by N. J. Croft
“I don’t suppose you know any of those secrets?” Did she sound too hopeful? He’d already given her what she needed. This was extra.
He smiled. “As a child, I was fascinated by the spear. A thing of violence protected and venerated by people dedicated to a life of peace. I would pester the protectors with questions. I once asked them what those secrets were. They wouldn’t tell me except to say that when the time is right, the Spirit Banner will be reunited with Genghis Khan, and it will point the way.”
What the hell did that mean? The way to Genghis Khan, perhaps… The way to his tomb? “The way to what?”
“That they didn’t reveal. Perhaps it depends on who is looking. Now, I must pray.”
It was a dismissal. But she had gotten more than she’d hoped for, enough to move on. She rose to her feet. “Thank you.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope our talk helped and you will find peace in your search for truth. I sense much suffering in you, Dr. Blakeley.”
“You do?” And she thought she’d been doing such a good job of hiding it.
“You need to let go of your fear.”
“I’m trying.” She wanted nothing more than to leave her fear behind. Unfortunately, it seemed intent on following her. Maybe she should move into a monastery.
“Wisdom will come if your mind is calm and pure.” He bowed his head. “You will write and let me know how your search goes?”
“I will.”
Her mind was anything but calm; it buzzed with questions. But at least there was no room for fear. That had been pushed to a small corner of her mind by a rising sense of excitement. This was exactly what she’d hoped for. New information. A new place to look.
But what had he meant by the spear will point the way?
A monk met them at the door. He spoke to John, then John translated.
“He says they’ve set out lunch for us and we’re welcome to stay the night if we don’t need to get back to the city.”
She thought for a moment but didn’t want to waste a night when she had so little time. “Thank him for lunch. But explain that we need to get on our way, so we won’t stay tonight.”
He translated her answer, and the monk gave a small bow and led the way.
She wanted to drive north—if that was possible—and see the lay of the land. The route the warrior monks had taken when they left the monastery. That reminded her of something. She turned to John. “What did Batbayar mean when he said you could tell me about the warrior monks?”
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Why? But then he gave a small shrug. “When I was younger I thought I would become a monk. I trained in the monastery in China, where the warrior monks originate. Batbayar was my teacher for a while.”
“He was a warrior?”
“He still is. But in the end, that life was not for me. I left before I took my final vows.”
“Was it the warrior bit or the monk bit you didn’t like?” She could take a guess.
“Perhaps both.”
Why did she get the impression there was more to John Chen than he was letting on? But if that was the case, then he was on her side. He had likely saved her life last night.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t be called on to do it a second time.
…
She’d been fizzing with excitement since the meeting at the monastery. Whatever she’d found out had set her on fire.
It was as if she was coming to life. There was such a passion in her.
Zach recognized it because he felt the same way about his work.
She’d swapped places with him on the drive from the monastery and sat in the back next to Yuri. And they’d talked nonstop. Possible routes and miles per day and…
It was obvious there had been something between the two of them, and equally obvious that it wasn’t over as far as Yuri was concerned. It was none of Zach’s business as long as Yuri wasn’t a terrorist. And he didn’t think so.
Hell, he was no closer to finding any terrorists than when he’d started.
What the hell was he even doing here? He should be in London, persuading Brody to put him back on the case.
They’d taken a road leading north from the monastery and driven for another four hours until their way was blocked by mountains, and then they’d headed east until they hit a town big enough to have a hotel. John had gone in and booked their rooms, though Zach had to share with Yuri, since the place was so small. He hoped the guy didn’t snore.
The hotel was a pit, but it was a bed for the night. Yuri had showered as soon as they’d arrived, and then disappeared. He was probably trying to weasel his way into Eve’s room for the night.
There was a tap on the door, and he moved to his bag, slipped the pistol from the side pocket and down the back of his pants, pulled his shirt over the waistband. He crossed to the door, opened it, and there she was. Clearly not with Yuri.
She stalked past him and slammed the door, whirled around and stood with her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hey, it’s my room.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know what I mean. What are you doing here in Mongolia? With my team? And why didn’t you tell me you’d be here?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” She scowled and he went on. “Right now, you are my only lead, and I don’t have to tell you shit.”
“You think I’m working with these terrorists? That they paid me the money to…” She raised her hands palm up. “To do what exactly?”
He turned away for a moment, pressed his fingers to his forehead where a headache was forming. When he turned back, she hadn’t moved. “I don’t know. But no, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re working with the terrorists. All I do know is there’s a connection somewhere and I need to find it.”
She deflated at that. Her shoulders slumped and she sank onto the bed behind her, rubbing at her shoulder. “Did John tell you about what happened on the way from the airport last night?”
“Yes.”
She frowned at his answer. “And?”
“And what?”
“Jesus, you’re bloody annoying. Do you think the fact that someone tried to push us off the road is in any way related to your…connection?”
He sat down on the other bed, pulled the gun from his pants, and put it back in his bag.
She watched, the frown still on her face.
“I don’t like coincidences,” he said. “But I talked to the receptionist at the hotel, she spoke a little English, and she said recently there has been an increase in hijacks on cars coming from the airport. So that could be the case. It doesn’t make sense that anyone would pay you money to come here and then kill you just as you arrived.”
“Perhaps it was all a plan to get me here so they could kill me.”
He’d already considered that and dismissed the idea. “A lot of bother when it could have been arranged quite easily in Cambridge.” Though he supposed it might look less suspicious out here, it just didn’t feel right. An organization that would take out a Paris hotel would be unlikely to balk at taking out Eve in her hometown.
“Humph. Then maybe it’s someone else who wants me dead.”
“Do you have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of.” She waved a hand at his bag. “I don’t suppose you have another gun?”
“No.”
“How about lending me yours?”
“Never going to happen. You know how to shoot?” It didn’t seem a likely hobby for a university lecturer.
“Noah taught me. After the kidnapping. Noah liked shooting. He said it was empowering.”
Made sense. “Are you any good?”
“A natural, apparently, but I don’t like guns, so I haven’t practiced in a while.”
“Last night was probably nothing, but best not to go wandering around alone. Stay in the hotel tonight.” Maybe it would be a good thing if Yuri shared her room. But he couldn’t bring himself to
suggest it. Maybe he should offer to stay with her himself.
She sighed then got to her feet. “Dinner is in thirty minutes, then we’re having a meeting to discuss where to go next. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Thanks. I’ll be down as soon as I’ve showered.”
His cell phone rang just as the door closed behind her.
It was Tom Grady, a colleague from MI6.
Chapter Nine
Eve was getting good at not thinking about things. She’d decided that was the most effective way to get through this.
Concentrate on the expedition and nothing else.
On the other hand—don’t go out alone. Good advice.
She was drinking a cold beer. They’d had warm fermented camel’s milk for lunch—she didn’t think she would ever get the taste out of her mouth. Her stomach churned at the memory.
The hotel had a small lounge, and after they’d had their dinner of mutton stew, they’d taken over the room and she’d spread a map of the country onto the card table. The others took seats around the table. Yuri next to her, Zach directly across, John and Tarkhan on either side of him.
She stared at the map and tried to get her thoughts in order. She was so close. She got out a marker pen, circled the monastery and Ulaanbaatar off to the east.
“Why did they head north? Why didn’t they go directly to Ulaanbaatar?” she asked more of herself than the others.
“Maybe they expected to be followed,” Yuri said. “And they didn’t want to lead their pursuers to their final destination. It was a decoy and they swung east at some point after they left.”
“But they never reached Ulaanbaatar, and we have no record of any sightings or confrontations in the vicinity.”
“Perhaps Ulaanbaatar was never their final destination,” Tarkhan suggested.
That was something she’d been considering since her meeting with Batbayar. “Perhaps it was their intended destination, but something happened to change their minds. Maybe the soldiers were too close. So they headed somewhere else instead. Maybe they had a backup plan. If they couldn’t make it to the monastery in Ulaanbaatar safely, then they’d move to their second option. Which would be…”
Batbayar had said that one day the Spirit Banner would be reunited with Genghis Khan and it would point the way. Chills skated over her skin, raising goose bumps, and she rubbed her arms. She was on to something. She knew it. “They must have had a backup plan. They headed north with the intention of reaching Ulaanbaatar by an indirect route to avoid pursuit. But it would also give them an alternate destination.”
She used her marker pen to draw a big circle around the Khentii Mountains in the northeastern part of the country.
“Why there?” Zach asked.
She glanced at him. He’d been quiet all night, hadn’t spoken during dinner. Though he’d been fine when she’d gone to his room earlier. Had something happened after she left? If so, she doubted he would tell her. As he’d pointed out so eloquently—he didn’t have to tell her shit.
She was guessing all the others knew the answer to his question. Except maybe John. “Most people believe Genghis Khan was buried in the area known as the Ikh Khorig, or the Great Taboo, in the Khentii Mountains.”
“Why is it called the Great Taboo?” Zach asked.
“After his secret burial, the area was sealed off from outsiders. The only people allowed to enter were close family and a tribe who guarded the area. For nearly eight hundred years they kept everyone out. Even after the Mongol Empire came to an end. Then in the twentieth century, the Soviets took over and stamped down anything to do with Genghis Khan, in case he became a rallying point for the people. Tarkhan’s family was hauled off to a labor camp for continuing their studies. It was no longer known as the Great Taboo but The Highly Restricted Area. And they surrounded it by an equally large Restricted Area. Then placed a MiG airbase and nuclear weapons site between it and the capital of Ulaanbaatar, and a tank base at the entrance.”
“Looks like they really didn’t want anyone to get in,” Zach said. “And you think this is where your monks disappeared?”
“Batbayar said the monks who guarded the Spirit Banner had told him that one day it would be reunited with Genghis Khan.”
“So they took it back to his grave? The grave that no one knows the location of. And that people have been searching for—without success—for centuries. That grave?”
A smile tugged at her lips. He sounded so skeptical. But she was getting that tingling in her gut that always came when she had a breakthrough. She was definitely on to something. “Genghis Khan died while on a campaign against the Tangut nation, along the Yellow River. His body was carried back to his homeland, and the Spirit Banner led the way. It was carried by a female shaman, and after the burial, the shaman took the Spirit Banner for safekeeping. It’s believed she was the only person who saw the burial and survived—probably the soldiers wouldn’t kill a shaman for fear of reprisals from above. So there was one person who knew the location of Genghis Khan’s tomb. Maybe the secret died with her, or perhaps that knowledge was handed down with the Spirit Banner as it was passed from one protector to the next.”
She opened her laptop and went to the program she’d set up to track the possible whereabouts. Originally, she’d plotted this applying the most direct route to Ulaanbaatar, using a range of different walking speeds. Trying to tie down where and when the monks would be at any given time.
She had set up a database, populating it with information from all the sources they had from that period; newspaper articles, letters, anything pertaining to reports of military activity around the time and area. Two of her grad students had worked on the database full-time for a year, entering everything they could find, visiting the country, collecting information.
Then Eve had cross-referenced the route against the database. There was a lot of military activity back then, especially close to the capital city. But nothing had matched up to her time/location frame.
Then last year, Yuri had gained access to the military archives in Moscow. And that had opened up a huge resource. He’d gotten the records of the period under interest. That’s what they had been working on together last summer, translating and entering the military records into the database. They’d found the reports relating to the attack on the monastery, but there had been nothing about a unit sent after the Spirit Banner. No follow-up saying they’d intercepted and destroyed it. But then the records were sketchy; there were gaps in the timeline where files were clearly missing. Whether on purpose or by accident, she didn’t know. Likely a little of both.
Now she knew her original route was wrong. She stared at the map. That afternoon they’d driven north on the most direct course from the monastery. The land had been flat for the most part, grassy plains. She’d been overwhelmed by the immensity and emptiness of the scenery. That would have been easy to cross on horseback but would have also made them very visible to any pursuers and open to attack.
Using her marker, she drew a line north from the monastery, along the route they had taken, then east and into the Khentii Mountains. She chewed on her nail for a minute. Then adjusted the route a little, veering south toward Ulaanbaatar. Had they become aware of the pursuit? Or had there just been too much military presence around the capital city?
She opened the map in the program and input the revised route.
“We originally believed they left on foot,” she said, “and likely stayed on foot. At an estimated speed of approximately thirty miles per day. Now we know from Batbayar that they left on horseback. They would have been moving much faster. Probably as much as sixty miles a day, more if they were pushing the horses.” She input the change in speed, then hit the key to start the database search and sat back. Now she had to wait while the program recalculated the information. But that wouldn’t take long. Minutes, maybe.
But she suddenly felt restless. “I need a drink. Anyone else? Beers all round?”
“Water for me,”
Tarkhan said.
“I’ll help you,” Yuri said, getting to his feet.
She headed for the bar. The place was quiet; she hadn’t realized how late it was. But a woman emerged from a door behind the long bar and Eve ordered the drinks with a mixture of words and gestures. The hotel staff spoke no English here—it was a little off the tourist route.
“You think we’ll find it?” Yuri asked as they waited.
“I know we will. I have this feeling we’re so close.”
He smiled. “I’m glad. You deserve this.” He took a step closer and rested his hand on her shoulder, lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers. “It’s good to see you. I missed you.” He kissed her again, and she stood unmoving. Last year, she’d thought they had something special. But the truth was she’d felt relief when they parted. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. Didn’t want to take up where they had left off. “I could come to your room later,” he murmured. “I’d much rather share with you than Zach.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“It could be.”
“I’ll probably have to work. I need to get a hold of Star.”
He smiled. “I could help you work. In between other things.”
She shook her head and tried to soften her answer with a smile. “It’s over, Yuri.”
“Is there someone else?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I’m just not interested in more.”
He pressed his lips together and gave an abrupt nod. “I’m sorry about that. I’d hoped… Look, I think I’ll take a walk. I’ll see you in a little while.”
He turned around and was gone.
When she got back to the others, the results were in. She held her breath as she tapped the key to finish the process, and the new information flashed on the screen.
She read the words quickly, then again, slower, this time. And there it was. A grin tugged at her lips.
“You’ve found something?” Tarkhan said.
“I think so. A report from the military archives.” She grabbed her marker pen, leaned across and circled an area on the map. “A unit of soldiers on a routine surveillance mission reported some unauthorized activity in the Restricted Area. They tracked the group into the Highly Restricted Area and engaged them there.”