is it you wanted to tell me. Lea? Don’t tell me it’s nothing because Eden’s confirmed to me that something’s up. He says he’ll tell me when all this is over.”
Hawke studied her expression, but she knew better than to give anything away. She kept calm and somehow even managed to yawn.
Finally she spoke. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it back in Greece, and if Eden says he’ll talk to you then so be it.”
“You can’t leave it at that, Lea. This is the second time I’ve risked my life for this guy. I respect you – you know that – and maybe...” he paused. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words I love you to her, not yet. “It’s just that I think I deserve some respect on this.”
Lea looked at him and kissed him. “Joe, it’s not for me to say. It wasn't back in Kefalonia and it’s not now. Back then when I started to speak with you I thought I was going to die and I wanted you to know something, but it’s not for me to tell you. It’s much bigger than that. I promise you this, when the time’s right Sir Richard will tell you just as he said he would, but please believe me when I tell you it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s not good enough, Lea...”
Her face tightened, her old Rangers training kicking in. “It’s going to have to be, Joe, because it’s all you’re getting.”
Hawke saw something in her eyes change. She looked harder, like she had done the first time he’d met her back in London. Sometimes she was a beautiful woman, and other times she was a soldier again. He could forgive her that because once Liz had accused him of something similar – a great bloke one minute and a commando the next, she had said. Yet still the frustration grew in his heart, but he knew he had to trust her. It was all he could do.
“I just thought we had something,” he said. “And that’s not something I ever thought I would say again. Not after Hanoi.”
Lea turned in the sumptuous leather seat and brushed his arm with her hand. “We do have something, Joe. I want it too, but...”
<
br /> Then Lexi returned from the cabin. “Bad news,” she said. “They just got a radio message from Jason Lao in Hong Kong. Apparently Johnny Chan was found dead in a shikumen lane about an hour ago. He’d been tortured for information and was missing several fingers. He’d been strangled to death. Jason says we should presume he told them everything about us taking the picture.”
“Great,” Lea said. “Sounds like they really went to town on the bastard.”
Lexi raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Lea said. “Did I say something funny?”
“It sounds like they went easy on him if you ask me. You obviously don’t know Sheng’s thug Luk if you think getting strangled to death is as bad as it gets.”
“However dangerous he is,” Hawke said firmly, his voice hardened by the vodka. “He’s up against the SBS now, and I’m in a very bad mood.”
“And the SAS and MI5,” said Scarlet from the back. She had woken up and joined them at the front of the small jet. “That should make up for the SBS, at least.”
Hawke smiled. He appreciated her support but her reference to MI5 only reminded him that she too was lying to him about her involvement with the Secret Intelligence Services.
“How is it that us SBS guys do everything you guys do, and then extra maritime training, and yet you still think you’re harder?”
“Glorified frogmen,” Scarlet said.
Hawke laughed. “Don’t forget the SBS went into World War Two first, with you guys finally joining in five months later…”
Lea changed the subject. “Either way it looks like we’re going to have a real war on our hands if we’re not careful. Remember, no one in the world knows what happened with Zaugg and just how close that nutcase got to the map.”
“Or experimenting with that damned trident,” Hawke said. He wondered where the trident was – maybe in some US underground facility surrounded by men in white coats and a shroud of secrecy.
Lea shuddered. “There was something very weird about that thing.”
Hawke nodded grimly and poured another vodka for himself. He offered some to Lexi who took it and drank straight from the bottle. She wiped her mouth and passed the bottle back to Hawke. “Thanks.”
“You’re... welcome,” he said, glancing at the amount of vodka she had taken without any apparent effect.
“So is this a problem?” Lea said.
“Not at all,” Lexi said. “I learned to drink in the Chinese Navy.”
“I meant Chan,” said Lea, rolling her eyes.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Hawke. “Chan didn’t know who we were, our names or anything about us. He couldn’t have given them any information that would put us in jeopardy, not for the time being, anyway – no matter how much they tortured him.”
“If I get my hands on this Luk character he’ll wish he’d never been born,” Scarlet said, and took the bottle from Hawke. “Anyone have a glass? It’s terribly uncouth to drink straight from the bottle, don’t you think, Lexi?”
Lexi made no reply, other than looking daggers at her.
“Certainly sounds like this Sheng character is serious about getting hold of that map,” Lea said.
“Sheng Fang is serious about everything,” said Lexi. “I told you that back in Shanghai. You should always listen to Lexi Zhang. That’s what I say.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ryan finished his coffee and walked to the minibar for something stronger. Years ago he’d filled his late night computer hacking with cannabis and super strength lager, but these days he was more sophisticated. He passed Sophie a cold bottle – Hart declined with a frown – and they settled back into the research. They all knew Hawke and the others were depending on them, maybe even placing their lives in their hands.
Hart stepped up. “So where are we, Ryan?”
“Apparently Anton Reichardt was Hoffmann’s doctoral supervisor, and he spent his entire life searching for the secret of eternal life until he died around twenty years ago, according to this he burned himself out in the search.”
“Talk about irony,” Hart said.
Ryan ignored her. “Reichardt had worked out that all of this revolves around something called the Secret History of the Mongols.”
“The what?”
“The Secret History of the Mongols. It looks like everything we’re dealing with here in China goes back to it,” Ryan said, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he unlocked more and more of Hoffmann’s most confidential research.
“Keep talking.”
“The Secret History has twelve chapters and famously disappeared hundreds of years ago, but Reichardt seems to have worked out that not only does it still exist but that there are thirteen chapters in it – the missing final chapter being the key to our puzzle.”
“How so?”
“There was a translation made and the secret message written on the back of the Xi Shi portrait in milk of tithymalus was actually put there by the monk who had been asked to make a translation into Chinese by the Mongolians, so the existence of the thirteenth chapter wasn’t lost forever.”
“Why would a monk do that?”
“This is where old Reichardt really hots up! As I say, the original Secret History of the Mongols is twelve chapters long, but according to this there was a thirteenth chapter, but the Mongolians forbade the monk from making a translation of it because...”
“Because it contained the part of Genghis Khan’s life when he was searching for the secret of eternal life?” said Sophie.
“Exactly! At some point the Mongolians must have made some kind of discovery with reference to the hunt for immortality and recorded it within the Secret History, but when they had the translations made they stopped the final chapter from being told to the rest of the world.”
“So where is this original?” Hart said. She set her coffee cup on the desk and ran her fingers though her hair. It was late and she hadn’t slept since London.
“Not worked that out yet, but we know it’s in Mongolia, of course.”
“We need more than that.”
“Thanks to our mysterious monk and his hidden message on the back of the Xi Shi portrait we know they’re linked. Although the reference to the ‘Great Khan’ could mean either Kublai or Genghis, but I don't think it matters. Either way, this is getting very interesting!” Ryan rubbed his hands together. Outside far below in the streets of Shanghai a cacophony of car horns drifted up to their open balcony.
“So what do we know about Khan, honey?” Sophie said. He’d never told her, but he liked it when she called him that. It sounded pretty damned great in her French accent. He knew that much.
“Okay – let’s start at the beginning. We all know that Genghis Khan was obsessed with immortality, right?”
Sophie and Hart looked at each other for a second with vacant expressions.
“I don’t know the first thing about Genghis Khan,” Hart said first.
“He had red hair and green eyes!” said Sophie proudly. “I know that!”
Ryan sighed. “Maybe I should start before the beginning... Anyway, Genghis Khan was obsessed with immortality, as I just said, and...”
“And you think that’s where all this nightmare begins,” Sophie said. “With Khan?”
“No, I don’t think so at all. Poseidon predates Genghis Khan by a long way – thousands of years. I think Genghis Khan was really just like us – he was on the trail of something far more ancient and mysterious, and that Hoffman and this Reichardt guy were trying to work out what that was.”
“Okay,” Hart said, sipping her coffee. “I’m listening.”
“You sound just like a senior naval officer sometimes,” Ryan said.
Hart replied: “Funny… but we have to move faster than this. We can’t let Sheng get ahead now we’ve got the advantage. If Genghis Khan or his grandson knew something about this missing manuscript – and I guess we’re all thinking it’s something along the lines of where this bloody map is – then we’ve
got to do everything we can to stop Sheng Fang getting hold of it. We have some phone calls to make.”
Under Hart’s direction, Sophie Durand ordered some coffee from room service and the three of them set about the almost impossible task of organizing what had quickly become a mission now totally out of control.
Hours later, after Hart had taken a shower and Sophie had grabbed some sleep, Ryan was still hammering away at the keyboard.
“So what have you got now?” Hart asked him, drying her hair.
Ryan scratched his head and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The hidden message on the back of the Xi Shi portrait was clear enough – it’s a simple whisper from the ancient past about Genghis Khan knowing a secret – some kind of ancient truth, and we’ve already worked out this somehow involved a previously unknown chapter of the Secret History. The real question is, what’s that manuscript hiding? We’ll need to work this out.”
“That’s supposing we find it.”
Hart laughed. “If there’s anyone in this world who can find it, his name is Joe Hawke. That man could rescue an astronaut stranded on Mars if he had to, believe me.”
“We’ll leave the heroics to Hawke then,” Ryan said. “But we’ve got a job to do as well. We need a lot more knowledge on this subject if we’re going to beat this Sheng Fang. I just hope Joe knows what he’s getting himself into up there.”
“Don't worry about the Major, he’ll be all right.”
Ryan looked over his shoulder at Hart. “The Major? Who the hell’s that?”
“Hawke, who’d you think I was talking about?”
“No one, just that Lea told me Hawke was a sergeant before he left the Special Boat Service.”
“He was,” Hart said. “Hawke was busted down from Major a long time ago but I can’t break the habit of referring to his old title.”
“Hawke was busted down to a non-commissioned officer?” Ryan leaned forward in his chair, enthralled. “I had no idea.”
“I thought everyone knew,” Hart said. “It's one of the reasons he hates officers so much.”