“Isn’t it wonderful?” Raj cried. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “It’s fresh! I’m an expert in animal spoors,” he said, by way of explanation. “An amateur scatologist.” He beckoned the team closer. “Camels. A whole team of them.” He took another deep breath, snatched up his pack, and began following the hoofprints east.
Dax nodded. “If there’s a caravan out here, we could barter for supplies.”
The team followed after Raj.
The sun came up like a slap across the face. Within an hour, everyone was dripping with sweat. It was midmorning before Molly sighted the camel train over the next dune. With eager shouts, they flagged down the nomad trader and his five camels.
Addison shucked his shirtsleeves from his jacket cuffs, tightened his tie, and smiled pleasantly at the leather-skinned Uyghur man. “Addison Cooke, good to meet you. I was wondering if we might take a look at your camels?” To his surprise, the trader replied in English.
“I have magnificent camels for sale, the finest in the Gobi. You are American, yes? I love blue jeans and cowboys and doughnuts. Also baking soda—a marvelous invention. Look at these beautiful creatures!”
Addison looked up at the cud-chewing, two-humped beasts in their shaggy wool coats. “Beautiful” was not the first word to cross his mind, but he was pleased the trader was open to making a sale. “What do you think of these camels, Dax?”
“Bactrian camels,” Dax said grimly. “Ornery and difficult. They bark, spit, and reek like a sweaty armpit. But they can last a week without water and a month without food.”
The trader nodded a yellow-toothed grin and stroked the mangy mane of the nearest camel. “Each of these miraculous animals provides five kilograms of wool per year! And up to six hundred liters of milk!”
“What’s your price for three camels?”
“Ten thousand yuan.”
Addison frowned. He’d never bought a camel before, and he wasn’t entirely sure what yuan were worth, but ten thousand sounded a bit steep. He thought about checking a camel’s teeth, but when he got close to one, the camel snapped at him. He figured that meant the camel’s teeth were plenty healthy. “Dax, talk to me.”
The pilot circled the shaggy beasts, shadowed closely by Raj. “You can tell the health of a camel by its humps,” said Dax. “A firm hump means a healthy camel. A droopy hump means a thirsty camel.”
Addison thought the camels looked a bit deflated. He turned to the trader. “Two thousand yuan. For three camels.”
The trader was aghast. “Each of these marvelous mammals creates two hundred and fifty kilograms of dung per year! Highly valuable for fuel! Their meat is tough to chew, but very nutritious!”
“Two thousand,” Addison repeated.
“Nine thousand yuan. It’s an incredible price.”
“Can’t do it. Two thousand or we walk.”
“Five thousand! You are eating all my profit. My wife will never speak to me again.”
“Two,” said Addison. “C’mon, guys. Let’s go.” He shouldered his messenger bag and turned to hike across the limitless Gobi, the sand stretching to infinity. His team, sweltering in the heat, watched him in shock.
“But . . . camels,” said Eddie.
“It’s no good, Eddie. This gentleman doesn’t want to offer us a fair price.”
Addison tromped onward across the dune. One by one, his group reluctantly followed.
The camel trader pulled at his beard and ground his teeth. He couldn’t believe he was losing this trade. “All right, fine! Three thousand yuan!”
“Two,” called Addison across the desert waste. He had to walk another fifty paces through the sand before the camel salesman broke. Addison took three camels for an even two thousand yuan. When he offered to pay by credit card, the trader offered him the pointy end of his knife.
“But I get points on the credit card,” said Addison.
“I’ll give you points,” said the trader, gripping his horn-handled blade.
Addison forked over the cash.
The camel trader insisted on shaking hands to seal the deal, which Addison regretted. He knew it would be many miles before he found a sink where he could wash.
Dax watched the trader—muttering and cursing—lead his two remaining camels away over the next dune. He turned to Addison. “How did you know you could get his price down?”
“I didn’t,” said Addison. “I’d just rather die than overpay for transportation.”
Chapter Twenty
The Gobi Desert
DAX GRABBED EACH CAMEL by the hackamore and dragged it down to sit on its haunches. “Always approach a Gobi camel from the left, kid. That’s how they’re trained. You approach from the right and they might rear.”
Addison mounted the first camel, with Molly climbing up behind him. The camel stood up hind feet first, pitching them precariously forward before righting itself.
“This doesn’t look safe,” said Eddie doubtfully. “Maybe we overpaid for these.”
“Eddie, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to ride a camel,” said Addison. “And luckily, we’re not rocket scientists.”
Raj mounted the next camel, with Eddie clambering on behind him.
“Don’t pull back on the reins,” Dax cautioned. “The camel will turn around and spit at you.”
Eddie laughed.
Dax gave him a warning look. “The spit is so caustic, you’ll need a doctor if it gets in your eyes.” He climbed onto the final camel and reined it north. “Whatever you do, never turn your back on a camel. They’ll bite, given the chance.”
Mr. Jacobsen tried to lick Addison’s camel. The camel spit at the Great Dane, nailing him squarely on the head.
“You see, Mr. Jacobsen?” said Addison. “Now you know how it feels to be covered in slobber. That’s called karma.”
Mr. Jacobsen shook himself off and bounded along ahead, seeming to have no conception of saving his energy for the trip ahead.
They set off across the barren desert. Perched high off the ground, they could see the broad panorama of the distant dunes. The camel saddles were nothing but blankets—very itchy blankets. Addison noticed the camels walked with both right feet followed by both left feet. He grew used to the unusual rocking sway.
“Do you think Madame Feng is already in Karakoram by now?” Molly asked. “While we’re stuck in this desert, she could be getting a huge lead on us.”
“Maybe,” said Addison. “The last we saw, she was ankle deep in Russians. For all we know, she’s having a tougher time than we are.”
“I hope Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel are okay.”
“They can handle themselves. They have plenty of experience being kidnapped.”
Addison decided to focus on the perilous journey ahead. “Raj, is there anything in this desert that wants to kill us?”
“You mean besides the sun and the complete lack of water? Oh, absolutely!” Raj was so excited by the topic, he nearly choked on the slug he was chewing. “For poisonous snakes, you have the Central Asian pit viper, the Halys pit viper, the European adder, and the steppe rat snake. You also have the Mongolian death worm. It’s up to five feet long and spits acid.”
“How deadly is a Mongolian death worm?” asked Molly.
“Well, if it doesn’t kill you or paralyze you, it will certainly put a dent in your afternoon plans.”
“Raj, is there any chance you can tell us something pleasant about the Gobi?”
He racked his memory. “Well, there are lots of dinosaur fossils.”
“Great,” said Molly. “Not even dinosaurs could survive this desert.”
By noon, Addison’s head felt as heavy as an anvil with the sun hammering relentlessly down on him. The camels toiled along the crest of a mesa, and Addison could see for miles. He was a single speck in a galaxy of sand. He began to daydr
eam about water. Waves of heat rose off the desert floor, distorting the shapes of the camels and riders.
Eddie kept up a steady chatter, doing his best impression of Addison. “Hey, Eddie, let’s go to China for summer break. The desert is just a giant beach. Like Coney Island but less crowded. We can all work on our tans.”
Addison quietly wished for a break from the pitiless sun, and his wishes were soon granted.
It was afternoon when the sandstorm hit.
Molly spotted it first, squinting over her shoulder at the winds kicking up in the west. A wall of dust billowed toward them, hundreds of feet in the air, swallowing everything in its path.
Dax lashed the camels into a loping gallop. “Get to high ground!”
The howling storm overtook them, instantly turning day into night. Addison couldn’t breathe—couldn’t even open his mouth. Pelting sand stung his face. His eyes were red and burning—he clamped them tight.
Dax leapt off his mount and pulled all three camels to the ground. The group huddled on the lee side of the furry beasts, whose long snouts and fuzzy eyelashes protected them from the whipping sand.
Addison watched their day’s tracks quickly scatter with the winds. Dax anchored his riding crop in the sand, pointing true north before he lost all sense of direction in the shifting desert.
“Is this bad?” Raj asked Dax, shouting over the raging gale.
“This is nothing! I once saw three members of a caravan team buried alive in the Sahara.”
“You were in the Sahara?” asked Raj, deeply impressed.
“I’ve been all over Africa like a bad rash. Now grab an extra shirt and wrap it over your head like a turban.”
Raj pulled an extra T-shirt from his pack. Dax moistened it with his canteen before he had Raj wrap it around his face. Dax repeated the procedure for Addison, Molly, and Eddie, and they were all pleased to discover they could suddenly breathe. Mr. Jacobsen nuzzled close to a camel and shut his eyes.
Addison rested his back against his camel’s rump. He was deciding between naming him Hump-rey Bulgart or Alexander Camilton when he spotted something in the midst of the sandstorm. It was the dark-clad figure of a Mongol rider, turban blocking his face, tugging a reluctant horse through the sand. Addison peered harder, but before he could elbow Molly, the vision had vanished in the swirling dust.
He thought about the legend that Genghis Khan’s tomb was guarded by Ghost Warriors. Addison considered himself a man of science. He did not believe in ghosts, let alone thirteenth-century ghosts in the middle of a sandstorm. He chalked his vision up to dehydration and finally accepted a drink from Dax’s weathered canteen.
• • • • • •
They traveled at dusk when the storm abated. Dax kept them moving late into the night, navigating by starlight. Addison was glad for the jet lag that allowed his body to stay on such a confusing schedule. Rationing their remaining water, Dax did not allow them to rest for long. They crossed miles of desert the following day, the plodding hooves of the camels churning the sands in a rhythmic beat that threatened to send Addison drifting off to sleep. Each time his chin nodded against his chest, he jerked awake, slapping his cheeks to stay alert.
On the evening of their second day, Dax guided the camels to an oasis. The group dug three feet into the sand before striking mud, and finally water. Dax insisted the camels drink first, which Addison didn’t consider very sanitary. But it was only fair; as Raj pointed out, the camels were not riding the people across the desert.
Dax filled the last canteen with muddy, brackish water. The landscape was shifting from sand to scrub to crabgrass. He plucked a sprig of millet and chewed it thoughtfully, worrying it from one side of his mouth to the other, his tanned face squinting at the dry horizon.
Raj liked the look of it. He plucked a stalk, cocked one boot up on a rock, and chewed as well.
“Few more clicks and we’ll make Karakoram,” said Dax finally. “We’ll rest here for the night.”
They laid their packs by an old mining camp. Nothing but a cluster of desolate wooden shacks with doors creaking on their hinges in the lonesome wind. Dax and Molly broke up wood to make a fire.
Raj foraged through the abandoned shacks searching for canned food, but anything of value had long since been picked clean.
Dax struck a match against his unshaven chin. He coaxed the old firewood to light with the help of engine grease from the downed Apache and a pile of camel dung that Raj had saved especially for this purpose. By dark they had a roaring fire to cover the sound of their growling stomachs. Addison decided a little reading would help take his mind off his hunger. He had already finished his paperback copy of Numerology by Lily Wakefield and zipped through his well-thumbed copy of The Girl from Jupiter by Isaac Clarke. So he borrowed Raj’s copy of Mission: Survival by Babatunde Okonjo. “Raj, which is the section where I can bone up on Asian street gangs?”
“Chapter Twelve: ‘Gangs of the Far East,’” Raj answered immediately. “It’s right after the chapters on sinkholes, typhoons, and gray wolves.”
Addison flipped through the pages. “Before or after landslides?”
“Before.”
He settled into that most pleasant activity, reading by firelight, but kept losing his place. He found the mining camp vaguely creepy and could not shake the feeling he was being watched.
The first time Molly foraged for fresh firewood by the outhouse, Mr. Jacobsen barked a few times for no reason. Other than that, there was nothing particularly eventful to report on. It was on her second trip to collect firewood that Molly saw the ghost of the Mongolian warrior.
When she turned the corner of the outhouse, she saw the dark figure silhouetted against the starry night. In one smooth flicker of motion, the figure advanced on Molly, raising a hand to strike.
Molly was the sort of person who, when faced with a Mongolian ghost outside her camp, paused to consider all the possibilities and choose the most sensible course of action. One could flee, one could attack, or one could shut one’s eyes and hope the problem somehow resolved itself. Molly chose the first option: she bolted.
• • • • • •
“Did you know,” said Addison, looking up from his reading, “that if a Japanese Yakuza offends a fellow gang member, he must cut off his own pinky?”
Raj’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Awesome.”
“Seems a bit harsh,” said Eddie. “What if he plays piano?”
Molly sprinted back to the campfire. Her cheeks were flushed, and she gasped for breath. “I was attacked by the outhouse!”
“How,” asked Addison, setting his book down wearily, “were you attacked by an outhouse?”
Molly described the Mongol warrior as best she could. Addison was somewhat concerned for his sister’s sanity, but also somewhat concerned for his own. She was describing the same Mongol warrior he had seen a thousand miles away in Kashgar, which may or may not have been the same Mongol warrior he had glimpsed in the middle of the sandstorm. None of this made a tremendous amount of sense to Addison, but it was worth investigating.
He, Raj, Eddie, and Dax armed themselves with brands of firewood and searched behind the outhouse. They found no trace of a Mongolian warrior. Raj, squatting on all fours, could not even find footprints.
“I’m telling you, there was something here,” said Molly.
Addison wondered if Dax would say something dismissive at this point. Instead, Dax was staring at the hairs standing up on Mr. Jacobsen’s shoulders. The Great Dane peered intently into the night, working his giant nostrils like a blacksmith’s bellows. “We’ll sleep in watches,” Dax said.
They settled in around the fire, piling it with enough wood to burn brightly for hours. The fire still smelled faintly of camel dung, but there was nothing to be done about that.
Raj had a million questions for Dax. “When you were in Africa,
did you ever see a king cobra?”
“Yup.” Dax lay in the shadows, eyes shut, resting his head on the Great Dane.
“How about a full-grown male lion?”
“Sure.”
“Fire ants?”
Dax opened one eye. “Kid, you want to know the scariest thing I saw in Africa?”
“Um, yes?”
“Malaria. I’ve been stalked by hyenas, stalked by leopards, and stalked by guerrilla fighters in the Congo. But all it takes is one mosquito bite to cash out your chips.”
Raj nodded. He dragged his bedroll around the fire so he could sleep next to Dax. He rested his head on his backpack. “Good night, Dax.”
But Dax was already out.
Molly took the first shift, followed by Raj. Addison took the two a.m. shift and watched the stars spin around Polaris. No one saw or heard anything in the night. Yet when they woke in the morning, their camels, their water, and all their provisions had vanished.
Chapter Twenty-One
Karakoram
IT WAS ADDISON WHO discovered the theft. He woke early in the morning and set to work brushing every last grain of sand from his shirt, tie, slacks, and blazer until they were spotless. Between the sandstorm and the sleeping arrangements, there was sand everywhere. The entire cleaning operation took ten minutes.
Molly woke next and began stretching for her morning kung fu practice. She could already do front splits without trouble. It was the side splits that needed attention.
Eager to get a start on the day, Addison circled the wooden mining cabins, looking for the camels, and was surprised to discover there weren’t any. He was quite sure there had been three camels the night before. He thought about retracing his steps from the prior evening, but couldn’t think of anywhere he might have misplaced one camel, let alone three.
When he returned to the smoldering campfire, he found Raj, Eddie, Dax, and Mr. Jacobsen stretching and yawning. “Fine morning, isn’t it?” Addison began pleasantly.
Addison Cooke and the Tomb of the Khan Page 14