Carl was silent as he tried to bring back into focus what he remembered. “Yes.” Carl fixed his eyes on the doctor.
“I have no…phone…for you.”
Everett smiled at the old man. “You have done enough. My friends know where I’m at.” He closed his eyes and thought about Jack. There was a problem with the image he remembered. He did know and see in his mind’s eye, Jack raising the pistol just after he had dispatched the Russian with the knife. When he had seen Collins come to his rescue, he was relieved. Relieved that is, until the memory flashed forward to his best friend shooting him. Carl knew his cloudy memory was failing him. There was something wrong with the memory. The image itself was accurate. He had the bullet wounds to prove it. It was the way he was shot. He just couldn’t place it. He concentrated. Something was off in the memory. He saw Jack. It was most assuredly him. He saw the pistol being raised as he thought the Colonel was covering something he himself could not see behind him. Then the shock of the gun going off and the memory of the bullets impacting his body. He did remember looking at his face and seeing no sympathy, no friendship there. The eyes were Jack’s eyes. No, he thought. That wasn’t the issue. It was something that lay just beyond his brain’s ability to focus on.
His attention was drawn away by movement in the apartment. He saw the lights dim and the old man move to a window and pull back the blinds that were missing at least half of their slats. He watched as the doctor froze at a sight he was seeing down below. Hùng moved away from the window and quickly went to Carl’s side.
“We may have visitors…I am not sure. My…landlord is…below. Her attention…is focused on my home. There are two strangers with…her.”
Hùng started to assist Carl off the bed. Before he was able to fully sit up, a pounding sounded on the door. Both Carl and Hùng froze as the door opened, suddenly casting the room with light from the alley below. The figure was backlit to the point they couldn’t see who was there. Simultaneously, they saw the saucer cap that was clearly part of a uniform and their hearts skipped a beat in tandem. Hùng allowed Everett to slide back to the bed as the old man partially raised his hands in the air. He saw the Vietnamese army uniform and knew that his freedom, along with his life, may have just been placed in forfeit—that was the confusion in modern Vietnamese society these days—are we friends with the Americans or are we not? The figure came forward into the room.
Before the newcomer could say anything, the voice of the old lady sounded behind him. The rapid-fire Vietnamese bounced from wall to wall and Carl could tell it had an accusing tone to it. Before he realized what was happening, the voice was silenced by a large hand that snaked around the small woman’s head and placed something over her mouth. Then came the mumbling, and Everett saw the property owner collapse as the man behind her saved her from falling. He moved the old woman inside and laid her on the floor. Both Carl and Hùng saw the first man in uniform come closer and Carl smiled. Then the second well-dressed man came into the light. He frowned at seeing the second.
“Do not say a word. I am here for only a moment. After this, our friend here can handle things,” said the tall blonde man who had allowed his hair to grow past his collar, of which was a tuxedo shirt with formal jacket over it. It was obvious that the man had been someplace other than Southeast Asia when he had been contacted by Niles and Morales.
“Hello, Henri,” Carl said with a contemptuous look at Colonel Henri Farbeaux, and then he nodded his head at Van Tram, the Group’s old friend.
Sergeant Nuong Van Tram smiled and removed his saucer cap and then held out his hand to Everett who gladly took the offered greeting.
“Will you be able to handle that?” Carl asked as he nodded at the old lady after releasing Tram’s hand.
The Vietnamese Special Forces sergeant turned and looked at the old woman lying on the floor. “Yes. It seems our landlord here is dealing in stolen video discs outlawed by the new intellectual property agreement we just signed with INTERPOL. She will claim she is innocent, but if pressed, with the overwhelming evidence, she will cooperate.”
“That’s what delayed our arrival here,” Henri said as he moved the old lady to a chair by the lone table. “It seems the sergeant here has learned a little too well from your Group, Captain. He planted a few boxes of the worst movies you have ever heard of in her basement. I don’t think we’ll have a problem there.”
Hùng was staring at Tram with wide-eyes until the sergeant shook his head, and instead of shouting at him for disobeying the law, patted the old man on the back. He spoke softly in Vietnamese, and the doctor relaxed and collapsed onto the foot of the bed. Tram turned to Everett.
“Can you travel, Captain?”
“Your English has vastly improved, old friend,” he smiled at the much smaller sniper. “But as Jack once said, I think there is more to our sergeant Tram than meets the eye,” Carl said, as he held out his hand once more for Tram to assist him to his feet. He slowly helped Carl up, then reached down and placed his large hand on the Doctor, who was still in shock as he stared at the unconscious form of his nosey landlord. “Thank you. You saved my life. I can never repay your kindness.”
The old man stood and then half-bowed his head and shoulders. “It made me feel like a…doctor again. Thank…you.”
Carl smiled and then partially collapsed in Tram’s arms.
“We have to get you to a hospital,” he said.
“The Director has forwarded new travel papers, and our devious little sergeant here has come up with, what do you Americans say? A doozy of a cover story. It seems you were mugged by criminals in District Six, where you were conducting your John Deere tractor business. As I said, our good sergeant has learned his lessons well.”
“No hospital. We have to track down Jack.”
“Not possible in your condition, Captain,” Tram said as he moved Carl toward the door. “I will assist in finding the men who did this to you, but since you are not willing to go to the hospital, I will accompany you to your final destination in Hanoi to make sure you and who you meet are safe. Then I will return here to find the Colonel.”
“Tram, it was Jack who shot me and threw me in the river.”
Van Tram stopped and looked at a now smiling Henri Farbeaux who obviously thought the comment extremely humorous.
“Oh, so the friends had a falling out. This story must be heard,” Henri said, and then smiled more blatantly than the moment before. “Do you plan on payback, Captain?” He gestured toward the door, indicating for Tram and Carl to exit first.
“Why are you smiling, Froggy?” Carl asked Farbeaux.
“No reason at all.”
Chapter Four
Allal Mountains,
Outer Mongolia
The four geologists could not take their eyes off the small man in the black suit and bowler hat as he and his son spoke softly out of hearing range. Professor Lee, who as it turned out, was not the man they thought he was, was gesturing from the group, and then back to his father as the older man listened patiently.
“As I asked before, how many of you are not who they say they are?” the rotund Australian, Birnbaum, asked as he sat on a large rock while watching the two men before them.
“Does it matter, Professor?” Anya asked, as she sat next to Sarah, who was still eyeing the men arguing over their fates.
“I believe I would like to know exactly who I am to be buried with when they come to some form of conclusion over there.”
Sarah stood and, with a wary look at Lee and his father, faced the Australian. “I am Captain Sarah McIntire, United States Army.” She gestured to the seated Anya. “Major Anya Korvesky, attached to same.” She stepped in front of the man known to them as Anderson. “This man, obviously Anderson is not his real name as we surmised earlier when he was holding a gun on all of us, is your typical Russian asshole.” The man smiled up at the diminutive Sarah. She kicked out with her boot and caught the man squarely in the testicles, sending him sprawling onto the
sand with a laugh coming from Anya. “That’s for scaring these poor people, Comrade.”
Anderson lay moaning as he tried to keep the contents of his stomach from spewing out onto the warming sand. The move had caught the attention of both Professor Lee and his father, Li Zheng. They watched as Anderson rolled on the ground. The older man smiled and the younger looked shocked.
Anya slowly stood and brushed sand off her pants and then started to assist Anderson to his feet, who gratefully raised his hand for Anya to grasp. When he was off balance, she let go and he fell back to the ground with an ‘umph’ sound.
As Sarah and Anya moved away from the agonized Russian agent, the older man and his son slowly approached.
“Before you do to us what you plan to do, what word is there on our twelve colleagues who left earlier this morning?” Sarah asked while holding both men’s eyes.
“I was not able to help them. I am sorry for that. None of this was supposed to occur,” the man introduced as Li Zheng replied with true sadness lacing his words. “When it was discovered that there were no minerals in the mountains for your governments to profit from, my son was supposed to lead you all out of this valley.” He half-turned and faced the very much younger Professor Lee. “Instead, he indulged his natural arrogance to assist in showing you what you never need know.”
“Excuse me, mate, but you lost me somewhere back there,” Birnbaum said as he finally stood and faced the smaller men. “You know about that strange ore we found?” His angry look went from Lee to his father.
“Yes, my father and I disagree on many things. The mineral is one of them.” He turned to face the man who just stood and watched. “This is our main point of contention. He moves at a snail’s pace while the world destroys itself.”
“And my eldest son still has not learned the shared lessons of our past, and wants to rush headlong into a world war if our ore is discovered.”
Anya was watching the oldest story in history. A father’s disappointment in his son and vice versa. “Excuse me, us, here, prisoners?”
“Yes, I am sorry,” the older man said as he stepped past his son. “You are our guests and we should not be so rude. You are not prisoners. But,” he frowned, “your associate there has contacted his superiors and now I am afraid we will have to wait for the next move in this game of chess.”
“A game? We lost twelve very valuable scientists to this game of yours,” Anya said as she stepped toward the two men. “If this is just a game, you play by very strange rules.”
The older man smiled. “Chess is not a game, young lady. Chess moves are what we call life here in the Gobi. Now, I am sure you are curious as to what it was you have discovered. We may as well show you since my son has failed miserably in keeping it quiet. Now we have you, and possibly the outside world, closing in on that secret. This we cannot have.” He gave his son a stern look, which looked out of place on the man’s gentle features.
“You know our names and why we were here?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, very much so, Miss. We have bumped into your organization,” he looked without smiling at the Russian, Anderson, “and his, from time to time. When we learned the Americans had satellite intelligence on this region, possibly pointing to a new mineral source, we knew this to be a lie. My son is a geologist. He knows there are no minerals here worth the trouble. So, we surmised that you Americans were possibly onto something other than your cover story. It has to be the ore that your magnificent machine…” He looked perplexed momentarily. “Ah, yes, Europa, had found that no other system in the world could have detected. Amazing stuff.” He again angrily faced his son. “Another example of someone being caught unawares.”
“So, there is more of this strange material here?” Anderson asked haltingly as he eased himself back to a sitting position while still holding his stomach in check.
The old man nor his son answered the strained inquiry. Li Zheng just turned and started walking.
Sarah watched Lee as he gestured that they should follow. “The locals scare easily, my friends. But make no mistake, they will be back. You have the choice of going with us and learning some of the deepest, darkest secrets of the world, or stay here, eventually walking out and running into the indigenous population once more.”
“What about Charlie and Ryan?” Anya asked.
Lee just smiled and turned to follow his father. “Stay or follow, the choice is yours.”
“That’s bleedin’ great, mate, follow you to possibly get murdered or stay here, and definitely get murdered,” Birnbaum said as he started to follow the two men. “Hell of a choice.”
Sarah and Anya looked from the men’s retreating backs, to each other. They turned to also follow. Anya on her way by, kneed Anderson one last time, sending him sprawling once more.
“Very professional, real professional,” he called out as he haltingly rose once again.
* * *
They walked about a mile. Or was it ten? Sarah and Anya were having a hard time keeping track. They both looked at their watches and saw that neither one was sharing the same time information as the other. Finally, Li Zheng stood facing a stone wall. The old man held his arms out to his side and slowly raised them. His son, Lee, shook his head as if in exasperation. He half-turned and faced the four people following.
“He can be the most irritating man on the planet. This is all for show, you know.”
“What is?” Sarah asked as she stepped closer.
“This Merlin crap. He doesn’t get to show off much to outsiders. I admit, it’s his only vice handed down over the generations, so, we allow him this one small deceit. I mean, with his ability he could enslave the world, so we give him this. The world’s a happier place with his abilities in check.”
“Abilities?” Birnbaum asked as he saw Anderson step up next to him. He moved away out of distaste.
There was no answer as the old man turned his head toward them and then smiled as his arms and hands came to their pinnacle. Before anyone knew what was happening, the rock facing at the end of the small box canyon started to shake. The sand and dirt that lined the area between the stones started to sift through the cracks and the old man curled his fingers into balled fists. Lee rolled his eyes and shook his head. Suddenly, the entire facing of the wall shot upward. The stone, at least one hundred and thirty tons of it, hovered over a darkened hole. The black area inside the mountain was not able to be penetrated by the four strangers as they stepped back a few paces, as the tonnage above them wavered, rolled in the air, but held firm directly above them.
“This is our eastern gate,” Lee said as Li Zheng waved his fists around, as if keeping the massive stones in the air by wind power. “We better go through. It would be our luck the old fool has a stroke before we move out from underneath.”
“I heard that, my son,” Li Zheng said as he continued to wave his arms and balled fists.
“Well, it would be the first thing you heard me say since my birth.” The younger man angrily waved their guests through the strange portal. As soon as they were through, Li Zheng slowly lifted off the ground and, as if he were being carried on a gentle swell of tide, came through. He lowered himself to the worn ground beneath his feet and then closed his eyes. They all screamed and jumped back when the rock facing outside came crashing back to the box canyon outside.
“Jesus Christ, this is too bloody much,” Birnbaum said in the darkness of the cave they found themselves in.
“Does anyone have a flashlight?” Sara asked.
Before they knew it, a small glowing light filled the darkness. They turned and saw, not Li Zheng, but his son, Professor Lee, as he swirled his hands in front of him. The ball of light grew brighter and Lee allowed the swirling mass of sparks to rise from his hands. The ball grew as it rose into the damp air of the cave. Then the swirling ball slammed into the stalactite covered ceiling and the ball of electrical light spread as if it were water breaking upon a shore. The cave was now alight as if the sun had risen inside the mo
untain.
“Wow,” Sarah said as she held her gaze upward, as if in a trance.
Anya for her part, was staring at young Lee. He smiled and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “That is the shit,” she said with mouth ajar.
“That’s it for me. I’m what you would call a ‘one trick pony’.”
“Well, that’s one hell of a one trick, laddie.” Birnbaum’s eyes went from the brightly illuminated electrical storm above their heads over to a smiling and embarrassed Lee. “What in the hell is he?”
Lee snorted. “He is an elemental.”
“An ele-what?” Birnbaum asked.
“Air Bender, my friend. He is the last of the Air Benders.”
Li Zheng snickered as he walked past the observers and down the trail they were on. “He’s a slow learner, my son is. That name is a misnomer. I am but a man. The real magic is a false one. You will see.”
Sarah and Anya saw the younger man shake his head in exasperation as he started to follow his father, as he was strangely snapping his fingers and looking high above them as he walked. Just before Li Zheng vanished around a bend in the trail, he raised his right hand and snapped his fingers as his son was attempting to do. The brightness above flared out and then spread even further to cover the part of the trail they were on.
“As I said, my son is a slow learner.”
“Asshole,” Lee said as he again shook his head.
* * *
After an hour, or was it six, maybe even less than fifteen minutes, the group stopped at another blank wall of rock. The light from above still followed the deeper they traveled. Li Zheng turned and faced the newcomers to his desert.
“Welcome to our home,” he said, as he and his son both faced the group.
“Not much to look at,” the Australian said with a smirk.
Li Zheng smiled and then turned and faced the second rock wall. He simply raised his left hand and swiped at the damp air in front of him. With their mouths wide open in stunned silence, the rock slowly evaporated right in front of them as if a movie projector had been switched off. Sarah estimated that the open space was no less than a mile wide as they stared out onto a sight they could never have imagined.
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