by Steve Berry
The Russian seemed to gain some measure of control and stopped thrashing, though the three men retained a firm hold.
Tang stepped to the table and retrieved one of the last two items he’d brought with him from the oil platform. A small, handheld instant-ignition torch fueled with acetylene. The kind of tool utilized for quick fixes on the rigs. He opened its brass valve. Gas hissed from the tip. He stood the torch upright on the table, gripped the final item, a striker, and sparked the end to life.
He adjusted the flame to blue hot.
He crouched down and allowed the heat to lick the bucket’s bottom, then painted the sides of the pail with the flame. “As it warms, the rats instinctively shun the metal. They’ll quickly sense a desperate need to leave their prison. But there’s no way out. Everything is resistant to their claws, except your flesh.”
He heard the rats popping against the inside of the bucket, squealing at their predicament.
Sokolov screamed behind the tape, but only a murmur could be heard. The Russian’s restrained body was knotted in tension and wet with perspiration. Tang kept heating the bucket, careful not to make it too hot, just enough to entice the rats to attack the flesh.
Sokolov’s face squeezed with anguish. Tears welled in the Russian’s eyes and rained from the edges.
“The rats will claw down to your stomach,” he said. “They will burrow through your flesh, trying to escape the heat.” He kept stroking the metal with the flame. “They can’t be blamed. Any creature would do the same.”
Sokolov screamed again—a long, deep murmur muted by the tape. Tang imagined what was happening. The rats scratching furiously, aided by their teeth, softening the flesh that might allow them to escape faster.
The trick, as Tang had been taught, was knowing when to stop. Too long and the victim would receive severe, perhaps even fatal wounds from the infections the rats left behind. Too short and the point would not be made, and repeating the process was problematic, unless it didn’t matter if the subject survived.
Here, it did.
He withdrew the torch.
“Of course,” he said, keeping his eyes as gentle as his voice, “there is an alternative to this, if you’re willing to listen.”
FORTY
BELGIUM
Malone caught the significance of what Pau Wen had said. “How is that possible?”
“When the terra-cotta army was discovered in 1974, I was dispatched by Chairman Mao to investigate and determine the extent of the find. I immediately realized that what had been discovered could prove immensely important. No one had any idea that the underground army existed.” He pointed at the silks before him. “Shiji is silent on the matter. No written record mentions its existence. It seems to have been conceived, produced, buried, then forgotten.”
Malone recalled reading about the find. Pau was right—it had proven significant for China. Millions flocked to the site every year. No visiting head of state left without a peek. Even the pope came during an unprecedented visit to China last year.
“While at the site,” Pau said, “on a fortuitous day, I happened onto something even more remarkable.”
The digging had been ongoing night and day for three months. Already, several hundred clay warriors had been unearthed, most in pieces, piled one atop the other like trees fallen in the forest. Luckily, the pieces were all near one another, so Pau ordered that a restoration workshop be constructed and the figures reassembled. His archaeologists and engineers had assured him that it could be done. In fact, they were confident that the entire army could be resurrected and stood up again, one warrior at a time. There could be thousands of them, he’d been told. Along with chariots and horses.
What a site that would be.
And he agreed.
But the nearby mound interested him more. It stood a kilometer away, south of the Wei River, beside the slopes of Black Horse Mountain. A vast, shallow-sided, earth pyramid with a wide base, veiled in fir trees towering over the grassy plain, seemingly part of the landscape.
But that had been the whole idea.
Men of Qin Shi’s day believed that the dead lived on, only in a different world, and they should be treated as the living. So the First Emperor fashioned for himself a massive imperial necropolis, a subterranean empire, to continue his rule in the netherworld. Once created, everything had been hidden with dirt, creating a mound that once rose more than a hundred meters.
Had it ever been breached?
Literary references penned hundreds of years after Qin’s time reported that the tomb had twice been entered. First by rebels in search of weapons three years after the First Emperor’s death, then 700 years later for plunder. Scattered ashes, fired earth, and the broken warriors themselves suggested that the first violation may well have occurred. Few of the weapons the warriors once carried had so far been found. But the mound itself was not part of that first violation, and no one knew for sure if the second invasion ever occurred. He’d read Shiji and knew that there well could be rivers and oceans of mercury inside, part of an elaborate representation of Qin’s empire, and this could pose a problem. Though thought of as medicine in ancient times, mercury was anything but and most likely contributed to the First Emperor’s death. The fool would ingest an elixir each day of quicksilver, thinking that it would grant him immortality. Then again, looking at the mound that had stood for over two thousand years, Pau thought that perhaps Qin had been right after all.
Here was his immortality.
Mao himself had taken a keen interest in what was happening here. The Cultural Revolution was seven years past. Gangs waving their little red books of Mao’s thoughts were long gone, thank goodness. Schools and universities had reopened. The army was stable. Commerce had returned. China was again engaging the world. Warriors from the First Emperor’s time—a massive, silent, heretofore unknown underground army—might be helpful in steering Mao’s master blueprint for nation building. So the government had assumed control of the site, sealed off by the military, and workers were searched on both arriving and leaving. Some looting had occurred, mostly brass arrowheads sold for scrap. Several had been arrested and examples would have to be made, for nothing could jeopardize the area’s potential. The Chairman had told him to do whatever was necessary to preserve the find.
Mao trusted him and he could not disappoint.
So he’d ordered more exploratory digs.
Shiji made clear that there were countless aspects to the tomb complex. Already the digs had proven fruitful. Areas of interest had been identified. In one, horses and a chariot were discovered. Not representations, but the bones of horses and an actual chariot. What else lay in the earth around him? He could only imagine. It would take years to discover it all.
“Minister.”
He turned to face one of several supervisors he’d entrusted with the local workers, men he could depend on to keep order.
“We have something.”
He followed a group across the main excavation site—what they had started calling Pit 1—to an area twenty-five meters northwest.
A ladder protruded from a black yaw dug into the reddish earth.
“I found Qin Shi’s imperial library below that ground,” Pau said. “Several hundred manuscripts. Each one precious beyond measure.”
“I’ve never heard of any such find,” Malone said.
“That’s because I resealed the repository. Mao was not interested in manuscripts. The past was unimportant to him, except as it could be used to further his Revolution. Mao was a Legalist, not a Confucian—if you understand the difference.”
“Benevolence versus oppression,” Cassiopeia said.
Pau nodded. “It is a debate China has engaged in for a long time.”
“And which are you?” Malone asked.
“I have served many a Legalist.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I am for what is best for China. That has always been my concern.”
Still not an answer, so he tried, “Why did you reseal the library?”
“To prevent Mao from destroying what was inside.”
“And what was that?”
“Thoughts that contradicted Mao’s.”
“You’re good at not answering questions.”
Pau smiled. “I intended to return and explore the repository further, but circumstances changed and I was never able. What’s important is what else I found in that repository.”
Malone waited.
“A path into Qin Shi’s tomb.”
Tang watched as Lev Sokolov considered what he’d just said. The Russian remained bound to the chair, but the bucket had been removed. The rodents had viciously clawed his skin and blood oozed from nasty-looking wounds.
“You will do as I say?” he asked Sokolov.
Tape remained across the scientist’s mouth, so all he could do was nod.
He pointed to the chest. “You’re going to need antibiotics, and quickly. No way to tell how many diseases you have been exposed to. I suggest you not disappoint me.”
A furious nod of the head signaled that would not happen.
His satellite phone vibrated in his pocket. Any interruption had to be vital, so he checked the display.
Viktor Tomas.
He fled to the hallway outside and answered.
“I have some things to tell you,” Viktor said.
He listened to what was happening in Belgium, then said, “You were right about Cotton Malone. I should have listened.”
“He’s uncontrollable.”
“You don’t like him much, do you?”
“He’s trouble.”
“Are Malone and Vitt with Pau right now?”
“They are.”
This was not part of the plan. “I must know what comes of that meeting. Can you learn that?”
“I’m waiting for the information right now.”
Malone saw that Cassiopeia’s patience had evaporated. He realized that her concern was Sokolov’s son and that they currently had nothing to offer Karl Tang, so he tried asking Pau, “What did you see inside the emperor’s tomb?”
“I can tell you that the reports of plunder were wrong. It was a virgin site. Untouched.”
“And no one was told?” he asked. “Not even your good buddy Mao?”
“The times, Mr. Malone. Those things were not then important. Mao’s Cultural Revolution caused countless amounts of Chinese history to be lost forever. The gangs broke pianists’ hands, burned books and paintings, forced surgeons to clean bathrooms, teachers to wear dunce hats. Mao wanted great disorder so as to achieve a greater order, through him. It was a time when we willingly destroyed our heritage. The terra-cotta army discovery eventually helped change such foolish thinking, but that was a few years off. At the time of my discovery, I chose to keep what I saw to myself.”
“But not anymore,” Cassiopeia added.
“I must return to China—”
“Unnoticed,” Malone said.
Pau nodded. “You have a way. I’m in need. But you have needs, too. Inside Qin’s tomb are hundreds of lamps, filled with oil. I even lit one.”
Their host led them back to the silk map on the opposite side of the room and pointed to its center. “That is Xianyang, Qin’s capital. The First Emperor’s tomb was built here, nearby. If you can get me to Xi’an, I can deliver the oil sample you seek.”
Malone studied the map more closely. He wished he could read the lettering on both its surface and in the surrounding border. “Are these ancient designations?”
Pau nodded.
“If we get you there, can you get back inside Qin’s tomb?” Cassiopeia asked.
“The library repository I located was refound just a few days ago, discovered adjacent to Pit 3 at the terra-cotta museum.”
“Then they found the way into the tomb,” Malone said.
“My reports are that those who found the chamber have been concentrating on the manuscripts. They have not found the entrance, and they will not. I concealed that passage well.”
“How do you know all this?” Malone asked.
“Karl Tang told me, just a short while ago. We spoke on the phone. He mentioned the manuscripts, but nothing about the entrance passage.”
That information piqued his interest.
“And why are you talking to Karl Tang?”
“We were once allies, but not any longer. I must return to China immediately. In return, I’ll show you the entrance to the tomb and provide a lamp filled with oil from the time of Qin Shi.”
“Where’s the dragon lamp?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Minister Ni Yong has taken it back to China. He came here, after you, in search of it, too. Since it’s unimportant, I let him have it.”
“He doesn’t know about the oil?”
Pau shook his head. “I did not tell him.”
“And you’re still not going to tell us why that oil is so important to Karl Tang,” Cassiopeia asked.
“I will. Once I’m in China.”
“Tell me this,” Malone said. “And your seat on the plane is dependent on a really good answer.” He paused. “How were you and Tang once allies?”
“We are both of the Ba. Eunuchs. Though I sense that you already suspected that.”
Yes, he had.
He found his cell phone and said, “I need to make a call.”
Pau motioned at the windows and the lit courtyard beyond.
Malone stepped outside and dialed Stephanie. She listened to his report and his request, spoke a moment with Ivan, who was there with her, then said, “We can make it happen. Bring him along.”
“Lot of trust we’re placing here.”
“I know,” she said. “One more thing, Cotton. Robin Hood from the museum, the one who tried to spear Cassiopeia. When they examined the body they discovered something interesting that’s now even more relevant.”
But he already knew. “He was a eunuch, too.”
Tang stood in the hallway and quietly digested the new developments.
The Americans were involved?
Unexpected, to say the least. But not insurmountable. He was about to step back inside and conclude his time with Lev Sokolov when the phone again demanded his attention.
He answered.
“My Russian handler just informed me,” Viktor said. “Malone, Vitt, and Pau are coming to China.”
“Do you know how?”
“The Russians are going to assist. They are working with the Americans.”
Troublesome on one count, a relief on another. He listened as Viktor explained the travel plan, then said, “That should allow us the opportunity to eliminate them all at once.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“When are you returning?”
“In a few hours. I’m already booked on a flight.”
“I’ll need you to personally take charge, once you’re here.” He thought of the spies in his office. “Communicate with me only. There are few here I can trust with this information.”
“I’ll finalize everything while on the way,” Viktor said.
“I realize that you may actually enjoy Malone’s death, but I’ve sensed that it’s a different matter with regard to Vitt. Earlier you made clear that she would not survive the night. Of course, that did not happen.”
“Because of Pau’s interference.”
“What you really mean is my interference.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I ordered the strike on Ni, which failed. Pau obviously retaliated, which caused unforeseen problems.”
“You’re in charge,” Viktor said.
“Still, I sense you are somewhat glad I interfered, at least as it relates to her.”
“I do as you say.”
“I want to know.” He paused. “Any reluctance on your part to Vitt dying with the others?”
The line stayed silent a moment.
He waited.
“None,”
Viktor said. “I’ll handle it.”
FORTY-ONE
HALONG BAY, VIETNAM
THURSDAY, MAY 17
7:00 AM
Malone stared at the magnificent scene.
He knew the tale. Once, a great dragon ran toward the coast with its tail flailing, gouging valleys and crevasses along the way. As the beast plunged into the sea, water filled the low spots and left towering monoliths, like a crop of unfinished sculptures, one after the other, rising skyward. Standing on the dock, admiring Halong Bay, whose name meant “where the dragon descended into the sea,” he found it easy to believe that legend. The tranquil waters stretched over six hundred square miles, eventually spilling out into the Gulf of Tonkin. Three thousand islands dotted the turquoise expanse, most uninhabited blocks of gray limestone. Verdant shrubs and trees sheathed most of them, the startling contrast of their spring color to the dull sheen only adding to the surreal scene.
Malone, Pau Wen, Cassiopeia, Stephanie, and Ivan had flown on a U.S. Air Force EC-37 from Belgium to Hanoi. The modified Gulfstream had made the trip in a little over ten hours, thanks to a free pass over Russian airspace courtesy of Ivan. They’d then taken a helicopter for a short flight east to the coast and Quang Ninh province. Russia apparently enjoyed a close relationship with the Vietnamese, as their entrance into the country had been met with unquestioned cooperation. When Malone had inquired about the lovefest, Ivan had only smiled.
“Have you ever been here before?” Cassiopeia asked him.
They stood near a cluster of houses that formed a floating village. Multidecked tour boats rested at anchor, as did many of the junks, their fan-shaped sails finding no wind. A tiny boat appeared with a fisherman standing in it, rowing with two oars crossed in an X. Malone watched as the man found his footing and tossed a net out into the water, its weights opening the mesh like a flower.
“Once,” he said, “years ago. On an assignment, I came through on the way into China.”
“As you will today,” Ivan said. The Russian was studying the sky, looking for something. “Border is less than two hundred kilometers north. But we do not go that way.”