The Emperor's Tomb

FORTY-FOUR

LANZHOU, CHINA

TANG WAS PLEASED THAT THE FACILITY HAD BEEN SECURED. He’d ordered his men to take charge of the petrochemical laboratory, sending home all non-essential personnel and otherwise restricting access. Luckily, just a dozen people worked in the building, mostly clerks and assistants, and only one of the lab’s two research scientists was still alive.

Lev Sokolov.

The Russian expatriate had been brought from the city yesterday, after a doctor had tended to his wounds. The rats had left their mark, both physically and mentally. Killing Sokolov was not out of the question, but not before Tang learned what he needed to know. Jin Zhao had been unable to reveal anything except that Lev Sokolov had found the proof.

But what was it?

Sokolov stood with one arm wrapping his gut, guarding the bandages that Tang knew were there. Tang motioned to the stainless-steel table and the sealed container that rested on top. “That is a sample of oil extracted yesterday from a well in western Gansu. I had it drilled at a spot where the ancients drilled in the time of the First Emperor.” He caught recognition in Sokolov’s face. “Just as Jin Zhao instructed. I assumed you knew. Now tell me what you found. Zhao said you located a marker.”

Sokolov nodded. “A way to know for sure.”

Excellent.

“The world has been aggressively extracting oil from the ground for a little over 200 years,” Sokolov said, his voice in a low monotone. “Biotic oil, fossil fuel, waits not far beneath the surface. It’s easy to get, and we have taken all of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve tested a sample from every well on the planet. There is a repository in Europe where those are stored. None of those samples contains fossil fuels.”

“You still haven’t said how you know that to be true.”

“Abiotic oil looks, smells, and acts the same as biotic oil. The only difference is that you have to drill deep to get it. But I’m not sure that even matters anymore. Where’s my boy? I want him back.”

“And you’ll get him. When I get what I want.”

“You’re a liar.”

He shrugged. “I’m the only path to your son. Right now, he’s just one of thousands of young boys who disappear each year. Officially, the problem doesn’t even exist. Do you understand? Your son doesn’t even exist.”

He saw the utter hopelessness in the Russian’s face.

“Biotic oil is gone,” Sokolov quietly continued. “It once was plentiful. Formed from decomposing organic matter, shallow in the earth, and easy to get. But as we pumped fossil fuels from the ground, the earth replenished some of those reserves with oil created deeper in the crust. Not all wells replenish. Some are biotic with no way for the deeper, abiotic oil, to filter upward. So they go dry. Others lie over fissures where oil can seep up from below.”

Questions formed in his brain. 2,200 years ago, oil had first been found in Gansu. 200 years ago, that same field went dry. He’d studied the subterranean geography and knew that the fissures there ran deep—earthen channels through which pressurized oil could easily move upward. Jin Zhao had theorized that abiotic oil might have seeped up from below and restored the Gansu field. “How do we know that the site in Gansu simply did not contain more oil than was known?”

Sokolov appeared to be in pain. His breathing was labored, his attention more on the floor than on Tang.

“Your only chance to see your son again is to cooperate with me,” he made clear.

The Russian shook his head. “I will tell you nothing more.”

Tang reached into his pocket, found his phone, and dialed the number. When the call was answered, he asked, “Is the boy there?”

“I can get him.”

“Do it.”

He stared straight at Sokolov.

“He’s here,” the voice said in his ear.

“Put him on the phone.”

He handed the unit to Sokolov, who did not accept the offer.

“Your son wants to speak with you,” he said.

Defiant lines faded from the Russian’s face. A hand slowly came up to grip the phone.

Tang shook his head, then pressed the SPEAKER button.

An excited voice—young, high-pitched—started talking, asking if his father was there. Clearly, Sokolov recognized the voice and opened his mouth to speak, but Tang muted the mouthpiece with another press of a button and said, “No.”

He brought the unit back to his own ear and unmuted the call.

“Stay on the line,” he directed the man on the other side. “If Comrade Sokolov does not tell me exactly what I want to know in the next minute, I want you to kill the boy.”

“You can’t,” Sokolov screamed. “Why?”

“I tried persuasion, then torture, and I thought we had made progress. But you remain defiant. So I will kill your son and find out what I need to know elsewhere.”

“There is no elsewhere. I’m the only one who knows the procedure.”

“You’ve recorded it somewhere.”

Sokolov shook his head. “I have it solely in my head.”

“I have no more time to deal with your lack of cooperation. Other matters require my attention. Make a decision.”

An iron ceiling fan slowly rotated overhead, barely stirring the lab’s warm air. Defeat filled the geochemist’s face as his head nodded.

“Keep the boy there,” he said into the phone. “I may call back in a few moments.”

He ended the call and waited for Sokolov to speak.

“If that sample on the table contains the marker,” the scientist said, “then it’s proof that the oil is from an abiotic source.”

“What marker?”

“Diamondoids.”

He’d never heard the term before.

“Smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Tiny specks of diamond that form within oil created deep in the earth’s crust, where there is high temperature and high pressure. A million of them would barely fit on the head of a pin, but I found them, and I named them. Adamantanes. Greek for ‘diamond.’ ”

He caught pride in the declaration, ignored it, and asked, “How did you find them?”

“Heating oil to 450 degrees Celsius vaporizes away the chemical compounds. Only diamondoids remain, which X-rays will reveal.”

He marveled at the concept.

“They are shaped as rods, disks, even screws, and they are not present in biotic oil. Diamond can only be formed deep in the mantle. It is conclusive proof of abiotic oil.”

“And how do you know that the earth actually produces the oil?”

“Right here, in this lab, I heated marble, iron oxide, and water to 1,500 degrees Celsius at 50,000 times atmospheric pressure, mimicking conditions one hundred miles beneath the earth. Every time, I produced both methane and octane.”

Tang grasped the significance of that result. Methane was the main constituent of natural gas and octane the hydrocarbon molecule in petrol. If those could be produced in a lab, they could be produced naturally, along with oil itself.

“The Russians know all this, don’t they?” he asked.

“I personally found over eighty fields in the Caspian Sea applying this theory. It is still doubted by some, but yes, the Russians are convinced oil is abiotic.”

“But they have no proof.”

Sokolov shook his head. “I left before I discovered the diamondoids. Zhao and I did that here.”

“So the Russians work from an unproven theory?”

“Which is why they speak little of this publicly.”

And why, Tang thought, they were so interested. Surely they wanted Sokolov back. Maybe even permanently silenced. Thank goodness Viktor Tomas had kept him apprised of exactly what the Russians were doing. But he made no mention of that intrigue and instead said, “And that’s also why they maintain the myth of scarcity?”

“They watch, amused, as the rest of world pays too much for oil, knowing it is endless.”

“But they are likewise cautious, since they have no proof that their concept is true.”

“Which is understandable. They lack what you have. A verified sample from a place where ancients drilled for oil. Only the Chinese could have such a sample.” Disgust had invaded his voice. “This was the only place on earth man drilled for oil two centuries ago.”

Pride swelled within him.

Sokolov pointed to the table. “If diamondoids are in that sample, then the oil is abiotic. All you would need is another sample, from long ago, from the same field, for comparison. To prove the theory, that sample must test biotic with no diamondoids.”

He appreciated the simplicity of the equation. Biotic oil first, siphoned away with drilling, replaced with abiotic oil. And Gansu might be the only place on earth where such a comparison could be made. Every surviving historical record made clear that those first explorers, more than 2,000 years ago, drilled exclusively in the vicinity of the well in Gansu. Any oil surviving from that time would have come from the ground there.

All he required was a confirmed sample of that oil.

“You told me the lamp is gone,” Sokolov said. “Along with its oil. So where will the comparison sample come from?”

“Not to worry, comrade. I secured that sample and you will soon have it.”