David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

Caleb put down his cup. “It’s more likely that someone else, someone very powerful, must have found and dug up Alexander. And now those keys are hidden somewhere else. But as for the third key, we’ve tried remote viewing it before, but only came up with vague, unreferenced and uncorrelated images-which made us go all the way back and try to view the creation of the Emerald Tablet again. Who actually created it and where.”

“And what did you see at those sessions?” Renee asked.

“Not much.”

“Except for the head,” Orlando pointed out. “The damn head.”

“The what?” Renee asked.

Caleb stretched out his legs. “It was just something else we’d been drawing a lot, the only consistent image our members came up with in connection to questions about the origin and meaning of the Emerald Tablet. Don’t know what it means yet, but because of a spy in our group, Montross knew about it, and used it to get us as far away as possible so he could steal the Emerald Tablet.”

“But now,” said Renee, “you think one of these keys is at the Mausoleum, or this castle now in Bodrum?”

“Almost sure of it,” Caleb said. “If for no other reason than that Montross is heading there.”

The plane lurched, then started on a descent.

“Well,” said Renee, “I guess we’re about to find out.”

Bodrum, Turkey, 8:12 AM.

Caleb and Renee entered Bodrum Castle through the museum’s main entrance, pushing past a line of caution tape.

“Police and museum officials are cooperating,” Renee said. “Giving us two hours. They’re telling the tourists and workers that the site is undergoing a minor repair and will reopen shortly. So we’ve got to get in and out quickly.”

Caleb considered the massive medieval architecture, the conglomeration of turrets and courtyards, crenellated walls, the statues and heraldry marking the approach.

He whistled, touching a few eroded birdlike figurines as they passed under the gate and into the main courtyard. Here and there he saw larger granite blocks, some tinted green, denoting their volcanic origin. “Stones from the Mausoleum,” he whispered, then stopped before the main hallway. “Okay, I go in alone from here.”

“But there’s no one inside,” Renee said. “Turkish police have searched the whole place, and we’ve got agents on boats in the harbor, snipers where we talked-”

“Alone,” he said again. “I think you’re right. He’s not here, but he could still be watching. Seeing if I disobey orders. I don’t want to risk anything happening to Alexander.” It had occurred to him, of course, that this could be a trap, another chance to kill him after failing in Antarctica. Maybe that was all this was. Xavier and Nina wanted him dead the Morpheus Initiative gone.

But why? Just so they wouldn’t stand in Xavier’s way? See his plans, cut him off and recapture the tablet? Caleb held his head. It was too much, like trying to understand a time travel paradox. It was impossible to outsmart someone who could see the future, someone who could change the rules during the middle of the game.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said to Renee, patting his cell phone. “We’re just a phone call away.”

“Be careful,” she said, touching his arm for just a moment before pulling back, and then he was gone, heading off into the darkness toward the first gallery.

The castle had been converted to a museum for maritime archaeology, showcasing some of the region’s magnificent relics recovered from a number of major shipwrecks and dredged from the sea floor. Byzantine artifacts, earthen jars, jewelry, and in one room-sized glass case, a reconstructed merchant ship from the twelfth century BCE. Caleb lingered in the first dimly lit gallery, marveling at the treasures plucked from Neptune’s grasp and stored here for years, at a site partially built from the stones of the greatest tomb in the ancient world.

He wished he still had his ability so he could RV some of these pieces to get a glimpse into the ancient past and see what sort of tragedies had left these relics at the bottom of the sea. But he pressed on, heading toward the section of reliefs that the curator told him were taken directly from the Mausoleum’s ruins in the fifteenth century.

As he descended another set of stairs, he looked out over a lush garden, and further back he saw a minaret atop a Moslem shrine. He had a moment of stillness, of clarity. He thought of Phoebe and Orlando and could almost see out to the section of Bodrum a half mile away where they must be exploring the ancient foundations of the Mausoleum, looking for visions. And clues.

He touched the walls, hoping to get a glimpse into the past, anything to part the veil and burst through the blockage erected by his consuming guilt.

But nothing came, nothing but the empty silence of the dead.

Phoebe and Orlando were at the site, an open hillside, with flowering shrubs and wild grass peeking out from under the fragments of rounded columns and rows of misshapen blocks layered out over the land as they might have been positioned eight hundred years ago, before the devastating earthquakes. All around the site, apartment buildings scaled the hills like ungainly climbers tethered together by a haphazard network of telephone poles and wires. The blaring of horns and creaking of buses sounded sporadically, and the scent of juniper mixed with exhaust fumes.

Phoebe let her hand linger on the stones in passing, watching Orlando do the same. “Well,” she said, taking a seat cross-legged in the middle of a set of broken columns. Pulling out a pad of paper, she smiled as Orlando took out his iPad and powered it up. “Let’s see what we can see.”

Two minutes later she dropped into a trance, tumbled back through the centuries, and opened her eyes to a similar hillside…

… except for the half-finished monolithic construction, the hundreds of workers-carpenters, sculptors, draftsmen and artisans-all laboring on the Mausoleum.

Surveying the work from her porch on a raised platform stands a regal woman with olive skin and melancholy eyes. “How long?” she asks the two men working at a table, studying unrolled scrolls depicting the graphical representations and measurements for the construction, including the statues, the columns and the roof. She points to one robed man, the closest. “Satyros?”

“ Another year, My Queen. The structure may be finished by the Saturnalia, but the sculptors will still be finishing their work. So many statues, the reliefs of the Amazon frieze alone will take years. But rest assured, Leochares will get the job done. And the bas-reliefs presenting the battle of the Centaurs-”

“ There will be no deviation from my husband’s wishes. Especially regarding the depiction of the centaurs. Or its construction.”

The other man turns around. His eyes look her over. “How is your health, Lady Artemesia?”

“ Not your concern,” she responds with a wave, leaning over suddenly and suppressing a cough. “I was strong enough to repel the Rhodians in their attempt to capture Halicarnassus. I will be well enough to see this project finished.” She let her gaze linger on the massive columns, the second tier poised and prepared for the lifting of the roof and the immense golden chariot that would in time house their statues.

“ Soon, My King. Soon, we’ll be together again.”

Phoebe blinked and slowly let her consciousness return to the shining sunlit present where mundane elements pricked at her senses. The barking of a dog, the blast of a cab’s horn, the ticking of Orlando’s fingers on his iPad. She opened her mouth to call out to him, but saw his eyes, white, the pupils lolling back in his head. His fingers moving rapidly while his lips moved, whispering something unheard.