Treasure of Khan (41 page)

T
HEY LOOKED LIKE BOGEYMEN
, black-rubbery-skinned ogres moving ghostlike through the trees. Moving in silence, the three dark figures crossed the road in a cumbersome gait, then inched their way up to the side of the aqueduct. A few yards away, the rushing waters of the mountain river echoed across the hillside with a pounding fury. One of the figures stuck an arm into the aqueduct, then flicked on a small penlight. The clear water swirled past at an easy current, unlike the raging river beyond. Pitt turned off the light, then nodded at his companions.

They had waited an hour after sundown, until the forested hilltop was nearly pitch-black. A late-rising moon would allow them plenty of darkness for at least another hour or two. Climbing into the back of the truck with Giordino and Gunn, Pitt found their gear organized into three stacks.

“How deep is the aqueduct?” Gunn asked as he slipped into a black DUI neoprene dry suit.

“No more than six feet,” Pitt replied. “We could probably get by with snorkels, but we'll use the rebreathers in case we need to stay under a bit longer.”

Pitt had already zipped up his dry suit and was slipping on a Dräger rebreather harness. Weighing just over thirty pounds, the system allowed a diver to breathe a contained supply of purified air re-circulated with carbon dioxide scrubbers. Replacing the large steel air tank with a small tank and pack, the rebreather nearly eliminated visible exhaust bubbles as well. Pitt strapped on a weighted dive belt, then attached a waterproof dive bag. Inside he had placed his shoes, two handheld radios, and his Colt .45. Climbing out of the truck, he surveyed the perimeter area, then ducked his head back into the rear.

“You gentlemen ready for a midnight swim?” he asked.

“I'm ready for a warm bath and a glass of bourbon,” Gunn said.

“All set, just as soon as I load up my breaking-and-entering tools,” Giordino replied. He rummaged around a toolbox until producing a hacksaw, monkey wrench, crowbar, and portable underwater torch, which he clipped to his belt, then hopped out the back. Gunn followed him out of the truck with an earnest look on his face.

The men made their way to the aqueduct in their black dry suits, each carrying a pair of lightweight dive fins. At the side of the V-shaped channel, Pitt took a final look around. The moon had yet to appear, and visibility under the partly cloudy skies was no more than thirty feet. They would be virtually undetected in the aqueduct.

“Try to keep your speed down. We'll pull out under the small bridge just inside the compound wall,” Pitt said, pulling on his fins. He checked his regulator, then pulled down his mask and gently rolled into the aqueduct. Gunn splashed in a few seconds behind, then Giordino slipped in to follow from the tail position.

The bone-chilling river water would have frozen an unprotected man in minutes, but for Pitt in his dry suit, it felt like only a cool breeze. He'd nearly overheated hiking to the aqueduct in the insulated dry suit and was actually thankful for the cooling effect, despite the bitter chill around his mouth and face mask.

The gravity-induced water in the aqueduct flowed faster than he expected, so he shifted his feet forward and lay prone on his back. Lazily kicking his fins against the downward flow, he was able to slow his speed to a walking pace. The aqueduct followed the winding course of the road, and Pitt felt himself snake from one side to the other as he descended. The concrete channel was coated with a thin layer of algae, and Pitt bounced and slipped easily off its slimy walls.

It was almost a relaxing ride, he thought, gazing up at the sky overhead and the thick pine trees lining the bank. Then the trees gradually fell away, and the aqueduct channel straightened as it flowed through an open clearing. The dim glow of a light shined ahead, and Pitt could just make out the top of the compound wall rising in the distance.

There were actually two lights, one mounted atop the compound wall and another glowing from the interior of the guard hut. Inside the hut, a pair of duty guards sat chitchatting in front of a large video-monitor board. Live video feeds ran from nearly a dozen cameras mounted around the perimeter grounds, including one directly above the aqueduct. The grainy green night-vision images captured the occasional wolf or gazelle but little else in the remote setting. The studious guards refrained from the natural urge to sleep or play cards in order to relieve the boredom, knowing that Borjin had zero tolerance for indolent behavior.

At the sight of the compound, Pitt purged a shot of air from his dry suit, sinking his body a few inches below the surface. He craned his neck just before going under, spotting the dark image of Gunn floating a few yards behind him. He hoped Gunn would take the cue and submerge as well.

The water was clear enough that Pitt could easily detect the glow of the entry lights and the looming edifice of the compound wall. As he glided closer, he flattened his feet and bent his knees to brace for a possible impact. He wasn't disappointed. As he whizzed past the lights on his right, his finned feet collided with a metal grate that filtered large debris, and intruders, from passing through the aqueduct into the compound. Pitt quickly kicked to one side, then dropped to his knees and looked upstream. A black object quickly loomed up in front of him, and Pitt reached out and grabbed the murky Rudi Gunn a second before he collided with the grate. Not far behind, Giordino appeared, halting against the grate with his feet as Pitt had.

Inside the guard hut, the two security men sat oblivious to the three intruders in the aqueduct just a few feet away. Had they been monitoring the overhead video camera closely, they might have detected several dark objects in the water and gone to investigate. Had they even stepped outside their warm hut and listened attentively, they might have heard a muffled grinding noise coming from under the water. But the guards did neither.

The grate proved an easier obstacle than they expected. Rather than a tightly latticed plate that they would have had to cut through, the grate was a simple strand of vertical iron bars six inches apart. Feeling the way with his hands, Giordino grabbed the center bar and pulled himself to the bottom, where he attacked the base with his hacksaw. The bar was well rusted, and he was able to slice through it with only a few dozen strokes. He moved to the adjacent bar and cut through it with little additional effort. Bracing his feet on the floor of the aqueduct, he grabbed both bars just above the cuts and pulled up. With a burst from his burly thighs, he bent both bars up and away from the grate, creating a narrow passageway at the bottom of the aqueduct.

Gunn was resting on his knees when Giordino grabbed his arm and guided him to the access hole. Gunn quickly felt his way around the opening, then kicked through, twisting sideways to slip past the remaining bars. He turned and kicked against the flowing water until he detected the shapes of Pitt and Giordino slip through, then he relaxed and let the current pull him. They drifted through a concrete pipe passing under the compound wall, gliding through total darkness, until they spilled into the open aqueduct on the other side.

Gunn lazily kicked to the surface just in time to see the small footbridge passing over his head. He struggled to stop as an arm reached out of nowhere and yanked him to the side.

“End of the line, Rudi,” he heard Pitt's voice whisper.

The steep and slippery sides of the aqueduct made for a difficult exit, but the men were able to pull themselves out by the bridge supports. Sitting in the shadow of the small bridge, they quickly stripped out of their dry suits and stashed them under the bridge footing. A scan of the compound revealed all was quiet, and no horse patrols were visible in the immediate area.

Gunn unzipped his dive bag and pulled out his glasses, shoes, and a small digital camera. Beside him, Pitt had retrieved his .45 and the two handheld radios. He made sure the volumes were turned down low, then clipped one to his belt and handed the other to Gunn.

“Sorry we don't have enough weapons to go around. You get in a bind, then give us a call,” Pitt said.

“Believe me, I'll be in and out of there before anyone has a chance to blink.”

Gunn's task was to sneak into the lab and photograph the seismic device, grabbing any documents he could along the way. If there were workers about, then he had Pitt's order to abandon the effort and wait by the bridge. Pitt and Giordino had the stickier objective of entering the main residence and locating Theresa and Wofford.

“We'll try to rendezvous here, unless one of us doesn't make it out cleanly. Then we'll head for the garage and one of Borjin's vehicles.”

“Take this, Rudi,” Giordino said, handing Gunn his crowbar. “In case the door is locked…or an overinquisitive lab rat gives you trouble.”

Gunn nodded with a humorless grin, then grabbed the crowbar and skulked off in the direction of the laboratory. He wanted to curse Pitt and Giordino for bringing him here, but he knew it was the expedient thing to do. They had to try to rescue Theresa and Wofford. And to simultaneously document the seismic array meant it was a three-man job. Heck, it was a hundred-man job, Gunn thought, glancing skyward in hopes that a company of special operations forces would magically parachute into the compound. But the heavens only offered a few scattered stars, struggling to twinkle through a light haze of clouds.

Gunn shook off the prayer and moved quickly across the open compound, dashing from shrub to shrub where cover availed itself. Only while crossing the entryway road did he slow down, crawling across the gravel road at nearly a snail's pace so as not to create an audible crunch underfoot. He followed Pitt's directions, moving past the illuminated open garage. The tinkling sound of banging tools told him that at least one person was up performing late-night mechanical duties.

He moved on toward the adjacent lab when the sudden braying of a horse froze him in his tracks. He could detect no movement around him and finally decided that the sound came from the horse stables at the end of the building. He studied the lab and was relieved to see only a few dim lights turned on on the lower level. Some brighter lights glimmered from the upstairs windows, and he heard the faint sound of music coming from above. The living quarters for the scientists who worked in the lab obviously were upstairs.

Checking again to see that no horse patrols were nearby, he crept to the glass entry door and pushed. To his surprise, the door was unlocked and opened into the test bay. He entered quickly and closed the door behind him. The bay was illuminated by a few desk lamps and buzzed with the hum of a dozen oscilloscopes but was otherwise empty. Gunn noticed a coatrack near the entrance and grabbed one of several white, long-sleeved lab coats hanging on the hooks, which he slipped over his own dark jacket. Might as well look the part, he thought, figuring it might be enough to deceive someone looking in from outside.

He walked to the main corridor, which stretched the length of the building, and noticed the lights were turned on in a few scattered offices. Fearful of being caught in the open hallway, he hesitated only a second, then stormed down the hall. He walked as fast as his legs could move without breaking into a run, keeping his eyes forward and face down. To the three other people still working at the late hour, he was just a quick blur past the window. All they could tell was that it was someone in a white lab coat, one of their comrades, probably on the way to the bathroom.

Gunn quickly reached the thick door at the end of the hall. With heavy breath and heart pounding, he flipped the latch and shoved. The massive door swung open quietly, revealing the huge anechoic chamber inside. Towering in the center of the room under a bright circle of overhead lights was von Wachter's acoustic seismic device, just as Pitt and Giordino had described it.

Thankful to find the chamber empty, Gunn climbed through the door and up onto the catwalk.

“We're halfway home,” he muttered as he pulled out the digital camera. Noting the handheld radio on his belt, he silently wondered how Pitt and Giordino were faring.

I
F YOU CAN PROVIDE A
distraction from the front, then I should be able to slip around and surprise them from the side,” Pitt whispered, studying the two guards standing like bookends on either side of the main residence door.

“A visit from my pet monkey should do the trick,” Giordino replied, patting the heavy red pipe wrench dangling from his belt.

Pitt lowered his head then released the safety on his Colt. That they would have to subdue the front-entry guards in order to gain entry to the residence was a given. The challenge would be to do so without firing a shot and alerting the small army of security forces that Borjin kept on the compound.

The two men moved quietly along one of the reflecting canals that flowed toward the house, advancing in short quick bursts. They dropped to the ground and crawled to a rose bed that circled around the residence's main covered entryway. They were within clear sight of the guards as they peered through a bed of ivory yellow Damask roses.

The guards stood leaning against the residence in a relaxed state, accustomed to the uneventful grind of the night shift. Save for an evening walk or a late return from Ulaanbaatar, neither Borjin nor his sister were seldom seen after ten o'clock.

Pitt motioned for Giordino to stay put and give him five minutes to reposition himself. As Giordino nodded and hunkered down in the rose bed, Pitt silently looped his way around toward the far side of the entrance. Following the rose bed, he reached the entry drive and, as Gunn had done, gently stepped his way across the crushed gravel. The grounds were open from the road to the house, and Pitt moved quickly across the area, running low to the ground. The front face of the house was dotted with shrubs, and he ducked behind a large juniper bush, then peeked through it to the front porch. The guards stood as they were, oblivious to his movements in the dark just a few dozen yards away.

Creeping forward, he picked his way bush by bush until reaching the edge of the covered portico. He kneeled to the ground, tightened his grip on the .45, and waited for Giordino to start the show.

Seeing no suspicious activities by the guards, Giordino gave Pitt an extra minute before moving from the rose bed. He had noted that the column supports for the portico roof offered a perfect blind spot from which to approach the porch. He inched to one side until one of the columns blocked his view of the guards, then stepped out of the rosebushes.

As he figured, if he couldn't see the guards, then they couldn't see him, and he angled his way right up to the back side of the column. The front door was less than twenty feet away, and he would have a clear shot at either guard. Without saying a word or making a sound, he casually stepped from behind the column, took aim at one of the guards, then hauled back and flung the pipe wrench like a tomahawk.

Both guards immediately saw the squat Italian step into view, but both were too startled to react. They stared in disbelief as a red object tumbled through the air at them, smashing one of them in the chest, cracking his ribs and knocking the breath out of him. The buffeted guard fell to his knees, wheezing a moan of shock and pain. The other guard instinctively stepped to his aid, but, seeing that his partner was not injured seriously, stood up to charge after Giordino. Only Giordino was no longer there, having ducked back behind the column. The guard stumbled toward the column, then stopped when he detected footsteps behind him. He turned in time to see the butt of Pitt's .45 strike his temple just beneath his helmet.

As the lights went out, Pitt managed to slip his hands under the man's arms and catch him before he collapsed to the ground. Giordino popped from behind the column and approached as Pitt dragged the unconscious guard toward some bushes. Pitt noticed a sudden glint in Giordino's eyes just before he yelled, “Down!”

Pitt ducked as Giordino took two steps and leaped directly toward him. Giordino stretched out and soared up and over Pitt, flying toward the first guard who now stood behind Pitt. The injured man had shaken off the blow from the wrench and staggered to his feet with a short knife, which he'd been preparing to plunge into Pitt's back. Giordino whipped his left arm forward midair, knocking the guard's knife to the side before tumbling into him with his full weight. They fell hard to the ground together, Giordino driving his weight into the man's chest. The pressure on the guard's broken ribs was unbearable and the wincing man gasped as he tried to suck in air. Giordino's right fist beat out the cry, crashing into the side of his neck and knocking him out before another warble left his mouth.

“That was a little close,” Giordino gasped.

“Thanks for the leap of faith,” Pitt said. He stood up and surveyed the compound. The grounds and house appeared quiet. If the guards had triggered an alarm, it wasn't apparent.

“Let's get these guys out of sight,” Pitt said, dragging his victim again toward the bushes. Giordino followed suit, grabbing his guard by the collar and pulling him backward.

“Hope the next shift change doesn't arrive soon,” he huffed.

As Pitt deposited his body by the bushes, he turned to Giordino with a twinkle in his eye.

“I think it may arrive sooner than you think,” he said with a knowing wink.