Treasure of Khan (35 page)

P
ITT WAS ALREADY AWAKE AND
dressed when an early-morning knock sounded on his hotel-room door. Opening it with some trepidation, he was relieved to find a smiling Al Giordino standing in the doorway.

“I found this vagrant panhandling in the lobby,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I thought you might know what to do with him.”

A tired and disheveled Rudi Gunn peeked behind Giordino's thick frame with a look of relief on his face.

“Well, my long-lost deputy director,” Pitt grinned. “We thought perhaps you had found yourself a nice babushka and taken up residence in the wilds of Siberia.”

“I was only too happy to depart the wilds of Siberia. However, I would have stayed had I known that Mongolia was twice as uncivilized,” Gunn harangued, entering the room and falling into a chair. “Nobody told me that there isn't a paved road in the entire country. Drove all night on something I'm not even sure was a road. I feel like I hopped on a pogo stick from New York to L.A.”

Pitt handed him a cup of coffee from an in-room pot. “You were able to bring our search gear and dive equipment with you?” he asked.

“Yes, I got it all onto a truck that the institute was kind enough to loan me, or sell me, I'm still not sure. It cost me every ruble I had to grease the palms of the Russian border guards to let me into Mongolia. I'm sure they think I'm CIA.”

“Your eyes aren't beady enough,” Giordino muttered.

“I guess I can't complain,” Gunn said, looking at Pitt. “Al told me about your traipse across the Gobi Desert. Didn't sound like any picnic.”

“No, but a great way to see the countryside,” Pitt smiled.

“This nutcase at Xanadu…he's still holding the oil survey team?”

“We know Roy is dead. We can only presume the others are there and still alive.”

A ring of the telephone interrupted the conversation. Pitt answered and spoke briefly, then slid the phone toward the center of the room and activated the speakerphone. Hiram Yaeger's easygoing voice boomed from the speaker.

“Greetings from Washington, where the local bureaucracy is beginning to wonder what has become of their favorite gurus of the deep,” he said.

“Simply busy enjoying the delightful underwater treasures of greater Mongolia,” Pitt replied.

“As I suspected. Of course, I'm sure you had a hand in the breaking political news coming from your part of the world.”

The three men in the hotel room looked at each other blankly.

“We've been a little preoccupied,” Pitt said. “What news?”

“China declared this morning that they are acceding the territorial lands of Inner Mongolia to the country of Mongolia.”

“I noticed a gathering of people in the square down the street who looked like they were headed for a celebration,” Gunn said. “I thought it might be a local holiday.”

“China is playing it up as a friendly diplomatic gesture to their old neighbor, and has garnered all kinds of accolades from the United Nations and Western government leaders. Underground movements have been afoot for years to seek independence for Inner Mongolia, or reunification with Mongolia proper. It has been a point of embarrassment with the Chinese for years. Privately, analysts are saying it was less about politics and more about economics. Some have speculated that it involved a pipeline deal and trade agreement to provide oil or other resources needed to keep China's economy growing, though no one seems to think Mongolia actually holds much in the way of oil reserves.”

“That's exactly what it is about. I guess you could say Al and I were indeed a part of the negotiations,” Pitt said, glancing at Giordino with a knowing look.

“I knew you must have had something to do with it,” Yaeger laughed.

“It has a lot more to do with the Avarga Oil Company and Tolgoi Borjin. Al and I saw some of his resources. He's got storage facilities already in place along the border.”

“Pretty remarkable that he got hold of the keys to the castle so quickly,” Giordino said. “He must have had some pretty good bargaining chips.”

“Or misinformation. Hiram, were you able to track down any of the info that I faxed you?” Pitt asked.

“Max and I pulled an all-nighter, digging up what we could. This guy and his company are quite an enigma. Well funded, but operating in an almost clandestine fashion.”

“A local Russian contact confirmed similar findings,” Giordino said. “What did you make of his oil holdings?”

“There is no record of the Avarga Oil Company actually exporting any oil from Mongolia. But then, there isn't much to export. They are known to operate only a handful of active wells.”

“So they are not pumping enough volume sufficient to make a dent in China's demand, or anybody else's, for that matter?”

“There is no evidence of it. Funny thing is, we uncovered a number of sizeable contracts with a couple of Western oil field equipment suppliers. With oil prices surging over one hundred fifty dollars a barrel, there has been a mad rush for new exploration and drilling. The oil equipment suppliers have huge backlogs. Yet Avarga was already at the front of the line. They have apparently been purchasing a massive amount of specialized drilling and pipeline equipment for the last three years, all shipped to Mongolia.”

“We found some of it here in Ulaanbaatar.”

“The only item that was amiss was the tunnel-boring device. We found only one record of that model being shipped out of the country and it was exported to Malaysia.”

“Perhaps a front company for our friends at Avarga Oil?” Pitt ventured.

“Probably. The particular model you saw is designated for shallow earth pipeline installations. Perfect, in other words, for burying an oil pipeline in the soft sands of the Gobi Desert. What I haven't been able to decipher is how this Borjin has obtained the resources to acquire all this equipment without any visible revenue stream,” Yaeger said.

“Genghis Khan is picking up the tab,” Pitt replied.

“I don't get the joke.”

“It's true,” Giordino said. “He's parked in the guy's backyard.”

While Giordino told Gunn and Yaeger about the existence of the tomb in Borjin's sanctuary and the later discovery of Hunt's diary in the crashed trimotor, Pitt pulled out a ten-page fax he had received back from Perlmutter.

“St. Julien has confirmed as much,” Pitt said. “Sotheby's and the other major auction houses have had a steady stream of consignments for the past eight years of major twelfth-and thirteenth-century mainland Asian art and artifacts.”

“Loot buried with Genghis Khan?” Gunn asked.

“To the tune of over one hundred million dollars. Perlmutter verified that the artifacts have all been consistent with the geographic regions of Genghis Khan's conquests up to the date of his death. The pattern fits, as does the source. The artifacts have all been consigned from a shadowy Malaysian company named the Buryat Trading Company.”

“That's the same firm that purchased the tunnel borer,” Yaeger exclaimed.

“Small world, eh? Hiram, when we are finished perhaps you and Max can take a closer look at this Malaysian front company.”

“Sure thing. I guess we should also talk about that bit of German strudel you sent me.”

“Ah yes, the documents written in German. Did you and Max come up with anything?”

“Not much on the documents per se. Just as you noted, they read like the first pages of a technical operator's manual. You found them with a large electrical device?”

“A room full of computing equipment, powering a three-legged tubular device that stands ten feet high. Any idea what it might be?”

“There wasn't enough data to determine its exact function. The pages were simply operator's instructions for an acoustic seismic array.”

“Care to try that again in English?” Giordino asked.

“Mostly the stuff of lab experiments. Von Wachter evidently succeeded in taking the technology a leap forward.”

“Who's von Wachter?” Pitt asked.

“Dr. Friedrich von Wachter. An eminent electrical engineering professor from the University of Heidelberg. Well known for his research in acoustics and seismic imagery. Max made the link between von Wachter and the acoustic seismic array. One of his last papers discussed the theoretical application of a parametric acoustic array for subsurface imagery.”

Gunn helped himself to more coffee as the men in the hotel room listened attentively to Yaeger's voice on the speakerphone.

“Though the facts are murky, it appears that Dr. von Wachter developed a working model for acoustic seismic imagery,” he said. “As you know, in the oil exploration business seismic imagery usually relies on a mechanical explosive, such as dynamite or a thumper truck, to send a shock wave into the earth. The refracted seismic waves are then recorded and processed by computer modeling to develop a subsurface image.”

“Sure. The marine survey ships use an air gun to generate the shocks,” Giordino said.

“Von Wachter apparently eliminated the explosives by developing an electronic means of producing the shock wave. The acoustic array, if I understand it correctly, transmits a high-frequency sound burst, which converts to seismic waves under the surface.”

“Our experience with survey sonar systems is that high-frequency waves don't provide adequate penetration to ‘see' very far beneath the surface,” Giordino stated.

“That's true. Most of the waves are easily refracted near the surface. Apparently, von Wachter's concentrated burst allows a greater bombardment, if you will, of sound waves, ensuring that a useful percentage of waves penetrate deeply. From the preliminary data in the manual and your visual description of the device, it sounds as if von Wachter uses three rather large arrays to transmit the sound waves.”

“I'll bet that is how they found Genghis,” Pitt remarked. “His tomb was supposedly buried in a hidden location in the mountains, along with Kublai Khan and other related royalty.”

“And they're obviously using it to hunt for oil,” Gunn added.

“A valuable technology that the oil companies would pay dearly for. Dr. von Wachter must be a rich man,” Giordino said.

“I'm afraid he's a dead man. He and his team of German engineers were killed in a landslide in Mongolia a little over a year ago.”

“Why does that sound suspicious?” Giordino added.

“Need I add that they were working for the Avarga Oil Company at the time,” Yaeger said.

“More blood on the hands of Borjin,” Pitt said without surprise. The ruthlessness of the Avarga Oil empire and its head, Tolgoi Borjin, was becoming old news.

“None of it adds up,” Giordino said. “A seismic survey team murdered, another abducted. A tunnel borer, specialized drilling equipment, a vast disguised storage facility in the middle of the desert. One of several, according to our camel herder friend, Tsengel. All tied in to a system of underground pipelines running hidden across an empty desert. Yet no visible sign of output. Why?”

The room fell silent for a moment, the turning gears in everyone's heads nearly audible. Then a knowing look spread across Pitt's face.

“Because,” he said slowly, “they have been unable to drill where the oil is.”

“Borjin has probably greased enough wallets to drill anywhere he wants to in Mongolia,” Giordino countered.

“But suppose the oil isn't in Mongolia?”

“Of course,” Gunn said, the answer suddenly apparent. “He's found oil in China, or Inner Mongolia to be precise. How he convinced the Chinese to turn the land over, that's what I'd like to know.”

“They're in a bad way,” Yaeger said. “Because of the earthquakes in the Persian Gulf and the fire at their main oil import terminal near Shanghai, China has lost more than half of its oil imports overnight. They're in a desperate situation and liable to act a little irrational in order to find a quick fix.”

“It would explain the storage facilities located by the border. They might already have some secret wells in Inner Mongolia pumping to one of the other storage sites,” Pitt speculated. “The Chinese would only see the end product shipped from Mongolia and not know the oil originated in their own yard.”

“I wouldn't want to be on this side of the Great Wall when they figure that scam out,” Gunn said.

“It might explain why Borjin abducted the oil survey team from Baikal,” Giordino said. “He probably needs their expertise to pinpoint the drill sites and get the oil out of the ground quickly.”

“Seems like he could have hired that expertise on the open market,” Yaeger said.

“Perhaps. But he probably didn't want to risk leaking the secret of where the oil deposits are located.”

“Maybe he'll release them, now that he's got his deal with the Chinese,” Gunn said.

“Not likely,” Pitt replied. “They already murdered Roy and tried to kill us. No, I'm afraid they are as good as dead once Borjin has the information he wants out of them.”