Addison Cooke and the Tomb of the Khan

by Jonathan W. Stokes

  The tired group mumbled their agreement.

  “Oh, by the way,” he continued, “I couldn’t help but notice all our camels are gone.”

  Dax jumped to his feet.

  Raj liked the look of that and jumped to his feet as well.

  They searched the mesa for telltale footprints, but night winds had swept the area clean of tracks.

  “Some watchdog,” said Molly, turning an accusatory eye on Mr. Jacobsen. “Dax, your supposedly Great Dane didn’t bark once.”

  Dax frowned and shrugged. “He’s not a guard dog, he’s a copilot.”

  Addison shook his head at the ungainly dog. He preferred smart dogs that could fetch or perform tricks. Panting and drooling seemed to be the warp and woof of Mr. Jacobsen’s personality.

  “All right,” said Addison, keeping things on track. “We’ll just forage for some breakfast and be on our way.”

  “Addison, we’re in the middle of a desert!” said Eddie. “You think food just grows on trees?”

  “Some food grows on trees. Apples, for instance.”

  “Well, we haven’t got any apple trees!”

  “Save your energy for walking. We’ll find food in Karakoram.” Dax turned up the collar on his bomber jacket.

  Raj saw the move and did the same with his rain poncho. He liked the idea of foraging for food, but the slugs he had eaten the previous day hadn’t sat well with him. The key was to make it to Karakoram and hope they had decent takeout.

  The team shouldered their packs and trudged north.

  The scrub gave way to desolate grassland. Addison tried not to think about water, so he pictured his favorite place—the New York Museum of Archaeology. He pictured the Aztec temple it housed, surrounded by a reflecting pool with a fountain of cool, refreshing water. Water so deep you could dive in and drink for hours. Addison shook his head and pictured his second-favorite place in the world: Bruno’s Fossil Emporium on West 47th Street. Aisles of fossils captured in sedimentary rock, formed by eons of running water. Sweet, rejuvenating, thirst-quenching water. Addison frowned and thought of his third-favorite place in the world: Frank’s Pizza on 23rd and Lexington. The perfect meatball slice, just a little salty—perfect with a tall glass of ice-chilled, life-giving water. His stomach growled and Addison growled with it. “Does anyone know any good stories?”

  Raj piped up. “Did I ever tell you about the time I dared my sister to drink an entire gallon of water?”

  Addison frowned and kept walking.

  After a few miles of listening to Raj’s stories about his sisters, Dax requested that they hike the next few miles in silence. By midmorning, the ancient Mongol capital was rising out of the empty plains like a mirage. Surrounded by crumbling mud walls, it contained a few scattered ruins overgrown with centuries of grass. Addison insisted on reconnaissance, so they climbed a hill overlooking the once great city.

  “Karakoram,” said Addison with a grand sweep of his arm, “the ‘Black Prison.’ Once the capital of the Mongol Empire. Founded by Ögödei, the son of Genghis Khan.”

  Molly looked at the shantytown of tin shacks, surrounded by lumpy ruins of broken bricks. “Not much now, is it?”

  “You try starting a capital,” said Addison. “See how it looks in eight hundred years.”

  He thumbed through Roland J. Fiddleton’s Asia Atlas and pointed out the city as Marco Polo once saw it. The Muslim quarter, the Christian quarter, and the twelve pagan temples. Now the only ancient structure still standing was the Erdene Zuu Buddhist Monastery.

  Molly glassed the monastery using Raj’s binoculars. She yelped when she spotted Tony Chin parking a large passenger van by the rear entrance. Tony slid open the suicide door and helped Madame Feng out. She was followed by Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel, bound in handcuffs. Triads then poured out of the van in an endless stream, like clowns from a clown car.

  Addison crawled to the edge of the hilltop to take a closer look. He lay on his belly peering through the binoculars. He spotted Boris’s Russian team parking a fleet of silver Mercedes-Benzes on the far side of the monastery. He passed the binoculars to Molly. “The A&U are leading the Chinese on a wild goose chase. And the Russians are falling for it.”

  “Why do you say that? Sir Frederick’s clue said a Buddhist sanctuary in the city of the son of the Khan. And that is clearly the best and only Buddhist sanctuary around.”

  “Well, it’s not the Buddhist sanctuary we’re looking for. According to Roland J. Fiddleton, the Erdene Zuu Monastery was built in 1585. Sir Frederick was here three hundred years too early.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Eddie. “We just crawled across a desert with no food and water in order to find a Buddhist sanctuary that isn’t here?”

  “I’ve got some good news,” said Dax, borrowing the binoculars and squinting at the tin huts of the shantytown. He pointed to the hitching post of a grubby cantina. “I just found our camels.”

  • • • • • •

  Dax led the group down into the desolate shantytown, weaving past broken tractor parts to reach the forlorn cantina. It was built of hammered scraps of corrugated tin. Addison recognized their camels tied at the hitching post, particularly when one of them tried to spit on Mr. Jacobsen. Next to the camels stood a row of sturdy Mongolian horses with wild manes and forelocks.

  “The only thing worse than a camel thief is a horse thief,” said Dax. From the disgust in his voice, he seemed to be speaking from a great deal of personal experience.

  Addison marched up to the cantina. A piece of black tarpaulin was hung for a door. He pushed his way inside and allowed a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. A few hardened herdsmen leaned against the bar. What they lacked in personal hygiene they made up for in facial hair.

  Addison spotted the camel trader by his bowlegs and whip. He wore an ugly scowl on an uglier face, and unlike math, Addison did not think that multiplying two negatives made a positive. “Normally, I would politely introduce myself. But I’m tired from walking all day because you stole our camels.”

  The trader drew himself up to his full height. “You call me a thief? I purchased these camels just this morning.”

  “Right,” said Addison, unimpressed by this story. “We need them back.”

  “That,” said the trader, “will cost you ten thousand yuan.”

  Addison took a deep existential sigh. He hadn’t eaten for days. And for once, he found he just didn’t have the energy. “My friends and I are going to eat some food. And then we can negotiate the cost of buying back our stolen camels.”

  The team dined on steamed dumplings and barbecued beef. Dax thought the beef might actually be horsemeat, but Addison thought it was one of the best meals he’d ever tasted. He drank seven glasses of water straight, barely pausing to breathe. He was astonished when the total bill came to only fifty yuan; the price was so reasonable, he searched his soul from stem to stern and felt no urge to negotiate.

  The cantina owner, excited to find customers pleased with the way he cooked horsemeat, wanted to make conversation. “Have you come to see the Erdene Zuu Monastery?”

  It was an understandable question. There was almost no other earthly reason to visit Karakoram. Yet Addison eyed the owner closely. Ever since Madame Feng’s betrayal in Hong Kong, he didn’t want to make the mistake of trusting anyone. If he revealed his plans to this shopkeeper, the shopkeeper might squeal if interrogated by triads. “Yes, we’re here to see Erdene Zuu,” Addison lied. “What’s left of it.”

  The cantina owner scratched his scraggly goatee and nodded wistfully. “There were once sixty temples, three hundred gers, and one thousand monks at the monastery.” He drew a hand-rolled cigarette from behind his ear and lit it off a kerosene lamp that hung from the low tin ceiling. “The Communists destroyed all but three of the temples. They killed ten thousand monks across Mongolia. O
ur monks were some of the few to escape.”

  “Where did the monks hide?” asked Addison, intrigued.

  “The Thousand Buddha Caves.”

  “Are they close by?”

  “They are hidden in the dunes of Elsen-Tasarkhai.”

  Addison leaned forward with interest. “How old are these caves?”

  “One thousand years old.”

  “And why are they called the Thousand Buddha Caves?”

  “Because there are so many Buddhas carved into rock.”

  Addison arched one eyebrow at his team. The tingling on the back of his neck told him they had just found Sir Frederick’s Buddhist sanctuary. He tipped the cantina owner an extra twenty yuan.

  • • • • • •

  They hiked out of the valley to the dunes of Elsen-Tasarkhai, where cliffs rose hundreds of feet from the desert floor. Addison had attempted to purchase their camels back from the trader, but ultimately decided that walking was cheaper. He regretted that choice the farther they trudged into the desolate wasteland. Mr. Jacobsen bounded ahead of the group, chasing any sand plover or sandpiper that dared to show its face. After another half mile, it was Molly who rounded a bend and spotted the thousand-year-old monastery carved into the stone edifice of a cliff.

  The group scaled treacherous rocks and reached a narrow parapet that zigzagged up the yellow limestone gorge. Stone Buddhas, a dozen feet high, presided over the mountain path. The monastery was like a fortress, impregnable to attack. For the price of a hundred-foot climb in searing heat, they reached the carved entrance to the cave monastery.

  Mr. Jacobsen celebrated the occasion by marking his territory.

  “Dax, your dog just relieved himself on a thousand-year-old temple,” said Addison.

  “Mr. Jacobsen ain’t interested in archaeology, kid. Just old bones.”

  “Is he a bark-aeologist?” tried Molly.

  Dax squinted at her and said nothing.

  She shrugged. It was worth a try.

  “That joke was only a ruff draft,” said Addison.

  The team surveyed the dark entrance to the cave monastery. It carried the musty cobalt smell of centuries. Wind whistled eerily in the opening, as if the cave mouth were moaning. Sir Frederic may have considered it a place of sanctuary, but Addison found the cave a bit too sinister for his taste.

  “You sure you want to go after the clue?” asked Dax. “We can still get out of here before the triads arrive.”

  Addison shook his head. “We have to keep moving forward. Sun Tzu says, ‘Attack is the secret of defense.’”

  “Sun Tzu also says, ‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.’”

  The whole group turned to look at Dax, impressed.

  Dax shrugged. “What, like I can’t read books?”

  “Thanks, Dax. But we’re doing this. We can’t allow the triads to find the next clue. They’ll steal the Khan’s treasure if we give them the chance.” Addison took an anxious glance back toward Karakoram, wondering how long Madame Feng would be delayed. “If you can find us a fast way out of here, that could save our lives.”

  “Don’t worry, kid. I can find a way in and out of any situation.” Dax whistled for Mr. Jacobsen and headed back down the cliff walkway.

  Addison and his team marched through the entrance of the Thousand Buddha Caves.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Hidden Temple

  THE CAVE MOUTH WAS low and dark. After a few paces, the ceiling rose dramatically to reveal a large open cavern. Rows upon rows of Buddha statues were carved into the limestone, stacked one above the other like stadium seating. It was as if a crowd of ten-foot Buddhas was filling a movie theater. The room appeared to dead-end. Addison was worried this was going to be a very short treasure hunt.

  “How many statues do you think there are?” asked Molly, taking in the strange sight. The Buddhas stared down at them impassively.

  “One thousand,” said Eddie. “It’s the Thousand Buddha Caves.”

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. “There are definitely a lot of Buddhas, but nowhere near a thousand.”

  Eddie saw she was right. “False advertising.”

  “There are one hundred and seven Buddhas,” Raj declared.

  “Are you just guessing?” asked Molly.

  Raj shook his head and quoted Sir Frederick’s clue. “‘One hundred seven will watch over you. Pray at the one that will show you the way.’”

  “I don’t see why they have the nerve to call it the ‘Thousand Buddha Caves’ if they only bothered to put in one hundred and seven Buddhas,” said Eddie.

  Molly saw that the statues were arranged in nine rows of twelve. She did the math. “There are one hundred and eight Buddhas here, not one hundred and seven.”

  “Does that mean something?”

  Addison cupped an elbow in one hand and thoughtfully tapped his finger on his chin. “‘One hundred seven will watch over you. Pray at the one that will show you the way.’ One of these hundred and eight Buddhas is not like the others.”

  Molly stared at the crowd of statues. “So which Buddha are we looking for?”

  “The only one at which a Templar can pray,” Eddie blurted out. “I’ve got it! I know the answer!”

  “I don’t follow you,” said Addison, not wishing to dampen Eddie’s fire. “At all.”

  But Eddie was already bounding across the floor like a Labrador after a tennis ball. He scanned the crowd of Buddhas and pointed to the fourth row, second from the end. “That one! That’s the Buddha we’re looking for.”

  Addison followed his finger to the forty-seventh Buddha. Its stone face was completely crumbled with time—it no longer even resembled a person. “That one? It’s the worst Buddha of the lot. It’s basically just a lump of stone.”

  “Exactly!”

  Eddie insisted they take a closer look. Addison didn’t have any better ideas, so Molly removed a twenty-foot coil of rope from her father’s survival kit and they scaled the stone edifice, level by level. Along the way, panting for breath, Eddie tried to explain his hunch.

  “The key is in the clue. What did Sir Frederick call this room?”

  “A Buddhist sanctuary,” Molly answered.

  “Almost,” said Eddie. “He called it a sanctuary for the idol worshippers of Buddha. That’s the key.”

  Addison frowned. “You’ve lost me, Eddie. I’m stranded at sea.”

  “Sir Frederick is a Christian knight,” Eddie tried again. “And I go to church every Sunday with my mom.”

  Addison could follow this so far, but had no idea how Eddie was going to connect these dots to the forty-seventh Buddha.

  “You memorize the Ten Commandments in Sunday school. The second commandment says a Christian can’t worship idols.” They reached the fourth level of statues. Eddie strode along the narrow aisle, swiveling sideways each time he had to sashay past a statue. “A Christian Templar knight would be forbidden to pray at a graven image. Sir Frederick cannot pray before one hundred and seven of these Buddhas.” Eddie reached the broken, crumbling, faceless Buddha, and turned dramatically to address the group. “This is the only one where a Christian knight can pray.”

  “Fine work, Eddie.” Addison nodded, impressed. “Let’s pray you’re right.” He winked and dropped to his knees. He bowed low as he had done in the Kashgar chapel, and was immediately rewarded with the sight of the Templar crest etched into the base of the rock. “Hallelujah,” he said. He rose back to his feet. “Sir Frederick says this Buddha is supposed to ‘show us the way.’ Any ideas?”

  Raj hunted for any loose brick they could pry from the base. Eddie tried pushing the Templar seal like a button. Molly checked the statue’s sightline, but that simply led back out of the cave. Addison pushed on various parts of the Buddha, looking for a secret trigger mechanism. He tapped on
the remains of the nose and the belly, and even rubbed the Buddha’s bald head.

  Finally, more from frustration than hope, Addison gripped the Buddha in a bear hug and shoved with all his might. The entire statue swiveled on its base, revealing a staircase leading down into the mountain.

  Addison, caught by surprise, nearly tumbled right down the staircase. He clung to the Buddha, his feet dangling helplessly in space, before Eddie and Raj pulled him to safety by his elbows. He straightened his shirt cuffs and, after the jitters had passed, regained his sense of dignity. He examined the dust that powdered the hidden staircase. “Raj, what do you make of this? Are we the first ones to enter in eight hundred years?”

  “Not by a long shot.” Raj squatted low to the ground and indicated footprints in the sand.

  “Well,” said Molly. “The cantina owner said monks hid here from Communists.”

  “That was years ago. These footprints seem fresh.”

  “You think people are already inside?” Molly dropped her voice to a whisper.

  “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” said Addison. He scooped his flashlight from his messenger bag and led the way down the stone staircase into the mountain.

  • • • • • •

  After two flights the staircase opened onto a massive arcade the size of a cathedral. Shafts of light lanced down from holes cut in the mountain, filling the hall with golden light. Addison shut off his flashlight to save the batteries.

  For a solid minute, the group stood with their heads craned back and their jaws dangling open. There were carved stone Buddhas everywhere. Large and small, skinny and fat, they filled the room.

  “So this is why they call it the Thousand Buddha Caves,” Eddie breathed.

  “Search for any place Sir Frederick might have hidden something.” Addison knew he was being vague, but he had no idea how to pin things down. They’d already used up all four sentences of Sir Frederick’s clue. He strode through the cavernous room, taking it all in. He saw the remains of cots, mattresses, cook pots, and books. “This must be where the monks hid from the Communists.”