David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

On the side he was facing, he saw three vertical indentations. Footholds.

“Nina. Now’s the time. Take your position.”

“Can we step off the circles?”

“I believe so.”

“Let’s try,” Alexander said, moving off it. In a moment, he and Nina were together with Montross.

“It’s not rising,” Nina said.

Montross set one foot in the lowest groove. “It doesn’t appear so. Maybe it was only designed to descend once. But one thing is for certain. Come with me, Alexander.” He pulled himself up to the second rung, then reached out a hand to the boy.

“I’m not going up there.”

“Yes you are. And I’ll tell you the one thing I have seen for certain.”

Alexander took his hand, and Montross pulled him up. “When I take these keys, when I lift the body of the great Genghis Khan to retrieve them, a door will open and we’ll see your father again. Along with a lot of trigger-happy soldiers.”

Nina walked away, into the deeper shadows against the farthest wall, taking from her pack the sniper rifle and night-vision scope.

And a lot of ammo.

“Look out!” Phoebe yelled, pulling Orlando back as Caleb leapt out of the way, amazed. The door suddenly burst apart in a blur as something immense dropped into the chasm. And kept dropping. The noise was deafening. Some of the soldiers turned and fled, believing at last the curse of Genghis Khan had caught up with them.

“What the hell?” Renee yelled, her voice barely audible over the cacophonic sound. She splashed backwards through water that was swiftly rising.

“Oh no!” Caleb shouted. “The cylinder. It’s displacing the water from the tunnel.”

Phoebe fought a wave that had risen almost to her shoulders.” Displacing it onto us!”

Orlando reached out and caught her hand, just as Caleb grabbed his collar. They stood fast against the swirling waters rising up to their chins, and Caleb immediately had a flashback to the room under the Pharos.

Stop!

As if on cue, the corridor rocked and jarred with a thud as the cylinder seemed to have hit bottom. Pebbles and dirt dropped from the edges on the ceiling, and the rounded portion of the block in front of them trembled. And as the lights above the water aimed at it, something appeared. An outline.

“A door!” Renee said, pointing.

It shook, trembled again, and then the rectangular section opened, sliding upward and letting in the water.

“It’s draining,” Caleb said, dropping after trying to stand on his toes. He directed his light into the opening. There was a ladder of sorts, but the rest of the wide cylinder looked like the interior of a hollow tunnel, sucking in the water down into its base.

Renee splashed forward first and shone a light inside and then up. “Stairs rising in a spiral. Only one direction, so at least we don’t have to make any more choices.”

“What’s up there?” Chang asked, getting closer, shaking the water out of his gun.

“Would you believe,” said Renee, “another door?”

Alexander climbed up after Montross and he stood in the only spot left, right between the body’s feet. “What are you doing?” he whispered, shining his light up to where Montross was fumbling with something around the corpse’s head.

The corpse…

Alexander shuddered, squeezing his legs together and trying not to touch anything, not even to brush against any part of the body.

“Just wait,” Montross said. Then as Alexander’s light reached him he snapped, “And shut that off!”

Alexander flicked off the light. But not before it had flashed onto the face under the helmet. Alexander had seen mummy movies before and read his share of archeological articles with photos showing unearthed Incan kings and Egyptian burials, where they’d peeled off the funeral masks and revealed the leathery, grizzled faces, the sunken eye-sockets, the browning flesh, the long teeth and hair that had continued to grow. This face was similar, and yet more regal, more peaceful. He’s held up pretty good down here, Alexander thought as he shut off the light.

And then the eye sockets began to glow with a green aura. Temujin’s entire face seemed to pulse with light flickering from within the eyes and seeping out from between his mummified lips, from the cracked teeth still set in the dried gums retreating in a wide smile.

“Damn,” said Montross, whose necklace with its pyramidal stone glowed and pulsed to an unheard heartbeat. “Looks like the keys are in his head.”

Alexander bent forward and tried to look into the mouth, but couldn’t see anything down in the throat. It seemed more like the light pulsed from higher, behind the eyes. “They may have drilled into the back of his skull. Saw that in a National Geographic special once.”

Montross held the tablet in his left hand, then set it on Genghis Khan’s chest, over the folded arms. “Here, hold this a sec, Genghis. Sorry, but I’ve got to lift you up.”

“Wait,” said Alexander. “I think there might be another trap.”

Montross pulled up the body by its shoulders. “I know,” he said as a lever, previously kept down by the weight of the Khan’s body, now rose, making a grinding sound as if gears somewhere were turning, spinning.

Opening a door beneath them.

“Nina!” Montross yelled to her out in the darkness, beyond the emerald glow. “It’s time.”

“Go!”

Caleb heard Renee shout, and then the men were rushing up the spiral steps and bursting out of the newly opened doorway. The interior section had suddenly shaken and made a shrill scraping sound before it separated and descended, hauled below by inner gear works triggered by something above.

All the soldiers ran through, their flashlights secured to their weapons, their heads down. Then Renee went up-after first hesitating. Probably waiting for the screams, Caleb thought. He couldn’t believe she had them just rush in. Getting desperate?

Only Chang had stayed behind, and he promptly jabbed Caleb in the back. “Move. You three. Now-”

But that’s when the automatic gunfire started, and the echoes of screaming men tore through the entrance and into the empty tower.

Alexander cringed and tucked himself into a ball, right on the edge of the funeral platform next to the great Khan’s legs, and right in front of those glowing eyes. Eyes in a head lolling forward with Montross’s less-than-ceremonial treatment. A head shaking side to side in violent denial as Montross rooted around within the hollowed-out hole in the back of the corpse’s skull and dug out his prizes.

Gunshots. Men crying out. Swift, precise death zipped across at the soldiers. Nine men stumbled about with crisscrossing flashlight beams and automatic gunfire erupting chaotically. Everyone trying to find out who was shooting at them. Alexander ducked lower and toppled sideways as a shot zipped past and took out a chunk out of the Khan’s shoulder, exploding powdery flesh into his eyes. He crunched into an embrace with the body, screamed and then felt Montross’s arm around his back, his body in front of him protectively.

He shouted something lost in the gun blasts.

Alexander glanced over the side and saw another flashlight beam spin around, then crash onto the floor as its wielder fell. Another scream and a soldier was thrown back against the stairs Alexander had just climbed, blood spraying from a punctured skull. Alexander had a sudden moment’s fear that all Genghis needed to be reawakened was human blood.

But nothing moved, no life stirred in his bones, no heartbeat throbbed in the chest pressed against Alexander’s ear.

Another scream, then more gunshots, this time concentrated toward one section. “There!” Someone yelled. A woman’s voice. Followed by a single-fire weapon, blasting off round after round.