The Genghis Tomb Page 8

  Vlad lifted his hands in exasperation. “I’ve pulled out and gone through every single book in National’s entire library pertaining to the translation of ancient Uighur script—and whether we accept it or not, that’s how it comes out. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise.”

  David turned back to the blackboard, still seeking some possible grounds for a fresh approach to this. But what? There had to be something here they were both definitely missing. Why in hell, he wondered, would the otherwise precise Uighur instructions include a phrase so ridiculously convoluted as to foil its ultimate purpose?

  In an inspired flash the answer suddenly became crystal clear.

  It wouldn’t, he now realized. This wasn’t convoluted at all!

  “I’ve a question for you,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “When you translated all this for me, how confident were you when inserting English prepositions?”

  Vlad set his cup down, curious where this was going.

  “I don’t quite see what you’re—”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that prepositions weren’t used that often—if ever—in Uighur script. The final meaning of a sentence was simply implied, conveyed to the reader by its overall composition, am I right?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “So, if that’s the case,” David continued, “when you wrote ‘in the footprints of Tengri’, for example, couldn’t you just as easily have written it to read ‘on—or even, let’s say for the sake of argument—atop the footprints of Tengri’?”

  Vlad appeared momentarily confused by the question.

  “Well, I suppose,” he finally admitted. “But surely you can see where that would’ve been an illogical usage in this instance.” He then stopped, his narrowing eyes now shifting from David to the blackboard. “Unless, of course . . .”

  David smiled to see his friend’s gradual comprehension.

  “Precisely, Vlad. I suspect we’ve probably been over thinking the problem all afternoon. I don’t believe this colorful passage was ever intended to be literally picked apart and analyzed word by word. Instead, I think it’s simply a grouping of words meant to be collectively recognized as a single unit—a familiar place-name, if you will—not unlike how Burkhan Khaldun is identified. If ‘the hill of God’ refers to a specific mountain, why can’t ‘the footprints of Tengri’ pretty much do the same?”

  “Meaning what? Another mountain?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it refers to a totally different type or form of geological anomaly. But whatever it is, I imagine it has to be something rather distinctive and of considerable size—plus it would have to be damn close to Burkhan Khaldun.”

  This brought David back to the second puzzling section of his translation.

  “According to the instructions,” he continued, “once standing in or on the proper location, the shaman then ‘turns to face the hill of God, raising the jade key at arm’s length up into the teeth of heaven, thus finding that which he seeks’.” This, by itself, tells us that whatever they called ‘the footprints of Tengri’ must be well within eyesight. And since the exact location of the Burkhan Khaldun is known, this should significantly narrow down our eventual search area, don’t you think?”

  Vlad nodded in agreement. “Also, it tells us the jade key is reasonably small,” he said. “It would have to be, wouldn’t it? How else could the shaman raise and hold it at arms length?”

  “It appears so.”

  They were distracted by a quick knock at the door.

  It was Zayaa, bringing a smile to both their faces. After their long day, her unexpected arrival was a pleasant surprise. “So how are you gentlemen doing?” she asked. “Hope I’m not interrupting. The president asked me to check in and see if there was anything you might require.”

  “Actually, your timing is pretty good,” said David. “We believe we’ve just had an important breakthrough toward a better understanding of these sheets.” He pointed at the blackboard, giving her a quick synopsis of their speculations. He concluded by saying, “If we’re correct, that still leaves the problem of somehow identifying the physical place called ‘the footprints of Tengri’. How difficult this will be remains to be seen.”

  Zayaa had nothing to offer.

  “You know,” she said, “perhaps what you both need is a short breather away from all of this. How about we slip out for a bite to eat? I’m guessing neither of you has had anything but coffee since breakfast.”

  “And you’d be right,” replied David, reaching for his light jacket. “What do you say, Vlad?”

  “Sounds great. But if no one minds, you two go on ahead and bring me back something. Zayaa knows what I like.” He began moving books and loose papers away from his desk computer. “I’ll explain when you return, but I’ve just now thought of something that might go a long way toward solving our problem.”

  “We won’t be long.”

  Zayaa drove David to a side street off Sukhbaatar Square, there parking her jeep at a busy, fast food establishment with the unlikely name of Joe’s Corner. As she explained, it was a recently opened American franchise claiming to offer the best burger and fries in the entire city. After a short wait in line to place their order, they carried their samplings over to an outside table.

  “Vlad comes here regularly,” she said. “As you can tell by looking around, it’s become very popular with university students, as well.” She watched as he bit into his burger. “So what’s the verdict?”

  “Very good.”

  When finished, David sipped at the last of his soft drink and asked, “If you don’t mind telling me, how long have you worked for President Dashiin?”

  “Mind? Not at all. It’s been a good—what?—seven, eight years, I guess. Back then he was only the Assistant Minister of Commerce, but clearly someone with a bright future.” She smiled. “I didn’t know then how far up the political ladder he would eventually climb, of course, but I’ve always enjoyed working for him.”

  “It shows,” he said, dropping his napkin. “Now I suppose we should get this order back to Vlad while it’s still warm.”

  She dropped him off outside National’s main entrance.

  “You know, David,” she said as he got out, “talking about the president reminded me of something I should’ve thought of earlier. It takes a little explaining, but bear with me, okay?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Two years ago we worked closely with Toyo Engineering out of Japan and our own Mongol Sekiyu Corporation toward constructing the very first oil refinery in Mongolia. It’s located near the city of Darkhan about 160 miles north of here. The point is, that’s relatively close to Burkhan Khaldun—and I happen to know for a fact that part of their initial planning called for Toyo to provide extremely detailed satellite photography of the entire area. If you believe it might possibly help in any way help, I’m sure I can get you access to this material.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I don’t know what format it’s presently in, but I’ll discuss it with the president and see how quickly we can get it into your hands. With any luck, it might be as early as sometime tomorrow.”

  “That would be great.”

  When back inside, Vlad also saw the potential benefits to be gained.

  While devouring his thick burger, he explained to David how he’d set up his computer to make random searches through all the various articles and translations pertaining to the ‘Secret History of the Mongols’ available in the university’s comprehensive digital library. So far he was having no luck finding anything even remotely close to the descriptive name of the location they sought—but felt he’d barely scratched the surface and was still hopeful.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Not really,” Vlad answered. “Maybe the best thing is too simply leave it with me. It’s getting close to six already, and I still have a number of programs to work through. I think it probably makes better sense if I just take you back to your hotel
. No point in both of us staring at the screen.”

  “No argument from me.”

  After Vlad dropped him off at Ramada Citycenter, David crossed the lobby to the elevators, punching in for the ninth floor. While riding up, he mentally ran through the day’s progress, pleased he and Vlad had actually accomplished as much as they did regarding the translation of those sheets. After a relaxing hot shower, he fully intended reading through them again, committing it to memory. Too, he knew he could no longer postpone making his delayed call to Elizabeth in Salonika. The problem was, he still had no idea what to say to her.

  This was foremost on his mind as he inserted the key.

  As it turned out, however, this suddenly became a moot point. The door to his suite was pulled open from the inside—and it was Elizabeth who flew into his arms.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Forty-five minutes later, Elizabeth reclined in the suite’s oversize bathtub, breathing a deep sigh of pleasure as the warm, sudsy water enveloped her. The luxurious sensation was one of being immersed in a soothing balm, the perfect means by which to begin erasing the effects of her past two days of continuous anxiety.

  It all began when she went to retrieve Marko’s toy.

  Such a simple thing—yet the incident that followed in the darkened lab had in a span of a mere forty-hours taken her a third of the way around the world to deliver a warning to David that something inexplicable—and potentially very dangerous—was apparently trailing him without his knowledge.

  Her recollections of the frightening experience remained vivid.

  It was well past midnight when she’d finally regained consciousness, barely steady enough on her feet to then stagger back into the house. Fortunately, Jake remained asleep in his bed; oblivious that anything untoward had even taken place. Until her head was sufficiently clear enough to make sense of the episode, she wished it kept that way. She just thanked God it was she who went out to the lab and not Jake.

  In retrospect, her reason for immediately phoning Nick rather than the police was more instinctive than logical. He and Marie were the closest thing to family she and David had in Salonika. It ultimately proved the right decision. Despite the lateness of the hour, he was there in less than twenty minutes. By then the aftereffects of the chloroform had lessened substantially. After reassuring him she wasn’t otherwise injured, they returned to the lab, her relaying the bare bones of what transpired.

  Surprisingly, none of the valuable equipment appeared in any way touched, let alone missing. Thus their first conclusion was that she’d apparently surprised the burglar before the opportunity arose.

  But this theory quickly fell apart when checking David’s office.

  Here something actually was missing—and it immediately rung alarm bells for both of them. A single folder bearing Nick’s name lay atop a partially open filing cabinet drawer. It was where they knew David kept the original copies of the three sheets. But now the folder was empty. This was obviously no run-of-the-mill burglary. The man clearly had but one goal. Not only was he after something specific—he knew exactly where to look.

  But how was this possible? Outside of their small circle, the only person who knew those sheets even existed was Vlad in Ulan Bator. Was he somehow involved in this? What else was there to surmise? Something sinister was going on—and it was imperative David be warned. The question then became how to accomplish this. Since trying to reach him through Vlad was now ruled out—and not knowing where David would be staying or even when he might phone—there seemed only one logical solution.

  Even Nick eventually saw no viable option but for her to make flight arrangements as quickly as possible. For his part, he’d postpone his scheduled return to Alexandria for a few weeks, taking Jake to stay with him and Maria in her absence.

  Thus her unexpected arrival in Ulan Bator.

  While waiting, David sat at the end of the suite’s living area couch, silently speculating on any possible explanation that might conceivably account for the incident. Whoever the burglar might’ve been, he was definitely a professional. This much seemed obvious. Who else would take the precaution of having chloroform with him for unexpected emergencies? In all likelihood, if Elizabeth hadn’t interrupted him, he would’ve copied those sheets on the lab’s machine, replacing the originals and Nick’s folder back into the filing cabinet. No one would’ve been the wiser. Frazzled by her sudden arrival, however, he essentially felt his best option was to forgo any tidying up, fleeing the scene with what he possessed.

  Frustrated, David finally acknowledged his speculations were getting him nowhere. If there was some kind of illuminating conclusion to be drawn from all this, then it continued to elude him. Nothing made sense.

  Yet it had happened.

  Most disturbing, the timing of it was too perfect to be coincidental—which, unfortunately, again pointed the finger of suspicion directly at Vlad. The burglary took place on the very night of his departure. Now he had to wonder if it was even remotely possible that Elizabeth was right about the little man? He didn’t want to believe this—but who else knew his flight schedule, let alone that a second copy of the sheets was being kept in Nick’s file? No one. This fact simply couldn’t be ignored. All of this detailed information was given to Vlad over the phone just two days prior to—

  Wait a second!

  Why the hell not? he wondered. If Vlad was innocent, then what else could it be?

  David quickly got to his feet, believing he stood a chance of catching Vlad still working at his office computer. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock.

  Vlad answered on the first ring.

  “It’s David. I’m at the hotel. Don’t repeat any of this aloud, just do what I tell you. I want you to leave your office and call me back on a lobby phone. Can you do this right away?”

  “I guess, but I don’t—”

  “I’ll explain everything then. I’ll be waiting.”

  A confused Vlad returned his call a few minutes later, and then listened as David told of Elizabeth’s sudden arrival and her dire warning that something was definitely amiss. From David’s perspective, no other conclusion made sense but that others were now tracking their every move in real time, determined to stay abreast of the investigation by any devious means possible. If true, there was only one sure way to do it.

  “Thus you deduce my office is likely bugged?” asked Vlad. “Some sort of electronic listening device?”

  “Unless you’ve a better theory, it does seem the most probable scenario to explain what happened. If Elizabeth hadn’t walked in when she did, not only would it have worked, but we’d still be in the dark.”

  A long pause followed as Vlad digested David’s startling hypothesis.

  Finally, he said, “Okay, I’ll get hold of the president and try setting up a meeting for first thing in the morning. Zayaa may have to readjust his schedule to accommodate it. Give me some time and I’ll get back to you.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Satisfied no more could be done, David hung up the phone to find Elizabeth now curled contentedly on the couch. Wrapped snug in a bathrobe, she was brushing out her hair, appearing much refreshed from her bath.

  “Thought I heard you on the phone.”

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Immensely.” Her smile was one of relaxed satisfaction. “Did I tell you how much trouble I had finding you?”

  “I wondered about it, but no.”

  “I went to two other hotels before finally having the good sense to ask the front desk of the second to check several others for me. They eventually found where you were registered. Then came the slight problem of getting a key—but once I showed them my passport and other identification, their initial reluctance disappeared. I suppose I could’ve simply waited for you in the lobby. I doubt I was in the suite a full half hour before you returned.”

  As he sat down beside her, Elizabeth set her brush aside, cuddling against him as he held her lovingly in his arms. She was so i
ncredibly precious to him—and knowing what had occurred in his lab continued to bother him no end. Who knew what that man was capable of doing? God, she might have been killed! The mere possibility of someone doing her physical harm—or of losing her—was beyond his ability to even contemplate.

  “Now I believe it’s your turn,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “You haven’t yet said, and I haven’t so far asked, but isn’t it about time you filled me in on what this is all about? Unless, of course, you intend keeping me in the dark.”

  “Never, darling. Where do you wish me to start?”

  “We’ve lots of time.” She snuggled even close. “When you first got off the plane would be nice . . .”

  He chuckled before beginning.

  It took him the better part of an hour, she making little comment as he relayed every detail of what had transpired since his arrival in Ulan Bator. Only when he finished did she then ease herself back up, tossing her head in wonder.

  “David, it’s almost too much to wrap my brain around. Do you also think Nick’s map is the real deal?”

  “There’s no reason to suspect otherwise.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And what about Vlad and the president’s theory that it’s not just Genghis entombed there?”

  He briefly lifted his shoulders.

  “Who knows?” he said. “It’s certainly conceivable. In fact, considering all the evidence, I’d say it’s even probable.”

  “My God, even beyond the historical significance, the treasure it might contain could be absolutely enormous!”

  “I suspect so.”

  Clearly stunned, she hesitated, and then said, “No wonder someone is apparently going to such trouble and expense following your investigation.”