The Codex

23

The camp had been set up with the usual military precision on an island of high ground surrounded by swamp. Philip sat by the fire, smoking his pipe and listening to the evening sounds of the rainforest. It surprised him how competent Hauser had proven to be at junglecraft, organizing and laying out a camp and directing the soldiers about their various tasks. Hauser asked nothing of Philip and had rebuffed all his efforts to help. Not that Philip was anxious to go off wading in the muck hunting giant rats for dinner, as it seemed they were doing now. It was just that Philip disliked feeling useless. This was not the challenge his father had in mind, sitting by a fire smoking his pipe while others did all the work.

Philip kicked a stick back into the embers. The hell with the “challenge.” It had to be the most asinine thing a father ever did to his children since King Lear divided his kingdom.

Ocotal, the guide they had picked up at that sorry town on the river, was sitting by himself, tending the fire and cooking rice. He was a strange fellow, this Ocotal — small, silent, utterly dignified. There was something about him that Philip found attractive; he seemed to be one of those men who had an unshakable, inner conviction of his own worth. He certainly knew his stuff, guiding them through an incredible maze of channels, day after day, without the slightest hesitation, paying no attention to Hauser’s exhortations, comments, and questions. He was impervious to any attempts at conversation, whether on Philip’s part or Hauser’s.

Philip reamed out the dottle, glad he had thought to stock up on tins of Dunhill Early Morning, and repacked the pipe. He really should cut back, especially in light of his father’s cancer. After the trip. For now, the smoke was the only way to keep off the mosquitoes.

There were shouts, and Philip turned to see Hauser coming back from the hunt, with a dead tapir slung on a pole, carried by four soldiers. They hoisted the animal up with a block and tackle from a tree branch. Hauser left the men and came to sit down next to Philip. There was a faint smell of aftershave, tobacco smoke, and blood. He took out a cigar, clipped it, and lit it. He took in a lungful of smoke and let it trickle back out of his nose, like a dragon.

“We’re making excellent progress, Philip, don’t you think?”

“Admirable.” Philip slapped at a mosquito. He couldn’t understand how Hauser managed to avoid getting bitten, despite the fact that he never seemed to use insect repellent. Maybe his bloodstream had a deadly concentration of nicotine. Philip noticed that he inhaled his fat Churchill cigars the way most people inhale cigarettes. Strange how one man dies of it, another lives.

“Are you familiar with Genghis Khan’s dilemma?” Hauser asked.

“I can’t say I am.”

“When Genghis Khan was getting ready to die, he wanted to be buried as befitted the great ruler he was — with heaps of treasure, concubines, and horses to enjoy in the afterlife. But he knew that his tomb would almost certainly be robbed, depriving him of all the joys due him in the afterworld. He thought about this for a long time and could come up with no answer. He finally called in his Grand Vizier, the wisest man in his kingdom.

“ ‘What shall I do to keep my tomb from being robbed?’ he asked the Vizier.

“The Vizier thought about it for a long time and finally came up with an answer. He explained it to Genghis Khan, and the ruler was satisfied. When Ghenghis finally died, the Vizier put the plan into action. He sent ten thousand laborers off to the remote Altai Mountains, where they built a great tomb hewn down into the living rock, filling it with gold, gemstones, wine, silks, ivory, sandalwood, and incense. More than a hundred beautiful virgins and a thousand horses were sacrificed for the great Khan’s pleasure in the afterworld. There was a grand funeral with much feasting among the laborers, and then Genghis Khan’s body was shut up in the tomb and the door carefully concealed. The area was covered with dirt, and then a thousand horsemen rode back and forth over the valley, obliterating all traces of their work.

“When the laborers and the horsemen returned, the Vizier met them with the Khan’s army and killed them to a man.”

“Nasty.”

“Then the Vizier committed suicide.”

“The fool. He could’ve been rich.”

Hauser chuckled. “Yes. But he was loyal. He knew that even he himself, the most trustworthy of men, could not be trusted with such a secret. He might utter it at night in a dream, or it might be tortured out of him — or his own greed might eventually get the better of him. He was the weak link in the plan. Therefore, he had to die.”

Philip heard a hacking noise and glanced over to see the hunters gutting the animal with machetes. The guts spilled to the ground with a wet sound. Philip winced and turned away. There was something to be said for the vegetarian lifestyle, he mused.

“Here’s the rub, Philip, the weakness in the Vizier’s plan. It required Genghis Khan to trust at least one other person with his secret.” Hauser exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke. “My question to you, Philip, is who was the one person your father trusted?”

It was a good question, one that Philip had been considering for some time. “It wasn’t a girlfriend or ex-wife. He constantly complained about his doctors and lawyers. His secretaries were always quitting on him. He had no real friends. The only man he trusted was his pilot.”

“And I’ve already determined he wasn’t in on the deal.” Hauser held the cigar at a steep angle against his lips. “There’s the rub, Philip. Did your father have some kind of secret life? A secret affair? A son born out of wedlock that he favored above you three?”

Philip felt himself go cold at this last suggestion. “I have no idea.”

Hauser waved his cigar. “Something to think about, eh, Philip?”

He fell silent. The intimacy encouraged Philip to ask a question he had been wanting to ask for some time. “What happened between you and father?”

“Did you know we were childhood friends?”

“Yes.”

“We grew up together in Erie. We played stickball together on the block where we lived, we went to school together, we went to our first whorehouse together. We thought we knew each other pretty well. But when you go out there into the jungle, when you’re shoved up against the wall of survival, things come out. You discover things in yourself that you never knew were there. You find out who you really are. That’s what happened to us. We got out there in the middle of the jungle, lost, bitten, starving, half dead with fever, and we found out who we really were. You know what I discovered? I discovered that I despised your father.”

Philip looked at Hauser. The man returned the look, his face as calm and smooth and opaque as always. He felt his flesh creep. He asked, “So what did you discover in yourself, Hauser?”

He could see that the question took Hauser by surprise. The man laughed it off, threw the cigar butt into the fire, and rose. “You’ll find out soon enough.”