The Eye of God (25 page)

Duncan didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to sense the priest suffered from some form of chronic mental illness. He was a sack of emotional tics.

“And after dropping off the earth, it was easier to stay here,” he explained. “So I could work in peace. This became my self-imposed exile, my monastery where I could be in seclusion.”

“If you wanted to be alone,” Monk said, “you picked a helluva good spot for it. This is as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get.”

“It wasn’t just the isolation that drew me to the Aral Sea. Maybe at first, but later I realized somewhere in the back of my fevered brain, something was making connections that didn’t fully reach my consciousness until later. Like many times in the past, I’ve found the manic phases of my disease are not without their benefits.”

Ah
,
he’s bipolar,
Duncan realized. He should have picked up on the signs. He had a college friend with the same condition. Not an easy cross to bear.

“What connections did you make?” Vigor asked.

Josip motioned to the relics. “Here we have Genghis’s skull. And from the eye on the gospel’s cover, we know it was bound from the skin of his face and head.”

Reminded of what his fingertips were hovering over, Duncan inwardly cringed. Still, macabre curiosity drew him closer, searching for that eye.

The priest continued, “In other words, the relics came from the neck
up
on Genghis Khan.”

Vigor mumbled, “You’re right. I didn’t even make that correlation.”

“Sometimes a little bit of madness is a good thing. In my manic phase, I ended up here. Only later did I realize
why
. That I was supposed to be
here
.”

“Why?” Vigor pressed.

“I think there are
more
relics. Not just these two.”

“Like more bread crumbs,” Rachel said.

“In Hungary, Genghis’s son left the relics from his father’s
head,
marking the westernmost reach of his son’s empire, an empire he had inherited from his father. But why just those objects there? It didn’t feel right. Over time, I came to a different theory, one I think is right. I believe Genghis had instructed his son to turn the entire known
world
into his grave, to spread his spiritual reach from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other.”

“That sounds like Genghis,” Vigor agreed. “So he had his head set at one end . . .”

“In Hungary, in the tomb of Attila,” Josip said with a nod. “But where next?”

“Here?” Jada asked.

The priest nodded. “The region around the Aral Sea was the westernmost reach of the Mongol Empire
during Genghis’s reign
. A place of significance. So it seemed a natural place to begin searching.”

Vigor turned, looking around the chamber. “You’ve been exploring for these lost relics all this time?”

“It’s a huge expanse. And the terrain was drastically altered after the seas dried up.” Josip stepped away and returned with a chart that he unfurled across the tabletop. “This is a map of how the Aral Sea once looked.”

Duncan shifted straighter and stared at the huge body of water—then returned his attention to the book, noting something odd.

“The Aral Sea means
Sea of Islands,
” the priest explained. “At one time, there were over fifteen hundred islands dotting the water. I assumed Genghis’s next relic would have been on one of them.”

“So you’ve been searching one by one?” Vigor asked.

“With help.” Josip nodded to Sanjar.

“And how have you paid for all this?” Monk asked.

It was a good question.

The priest looked down at his toes. Plainly it wasn’t a
question
he wanted to answer.

He was saved by the monsignor, who had figured it out. “You mentioned the Hungarian bishop had found a calling card left behind at Attila’s tomb, one with the name Genghis Khan written on it. A gold wrist cuff with images of a phoenix and demons.”

Josip slumped in on himself. “I sold it. To a buyer in Mongolia. Someone with a great deal of wealth who bought it for his personal collection. At the very least, I know that piece of history will be preserved.”

Rachel frowned deeply. Her work with the Italian police dealt specifically with the black market sale of antiquities. “Whom did you sell it to?”

The priest balked at answering.

Vigor didn’t press him. “Right now it doesn’t matter.”

Still, Josip explained, “Please, do not hold this buyer at fault. It was my choice to sell it, and he only bought it to preserve his own country’s history.”

Monk returned the discussion back to the problem at hand. “If you’re right that the next bread crumb is
here,
I don’t see us discovering it in time to do any good. It’ll be like trying to find a needle in a very dry haystack.”

“I waited too long,” Josip conceded.

“Then maybe we should just continue on to Mongolia,” Jada said, sounding not overly displeased at the prospect.

As the banter waned toward defeat, Duncan ran his hands over the surface of the book one more time, just to be sure, before speaking.

Satisfied, he hovered a finger over a spot on the surface. “Monsignor Verona . . . I mean Vigor . . . is this the location of the eye you mentioned?”

Vigor stepped closer and looked over his shoulder. “It is indeed. I know it’s hard to see. I only found it myself with the aid of a magnifying loupe.”

Duncan ran his fingertip over the book, tracing the surface of the energy field. As he reached the spot near the eye, his finger raised up, then down again after he passed it. “I don’t know if this is significant, but the energy is stronger over the eye. I can feel the upwelling of its field. It’s very distinct.”

Vigor crinkled his brow. “Why would that be?”

Jada moved to his other shoulder, bringing with her a waft of apple blossoms. “Duncan, you said the skull had a significantly stronger field than the skin. Which I assumed was a reflection of mass. More mass, more energy.”

Duncan nodded, loving when she talked science. “That must mean this spot on the cover has more
mass
than the rest of the surface.”

Vigor frowned. “What are you both saying?”

Duncan turned to the monsignor. “There’s something
else
hidden under this eye.”

Father Josip gasped. “I never thought to look. I had the book X-rayed, but nothing abnormal showed up.”

Jada shrugged. “If it’s soft tissue, like the skin, it could easily have been missed by X-rays.”

Monk pointed. “We have to open that eye.”

Vigor turned to Father Josip.

“I’ll get my tools,” he said and dashed off.

Vigor shook his head. “I should have considered that. The essential core message of St. Thomas’s gospel is that the path to God is open to anyone who looks. Seek and you shall find.”

“All you have to do is open your eyes,” Rachel added.

Josip ran back with a pointed X-Acto knife, tweezers, and forceps, ready to do some ophthalmological surgery.

Duncan moved aside to make room for Vigor and Josip. The two archaeologists set to work snipping tiny cords that bound the eye closed ages ago. The lids were too dried to peel open, so with great care they excised a circle around the eye and teased the leather up and to the side.

Awe filled Vigor’s voice. “Get me a—”

Josip passed him a magnifying lens.

“Thank you.”

The monsignor leaned closer to the hole they’d created in the cover. “I see what appears to be the desiccated remains of papillae on the surface. I think the hidden tissue is a thin slice of mummified tongue.”

“Oh, great,” Jada groaned, moving back. It seemed there were limits to her scientific curiosity.

“They tattooed the surface,” Josip commented. “Come see.”

Duncan leaned closer, while Vigor held the lens. On the surface of the leathery tissue was a distinct picture inked in black.

“It’s a
map,
” Duncan realized aloud, recognizing the resemblance to Josip’s earlier chart. “A map of the Aral Sea.”

Rachel looked no happier than Jada. “Preserved on his tongue?”

Josip glanced at her, feverish excitement shining from his face. “Genghis is
telling
us where to go.”

Vigor confirmed this. “One of the islands is tattooed in red with the word
equus
inked beneath it. Latin for
horse
.”

“Horses were extremely prized by the Mongols,” Josip said. “They were literally the life’s blood of their riders. Warriors would often drink their mounts’ blood while on long journeys or ferment mare’s milk to produce
araq,
a potent alcoholic drink. Without horses—”

A noise at the door drew all their attentions around.

Josip visibly tensed, but when the tall figure bowed into the room, he relaxed, breaking into a broad smile of greeting. “You’re back! And what timing. We have fantastic news!”

The priest hurried over and hugged the young man, who could be Sanjar’s brother, what with his similar taste in sheepskin and loose pants. Only this one must have left his falcon at home.

Josip led the stranger back to the table. “Everyone, this is my good friend and the leader of my excavation crew.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “His name is Arslan.”

13

November 18, 10:17
P
.
M
. ULAT

Ulan Bator, Mongolia

Batukhan stood in the middle of his gallery, wearing a thick robe and slippers. He had spent the past quarter hour pacing through his collection, something he did often when in a contemplative mood.

He had treasures from across the golden ages of Mongolia: jewelry, funerary masks, musical instruments, pottery. One wall displayed an assortment of antique bows, once carried by Mongol warriors—from short, sinuously curved weapons meant for horseback, made of sinew and horn, to the oversized triple crossbows used to capture walled cities. He had other tools of war, too, including battle-axes, scimitars, and lances.

Still, such a collection was not just for show.

He spent many hours training in the old ways with his fellow brothers of the Blue Wolf, on the steppes surrounding the city, on horseback, in traditional silk garments, overlaid with lacquer-impregnated leather and iron-crowned helmets. He, like all his men, was skilled with both light and heavy Mongol bows.

He stared across the breadth of his collection. To accommodate its growth, he had turned the upper loft of his penthouse into his personal museum. A bank of windows overlooked the brightly lit parliament square and offered a spectacular view of the stars and the shining comet in the night sky.

But at the moment, he returned his full attention to a small case holding a gold wrist piece. The cuff was hinged on one side, featuring a phoenix being beset by demons. He had purchased the exquisite work from Father Josip Tarasco, back when Batukhan had considered the priest nothing more than a trafficker in antiquities, a crackpot in the desert.

In the end, the man had proved much more than he seemed.

Still, like the rest of his collection, the gold cuff was not just for show. He sometimes wore it proudly when among his brothers, knowing it had once adorned the wrist of Genghis himself.

For that privilege, Batukhan had paid dearly for the golden relic—only to have that money squandered by the priest, turned into hundreds of holes in sand and salt.

What a waste.

At last, the phone in his pocket chimed. He removed it and spoke, not bothering with greetings.

“Have you reached Father Josip? Are the Italians there?”

The caller was accustomed to his brusque manner and responded just as tersely. He pictured the young man huddled out of sight with his satellite phone. “They are here, along with a trio of Americans.”

“More archaeologists?”

“I don’t believe so. They look military, at least the men.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, I have my crew taking them into consideration. We’re almost set. But I wanted you to know that Father Josip believes he has a lead on a significant clue that could point to the great khan’s tomb. They are all very excited and determined to set out this night to investigate.”

A significant clue . . .

Batukhan stared across the breadth of his museum. It was a pale mirror of the true wealth and wonders that might be found in Genghis’s lost tomb.

“Discover what that clue is,” Batukhan decided. “And let them go search. If anything is discovered, make sure you secure it. After that—or if they don’t find anything—proceed as planned. Bury them all under that rusted ship.”

“It will be done.”

Batukhan did not doubt it.

Arslan had never failed him.

14

November 18, 11:22
P
.
M
. KST

Taedong River, North Korea

Gray raced along the river road with his bike’s headlamp off, trailed by the other two motorcycles, running equally dark. Tall marsh grasses and stands of willow trees further hid their race from Pyongyang to the Yellow Sea to the west. With the moon down and only starlight and the glow of the comet to light their way, their progress was agonizingly slow.

It didn’t help matters that his shoulder burned. Half an hour ago, Seichan had halted their flight for a brief pit stop, removing the med kit from the bike’s pack. As the others guarded from a distance ahead and behind, she had cleaned his wound, bandaged his shoulder, and popped him with an injectible analgesic and antibiotic.

It was the least she could do since she had shot him.

Luckily the bullet wound was only a deep graze. With the pain meds dulling the worst of the fire, he took the last shift on the bike, wanting to keep his arm from stiffening up in the cold. He didn’t know what they would face once they reached the coast.

To their left, the expanse of the Taedong River reflected the starlight, winding from its source high in the mountains to the north, through its capital city, until it drained into the sea. They did their best to avoid the few industrial plants along the way, sticking to the smaller roads.