David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

“On her way. She’ll catch them soon.” His voice tapered and faded in a shrill hiss. “But, you should be more concerned about our third party.” A scarred and bandaged hand emerged into the cone of light, a hand with two fingers free of wrappings, revealing a single large black ring on the ring finger. A ring with a familiar design. The hand pressed a button on the table-top remote and the scene with the mausoleum switched to another view, zooming down in increments until focusing on a gap in a pine forest where four jeeps were parked, the occupants outside.

“Rest stop for Montross?” Calderon asked.

“Probably the boy,” said the voice. “They’ll be on the move again soon. Intel from Agent Wagner seems reliable. Confirmed by the Montross team as well, after their initial mistake.”

“Xanadu,” said Calderon. “Amazing. So, now we take them out?”

“No.” The shadows deepened as the cigarette went out. “Finding Genghis’s mausoleum was the easy part. Getting inside, through the surprises he’s got waiting for us, will be hell. So no, we need them. Caleb and Phoebe, and their talents. See that Agent Wagner doesn’t start shooting right away.”

Calderon’s hands clenched into fists. “It was too risky putting her in the middle of their group when they were still so paranoid after Waxman. Just one probe and that kid got pretty close to us. Lucky he was too preoccupied and distracted to focus his abilities. But we don’t know. What if they’ve figured out who we are?”

“Doesn’t matter what they know. Caleb’s preoccupied with saving his son. He’ll get those keys.”

“Or Montross will. And who knows what he’ll do with them?”

“He’ll do exactly what we fear he’ll do,” said the voice. A raspy sigh. “So he dies first. Tell Renee. Remove him as soon as he’s no longer of use.”

“What about Hiltmeyer? Do they suspect him?”

The bandaged hand waved in the air, scattering the lingering smoke. “I would think Nina suspects everyone, but Hiltmeyer’s ready. He’ll keep up his guard.”

“This is a dangerous game, playing with people who can see your best-kept secrets as if you’ve stapled them to your forehead. I don’t like it.”

“We have no choice.”

Calderon stared at his feet. “Don’t we? The tablet is there, with Montross and our man. We can get it any time. We could work at our own method of translation.”

“The thought has crossed my mind. But no, I don’t think even the NSA computers would succeed with this. We need the sacred box.”

“And your scrolls, the ones you Keepers recovered from the Pharos? They can’t tell us anything?”

A spark and another cigarette was lit, briefly highlighting a gruesome face burnt and blackened, oozing with pus, one eye scarred shut, the other fiercely blue.

“I have learned all I can from them. Found further verification, focusing the time now, here at the end of the Age of Pisces. One of Three Brothers will open the great sealed box of Thoth.”

“Yes. We know two, but who is the third?”

The man stood, easing himself out of the shadows. His scorched face and bandaged neck emerged into the dim light.

Robert Gregory offered a lipless smile. “If we depend on a loose reading of the prophecy, I believe it’s me.”

“Fifty miles to go,” Orlando said, noting the mileage on the GPS.

Caleb relaxed his hold on the gun. Qara seemed to be playing along, at least for now, following the route and keeping quiet. He could only imagine what she was thinking.

“Plenty of time to do a little recon.”

“What are you thinking, big brother?” Phoebe asked, stretching in the seat beside him.

“Thinking about our brush with death, about how I hate surprises and have had enough double-crosses for my life. I want to know about Renee.”

“Like who the hell she really is?”

“I can tell you what I saw,” Orlando said, glancing back. “What set her off.”

“Oh,” Phoebe said, “now I see. This was all your fault?”

He grinned. “Yep. I think she would have just been content to have us lead her to it, until I blew it by asking her about a necklace I saw in my vision.”

“Start from the beginning, please,” Caleb said. He might not be able to help with first-hand psychic visions, but his knowledge of history and the arcane facets of myth might just provide the help they needed.

“Okay, so I saw Renee. A bit younger, at an initiation-kind of ceremony. One of those things where there’s lots of people in black robes, and she, well…” He blushed and looked away from Phoebe. “Well, she wasn’t really wearing much. Some old dude gave her a necklace with a charm that looked like the one on his ring, and then some other guy took her on an altar while the others watched.”

“Sure this wasn’t just one of your sick fantasies?” Phoebe asked.

“Close, but no. I saw it, and when I asked her about the necklace, she unleashed hell on me and went after you guys.”

“Cover blown,” Caleb thought out loud. “Okay, so what was the image on the charm?”

“A dragon, run through with a spear.”

“Not a sword?”

“No, not really St. George-like. I looked at some images of him online, but it wasn’t a match. It’s different, it’s-”

“More ancient,” Caleb said, catching Qara’s eyes darting to his in the mirror. “It could be a number of symbols, but I have a theory.”

“Of course you do,” Phoebe said with a smile. “Let’s hear it.”

“Tiamat,” he said. “An ancient Sumerian goddess. She took the shape of a dragon or sea serpent. She represented the primeval chaos before creation, and she and her consort Apsu were credited with creating all the deities. In the Babylonian epic of creation, the Enuma Elish, the world, including humanity, is created around her remains after she is destroyed by the storm god, Marduk, whose symbol is the lance.”

“Ah,” said Orlando, searching for it on the Internet, “got it! Found a symbol, and it looks pretty much spot-on. And wait! It says Tiamat possessed something called the Tablet of Destiny! With it, she was given the power over the universe. Wow, that sounds familiar.”

“What else does it say?” Phoebe asked.

“Well, her offspring rose up against her to fight in some great primordial battle, and Marduk was chosen to be their hero. He bested Tiamat with arrows of the winds, a net and a powerful magic lance. But first, knowing they were coming, she had given the tablet to her son, Kingu, who somehow merged it with his armor, hoping to become invincible. But it didn’t help. Marduk went after him. With the power of his lance he overthrew Kingu, then took the tablet for himself.”

Caleb nodded. “But later, if I recall, he was forced to give it back to the eldest god, Anu, the lord of heaven.”

Phoebe leaned forward. “And what, dare I ask, did Anu do with it?”

“Well, he was part of a triad of gods, with Enki, lord of the waters, and Enlil/Marduk, lord of the sky. Anu was sometimes called their father, because he was the oldest. In any case, it was Enki who got the tablet. Anu must have trusted him more. And Enki, as he was known in Babylon, had another name in Egypt.”

“Oooh,” said Phoebe, raising her hand. She promptly put it down after a scowl from Caleb. “Of course, it’s got to be Thoth.”

“Bingo.”

“Here we go,” said Orlando. “So where does that leave us? What is Renee a part of? Some Marduk-lovers cult, jilted after doing all the work of beating Tiamat, wresting the tablet from her, only to have his daddy take it away and give it to his no-good brother?”

“Seems that way,” Caleb said. “And now they want it back.”