David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

“What?”

“Never mind Orlando,” Phoebe whispered. “I’m seeing… something.”

Caleb held her hand and she gripped him back, tighter.

“Paper,” she said sharply. “Give me paper, a pencil.”

He dug into her pack, pulled out the ever-handy sketchpad. And then Phoebe was down on her knees, eyes gone almost completely white, oblivious to the gun Qara still trained on them, oblivious to her look of confusion.

Caleb set the pencil in her right hand, the pad in her left. And she immediately bent down and started to sketch…

… a lonely farmhouse on the English moors, not far from a small cobbled church…

Tear off the page. Next…

… a single room, a candle and a chair. A man asleep in the chair, an open book on his chest, an empty glass on a nearby table, with a medicine stopper beside it…

Next…

… letters at the top, spelling the name “COLERIDGE” underlined twice…

“Coleridge?” Caleb said, reading it aloud. “Coleridge… Oh my-”

“I don’t believe this,” Qara said, barely above a whisper.

Phoebe’s eyes focused. She dropped the pencil and stood up. She glanced at Qara, then to Caleb, her face lost in confusion. “What?”

“Phoebe,” Caleb said, “you’re magnificent.”

“I know, but what did I see?”

“A clue. Now I know,” Caleb exclaimed triumphantly, “where he’s buried.”

Qara groaned, raised the gun. “And now I’m sorry, but I think I have to kill you.”

A shot rang out, Caleb and Phoebe winced, but only the statue of Genghis Khan was struck-a wild shot, blasting off one of his hands. They turned and saw Renee, hobbling against a wall, leaning out from cover to shoot. She held her ribs with one hand and aimed with the other.

She fired again, but this time Caleb grabbed Qara and pulled her back toward the door and out of the line of fire. Phoebe was already in full sprint, pushing through the door, stumbling outside. Qara followed, but Caleb stopped over the body of one of the fallen agents and scooped up the AK-47. He hefted it, then throwing caution to the wind, turned the corner and squeezed off a burst of deafening fire at Renee. Never holding such a powerful weapon, it nearly rattled free from his grip. The bullets went wild, spraying the walls and the ceiling, missing Renee by a mile.

Then her hand swung around, finding Caleb in her sights.

Caleb turned and bolted as more shots rang out.

Through the door he ran, just as the Hummer launched forward and the back door opened, Phoebe waving him in. Four large strides and he was there, jumping inside, slamming the door behind him.

Renee appeared in the mausoleum’s doorway, still firing at them, when four white and blue jeeps roared into the parking lot-Chinese military-sirens blaring. Caleb looked back and saw Renee confidently running toward them.

Did she have connections with this crowd as well?

“Just who the hell is that FBI chick?” Phoebe asked from the back seat.

“I don’t know,” Caleb responded, then abruptly swung his weapon around, aiming at the back of Qara’s head. “But one thing at a time. Orlando, get her gun, and Qara, please just drive.”

He saw her eyes flash in the rearview mirror.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re sworn to protect his secret, but believe me in addition to us psychics, you’ve got another team of highly resourceful treasure-hunters on the trail of your master’s whereabouts. And unless you’ve got an army of Darkhad left to help, you might need our help.”

“I thought,” said Qara, “you were planning to break into the tomb.”

“We are,” Caleb admitted, “but not to steal. Temujin can remain, along with all his treasure and his secrets. We just need to protect what Xavier Montross is looking for. If he finds it-”

“We’re all screwed,” Orlando said as he snatched away Qara’s gun.

Qara accelerated, keeping an eye on the dirt road behind them as they roared into the desert, bounding over the sparse grasslands toward a dusty horizon.

“I’m guessing,” Caleb said, “that you don’t have any Darkhad at the actual site.”

“There are not many of us left,” Qara whispered.

“How many?” asked Phoebe.

“I left four on Burkhan Khaldun, but Montross brought in reinforcements-soldiers. They will try to pick off those men there, but-”

“But that’s it?” Phoebe asked. “Your people didn’t stay close to the real site?”

“Why would we? That would only draw attention.”

“What real site?” Orlando asked. “Did we find it? Where are we going?”

“Yeah,” Phoebe said. “Where? I’m still lost underground somewhere. What’s with this farmhouse I saw and someone named Coleridge?”

“Samuel Coleridge,” Caleb said, sitting back, still keeping his grip on the AK-47. “The English poet. The story goes that in 1797 he was in ill-health and stopped for a rest at a secluded farmhouse somewhere near Devonshire. It’s believed that he took some opium, and while reading a travel book, fell asleep” “Been there, done that,” Orlando said. “But maybe not opium.”

– “and had a dream. I’m wondering now if it might not have been more of a vision, a remote vision. He woke and wrote down part of his dream, but then a guest showed up, and when he sat back to finish it he could only capture fleeting bits of it.”

Qara’s expression fell. She shook her head. “I don’t understand how this is possible, how you know.”

“We don’t understand how it works either,” Caleb admitted. “Sometimes we’re just shown what we ask to see, other times we see what we need. It’s as if some unseen hand controls the projection booth in our minds, and we’re just in the audience, watching.”

“I’m still lost,” Phoebe said. “I was a science geek. English lit I kind of slept through.”

“Ditto,” said Orlando, “but that’s why God invented Google.” He flipped open his notebook tablet and accessed the web.

“I don’t remember all of the poem,” Caleb said. “Just a few lines: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea…”

Orlando clapped his hands together. “Aha, you skipped Coleridge’s first line: In Xanadu did Kublai Khan / a stately pleasure-dome decree.”

“Xanadu,” Phoebe whispered, and Qara made a soft moan.

“Kublai Khan was Temujin’s grandson,” Caleb told her, “and built his marvelous summer palace and imperial center, the likes of which dazzled visitors including Marco Polo, here in Mongol-controlled China. At Shang-du or Tei-bing-also known as Xanadu.”

“And he built this place,” Phoebe asked, “over the spot of his grandfather’s tomb?”

Caleb saw Qara’s reaction, the brief closing of her eyes, and knew he was right.

“As above, so below.”

Alexander felt like a farm animal, herded into the lead jeep-more of a tank-like thing with seriously thick metal plating, tinted windows and leather seats-and forced to sit right between Xavier Montross and Nina Osseni, on the hump.

The military guy, Hiltmeyer, drove, while someone named Harris, a soldier with a crew cut and a square jaw, sat in the front passenger seat. He had a machine gun in his lap. Alexander squirmed in his seat, looking over his shoulder, past the containers, portable generators, body armor, weapons and digging equipment, to look out the back window at the other four vehicles revving up behind them.

“On our way,” Hiltmeyer said, turning from the base camp and away from the Sacred Mountain, leaving the Khenti Mountain range in their wake. “Program the route, sergeant.”

“Already done,” said the soldier up front, after finishing up with the GPS assistant, and lighting up the map on the small built-in screen.