The Shadow, page 6
“That’s just it, sir,” Berger said. “I don’t know what it is. I’d have labeled it a mummy case, coming from Tibet, as it does, but—”
“A mummy case from Tibet,” Newboldt said, in a patronizing tone. “Well, that’s very interesting.”
Berger nodded. A slightly built man with thinning hair, he wore a bow tie and wire-rim glasses. “Exactly what I thought. But this one seems to be metal. So I decided that it was more of a sarcophagus—”
“Oh, a sarcophagus from Tibet. That’s a horse of a different color.” Newboldt showed the younger man a disapproving look and took a step toward the crate. “Pay close attention, Mr. Berger, you’re about to be educated.”
Accustomed to the curator’s condescension, Berger conjured an attentive look. Alongside him, with his mouth slightly ajar and his uniform cap crooked on his head, stood Nelson, small and baby-faced.
“In Tibet, burial in the ground is reserved for criminals and people who die of contagious diseases,” Newboldt began. “Beggars, widows, widowers, and the very poor are usually surrendered to rivers, as is done in the subcontinent. Tibet’s scholar-monks are usually cremated, though Dalai and Panchen Lamas are often immured in stupas or chortens. For everyone else, the preferred method is celestial burial. The dead are wrapped in white cloth and kept for five days, then the body is transported to a high promontory, where it is hacked to pieces—bones and all—and fed to vultures. The birds are summoned by fires built from pine and cypress woods, and tsampa.” Newboldt cut his eyes to Berger. “Now, what does our lesson suggest to you regarding this coffin or sarcophagus, as you say?”
“That it’s probably not from Tibet?” Berger said sheepishly.
“Precisely.” Newboldt glanced at Nelson. “Where are the men who delivered it?”
The guard shrugged. “Gone. They took off.”
“Well, what does the shipping invoice state?”
Berger pulled the slip from his jacket pocket. “It says here that the shipment originated in Tibet. The delivery was made by the Integrity Transfer Company.”
Newboldt snatched the invoice and read it for himself. “Obviously there’s been a mistake. We’re not expecting anything from Tibet—and certainly not some counterfeit sarcophagus. I’ll have Acquisitions contact the customs broker to sort this out. In the meantime, let’s just see what we have here.”
Newboldt moved to the crate. The burnished surface of the coffin had an almost molten look, and the lid was actually made up of two full-length doors, hinged along both sides and secured where they met by five baroque latches, carved to suggest intertwined dragon’s claws.
“Whatever its provenance,” Newboldt commented, “it’s exquisite.” He ran a hand over one of the doors, then rapped his knuckles against it. “It’s solid silver!” He turned to Nelson. “Give us a hand getting the sides off.”
The crowbar Nelson had used to pry off the upper section of crating was still hanging from the lower portion, and Nelson used it to strip away the side slats and what remained of the front. Newboldt brushed the straw away and used his handkerchief to clean what looked to be a cartouche engraved into the right-hand door. Nelson appeared with the reading lamp from the desk.
“What’s it say?” Berger asked.
“The writing is in Latin and what seems to be Arabic.” Newboldt studied the letters intently for a moment. “No, I’m mistaken. It’s in Latin and Uighur script.”
Berger and Nelson traded ignorant looks.
“An alphabet borrowed from the Sogdians—an East Iranian people from Samarkand and Bukhara—” Newboldt stopped himself and inhaled sharply. “ ‘The Kha Khan,’ ” he said, deciphering the engraving. “ ‘The Great Ruler. The Power of Heaven, the One God, Tengri, on Earth. The Seal of the Emperor of Mankind, Ruler of All Tribes Living in Felt Tents.’ ” He looked at Berger and Nelson in undisguised astonishment. “Temüjin! This is the coffin of Temüjin!”
Berger had his mouth opened to respond when Newboldt continued.
“The man we’ve come to know as Genghis Khan—twelfth-century conqueror of half the world. Eldest son of Yesugei. Named after the slain tartar chief, Temüjin. The name approximates ‘Smith.’ The meaning of ‘genghis’ isn’t known, but—”
Again, he glanced at the two men. “But this is impossible. Genghis Khan’s burial site has never been found, much less his . . . his coffin. The body is thought to have been carried to Mongolia for burial on the sacred mountain, Burqan Qaldun, or perhaps along the upper reaches of the Onon. Forty women and forty horses were sacrificed, then the gravesite was trampled by hundreds of horses.”
“So what’s it mean, professor?” Nelson asked, breaking a brief silence.
Newboldt regarded him absently. “What’s the address of the shipper?”
“The crate labeling only has the company name and the country of origin. No address for Integrity Transfer.” Plainly agitated, the curator checked his pocket watch. “I must make a phone call.” He turned and started for the doors.
Berger looked at the coffin, then at Nelson, and said, “I’ll, uh, help you, Mr. Newboldt.”
“Nelson,” Newboldt added, without bothering to turn around. “Whatever you do, don’t open it!”
Right, Nelson thought as Newboldt and Berger were disappearing through the doors. Like I’d open the thing.
Favoring his right foot, he shuffled back to his desk and propped himself on the stool, turning his back to Genghis Khan’s coffin. Glancing at a newspaper, he began to sing softly to himself.
“Come on along and listen to, the lullaby—”
A strange, clicking sound interrupted him, but he was unable to locate the source. Shrugging, he went on with his reading and his song. ‘The lullaby of—”
Again the sound interrupted him. But all at once it seemed to be coming from the vicinity of the coffin. Rats, he decided, a common enough freeloader in packing crates.
“The lullaby of Broadway—”
The sound returned, loud enough to startle him. “Uh, Professor Newboldt, sir?” he called, in a weak voice.
When, after only ten seconds, Newboldt hadn’t answered, Nelson slipped from the stool, drawing his revolver. The coffin’s uppermost latch sprung open as he approached.
Holding the gun in one hand, he reached over his head and palmed the latch shut—only to see the lowermost of the five snap open. When he stooped to close that one, the top latch opened once more. And when he slammed his hand against that, the third undid itself, then the fourth, then the fifth, snapping open and closed, faster than he could attend to them, ultimately with such fury that the coffin started trembling and bucking.
Nelson backed away, his revolver raised, and gradually the latches’ deafening tattoo subsided. But now he could hear a kind of thudding emanating from inside the coffin, and as he watched the unlatched doors parted, with a pneumatic hiss and an issue of what could have been smoke or a cloud produced by rapidly evaporating dry ice.
Inside the coffin, encased by moiré padding, stood the figure of a man. Powerful-looking though of medium height, the figure was panoplied head to foot in antique green silk that was studded with bronze disks and Chinese coins. It wore an elaborate, conical headpiece, whose quilted sides draped the figure’s ears; a short cape emblazoned with flame and dragon motifs; and a black lacquer mask.
The figure raised its right hand and removed the mask, revealing a fierce, dark-complected Asian face, trimmed with a short, black beard. It inhaled deeply and let go of the mask, which shattered on the cement floor.
“I don’t know how you got in there, buddy,” Nelson managed, “but the museum’s closed. N-next time, do like everybody else and pay your admission at the front door.”
The Asian regarded him and stepped from the closet-size interior of the coffin. “Join me or die,” he intoned in accented English.
“Say again?”
The man took another step in Nelson’s direction. “Join me . . . or die.”
Nelson tried to avoid looking at the man’s eyes but found himself transfixed, unable to turn his head, let alone to triggger the revolver. He swayed, holding the gun in front of him. “You’re trespassing on private property.”
The Asian showed him a look of utter contempt. “Your mind is weak. You aren’t worthy of my presence.”
Nelson swallowed and found his voice. “Don’t come any . . . any . . .”
The Asian continued to close in on him, lifting his right hand and giving it a curious twist. “Fall to your knees and kowtow to me.” Nelson dropped to his knees. Suddenly the Asian’s hand assumed the profile of a gun. “Now, place the gun to your temple.” The Asian’s hand did that, forefinger for a barrel.
Horrified that his own hand was obeying, Nelson did as ordered, lifting the revolver to his head.
The Asian closed his eyes serenely and growled: “Now, sacrifice yourself to Shiwan Khan.”
“Yes, my Khan,” Nelson said with little hesitation, his trigger-finger free at last to execute his intent.
Newboldt and Berger were returning from one of the offices in the cataloguing section when they heard the report of the shot and quickened their pace to the receiving area. Newboldt had tried to contact his immediate superior but hadn’t gotten through. Just as well, he had been telling himself. Naturally, the coffin would have to be authenticated. Then, too, there was the mystery of its late-night arrival—
“That’s Nelson’s gun!” Berger said.
Newboldt was second through the doors but the first to halt. Revolver in hand, Nelson was lying facedown in the middle of the cold floor, a pool of blood spreading around his head. Berger ran to him, winced, and shook his head at Newboldt. Newboldt turned away from the grisly scene and saw that the coffin was open.
And empty.
It was then that a disquieting feeling began to ladder through him. On first entering the room, he thought he had glimpsed an unrecognized figure standing amid the cluster of life-size statues of medieval warriors. His hackles up, Newboldt performed a cautious turn in the direction of the statues, but there were only the six of them he knew by heart.
7
Strange Bedfellows
With evil afoot, it was not a night for sleeping.
In room 2512 of the Federal Building, one in a copse of tall structures that comprised the heart of downtown, Dr. Reinhardt Lane was up late, tinkering with the device that had been his grail for the past decade. That the U.S. government had a strong say in what went on inside top-floor 2512 was evidenced by the two Marines who stood guard at the door to the laboratory, guns on their hips and hands clasped behind their backs. The door’s glass panel read: WAR DEPARTMENT, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. REINHARDT LANE AND AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Evil or no, it was Lane’s habit to work early into the morning, amid tabletops cluttered with chemical glassware and technical instruments, wheeled chalkboards filled with esoteric scrawl, seemingly haphazard stacks of open textbooks and hastily scribbled jottings. Lane was in his mid-sixties, rangy, mustachioed, large-featured, and somewhat rumpled-looking in a brown wool tweed jacket with suede elbow patches and, that night, a finely striped, deep-red, cotton-flannel shirt. He wore oval wire-rim glasses and sometimes spoke with a slight brogue. The sort of hands-on scientist whose pockets were likely to hold an assortment of small tools.
Lane’s wife had died years earlier, and his only child had moved into her own brownstone apartment. So why not work late, he frequently asked himself.
Lane was seated at his desk, bent over a soccerball-size orb of royal-blue alloy, into whose surface were secured some thirty or more relays that resembled spark plugs—the entire device held in place by a rig Lane had cobbled together using two plumber’s helpers. Off to one side of the desk sat Lane’s largely untouched dinner: a sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of Pepsi Cola. His mind was shut off from all distractions, including his chief distraction of the moment, Farley Claymore, colleague and reliable nuisance, who was hovering about, determined to make conversation.
“Didn’t you hear me, Lane?” Claymore was saying. “I’ve completed work on the beryllium sphere. All that’s left to do is run some submersion tests to verify the pressure calculations. I’m telling you, the army is going to eat this thing up.”
Lane had a soft cloth in hand and was cleaning each plug before screwing it into the orb. He exhaled in irritation and swung to Farley. “Farley, our grant stipulates we’re to engage in energy research, not weapons research. How many times do you have to be told that I’m not interested in discussing the potential military applications of our project?”
Claymore planted his hands on his hips and barked a laugh. “Don’t kid yourself, Lane. This isn’t Consolidated Edison we’re working for, this is the War Department. They’re not interested in ‘viable’ energy. And once they get their hands on that precious implosion orb of yours, you can bet your life they’re going to find a military application for it. So all I’m saying is why not position ourselves to reap the financial benefits of our work by advising them of the potential?”
Lane was a physicist and chemist. Claymore’s specialty was munitions, but he was also an engineer. He had a rectangular face, baggy though bulging eyes, a weak chin, and an unctuously ingratiating manner, well served by a mane of greasy black hair and a midnight-blue, single-breasted, wool serge suit with chalk stripes. The past five years had seen Lane and Claymore partnered on Lawrence’s cyclotron project, Sherrington’s research into subatomic particles, and Fermi’s investigation of quantum states.
Claymore had lifted one of the plugs from their test tube-like rack and was fiddling with it. Lane wrenched it out of his hands and set to work cleaning it. “What the War Department does with the device is their business. I’m certain, however, that once they realize its potential for deriving useable energy from implosion that they’ll do what’s right. All that’s required is a suitable fuel source.”
Farley looked imploringly at the ceiling. “How naïve you are, Doctor.”
Lane bridled. “I would have gone to the private sector for funding if you hadn’t convinced me that working for the government was the answer to our prayers. Who’s to blame for that, Farley? Certainly not me.”
A crazed grin split Claymore’s face. “But the government could be the answer to our prayers if you’d only listen to reason. Your problem is that you don’t think big enough. If you’d only let me handle things, the world could be our oyster.”
Lane put his glasses on to examine one of the orb’s threaded seatings. “Oysters give me a rash,” he said, returning to his work.
“Ten-hut!” Farley barked, with a crisp salute for one of the Marines stationed in the corridor. The pair of them, in green woolens and white leggings, snapped to, straightening their shoulders and bringing their hands smartly to their sides.
Farley moved down the long corridor, a spring to his step, beaming in self-amusement. He wasn’t halfway along when the elevator doors at the end of the hallway opened, revealing Margo Lane, wearing the same crisscross, cream satin gown she had worn to the Cobalt Club.
Farley sucked in his breath at the sight of her, practically gagging himself, and threw his arms wide as he hastened toward her. “Oooh, Margo . . . What a beautiful dress,” he said, standing in her way. His eyes went straight to her cleavage, and he forced two short, lecherous exhales. “And s-such a clever neckline.” He made that ga-ga sound again.
Margo smiled tightly. “Excuse me, Mr. Claymore, but I’d like to see my father.”
She stepped around him and continued toward the office, but he wasn’t long in catching up. He moved past her and leaned an arm against the wall, preventing her from passing.
“Uh, uh, Margo, authorized personnel only. But I suppose we can make an exception in your case.” He was the would-be suave playboy now. “But first, tell me, when are you going to come down and see my beryIlium sphere?” He cut his eyes to the dress, then showed her a dopey grin.
“I’m not interested in your . . . spheres, Mr. Claymore.”
Once more she stepped around him, and, undaunted, he pulled exactly the same move, playfully wagging his forefinger in front of her. “Margo, you don’t return my calls anymore.”
“That’s not true,” she said, leading him on before lowering the boom. “I never did return your calls.”
Farley slumped in exaggerated defeat. “I know. And I can’t imagine why.”
Margo leaned toward him and lifted his chin, her touch enough to induce a moment of staccato panting. “Because I don’t like you,” she said in a slow, falsely intimate whisper that emphasized each word.
Farley’s eyes were fastened to her bare back as she walked away; then he folded his arms across his chest and gurgled a laugh. “Fascinating woman!” he said, more to himself.
Margo made directly for her father’s desk—which was never an easy task, what with the distillation experiments in progress on every countertop, the beakers full of bubbling liquids, the electrical current jumping between galvanic spheres. Lane, his tweed jacket hung on the back of the chair, was still leaning over his work, muttering to himself, oblivious to her entry. Quietly, she set her stole and beaded handbag down, moved around behind him, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Margo, what a nice surprise,” he told her. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“Dad, it’s two A.M.”
He glanced absently at his pocket watch. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said evasively. Her gaze drifted to Lane’s flannel shirt. “Dad, where you get this shirt?”
He studied it for a moment. “You said you liked me in green.”
Margo nodded. “I do. But that’s green,” she said, pointing to his drinking mug. “This—” she pinched hold of the shirt “—is red.”
