The Mongol's Coffin, page 21
"Why would they kill people over a fake tomb?" D. A. said, pleading. "Think it through, Chief. Someone wanted to stop us getting here, maybe that creep from the army, and they failed. Now Minister Jin is here to back us up, to back up Liz and her discovery. Much as I hate to say it, Gooney's right. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe the crown you saw was a replica of the one the Mongols took, have you thought about that?"
Jin stood, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. Grant had been in humint too long to think he was innocent, but what was he guilty of? Fake a tomb, then fake an adventure to carry it off? Why, so some foreigner could get credit for the discovery? Of course, because the rest of the world would instantly doubt the Chinese if they claimed this discovery. He flashed back to the interview he'd had at the University, when the archaeology dean mentioned that the Chinese Minister of Antiquities would be involved with the upcoming conference. Maybe scoping out the researchers, figuring out who to target with the clues that would bring them here. Or maybe Grant really was fucking insane.
Liz trembled, her shoulders sinking. He was saying everything she'd ever done was garbage.
"Look at the skeletons and the mummies—if you're right, then they should show signs: modern dental work, things like that. There should be other clues." D. A. sighed. "We should get Gooney back in here."
Grant held the gun rock-solid, but no longer knew where to point it. Just now, everything in the damn place was pointing at him. With a glance at Liz, hoping he conveyed some sort of apology, he stalked back up the corridor to the guard room.
"Very good. Let us move on," Jin was saying, "and begin the true discovery, Miss Kirschner."
"Somebody say my name?" Gooney stood at the threshold, but when Grant entered, he stiffened to attention, staring somewhere else. "I'm your back-up, sir, and there's no one to relieve me of duty, sir," he said pointedly.
But Grant wasn't leaving. He squatted down by the skull and picked it up. A few teeth were missing—knocked out in its fall? Lost in a life of hardship eight hundred years ago? Or wrenched out by someone who wanted to conceal the truth of modern dentistry? He stared at the bones. "Detective."
"Yes, sir." A snarl.
"How did he die?" Grant stared fixedly at the floor as Gooney stretched himself, blew out a breath, and finally stooped beside him, his cast pale in the sunlight through the door, another reminder.
Gooney studied the bones without touching for a long moment, then carefully rolled the rib cage, tracing the vertebrae. "There's a nick here, carved pretty deep actually, and another here. Stabbed, probably twice. Hard to say about the murder weapon. Trace analysis would give us the profile of the blade, and maybe the composition. We'd be able to tell if the blade were modern."
"Fascinating," Jin murmured, standing over them, but careful not to block the light.
Without looking at him, Gooney held out a hand to Grant to receive the skull, propping it for examination like Hamlet greeting Yorick. Then the detective went still, his jaw knotting, and he went on more slowly, his fingers tracing something only he could see. "Of course, that doesn't matter. Unless they were wearing glasses eight hundred years ago."
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Jin raised an eyebrow at the men, watching the fortunes of his family rest upon the web the soldier was spinning. He had been inclined to doubt Yang's assessment of the danger, and now he saw that even Yang had underestimated. Could this still be salvaged?
"Wait a minute, this guy wasn't hit by the rock fall, right? He was by the door—maybe he was a looter or an archaeologist or something, someone else who found the tomb, but never made it inside," the curly-haired woman suggested, her voice sounding flat and distant in Jin's ears.
"Rock fall missed him because of the ledge over the door," the big American replied. "You can see that from the sniper's nest. I'll need to have a look at the other bones though." He rolled one of the long bones in his hand, displaying it in the streak of sunlight from the door. "The surface is a bit pitted, and darkened—from a distance, at least, the other ones looked the same. Likely all went down at the same time, under similar circumstances."
"So how could they be modern corpses? No hair, no clothing, no flesh—"the curly-haired woman glanced at Miss Kirschner as if concerned about offending her. The younger woman already looked pale and fragile, her research under attack as her Mongol companion already had been. Jin had placed himself on her side, but she seemed to be giving up already. Disappointingly weak. Indeed, he should have searched for right person rather than to fold her into his plan simply because of a few songs.
"This seems a reasonable point," Jin said. "Even should someone wish to do such a thing, to create such a complex undertaking, surely the manufacture of skeletal remains would be a step too far."
"For anyone looking for Genghis Khan's tomb, the stiffs would be the clincher." The big American stood up, his eyes rested briefly on Jin, then flickered away toward the door. "There's ways to de-flesh a corpse. We'd need a full chemical analysis of the soil to figure out what kind of agent was used."
At his side, Casey bore a half-smile. As if he had won. Jin fingered the device in his pocket. For a moment, he met Huang's gaze, the businessman watching him, impassive: the face he wore at auction when he did not wish anyone to know how high he would bid. His money had made the American expedition possible. Time to sow some doubt in these friendships of fortune. Jin tipped his head in Huang's direction. "Perhaps Mr. Huang can assist with your analysis, given his pharmaceutical connections."
Huang stiffened, a nearly imperceptible change. "I thought, Minister, that you had agreed not to exploit that history."
"Just how well do you two know each other?" The big American demanded, glaring at Jin.
"Perhaps better than you know your benefactor, if you are not aware that it is drugs, not buildings, that have been the foundation of his wealth."
Casey's already taut body twitched to readiness, as if Jin had shaken the ground beneath him, and forced a change in balance. Their attention shifted from Jin to the man they believed they could trust.
Jin drew out the device from his pocket and pressed the button.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
An ear-shattering screech filled the cave, shooting through Grant's skull and dropping him back to his knees. Gooney clamped his hands over his ears, staggering against the wall, gasping. The sound reverberated and echoed all around them, causing streaks of agony. Across the way, Liz collapsed to the ground. D. A., too, was clasping her ears, mouth gaping and eyes popped wide. She swayed. Her ears, too, had been trained to a high sensitivity. Huang was somewhere behind him—had he known this was coming? Grant's head throbbed, his vision blurring, and he could hear nothing at all.
Jin calmly stood holding the palm-sized device, watching them through his glasses, the kind with attached hearing protection which, in the dim light, he had applied while apparently fiddling with the frames. His eyes met Grant's, then he tossed the device lightly, still screaming its attack, down the back corridor into the darkness. Giving a small bow, he exited the chamber, casually reaching a hand for the door.
Grant lunged forward, sprawling across the bones, grazing Gooney's legs as the detective crumpled under the auditory onslaught. The bones scattered without sound. Gooney turned with him, his mouth flapping silently. Grant hooked the rifle from his shoulder and slung it downward, jamming the butt into the narrowing gap of the door. The huge door moved ponderously and slammed against the metal gun, rocking its length without dislodging it, all without making a sound. Grant's vision still pulsed, as if the sensory overload from his ears had spread to his other senses. He didn't know how the hell he was still functioning, but was willing to bet on adrenaline alone.
Gooney was trying to talk to him, but moving his head around, as if he could shake out the sound, making lip-reading impossible. Tapping his shoulder, Grant flashed the time-out gesture, pointed to his eyes, to the door, circling his hand and flashing several hands of fingers, indicating that the enemy would have them surrounded.
Still shaking, Gooney swallowed hard and got himself under control. He faced Grant and spoke carefully, his training returning, including gestures, telling Grant to go after the device and stop it, while he got Liz out the door.
Grant flashed his gesture again. Into enemy fire. No deal.
Gooney mouthed a single word that required no training to read. Shit. He pressed a hand over one ear, wincing, then lifted his chin to Grant, asking, what have you got?
In answer, Grant forced himself up, glanced back to confirm the device was far away, and knocked over the nearest propped-up mummy. He pulled off the armor and helmet and wriggled into the chest armor, slapping the helmet on his head.
Circling a finger by his ear in the universal sign for insanity, Gooney crawled over and yanked down a warrior of his own. He had to slash open the leather on one side to squeeze into the armor, leaving his side vulnerable. Grant swiped a silver belt and slapped it around Gooney's waist, drawing the sides as tight as he could. Their eyes met, Gooney's face a mask of discomfort and uncertainty. He shook his head slightly, slapped his palm to his forehead, then pointed at Grant and gave a shrug. The closest he would ever come to an apology.
Huang straightened slowly, his hands clamped over his ears. He winced, tears flashing in his eyes. A drug kingpin and an ally of the Chinese, but he'd been left behind when Jin made his escape. Whatever else he might be, the guy was not an operator.
At a tap on his arm, Grant whirled, the gun in play again, but it was D. A. gesturing toward her ears, and holding out a handful of wool she'd pulled from one of the artifacts. What are they waiting for? She asked silently.
Grant stuffed his ears, grateful for even that slight reduction in the sound, and divided the rest of the wool between Gooney and Huang. The guy shrank in his high-end gear, like a little kid playing explorer. Grant jabbed a finger in Huang's direction, pointed at the man's flashlight, then emphatically gestured toward the back room. "Turn that damn thing off," he mouthed. Huang hesitated, sinking a little further, then stumbled in that direction, his light bobbing into the darkness.
To D. A., he replied with the sign for a kill, then gestured at the room around them. If the Chinese killed them in here, shot them, their pristine tomb would be a ruin, and all of their plans along with it. How worried were they? Could that work to Grant's advantage?
The light shifted and he grabbed D. A., yanking her out of the stripe of sun as someone got into position out there. What the hell were they doing?
By the door, Gooney pressed his back to the bronze, taking sharp breaths, fumbling through his pockets to come up with a small rectangle. The polearm from one of the fallen mummies lay at his feet and he picked it up carefully. Grant sighed to himself—if they couldn't hear shit, neither could those outside, and here was Gooney sneaking around like an infiltrator sure of his cover. Gooney wedged the rectangle in a notch in the ancient blade and lifted it, passing it carefully out the top of the door, and twisting the pole this way and that. Grant caught a flash and stared up. A signal mirror, reaching out the door, aiming down. Four soldiers were outside with a hose, two of them with guns aimed at the gap, one of them signaling to someone up the hill. Gas—could be just CO from the cars, a nice, non-destructive way to kill the occupants. They wouldn't have much time.
To do what? To blow their enemies' plans sky high. His eyes lit on the heap of fireworks.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
"Project Raven is over. It is a disgrace, Minister. There is no reason not to simply shoot," Guo insisted. "They will not come out."
Jin held himself in a ready stance by the car, listening to Guo's harangue. "They will come out dead, like rabbits from a warren." At a sign from the soldier by the gate, he turned on the engine, letting the car run. If he ran out of gas, he would have it siphoned from one of the jeeps and still drive home in comfort.
Out here, the sonic grenade sounded distant, an alarm call, but one he need not answer. Down by the helicopter, the moans of dying men rose and fell. The Mongol and the Chinese driver were barricaded inside, with whatever weapons they had brought. Anyone who approached was shot, either by them, or by the sniper hiding in the rocks across the way. A small contingent of soldiers worked slowly across the upper slopes, trying to get behind him and take care of that problem.
"Have you not heard me, Minister? Raven is a ruin."
"No, it has merely had a setback. Surely in the campaigns you have run, Captain, you do sometimes face an obstacle unforeseen?"
"Unforeseen? It wasn't—it was Casey, the very man you swore your agents would take care of."
Jin focused on him. He imagined sliding back his foot, swinging it around, slamming the captain in the chest hard enough to stop his heart and letting him fall into the dust, perhaps hiring another chemical tanker to add his skeleton to the dead khan's guard. But no, it was the unplanned slaying of his former assistant that had provided enough evidence to back up Casey's otherwise mad claims. Who would fake a tomb, steal the artifacts, leave a thousand skeletons? A man committed to his task, who left no detail unplanned. And now a single, unplanned act had nearly caused the very ruin of which Guo now spoke.
"When we have overcome this difficulty, Captain, we will merely re-seal the tomb and wait. I did not expect Project Raven to reach fruition so soon, nor did the Councilor plan on it. The original timeline called for locating a suitable researcher to be guided here two years from now. I am a patient man."
"There will still be bodies to manage, and American connections to assuage. Not to mention the consequences of the death of a man like Huang."
Jin felt that blow, but he did not reveal it. "Indeed, there will be consequences, not least for you if you fail to assist as you have been ordered to do."
Guo gazed down into the valley. "It is gratifying to hear you admit that you require assistance, after all of your talk of controlling the situation. Very well. Sergeant! Get that door open and eliminate the intruders."
The leader of a group of soldiers, lying back from the edge, scrambled to his knees, keeping his helmet low, and gave a quick nod, then signaled to the two-dozen men behind him.
"No blood! Some of those artifacts are irreplaceable."
Swiveling his head, Guo stared now at the dead soldiers by the helicopter. "There has already been blood."
"Captain?" said the sergeant, hesitating, and Guo waved him in.
Two shots from the sniper across the way, and two soldiers went down, but the group of four on the slope above now had the man's position, and returned fire. Excellent.
Then the piercing scream of the sonic grenade went silent—only to be followed by a deafening roar.
Chapter Sixty
Liz jolted awake when the floor rumbled beneath her. Someone held her in strong arms—Grant, she first imagined, then felt the brush of curly hair against her cheek. The awful screeching was gone, replaced by a rolling boom that echoed through the sudden silence in her skull.
D. A. grabbed her, pushing, pulling, until Liz stumbled to her feet, then the other woman pulled her forward. Something wobbled on Liz's head, and she steadied it, finding a leather helmet studded with metal outside, and lined with it as well. It weighed her down, along with a vest of similar structure. Ahead of them, two mad silhouettes stormed into the sunlight over the fallen door, Mongol warriors, but too tall, guns in one hand, pole-arms in the other.
Blood oozed under the huge bronze door near a twitching leg. Smoke billowed around the opening and the air reeked like the Fourth of July. She sneezed, staggered, and D. A. pulled her onward, over a scattering of bones, over a pool of blood and past the ruined face of a soldier. The woman didn't try to speak. Tufts of wool poked from her ears beneath a helmet of her own, and she, too, held a gun. The two warriors ran, stopped, shot, ran again, then split, one for the hillside, one for the rank of soldiers opposite, charging toward them. D. A. followed this one, scrambling up the slope, towing Liz.
D. A. pushed her ahead, gesturing toward the helicopter, and putting both hands out to steady her gun as she fired. Liz had never felt so useless, her ears buzzing and head rattling with so much sound and violence.
A hose snaked down the hill toward the blasted tomb and the dead soldiers. Another group of soldiers rushed up, using the parked car as cover. In moments, they'd be in place to take down D. A. or the warrior beyond.
Liz dropped low and grabbed the hose with both hands, yanking it up as the men ran close. Four of the six lost their footing, recovering quickly.
Jin, at the door of the car, turned to look at her, his face cold, all sense of shared excitement subsumed into a calculating stare. An arrow shattered the window behind him. Jin ducked into the car as the advancing soldiers regrouped, then the car lurched into reverse, smashing into the Chinese soldiers, bumping over their bodies and roaring away for a hundred yards before it swung about into a turn.
The army command car stood exposed by this departure, the officer's face round and furious, eyes darting from Liz to his fallen men, to the shiny sedan that had knocked them down like bowling pins.
She put on a burst of speed and reached the helicopter just as the door popped open to receive her. Byambaa's powerful hand helped her inside while Zhen, Huang's driver, slipped out, taking a shooter's stance beside the copter.
Across the way, Gooney shot at the remaining scouts, then clubbed one of them with his cast. Nick rose from nowhere, both of them covering Grant and D. A. who did a sudden pivot, moving like a pair of dancers in the competition of their lives. Together, they sprinted for the copter and dove in. Zhen turned to join them, but Grant shoved his gun into the man's face and Zhen backed off, not raising his hands, but not firing either.
D. A. scrambled into her accustomed seat, then braced her gun toward the soldiers. Grant dropped into the pilot's seat beside her, the medieval helmet framing his handsome face as he focused on the controls.
