Treasure of Khan (42 page)

T
HERESA WATCHED AS THE TINY
flames gobbled up the torn pages, then slowly grew higher and brighter as the fire danced over the open books. When it was clear that the fire would sustain itself, Theresa moved quickly to the study doorway, grabbing the file of reports that Wofford had earlier tried to take. Inside were samples of von Wachter's detailed imaging, along with the seismic fault maps and their unsettling red markings, including the chart of Alaska. Casting a glance back at the glowing yellow blaze beginning to erupt at the back of the room, Theresa turned and bolted down the corridor.

She moved in a shuffling run, fleeing as fast as she could without pounding the marble floor with a loud patter. Nervous adrenaline pumped through her veins as she dashed along, the prospect of escape at last a reality. The plan was simple. They would hide off the foyer until the fire drew the response of the front-entry guards. Slipping outside, they would try to commandeer a vehicle in the ensuing chaos and make a break at the front gate. The fire was now set, and Theresa felt a glimmer of confidence that their humble escape plan might actually work.

She slowed to a walk as she approached the foyer, searching for Wofford's hiding spot. He stood where she left him, standing beside a large fluted column. Seeing her approach, he looked at her with dread in his eyes. Theresa smiled in return, indicating with a nod that she had been successful. The normally jovial Wofford stood stone-still, his face in a tight grimace.

Then Tatiana stepped out from behind Wofford's shadow, waving a small automatic pistol at his back. With a menacing smile, she hissed at Theresa. “A beautiful evening for a walk, no?”

Theresa gasped as a chill ran down her spine like the Polar Express. Then seeing the wicked smile on Tatiana's lips, her fear was replaced with anger. If her time was at hand, she decided, then she wasn't going to go down meekly.

“I could not sleep,” she tried bluffing. “We are so close to finishing the analysis. I convinced the guard to let us retrieve some of the reports so that we could work in our rooms,” she said, holding up the file under her arm.

It was a game effort, but Theresa could see by the look in Tatiana's eyes that she was buying none of it.

“And where is the guard?”

“He is closing down the study.”

A conveniently timed tumbling of books sounded from down the corridor, the work of the fire burning through a lower bookshelf. An inquisitive look crossed Tatiana's face and she took a step toward the center of the foyer to peek down the hall, keeping the gun pointed at Wofford. He glanced at Theresa, who nodded slightly in return.

As if in a rehearsed move, Theresa flung her bundled papers at Tatiana's face while Wofford lunged for her right arm, the one holding the pistol. With a snakelike quickness that surprised them both, Tatiana instantly spun in a half circle, sidestepping Wofford's reach as the tossed files bounced harmlessly off the back of her head. Spinning forward, she stepped toward Theresa and jammed the gun in her cheek while the cloud of papers was still fluttering to the ground.

“I should kill you now for that,” she hissed into Theresa's ear while waving Wofford back with her other hand. “We shall see what other tricks you have been up to.”

Prodding Theresa across the foyer with the muzzle of the gun, a Makarov PM automatic, she led her to the front door. Reaching around with her free hand, Tatiana flung the door open.

“Guards,” she barked. “Come assist me.”

The two guards on the porch, dressed in Mongol warrior attire with their tin helmets pulled low, burst through the door and quickly sized up the situation. The first guard stepped toward Wofford and produced a handgun, which he jammed into the geophysicist's ribs. The second guard, a shorter man, stepped up to Theresa and grabbed her tightly by the arm.

“Take her,” Tatiana ordered, pulling the gun away from Theresa's face. The guard obliged by roughly jerking her away from Tatiana. A wave of hopelessness fell over Theresa as she looked at Wofford with despair. Oddly, the look of gloom had passed from Wofford's face and he looked at her with a gaze of hope. Then the viselike grip around her arm suddenly eased. In an unexpected move, the guard let go of Theresa's arm and suddenly grasped Tatiana by the wrist. With the flick of his powerful hand, he twisted Tatiana's wrist while applying a pincerlike squeeze to her hand. The gun slipped from her hand before she realized what was happening, the pistol clanging across the marble floor. The guard then jerked her wrist again and shoved, sending Tatiana sprawling to the floor with a shriek of pain.

“What on earth are you doing?” she cried, rising to her feet while cradling her bent wrist. For the first time, she looked earnestly at the guard, noticing that his sleeves dangled from a shirt two sizes too large. He smiled at her with a somehow-familiar grin that seemed out of place. She turned toward the other guard and saw that his uniform was way too small for his tall frame. And the gun he was holding was now aimed at her. Looking into the face, she gasped at the penetrating green eyes that stared back at her with morbid delight.

“You!” she rasped, losing her voice in shock.

“You were expecting Chicken Delight?” Pitt replied, holding the .45 aimed at her belly.

“But you died in the desert,” she stammered.

“No, that would be that phony monk friend of yours,” Giordino replied, picking up the Makarov. Tatiana seemed to shrivel at the words.

“Al, you came back,” Theresa said, nearly welling up at the turn of events. Giordino squeezed her hand.

“Sorry to rough you around on the way in,” he said. Theresa nodded her head in understanding and squeezed his hand back.

“We are sure glad to see you, Mr. Pitt,” Wofford said. “We had little hope of getting out of here in one piece.”

“We saw what they did to Roy,” Pitt said with a cold eye to Tatiana. “This place isn't exactly a Girl Scout camp. All the same, you saved us the trouble of trying to find you in this palace.”

“I think it might be a good time to make an exit, before any real palace guards show up,” Giordino added, escorting Theresa toward the door.

“Wait,” she said. “The seismic reports. We found evidence that they may try to disrupt tectonic fault zones in the Persian Gulf and Alaska.”

“This is absurd,” Tatiana declared.

“No one is talking to you, sister,” Giordino replied, pointing the Makarov in her direction.

“It's true,” Wofford said, bending down and helping Theresa scoop up the papers that littered the floor. “They designated the destruction of the oil pipeline at the northern end of Lake Baikal that somehow triggered the seiche wave. They've also targeted specific faults in the Persian Gulf, and one near the Alaska Pipeline as well.”

“They've already struck the gulf successfully, I'm afraid,” Pitt said.

“The data should fill in nicely with the photos that Rudi is taking as we speak,” Giordino added.

Pitt saw the quizzical looks on Theresa and Wofford's faces.

“An acoustic seismic array sits in the lab across the way. Used to trigger earthquakes, we believe, which have already created extensive damage to oil port facilities in the Persian Gulf. Your documents would appear to support the contention. We didn't know Alaska was next on the hit list.”

Theresa stood up with an armload of documents when a deafeningly shrill pierced the hallway. The growing blaze of burning books had finally triggered a smoke detector outside the study, its alarm echoing throughout the residence.

“We set fire to the study,” Theresa explained. “Hoped to use it as a diversion for Jim and I to escape.”

“Maybe we still can,” Pitt replied, “but let's not wait for the fire brigade to arrive.”

He quickly stepped through the open door as Theresa and Wofford followed behind. Tatiana edged toward the back wall, trying to slip behind in the mass exit. Giordino smiled at her attempt, walking over and grabbing a fistful of her sweater.

“I'm afraid you'll be leaving with us, darling. Do you care to walk or fly?” he asked, shoving her roughly toward the door. Tatiana turned and snarled at him, then begrudgingly moved through the doorway.

Outside, Pitt quickly led the group across the portico to the outlying support columns, then stopped. The sound of galloping horse hooves far to his right told him a patrol near the northern edge of the residence had heard the alarm and was charging toward the entrance. Ahead and to his left, a yelling and commotion was erupting near the stables and security quarters. Pitt could see lanterns and flashlights hurrying toward the residence, carried by guards woken by the alarm and rushing there on foot.

Pitt silently cursed that Theresa had set fire to the residence. If they had gotten away a few minutes earlier, the confusion might have played into their hands. But now the entire security force was roused and rushing toward their position. Their only option was to lay low and hope the guards surged past them.

Pitt motioned toward the rosebushes behind the columns. “Everybody get down flat. We'll wait for them to enter the house, then we'll move on,” he said in a low voice.

Theresa and Wofford quickly dove to the ground and slithered behind a row of the thorny flowers. Giordino shoved Tatiana behind a budding bush, then clasped a hand over her mouth. With his other hand, he motioned the Makarov's barrel to his lips and said, “Shhh.”

Pitt kneeled down and pulled the handheld radio from his belt then held it to his lips.

“Rudi, can you hear me?” he said quietly.

“I'm all ears,” came an equally hushed reply.

“We're on our way out, but there's a party starting up. We'll have to meet up on the fly, in about five or ten minutes.”

“I'll wrap up and head toward the garage. Out.”

Pitt hit the ground as a trio of guards from the stables approached. Running on foot, they bolted by a few feet from Pitt, barely noticing that the entry guards were nowhere in sight before rushing into the residence. Only a few dim lights were turned on near the door, leaving Pitt and the others hidden in the covering darkness.

The horse patrol was still fifty yards away. Pitt contemplated moving past the rosebushes and into the compound grounds before they got closer, then thought better of it. The horse patrol wouldn't expect anyone lying around the entrance. With luck, Theresa's fire would be raging sufficiently that they would all be pressed into firefighting duty.

The horse patrol, numbering eight men, had been galloping fast toward the front entry when they suddenly pulled up hard on their reins as they reached the gravel drive. An uneasy feeling came over Pitt as he watched the horsemen fan out in a large semicircle at the edge of the portico, then stop. Two of the horses snorted in uneasiness as the riders held them still. Inside the residence, the ringing alarm suddenly fell silent as four additional guards approached on foot from the opposite side and stopped short of the drive. The fire was either raging out of control, or as Pitt feared, it had been contained before it could spread.

The answer came with a blinding glare of white light. With the flick of a switch, a dozen floodlights mounted in the portico's rafters popped on in a bright burst. The light from the halogen bulbs spilled over onto the surrounding grounds. Clearly illuminated under the glare were the bodies of Pitt and the others, stretched out beneath the rosebushes.

Pitt tightened the grip on his .45 and casually took aim at the nearest horseman. The guards on foot were positioned farther away and did not appear to be armed. It was a different story with the horsemen. In addition to their lethal bows and arrows, Pitt was chagrined to see they all carried rifles, now shouldered and aimed in their direction. Though he noticed Giordino now had the Makarov aimed at a horseman as well, their odds were not at all attractive.

The gunfight became moot when a flurry of footsteps echoed from the marble foyer and four bodies burst onto the porch. The three guards who had rushed across the compound took a few steps out, then stopped and stared at Pitt and the others. Smoke and ashes blackened their bright orange tunics, but there was no panic in the men's eyes. Of more concern to Pitt were the AK-74 assault rifles they now cradled in their arms.

Busting past the gunman was the fourth man, who charged to the center of the driveway as if he owned it, which he well did. Borjin was dressed in a blue silk robe, which contrasted with his beet red face flush with anger. He glared to the side bushes, where the stripped and unconscious bodies of the door guards lie visible under the bright lights. Borjin turned to Pitt and the others with an apoplectic gaze. Then in a measured voice, he growled, “I will have retribution for this.”

A
WAVE OF CURIOSITY REPLACED
the fear surging through Gunn's body when he entered the anechoic chamber. He had seen soundproof test chambers before, but none filled with the array of high-powered electronic gear packed into this high-ceilinged compartment. Row after row of computers and power racks lined the outer platform, reminding him of the computer-processing equipment jammed into a Trident submarine. Of greater interest was the odd appendage in the middle of the room, the three conjoined tubes that towered ten feet high. Gunn stared at the acoustic transducers, a chill running through him at the thought of Yaeger's assertion that it could create an earthquake.

The chill quickly turned to sweat as he realized the temperature in the chamber was about 100 degrees. He was surprised to find that the equipment in the chamber was on and running, engaged in a preprogrammed test of some sort. The heat generated from the assembly of power supplies running the electronics had turned the chamber into a dry sauna. Stripping off his borrowed lab coat and black foul-weather jacket beneath, he pulled out the digital camera and climbed up onto the center platform. Starting at the far end, he hurriedly began photographing each piece of equipment. Sweating profusely, he stepped to the entrance and opened the door, allowing a blast of cool air to gush through. Knowing he could better hear approaching footsteps, and also receive calls on his radio, he left the door open and resumed his photography.

Gunn stopped when he reached a large console fronted by a plush leather chair. It was the system operator's control station for activating the seismic array. Gunn slipped into the chair and studied the brightly colored flat-screen monitor that faced him. A pop-up message was centered on the screen with the words
TEST RUNNING
flashing in German. Gunn had a rudimentary knowledge of German, having spent several months with a German research team studying the sunken World War II liner
Wilhelm Gustloff,
and deciphered the ongoing software test. He clicked on a box marked
ABORT
and a vivid abstract image suddenly popped onto the screen.

The monitor showed a three-dimensional image of sediment layers, each colored in a different shade of yellow-gold. A scale to one side indicated five hundred meters, and Gunn correctly guessed that it was a stratigraphic image of the sediment directly beneath the lab. Gunn reached for a trackball mouse on the table and slid it toward him. As the cursor moved on the screen, a loud ticking noise emitted from the towering transducers a few feet away. The ticking quickly stopped as the monitor readjusted to a new subterranean image. Gunn noticed that the side scale now read five hundred fifty meters.

Von Wachter had indeed perfected his seismic-imaging system to a remarkable degree. Gunn wheeled the mouse back and forth, admiring a crystal clear image of the sedimentary layers hundreds of feet below him. Alongside him, the acoustic array ticked away as an electric motor rotated the mechanism and its changing angle of penetration. Like a kid with a computer game, Gunn became temporarily engrossed in the images produced by the device, studying the aberrations in the ground layers. He barely noticed when Pitt called him on the radio, jolting him to rush toward the open chamber door so as not to lose the signal inside the protected chamber.

Signing off the radio, he took a quick peek down the hallway. Seeing no signs of life, he scurried back to the platform and finished taking pictures of the seismic array and ancillary equipment. He slipped on his jacket and started to leave, then rummaged through some documents and papers he saw on the console. He found what appeared to be the operator's manual, a thick booklet clamped to a miniature stainless steel clipboard. The front pages were missing, presumably torn off by Pitt on his last visit. Gunn stuffed the manual and clipboard into a zippered chest pocket on his jacket, then made for the door. He was just about to exit when a voice erupted from his radio.

His heart dropped when he realized the voice was not Pitt's. And what it had to say meant that all was lost.