The Mongol Objective

1

Robert Gregory hung suspended in a tank. Naked, supported by straps around his back, neck and legs, with a mouthpiece between his charred lips supplying oxygen, he drifted in and out of consciousness while electrodes attached to his index finger and his temples relayed his vitals.

His bath consisted of ninety percent water, ten percent “other”—a collection of esoteric herbs and rare compounds detailed in the Bogratus Manuscript, a three thousand-year-old scroll, once part of the Library of Alexandria, recovered from the Pharos vault. This particular item detailed the treatment of burn victims, a way to heal the scars and speed the patient’s recovery without the use of skin grafts.

The Keepers were going to release this secret surreptitiously to the medical community next fall, allowing a promising researcher to “discover” the treatment by accident. But now, because of the disaster at Caleb’s place, Robert had to use it personally. The first such patient in millennia.

He scowled, and he could only imagine the doctor out there suddenly getting edgy because of his spiking blood pressure.

Montross. Xavier had promised he’d foreseen everything, and there would be no chance of failure. Now Robert cursed his gullibility.

Lydia. Poor Lydia had been right. Montross couldn’t be trusted. Most likely Montross had seen this outcome and hadn’t cared. He survived, and he gained the tablet. That’s all that mattered to him. He had turned the tables on Robert, left him to burn.

Fortunately, the shock of being shot had worn off. His lungs had begun filling with blood, which may have saved him, as he coughed his way out of unconsciousness long enough to drag himself out the open front door, but not far enough. He’d heard the explosion, seen the lighthouse in flames, the billowing smoke and the fire spreading to the house, roaring through the rooms and leaping across the roof, seeking him out. He had tried crawling further, coughing up blood, too weak to stand, but then the roof collapsed, pouring burning material on top of him. From that point on, he had maintained consciousness only long enough to direct the medics to call in his special agents to save him and cover up his survival.

Now he took deep, slow breaths, trying to get his vitals under control. Stop thinking about Montross.

Never mind that Robert was going to do the same thing to Xavier, as soon as he could get his hands on the tablet. He was reasonably sure Montross wouldn’t have thought of the right questions to ask in order to poke around in Robert’s past or to discern his current motivations. He would have thought only about the Keepers, a bunch of dusty old librarians who had gotten their wish, and now had a new responsibility: protecting and disseminating the ancient documents.

All except for Robert. Montross would have accepted the obvious — that he still craved the Emerald Tablet, the lone lost object from the library’s catalog. No need to remote view anything further to probe my motivations. Nothing about my true master. Or the other artifact I seek.

Still, Robert let a little anger back in. He did not take kindly to liars, or thieves. And Caleb Crowe was both. But as bad as that was, to be lied to again by Montross was unforgivable.

Robert tried to stifle a laugh, coughing up bubbles into the tank. His skin tingled and felt cold, brittle, but surprisingly good. Then, he gave into a little laugh, thinking about how alike his two great enemies were.

He had long known of The Westcar Papyrus. His father, Nolan Gregory, had prepared him for his destiny by often retelling one of its stories, sometimes by firelight while he and Lydia lay in their beds. The Westcar Papyrus, written in the eighteenth century BCE, had been discovered in Egypt by Henry Westcar in 1824. It contained a collection of tales, in the vein of The Arabian Nights, told to Pharaoh Khufu by his sons about the deeds of magicians in those days.

But the fourth story dealt with something else altogether, something of great interest to the Keepers. The Hall of Records, the sanctuary of Thoth himself, and the prophecy that only one of three brothers could open the door and reach the books inside. Never mind, his father had said, that the fifth story, fragmented, only details the birth of triplets to a woman years later, one of whom was fated to open the door. There was no mention of the brothers’ success, or what would come of the prophecy. The fifth story might have been nothing more than literary denouement, or nothing less than an outright deception. Nothing had happened. Nothing yet.

But in time, and with research and study into the most mystical texts to survive the Dark Ages, the Keepers learned that Thoth’s great book, although unreadable, had been moved to an even more secure location under the Pharos Lighthouse. And as further protection, it had been separated from its translation. But to work, to gain its true power, both elements were needed.

And, Nolan Gregory came to believe, both pieces might only be found by individuals with extraordinary powers. Psychics gifted above all others. Psychics that might even be related.

Enter Caleb. With a little research, the Keepers had found that his father had another son, unknown even to him. Brother number two.

And so they had kept an eye on both of them, encouraged when both wound up in Alexandria, part of the Morpheus Initiative. Caleb had found the tablet, but Xavier was by no means out of the hunt.

While his father continued to search for brother number three and to hope, Robert began to believe in his own destiny, in the stretching of the words of prophecy, which often ruled by vagaries of language.

Robert was, after all, a brother through marriage. And while he lacked his brothers’ abilities, he excelled in what they lacked.

Power.

He had consolidated his position, used the other influential members among his fellow Keepers to win key appointments. And then, of course, he was chosen from an early age by the senior leaders of another organization. Chosen, just as Renée had been chosen to play her part.

He smiled, thinking of her initiation ceremony, of the mask he had worn to welcome her to her new identity. And now she was his, body and soul.

He clenched his fists, feeling the newly healed skin prickle, threaten to burst, but then hold.

He was close.

Death couldn’t claim him, not when prophecy had set his fate. Soon he would be well enough to stand. To dress. To hold a gun.

And fly to Cairo. Then to Giza. To be ready when Renée returned with the keys and the tablet, and with confirmation that Caleb and Xavier were dead, leaving only Robert with the chance to enter and claim his legacy.

To fulfill Marduk’s plan.

And of course, to be justly rewarded.

2

Caleb made his way through the deepening shadows to where Phoebe was tending to Qara. Her side had been bandaged and a Chinese medic had removed the bullet without finesse and without anesthesia.

“She seems to be doing okay,” Phoebe said. “But she needs a hospital.”

Caleb risked a glance toward Renée, where she stood close to the arch, arms folded, as her team of commandos dug a nine-by-twelve square out of the earth. They were at knee-depth, and Orlando was in their midst, looking miserable with his face caked with dirt, his eyes alone shining in the four floodlights they had set up. Caleb could tell he was complaining every minute about his “talents being wasted.”

“Uh oh,” Phoebe said, her voice barely audible over the pitch of the portable generators. “Here comes the bitch. Gonna make us get back to work.”

Renée strode up to them, tapping her gun. “Shouldn’t you be in a trance or something by now?”

Caleb didn’t look up, but just kept his eyes on Qara’s peaceful face, wondering what she might be dreaming right now, if maybe she were receiving some final words of instruction from the great Genghis just as he often prepared his generals before battle.

Phoebe cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t you be off torturing small animals?”

Renée glared at her. “Once we’re behind that door, we’ll need your sight. And I plan on marching Phoebe here right up front. I know you, Caleb. I know how you agonized, believing you caused her paralysis years ago. So unless you now want to be responsible for whatever those barbaric traps might do to her, you’d best find us a way past them.”

Caleb nodded slowly, swallowing. He debated telling Renée the truth — that he couldn’t. His powers had abandoned him, but he knew she wouldn’t believe him. Best to stall. “I know what we need to do; it’s just not that simple. I have no idea what’s down there. I’ve tried looking, but—”

“Try harder!”

“It doesn’t work that way. Sometimes we have to be right there, actually in the presence of the dangers we’re facing. And right now, to be honest, I’m a little preoccupied. My son’s in terrible jeopardy, and then I have you to worry about. Some kind of connection to an ancient Babylonian deity that I believe disappeared or died along with Thoth millennia ago.”

Renée opened her mouth, her face a mask of dismay.

“And all I know is that the god of wisdom, who did everything he could to teach humanity and raise early man out of the darkness of ignorance and spiritual bondage, was determined to hide this tablet from the likes of your “master.” Caleb took a step toward her, but was stopped by Phoebe’s hand on his arm.

“Not now,” she whispered. But then a shout from Orlando broke her concentration.

“Found it! I freakin’ found it!” Orlando raised a fist, grinning around at the blank faces of the Chinese soldiers. “Well,” he said, looking over to Caleb and pointing down, “I did. Here’s your door.”

They cleared away the slab of dark granite. It had six deep indentations, with bars across it, sealed into the stone.

“Handles,” said Commander Chang, pointing. “In Temujin’s day, they use ropes and horses to open door.” He smiled at his men, his brown teeth flashing in the spotlights. “But now, we have four-wheel drives.”

He turned to his men and ordered the setup to begin. They moved the halogen floodlights around the southern edge of the door, attached the six triple-braided nylon ropes to the back axle, and cleared everyone out of the way.

Orlando walked over to Caleb and Phoebe, rubbing the dirt off his face with his sleeve. “Why do I get a real bad feeling about this?”

“Because,” said a weak voice, as Qara struggled to sit up, “opening that door inflicts the curse upon you all.”

A moment later, the engine revved, the tires spun, the granite screamed, and something popped. The door launched from its ancient resting place, just as the jeep flew forward, lost its traction and spun sideways, then stalled as the floodlights highlighted the terrified face of the driver a second before the slab crashed through the cab, flattening it and crushing the man inside.

“Dear God,” Phoebe uttered, turning away.

Qara stood up, smirking at Renée, who returned her stare with pure hatred.

Orlando whistled. “Good thing I didn’t call shotgun.”

“Enough,” Renée hissed. “Chang, get your men to pack up these lights and the generators. Bring the weapons and everything else we need. And leave a team here to take care of Montross when he arrives. I’ll try to reach Hiltmeyer, but just in case, have our team stand by. Make sure we get the tablet and the other key from Montross’s dead body.”

“And the boy?”

Caleb snapped his attention to Renée.

Renée waved her hand. “Bring him, alive, and meet up with us. I’m sure we’ll find a use for him.”

She turned away from them, pulled out a satellite phone and walked to the edge of the hole, looking down the stairs descending into the waiting dark.

She dialed, and when a choked, gravelly voice answered, she said, “We’re in.”

3

They stopped a mile from Shang-du, at a small ridge before the descent. The jeeps came to a halt, with their vehicle in the lead. Night had fallen and the stars were out, burning fiercely, dominating the sky before the full moon’s ascent.

Nina leaned forward. “I say we kill the headlights, come in slow. We don’t know what’s down there.”

“Yes,” Montross said, “we do.” His eyes popped open, having been closed for the past ten minutes. “Colonel, do as the lady says. Kill the lights.”

Nina smiled, and between the two adults Alexander squirmed. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Nina frowned. “Again?”

He lowered his chin. “Too much water.”

“Hurry,” said Montross. “Colonel, go with him.”

“What?” Hiltmeyer turned in his seat. “I’m no babysitter. Private Harris here can—”

“You both go.”

Alexander looked from one to the other man. “I can go by myself, really.”

“No way. Flight risk,” said Hiltmeyer. “We’ll go. I need to talk to my men in the other jeeps anyway. What’s our plan?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Montross, “when you get back.”

Hiltmeyer shot him a concerned glance, then opened his door.

Alexander slid out, helped along as Nina pushed him out the door. “Be quick.” When the doors had closed and they were alone, Nina asked, “What’s up? What did you see?”

“It seems,” said Montross, “that our colonel has other loyalties.”

Alexander found a cropping of small bushes. He unzipped and turned away from the man who had lit up a cigarette, watching him. He glanced over his other shoulder, toward his jeep, where two shadows in the back seat bent in close to each other.

“Wonder what they’re talking about,” Alexander said, loud enough for Private Harris to hear.

“Shut up and pee, kid.”

“I bet they’re talking about you.” Alexander zipped up, folded his arms over his chest and turned around, shivering. He could see his breath. He looked up and saw Orion, low and sideways, with Sirius poised above the tree line.

“What?”

“I see things too, you know.”

“Yeah?” Harris had a buzz cut, heavier and black at the top of his head, which Alexander thought made him look like a rooster after getting his head stuck under a lawnmower.

“Well, I saw—”

Harris leaned in. The ash dangled on his cigarette.

“—you.” Alexander, trembling even more, his eyes wide so as not to blink and see the vision again, added, “With a rusty spike through your chest.”

The soldier’s face went pale, the cigarette dropped from his mouth. “What?”

“Harris!” Colonel Hiltmeyer yelled. “Back in the jeep. We’re moving.”

“But—”

“Now! You too, Alexander.”

Head down, he followed, staring at the colonel’s boots as they crunched into the hard ground. Suddenly Hiltmeyer spun, pressed a hand against Alexander’s chest and leaned in.

“Quick. Tell me what you saw.”

They rode in slowly around the south side of the site while the other two jeeps approached from the east and west. Hiltmeyer was on the walkie-talkie, coordinating with his men as their jeeps descended into the valley. He glanced back at Montross. This was going to be tricky.

They stopped on the ridge and Nina stepped out, going to the trunk for the sniper rifle. “We’ll provide teams A and B cover from up here,” she said.

Hiltmeyer nodded, then flashed Harris a look. They stepped out of the jeep. Montross and Alexander got out last. “Now we watch,” said Nina, setting up a tripod, then passing around night-vision goggles. “Pick out our targets, and then—”

Suddenly she spun, kicked away the tripod, and aimed the rifle at Hiltmeyer, even as he was going for his gun. Montross pulled out Nilak’s gun and pointed it at Harris’s forehead.

“Now,” said Montross, disarming Hiltmeyer and Harris, “Colonel, kindly get on your walkie-talkie there and tell your teams this is for real. We’ve already given them information on where Renée’s commandos are hiding out, and with any luck, your men might live through this.”

“But—”

“Yes, we know. Renée’s men are your men too.” Montross gave him a slanted look. “I guess you need to make a choice here.”

Nina stepped in, reversed the rifle and slammed Hiltmeyer in the ribs. He swore, then lunged for her, but she had the business end back on him in a flash. “Talk to them. Now!”

Groaning, holding his side, Hiltmeyer reached for the walkie-talkie and stopped, catching Alexander’s eye. He saw pity there, maybe even sympathy.

Damned psychics.

Colonel Hiltmeyer brought the phone to his lips and closed his eyes. I’m sorry, he thought, and pushed the button. “Do it,” Hiltmeyer ordered. “Turn on your lights, go in strong!”

Nina turned and set up her rifle as Montross kept his gun trained on Hiltmeyer and Harris. She sighted with her scope, and as soon as the headlights pierced the blackness from two directions, she chose her targets and began shooting.

Alexander shrank back as far as he could, all the way against the side of the jeep. He put his hands over his ears, but couldn’t help but watch the firefight on the field ahead. Cringing with each of Nina’s shots, he imagined bodies plucked from the shadows, heads exploding, men dropping without knowing what hit them.

He heard automatic gunfire, shouting and screaming in a foreign language. More gunshots. He watched Harris and Hiltmeyer, standing impotently, fists clenched. Then he saw Nina reload, sight, track a target and fire. And in the flashes after each shot, he saw the rush of excitement on her face. And finally, as the blasts subsided, a contented smile.

“Done,” she said at last, after scanning the field with her binoculars. She stood, disconnected the tripod and returned the rifle to the trunk. Business-like and efficient. Then she pulled out her Beretta and jabbed it against the Colonel’s ribs.

“My men?” he asked.

Nina led him to the back seat, pushed him in. “Colonel, I’m sorry to report that nobody from either side survived.”

They stood around the pit before the archway and the first six stairs descending into the earth.

And a lot of dead bodies.

Montross stood on the edge, looking down while holding up the Emerald Tablet like a lantern. It glowed faintly, pulsing along with the charm on his necklace, lying against his chest.

“It’s time,” he said. “Alexander, you’re with me. Nina, escort our guests. They’ll be going first.”

“No way,” insisted Colonel Hiltmeyer. “I’m not going down there. I heard what the boy said.”

“That’s right,” Private Harris agreed. “No way.”

Nina slammed the back of her Beretta against his forehead, turned him around and then shoved him ahead, sending him tumbling down into the darkness.

“I’ll kill you—!”

“Enough!” Montross yelled. “Colonel, it’s up to you. You go first, or Nina puts a bullet in your head so you can stay up here with your men.”

“You’ll kill me anyway.”

“No,” said Nina, “we’re pretty sure what’s down there will do that for us. But at least you’ll have a chance.”

“And,” Montross said, “look at it this way. Now you get to see history in the making. People have been searching for the tomb of Genghis Khan for eight hundred years, and you’re about to find it.”

Hiltmeyer grit his teeth. “All right, but if I get hit with something down there, I’m going to do my damndest to make sure I take all of you with me.”

“Or maybe,” Montross said, hefting the tablet, “along the way you’ll realize you and your boss are on the wrong side. You can’t fight us.”

Hiltmeyer shook his head. “You don’t know anything. All your abilities, and that thing you carry, you don’t even know who or what you’re fighting.”

Nina jabbed him in his side, then pushed him ahead. “Lead the way, Colonel. Genghis awaits.”

4

Forty minutes before the shooting started, before all the ensuing carnage, Caleb and Phoebe had descended into the mausoleum.

They went ahead of Orlando, Qara and Renée, with two other Chinese soldiers following at the rear making sure they didn’t turn and flee. Ahead, sixteen soldiers led the way. Chang’s team entered with four rows of four men each, equally spaced in the passageway. The air was thin, stale and brittle. Every soldier carried Type 81 assault rifles — the Chinese version of the AK-47, but with enhanced designs and better accuracy. They all had Maglites fitted onto the barrels, and when Caleb looked down the ramp he saw only the dozen-plus flashlight beams stabbing out wildly, tracing the sloping ceiling, the wide, descending steps and the pockmarked granite walls.

Remarkably free of dust, the beams were pure white energy striking here and there, illuminating faces and betraying fear in the men whose trembling hands wielded the rifles. “Shouldn’t we be worried?” Phoebe whispered, glancing right and left, trying to see in the sporadic light, looking for telltale signs of traps. Immediately she felt like she was back in that Mayan temple in Belize. Out of her element, blind.

“Not yet,” Caleb answered. “I believe we’re safe until—”

Some commotion ahead, shouting.

“A wall!” Chang yelled back.

The four flashlight beams at the front position converged into one thick laser-like spear that thrust up against a solid wall.

“Don’t touch it!” Renée yelled. “Wait for me.”

They all reached the bottom, fanning out into a larger rectangular chamber with a low ceiling. The beams darted around, highlighting cracks, a root sticking through one side.

“We must be what, a hundred feet down?” Orlando wondered.

Caleb looked back the way they had come, past the two commandos with their guns pointed down, their faces and emotions lost in shadow. Already the way behind them was gone, as if the blackness had swallowed up their trail, stealthily consuming their one route of escape. “I’ve counted seventy-two steps.”

“A little too familiar,” Phoebe said. Did Sostratus have a hand in this, too?” She saw his look. “I’m kidding. Of course I know this was built fifteen hundred years after the Pharos.”

Renée pushed between Caleb and Phoebe and approached the wall. All the beams reflecting off the pale white surface made it hard at first to see the mural painted there. Well-preserved in the darkness, the vibrant face of Genghis Khan sternly gazed at them, superimposed upon his banner of nine ox tails. In a series of four vertical columns, Mongolian script covered the right side of the wall.

“My master,” whispered Qara, from just ahead. She tried to lower herself to one knee, but a soldier hauled her back up.

“Everyone back,” Renée barked, moving ahead. “But not you, Caleb. You come up here. I believe this sort of thing is your specialty.”

Phoebe held her brother’s arm. “Be careful. We haven’t had time to study this.” Then, whispering, said, “Fake it if you have to. I’ll do the heavy work back here.”

Chang played his flashlight beam over the letters. “This is difficult. I recognize not many symbols.”

Renée grabbed Qara by the back of her neck and shoved her forward. “Read it, Darkhad. And no tricks.”

Qara stumbled weakly, hair over her face, hands tied behind her back. She squinted. As she read, a smile formed. “It says, If you have come seeking death, continue. If you have come seeking agony beyond measure, enter. If you have come seeking madness, proceed. But if you have come seeking treasure, turn back, for there is nothing here for you. Turn back, and live with the one treasure alone that never lasts.”

Chang frowned and turned around. “What treasure never lasts?”

“Life,” Phoebe said at once. “He’s talking about your life.”

Renée snorted. “Caleb? Shouldn’t you be drawing something?”

“I’ll do it,” Phoebe said, “since I saw the vision the clearest.” She stepped forward. “Orlando, can I have your iPad? I’ll show you what I’ve seen, the design of this door, and the chambers immediately beyond it.”

Orlando unslung his backpack and fished it out, turned it around and handed it to her. “All yours.”

The light from the screen stung at her eyes, but Phoebe concentrated, then moved closer to the door and sat, crossing her legs.

“Hurry,” Renée said.

“If you want us all dead, I will.”

Renée played her light along the edges of the slab, dancing over Temujin’s face and banner, looking for seals or handles. “No stalling. Get this door open or I’ll have my men blast it apart.”

Orlando cleared his throat. “You can’t rush this kind of thing.”

Caleb fidgeted, feeling useless. “Not unless you like pain and agony and madness. And all the other stuff he talks about on that wall.”

“Yes,” urged Qara. “By all means, blast it open.”

“Shut up.” Renée glanced back up at the darkness behind them, as if expecting it to release a surge of armored warriors.

She headed into the shadows and spoke into the transceiver attached to her shoulder, attempting to communicate with the team outside. When no response came, her face fell and she gave up the effort.

Phoebe called up the images she had seen, flashes of workers toiling with the creation of diabolical traps, of masons crafting elaborate sliding walls and interlocking shafts, holes bored through the earth and fitted with gears, levers, pulleys and springs. Finally, she withdrew from those sights and instead focused on the structure of the passageways, viewing a general layout.

And then she started sketching. The men milled about quietly, breathing shallowly, some of them extinguishing their lights to save the batteries.

“Here,” Phoebe said, standing again. Chang moved in first to get a look while Orlando and Caleb tried to peek around them. She showed them the design.

“It’s a little crude, since I wasn’t allowed much time, but here’s the door, and beyond it you’ve got a double T-shaped area, with a small chamber almost immediately to the left and right beyond this door. And then a short distance ahead, the passage ends in a wall where you can go right or left. Long passageways extend both ways, with a sizeable chamber at the end of each hall.”

She pointed to the first intersection, then glanced at Qara to see her reaction, but her face was cloaked in shadow. “Here, there’s something nasty waiting for us.”

“What?”

“Huge metal spikes. As far as I could tell, they blast out from either side.”

“How do we avoid them?” Orlando asked.

“There’s a trail I saw, highlighted in green, something about the stones which make up that section. I think we’ll see it when we get past this door.”

“And how,” Renée said, flashing her light back to the Temujin’s haughty face, “do we do that?”

Phoebe sighed, then turned to Qara. “On this part, I’m sorry to say, I’m blind. I saw them build it, set it in place. It’s seriously thick, but I couldn’t see how it opens.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Renée said.

Caleb turned to Qara. “You want to help?”

The Darkhad grinned through her pain. Shook her head.

Renée raised her .45, pointed it at Qara’s leg. “Oh, she’ll help.”

“Wait!” Orlando shouted. “Hold on, I’m not bad at these things, either. After all, I did see you.”

Renée lowered the gun. “Very well. Go on.”

Orlando studied the door, narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath. He took a few steps forward, palms out. Phoebe experienced a moment of dread, fearing that to touch the door would release some kind of horrific trap to bury them all. She really hadn’t seen anything about this door, and that alone surprised her. Had no one been through here since they set the door in place? She had concentrated on seeing the door open, had asked that question, but nothing came of it, just a humming and the consistent view of the mural-covered wall.

“Try remote viewing the unlocking mechanism,” Caleb suggested. “They must have built one, although my guess is that no one has ever used it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying, boss.”

“Wait,” Renée said. “I thought Kublai and his other sons were buried here too. Wouldn’t they have had to open the door?”

Phoebe shrugged. “That’s what I thought too, but I’m not getting anything.”

Qara had overheard and when Caleb glanced in her direction, she gave a grudging nod. “Temujin alone lies here. His descendents, like the rest of Mongolia, feared to trespass upon his necropolis.”

“But Kublai had no problem building his own city above it?”

“That was part of Temujin’s will,” she said. “We never knew why. It made the sacred mission of the early Darkhad difficult, since it brought undue attention to the very area we wished to conceal.”

“I can think of two reasons,” Caleb said, raising his hand with two fingers out. “One is that Kublai would have subscribed to the same tenets as his grandfather. He knew the value in hiding secrets in plain view. And the second reason has to deal with symmetry and the mystical precept of ‘as Above, so Below.”

“That never gets old,” Orlando says. “Kind of like Twinkies.”

“So where are they? His sons?” Caleb asked. “Back on the Sacred Mountain?”

Qara’s expression never wavered. “Perhaps.”

“Hang on,” Orlando said, brushing off more dirt from his face. He lurched toward the door, shook his head to clear a vision, then headed right. Three soldiers moved out of his way, keeping their lights on him as he moved along the wall, past the script and to the corner. He pointed. “Up there.”

The lights followed his outstretched hand and index finger indicating the broken section Caleb had noticed before, the area he thought had crumbled through, pierced by a tree root.

“That would have to be some seriously deep root.”

“Not a root,” Orlando replied. “Although designed to look the part. Get two of your men, Agent Wagner. One boost the other. Grab hold and pull.”

Renée snapped her fingers, then brought her flashlight to the scene as two commandos rushed around Orlando. One knelt and made a step out of his hands to lift the other, then pushed him up on his shoulders. The top man gripped the root-like thing.

“It is tough rope,” he shouted back in accented English. “I—”

“Wait!” Orlando shouted. “I didn’t finish. You have to pull it, hand over hand, like you’re opening a set of curtains. And you pull from left to right. If you go the other way…”

Phoebe gasped, holding her head. A flash revealed…

… a scene where dozens of men with helmets and torches stand back on the stairs, bows drawn, arrows aimed at a man on a ladder in the same corner. With a sheepish look, the prisoner grasps the rope and pulls right to left as he was told. And something shiny, flickering with all the torchlight, rips across the room, at about neck-height. It is secured by three iron bars from the ceiling, running on embedded tracks. The ladder is severed at the eighth rung, just below the man’s feet, as the room-width blade whisks past. He falls, rolls and is about to get up when he sees it coming back, hauling across again to its starting position. So he ducks, hugging his knees—

— which leaves him in the perfect position to be sliced in half by the second blade, which rips from the right to left, two feet off the ground.

Phoebe staggered back, fighting the bile rising in her throat, still blinking away the sight of the prisoner’s two halves flopping and unraveling on this very floor, while the Khan’s men admired the effectiveness of their trap.

She grabbed a flashlight from one of the men and directed it to the side wall. “There. See the three vertical tracks? And it’s probably imperceptible, but there should be two horizontal ones too, for the blades. The first one decapitates a normal-sized man, the second, coming from the other side, ensures that at the least, they aren’t walking forward.”

“Jeez,” Orlando said to Qara. “You guys aren’t very hospitable to visitors.”

Renée started backing up, heading to the stairs. “Okay, left to right then, but just to be sure…” She took a few steps up, then nodded to Chang, who remained in the middle of the room, his face cloaked in fear. “Now, do it.”

The man took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then pulled. Once, twice. Something made a grinding noise, the room shook, and the great stone door trembled. He kept pulling, and then a crack released from the left-most edge. He pulled, as the man holding him strained to keep his balance. The crack grew. Two feet. Four. Five. Six.

“Enough,” said Renée.

The man released his hold on the rope. But then the door started to close. He grabbed it and kept pulling. “Get it open all the way!” Orlando shouted. “Otherwise it slams shut, and I think that just might set off that trap.”

“Pull!” Chang ordered, and eight flashlight beams, including Caleb’s, stabbed at the blackness through the gap as the door continued sliding open.

Qara inched closer to Caleb, watching as the portal that hadn’t been opened in almost eight hundred years moved to one side. She held her ribs, wheezing. “That,” she said, “was the easy part. I hope you’ve got a lot more in your bag of tricks, because once we walk through there, I’m not going to be much help.”

“Don’t let Renée hear that,” Caleb whispered.

“I don’t care. I’ve failed my master. Brought you right to his doorstep.”

Caleb touched her elbow, leading her ahead. “I thought that only death released a Darkhad from her sacred obligation.”

She nodded grimly. “Then my release, which will come at the same time as yours, is imminent.”

Just past the door, Chang set up the generator and hooked up the portable floodlights. Soon, all the soldiers had gathered inside the first area before the intersection, and the passageway was bathed in light. What stopped them, piled high in a heap against the left wall, were skeletons. The laborers, killed and left here to ensure their silence.

“Hey there,” Orlando said reverently, meeting the hollow stares of bleak eye sockets set in a dozen cracked skulls. “Should’ve unionized.”

“Shh,” Phoebe scolded. “And don’t move any closer.”

The walls were bare, white and sturdy. But the floor, revealed in the brilliant light, was smooth up until the “T” twenty yards ahead, where they could see the large square about forty feet to a side set in the floor between the east and west passages. It was set with a mosaic-tiled surface. Beyond this square and the intersection, the passage continued on into the regrouping darkness.

“A map,” Renée said, pushing past the others and gingerly walking close to the edge and gazing at the mosaic picture on the floor. “Looks like China and Mongolia, Arabia, and part of Russia.”

“The Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan,” Caleb said.

Orlando whistled. “And let me guess: step on the wrong one and you wind up on a rotisserie?”

“You got it,” Phoebe said. “I saw at least a dozen spikes from each side, spring-loaded and launched across on some kind of harness.”

Renée pointed and Chang’s men complied. A few of the soldiers shined their lights east and west, glancing their beams off the far wall, highlighting a slab that looked like Swiss cheese, full of various-sized holes.

“Okay, so where’s the path?”

Caleb passed the iPad back to Orlando, then stood beside Renée, hands on his hips. He scanned the map, the beautiful mural with its vibrant colors, mini-tiles making up each of the four hundred or so larger tiles.

“Need me to RV it again?” Phoebe asked.

Caleb shook his head. “No, I’ve got it. Even without your vision, I think we could have figured it out.”

“Maybe after a few of us got spiked first?”

Caleb turned to Chang. “Do you have a piece of chalk, or I don’t know, a paint gun?”

“No.”

“Bread crumbs?”

Chang thought for a moment, then called one of his men over, who carried a cooler. “We have raw Marmat meat.” He smiled at Caleb. “Very raw.”

“Ewww,” Phoebe said, covering her mouth when the lid was opened.

“That’ll do,” said Caleb. “Give it here. I’ll use the blood to mark each tile as I cross over, and you can follow after.”

“What’s the trick?” Renée asked.

“His last siege,” Caleb answered, heading for the fifth square from the left and setting foot on it. “Lucky I’m a history professor with a good memory. Here, at Xi-Xia, he died, most believe after a fall from his horse weeks earlier. He had been boar hunting, despite warnings from the philosopher Chi-Chang that he should give up hunting. Internal injuries perhaps. But while laying siege to the rebellious Xi-Xia, he passed on. Although there are some who claim the besieged kingdom had sent him a princess who delivered him a mortal wound while in bed together, but that’s—”

“Vicious lies,” Qara said under her breath.

“Probably. In any case, the path to take would be the reverse of his last mission, back from here, through Ghazni and Balkh, here.” After marking the first tile with the dripping Marmat meat, he took another step, diagonally to the left. When nothing happened, he smiled and smeared another X with the bloody chunk of flesh. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the history. “Around Samarkand, through Bukhara…” He took two steps ahead, covering two more squares, marking each.

Then he paused, thinking again.

“To your right.” Phoebe pointed. “I can see it again, from my vision. I’ll guide you if you get lost.”

“Ok,” he said, taking a step. “Then northeast through Otrar, and continuing at this angle…” Slowly, carefully watching every footstep, he took ten more large strides, marking each as he picked up speed, seeing it all now, just as Phoebe must have seen it. “Back to Lake Baikhal where his armies launched their missions.”

He was one foot away from the edge of the mosaic floor. Marking this last tile, he stepped off onto the clear granite on the other side. He turned around, breathing a sigh and only then realizing how tense his muscles had been. He set down the cooler and wiped his hands on his pants, a little disgusted.

Then, one by one, the others came across, following the trail of blood across the tiles. Phoebe and Orlando went next, followed by Qara, who almost slipped at one tile, having some trouble walking while handcuffed and still weak. Finally, Renée and Chang made it over.

They had to leave the heavy lights on the other side and reverted to using flashlights going forward.

“Keep moving,” Renée ordered. Then all the Maglites aimed ahead, piercing the darkness. “Any more surprises we need to know about?”

Phoebe waited for her to catch up. “Yes, and a choice to be made.” She pointed about fifty feet ahead, where the passage came to a dead end. A corridor led to the east and another to the west.

They stood at the crossroads, lights shining in either direction. Two scouts went ahead, one left, one right. Moving cautiously, assault rifles at the ready, their lights darted around. Orlando turned on his iPad again, displaying the image Phoebe had drawn.

“You’ve got a long passageway in each direction, both ending in large rooms. Any other impressions?”

Phoebe held her forehead, her eyes closed. The air was growing tighter, thicker. The taste of fear and dread became almost palpable. “No. I can’t see. But I do sense something.” She stepped forward and rubbed some dust off the wall ahead.

“What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

“Saw something here.” She brushed away another section and revealed a single line of script. More characters like before, this time in a single horizontal line.

“Darkhad.” Renée aimed her light on Qara, then the wall. “Translate.”

Stepping forward, giving Renée a dull glare, Qara bent down and analyzed the symbols. “It says, Sometimes the best choice is not to choose.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Renée snipped.

Just then, twin screams cut through the passage. Then a merciless thudding sound came from the left. Men bolted in each direction, flashlight beams shaking. Chang barked orders amidst the shouts and frantic screams.

“What’s happened?” Renée yelled into her transceiver. Garbled answers returned, men screaming all at once.

“So it begins,” Qara said, ominously.

“What?” Phoebe asked.

“The curse. Turn back now and you will live.”

Fuming, Renée ran to the right, grabbed hold of Chang and spun him around. “What happened?”

His face paled. The commander pointed to where the beams revealed something rising slowly. The floor itself was ascending, but there was something thick dripping from the center.

“The ceiling,” Chang said. “It fell!”

“And the other?” Renée turned, looking in the other direction.

“False floor,” Chang said, relaying what his men were screaming back to him. “And a pit of spikes.”

“So there’s our choice,” Orlando said. “Go right and get crushed, go left and be skewered.”

Renée took a moment, thinking it through. “We can, it seems, set off the trap in this direction, wait for the ceiling to drop, and then run across it, assuming there’s a door or some other exit on the far side.”

“True,” said Caleb. “And this direction”—he pointed to the left—“might work the same way. Trigger the collapsing floor, prevent it from rising somehow, lower ourselves down, avoid the spikes, then walk to the other side. So we still have to choose.”

“Do we even know there are exits?” Renée asked.

“Yes,” said Orlando, pointing to the iPad screen. “I think Phoebe’s got them drawn here.”

“I saw that much,” Phoebe recalled. “And I just had the impression that beyond each of those rooms there were underground streams in the darkness. Both leading to a magnificent city set in a cavern.”

“So which door?” Renée asked.

“How about neither?” Caleb offered. He pointed to the wall ahead. “Remember the riddle? Sometimes the best choice is no choice. I would say that means—”

“To stay here,” Orlando said, eying the wall ahead of them. “And what then?”

“Shine your lights here,” Renée ordered. “All around this wall. And use your gloves, sleeves, to clear the dust so we can look for outlines.”

Caleb noticed Qara in his peripheral vision. Her head down, breathing excitedly. He moved closer to her and in the noise of scuffling and rubbing, he whispered, “What is it? You know this too, don’t you? Is it a trick?”

She shrugged, poker-faced. “Use your mind powers if you want the answer, and make sure you see the right thing. I will say nothing else.”

“Please help us. My son is going to be coming this way soon, and I can’t let him get caught in one of these deadly traps.”

“Then I hope he’s better at this than you are.”

Caleb glared at her, then turned his attention back to the soldiers brushing away at the wall under Renée’s supervision. He wasn’t sure which woman he was angrier at right now — Renée or Qara. But then, of course, he couldn’t forget Nina. It seemed, all in the course of this single day, his wife was snatched from him and cruelly the gods put in her place three heartless substitutes.

“Found it!” Chang yelled, pointing. “Outline here, a small door. Do we push? I see no other mechanism.”

They all looked at Qara, who merely shrugged. Caleb walked over to Phoebe and Orlando. And silently, as if communicating telepathically, they each lowered their heads, closed their eyes and willed themselves forward in space and backward in time, searching, seeing.

“I’ve got it!” Orlando yelled, clapping his hands for the want of a game-show buzzer. “Just push anywhere along the right edge and it’ll swing inward.”

“And beyond the door?”

“A staircase,” Phoebe said, rubbing her temples, feeling like a sudden migraine just bored through her skull. “Leading down to what looked like a fancy golden crypt.”

Renée’s face brightened. “We’ve found it!” And she quickly ordered her men to open the door and light the way.

“But—” Caleb started to ask, then kept his mouth shut.

Phoebe also didn’t share the others’ enthusiasm. She looked at Qara and then Caleb. “I didn’t see this the first time. I saw a journey along an underground river of silvery water, then to the gates of a palatial city basking in the dark and protected by soldiers.”

Qara’s eyes softened, and she gave an almost-imperceptible nod.

Renée snorted. “It seems you can be fooled just as easily as everyone who’s read the Sacred History. It’s all a big game of misdirection. Sometimes,” she said, confidently, “the easiest path is the best. Occam’s Razor. And sometimes, the best choice is not to choose. We go in.”

The soldiers smiled, their steps lighter. They believed they were close, and the prospect of not having to pass over or around their mutilated comrades in either direction was a popular one. Chang ordered four men ahead through the door and down the stairs, into a slanting passage that was so dark no one could see the bottom.

“I suggest you to wait here,” Chang said to Renée. “Maybe more traps.”

“Doubtful,” she said, “given that we needed psychics to get this far and find this door, but just to be safe, we stay here and see what they find.”

“Agreed.”

Renée turned and pointed her gun at Qara’s face. “And if we lose these men too…”

Qara shrugged. “You’re acting rashly. If those men die, it will be your fault. I warned you.”

Renée took a breath, trying to calm herself. “Do you, in fact, know anything about what’s down here, or should I just put an end to your suffering?”

“Please,” Caleb said, “can we just focus? Qara can help. And I have seen that she will. But right now, you should have your men come back. We can try to remote view what’s down there again, try to visualize—”

“A coffin!” someone shouted, the voice amplified by Renée’s transceiver.

“Describe it,” she said back into the device.

In broken English, almost too choppy to comprehend, she heard, “We at bottom. In room, eight wall. Box in middle. Gold. Three meter long.”

“Carefully,” said Renée, “approach the casket.” She took a very deep breath, glancing from Caleb to Qara, seeing their expressions of resigned fear. “Touch it.”

“Hao.”

Seconds passed without sound or commotion.

“Report?”

Crackling. Shuffling.

“Fine. Okay. We move top. Look inside. We see…”

“What? What do you see?”

Nothing.

“What’s going on?” Renée barked. Chang took a few steps down and Caleb moved close behind him, peering down. Maybe only forty steps and the stairwell widened, revealing the four beams of light playing around a room bare of any artwork, furniture or treasure; nothing save for a gilded coffin.

And the four men on their knees around it, holding their throats. Coughing, wheezing.

Chang started down, but Caleb caught his arm, even as he stepped back. “Gas. Poison.” Chang aimed his light past the contorting men, and for an instant Caleb caught a glimpse of a man’s face: a foaming mouth, blood trickling from his nose, his eyes crimson. The light stabbed through the triangular opening into the coffin, to reveal—

— nothing but a few strips of rags.

“They treated the cloth with something that would ferment, turn and release a gas that would be trapped in that air-tight coffin,” Caleb said, backing up and hanging his head, “until opened.”

Qara smiled. “By intruders who wouldn’t heed the warnings.”

Renée swung her fist, slamming it into Qara’s cheek and knocking her down. Then she pointed to Chang, whose horrified face had turned to bitter resolve. “Shut that door.”

Caleb couldn’t help but let out a snicker. “You’re running out of men, Agent Wagner. At this rate, pretty soon we’ll outnumber you.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure the odds stay in my favor. As I see it, Orlando and Qara here are nearly useless. They’ll go first. Now talk. Tell us which way.”

“I don’t think it matters." He scratched his chin, staring again at the inscription. “The best choice is not to choose. Maybe it means that our choice doesn’t matter.”

“So, what then?” Phoebe asked.

Caleb looked at each of them, including the ten remaining soldiers. “Who’s got a coin to flip?”

“Tails,” Orlando said, flipping and catching a gold dollar. “Looks like we’re headed left, for the old spike pit.”

“Damn,” Phoebe said. “I would’ve preferred the pancake room.”

Renée stared at the coin in Orlando’s open palm, two flashlight beams dancing across the eagle’s wings. “So, that’s it? All your vaulted abilities and we’re reduced to a coin toss?”

“That’s about right,” Caleb said. “Like I told you, our process takes months. Weeks at least. Even then, if we do see something, it’s hard to separate truth from imagination. In this case, the flip of a coin is as good as anything else.”

“I think,” Phoebe added, “that whichever way we choose, it won’t be easy.”

Qara cleared her throat as the soldiers prepared to move on Chang’s orders. Her eyes were haggard, and blood from the fresh cut on her cheek trickled down her bruised face. “Death walks with us.”

5

Nina led Colonel Hiltmeyer and Private Harris down the stairs first. Alexander followed after taking what he feared might be his last gulp of fresh air. Montross descended last, still holding aloft the Emerald Tablet in his left hand, his gun in his right. At the bottom, they followed the glow, approaching the threshold with caution.

“Left their floodlights behind,” Nina noted when they had passed the first door and saw the large halogen bulbs resting amidst the pile of skeletal remains.

“Good thing too,” Montross said, pointing at the mosaic floor. “Now we can follow Hansel and Gretel’s grisly trail.”

Alexander shuffled his feet, hands in his pocket, the chill reaching deeper as they proceeded. The air was dank and oppressive, stifling. The corridors on either side loomed dark and full of menace, and the stairs behind them only reminded him of the field of corpses above.

Death up there, death down here, he thought. As Above, so Below.

Private Harris went first, looking miserable and terrified all at once, rubbing his elbow which had been banged up during the fall down the stairs. Then Hiltmeyer went, glaring back at Nina with every step. Harris’s foot slid on one spot, almost connecting with another square tile. “Still wet,” he said with a shaky voice.

“We’re not far behind them,” Montross said.

Harris suddenly froze, unable to take another step, glancing in both directions, expecting a hail of spears to rip through him at any moment. He glanced back at Alexander. “Is this it?”

Alexander thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I can’t tell.”

“A premonition?” Montross asked. “About Harris here? Ah, well if that was the case, the danger may now be passed.”

“You can change fate?” Harris asked hopefully.

“We all can,” Montross said. “We do it every day, every minute. But you’re only conscious of it when you can see the tracks ahead and you know what’s coming. Then, your choices seem to make you all powerful, make you feel almost godlike.”

That seemed to be confusing enough to mollify Harris, and he continued for now, following Hiltmeyer along the red-smeared tiles. Montross waited at the edge of the mosaic floor, staying back with Nina and Alexander.

“What’s up?” Nina asked.

He hugged the Emerald Tablet to his chest. “I just saw a flash of something. A glimpse ahead. Your friend Hiltmeyer… near the last tile, if we were still behind him, he was going to drop to his knees and roll over the wrong tiles, releasing the spikes from both passages—”

“Running us through while he rolled to safety.” Nina’s eyes burned. The Beretta felt lighter in her hand.

“You saw the future again?” Alexander asked Montross, overhearing. “You keep seeing your death, don’t you?”

Montross glanced down. “Observant boy. Yes. Seeing it — and avoiding it.”

“Wow. How many times?”

Montross shrugged. “I’ve racked up more wins against the Reaper than I can count.”

Alexander gave a little laugh. “Yeah, but he only has to win once.”

“So true. Now, let’s get going. Nina, keep your gun on Hiltmeyer until I’m across.”

“With pleasure.”

Alexander followed Montross, matching his steps, finding comfort in the fact that he was also following in his father’s footsteps. Finally, they crossed the map and were past the border of the mosaic, joining Hiltmeyer and Harris, where the colonel refused to make eye contact. Instead, he gazed ahead, into the shadows.

Montross held the tablet in one hand as he waved Nina forward and pulled out Nilak’s Ruger with the other. The tablet’s glow provided enough illumination to see by, but not much more.

When Nina was across, she threw one of her backpacks at the colonel. “Flashlights inside. Also water and food.” She patted the goggles hanging around her neck. “I’m keeping the night-vision goggles.”

“What’s up ahead?” Hiltmeyer asked, finding a flashlight and turning it on. He and Harris advanced, probing the shadows.

Alexander took a light from Nina and shined it straight ahead as he walked, following them. Then left, then right, down the newly revealed passageways.

“I smell something,” he said.

Montross wrinkled his nose. “Something toxic.” He pointed left. “From that direction.”

“I saw water,” Alexander said, closing his eyes and focusing again. “Water, or something like it. Shiny, like silver. And a boat filled with people. And my Dad!”

He took off running in that direction, but didn’t get far. Nina was on him in a flash, collaring him and holding him still. “Don’t do that again. Apart from not wanting you to escape, running into shadows is the best way to get yourself killed down here.”

“I know,” Alexander said. “But they went this way.”

“If they went that way,” Montross said, quietly, as he turned and faced right, ignoring the partially open false door ahead of them, “then I believe we’ll to go this way.”

“What?” Hiltmeyer asked, shining his light back and forth. “Why?”

“Because we need to make up time, and because that”—he shined his light on an inscription on the wall ahead of them—“says our choice doesn’t matter.”

Nina came back, pulling Alexander with her, even as he dragged his feet, looking back over his shoulder, fighting the tears in his eyes.

“This way may even be faster,” Montross said, urging Hiltmeyer and Harris toward the room with the ceiling-press trap. “I have seen the river too. It’s beautiful. And fortunately there’s a vessel there as well, waiting.”

“For what?” Harris asked.

“I don’t know. For Temujin’s use in the afterlife, should he desire a scenic boat ride?” Montross tightened his grip on the tablet. “Or just for someone who might come knocking with the right key.”

Alexander moaned, still looking the other direction. “But Dad and Aunt Phoebe! They don’t have the key, any key! And that way, the one they picked…” He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the horrific visions.

“That way is worse. Much worse. They’re not going to make it!”

6

The river Caleb had seen in his vision wasn’t fresh water at all, but a highly contaminated mercury-enriched stream. An oily, silvery river of perfect calmness, shimmering deceptively, hiding its toxicity beyond a lustrous sheen.

Back before the shore of silt, small rocks and dry earth, their footsteps mapped their progress through the arched doorway from the room of spikes, where Caleb had carefully led the team around seven-foot long metal lances, spaced only feet apart. They had crossed diagonally, and uneventfully, to the northern side of the room to the open archway and the waiting beach. Chang’s men had found a grooved ladder on the western wall, just under the place where the floor had given way after they had tripped the weight sensor by tossing a heavy pack in the center of the floor. Once the floor had dropped, simply jamming a rifle into the visible gears at the lower corner prevented the floor from resetting and allowed them to descend.

They carried four flare guns and twenty-eight flares, hoping that would be enough. Caleb took a flashlight and played it over the river, the light skipping over its metallic appearance. Then he shined the light higher, the beam darting across the arched ceiling twenty feet above. Mostly earthy, their rooftop sported occasional stalactites hanging like swords.

More lights fanned out from the soldiers, finding the two gondola-like boats tethered with chains to iron posts thrust into the shore. Gazing at the river besieged by flashlight beams, Orlando whistled. “It looks like that cybernetic liquid alloy stuff in Terminator 2. Hope nothing pops out of there and slices us in half.” He turned to Caleb and Phoebe. “I think we should take this fine opportunity to psychically Mapquest the next leg of our journey.”

“Definitely,” Phoebe whispered, holding her hand over her mouth, coughing.

The tunnel ahead beckoned, shimmering in the flashlight beams before disappearing around a bend into darkness. It gave Caleb the impression of the start of a watery amusement park ride, like one he had taken Alexander on just last year at Busch Gardens. “Hold up,” he said. “Anyone think to bring gas masks?”

Sniffing the air, Chang motioned one of his guards who wriggled out of a backpack, opened it and began passing out masks.

Good old Chinese efficiency and preparedness, Caleb thought.

“This will be a very toxic stretch,” he said, pointing ahead, down the tunnel into the darkness. “Especially as we begin paddling, as the oars will stir up the mercury. It’ll combine with the air and get in our lungs, and depending on the levels, which I imagine are quite high, we’ll soon be suffering a host of nasty symptoms. Burning lungs, stinging eyes, coughing. It gets into the bloodstream quickly, impacting the central nervous system, and could cause paralysis and even death, given enough exposure.”

“Twenty masks,” Renée said, counting them.

I only hope Montross and Nina are likewise prepared, Caleb thought.

“We have extra,” he said. “Can we leave some for Montross and my son? If they come this way?”

Renée narrowed her eyes at him.

“Please.”

“Fine, drop three. Only because I think you may be right, and we may need your son.”

Orlando took a mask, making sure he got his before they were all accounted for, then moved closer to the edge to examine the boats. “Sturdy bastards. Looks like iron plating and reinforced wood. Very little decay. Maybe the mercury helped.”

“How did this water get so contaminated?” Phoebe asked.

“On purpose, I believe,” Caleb said. “He may have just been copying, but like Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan may have also come to believe in mercury’s alchemical powers. For centuries, mystics used mercury — also known as quicksilver — as a combining reagent to induce elemental changes, attempting to turn lead into gold for example, but it was also believed to be a source of a great many cures. And possibly, if mixed just right, an elixir for immortality.”

“No thanks,” Orlando said, fitting on his mask after coughing into his hand. “That’s the crap they used to put in dental fillings.”

Phoebe groaned through her mask. “Here we go. Conspiracy time. Let me guess, dentists are all part of some master plan to monitor our thoughts, weaken our resistance, make us sick—”

“Scoff if you like.” Orlando shined his light into his open mouth. “But I’m a brushing fanatic, not one cavity.”

“That’s because you’ve never been to the dentist.”

He smirked. “At least I’m confident that my mind is my own.”

“Trust me, no one else would want it.”

“Please shut up,” Renée snapped. “And let’s get moving.”

Afraid to move, Phoebe stared at the water. “So emperors actually tried drinking this stuff?”

Caleb nodded. “It was what killed Qin Shi, if the legends are true.”

“Enough talk,” Renée said with her mask on. “Get in the boats. Eight in each. Chang, you’re with us. And two of your men will row. You keep an eye on Qara. Caleb, Phoebe and Orlando, remote view the path ahead. I want no surprises.”

“Best to do it here, on the shore,” Caleb said, tightening his mask. Phoebe did the same.

“No, in the boat,” Renée replied. “I believe you will perform better in the thick of things. Urgency sharpens your need.”

“Aren’t you suddenly the expert?” Phoebe quipped.

“Get in, and get to work.”

They settled into the two boats. Caleb’s team left second, after the boat full of soldiers pushed off. Phoebe and Orlando sat on one side, at the stern, with Caleb and Qara facing them while Renée stood at the prow, her .45 still in her hand, scanning the shadows ahead.

It all looked surreal and mythical: two gondolas carrying men and women wearing gas masks along a silvery river into a dark tunnel. Caleb thought it would have made a great Salvador Dali painting, an interpretation of Charon ferrying the dead into the waiting embrace of the Underworld.

“iPad,” Phoebe said after a minute of intense focus. She held her hand out to Orlando, who quickly passed it over. “I think I’ve got the next leg of this map.”

She leaned in to Caleb and whispered, “Just keep faking it, big brother. I’ve got you covered.”

“You’re the best,” he replied. “I’m trying but…”

“Nothing?”

“I keep seeing her. Lydia. But it’s not like our visions. They’re just memories.”

“Ah. Worse, then.”

Caleb nodded. But maybe just as important. A catharsis, perhaps. A flood of images played against the back of his eyelids every time they closed. Meeting her for the first time at the book signing in SoHo; their growing connection on the book tour, working together on research trips to exotic ancient locations, the steamy nights under the stars, or under the cool sheets in five-star hotels; the reunion after he had thought her dead, the moment her emotions cracked through and she revealed he had a son.

All these memories swam in his thoughts, clouding the psychic pathways like arterial blocks, suffocating the power he kept trying to access.

He couldn’t fight it any longer, and didn’t want to. She was there, in his mind, living in the only place left for her. Part of him hoped that he was seeing all this because she was trying to show him one more thing, to force him to understand some vital aspect of himself he needed to learn.

Or else, it was only his guilt.

He had killed her. As surely as if he’d pushed her off a cliff. By his silence and distrust. By his arrogance in thinking he alone could own and protect the Emerald Tablet. It was a guilt he needed to accept and overcome if he was to move on.

It’s up to you now. Her last thought, he was sure of it, was about their son. But how could he save Alexander when his hands were tied? He could only stand by, watching and hoping the others could do what he couldn’t.

Someone coughed. He heard the soldiers’ raspy breathing over his own. Every sound was amplified in the cavern, the slightest movement roaring in his ears, explosions rattling in his head. The splashing of the oars echoed off the walls, and it was easy to imagine the flashlight beams scraping the ceiling or the sides, and eliciting sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

Phoebe sighed, the sound grinding in her ears as well. She took a deep breath of hot air and began drawing, expanding the previous sketch, filling in the right side of the diagram. Renée moved closer, stepping around the men rowing so she could watch.

“What’s that?” She pointed to the bottom of the screen where Phoebe had drawn the terminus of this river passageway that ended at the boundary opening up into a larger section: broad at the far end, but peppered with dots. Phoebe kept jabbing at the screen, creating the dots in a haphazard pattern until it began to look like an actual formation.

“Don’t know,” Phoebe replied. “I saw faces. White faces. Hundreds of eyes. Thousands, maybe.”

Qara made a snickering noise.

“What?” asked Renée, turning in the boat, then peering ahead. The flashlight’s glow had bounced off her mask, amplifying a mix of fear and excitement beyond the plastic. “What’s up ahead?”

“Death,” Qara said. “And I don’t need to be psychic to see that. We’re all—”

“Shut her up,” Renée snapped. “Phoebe, elaborate on what you saw.”

A gasp, and Phoebe dropped the stylus pen, causing Orlando to jump for it, and scramble at the bottom of the boat before they lost it. She shook her head, blinked and stood up. Ahead, the flashlight beams speared around, barely penetrating the thick gloom hanging over the silvery river.

She squinted, rubbed her faceplate, and tried to peer through the unresolved shadows. “Wait! There’s something before we reach the shore, something—”

But that’s when an iron sphere as large as a refrigerator came swinging down from the cavern’s roof on a steel chain, crashing into the first boat.

Soldiers scattered like bowling pins, two of them taking direct hits, bones shattering, bodies crumpling. The hull cracked and the boat capsized, spinning to the left and upturning the whole team.

“Duck!” Chang yelled as the sphere swung all the way back up, just missing the prow of the second boat. Everyone ducked low and his men paddled sideways, moving the boat out of the reach of the sphere’s downswing.

One member of the first craft wasn’t so lucky. A soldier had scrambled back into the boat after flipping it, and just stood, dripping and coughing, when the ball swung back and caught him in the chest, bringing him along for the ascending trip. A hideous crunching sound echoed off the ceiling, and his body splashed down in the darkness.

Men were screaming, splashing, scrambling. Flashlights spun around and dimmed as they went underwater. Chang and the two soldiers in Caleb’s boat kept their lights trained on the first boat, keeping it illuminated for the capsized men to get back on.

The sphere came back for another swing, but this time both boats were out of its range, off to the side.

“Shit!” Renée grumbled. “What else do we have to contend with?”

“You have no idea,” Qara said.

“I do,” said Phoebe. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking close enough. But that’s it. Just that iron ball, a little pre-welcoming gift from Genghis.”

“You’d better be right,” Renée said, ruefully counting the soldiers ahead as they climbed back into the battered boat.

“We lost three,” Chang said, shining his light on the three floating, battered bodies.

Renée nodded. “Acceptable. Keep going. And you”—she glared at Phoebe—“had better be right about this.”

Phoebe nodded, but Orlando stepped up between them. “Listen, you want our help, you better start asking nicely.”

“Orlando,” Caleb cautioned.

“Fine,” Renée said, raising her gun in front of Orlando’s face. “Please just do what I tell you, or I’ll shoot your girlfriend and toss her over the side.”

“Hey,” Phoebe said. “I’m nobody’s—”

“Save it. Kid, help her out. And Caleb, maybe you should actually start contributing. I don’t recall your being of any use so far, except for prattling your academic bullshit.”

“Which,” Caleb said, “if I recall, helped to get us this far.”

Renée looked around the gloom, past the dead bodies. “Which is where, exactly?”

Caleb glared at her through his fogging facemask. Then he peered over her shoulder, to where the lights of the first boat were striking something a hundred feet ahead. A rough shoreline. “Here,” he said, moving to the head of the boat.

Chang barked a command to the lead boat, and a soldier pulled out a gun, aimed ahead as the boat approached the sandy shore, and fired.

The crimson flare left a sparkling smoke trail on its ascent. It rose at a slight angle, and kept ascending, illuminating odd shadows, glinting off impossibly white structures.

Caleb’s boat pulled up alongside the other, and all eyes were on the still-ascending flare. Chang whispered something, and three more flares fired out into the darkness. The first one dipped over a tall minaret and was lost over a skyline of domes, walls and turrets. The other, rising at a steeper angle, hit the roof of the immense cavern and stuck, sparking and smoking.

“More,” Renée said.

The flare guns fired again, four of them lighting up the darkness, dispelling shadows that had ruled undisturbed for eight centuries.

“Holy crap,” Orlando whispered, as they all gazed at the flickering red outlines of the city visible over the walls: palaces of polished white marble, temples of golden tiles and blue mosaic domes; winding walkways and soaring bridges, fountains and ponds; pillared temples and massive halls.

“The real Xanadu,” Caleb said.

Qara bowed her head, whispering something in Mongolian.

“Wait,” Renée said, pointing ahead, to the quarter-mile field stretching before the immense wall. Hard to see with the flares so high up, but it looked like the ground was composed of ridges, bumps and pockets. “Flares. Fire them straight ahead, now.”

As the men prepared to shoot, Phoebe cautioned, “I don’t think you want to see this.”

Three flares streaked out from the first boat, heading off at slightly different angles. The first struck something only fifty feet out, fizzled and then dropped. The other two went farther; one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet.

Then each struck something and held, smoking, casting the surrounding area in a ghastly glow.

“Double crap,” Orlando said.

Twenty-thousand strong, they stood organized by their regiments, infantry on the right, cavalry in the center; archers on the higher ground to the left; and chariots, catapults, siege machines and banners on immense poles interspersed throughout. Grayish-white terra cotta statues, each one carved perfectly, detailed down to the grooves in their armor, the notches on the saddles, the hardened eyes brimming with loyalty, ferocity and menace.

“The welcoming party,” Caleb said. “Genghis’s army.”

7

Montross covered his face with his sleeve while Hiltmeyer and Harris coughed, backing away from the boat. “No way,” the colonel said, pointing to the cavern and the river with the silvery sheen that bent around a quick curve and headed into the blackest reaches beyond their flashlights’ beams.

“Hang on,” Montross said. He backed up, closed his eyes and hugged the Emerald Tablet close. “Alexander, let’s see how your father handled this from his side.”

“Masks,” the boy said at once. He was rubbing his eyes, also breathing through his shirt. “I saw them. All the soldiers had them, and they left three behind. For us.”

“Three?” Harris said, choking on the word. “Come on!”

“Easy,” said Montross. “Nina, go fetch them, and—”

“Be careful, I know.” She smiled wolfishly. “Your concern for me is touching.”

“I just want my mask.”

As she left, Montross pulled Alexander back to the tunnel leading from the room with the trap ceiling. “We’ll wait for her here where the air’s clearer.”

“What about us?” Harris asked.

Montross shrugged. “Tear your shirts, or jackets. Make yourselves something to cover your faces.”

Hiltmeyer grumbled, “You’ll poison us.”

“Either that, or I’ll shoot you.” Montross waved the Ruger. “Your choice.” He cleared his throat, then turned to the boy. “And you, Alexander, I need you to use this time to scout out the area ahead while I keep an eye on these clowns.”

Alexander shook his head. “But I don’t want to. Anytime I try, I know I’ll just see Dad, and I can’t, don’t want to see…”

“See what?”

“Can’t bear it.” He shook his head, covering his eyes. “What if I see him die, too?”

Montross knelt down and switched his gun to his other hand, still keeping an eye on their prisoners. “Just focus your mind, ask yourself a question, and only think about that question when you let your visions come.”

“What question?”

“Jeez, didn’t your father teach you anything? Never mind. I already know: ‘Learn by doing, learn from experience.’ Still, you must have sat in and listened to the Morpheus Initiative sessions.”

“A few times,” Alexander admitted.

“Well then, you know how it is. The question frames your visionary experience. You remote view what you’ve asked your mind to show you. In this case,”—he waved beyond, to the darkness along the river—“we need to know what’s waiting for us. Ask to be shown any traps on this river, anything that could stop us from reaching the great underground cavern and the city of Genghis Khan.”

“Too vague,” Alexander said.

“What?”

“The question. I know enough about it, as you said. I sat in on a lot of sessions with my dad, with Aunt Phoebe. I know you can’t have those multiple-part questions. Or you get crappy visions, something that just might get us killed.”

Montross grinned. “All right, smarty-pants. Just remote view the next section of this river. Period.”

Alexander nodded. “I’ll try. And I’ll try not to see my dad.”

“Try hard,” Montross said. “I know it’s not easy to pull away from your feelings, or your fears, but it’s the only way. If you want to see him again, trust that he knows what he’s doing, and trust that for this part, we need your skills. Go to it.”

“Can I touch the tablet first?”

Montross held it out, balancing it in the palm of his right hand, watching as it reflected in the boy’s deep brown eyes, mixing with his irises, turning them a swirling shade of green.

Alexander reached for it slowly, his fingers trembling.

Nina found the masks, as predicted, on the shore beside the two posts and empty chains that had tethered two boats. She waved her flashlight ahead, scoping out the area, but couldn’t see a thing. She held her breath, sucking in a whiff of the foul, toxic air and holding it just to listen.

From somewhere, far, far off, something loud, a report followed by another muffled thump echoing along the stretch of the dark underground waterway, reached her ear. A tiny ripple stirred along the shore.

She didn’t need to be psychic to know that the other team faced something deadly at the end of the waterway. But all the same, she felt a twinge, a sudden connection with someone.

And it wasn’t Montross.

Caleb.

She felt him, saw through his eyes just for a brief instant…

… a flickering field of immobile warriors, thousands-strong, weapons ready, facing them, barring their advance.

Why? Nina thought. Why did I glimpse that? Why Caleb? Why now?

She took the masks and slowly backed away, shaking her head, clearing that nagging sight, when something else, something that suddenly blossomed like an exploding fireworks display in her mind….

Two sets of small hands, gripped by larger ones, held in a grandfatherly grasp.

Two hands… belonging to two boys.

Two scared boys, looking out over a harbor from a great height, gazing out at hundreds of boats while a raspy voice whispered of destiny.

Nina trembled.

She coughed, fell to her knees, heaving. Gasping.

What… the hell… was that?

She closed her eyes, but the visions were gone, leaving behind nothing but wispy shadows.

She gathered up the masks and stumbled back to Montross.

They pushed off as Nina stood behind the rowers, Hiltmeyer and Harris. She had a gun in each hand, the Beretta in her left, the muzzles at the back of their heads, and she couldn’t help but feel like a slave master on the old Roman galleons, ready to execute whoever dropped out of pace first.

Harris complained through his makeshift face mask of his torn sleeve tied around his neck and across his mouth. Colonel Hiltmeyer only rowed in silence, his eyes burning as each stroke released fumes that stung at his eyes.

“What next?” Montross asked.

Alexander sat in the front, gas mask wrapped extra tight around his head. He held up a hand. Then pointed. “Hug the right wall.”

Nina nudged the gun against Harris’s head, prodding him to row harder, pushing the boat in that direction.

“Farther,” Alexander said, scanning the rooftop as nervousness crept into his voice. “Otherwise we’re bowling pins.”

Montross directed his flashlight along the ceiling, locating a huge round ball tucked into a niche in the center, to their left now as they steered around it. “Good catch, kid. What else?”

Alexander closed his eyes and focused his breathing. Don’t do it, don’t view Dad, or Phoebe.

Instead, he saw his…

… mom, engulfed in the flames.

Except she wasn’t hurting. Wasn’t even singed. She walked through the fire calmly, arms out to him, a sweet smile on her face.

“You’re not alone,” she whispered, smoke puffing from her mouth.

“Not… alone…”

He snapped out of it, blinked and then saw—

“Spikes!” he shouted. “At both sides. Stop!”

Harris pulled back, oaring fast the other way, and Hiltmeyer slipped, a second later, turning and jamming the oar. He coughed, hacking into his mask and cursing. Something black and shiny roared straight up from the river a yard from where Alexander had been sitting in the prow. It pierced the tunnel’s roof, dislodging stones and dirt, and then withdrew with a silent splash.

“What the hell!” Harris said. His oar was out of the water now, and he was bent over, almost hugging his knees. “What do we do?”

“Remain calm,” Montross said. “Alexander’s got it.”

“Cutting it a little close, don’t you think?” Hiltmeyer said.

“Turn now,” Alexander said with a shaking voice. “Straighten it out. And stay straight if you can. There’s just a narrow channel where we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” said Nina, jabbing the soldiers with her guns. “We get it. You heard the kid. Straighten out and row.”

They moved ahead, cutting through the luminescent water. Moving slower, carefully.

“What else?” Montross asked.

Alexander shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything else, except…”

“What?”

He slumped forward, then straightened his back. He turned his head and Montross could see the pained eyes filling with tears.

“I saw you again,” he said. “Your mom and dad—”

“What?”

“Alexander!” Nina started.

“—dying. The car crash. Except, he wasn’t your dad.”

“I know that,” Montross snapped. “But why? Why are you seeing this? What question are you asking?”

“Nothing. I didn’t ask a thing. I just keep seeing it.”

Montross stared, open-mouthed, and Nina glanced at him, taking her attention away from the soldiers. “Xavier, it’s nothing.”

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. He’s young, and his power is being augmented by the tablet in ways we can’t imagine. It must be showing him something important. Or at least something his mind feels he needs to know. So, I need to know it too.”

Damn, Nina thought. It’s too early for this.

“Not your father,” Alexander said again. “But I think… I think your dad might be…” He held his head, rubbing the back. He coughed. A little sob escaped.

“What?” Montross asked, almost a shriek. “What? Who?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Alexander shook his head. “I see it, but I don’t know what it means.”

The oars continued paddling, the boat skimming faster and faster ahead. All flashlights were pointed inside at Alexander, almost blinding him.

“Well,” said Montross gripping the tablet even tighter, “now that I know that something about my heritage is important, I’ll just have my own look-see.”

“No,” Nina whispered.

“What?”

“Don’t. Not yet.”

Montross faced her as the tablet’s aura sprinkled them both in a sheen of fairy dust. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I—”

“Uh oh,” Harris said, dropping his oar. He stood, just as the nose of the boat struck something and they all lurched forward.

“We hit the shore,” Hiltmeyer yelled. He collected himself, leapt to his feet and spun around, hoping Nina had dropped her guns, but in an instant she was there, tripping up his legs and pushing him back down into the belly of the boat.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Montross grunted, fumbled for the tablet and retrieved it, then held it up to illuminate the boat. “Alexander?”

He was outside, picking himself up on the shore, right behind Harris who was scrambling to his knees. Suddenly both were caught in flashlight beams probing wildly ahead. They were on a small inlet, a pathway sparkling with gold bending in a thirty-foot S-shaped pattern to the gate.

Alexander took out his flashlight. “Wow.” His beam stretched out and searched, then struck a wall of immense marble blocks around a huge sealed archway. Above the arch, between two turrets, stood four immense statues.

Giant terra cotta warriors, each manning huge crossbows.

“Oh no,” Harris whispered.

Just as something whistled through the air.

He grunted, making a surprised choking sound as he clutched at the end of a six-foot iron bolt protruding from his chest. And with the point erupting out his back he looked like game piece on a foosball table. He stumbled backwards, past Alexander. His mouth opened as he fell, arching backwards until the silver point stabbed into the soft earth and his head flopped backwards.

Alexander opened his mouth, tried to cry out, tried to insist that he hadn’t seen this, knowing that the reason was because he hadn’t asked the right questions. I only asked about the river!

Desperately, he looked back to the ramparts, to the silent, impassive guardians, three of which had yet to fire.

8

Caleb hadn’t even stepped off the boat before the first scream ripped through the cavern, and suddenly there were gunshots, flashlight beams probing desperately. Men yelling.

More gunshots, and Phoebe, Orlando and Qara ducked low on the boat just as a sudden volley of arrows whistled past, sailing behind them and plunking into the water.

“Back!” Chang shouted. “Stop firing!”

The soldiers formed a semi-circle around Renée, Chang and the boats. Their flashlights swept back and forth, revealing the first rows of terra cotta warriors, many of them now shredded with 7.62mm rounds. No more arrows flew, and the army rested in silence and apparent innocence.

“What happened?” Renée asked.

“Someone went scouting ahead.”

“Who told him to do that?”

“Procedure.” Chang said. “Sorry.”

Renée shoved aside two soldiers and looked at what their lights had settled on. One of the soldiers lay face-down about five feet beyond the first row of warriors. His left leg was severed above the knee, lying by itself a short distance away. His back was punctured by three arrows.

Another soldier came limping back, shrieking for a medic, an arrow in his hip and a gouge cut through his left arm.

Renée shined her light in the direction he had come from, and saw a statue with a sword held up before his face. The blade was wet. The statue wobbled slightly as it returned to its dormant position.

“Ballistic vests,” Chang said, pointing to the fallen man. “Help little against arrows. Or swords.”

Renée lowered her gun. She scanned the shot-up faces of the nearest terra cotta soldiers. “Okay, lesson learned. No one’s going in there until we know what this is. Apparently Temujin has this field rigged as well, with pressure-sensitive plates that trigger the statues into attacking.”

After testing the air and believing themselves safe for the moment, the soldiers removed their gas masks and started checking their gear. They tightened their flak jackets, still hoping they’d provide some protection, donned their helmets and prepared their weapons, reloading and checking their lights.

Caleb walked carefully out of the boat, then helped Qara disembark as Phoebe and Orlando got out on the other side.

Renée scouted ahead with night-vision binoculars. “I see something. Looks to be about four hundred yards, past this field and the army. There’s a gate. That’s the entrance into the city, and where we need to go.”

Chang nodded, surveying the field. “But direct path is most fortified. See? Largest concentration of soldiers appear to guard way.”

“So what do we do?” asked one of the men.

“No one moves ahead,” Renée ordered, “until our seers show us the way.” She glanced back at Caleb, waved her .45 at him. “Come on, Kreskin. What’s the trick this time? A certain path to take, or maybe some tune we all need to sing to let us waltz on by?”

Caleb shrugged. He took his flashlight and swept it around the shore, along the walls on either side, walls that widened from their river approach, encompassing and enclosing the massive underground field, the army and, eventually, the distant walled city. He blinked, focusing out there, wondering if Alexander had gone around, taking the other passageway with Montross, and if he might even now be up ahead now, looking this way for him.

“Wait,” said Orlando suddenly. “There! Above us.”

Phoebe brought her light up as she stepped closer to him, brushing against him and noticing that he trembled, but still leaned in toward her. She gave him a smile, then looked up at the letters hammered into a marble crossbeam overhead. “Nice work. You keep bailing us out like this and my brother will have to give you a bigger bonus this year.”

Orlando’s voice cracked after the compliment. “So here’s more of those funky letters. Qara, can you do your thing?”

She stumbled forward, her wrists still tied behind her, the bandages on her side soaked through with fresh blood. She looked pale and weak, but she lifted her eyes and with dried lips, read the inscription: “The Secret of the Way Past is the Secret of the Way In.”

Renée glared at Qara, then looked at the script, and then to Chang, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged. “Pretty close.”

“The secret of the way in?” Renée asked.

“What was the secret of the way past?” Phoebe asked, shining her light on Caleb, who blocked it with his hand. It reminded her, for just a moment, of the descent into that tomb in Belize when as kids they joked at blinding each other to ease their fears. What we can’t see can’t hurt us, right?

Caleb stopped the smile and looked back past Renée and over the field of warriors, the guardians. Thinking. Imagining a course through them, past them. But they covered every square foot, in no particular pattern. The secret of the way past is the secret of the way in. Very symmetrical. Perfect. But no help.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“RV it, then,” Renée barked. “All of you. Do it now, before I risk any more of my men.”

Caleb glanced at Phoebe and Orlando and nodded. The three of them sat cross-legged together on the hard ground away from the mercury-laden water.

“Shouldn’t we hold hands or something?” Orlando asked, reaching for Phoebe.

“Keep dreaming, Romeo.” She gave him a look, then relented. “All right, but only because I know that sometimes psychics can chain their powers if they’re touching.” She noticed Caleb and stopped talking.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll kill your mojo if we link up, but if it’s all the same to you—”

“Just hold our hands,” she snapped.

Caleb sighed and held up his hands. Orlando took his left, Phoebe his right.

“No caressing,” Phoebe hissed, a smile breaking free. Then lower, “At least make this look good for prying eyes.”

Renée glowered at them. “Hurry.”

Phoebe closed her eyes, squeezing both hands, just as Orlando gasped. But it was Caleb who jerked as if electrocuted, snatching his hands away.

“Holy crap,” Orlando said, still holding onto Phoebe. “What was that?”

Caleb frowned, staring at his hands as if expecting them to be covered with second-degree burns. “I don’t know. I saw something, though.”

“What?” Phoebe asked, leaning over.

“Lydia. It was like she was here. In our circle, holding both my hands. Like she had taken your places.”

“How the hell does that help us?” Renée asked.

“It doesn’t,” Caleb said. “But it might help me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Orlando coughed. “Wait! I saw something. Honestly I did. A trail. Glowing, weaving through the soldiers.”

Renée cocked her head. Chang moved in, listening intently.

Phoebe gave Orlando a subtle look to ask if this was just a ploy, but he didn’t even look at her. He stood, releasing her hand, and headed through the Chinese soldiers to the front of the shore. Nodding, he pointed ahead. “I saw it in my vision, a glowing pathway, highlighting the trail we need to take.”

“How wide?” Chang asked.

“Four or five feet.”

“Can you still see it?”

Orlando rubbed his temples, stuck his neck out and stared. Nodded. “I can lead you, just like Caleb led us before on the mosaic floor. I see it.”

“Okay,” Renée said. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t know,” said Caleb. “Why would there be something such as a trail? The clue was that the way past these soldiers must in some way mirror what we did to find the entrance above.”

“I’m not into riddles,” Renée said. “Let’s just test it out. Your boy here thinks he’s seen the way. Let him go a few steps. See how far he can get. If he makes it, then who cares what the clue means? You’re psychics. You don’t need logic.”

Orlando stopped. His gaze swept over the first five rows of warriors lurking in the shadows. He turned and met Phoebe’s eyes. “Um, maybe not. Maybe we should think this through a little more.”

“Did you see it, or didn’t you?” Renée waved him on with her gun.

“No, Orlando!” Phoebe reached out, but two soldiers blocked her way.

“Go,” said Chang, more than happy he wasn’t risking his own men.

Orlando swallowed hard, his raw throat burning with the effort. A dozen flashlights led the way. He tried to look back and catch Phoebe’s eyes, but could only see a swarm of bright lights, blinding him. “Can I get one of those bullet proof jacket things?”

Renée laughed and her voice came back. “Didn’t you say that they won’t help?”

It took a minute for the blind spots to wear off, and then he started to move forward. Lifted his foot and set it ahead, between two infantry men, the hilts of their swords gripped in both hands, the points directed up and inwards, making an inverted V that Orlando had to walk beneath.

His foot touched the ground and he closed his eyes, praying before he put weight on it. He could see it again — the aurora-like trail misting under the feet of the warriors, starting here and then twisting left, then extending forward, around a great bend and then circling up again around the chariots, through the horsemen and in between two largest catapults.

Please work.

“Orlando,” Phoebe called out. “Please be careful.”

A deep, clear breath filled his lungs. And with renewed confidence and trust, he bent under the swords and took one step, then another, following the trail, approaching another warrior, this one with a curved sword over its shoulder, poised as if preparing for a decapitating swing.

His right foot touched down, he put all his weight on it, moved his left foot ahead. But before he picked up his right foot again, the statue moved. Its head swiveled, blank white eyes fixing him with a deadly stare.

“No,” Caleb whispered. Then, “NO! Orlando, don’t move!”

All the flashlights converged on Orlando, dancing around, then hitting the statue, the one that had twisted, the sword rising, trembling.

“Don’t lift your feet!”

Orlando turned his head, trying to balance on the bridge of this foot. His hands were outstretched, reflexively reaching for something to hold until he managed to pull himself back without grabbing another statue, one holding two daggers at the ready. “I think I’m on a pressure plate.”

The lights danced on his face, bringing out tears in his eyes as he refused to close them, hoping to get one last look at Phoebe.

“Sorry,” he said glumly. “I screwed up. I don’t know how, but I must have. I know this is right, I see the trail, but—”

“You didn’t screw up,” Caleb said. “I did.”

“What?” Phoebe was at his side, clutching his arm.

Renée turned toward him. “How is this your fault? Other than not seeing it for yourself and trusting this crucial task to a junior member.”

“Nothing junior about him,” Caleb said. “And he’s seeing the right trail.”

“I am?” Orlando asked, his voice cracking. He looked down at his feet, even as his knees started wobbling.

“It’s the right trail,” Caleb continued, “just at the wrong altitude.”

“Huh?”

“The riddle,” he said. “I figured it out. Unfortunately, a little late.”

“The way past,” Renée intoned. “Same as the way in?”

“Yeah. The secret of the entrance. Remember?”

Phoebe slapped her hand against her forehead. “They moved the river!”

“Exactly.” Caleb pointed down. “I’m guessing there’s an entrance or a tunnel back here somewhere, where the river we just came down continues under this section in another subterranean tunnel. Weaving its way under the warriors.”

“Damn it!” Orlando hissed. “I should’ve figured that out. I even saw what looked like water, glowing water, but I thought it was just part of the vision.”

“Don’t worry, you did good.” Caleb sighed. “Now we’ve got to get you out of there.”

“Impossible,” Renée said. “He takes his chances. Just duck, roll and run back. With any luck, he’ll make it.”

The other soldiers had taken wary steps back, and were spreading out, ducking their heads.

“Get some cover if you can,” Renée barked. “I suspect the arrows might be flying any second.” She turned to Phoebe. “Sorry about your boyfriend, but at least we don’t have to worry about his untrustworthy visions anymore.”

Caleb had to hold Phoebe back as she squirmed. “You bitch!”

“Stop,” he said. “Just wait. We need to think.”

“No time. Chang, find that entrance. Check the walls and the ground back by the water.”

As Chang busied himself with that task, Caleb moved ahead, scanning around. He put his hands down, then slipped off his backpack. Turned around. “Get supplies off that dead man. The heaviest things he’s carrying.” He dropped to his knees and began digging, prying out rocks and chunks of earth and stuffing them in the pack.

Phoebe knelt beside him and started helping. “Good idea.” Her eyes were red and heavy.

“We’ll save him,” Caleb whispered.

Phoebe tried to smile. “I’m not so sure.”

As they filled the pack as much as possible, then zipped it up, Qara, who had been standing mutely near the shore, came closer. “Maybe,” she said quietly, so only Caleb and Phoebe could hear, “this is an opportunity.”

“What do you mean?”

“To free yourselves.”

“If you’ve got any secrets, spill ’em now,” Phoebe said.

“I believe,” she said, “your friend has a chance. Not only to save himself, with the help of your counterweight here, but also perhaps to set off an attack by these warriors. A volley of arrows that would surely injure most, if not all, of Agent Wagner’s men.”

“And not us?” Caleb asked.

“Not if we’re lying flat at the right moment.”

“What are you talking about?” Renée spun away from Chang and came in close.

“Do you want to survive this or not?” Qara said, holding her head up.

Renée studied her. “I don’t trust you. But for now, you live. Just move back, away from Caleb.”

“I have it!” Chang yelled. Two men were on their knees, brushing away the earth in a section just a few yards ahead of the prow of the second boat. Lights converged on the area, illuminating a rounded outline cut into a marble-like surface.

While they went about clearing out the handle and prying it open like a manhole cover, Caleb dragged the backpack toward the field of warriors, where Orlando stood teetering on the balls of his feet, ten yards out. Surrounded by warriors poised to strike both high and low, he looked terrified and miserable.

“Please hurry, boss. Don’t want to get all cliché on you, but I don’t want to die just yet. So much left to do and all.”

“Hang in there, Orlando. I’m coming.”

“I could tell you, but you probably won’t believe me. I’ve never even—”

“I don’t need to hear this, really.”

“—kissed a girl.” He smiled back. “What did you think I was going to say?”

Caleb shook his head. “Never would have guessed. A suave guy like you.”

Then lower, “I love your sister, you know.”

Caleb ducked under the first two warriors. He held his breath, trying to step exactly in Orlando’s footsteps as he lugged the eighty-pound pack. “You can tell her that yourself, when we get out of this.”

Orlando shook his head. “Nope. I think I’m shish kebob. Or hibachi. Whichever.”

“For hibachi you need fire. Kebab is skewering.”

“Ah. Well then.” His body gave a tremor and his back foot almost slipped before he caught himself and regained balance. “These hungry fellows here have waited a long time for their dinner.”

“They can wait longer.” Caleb crouched, dragging the pack right up to the back of Orlando’s legs. “Keep the light on us!” he yelled back, then winced against the blaze.

“Tell me when,” Orlando said.

Caleb could see his feet shaking. His boots, dirt-caked and torn at the sides, wobbled on a plate tilting out of the earth. He could see the levers underneath leading to the closest statues, somehow triggering them into movement.

He dragged the pack onto the back of the plate, inching it forward little by little. “Lift your foot, Orlando. Just slightly. Lean forward. Keep your toes on it. There…”

Something grated and Orlando flinched. It took all his effort not to move off the plate. “Boss? They’re gearing up, and their blades look freakin’ sharp. Vorpal sharp, even. At least I know I won’t feel it when—”

“Stop. Now, just ease forward. All your weight on your left foot.” Caleb slid the pack two more inches, covering now the space where his right foot had been.

Balancing, back foot in the air, Orlando slowly set it down, next to his front foot.

Caleb took his hands off the pack, gently, with his eyes closed. Then opened them and looked up, breathing a sigh. “Okay?”

“Still in one piece,” Orlando said. “It’s holding. Can I run for it?”

“Not yet.” Caleb glanced back and saw Qara behind the others, pulling Phoebe with her. Saw their eyes. Saw Qara’s expression, and her lips moving: Do it.

Caleb put his hand back on the pack while getting up into a kneel, and with his other hand took Orlando’s arm. He could pull him down easily, down and away from the statue’s reach, just as he pulled the pack off the plate. Both of them would be ducking, and after the two statues swung horizontally, the arrows would fly at perfectly coordinated angles, missing the other statues and striking with a maximum spread at anyone standing on the shore.

Take them all out. Do it.

He tightened his grip on the backpack, glancing around at all the lights dancing off the taut visages of the warriors standing in their eternal positions, poised and waiting for this chance to defend their master.

Caleb blinked away a bead of sweat. Shook his head. No. Not like this.

He eased Orlando back, around the plate, even as he stood up from a crouch, and led him slowly, carefully back along their footsteps.

Back to the party on the shore, away from the frozen warriors, who watched them with resigned indifference.

Qara stood up, fury in her eyes. But Phoebe pushed past Renée and Chang and threw her arms around Orlando’s neck. She pulled back, looked into his eyes and gave him a big kiss before pulling away and slapping his cheek. “Don’t ever do that again!”

“What?”

“Risk your life on an unsupported vision. You want to be part of the Morpheus Initiative, you’d better wise up.”

Orlando’s grin was unwavering. “It was worth it. For that kiss.”

“I’d rather drink that mercury water,” said Renée, “than listen to any more of this crap. Let’s get moving.” She moved behind them and pointed her gun at their backs. “Let’s go. Down into the tunnel.”

9

“Don’t move, kid!”

Montross tightened his hold on the Emerald Tablet. The giant warriors on the wall were bent over, crossbows aimed to take out anyone on the shore. “Not a muscle. Do… not… move.” He glanced back. “Nina? Options?”

She thought quickly, looking to the large duffel bag at her feet. “RPG?”

Thinking for a moment, Montross nodded. “I’m sure, given enough time, we could RV this moment, try to figure out what the builders had in mind, how to bypass this trap and get that gate open.”

“But time is something we don’t have,” Nina said, unzipping the bag. She put her Beretta away and reached inside the bag for the rocket launcher and one of three missiles. She screwed it in and stood, raising the rifle butt to her shoulder, flipping over the reticule and peering through it.

“Aim for the ledge between the second and third warrior,” Montross said. “Right, Colonel? Would that be your advice?”

Hiltmeyer, his face ashen, his flashlight trembling, only murmured his assent. He kept staring at the body of his last soldier, staked into the ground, back arched at an awkward angle, head swiveled with dead eyes locked on him.

Nina aimed. “Duck, Alexander. Now!”

She fired. Just as Alexander’s movement triggered something and the second archer swiveled four degrees, lining up a shot with the boy’s location.

The missile struck, exploding the entire rampart under the statue warriors, blowing two of them into chunks and sending debris in all directions. Alexander tucked himself into a ball, wincing as a few smaller pieces struck his back and a powdery dust swirled in the flashlight beams. He rubbed his ears, amazed that anything could produce such a tremendous sound, then waved away the smoke and stood, not sure which direction was which.

“Wait,” Montross cautioned.

He and Nina led Colonel Hiltmeyer out as the smoke cleared and they looked up. The statues were gone, all but the lower torso and crouched legs of the left-most warrior, standing on a cracked edge over the gap. “Nice work,” Montross said. He pointed to the gate and said to Nina, “Now kindly open that door.”

“Wait!” Alexander said, shaking his head. “I see something.” He closed his eyes, after ripping off his gas mask and taking in deep breaths. The air was clearer now, smelling of something fresh and pure blowing over the walls. “Water,” he said. “A lot of it, just past the gate.”

“A ‘sunless sea,’” Montross whispered. “Coleridge.” He glanced back. “It couldn’t have been the river he was talking about, and it surely wasn’t anything topside. But beyond these walls…”

“A sea,” Alexander repeated. “And I think it’s fresh, not like that river.”

Montross nodded. “You’re right. Genghis created an underground Venice. His city, his mausoleum. It’s half-submerged. Instead of a moat on the outside of his castle-city, he built the moat on the inside, an enormous lake, enclosed by forty-foot-high walls.”

Nina scanned the area above the wall where now she could just make out a series of glowing lights, and as her eyes adjusted, shapes appeared: towers and domes, long spires and lonely minarets. She pointed. “I think Caleb’s team made it to the other side at least. Look. Flares.”

“So what happens,” Hiltmeyer asked, “if you blow open the gate?”

Montross scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Out comes the sea?” He glanced left and right, shining his flashlight. High walls in either direction beyond the tunnel from which they’d just arrived. Walls that met other walls of Genghis’s city.

“We drown,” Alexander guessed. “That’s what happens.”

“Back in the boat,” Montross said. “We’ll latch ourselves down.”

“Wait, I’ve got a better idea,” Nina said. She dug into the supplies and pulled out a coil of rope and a grappling hook. “Why not just go over the wall?”

They chose a section of the wall unguarded at the top and Montross climbed up first, followed by Hiltmeyer. Alexander went next, hauled up by Hiltmeyer as Montross supervised.

When he got to the top and clambered over, standing on the five-foot-wide precipice, he felt like he was standing on China’s Great Wall, gazing out into the gloom over an ancient city. His eyes followed a pathway below, bathed in a flickering radiance, a bridge over the sea, winding in a serpentine fashion and branching out into smaller avenues, connecting the various palaces and halls, reaching distant temples and monasteries, which in turn had tributaries joining other domed buildings and structures whose purpose eluded any guesses he could come up with. All around these silent buildings lay the darkness of the subterranean sea. Placid, motionless. Reflecting the towers and domes in the faint light of the scarlet flares burning high above.

In the flickering light, Alexander could only shake his head in wonder. And then he let his roaming eyes focus and follow the length of the wall as it stretched into the shadows and circled around the great city. Across the dismal sea, he could picture his father somewhere on the opposite wall, staring out over the vast gulf of crimson-tinted shadows, over the final resting place of the great Khan, and across to Alexander.

Just hold on, Dad. We’re coming. I’ll find you.

“There,” said Nina, pointing down over the wall. “We can lower ourselves to the walkway.”

“I don’t like the looks of that,” Hiltmeyer said, squinting. Extending from about half-way up on the gate’s interior below, the walkway-thoroughfare was made up of a series of great blocks, connected to each other by short arched bridges. “I’m not psychic like you guys, but I suspect those blocks might fall into the sea when we step on them.”

“And,” voiced Alexander meekly, “maybe there are piranhas in there. Or sharks. I hate sharks.”

Montross shone his light down on the first section, then over the bridge. “If it’s a trap, I don’t see what can be done to avoid it.”

“Unless,” said Nina, “we’re meant to swim.”

Alexander shuddered. “With the piranhas?”

“Or,” she continued, “we bring up the boat, then drop it on this side and just row over to his mausoleum.”

“And just where is this mausoleum supposed to be?” asked Hiltmeyer.

Montross unzipped his pack and reached in for the Emerald Tablet. Took it out and held it up. “Turn off the lights for a second. I want to try something.”

They did, and the bridge went dark while Nina shifted her aim, watching the colonel stiffen in the green radiance.

Alexander’s eyes adjusted, and then he saw something strange. Like a reflection of the tablet itself, something flickering in the distance. It came from a large rounded structure surrounded by immense pillars and defended on all sides by water, except for a lone pathway from the center avenue.

The light — actually a pair of lights — came from a window in the upper reaches of the dome.

“There,” said Montross. “That’s where we’re going. There’s his mausoleum.”

Alexander whispered, “I’m guessing those lights are your keys.”

“It would seem so.” Montross lowered the artifact. “They’re responding to the tablet, I imagine, and to the one around my neck. Now, Alexander. A quick glimpse, and let’s see if old Genghis has any more diabolical tricks up his sleeve.”

At that moment, with Nina’s attention fixed on the distant lights of the mausoleum, Colonel Hiltmeyer took his chance. All his anger, fear and drive for revenge exploded at once. He lunged, striking Nina, roaring into her, gripping her under the shoulders and flipping her over the wall.

Before Alexander even heard the splash, the big colonel had raced past him, leaping for Montross.

A second before it happened, Montross had gotten a flash, a glimpse of Hiltmeyer charging him, bowling him over, grabbing him by the neck.

So late! Usually the visions came long before any such threat of death. But recently, with so many crisscrossing events and track-jumping, the future was being constantly rewritten, and his sight took a hit.

Better late than never, he thought, grunting as Hiltmeyer struck him. He had managed to lift the arm holding the tablet and to grip it tighter. He absorbed the impact, letting Hiltmeyer bash him against the rampart, and then, with one big effort, he brought the tablet down on the colonel’s head.

Not enough force to kill him, but enough to daze him, and with that slight loosening of his grip, Montross slipped around, raising the tablet again for another strike.

Hiltmeyer rolled onto his back, bent his knees and kicked out, catching Montross in the gut and knocking him to the floor. The Ruger had fallen and was kicked across the stones in the melee to where Alexander stood, too shocked to move.

In a flash, Hiltmeyer was on Montross, this time slamming a knee into his stomach and bringing a fist down, hard, against his cheek. Then another to the mouth. Hiltmeyer was an enraged bear, striking again and again and—

— until the shot bellowed through the cavern, echoing across the walls, domes and among pillars.

Hiltmeyer staggered to his feet, then shuffled backward. It looked like he was choking himself, except for the dark liquid streaming from between his fingers. His eyes were open in wide shock, staring into the gloom, to the area above the shaking light held in Alexander’s hand — opposite the hand holding the smoking Ruger.

Which promptly fell, released from trembling fingers.

Montross craned his neck and looked past the swelling on his face. He spit out blood and grinned. “Thanks, kid.”

Hiltmeyer dropped to a seated position, his back thudding against the wall, his head falling forward, hands at his side as the blood continued to pump down the front of his shirt.

“I killed him.” Alexander stared at his open hand as if it belonged to someone else.

Montross stood, wobbling. He picked up the tablet, then snatched up the Ruger, sliding it under his belt. Then, with a glance at Hiltmeyer and a look of newfound respect for Alexander, he went to the wall and scanned the darkness below.

“Flashlight.”

Alexander remained motionless.

“Now, kid! Snap out of it or we’re going to lose her.”

The light bobbled, came over and aimed below. Alexander held it in both hands, still shaking. Montross focused, looking left and right.

“Here!” shouted a voice.

The light sought her out, then found her, clinging to the side of the first block. She looked ragged. Her sleeves were torn. The beam fell on her battered face, illuminating streaks of blood and a patch of her hair ripped away.

She squinted, then with great effort pulled herself up and rolled onto the platform, chest heaving. She held up a hand to ward off the light, and said, “You definitely do not want to fall in.”

She stood, testing her balance, and Alexander and Montross tensed, expecting the block to fall into the waters or to break apart and drag her under. But nothing happened.

“I guess we’re safe on the walkway,” Alexander said.

“Appears so. At least that one,” Montross agreed.

“And,” called Nina, “at least the water’s fine. Drank a gallon of it under there while I fought with something. I don’t know exactly what, but they were slimy, long and had lots of teeth.

Montross eyed the bubbles below. “I think we still want to RV this area, to be sure. And now, thanks to Alexander, we don’t have to worry about getting backstabbed by Mr. Liability over there.”

Alexander hung his head. “Why did I shoot him?” Alexander asked. “When I could’ve shot you?”

Taking his hand away, Montross looked down, meeting Alexander’s grave stare. “I’m sorry kid. I really am. About your mom. About all this. But someday, soon I hope, you’ll see what I’m doing — what I’ve done — and you’ll understand.”

“Never.”

Montross shrugged, and his face darkened before the tablet’s glow lit it up again. “Come on, I’ll lower you down to Nina, and we’ll make our way to the Mausoleum.”

“Where we’ll see my dad?”

“I’m positive of it.”

“What about all these other buildings. These temples, those palaces? All that treasure?” Alexander’s eyes lit up and he licked his lips. The enormity of what he had just done was fading under a renewed boyhood enthusiasm for adventure, overwhelming the onslaught of witnessing so much death. “All that gold must be piled up somewhere in here.”

“If you want to explore and sightsee,” Montross said, “then you come back here with your own annoying kids someday. We’re only here for the keys.”

10

The underground river below the terra cotta army was more like a sewer tunnel system than a river. The water was about knee-deep, and fortunately it was fresh, without a hint of the toxicity of the outside stream.

Cupping some in his palm, Caleb took a tentative drink. A sip, then a hearty swallow. Then he washed off his face as the others saw him and gratefully did the same.

“Keep moving,” Renée ordered. “Unless you want to RV this portion of the tunnel as well. But it seems odd that they would trap the very route just rewarded to us for solving that riddle up there.”

“They’ll booby trap everything,” Phoebe said. “It’s what they do. Sadists.”

Qara made a clicking sound.

“Or,” Caleb said, “they just want to make sure we’re worthy.”

“You’re not,” Qara said quietly. “No one is.”

Renée turned to her, splashing in the cool water. “Then why is this tunnel here?” The radiance from the flashlights reflected off the water, and danced like sunbursts in her eyes. “Why have we gotten this far, if your great Khan didn’t want someone to find him?”

Behind her back, Qara’s wrists worked the straps. Blood dripped into the water, the flesh cut through almost to the bone. Her face bore no expression.

“No,” Renée continued, “our presence here is proof. It was meant to be found. Found, and taken.”

“By you?” Phoebe asked. “I don’t think so. This is just like the Pharos Lighthouse. It was designed to keep out everyone except those with our kinds of abilities. And despite your minor glimpse at our RV session, I don’t think you qualify.”

“We’ll see,” Renée said. “I’m blessed in other ways. Chosen.”

Qara worked her shoulders, pulling, tugging, twisting her fingers back at a nearly impossible angle, getting under the plastic.

Caleb stood by his sister and addressed Renée. “You want these keys, the translation and the tablet. Want it returned to your master. But Marduk’s long gone. And your cult, it’s nothing anymore, is it? So what is this really about?”

Renée smirked. “You have no idea. Once we have those keys, and once we find the—” She stopped herself suddenly, smiled and turned away.

Find the what? Caleb thought. Something else of Marduk’s?

Renée looked back and smirked. “Thoth’s failure will be complete, and all this secrecy and protection will be all for nothing.”

“You’re wrong,” Qara whispered. She separated her hands, snapping through the frayed bonds, then raised her arms over her head in an angelic stance.

She bent her knees, and charged.

Renée felt the Darkhad’s talon-like fingers around her throat before she could free her gun. She fell back into the water, with the Mongolian witch on top of her, choking her, trying to gouge her eyes out. She got a mouthful of icy water and her head struck the bottom, sending up starbursts in her vision. But then, mercifully, the pressure withdrew.

She sat up, shaking her head and coughing. Chang and another soldier had Qara pinned against a wall. Renée pulled out her gun, shook off the water, and aimed. But something hit her hard on the side, spinning her around.

Orlando grabbed the gun. “No!” Then he grunted as a soldier bashed his side with the butt of his rifle. Renée shoved him off and turned back to see that Qara had broken free. She kicked one soldier in the groin and then elbowed Chang in the face, ripped herself free, and ran back for the ladder.

Guns trained on her, but Caleb and Phoebe blocked the way.

“Damn!” Renée hissed, then leapt ahead, pushed between the brother and sister, and fired, just as Qara jumped up the ladder, scaling it like an energized spider monkey. She fired twice, one round hitting the ladder, the other causing a sharp cry from Qara. But the Darkhad still pulled herself up and out.

Renée chased her. You are not getting away. She had a flash of a vision, maybe something psychic — or just her imagination. A brief clip of Qara hiding up above, somewhere in the tunnels, and firing on her as she returned with the keys.

Not going to happen.

Renée hauled herself up, dove and rolled, bringing out the flashlight in her left hand, the .45 in her right, sweeping the beam around in a tight circle around the opening.

A legion of blank-faced white-eyed warriors glared at her in the light, swords and shields glinting, horse’s rearing.

Then, a glimpse, legs scuttling back by the water’s edge.

Renée settled the flashlight, sighted, and fired.

Qara stood up, back arched. Knee-deep in the mercury-river, she staggered ahead. Turned, her mouth open in a silent curse.

Renée shot her again.

Qara jerked back. Fell, and was swallowed up by the water.

The flashlight beam played over the rippling silver surface until the bubbles stopped, then pulled away. Good riddance.

Renée turned back to the tunnel entrance, and with twenty thousand eyes watching her in the darkness, she descended. She re-entered the tunnel, and amidst the silent stares of her men, and the desperate eyes of her prisoners, she marched ahead.

She thought about calling Robert Gregory, informing him that she was close, but was doubtful certain communications would even work this far down. And besides, he had unwavering faith in her. She wouldn’t fail. He was surely headed for the Sphinx even now, trusting she’d be there as soon as her mission had been accomplished.

Soon, the ancient box would open and the books would be theirs. And once the senator had found the other artifact, they, with the Emerald Tablet, would be unstoppable.

They would hold the power to fulfill their long-awaited destiny.

11

Alexander dropped to the platform first, lowered by Montross who jumped next, letting go of the rope. Brushing himself off, Alexander looked out over the Khan’s necropolis. Bathed in sickly light from the half-dozen flares, the minarets appeared to sway and bend in the mix of shadows and crimson haze while the domed temples swelled to enormous size.

Alexander peered over the side, took a flashlight and aimed it down. He could see flashes of wickedly sharp protrusions like narrow teeth, and suddenly, as if drawn to the light, four eel-like creatures, sinewy and sleek with eyes on stalks and razor-sharp teeth, drew close to the surface, snapping at the light.

“What’s down there?” Montross asked.

Nina gripped Alexander’s arm and pulled him back. “Something nasty. Stay away from the edge.” She took Montross’s pack and pulled out a roll of gauze tape, and set about bandaging the wounds on her arm.

Alexander watched in fascination as she then replaced the wet dressings on the arrow hole in her shoulder, all without wincing. “That looks gross.”

She shook her wet hair as she finished, then stood up and went to work on her Beretta. She ejected the magazine, resupplied the bullets and fit it back in place. “So, what happened to the colonel?”

Alexander shrank back, lowering his eyes as Montross said, “Our boy here bagged his first kill.”

“Seriously?” Nina stared at him, nonplussed. “Impressive. Now, can we go?”

“Not just yet,” Montross said. He surveyed the city, sweeping his light over the nearest bridges, the sparkling water, the marble pathways leading through arches and tunnels. After finding the route to the mausoleum, he said, “I think we might have more to fear.”

“These walkways,” Alexander whispered. “They can drop. I’ve seen it.”

“Me too.” Montross approached Nina. “And I’ve seen something else. Something I would not have survived. We would not have survived.”

“When? Where?” Nina glanced around, gun ready.

“Later. This whole area is a trap, but it won’t be sprung until we take the keys.”

“So we’re fine until the mausoleum?”

“Yes, but this is good. Perfect in fact.” He leaned in close to Nina, and Alexander strained to hear what he said.

“I need you to do something for me,” Montross whispered. “Something crucial.”

She turned her eyes to his; their lips were an inch apart. “Anything.”

“When the time comes, I need you to die.”

Alexander wasn’t sure if he heard that right, but in any case they were soon walking ahead of him, making plans, and leaving him to himself. It wasn’t like he could run anywhere, so he followed dutifully, occasionally looking back over his shoulder, half-expecting Colonel Hiltmeyer to come loping along out of the shadows, zombie-like, to grab him and haul him over the side into those submerged spikes and make him food for the eels.

Shuddering, he rubbed his hands together, staring at his right hand. The one that had pulled the trigger. He almost stumbled on the rise of an arched bridge just as something broke the surface underneath, snapping at the air. He passed by other branching pathways and bridges covered in sloping oriental-style rooftops. Here and there statues of warriors atop great steeds stood as the centerpieces of fountains, where the only movement came from swarming things under the water.

He swept the light across each statue’s face that they passed and saw the same visage in each: it was him. Temujin. Genghis Khan. He was watching their approach, watching from every angle, every building and every column. Watching with the haughty scorn of one who knew he’d still have the last laugh.

Alexander passed a magnificent temple, with open doors beckoning beyond a façade of marble columns. Was there something glinting inside, catching the glow from his flashlight? Was that part of the treasure inside there? He shone the light to his left side now, spearing it into the open base of a tower whose tip graced the cavern’s ceiling high above, right beside a sputtering flare. Inside the minaret, another statue, and eyes reflecting back a look of hatred and recrimination.

Murderer, they said, and Alexander shuddered again.

It was his fault. Not just Hiltmeyer, but worse. His mother. She was gone because of him. He never told her, never hinted about what he was doing in their basement. So loyal to his father, he had made promises. And then she had come down, totally unprepared. It should have been Montross and him burnt to a crisp.

But instead, his mother was gone. The guilt was crushing, weighing him down.

When he turned, he discovered he had lost track of Montross and Nina. They were somewhere up ahead, lost in the deepening shadows.

But which path? He saw their lights, bobbing there to the side, approaching the mausoleum, which seemed larger now, more immense than he could have guessed. But he couldn’t find the path they had taken.

He was about to call out when something trembled again from the interior archway of the nearest tower. A glowing shape flickered, and for a moment it took on a familiar form. He turned, stepped onto a cobbled walkway, different from the others, then proceeded over a bridge. His flashlight cut through the shadows ahead, spearing through the arched corridor. His footsteps quickened, along with his pulse.

And then he was through the tunnel, approaching the tower’s base and heading for a white-robed figure standing there. Her dress caught in the flashlight’s beam, scattered it like a swarm of fireflies. Her face was lost in a blur of blinding light, but her arms, formerly at her side, stretched out for him.

He skidded to a stop, only ten feet away. Shielded his eyes and flicked off the flashlight. “Mom?”

He blinked over and over and rubbed his eyes. Took a step forward and in a moment of clarity he saw her face, saw her shining green eyes and playful smile. The smile she always had ready for him after a summer away with his father, a smile that released all the heartache and fear she had endured in his absence, letting it all out before a huge bear-hugging embrace.

You’re not alone, she whispered, and the words echoed in his mind.

But then, as he reached for her—

“Alexander!”

An iron hand clasped upon his shoulder and drew him back. He cried out, reaching, only to have the image of his mother burst into flames, swirl into a maelstrom of light, and then vanish.

“No!”

He was spun around, tucked into a chest and hugged. “Easy, kid. There’s nothing there. You’re safe.”

“Mom…”

Montross pulled away, but still clasped him about the shoulders, searching his eyes. “You saw your mother?”

Tears rambling down his cheeks, Alexander nodded and glanced back to the shadows in the empty doorway. Montross aimed his light there and Nina, just arriving, did the same. She walked ahead and scoped out the interior, shining a light above and around. She turned, shook her head.

“She was there,” Alexander said.

“I believe you. At least that you saw her.” Montross pulled him back. “Don’t fight it. Visions of our lost loved ones come with the psychic membership card.”

Alexander wiped his eyes.

“Come on, kid. Sorry we lost you back there. Stick close this time.” Montross stared into his eyes. “We’re almost done. Just help us out a little longer, okay?”

Alexander hung his head. Then raised his eyes and looked around the city basking in the dying light. “Are you sure we’ll make it out of here alive? With my dad?”

“Not sure of anything, kid. Except what happens to me. But I’ll tell you this, stick close to me and you’ll be all right, because I’ve seen every permutation of what’s coming my way. You remember asking how many times I’ve beaten Death?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, remember that. I can outsmart it over and over, all these petty attempts upon my life. These little ones I’m not worried about.”

Alexander frowned. “Then what are you worried about? If you can see everything that might kill you, what do you need the Emerald Tablet for? What—?” His eyes widened knowingly. “Oh, is it something else, like cancer? Is that it?”

Montross held up his hand as he started back the way they had come, with Nina moving Alexander along. “It’s not cancer.”

“You told me I wouldn’t understand.”

“That’s right.”

“I bet I would. I want to know.” Alexander fiddled with his flashlight as he dragged his feet behind Montross. “I saved your life, by the way. Did you see that before it happened?”

“Nope,” he said. “Most likely because you were already on the path to save me, so I didn’t need to change anything.”

“Still, I saved you. The least you can do is tell me why. What it is you’re trying to do, why—” He stopped moving, and Nina walked right into him, almost knocking him down. “Why is my mother dead? Tell me that much.”

Montross turned and gave him a look of tired sympathy.

“I can’t tell you because if I did, you couldn’t handle it. I need you sharp. And if I tell you, you won’t be able to function. Fear would crush your confidence, and your abilities would wither away to uselessness.”

Alexander shook his head. “Fine, then. I’ll guess.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“All right, I won’t guess. I’ll view it. For real.” He stopped and closed his eyes, furrowed his brow.

But then Nina slapped his face, hard. “No! Stay with us. No more trances until we get to the mausoleum.”

She shoved him along, grumbling, but he knew he’d hit a nerve, and he knew they were afraid. Afraid he could see their plans.

And that filled him with just enough confidence to try.

They approached the centerpiece of the city, the grand blue-tinted dome situated over an octagonal building the size of a football field. So immense, Nina could scarcely imagine what it contained, or how it had been fashioned down here, so far from the light. Such a feat of marvelous engineering. Like everything in this city. But already she knew one thing for sure would be inside, besides the body of Genghis Khan.

If Montross’s plan didn’t work, her body would soon be joining his.

Still, she was grateful his attention had been diverted from questioning his past, but she knew he’d come back to it soon. It was a secret she couldn’t keep from him much longer.

As if he had read her mind, Montross slowed before the entranceway, then turned. He held up the Emerald Tablet so the eight-foot-tall arched door glowed in the aquamarine radiance. An ancient script appeared, scrawled over the top like a rainbow. But he ignored it. Instead, he sat, pulled out his pad of paper from his pack, set the tablet down and picked up a pencil.

“Sketch time. Alexander, you may want to join me. Nina, pick one of us to tag along with. We’ve got some targets to view and a little time before my brother shows his face.”

Nina gasped, and Alexander just frowned. “Your brother?”

Montross smiled at him. “I’m just going in to confirm it now, but given Nina’s reaction and my sudden affinity for you, kid, I’m fairly certain I’m your uncle. Half-uncle at least.”

Nina lowered her head. “I–I wanted to wait till I was sure.”

Alexander froze wide-eyed. “I’ve been dreaming about brothers. Before a door under that Sphinx thing. And one of them—”

Montross’s face lit up. “Yes…?”

“One brother,” Alexander said, “can open the door with the right keys.”

“Now I know,” Montross said with a wide grin. “My father… I was so blind, not realizing I had a higher connection to all this.”

“So that’s why you’re psychic,” Alexander said excitedly. “Like my father and me.”

“And one more,” said Nina. “A third brother. My guess is he’s the one pulling the FBI’s strings in this venture.”

Montross nodded. “I’ll check it out, now that I know the right questions to ask. Meanwhile, you and Alexander need to figure out this door.” He closed his eyes, lowered his head, and grabbed his pencil.

And Nina sat beside Alexander. She took his hand, which he offered now with little resistance, his mind still processing Montross’s revelation. She closed her eyes and tapped into Alexander’s thoughts, opening to his visions, guiding him to the door, but not quite yet.

There were other things that she needed to see first.

12

Caleb and Phoebe helped Orlando up, pulling him away from Commander Chang and the other soldiers. They were just recovering when they heard the two gunshots echoing through the access tunnel.

Phoebe stopped what she was doing. “Uh oh.”

Holding his side, Orlando coughed and spit up blood. “I think I just got my ass kicked for nothing. I’m sorry.”

Caleb waited, and then his heart sank when he saw Renée climb back down the ladder.

“I think,” Phoebe whispered, “you should have taken that chance up there.”

“What chance?” Orlando asked.

Caleb was holding his head. “Qara wanted me to set off the warriors when I reached you. If I had acted, she might still be alive.”

“Ah.” Orlando combed back his hair. “Well, I’m inclined to thank you for your restraint. Not sure if I was up for dodging arrows.”

“Move,” Renée ordered, motioning with her gun. “I’m not wasting any more time with fanatics. Or psychics.”

Caleb started splashing ahead. “You seem to be forgetting who got you this far.”

“And you’re forgetting who has the weapons.”

“Oh, you won’t let us forget that.” Leading his sister and Orlando, Caleb waded cautiously ahead, with small steps. “Phoebe,” he whispered. “Can you see anything? Orlando? How about you? Are we good here?”

“Far as I could tell,” Orlando said, “the path was the only thing I saw. Just follow along and we should be copasetic until the end.”

“Phoebe?” He looked back and saw, with some surprise, that his sister and Orlando were holding hands.

“Hang on,” she said and closed her eyes. Cocked her head, then peered out. “All clear. But at the end, like Orlando said, there’s something. We go up, and there’s a portal. And beyond that I see something bad. Blood, a lot of it. Death.”

“Ours?” Orlando asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Traps?” Renée asked, right beside them now.

“No. Not that I can see. Although, I’m not sure how the portal opens.”

“Maybe we need Qara,” Orlando suggested.

“Well,” said Renée, “that option’s no longer available to us. You’ll get us in, or we blow it open.”

“Not too smart,” Caleb said. “Unless you want a cave-in.”

“I’m confident you’ll figure it out. Now move.”

After nearly thirty minutes of trudging through water that gradually numbed their feet, the cold traveling up their legs, they rounded a bend and came to a complete dead end. Just a blank wall.

One soldier approached cautiously, then abruptly disappeared. Lights blasted at his last location and they highlighted his escaping air and submerged body, thrashing as he sank into the murky depths.

“Gone,” Chang whispered, standing at the end of a rounded pit in the floor, shining the light down into the pool. “I see no bottom.”

All the flashlight beams then turned up, converging on a rounded, twenty-foot-wide barrier, a circular door above the pit. The center was a pure black onyx material that absorbed the light. The outside frame was an exotic marble structure etched with more script all the way around.

Orlando whispered. “Anyone watch Stargate?”

“Huh?” Renée asked.

“Never mind. But since you killed our translator, what do we do?”

“Stand back.” Renée said. “Chang, set the C-4.”

“But we cannot reach door. Nothing to stand on.”

“Then position it carefully as far in as you can. We’ll blow the area around it.”

Caleb shook his head. “Wait, give us a chance.” He was shining his light about the corridor, checking the ceiling, the walls, even stabbing it into the water, looking for switches or levers.

“Hurry,” Renée said. “You’ve got until the charges are set.” She glanced at Chang, who was busy with their packs, assembling the explosives.

“Ten minutes.”

Renée crossed her arms and nodded to Caleb and Phoebe. “You heard the man. Do your stuff in ten minutes, or I do it my way.”

Phoebe pulled Orlando closer to her, took both his hands and got up on her tippy-toes to whisper in his ear. “We’ve got to cover for Caleb, so let’s do this.”

“A little hard to concentrate,” he said, “with you so close. My thoughts are kind of running amok.”

“They can run amok later. The door. Now. How do we open it? Think about nothing else.” She withdrew her lips from his ear.

“Easier said than done.”

She closed her eyes as Caleb splashed over to them. “Give it a try, big brother. Whatever comes.”

“All right.”

But that was all she heard, as the surroundings melted away and the water around her feet dried up….

“It is ready, my lord Ogadai.”

A man stands in the shadows behind the smoking torches.

“The markings around the door…”

“As you instructed, master. The scribes have written the curses your father chose. The usual horrors to be visited on any who choose to violate the mausoleum beyond.”

“And the door, once set?”

“Can be opened only from the other side.”

“And only when Temujin rises.”

The man nods. “For he will need a way out, should life be restored.”

“Pray,” said Ogadai, “that his spirit prefers the next world to this one. But if not, at least his city awaits. He may rule here as he wishes.” He lowers his head. “Seal the door, and let us depart.”

Phoebe’s eyes bolted open, and she stared at Orlando.

“Crap,” Orlando said. “I didn’t see anything about the way in from this side.” He nodded grudgingly to Renée. “You’re going to need to blow it open.”

“Unless,” said Phoebe, “Montross is already up there.”

13

Nina was pulled out of the vision too soon, hearing a rumbling, grinding sound that made the very floor shake and dust fall on her from overhead.

But she had been there, in that other vision again…

… somewhere so very high up, an impression of being inside the eyes of a giant, a colossus wading into the sea. Looking down over churning waves and boats of all sizes traveling below.

Her arm hurts, as if struggling to keep something raised high.

And then she senses two children, as if perched on her head, clinging to her hair, staring down in awe and excitement.

And then she was ripped out of it and saw Alexander standing a little wobbly as he pulled his hand away.

“The door,” he whispered. “It’s already open.”

Nina stood before the mausoleum entrance. She held her head, dizzy, and glanced around. “Where’s Montross?”

Set in the walls, across each of the eight sides of the chamber, hooded brass lamps came on, their lights dim in the glare of the flashlights.

“Turn off your lights,” came Montross’s voice.

Behind him, Nina and Alexander switched off their flashlights. Oil lamps, set in horizontal runners, sparked to life, flickering and then illuminating a cathedral-like interior with a high apex at the crest of the dome overhead.

“Wow,” Alexander said. “Freakin’ wow.”

The glow extended and the chamber began to breathe a sound like an exhalation, as if a giant had been holding his breath for centuries and only now let it escape. Everything scintillated with gold; it was plated onto the floor, pounded into the walls, ringing the base of the dome. In marvelous artistic design, beautiful tiles created the shapes of zoological creatures, familiar species and some far more fanciful beasts, all composed of gold, with gems for eyes. They crawled across the floor, scaled the walls, bridged the gap and stretched onto the dome above. Sapphires and rubies blinked in the spreading dawn, and night-black mouths yawned. Oxen frolicked with elephants, reindeer with tigers. Polar bears swam in the night sky over giant scorpions while centaurs rode the backs of sea turtles and gryphons carried immense spiders in their talons.

“Look at that,” Alexander said, pointing here, then there, walking around open-mouthed. “I guess some of the treasure’s right here.” He hadn’t gotten his fill of the designs and the artwork yet when the centerpiece of the otherwise barren chamber caught his eye and held it fast. An interior tower, a minaret without doors, windows or stairs of any kind, stood in the center of the room like a rocket in a silo. It was plated with gold, ringed in silver highlights like stars in a golden night sky. But at its top, just below the domed roof and level with the sole open window, was a flat surface. A plateau instead of a point, supporting what looked like a coffin made of dazzling gold and surrounded by nine banners. But from this angle, it wasn’t possible to see if the lid was open or closed.

“We’ve found it,” Montross said. He still held his sketchpad in one hand, the Emerald Tablet in the other.

Nina caught her breath. “How did you get in?”

Montross’s gaze remained fixed on the pedestal. “I just opened the door.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t locked.”

“Then why did you—?”

“Have you focused on it? Frankly, I wanted you thinking about something else. Clearly Alexander’s mind is still elsewhere. With you assisting, I figured you might learn something that could help us later on.” He turned now, lowered his head and fixed her with his steely blue eyes. “So, did you?”

“I saw something.” Nina shook her head, but pulled her eyes away and looked at Alexander. “I don’t understand it yet.”

Montross pointed to Alexander. “What about you, nephew?”

Alexander shrugged, still blinking at all the gold. “I don’t know. I just got this weird feeling of height. Like I’m floating or flying. And there are these two kids.”

Montross tilted his head. “Interesting.” He gave Nina a long look, uncertainty and distrust flashing in his eyes. Then he continued to the base of the narrow tower and looked up.

“Wait.” Alexander pointed to Montross’s sketch pad. “What did you draw?”

Montross tore off a sheet of paper, folded it four times and then, after putting his pad back in this pack over his shoulder, gave it to Alexander. “Look at that later.”

Alexander reluctantly put it in his pocket. “When?”

“You’ll know when.” He sighed and returned his attention to the tower and the crypt at the top. “Why don’t you two figure out how we get up there?”

Nina glanced around, scouting out the walls and the floor, looking for anything out of place. “There’s got to be something that would lift us up there.”

“Or,” said Alexander thoughtfully, “bring it down here.”

Montross clapped his hands. “Now that sounds more like it.” He considered the walls, the dome, thinking. But Alexander was ahead of him.

“The animals,” he said, pointing to the base around the minaret. He turned on his flashlight again to get a better look. “The creatures nearest the tower? In the first row, they’re all set up inside circles, see? And I noticed when I stepped on this dragon-creature here, the floor dropped slightly, and I heard a click.”

He stepped away, and it slowly rose back up with his weight off it. “See?”

“We see,” Nina said, turning on her light and shining it around the other animals, then to the walls. “You look for those stepping stones, I’ll look for the traps that waste you when you step on them in the wrong order.”

Montross stepped back, watching his footing. He thought for a moment, and then set down the Emerald Tablet, pulled out his necklace, so it dangled down his chest. It seemed to be vibrating, tugging alternately between the floor and its brothers, higher above. “We’re almost there. Hurry.”

He closed his eyes and winced. Held his head as he shook it. “Still there, damn it. Still there.”

“What?” Alexander asked, distracted as he moved around the tower.

Montross trembled, then waved a dismissive hand. “Something in the future.”

Alexander poked his head around the tower, then disappeared again. “Is it where you’re killed?”

“Of course. But this one in particular, this death…” Montross was still shaking his head. “It’s not cleared yet. I had hoped it would be, just by getting this far, but now it seems there’s more to do. It won’t be enough to find all the keys. We have to use them somehow.”

“I got it!” Alexander yelled. In a few seconds he appeared again. “At least, I think I do.”

“Do you or don’t you?” Nina snipped. “Did you RV it? Because if not, I’d rather you didn’t guess.”

“I didn’t, but I don’t think I need to. Look,” he insisted, “I might not have seen all the clues back at our lighthouse, but it’s like it was made for a young boy. A kid like me.”

“How so?”

“The animals, there are nine “normal” ones. You know, a monkey, a giraffe, a horse and a rhino.”

“Yes, normal,” Nina said, “if you’re in the zoo.”

“Well, normal compared to three creatures that I’d say don’t belong.”

“Three?” Montross perked up.

“Yup.” Alexander rubbed his hands. “See, it’s also almost as if he knew we’d be coming, and that there would be three of us. Just like the three keys.”

“Or,” said Montross, “he knew it would take a different form of three to do what has to be done after gaining these keys.”

“The three brothers,” Nina whispered. “So where are these three special creatures?”

Alexander shrugged. “Well, there’s the dragon, which I already found. And then there’s a gryphon and a centaur.” He looked up sharply. “Hm. So, if they’re supposed to represent the brothers, I wonder which one you are? And which one’s my dad?”

Montross smiled. “Well, since I’m the only one here, I’m picking the one I like.” He circled around until he found the centaur and stood on it. “Nina, be so kind as to set your feet upon the gryphon. And Alexander?”

“The dragon, I know.”

“So we’re sure about this?” Nina asked, standing outside the boundary of the gryphon, its forepaws raised up in attack, its jaws wide.

“Sure about nothing,” Montross said, “except that I don’t die in the next few hours. If this doesn’t bring down Genghis Khan, then we’ll need to think of something else.”

“But what about me?” Alexander asked, suddenly shivering. “Will I die?”

Montross shrugged. “No, only one of us will, and very soon.” He shot a glance to Nina.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Ready for this too.” She took a step, then brought both feet onto the gryphon’s body. It dropped, then all three circular stones turned.

Suddenly, they were all facing outward, and there was a wind, a rush of air — and all the lights went out except their two flashlights.

The main door slammed shut and something slid across it with a grating sound.

The tower rumbled and shook. Then it began to lower into the floor.

They ducked and winced, afraid of being hit by some kind of protrusion as the tower descended. It fell with incredible speed, grinding through the hole.

Shielding his eyes, Montross looked up, keeping his attention on the golden centerpiece as it roared down to their level.

I hope it stops, he thought, just as the entire structure jarred to a thundering halt. About six feet of structure remained, six feet of the tower structure until the apex upon which lay the glorious funeral barge under an open tent of white cloth. The coffin itself was more like a curved boat, carved with circles and sun-wheels and crescent moons, but no text.

As for the body that lay regally upon it, all Montross could see from this angle was an array of extravagant silk coverings and the shadowy silhouette of armor made of leather and fur, a helmet containing a grizzled face gazing skyward.

On the side he was facing, he saw three vertical indentations. Footholds.

“Nina. Now’s the time. Take your position.”

“Can we step off the circles?”

“I believe so.”

“Let’s try,” Alexander said, moving off it. In a moment, he and Nina were together with Montross.

“It’s not rising,” Nina said.

Montross set one foot in the lowest groove. “It doesn’t appear so. Maybe it was only designed to descend once. But one thing is for certain. Come with me, Alexander.” He pulled himself up to the second rung, then reached out a hand to the boy.

“I’m not going up there.”

“Yes you are. And I’ll tell you the one thing I have seen for certain.”

Alexander took his hand, and Montross pulled him up. “When I take these keys, when I lift the body of the great Genghis Khan to retrieve them, a door will open and we’ll see your father again. Along with a lot of trigger-happy soldiers.”

Nina walked away, into the deeper shadows against the farthest wall, taking from her pack the sniper rifle and night-vision scope.

And a lot of ammo.

14

“Look out!” Phoebe yelled, pulling Orlando back as Caleb leapt out of the way, amazed. The door suddenly burst apart in a blur as something immense dropped into the chasm. And kept dropping. The noise was deafening. Some of the soldiers turned and fled, believing at last the curse of Genghis Khan had caught up with them.

“What the hell?” Renée yelled, her voice barely audible over the cacophonic sound. She splashed backwards through water that was swiftly rising.

“Oh no!” Caleb shouted. “The cylinder. It’s displacing the water from the tunnel.”

Phoebe fought a wave that had risen almost to her shoulders.” Displacing it onto us!”

Orlando reached out and caught her hand, just as Caleb grabbed his collar. They stood fast against the swirling waters rising up to their chins, and Caleb immediately had a flashback to the room under the Pharos.

Stop!

As if on cue, the corridor rocked and jarred with a thud as the cylinder seemed to have hit bottom. Pebbles and dirt dropped from the edges on the ceiling, and the rounded portion of the block in front of them trembled. And as the lights above the water aimed at it, something appeared. An outline.

“A door!” Renée said, pointing.

It shook, trembled again, and then the rectangular section opened, sliding upward and letting in the water.

“It’s draining,” Caleb said, dropping after trying to stand on his toes. He directed his light into the opening. There was a ladder of sorts, but the rest of the wide cylinder looked like the interior of a hollow tunnel, sucking in the water down into its base.

Renée splashed forward first and shone a light inside and then up. “Stairs rising in a spiral. Only one direction, so at least we don’t have to make any more choices.”

“What’s up there?” Chang asked, getting closer, shaking the water out of his gun.

“Would you believe,” said Renée, “another door?”

Alexander climbed up after Montross and he stood in the only spot left, right between the body’s feet. “What are you doing?” he whispered, shining his light up to where Montross was fumbling with something around the corpse’s head.

The corpse…

Alexander shuddered, squeezing his legs together and trying not to touch anything, not even to brush against any part of the body.

“Just wait,” Montross said. Then as Alexander’s light reached him he snapped, “And shut that off!”

Alexander flicked off the light. But not before it had flashed onto the face under the helmet. Alexander had seen mummy movies before and read his share of archeological articles with photos showing unearthed Incan kings and Egyptian burials, where they’d peeled off the funeral masks and revealed the leathery, grizzled faces, the sunken eye-sockets, the browning flesh, the long teeth and hair that had continued to grow. This face was similar, and yet more regal, more peaceful. He’s held up pretty good down here, Alexander thought as he shut off the light.

And then the eye sockets began to glow with a green aura. Temujin’s entire face seemed to pulse with light flickering from within the eyes and seeping out from between his mummified lips, from the cracked teeth still set in the dried gums retreating in a wide smile.

“Damn,” said Montross, whose necklace with its pyramidal stone glowed and pulsed to an unheard heartbeat. “Looks like the keys are in his head.”

Alexander bent forward and tried to look into the mouth, but couldn’t see anything down in the throat. It seemed more like the light pulsed from higher, behind the eyes. “They may have drilled into the back of his skull. Saw that in a National Geographic special once.”

Montross held the tablet in his left hand, then set it on Genghis Khan’s chest, over the folded arms. “Here, hold this a sec, Genghis. Sorry, but I’ve got to lift you up.”

“Wait,” said Alexander. “I think there might be another trap.”

Montross pulled up the body by its shoulders. “I know,” he said as a lever, previously kept down by the weight of the Khan’s body, now rose, making a grinding sound as if gears somewhere were turning, spinning.

Opening a door beneath them.

“Nina!” Montross yelled to her out in the darkness, beyond the emerald glow. “It’s time.”

“Go!”

Caleb heard Renée shout, and then the men were rushing up the spiral steps and bursting out of the newly opened doorway. The interior section had suddenly shaken and made a shrill scraping sound before it separated and descended, hauled below by inner gear works triggered by something above.

All the soldiers ran through, their flashlights secured to their weapons, their heads down. Then Renée went up — after first hesitating. Probably waiting for the screams, Caleb thought. He couldn’t believe she had them just rush in. Getting desperate?

Only Chang had stayed behind, and he promptly jabbed Caleb in the back. “Move. You three. Now—”

But that’s when the automatic gunfire started, and the echoes of screaming men tore through the entrance and into the empty tower.

Alexander cringed and tucked himself into a ball, right on the edge of the funeral platform next to the great Khan’s legs, and right in front of those glowing eyes. Eyes in a head lolling forward with Montross’s less-than-ceremonial treatment. A head shaking side to side in violent denial as Montross rooted around within the hollowed-out hole in the back of the corpse’s skull and dug out his prizes.

Gunshots. Men crying out. Swift, precise death zipped across at the soldiers. Nine men stumbled about with crisscrossing flashlight beams and automatic gunfire erupting chaotically. Everyone trying to find out who was shooting at them. Alexander ducked lower and toppled sideways as a shot zipped past and took out a chunk out of the Khan’s shoulder, exploding powdery flesh into his eyes. He crunched into an embrace with the body, screamed and then felt Montross’s arm around his back, his body in front of him protectively.

He shouted something lost in the gun blasts.

Alexander glanced over the side and saw another flashlight beam spin around, then crash onto the floor as its wielder fell. Another scream and a soldier was thrown back against the stairs Alexander had just climbed, blood spraying from a punctured skull. Alexander had a sudden moment’s fear that all Genghis needed to be reawakened was human blood.

But nothing moved, no life stirred in his bones, no heartbeat throbbed in the chest pressed against Alexander’s ear.

Another scream, then more gunshots, this time concentrated toward one section. “There!” Someone yelled. A woman’s voice. Followed by a single-fire weapon, blasting off round after round.

Another scream. Alexander cringed. That sounded like Nina.

She’s been hit!

“Stay low,” Montross said as he pulled free, stood and withdrew the Ruger from his waist. He aimed and fired at the one soldier in view, taking him down. Then he turned and froze in the beams of light immediately brought to his location.

“Drop it!” someone yelled with a thick Chinese accent.

And Alexander could see the lights blasting into Montross’s eyes, blinding him. He lifted his gun and his other hand to ward off the light.

And then someone was climbing, rustling up the steps behind him, standing over him and snatching the gun from Montross in one quick movement. Then Montross was grabbed and hurled to the mausoleum floor.

A woman wearing a thick black vest and a shiny gold badge turned to Alexander, where he was still locked in a death-embrace with the great Mongolian conqueror.

“Oh, Caleb!” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve found your boy.”

Caleb ran out into the mausoleum, stepping around the soldiers lying in bloody piles, their skulls expertly perforated. He turned to the sound of Renée’s voice and ran to Alexander, scooping him up before the boy even took the last step down from the crypt.

“Dad!” Alexander leapt into his father’s embrace and clutched him tight.

Caleb hugged him tighter and made room for Phoebe, who had run behind him and added her arms to their reunion hug.

“And this,” said Renée, standing over a kneeling man, “must be Xavier Montross.” She pointed the .45 at the center of his forehead. “Now, give me what you took from him.”

Montross ignored her, instead smiling over to Caleb. His white teeth glittered in the light from Chang’s flashlight. His red hair had fallen, sweaty, over his left eye.

“Hello, brother.”

Nina heard them talking, barely, over the pulse thundering in her ears. She lay perfectly still, her limbs splayed, her neck and shoulders supported by the wall. She had done her part the best she could. Leaving a lone flashlight against the wall ten feet away, then firing from a distance using the night-vision scope, she had taken out seven of them. All but two, and the woman who had emerged last. The FBI agent had seen the light finally, after all the chaos, and fired at it repeatedly. Nina let out a shrill scream, and let herself tumble that way. Hoping it would fool them.

She was aware of two lights falling on her, dancing across her face, her body. If they don’t see enough blood, I may draw some more fire. But then Montross, God bless him, had drawn their attention away, shooting one of them. Nina hoped it was that bitch, but soon enough she heard the woman’s voice.

They had captured Montross and Alexander.

But in another moment, still playing dead, she had to stifle a smile when she heard another voice. Caleb Crowe. Still alive.

Good, she thought. We still have a score to settle.

Brother? Caleb gaped at him. Then turned to Alexander, pulled away and looked at him, then Phoebe.

“It’s true,” Alexander said. “I saw it. Grandpa and another woman. Before grandma.”

“One big happy reunion,” Montross said, grinning. “I told you, didn’t I? That we’d see each other again, at the Mausoleum?”

Phoebe choked on a breath. “Then you’re also my—”

Montross nodded. “Hi, sis.”

Caleb turned to him. “A brother you might be,”—he clenched his fists, approaching—“but you’re still a killer.”

“Back off,” said Renée. “As interesting as all this is, let’s first relieve Mr. Montross of this.” She snatched the necklace from his neck, then struck him across the face with the butt of her gun. He moaned and opened his right hand.

“And these,” Renée continued, grabbing the two glowing triangular pieces from his palm. Chang emerged behind her, stepping down from the crypt. He held the Emerald Tablet in his hands like it was a piece of expensive glass.

“Put it in its case,” she whispered, hungrily eying the artifact.

Chang nodded and opened the pack over his shoulder, retrieving a stainless steel briefcase. He popped open the lid, revealing a black foam interior with one large rectangular indentation and custom slots for three smaller objects.

“So that’s it?” Orlando asked. “We come all this way. You cause all these deaths. We find him, and that’s it? You take the keys?” He looked over his shoulder, shining the light on the armor-clad, silk-covered Mongol corpse. “What now?”

Chang offered Renée the open case, where the Emerald Tablet pulsed intently as if aware of its impending confinement and uncertain use. Keeping the gun pointed at Montross, Renée set the stones inside the case and then had him close it and set it by her side.

“What now?” she said, repeating Orlando’s question. “What now, is I—”

Something creaked, and a gasping sound echoed in the room.

Genghis Khan shifted. Phoebe screamed and Alexander jumped back, clutching at her. The corpse turned to them and Chang’s flashlight, which he had desperately snatched back up, caught the mummified face — the hollow eyes, the grinning mouth — as it descended, slowly. Reclining again. Depressing the lever.

“Uh oh,” Montross said through a mouthful of blood, grinning. “Here comes trouble.”

Caleb turned to the new sound of moving blocks grinding against the floor. And then a rushing, bubbling noise. He aimed his light and saw the source. About a foot off the ground, the gap left by a single missing block, too small for anyone to squeeze through, had opened in the wall. Eight other holes also appeared, one in each wall, simultaneously and were now letting in the water.

Letting it in, and filling up the mausoleum.

“No problem,” Orlando said, heading for the door in the tower. “Just back into here before it might happen to close again.”

“Wait!” Renée backed away from Montross, heading for the door.

Caleb looked between them, seeing something out of place: a body crumpled against the far wall. In the shadows, he couldn’t tell, but it looked familiar.

Nina?

He closed his eyes for a moment, not sure why he felt what he did. After all, she had tried to kill them. He wasn’t sure, but he felt remorse. And a little curiosity. But Montross didn’t seem worried. He checked him out, his new brother, and saw the red-haired man still kneeling there, apparently at ease.

He knows something.

“Nobody moves,” Renée ordered as she scooped up the briefcase. “And now, Commander, the detonator for the C4, if you please.”

Chang handed the small remote to her, somewhat reluctantly, searching her eyes. “It’s all set below, activated by that trigger. What are you doing?”

She motioned to Montross. “Tying up loose ends. No need for further bloodshed when the water can cleanse this situation for us.”

Chang nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

“But maybe,” said Renée, “we should pay Mr. Montross back for his attack on your men. Go ahead, Commander.”

“With much pleasure.” Chang approached the kneeling man and lifted his gun.

“No,” Alexander cried, and Caleb stepped forward as Chang aimed. As much as he’d dreamt of revenge, his visions — his only visions in the last two days — had been of Lydia. Of her calling out to him, not for retribution, but for understanding.

He was about to call out to Renée to stop when he noticed that Montross still seemed unconcerned, a smile even tugging at his lips as Chang leveled the weapon at him. A slight movement caught his eye, and Caleb realized Renée had just shifted her aim.

A gunshot.

Caleb lurched backward, out of the way of the Chinese commander Renée had just shot in the back of the head. Chang fell face-first into three inches of rising water and lay still.

Orlando put his hand to his mouth. “Holy crap!”

Renée pointed the gun at each of them as she backed up into the doorway, which for reasons Caleb couldn’t fathom, hadn’t closed. He had already surmised that what had opened the door was Montross’s lifting Genghis up. So it only stood to reason that the corpse’s descent should close the door, yet instead it released the water, apparently to drown them inside.

Or to force them back through the open door.

Is that it? Caleb glanced at Montross and saw the left eye give him a wink.

“Good-bye,” Renée called. She hefted the briefcase. “Thoth has failed, and the vengeance of Ra-Marduk is at hand, although you won’t live to see it.”

She descended the stairs, and as soon as she was out of sight, Orlando ran for it. Halfway to the door, Phoebe caught him about the waist and pulled him back.

“No!” he shouted. “We’ve got to stop her!”

An explosion rocked the mausoleum. Rock and debris hurtled up and out through the doorway. The remaining portion of the tower, including the reclining body of Temujin, trembled, but held.

The smoke cleared. Flashlight beams found the doorway and delved inside.

“No chance,” Orlando said, watching the water spill over the doorway and splash onto the rocks and slabs that had blown out sideways. Below them, the stairs ended in an avalanche of exploded debris blocking the way. They all turned, Caleb first, and shined their lights on Xavier Montross.

He got up, brushing himself off, wringing the water from his pants legs.

“Now,” he said, “let’s get to work on finding the real way out of here.”

15

Robert Gregory took his keycard from the slot and strode through the elevator doors as soon as they parted. Down in the library’s sub-level, a level unavailable to the public and absent from any maps or designs apart from the one a select few Keepers had drawn up, he headed down a corridor that was dimly lit from edge lights that sensed his presence, glowed, and then turned off after his passing. There was a time when he had been thrilled with the effect, feeling as if his appearance symbolically illuminated the darkness and banished ignorance. There was a time when he had thought like his sister. Like Lydia. And even to some extent, like Caleb.

But that was before he had learned his true purpose. Before he had discovered certain scrolls and ancient cuneiform texts retrieved from the storehouse under the Pharos. Babylonian in origin, drawing from even more ancient sources, long lost, these scrolls spoke of the true nature of the universe, and how to become its master. Robert had his own opinions as to whether the ancient ones had been truly “gods” or only appeared as such to those whom they controlled, but the scrolls were clear that the knowledge was sacred and bound up in a single tablet, legible only to one with the keys to decipher it.

He continued walking, feeling the lights alternately bathe and then shade his face, soothing the raw skin which had begun to heal. And as he approached the end of the long hallway and the glimmering golden door at its terminus, he replayed the tales in his mind. The battle for supremacy between chaos and order, between Tiamat and Marduk. And with every step he felt he was becoming like the god of storms himself, ready to don his armor and claim the tablet — and its power — for himself. The power to restore balance.

What he had discovered, through the translation of five thousand-year-old Babylonian epics never before seen by historians, was that the cult of Marduk had been established in those olden days, much as the Keepers themselves had been initiated, for the purpose of reacquiring those ancient artifacts and ultimately to bring about the return of the ancient god of war. And when he learned that the cult still existed today, he began his search. Subtly at first, putting out feelers, describing himself as a collector, then a believer. And soon, he had discovered how powerful the cult still was, even though it had been relegated to a secretive ceremonial membership involving the usual initiation rites and sexual domination. As such, Robert had soon ingratiated himself into their upper echelons, discovering at the top of the cult’s membership powerful members that included United States political and military leaders.

Senator Mason Calderon had especially latched onto Robert’s revelation that he was close to fulfilling the prophecy, to acquiring the very artifact that had once been their master’s rightful possession, until it had been rudely snatched away and given to an inferior for safekeeping. Calderon and his colleagues had chomped at the bit, mobilizing their members, providing Robert everything he needed to fuel his search, including the dangerous gambit of seeking out and working with Xavier Montross. But Robert knew more than enough about the workings of remote viewers like Montross and the Crowes. Knew them to be easily affected with tunnel vision, unable to see the big picture, much less the manipulative strings over their heads.

Montross had served his purpose, and according to the latest text from Agent Wagner, she had succeeded. The tablet, and now the keys — whose location the agents of Thoth had tried so desperately to hide — would soon be in his possession.

He smiled, the motion cracking open fresh skin along his cheeks. But he didn’t flinch. His muscles, exhausted from the healing process yet fueled with newfound energy at being so close to the prize, moved faster, and soon, after a retina scan and a fingerprint match, he was inside the vault. The Keepers’ Sanctum.

Two other Keepers, at their stations inside, worked at translating bits of scanned parchments, line by line, decoding the most esoteric texts, while behind them in hermetically sealed alcoves, thousands of manuscripts, scrolls and tomes remained unread, catalogued but waiting in the queue for attention.

“Sir.” One of the Keepers, an older woman with sandy hair and a large racoonish face, looked up from her screen. “We received your message. I’ve transferred the translation program to your station. It’s ready, and loaded with First Dynasty and early Egyptian variations. You need only feed the scanned portions of the texts showing both hieroglyphic and the unknown script, and once it has enough of a sample, a cipher will be created.”

“Perfect,” Robert said. “Keep your channels open. Within the hour, I’ll be leaving for Cairo.” He closed his eyes, took a breath, and then sat at the head of the table and lowered his head. “Soon after that, I will have the Books of Thoth. I’ll scan the side-by-side scripts and upload the data to you here.”

“Then, the program will produce the translation, but then what?” The woman leaned forward expectedly. “This is it, isn’t it? What you’ve been searching for?”

He smiled again and wiped the seeping splits on his skin with a red handkerchief. But he wasn’t about to answer her. Being a Keeper was nothing, preparation only for his true mission. He had been in the right place at the right time. But really, if he hadn’t been the one to discover the Babylonian documents, someone else would have. And someone would have made the connection to the Emerald Tablet.

Someone would have seen that Caleb was the enemy. The thief who sought to deprive humanity of its just rewards.

Some, like Renée, might call what he was about to do vengeance.

Robert called it destiny.

And as the other Keepers returned to their menial but crucial work, Robert used his terminal to set up a live conference call with the station in Gacona, Alaska.

The screen flickered and the view of a laboratory-like interior filled three quarters of his screen. Out the window behind an empty desk could be seen a snowy expanse, broken up by a series of giant antennae-like structures.

A face suddenly appeared: bald, paunchy, with pale grey eyes that Robert imagined hadn’t seen the light of day for months.

“Is it ready?” he asked.

The scientist nodded, and as he did so he rubbed the ring on his index finger — a black gem inscribed with a familiar dragon impaled on a lance. “I have everything in hand, just awaiting your specifications.”

Robert smiled. “You won’t have long to wait.”

16

“Everyone!” yelled Caleb. “On top of the crypt.”

“Why the rush?” Phoebe asked. “The water’s not rising that fast, let’s think this through. There’s got to be another way out.”

“There is,” Xavier Montross said quietly. “But the rising water isn’t our only problem.”

“Eels,” Alexander said, already climbing. “With sharp teeth. Come on.”

Phoebe looked back, and shined her flashlight down, then at the nearest opening in the wall, where something even now wriggled through. Something with slick skin and golden eyes on stalks. “Ok, I’m convinced.”

“I’m not,” Caleb said, picking up an AK-47 from one of the fallen soldiers. He shook it, then leveled it at Montross. “You obviously know more than you’re saying. And it’s clear you’ve seen it all along. Now spill it!”

Montross smiled, his gaze lowering to the red dot darting across Caleb’s chest.

“Oh shit,” Orlando said, and flashed his light to the origin of the red beam. A shot rang out and the flashlight was torn out of his hand.

“Drop the gun,” came a familiar voice from the shadows.

“Better do as she says,” Montross told him, grinning. “You know how she likes it. With you at her mercy.”

Caleb dropped the gun into the water.

“Hello, Nina.”

She strode through the water, discarding the sniper rifle and pulling out her Beretta. Stopping abruptly, she kicked at something under the water, then aimed and fired. She booted free a dead eel, then aimed at Caleb again. “So, you really did miss me, didn’t you?”

Caleb said nothing, just trying to process everything at once.

“Dad, get up here now!”

“Sorry,” he said, “but I’ve kind of got a gun pointed at me.”

“Listen to the boy,” Montross said. “Get up to the higher ground.”

Phoebe climbed the rest of the way up and stepped around the body. “Are you sure about this? We can’t all fit.”

“Toss the corpse,” Montross said, following Caleb up just as something nicked his leg.

“No,” Caleb snapped. “We’re not desecrating the body. I promised that much.”

Dead soldiers floated past, bumping against each other, their blood drawing the eels.

“Well, I’m not touching him,” Orlando said. “Apart from the disturbing aspects of moving an eight hundred-year-old Mongol warlord off his funeral perch, who knows what traps are still waiting if we try something that stupid?”

“He’s right,” Phoebe said.

Montross climbed up last, after the others had pulled themselves up and arranged themselves around the body. “Well, isn’t this cozy?” He hung onto one side while Nina clambered up and perched by the corpse’s feet, arms resting on her knees, keeping her Beretta visible.

Caleb fixed her with a stare as he tiptoed over to Alexander and put his arm around his shoulder. “You all right?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry Dad. I blew it down in the lighthouse. Couldn’t protect the tablet. Couldn’t save mom.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” he whispered, finding difficulty forming the words. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”

“Ours,” said Phoebe, glaring at Nina. “We didn’t ask the right questions, ones that could have made sure we had it protected from the likes of this one. And whoever’s pulling Renée’s strings.”

Montross chuckled. “Won’t you be surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caleb asked.

“It means he already knows,” Nina said. “But hasn’t told us.”

“Later,” Montross said, eying the rising water level. “No distractions. All of you should quickly put your considerable talents to use to find us a way out of here.”

Caleb gave him a dark look. “And you, brother, what is it you’re going to do?”

Montross grinned. “I am going to get my stuff back.”

He found some room away from the others, kneeling beside Nina. “I just hope I can still do this without the tablet.”

“Do what?” Phoebe asked.

Caleb’s eyes widened.

Montross folded his arms and closed his eyes. “Just don’t disturb me.”

Renée Wagner ascended the ladder, climbing with her left hand while hefting the suitcase in her right. After jogging back through the long access tunnel, now mostly empty of water, she made it to the ladder. But partway up, she paused. From her training, and from the paranoia of the past hours, she paused. Something was wrong. Different now.

She took out her light, shined it up. She ascended another rung so she could get a better look, then aimed the beam around.

Her eyes widened, mouth opened in a gasp. Only an hour ago, this entrance point had been isolated, not far from the shore, with nothing around it. But now, from what she could tell, there were at least four terra cotta warriors remaining.

Guarding the exit were two archers, one swordsman, and one brandishing a spear. The weapons were all pointed at the entrance. Renée inclined her neck, stretching to get a look at the ground. She wasn’t sure what would set off the statue’s attack mechanisms, but was fairly certain these didn’t possess motion sensors. More likely there was a trigger on the top rung of the ladder that would unleash a barrage of death upon hapless exiting tomb raiders.

She directed her light at the feet of the warriors and saw disturbed earth: straight lines back into the general army’s ranks. They were on a track system of sorts, likely shifted into their new positions by the mausoleum’s desecration.

Fine, then. Let’s play. No lifeless hunks of rock are going to beat me.

She wedged the suitcase between two rungs, then stepped down. Holding the light with one hand, she sighted down the barrel of the Walther held in the other. With eight shots, fired with precision, she was able to blast apart the archers’ bows and shatter the third warrior’s spear.

Reload.

Then, moving around to the other side of the ladder, she knelt and sighted through the rungs to blast off the swordsman’s right hand, letting the sword clang to the ground. Satisfied, she lowered her weapon and put it back in its holster.

She retrieved the suitcase and climbed. Near the top, just to be sure, she yanked down on the top rung, while standing on one foot on the edge of the ladder, leaning out into space away from the direct path into the hole.

All the statues moved. The archers merely jolted in their positions, but only the fingers opened, launching non-existent arrows. The one that had held the spear moved its right arm forward and down, tossing nothing, and the swordsman cleaved forward, then sideways with an empty stub of a wrist.

Smiling, she ascended and pulled herself out the hole. Staying in a crouch, she aimed her light back, sweeping over the motionless army. No others had come forward. Carefully, she stood.

The swordsman wobbled. Swung again with no weapon. Missed.

She smiled and patted the briefcase. “Sorry boys. You failed your master.”

“What’s he doing?” Phoebe whispered to Alexander. The boy opened his mouth, but it was Nina who responded.

“He said he’s going to get back our artifacts, so I’d imagine he’s doing that.”

Caleb said, “He’s done it? Astral projection?”

Nina nodded. “Guess your father learned it too. Lot of good it did him.”

Alexander tugged on Caleb’s sleeve. “I think Mom’s done it too. I saw her.”

Caleb looked away from Nina, met his son’s eyes. “Me too, Alexander. But I don’t know if it’s really her, or if you and I are just projecting her image, calling her back. What does she show you?”

“I think it’s important, but I don’t understand. She said I’m not alone.” He shrugged. “And there’s something else I keep dreaming about. A door. And behind it, a box.”

“Enough,” Nina snapped. “The water’s rising, or this mausoleum is sinking. Either way, theorize about the departed another time. If you don’t focus on getting us out of here, we’ll be joining the Genghis in his watery afterlife.”

“I’m on it,” Phoebe said, making a face as she looked into the corpse’s eyes. Orlando was at the other side, holding on to the edges and wobbling, trying not to look down.

“You too,” Nina said to Caleb, waving the gun at him.

He slowly shook his head. Raised his arms. “Can’t. I’ve lost it.”

Nina narrowed her eyes. “Again?”

“Since Lydia died, I can’t see anything but her… accusing me.”

“Bullshit. Get past it. Do it for your son.”

“I’m trying.”

Nina sighed. “You really need to unmoor yourself from this bottomless pit of guilt. Last time you punished yourself for little Phoebe’s carelessness, and now it’s for your wife’s bad luck? Well, this time I’m not bailing you out.” She gave a smirking grin. “Besides, there’s not enough room up here for me to help you out. And the dead guy’s got the only bed.”

“Shut up,” Caleb said through clenched teeth.

Nina aimed at his face, then shifted her sights lower, to Alexander. “How about this? A little immediacy to get you over your inner roadblocks? Get past your guilt, access your visions, or I shoot your kid.”

Caleb pulled Alexander closer, trying to get in front of him. The water rose and things splashed and snapped below his feet. “I’ll try,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Good boy,” Nina said, still keeping her finger on the trigger. “I’d say we’ve got about five minutes before we’re lunch, so make them count.”

Renée headed for the closest boat. She played her light over it, then its neighbor. Seeing nothing unusual, she nudged it ahead into the silvery water, then placed the briefcase in the boat. After another bout of coughing, she picked up a gas mask, fitted it over her head. But before she could slide it down, she heard something.

A splash? Minor, but just out of place enough to notice. Her senses tuned to the absolute silence down here, she listened again.

She felt a ripple against her shins. Then she heard it: a breath.

She froze. Shined her light back in the boat, seeking every corner. Nothing.

Another breath, weak and pained. Raspy. Like the sound her grandmother had made on her deathbed.

She swung the light back around to the shore, suddenly certain that someone had followed her, crept up behind her, ready to strike. But the beach was empty.

Another low breath, its very weakness defying placement.

She swept the light back. Over the water on the left, then to the walls. Even onto the ceiling.

Another wheezing breath, and Renée swung the beam down to the right, where an almost imperceptible ripple was spreading out backwards. Heart jack-hammering in her chest, she moved the light in. Closer. Left and right, methodically sweeping the river’s width.

Closer.

Stop. Back. What was that?

She lost it, then went past it, then came back and found it. What looked at first like a pale rock, flat. Except—

— in a rush of mercury-tinted water, gleaming in silver, a body roared up from below as if spring-loaded and launched like a catapult.

Qara!

She stormed ahead like a demon possessed. In the jarring flashlight radiance, Renée noticed two bullet holes: one through her sternum and another in her stomach, wounds that barely slowed her down. But worse was her face and the skin on her neck and her hands — blistered, oozing pus, cracked open like a plaster-of-paris mold hit with a tennis racquet. Her eyes were blood-red, seeping crimson tears. Her hair all but gone, slid out in patches, the skin underneath almost black with toxic scarring.

Renée’s training kicked in, overcoming the sudden shock and disbelief. She reached for her gun as she stepped back, lined it up. But Qara was faster, lunging the final distance and connecting under Renée’s aim, catching her around the throat with both hands.

Renée had a second to see the flesh hanging in strips from the fingers, the blood clotted in the mercury water, gleaming silver, and in a few places where the bones had protruded, white. And then the pressure around her throat was like nothing she had ever imagined. All at once, the air was gone and her head felt like it had swelled to the size of a basketball.

Her spine was bent back and she fell to her knees in the water, arms waving. Reflexively she pulled the trigger and fired into the ceiling. But finally, she had the presence of mind to pull her aim back, slide the .45 under Qara’s arms and press it against the woman’s heart — and fire.

Qara lurched backward but held fast to Renée’s throat. Fetid water and blood gushed out of her mouth, spitting onto Renée’s mask. Another shot weakened her grip. Qara shook her head, tried to speak but only made a gurgled sound, and slid back into the water.

Renée gasped, massaging her throat, shaking her head. She couldn’t see. Where was the flashlight? There, by her feet, the light dimming.

No!

More splashing. The impression of movement, then wood creaking.

The briefcase! She raised the .45 again, reaching down for the light at the same time. Pulled it up, even as it dimmed to just a dull orange glow, just enough to see Qara turning back again, this time with something silver in her hand.

Impossible…

Qara had enough strength to do one last thing for her master. She hefted the case, turned sideways and then—

“NO!” Renée aimed and fired two more rounds that ripped into Qara, taking her in the neck and then the skull.

But it was too late. Qara’s motion completed and the case was flung in a high arc over Renée’s head. She turned the fading light on it, and had only the barest glimpse as the silver case turned end over end, sailed over the first ranks of the terra cotta warriors, then dropped in the midst of the second row.

Renée turned to watch Qara fall, bullet-riddled and lifeless, as the river welcomed her body in a silvery embrace. She cursed and headed back to the shore

And then the light went out altogether, leaving her in complete darkness at the threshold of Genghis Khan’s army.

She stood motionless, taking deep calming breaths. The light from the flares was fading, and too distant to help.

Think, think. This isn’t the end.

There were others here: the bodies of her men. Surely she could recover the weapons and flashlights of the dead, then retrieve the case.

It all depended on planning. Precision and memory. She was careful not to move from her last position. She remembered exactly her location relative to the first line of warriors, the walls on either side, and the water at her back. Now it was only a matter of a careful sweep, side to side, inching forward until finding what she needed.

She had time, there was no need to panic.

She began. Working in utter darkness, her own breathing echoed across the chasm of darkness, past the lifeless army standing just ahead. Let them mock me, she thought. I still have destiny on my side. I am the chosen of Marduk. And this is but a test.

She moved ahead, sweeping the earth now with both hands, crawling on her knees. After a minute she paused. Had she been this way before? Was she sure she had moved parallel to the water, or had she veered off at an angle, and the next sweep would only take her farther away? It was like the open-water scuba test the first time she had taken it, where the final portion involved going deep and getting from point A to B only by using a compass. While assuming she was on track the whole time, she had failed; the slightest deviation from the compass heading had led, over time, to a major variance.

She froze, and her pulse quickened. Paralysis was creeping in. Too afraid to move in any direction, she decided to go back to the water and get her bearings again.

But just before moving back, she saw something appearing out in the darkness.

A glowing shape. Not far. She squinted, shook her head and tried to focus. Yes, there it was. Someone was there. Someone with a light.

She pulled out her gun. Stood up and aimed. “Freeze!”

But it didn’t stop. She could tell it was a man now, emitting a radiance, which must be from a flashlight directed on himself. Saw his clothes, his stooping shoulders. His red hair.

Montross.

“I said freeze!”

Damned psychics. There must have been another way out, or else the explosives hadn’t done a good enough job. Oh well, this was actually good news. Proof that she was chosen. Marduk had sent her a gift.

“Montross! Get over here and give me that light.”

He stopped, turned toward her. Didn’t speak.

The light was odd. It only seemed to glow around his body, without providing any illumination beyond. She couldn’t tell if he was back at the shore, heading for the boat, or maybe just past the portal. The only thing she was sure of was that he couldn’t be in the army’s midst. Or else the arrows would be flying and swords would be hacking him to pieces.

That was good news for her. And it was his fatal mistake.

Screw this. She aimed and fired.

But he was still standing, maybe a little to the left of where he had been. She aimed again. Wait. This was Xavier Montross. She remembered. He could see his own death. That meant her attempts at taking him down would have been foreseen. He was toying with her. But she could get around that.

Look at him. So arrogant.

Fine. If you can only see your death, then I won’t kill you. Just hurt you real bad.

He’d never expect it. She lowered her shoulder and flexed her legs, judging the distance. He had to be only about twenty yards ahead. Just like Quantico’s qualifying tests. She’d be on him before he knew it.

She took off. Bursting with speed, running headlong, preparing take him down and beat his face in with her gun.

Six strides in, she realized she’d been played. The first giveaway was that Montross — or whatever it was that looked like him — broke into a huge smile. The second was that she brushed against something hard that jarred her sideways into something else, something man-sized.

Another stride and she realized her left arm had been cut to the bone, blood spurting and flailing uselessly.

I’m in the army.

She tried to stop but her momentum carried her forward, almost ten feet away from him now, where he had folded his arms, and his smile had vanished, replaced by a look of grim satisfaction.

At his feet lay the briefcase.

Mine! She thought, and lunged for it.

She heard a click, and the ground beneath her feet settled.

There was movement. Lots of it. Grating sounds as warriors swiveled to her location, limbs flexed, swung and drove. She felt her rib cage snap as it was penetrated from left to right as a cold implement burst through her spine and out her stomach. She looked down to see the glint of steel. Looked back up and Montross’s glow was fading, his image disappearing even as that smile returned.

She had only time left for one brief thought.

I’m not… the Chosen.

17

Montross opened his eyes. His fingers unclenched from each other. Disoriented, he teetered on the edge of the crypt, almost falling backward into water before Nina caught him.

He blinked, took a moment to catch his breath, then glanced around before nodding to Nina. “I’ve taken care of securing our items for later retrieval. Now, what’s up with this crew?”

Nina shrugged, aimed the light at the feet of the four psychics, with their eyes closed, lost in their own trances. “They’ve been like this for three minutes. We don’t have much time left.”

Montross pulled himself up. He bent down at the head of Genghis Khan’s coffin. “Grab his feet,” he told Nina. “Let’s make us some room.” They lifted him, gracefully, carefully. Then, following Montross’s lead, Nina gently set the body down, lowering it onto the surface of the rising water. Then Montross gave the leather shoulder pad a reverential push, sending the body floating away.

“Farewell, Lord Temujin.” He stood on the center of the crypt dais next to the lever that had brought down the tower and studied it. “Give them another minute, then we’ll try something. It has to involve this lever somehow.”

“Or not,” said Phoebe, blinking and standing up fully. “It might be something much worse.”

Orlando woke himself up, then Alexander looked their way. “I couldn’t see anything.”

“Me neither,” said Orlando.

“And my dear brother Caleb?” Montross shined his light on Caleb’s face, which remained placid, motionless except for his eyes, which seemed to be fluttering in the full stages of a dream-vision.

“Don’t need him,” Phoebe said with a slight smile.

“So, what did you see?” Nina asked.

“I saw that somebody’s going to need to brave the eels.” She took a deep breath. “Those three step-stones down there that you used to activate the tower’s descent? They’ve got to be unstuck, pressed down again. Dragon, gryphon, centaur.”

Orlando took off his boots and got ready to jump in.

“What?” he said when everyone turned to look at him. “I’ve just done the math. I’m the expendable one here, the only one with a shot at this. And since gnarly girl here has still got the gun, I’m not going to wait to be asked.”

Phoebe smiled at him. “You’re my hero.”

He dropped over the side where Alexander was pointing. “That should be the dragon.”

“I hope,” said Orlando as he jumped in. With a splash, his feet struck the bottom and the water rose to his neck. The stone beneath his feet shifted, then rose up. “Okay, one down. And then up, I guess.” He watched the lights stabbing into the dark water around him. “Uh, Nina? I hope you’re as good a shot with these eels as you were with those soldiers.”

From above, a light darted around his body, scanning for movement. “Only because we need you,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re not worth the price of ammo.”

He was about to move clockwise toward the gryphon at the twelve o’clock position, when Nina fired. He flinched with the splash right in front of him. A gout of purplish blood erupted, and an eel thrashed and spun, contorting itself into knots. Orlando saw a flash of yellow eyes and needle-sharp teeth, then it was gone.

“Great,” he said. “Now you’ve made it bleed. It’s going to lure its friends. Hope they’re cannibals.”

“Maybe not,” said Montross, pointing to the soldiers’ bodies, “but you may luck out. There are a lot of other lunch options floating around.”

Orlando moved, treading water and swimming to where the lights led him. In his peripheral vision he saw a floating body, waterlogged. A head turned his way and a single eye, half-eaten, blinked at him from a partially devoured face. As he watched, a grayish-blue eel slithered around the corpse’s neck, then attached its jaws to the man’s neck.

“Eyes ahead, Orlando,” Phoebe called.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Almost there.”

Another gunshot, another eel popped and splashed spastically behind him. He cringed, floated to the narrow portion at the head of the crypt, then waited.

“There,” said Alexander. “Hit it.”

Using his arms, Orlando pushed up like the start of doing a jumping jack but with his palms open, and sent himself down. He stomped with both feet and felt the stone give way, release and push up. “Got it.”

“Okay, one more. Hurry. Three o’clock position.”

Treading water again, he swam a half-hearted breast stroke, reaching out and helping himself by pulling along the crypt wall.

Another shot, and an eel’s head exploded right in front of him.

“Judas Priest! Do you think you could—Ow!” he screamed, as he jerked his hand out of the water and shook it, trying to dislodge the eel sawing its teeth into his flesh.

“Stop moving!” Nina yelled. “I can’t get a shot!”

Still screaming, Orlando spun around, then slammed his arm sideways, pounding the eel’s body against the crypt’s side. There was a satisfying crunch, and the jaws loosened. In the dazzling white light, those glowing eyes were locked on his, even as the jaws loosened.

“Get off me!” he yelled as his blood rushed down his wrist. Another swing, hard, vertically up and then down and then it snapped free. “Those things are evil.” He rubbed his hand, then washed it under the water, not caring at this point about attracting more critters.

“You’re almost there,” Alexander shouted. “Another few feet.” His flashlight beam pointed the way, and under the water, Orlando could just make out the outline of a centaur. He moved to it and was about to step ahead when something nipped his leg, just above the calf. Then, a pain as great as anything he could imagine as something chomped into his back, just above the tailbone. It felt like it was trying to burrow inside, gnawing and thrashing into tendons.

He barely heard the gunshots over his own screams, and he certainly didn’t notice that he had staggered forward, depressing the centaur stone and then he slipped under water, struggling against a sudden onslaught of eels. A veritable horde, jumping and wriggling like spawning salmon, converging on live prey.

“Orlando!” Phoebe’s shout was the last thing he heard before they dragged him under.

“No way I’m losing him!” Phoebe jumped to the edge, leaned over and yelled back. “Someone grab my hand.”

“Ah shit,” Nina said, putting away her now-empty Beretta, and gripped Phoebe’s wrist with one hand, then hung on to Montross with the other. She lowered Phoebe down, just above the thrashing pile of slithering eels, and then a hand, thrust up in wild desperation.

Phoebe lunged and caught it, gripped it tight. His head emerged, bloody, an eel snapping at his ear. And then Montross yanked backwards, reeling in Nina, who slipped, but caught herself and got her footing just as Phoebe fell halfway in. Nina found some leverage and heaved her catch out of the water.

Four eels were still attached to Orlando. Phoebe hauled him up and together they slid him onto the flat mortuary slab, and as he writhed, screaming, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Nina pulled out a military knife, ten-inch standard-issue, serrated.

“Just like Fridays at the fish market,” she said with enthusiasm, and hacked down on the first eel, lopping its body free from its head. Again with the next one. “Hold his leg still!” she yelled, as she slashed down again. She turned to the last one on his neck. It must have seen the fate of its friends as it let go, hissed at her, and flopped sideways to escape.

But Orlando’s left hand rose up and caught it by the neck. He sat up, still screaming, and turned to the side, whipping its head down hard against the stone. Once, twice, three times until it was a bloody, lifeless mess. He pushed it aside, then looked down at himself. The torn clothes, the blood seeping everywhere.

And he smiled. “Did I do it?”

“Yes, but we’ve got other problems,” Alexander said, and he seemed to be shaking, swaying back and forth. “We’d better hold onto something.”

Phoebe pulled herself up, then reached over to grab Caleb, who was still somehow unconscious through all the screaming, still lost in the depths of an unbreakable vision.

“Hang on tight!” she yelled.

The tower shuddered, rocked, then roared upwards. The gears released. Hidden counterweights offset levers and pulleys and shot the tower back up, pulling free of the debris from the explosion with just a bump in its ascent, grinding upwards. Water spilled from its length, eels and bodies tumbled away with the recoiling waves.

Their lights reached out, illuminating the golden walls of the octagonal chamber until they gave way to the aquamarine siding of the dome, the murals now visible in multiple sections. Quiet images of Burkhan Khaldun, of women and children, of proud soldiers on horseback. And then the ascent slowed. The ceiling was only ten yards away as the minaret, scraping and shaking, finally grinding to a halt.

Phoebe’s flashlight beam sought everyone out. “All here,” she said with relief, still clinging to her unconscious brother. And then she looked below, shining the light all the way down the length of the tower.

“But why are we here?” Alexander asked. “Now we’re even farther from the door, and — oh.” He pointed over Nina’s shoulder. “There’s a window.”

“And there,” said Phoebe proudly, “is the other thing I saw in my vision.” She played her light over something that at first wasn’t even visible: a walkway, disconnected from their position, but level with the crypt, held up by angled supports cut into the walls. Perfectly blue, just as the dome, the walkway blended in, invisible from any other angle.

Montross clapped his hands. “Nice work, Phoebe.” He took off his backpack, so much lighter now without the tablet, and tossed it to her. “First aid in there, maybe even enough bandages for your friend. Make it quick and let’s go.”

She caught it, then gave him a wary eye. “Thanks. I think. But I still don’t trust you.”

“Don’t trust him later,” Orlando snapped, reaching for the bag. “Right now I’m bleeding to death.”

“We can trust him,” came another voice, and for a moment, Phoebe didn’t recognize it, so weak and shaken, like it came from a long distance away.

Caleb was awake.

His face was ashen. His eyes haunted. “I almost wish it wasn’t true, but my visions, my powers… they’re back.”

He stared at Montross. Stared until the other man lowered his eyes, nodding. “So you know.”

“I know,” Caleb said. “And I forgive you.”

18

“Well?” said Orlando, while having the deep bites in his cheek disinfected and bandaged up. “What’d you see? What could possibly justify what he did? Trying to kill us in Antarctica, stealing the Emerald Tablet, killing your wife!”

Caleb looked away from Montross. “Not now, Orlando. We don’t have time. And I need to understand more before I bring you in. It has to do with the tablet, with the keys. With everything.”

“We figured that much,” Phoebe said, tending now to Orlando’s back, lifting up his shirt and wincing. “You really need stitches. A hospital.”

“Or a proper medic,” Montross said. “But our dear brother is right. We don’t have time. Need to move now.”

Phoebe frowned. “But you said—” She flashed her light around. “Wait. Where’s Nina?”

Everyone except Montross looked around, even shining their lights down into the gloom.

“Don’t worry,” Montross said. “She’s left on a little personal errand for me.”

Caleb eyed him carefully.

Montross turned and headed for the walkway. “Let’s go. I’m sure we’ll be seeing her again. Very soon. Meanwhile, there’s a long trip back to the surface ahead of us.”

Nina circled the mausoleum dome twice, walking along a six-inch-wide ledge before finding the most appropriate place from which to drop to a walkway. This was after avoiding the gold-plated boat moored on the side, on a platform with a gear system and a lever-release.

Obviously, Montross and the others would need that. This transport would have been intended for Genghis Khan’s use, ceremonial perhaps, but those early Mongolians at least had the foresight to make it practical as well. Their leader could have simply awakened, travelled along the walkway out of the mausoleum, turned right and entered his waiting barge, which had been on the opposite side of the dome, hidden from the walkway entrance. The lever would lower the boat down to the sea.

It was carved beautifully, a masterwork of art and design. Exquisite carvings of mountains and lakes, scenes of warfare and conquest. Two metal-plated oars on the inside, it looked like it could hold eight comfortably. More than sufficient for the old conqueror to travel about his necropolis.

Leaving the boat, Nina instead took the hard way, hanging from the ledge and then dropping almost twenty feet. She bent her knees and rolled back, but still felt a painful jarring up her legs and back. Then she was up, securing her backpack. Inside it she carried a grappling hook, extra flashlights, spare magazines for the AK-47 slung over her shoulder and two fragmentation grenades.

She only hoped it would be enough. Where she was going — over the wall behind the looming monastery ahead — she had no visions to guide her. No roadmap of the future and no intuition of the time or place of her own death.

As she approached the western-most wall of the city, she leapt to the monastery steps, scaled a wall, jumping from alcove to ledge to windowsill back to another ledge. And then she was on the roof.

Close enough to jump, she thought, eyeing the distance between the western point of the rooftop and the thick wall. Foregoing the grappling hook, she got a running start, a huge push-off as she leapt into the open air forty feet above the seawater and the gleaming spikes below.

She caught the edge and the rock wall slammed into her chest on her way down. Wincing, but clinging to the ramparts, she kicked, found a toehold, and pushed up. Taking only a short pause, she retrieved her flashlight and directed it ahead, over the wall and down onto the field. Swept it across the ranks of the terra cotta multitude. All of them were facing the other direction, but Nina had no illusions about their vigilance — or deadliness.

Montross had told her where the case was, not far from the shore, but to reach it she would have to go through the very teeth of Temujin’s eternal defenders.

Through, she thought. Or around.

She started walking to her left, aiming the light down over the wall, watching for a gap in the warriors. None appeared, not until she nearly reached the edge. The northern barrier, the sheer cavern wall. Up about fifty feet, a flare sputtered, losing its vitality but still flickering enough to cast wicked shadows over the backs of the army’s rear guard.

Nina took out her grappling hook, attached it to the rampart section, then without a second thought, rappelled down the side of the wall. At the bottom, cloaked in darkness, she flicked the rope hard, freed the hook and got out of the way as it landed beside her. After rolling it up and putting it back in her pack, she turned on the flashlight, examining the path along the cavern wall. There was a gap of at least ten feet as far as she could see. She hoped that the architects of subterranean Xanadu had expected only a frontal assault to the gate, and so didn’t bother to fortify the roundabout approach.

She was wrong.

The boat cut through the water easily as Xavier Montross took the first turn with the oar. Phoebe continued bandaging up Orlando, who shied away from the edge and flinched every time something broke the surface. Caleb sat in the front with Alexander, shining their lights at every building, marveling at the magnificence of the silent marble halls, their first glimpses of massive columns that had endured centuries in darkness. They steered alongside walkways and under majestic bridges, around silent gilded fountains, amphitheaters, and in one case, right through a temple whose center aisle had been submerged. Over their heads, the flashlight beams illuminated a painted daytime sky, complete with clouds and flocks of geese amidst an infinity of blue.

Past all these silent wonders, beyond immense statues of Temujin, some on horseback, others standing in silent repose, some as colossal as the pharaohs at Abu Simbel, they finally approached the western gate.

“Can’t we stop?” Alexander urged, looking back the way they had come, seeing the somber monoliths returning to their shrouds, consumed again by the ancient shadows.

“No.” Montross paddled harder, gasping for breath now.

Orlando coughed, craning his neck to look around. “But the treasure. We didn’t even find one ounce of gold that wasn’t nailed down. Come on, we can’t go back empty-handed.”

Montross grumbled. “I’m no longer in the mood for rusty spikes, poisoned arrows or any other diabolical madness. Not to mention customs agents and military police.”

“Just talking about a few trinkets,” Orlando muttered. Then he looked at Phoebe and smiled. “Maybe a nice ring?”

Alexander shook his head sadly, watching another golden-tipped minaret sail by. “I am so coming back here.”

Caleb opened his mouth, about to discourage any more chatter, when the boat bumped against something under water. “What was that?”

Montross kept paddling. “Just as I figured. We’ve triggered the main gate.” Their lights stabbed ahead, highlighting the forty-foot doors in front of them, doors that pushed outward around the walkway. The seawater streamed out in a rush between the doors, pulling their boat along. It flooded the rocky beach outside, crashing into the mercury-tainted river, diluting it with thousands of gallons of downward-flowing fresh water.

The boat bumped against the bottom, and was then lifted and sent on ahead as if they were in a white water raft ride. Montross set down the paddle, reached into his pack and handed out three gas masks, one each to Alexander, Phoebe and Orlando.

Caleb looked at him with something approaching respect.

Montross smiled back. “I know I’m not fated to die from mercury poisoning, so I can spare the masks for those who might need them most. And besides,” he said, breathing into his collar, “the water from the necropolis seems to be taking the bite out of the toxicity out here.”

Caleb nodded, coughing a little as he fit the mask over Alexander’s head. “When we get out of this, we have to talk about what I saw.”

“I know,” said Montross. “But don’t celebrate yet.” He tossed Caleb the paddle. “Your turn for some exercise.”

As Caleb took up his position and Montross took a seat at the front, Alexander took something from his back pocket. The folded piece of sketch paper. “What about this?” he asked Montross quietly when his dad’s back was turned. “You gave it to me back in the mausoleum.”

“Put it away. Show it to the others, but only when the time is right.”

Alexander stared at the folded paper, then frowned as he slipped it back into his pocket. “How will I know when the time is right?”

Montross turned away, watching the silver-coated water. “You’ll know,” he said, “because everyone will have lost hope.”

Nina crawled the next twenty feet, inching along the ground, feeling out with her hands and fingertips for any irregularities on the surface ahead. She was bleeding from a multitude of cuts and had narrowly missed being skewered after only three steps along the cavern wall, when a spike had shot out from small hole in the rocks. After that, she scanned the rocky cavern wall and had identified eight more unnatural crevasses from which things could shoot out at her.

The walls had been booby-trapped as well, forcing invaders to go straight through the army. Damn Montross, she thought, wriggling along the ground. She aimed her light ahead, through the legs of two warriors, swords held in each hand, knees bent as if they were about to spring forward and attack. She had dropped to her belly about eight yards back, after dodging the worst of a swinging blade, suffering a cut across her back, then spinning away from the thrust from a spear, and again getting caught, her biceps nicked.

The pressure plates were highly sensitive. Sometimes just the touch of her hand, with little weight, set off the statues and she had been forced to make some acrobatic rolls, dodges and ducks just to make it this far. And, by the indication of her flashlight beam probing out an indeterminate distance ahead, over the helmets of countless warriors, she had a long way to go. Their backs were to her, and she believed that fact alone accounted for her continued survival. The attacks were all planned to deal with invaders advancing from the river, not those escaping the mausoleum.

There has to be a better way.

A deep breath, and she smiled as she carefully stood up.

Why didn’t I think of this before?

The tricky part would be providing light, but she thought for a moment and came up with an idea. She had one more flashlight in her pack. She cursed herself for neglecting to salvage a flare gun from the dead Chinese soldiers. She fit her flashlight onto the statue in front of her, fixing it in a groove between his armored shoulder-pad and his neck. It lit the way ahead, the bright beam scattering and diffusing around the multitude of soldiers and horses between her position and the river’s edge.

Then she chose the statue to its left — a crouching warrior gripping two scimitars crossed before his face — and she climbed onto its back by grabbing his head and pulling herself up until she stood on his shoulders. And then she looked out over the helmets, shoulders, saddles and banners lit up in the narrow trail of weakening light. She had to believe this was the right choice, the way Caleb’s group could have crossed this field, if it had occurred to them.

After a breath, deep and cleansing, she willed herself to relax. She bent her knees and stepped out in a long stride, reaching the next warrior’s shoulder in a straddle. Then she pushed off with her right foot and brought it up beside the left. She wobbled and nearly fell over as the statue leaned forward beneath her weight, but it held. She nodded, smiling, and gauged the next move.

She’d have to jump onto the back of a horse, which was preferable to leaping over two yards and trying to gain a foothold on the back of an archer in the same direction.

The horse worked. And from its back it was another simple stretching move to the broad shoulders of a swordsman. She caught her breath, and then carefully proceeded to the next one, and the next. In one area, she breezed through, hopping across a catapult, then dancing along the edge of a chariot, then across the backs of a team of horses. In most cases she didn’t need to jump, only to be nimble. Staying in the light, or at its edges, she made her way to the army’s forefront.

After pausing only to give her straining muscles a rest, she started up again. Near the end of the light’s reach she paused on the back of a stallion surrounded by six archers, took off her pack and retrieved the other flashlight. She shined it left, then right, then—there. A glint of silver.

The case.

Just where Montross had said it would be.

Nina judged the distance, eyed the best approach accessible from the side. Once there she could easily scoop up the case with the grappling hook, then leapfrog the remaining statues back to the shore. The problem was the darkness. With careful aim, she threw the flashlight in an underhand toss so it rolled between six terra cotta warriors and came to a rest, facing backwards, against something lying on the ground.

Ah, there you are, Agent Wagner.

Nina flexed her legs and leapt to the nearest warrior, hugging him about the neck before climbing to his shoulders.

Five minutes later, she dove, ducked, rolled and then stood up in a crouch, ready to drop flat at the slightest sound. But there was nothing. She looked over her shoulder as she scooped up the light she had thrown this way. The army. Thousands of heads and arms and legs and torsos, all standing motionless in the shadows, glaring at her impassively, perhaps inwardly seething at her escape.

She bent down, grabbed the handle of the silver case she had tossed here, picked it up and walked calmly to the nearest boat.

The way back wasn’t as hard as Alexander had figured. But what made it more difficult was that Phoebe and Orlando were dragging behind, and they all had to go at the slowest member’s pace. Orlando had lost a lot of blood, and they didn’t have much in the way of nourishment or drugs to help him. But they carefully retraced their steps, back through the room with the collapsed ceiling and up the rope, Orlando’s condition making it considerably more difficult. They continued down the corridor and headed left, back across the tricky mosaic floor, which they managed to cross without slipping or touching any trapped stones.

When they reached the upward-sloping ramp, Caleb, his arm around Alexander’s shoulders said, “Almost out.”

“What next?” Phoebe asked, from behind them. “Do we wait for Nina?”

“She’ll be here,” Montross said.

“Then what?” Orlando asked, his voice weak. “I think I can find us some translation software and we can scan in the text.”

“No.” Montross had quickened his pace, walking ahead of them. His voice was still strong and forceful, echoing in the hallway.

Alexander pulled ahead of his father, trying to catch up with Montross, always eager to be first. “I wonder what time it is. Will it be light outside?”

But then Montross turned, and there was movement at his back, like darker patches of shadow pulling away from what Alexander now realized to be the night sky. As he froze, more shapes detached, separated, circled around Montross, and then spread out into the descending passage—

— surrounding them.

Caleb’s light caught one figure, then another, revealing their black body armor and their face masks. They came equipped with helmets, Kevlar suits, gloves, HK submachine guns, and flashlights attached to their headgear. Beams that suddenly turned on, ten times more intense than their own flashlights. All those beams, stabbing at once, blinding them.

“I’m sorry,” Montross said. “I thought we might have more time, but I knew this was coming.”

“What?” Caleb held up his hand, shielding his eyes. Alexander couldn’t see a thing, having covered his head with his arms. The light was so painful after being in the gloom for hours, and his eyes began to water and his head throb. But then rough hands grabbed his arms and held him fast, just as he heard Phoebe scream.

“Don’t resist.” Montross called out. “Do as they say.”

“That’s right,” came another voice, authoritative and brusque. Footsteps marching down the ramp.

Alexander blinked away the tears, looked up, tried to focus. He saw a large man with his helmet off, short blond hair and a face like an anvil. He spoke into a heavy satellite phone.

“Sir. Yes, we have them.” A pause. Then he aimed a gun — some kind of nasty automatic thing — at Alexander’s face. “One of you kindly hand over the tablet and the keys.”

“We don’t have them,” Caleb protested.

The hammer pulled back.

“He’s right.” Montross again, his voice still surprisingly calm. “We left our treasure back inside the tomb.”

“Bullshit.”

Phoebe cleared her throat. She rose to the occasion quickly, playing along. “Yeah, just go on down there and get it. Take your first left, and then—”

“Shut up.” He turned away. “Edgars, what do you have?”

Alexander saw another man running up, with a box with a handle and a TV screen, and stared at it as he waved it around ahead of him.

“Heat signatures of all present here,” Edgars said. “And one more. Coming towards our location. About ninety yards away.”

The commander nodded. He made a motion with his free hand, and eight commandos slipped away down the ramp. He smiled at Alexander, but kept the gun pointed at his face.

“So, your boss,” Montross said, crossing his arms, “it’s Mr. Robert Gregory, is it? Made it out after all. And here we were, all mourning his incineration.”

“Robert?” Phoebe gasped. “He’s alive?”

Montross nodded. “Alive and apparently far more involved than I gave him credit for. Seems I didn’t investigate my earlier partner carefully enough.”

His shock wearing off, Caleb sighed. “Robert wanted that tablet all his life. He’d stop at nothing to get it. But he fooled me too. I thought he had no more resources than those of a Keeper.”

“Enough,” the commander said. “Let’s all—”

And then gunfire erupted behind them. Three screams in quick succession. Then more. One, two, three.

A soft chuckle escaped Montross’s lips. “She’s led them across the mosaic floor.”

“What?” The commander bristled, then barked into his comm-unit, “Hayes! What’s going on down there? Hayes!”

Nothing.

One more scream, agonized and desperate, as if someone not quite dead writhed on a skewer.

A woman’s voice over the speaker: “Hayes and your men are incapacitated. Who is this? And where is Xavier Montross?”

“Who is this?” the commander snapped back. But then he saw Montross smile. “Ah, Nina Osseni. Your reputation is well-deserved, it seems. Those were some of my best men.”

“I had some help. Now, why don’t you let Montross go, get back in your choppers or tanks or whatever you brought, and get the hell out of here before I pick you off one by one.”

“Give me the artifacts,” said the commander, “and I’ll let your friends live. Best I can offer.”

“No deal.”

The commander pressed the barrel of his gun against Alexander’s head and made him cry out. Caleb tried to lunge but couldn’t break free of the strong, restraining arms. Montross calmly held out a hand. “Let me talk to her. I’ll get you what you want.”

The commander looked him over. Then he shrugged and gave him the walkie-talkie. “Fine. But if you order her back inside the tomb, I’ll kill you all, then we’ll go in with every resource I have.”

“Agent Wagner lost almost twenty men down there,” Phoebe pointed out.

“Agent Wagner. Where is she?”

Montross lowered his voice, but couldn’t hide the satisfaction in it. “Alas, she didn’t make it.”

The commander thought for a moment, then shrugged. “You have five seconds.”

Montross took the transmitter. He spoke softly into it. “Nina. Now’s not the time to be a martyr. Come on out peacefully.”

“What?” Caleb pulled at his bonds again. “You can’t—”

“Just do it,” Montross repeated. “And turn over the artifacts.”

Nina’s voice. “But…”

“Do it.”

He handed the transmitter back to the commander, then turned his back on the others and started up the ramp. The commander pointed to Caleb. “Take that one too. In my chopper along with Montross. The others can go in the transport helicopter. Chain them to the chairs. And I don’t want a peep out of them.”

“No!” Alexander cried. “I can’t leave my dad.”

“Shut up, kid. Your Uncle Robert has plans for him. For both of them.”

“You know about that?” Alexander whispered. “The prophecy?”

The commander winked at him. “Mr. Gregory knows everything.”

“I doubt that,” Phoebe said as she walked by, head down. They dragged Orlando next. He seemed to be on the verge of passing out. “Can we get him some medical help?”

“In the chopper,” the commander said, waving them on as he stood in the center of a line of commandos waiting near the entrance.

In under a minute, Nina appeared, walking stoically up the center of the ramp.

She stopped in front of the commander. Her eyes were grim, full of resolve. She handed over the case.

He took it from her, then drove his fist into her gut, driving her to her knees. “When we’re done,” he whispered in her ear, “I’ll flay the skin off your bones for what you did to my men.”

He left her unable to speak, and as he turned and sprinted to the first chopper to join Montross and Caleb, his men restrained Nina and brought her aboard the other helicopter.

Inside, they had only handcuffed Alexander’s left wrist to the seat while the others were cuffed, both wrists and ankles, and belted in. As they rose, and as Alexander glanced at each of the faces beside him, seeing their complete desperation, the overwhelming sense of failure, he thought of something.

Digging into his pocket, he pulled out the sheet of paper Montross had given him. He opened it up, flattened it out.

The pilot and the guards in the front seat never turned around.

“What’s that?” Nina whispered. She looked pale, about to collapse from pain and exhaustion.

“Something Xavier gave me earlier,” Alexander said. “Told me I’d know the time to show it to you.” He studied the drawing, frowned, then held it up so Phoebe and Nina could see.

“It’s us,” Phoebe said after a glimpse.

“The same scene, at the tomb’s entrance. It’s what just happened down there,” Alexander said. “He saw it. But I don’t understand.”

“What does it mean?” Orlando asked weakly. His eyes were lolling back in his head, still trying to focus. They had a saline bag hooked to his arm, re-supplying electrolytes and pumping in antibiotics.

Nina’s lips broke into a smile. Her whole face suddenly brightened. “It means that he knew we’d be captured. And he still brought us out of the tomb. We could have waited it out down there, or lured them in to pick them off, but he led us out.”

“So?” Phoebe asked.

“So, Montross doesn’t do anything without thinking it through and seeing the consequences. He saw this, and must have seen something else. Probably that we’d have a better chance of ending this, of winning, if we let ourselves be captured.”

“But,” said Alexander, “that doesn’t make any sense.”

Nina leaned back in her chair. She closed her eyes and kept smiling. “I think it does. I think Montross knows where they’re taking us. And knows, or at least suspects, what’s going to happen. And that we have a good chance of surviving.”

Alexander frowned, rubbing at his handcuff. “Where are we going?”

“A place we probably couldn’t get into by ourselves. Someplace where we’d need the connections and resources of your other uncle to provide access.” She opened her eyes and met their stares.

“We’re going to Egypt. We’re going under the damn Sphinx.”

19

Robert Gregory faced the smooth onyx door. With the electric torchlight at his back, his huge shadow stretched over the golden floor and was abruptly devoured by the implacable onyx barrier, the unyielding door that had denied Pharaoh Khufu forty-five hundred years earlier.

Taking a deep breath, Robert spread out his arms to embrace his destiny. In minutes, his brothers would be coming down the stairs behind him, coming to join him on this day of victory, joining him in the fulfillment of the great prophecy.

In 2560 BCE, Khufu had discovered this entrance and attempted to proceed beyond, naively believing himself worthy when he was not. And throughout history, many others have sought that right, believing themselves to be something greater than themselves.

The fools. Today they still believed the Great Pyramid was Khufu’s, when in fact he simply had the arrogance to claim the ancient monument and storehouse for his own tomb. He had expanded the area, building rough imitations for his sons and stamping his name on the whole complex here. But the more reliable sources such as Herodotus maintained that the Great Pyramid was built by “a shepherd named Philitis.” And in Robert’s studies of all the resources at the new library, as well as those recovered from the old, it was clear that what was meant here was a derogatory term for a prince from the land of shepherds — or wanderers. The land of the biblical Chosen Ones. The land of Palestine. And the man…

This Philitis, this enigmatic character, could be traced to another whose identity is one of the chief mysteries of the Bible.

The time frame pointed to only one of sufficient fame and wisdom to construct such a complex pyramid, something so grand it was never to be duplicated again. One who was mentioned only twice in the Hebrew Bible, yet held a position of mystical, almost divine reverence. “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God.” One who many claimed to have built the Ark of the Covenant himself. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts describe him to be ageless, godlike. Many believed him to be the Christ himself, ageless, and later reborn as the Christian world’s savior.

Melchizedek. The King of Righteousness. The Prince of Peace.

Or, as Robert believed, another incarnation of the ancient enemy.

Thoth.

Suddenly he heard noises from above. The motors dying, helicopter blades subsiding.

Almost time. No more waiting. No more wrangling with prophecies or scouring the globe for lost keys.

Thoth’s hiding place was about to be plundered.

Robert smiled as his great shadow mustered and solidified, his hands clenching into fists that could seemingly plunge through the door itself.

Soon, the ancient secrets would be his.

Shoved at gunpoint out of the helicopter, Caleb had little time to marvel at the one element of the familiar landscape utterly and magnificently out of place, revealed in the spotlights between huge mounds of excavated sand on either side of the ancient paws of the Sphinx:

A descending marble staircase.

But all around the pyramid complex, a small army of jeeps, soldiers and even tanks patrolled the boundaries of the Giza perimeter. Three more helicopters circled overhead.

“I heard them talking,” Montross said, stumbling at Caleb’s side, pushed ahead by two commandos. “Apparently Robert Gregory called in his contacts and falsified a terrorist threat.”

Caleb nodded. “Smart. Close down the whole area. Create a plausible scenario to keep the tourists and the media away.”

“Keep moving,” the lead commander hissed, striding ahead of them. Caleb had learned his name was Benito Marco, an Italian officer who fancied himself a Roman general, and apparently had fantasies of epic battles to come, with himself as the supreme commander.

Marco carried the silver case reverently in both hands as he approached the steps. He appeared to bow before the ancient Sphinx. Caleb imagined that the colossal statue might actually shake itself awake and ask him to solve three riddles in order to proceed.

Caleb glanced over his shoulder to see the other chopper descending, landing beside theirs. Pressed against the glass inside, squirming for a view, was Alexander. And behind him Phoebe and Orlando were craning their necks, trying to see. The door opened and two men in camouflage carrying MP5s stood there, making no move to disembark or lead anyone out.

“Move it!” Marco snapped, and Caleb and Montross were herded to the stairs. Caleb got one last glimpse of the Great Pyramid, lit up in greens and reds, glowing with god-like energy under the pale stars. A hot breeze blew across the sands, and mini dust storms swirled around the Sphinx and over the excavated burial grounds.

Caleb followed Marco, descending the ancient, smooth steps down to a golden subterranean chamber devoid of markings, where two huge emerald pillars supported the cavernous roof, flanking a door of polished onyx — a door, he saw at once, without markings, signs, indentations, handles or holes of any kind.

From behind one of the two floodlights set to light up the door, Robert Gregory emerged. He wore a perfectly fitted silk gray suit, with a gray tie and leather shoes that betrayed only a hint of dust. He was bald, and the skin on his hands and his face was pale, translucent. But nothing at all like Caleb expected. No blisters, pus, blackened skin.

“Just like the Phoenix,” Robert said, spreading his arms, wing-like. “Back from the ashes. With a little help from the ancient books you helped recover for me, Caleb.”

“Helped?” Caleb shifted, feeling the gun at his back. His wrists tugged at their bonds. “If I recall, you guys didn’t really do much except mop up after I did all the hard work.”

Robert’s smile never faltered. “And who was responsible for getting you that far? Would it have anything to do with my sister?”

Caleb paled. “The sister you caused to die.”

Gregory waved a hand in anger. “Not me. Him. Xavier, you double-crossed me, stole what’s mine, and then killed my sister. Inadvertent or not, I won’t forget it.” His eyes flashed, then softened, shifted to the door. “But now, let’s be civil. We have a job to do, the three of us.” He motioned for Marco to bring the case.

“Do you even have a clue what you’re doing?” Montross asked, his wrists still bound in front of him.

“Don’t make another mistake,” Caleb said. “You don’t have our skills, you haven’t glimpsed ahead.”

“And you have?” Robert laughed. “Tell me, then. If you think you know what happens next.”

Caleb looked at Montross, who merely shook his head.

“Fine. Didn’t think so. Your powers were never that good. Or precise for that matter. But I have read everything about this chamber and what it contains. I’ve studied the Coffin Texts, the Westcar Papyrus, and I’ve found so many more references scattered throughout the recovered scrolls. So we’re at least on equal footing, except I can tell you I have not been without my own visions. Dreams of such wonderful transition.” He reverently opened the case as Marco held it out for him. And as he stared inside, his lips quivered and his body trembled as he at last gazed upon the Emerald Tablet.

“If you’re going to drool all over it,” said Montross, “maybe you should buy it dinner first.”

Finally, Robert broke the spell and picked up the first of the three stone keys. Twirled it in his hand, touching it with each finger, holding it up to capture the light. Then he handled the other two. All set on chains, he placed them one after the other around his neck, then turned away from Marco, toward the door.

“If you have any last-minute visions or warnings, now is the time to speak. As you’re going to be right behind me, anything that comes out of that door, or anything in this room which is triggered to kill if I don’t do this right, then you go too. And Caleb, my orders for the men outside are to slaughter your family if anything happens to me.”

“Then just stop,” Caleb hissed. “Let me RV this part. I don’t have any idea if this will work. There’s nothing, no keyholes? What, are you just going to knock?”

“Don’t be obtuse,” he replied. “One doesn’t knock at the doorway to the universe.” He took three strides, right to the edge, so his face was just inches away from the surface. “One demands, one insists.” His reflection took on a hideous caricature in the stone.

“One pushes.”

And with that, he set his palms against the smooth surface and bent his knees.

Caleb noticed the glow at first. Overpowering even the great floodlights, the Emerald Tablet gave off immense radiance, and the three keys around Robert’s neck began pulsing, shining brighter with each throb of the tablet’s simulated heartbeat.

Robert arched his back, dug in his feet and pushed harder, groaning like an Olympic weightlifter. Pushing, pushing…

A scraping sound broke the silence, then a hiss.

Caleb tried to take a step back, but the soldiers had pinned him in. He closed his eyes, willing to see.

And then he was struck by…

… a rush of heat that blows away the bright lights, the emerald glow and the soldiers, and he is standing now before an open space where the door used to be. Except, a man in blue robes and a long, white beard looms in the threshold. Holding a staff and nodding, he gazes beyond the door to approve the placement of the sole object inside the next chamber. The room has one other exit, down a ramp to the left, leading to the start of an immense passageway. But against the back wall sits a huge chest. Nothing special, just an iron box, without a trace of gold, jewels or markings of any kind.

Just a box with three pyramidal indentations near its lid.

The old man smiles, then spins around after tapping his cane twice on the floor — an action which seems to trigger a reaction. The great onyx door appears, descending from a groove above and filling the space, slamming down and sealing the room forever.

The man walks up the stairs and out into the hot sun under the shadow of the Sphinx, and Caleb…

… snapped back to the present just in time to see Robert fall to his knees, still pushing. Grunting, screaming and finally cursing. He pounded his fist against the door, twice, coming away bruised and bloodied. He lowered his head, then stood up and spun around. The skin on his face was cracking. His suit and shirt were streaked with sweat, his eyes full of fury.

He gripped the necklaces in his bloody fist. “Why isn’t it working?”

Montross let out a soft chuckle. “For the simplest of reasons. You’re not worthy. You’re not the one.”

“I am, damn you. I am!”

Shaking his head, Montross said, “It was a long shot at best. You knew that. Caleb and I — we’re related at least. Half-brothers, an estimable relationship to the ancient people, but you’re only a brother-in-law. Did you really think it was enough?”

“It’s my birthright. Marduk has chosen me!” He stood fully erect, then composed himself, brushing off his suit and smoothing his head. “Marco, get on the phone. Call in the demolitions team. We’re breaking through.”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Caleb said.

Marco turned away from them, set down the case with the tablet, then dialed on his satellite phone and turned away so they couldn’t hear.

Montross spoke up. “Come on, Robert. I knew you were ambitious, but really? You’re the chosen one? You, a Keeper? That’s all. You’re no messiah, no psychic even.”

“Shut up, Xavier.” He tensed, weighing his decision, and then barked to his commander. “Marco, once you’re done with that, kill this man. In fact, kill them both. I thought we might have needed all three brothers present, but if it doesn’t help, if only one needs to use the keys, then they’re expendable.”

“Wait!” Caleb protested. “I saw—”

But he never finished.

Marco put the phone away, pulled out his .45, aimed it square at Montross’s unflinching face, and then turned and aimed to his left.

He fired three times. Twice in the heart, then right between Robert Gregory’s startled eyes.

Blood coated the black door as Robert Gregory stumbled into it, slumped to his knees and fell forward without a word.

Caleb continued to stare at the blood and bits of brain oozing out the back of Robert’s head, and didn’t look away until Marco bent down and not-so-gently tugged the three chains off his neck. He placed them back in the case. Then, keeping the gun on Montross and Caleb, put the phone to his ear again.

“Yes sir,” he said. “It’s done.”

Marco was quiet for a moment, listening, then nodded. He pushed a button on his shoulder-equipped transceiver and yelled out to his men. “Bring her down. And the boy.”

Caleb shook his head. “Not Alexander. What are you doing?”

“Easy,” advised Montross. “Just wait and see.”

Caleb stared at him. “What do you know about all this? What have you seen?”

He smiled. “I believe all will soon be revealed.”

Down the stairs came Alexander, his hands free, but his face wrapped in a mask of fear — which cracked wide open into a relieved smile when he saw his father. “Dad!”

But Caleb was too surprised to respond, too shocked at who followed Alexander down the stairs. He had assumed Marco meant Phoebe, and had intended to use both his sister and his son for leverage. But then she appeared, still moving with her usual catlike grace, her head held high like a priestess marching at last into her temple.

“Here,” said Marco, and handed Nina the satellite phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

20

Senator Mason Calderon took a moment to catch his breath after the exhausting climb. His aide and secret service agents were about to come to his side for support when his cell phone rang. He waved them off, then opened his phone as he slowly walked to the edge, catching up to the young boys.

After hearing the news from Commander Marco, he nodded grimly, but without a hint of surprise. “I feared as much, Commander. Then I fully authorize you to go to Plan B.”

He sighed, holding the phone a few inches from his ear so the echo of the gunshots didn’t make him wince. Poor Robert, he thought with a rueful smile. Oh, the man had his aspirations. His resources after all, were quite useful, and his access to the ancient texts, while providing nothing new to the knowledge the elders already had, at least corroborated it. They had voted to let Gregory play at his vaulted role, but at the same time, others were being groomed.

The chamber at the top of the crown was empty, cleared by the secret service just for Calderon and his wards. The two boys giggled, climbing up on the ledge to gaze out the windows.

“Wow!” one of them shrieked as he helped the other up to gape at the view of the harbor far below. “Gosh, we’re high up,” said the other.

“Boys,” Senator Calderon snapped. “Be quiet a moment, I need to take this call.” He waited, then heard a shuffling, some static, and then her voice.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Hi Nina. You don’t know me, but you’re about to do exactly as I tell you.”

“And why in the world would I do that?”

“Because,” he said calmly, “I have something here that belongs to you.”

He smiled at the two boys, the twins, as they looked back at him with their mother’s eyes.

21

Nina listened as Marco held the phone to her ear. Her hands were still restrained behind her back and despite coming in from the sweltering heat, she trembled.

“I have something here that belongs to you.”

“What—?” she started, and then froze as a vision suddenly blasted back at her. A vision of a…

… gigantic crowned head, with blue-green radiating spikes, and viewing holes in the crown. Two young boys look out with amazement at the view, then glance up, hoping to climb the last part up to the torch.

And a well-dressed man on the phone, a man with gray hair and piercing blue eyes.

“Nina? Are you listening.”

“I… I see you.”

Silence, then, “Do you, now?”

“Statue of Liberty.”

“My, my. What big eyes you have, my dear.”

Nina swallowed hard, her vision locked on the blood-stained onyx door, seeing beyond the splatters into the first layer of smooth darkness, the black portal that trembled in her sight like a vertical pool of water at night in a breeze.

And suddenly, she saw into it.

Into its depths that had become the past. She saw herself…

… lying on a slab-like table inside a white room. A pod. A decompression chamber. Unconscious, in a coma. Almost dead. George Waxman looking in on her with concern, and fear…. Another room. Darker, but more spacious. At the end of a long, shadowy hallway with non-descript walls and doors. A subterranean facility somewhere. Soldiers standing guard at the only entrance.

Inside. Strapped to a table. Monitors checking her vitals. IVs hooked to her day and night. Machines to keep her alive, extract her wastes, keep her warm, nourish her body, monitor her pulse, blood pressure, heartbeat…

Hers. And the two heartbeats inside of her.

She sees it now, suddenly with abject clarity. Something so undeniable.

Her belly, swollen under the sheet. Nine months from the accident under the Pharos. Nine months from the night with Caleb.

Nine months.

She blasted out of it, almost falling backwards, unable to gain her balance without her hands. Marco and another soldier caught her and held her in place.

“Nina?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. “Where did you go just then? Did you see something? Did you finally ask yourself the right question?”

Her mouth went dry.

Her vision slammed across the room, settling on Caleb. Then on Alexander.

She whispered something to herself, her eyes still wide in amazement. How could she have been so blind? Alexander’s visions of standing before the door. He, and two others…

“Caleb,” she said, louder. “I’m sorry.”

Caleb frowned, his mouth working. Glanced to Montross, whose eyes had widened.

He knows, Nina thought. “You knew,” she said, to the voice on the phone, to Montross, to Caleb, and lastly to Alexander. “All this time, it was you. You, Alexander.” She let a smile free, took a deep breath and willed with it all the memories of their lives, memories she would soon be sharing, recapturing, enjoying as only a mother could.

“You,” she repeated, turning from Alexander to stare at Caleb, “and my twins. My boys. Our boys, Caleb. You have three sons.”

22

Caleb watched in numb dislocation as Commander Marco handed the three necklaces to Alexander, and his son regally bowed his head, letting the stones settle low on his chest. The keys sparkled, vibrated and hummed.

He looked up at his father first, and immediately Caleb’s heart went out to him, but he was still in shock, glancing back at Nina. That one night in the Alexandrian hotel, before the initial descent under Pharos…

Twins.

They would be two years older than Alexander. Brothers. Psychics too, maybe more so since Nina also carried the trait.

All the time, it was Nina. She was the queen of the prophecy, the mother of legend. The one that ancient remote viewer had glimpsed.

And here was the youngest brother, turning toward the door. Holding out his hands.

“Alexander,” Caleb pleaded. He turned to Commander Marco. “We need to make sure this is right, that he can get in.”

“I can do it,” Alexander said quietly, staring at the door. He placed a hand on it, then cocked his head as if listening to a subtle heartbeat. He nodded, whispering something, then closed his eyes and clenched them tight.

“Alexander…” Caleb moved, but Nina stepped in his way.

“Don’t.” She turned to Marco. “Untie us please.”

“No way.”

She fixed him a deadly look. “Give me back the phone, then. I’ll get him to order you to do it. Or don’t you think your men can handle three unarmed prisoners?”

He debated the question for a moment, then nodded to one of his guards, who moved behind Nina and cut her bonds, then proceeded to release Caleb and Montross.

Rubbing his sore wrists, Caleb nodded his thanks to Nina. He was about to check on Alexander when his son backed up, hands raised, eyes wide open, a smile on his face.

The door began to rise.

He had seen it clearly. Beyond the wall, into the next chamber. As if he had just projected his mind through the door, just as Xavier Montross had been able to do. Except this time, he knew it was more than that.

In the darkness, Alexander could still see. Everything shimmered in violet hues, outlined in silvery-purple. He saw it clearly: the box-like chest against the far wall, between two pillars supporting the roof. Then, through some effort, he was able to will his mind-self to turn and view the door from the backside. And there, glowing brighter, almost golden-white, was a lever.

Without thinking, he reached for it and felt contact. Thrilled and invigorated, without a thought to logic or understanding, he muscled the lever up. It barely budged at first, as if resisting an unfamiliar hand, but then it clicked into a groove and rose effortlessly.

This is why I had those visions. This is what we — my brothers and I — can do!

The room shook, the colors on the onyx door pulsed and flashed, and as it ascended, he ducked and glided out of the room, slipping under the rising door like a contestant in a limbo contest.

Back in the main chamber, he saw his body and went to it, embracing himself and gasping for a breath.

Montross knew that timing at this point was everything.

He hoped Caleb and Alexander would catch on, and do what was needed. Maybe they already knew, maybe Caleb had seen, or maybe Alexander had, in whatever astral state he had just projected himself.

But quickly, Alexander was brought forward by Commander Marco, dragged into the room beyond the door, where the illumination from the floodlights spilled through and highlighted the plain-looking chest sitting alone between two nondescript pillars.

“That’s it?” Marco asked.

“Appearances are deceiving,” Nina replied, walking ahead until one of the soldiers, at a look from Marco, stepped in her path just before the open door.

“Not you,” he said.

Alexander turned around. He was alone with Marco, standing in the room before the pillars. “I want Dad. And Uncle Xavier. They need to be here.”

“No,” said Marco. “You do it. There’s the box. It’s got three keyholes in it. Put them in.”

“Uh-uh,” Alexander said, shaking his head. “What if all three of us need to do it at the same time?”

“Why should it matter?”

Alexander shook his head. “Are you crazy? Of course it matters. Dad?”

“He’s right,” Caleb said quietly. “I don’t know if it has to be all three brothers, but I’d be surprised if the keys didn’t need to be inserted simultaneously.”

“Like the keys to activate a missile launch aboard a nuclear sub,” Montross added.

Marco thought for a moment. “And if you only do one at a time?”

Alexander shrugged. “Most likely, you and I are toast.”

Taking a step back, Marco waved on Caleb and Montross. “All right, you two. Get in here and do it like he said. But no games. First hint of anything funny and I’ll cut you down.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Montross said, walking past the soldiers and giving Nina a wink.

Caleb followed, wide-eyed. “I still don’t know if this will work.”

“It’ll work,” Alexander said quickly, glancing sideways at his father. He took two of the necklaces off. “Remember our vault back in Sodus?”

Caleb approached the box, standing beside it with Montross. Alexander was in the middle, and Caleb was getting ready to touch the box first, to get some kind of psychic glimpse into its past, and hopefully see something about how to open it, and whether there were punishments for not following the prophecy. But then Alexander’s question stopped him.

“Our vault?”

“Yeah, Dad. Remember what would happen inside when the stand was touched?”

Caleb blinked at him, and Montross smiled, a shine in his eyes.

“Give them the keys,” Marco ordered, pointing the gun at Alexander. “No more talking. Insert the keys now and open the damn box.”

Nina said something from behind the guards, and she tried to push through, but they closed ranks, keeping her at bay.

Alexander knelt in front of the box, the non-descript yet ancient-looking chest. He met his father’s eyes, and then looked for Montross, but his uncle was already moving back, taking two steps to position himself closer to Marco.

“Alex—” Caleb started, but his son was already in motion. The keys still in his left hand, he reached out and slapped his palm hard against the box’s lid.

And the great onyx door rumbled, released — and then fell.

Nina yelled. The guards turned, then backed away, guns raised. She got a glimpse of Marco, spinning around in confusion, and then as the door descended she saw Montross shoving him hard from behind.

The commander tumbled, fell and slid on his stomach. He screamed, tried to roll once more, but the two-foot-wide door came crashing down on him, crunching through muscle and bone, flattening his pelvis, his ribcage and his skull in an instant. One leg on each side continued twitching as his arms flailed for a couple seconds, then lay still.

Nina ran to the door and pounded at it. Screaming, yelling, trying to send her voice to the other side.

But it was too thick to be heard.

But she did a hear a voice. Distant, questioning.

The satellite phone, still in Marco’s lifeless hand. She snatched it up, and before the dumbstruck guards could react, she grabbed the spare gun from Marco’s belt. In one quick motion she brought around her arm and fired twice, dropping both men with clean headshots. As they fell, she darted to the side of the entrance. Two more men came running down, guns drawn.

She shot them both.

Sensing there were more at the top of the stairs, she waited with her back to the wall, then put the phone to her ear.

“Hello, Calderon? Nina here again.”

“Nina? What’s going on? Did Alexander open the box?”

“I don’t know that, sir. All I know is the door came down again. Caleb, Montross and the boy are all trapped inside.”

“Damn! And Marco?”

“Crushed.”

“What was that shooting?”

“Just me. Cleaning up.” She peeked around the corner and saw a black helmet duck out of sight at the top of the stairs.

“Nina, be reasonable. Wait there. I need to come to you now.”

“I know that.”

“With your boys.”

“Of course. Someone needs to get that door open again. And fast. I’m surprised you didn’t bring them here for the opening.” It had been bothering her for the past few minutes. “Why not?”

“Because they were needed here. Because there’s something else that they need to find first.”

“And have they found it?”

“Not yet. We’re having some difficulty. I know it’s here, but… Well, perhaps we can try later with Alexander’s help. We’re coming now. Give this phone to one of the other soldiers, and then you can stop killing people. I’ll tell them you’re in charge now. Guard the door until we arrive.”

“But Alexander, and his father—”

“They’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not so sure. I remember Montross speaking of an underground complex, a labyrinth built ages ago, before the pyramids even.”

“I doubt that.” He didn’t sound sincere. “But even if you’re right, they can’t hide from us.”

Nina paused. “What do you plan to do with the contents of the box?” She had never gotten an answer out of Montross, what he would do with it. Only that it was vital to his survival. That, and the fact that she owed him her life was all she required. But now the stakes had changed. She had children. Two boys. Kept from her for more than ten years. So much missed time. Despite her deeds of late, despite who she was, this changed everything. “I want to know.”

“When the time is right, I’ll tell you. For now, if you want to see your children, do as I say. We’ll be there soon.”

“Wait! What is at the Statue of Liberty? What are you looking for?”

“See you soon, Nina. Now, give me to one of the men.”

She glared at the phone, then yelled up the stairs, “Hold your fire!” She stepped into the hall, hands raised, and let the men rush down to her, weapons drawn. She handed one of them the phone, and then turned and regarded the silent, black and unyielding door.

22

“So now we’re trapped,” Alexander said, looking about the room. In the dark, Montross had managed to find a flashlight on Marco’s right side, clipped to his utility belt. It was small, but more than sufficient to probe the room’s meager dimensions.

“No,” said Caleb, taking the light from Montross and aiming it into the far left corner. “I saw something in my last vision. When this room was designed and furnished. The man, almost familiar, in a blue robe, with a staff as he ordered the box sealed. There’s another exit.”

“It can wait,” said Montross.

“What?”

“They’re not getting back in here any time soon. So we have time. Time to open this box, time to get the books inside. Time to talk.” The light hit his face and he squinted, turning away.

“Yes. Let’s talk.”

“Talk about what?” Alexander asked. “How we’re going to get out of here?”

“No,” Caleb replied. “We need to talk about what Montross has seen, and what I saw. Compare our versions. And I need to understand how much is fact, and what’s merely imagination playing with myth.”

“Can’t it all be fact?” Montross asked.

Caleb held his head, then massaged his temples. “I don’t know if I can believe what I’ve seen. It’s too much to contemplate.”

“Well, let’s start with what we know to be true.”

Caleb aimed the light down at their feet. He took slow breaths, not knowing if the air down here was circulating somehow. It tasted stale, but yet still pure as if its isolation through the millennia had protected it from outside contamination. “So here’s what I know. Robert Gregory believed the Emerald Tablet possessed the power of the universe: a concept similar to the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Epic of Creation. We know he somehow allied himself with the cult of Marduk, whose members seem bent on reacquiring what the god Anu took from Marduk and delivered to Enki, better known as Thoth, for safekeeping, thousands of years ago.”

“But why?” Montross guided him. “What was the supreme honcho worried Marduk might do with it?”

Alexander scratched the back of his head. “Make a mess of the universe?”

“Precisely,” Montross said, smiling as the flashlight beam drew away from his face and settled on the enigmatic iron chest. “You asked about my dreams? What I’ve seen to make me plan that assault on your team, on your home? And cause such regrettable loss.”

“Yeah,” Alexander said, finding himself choking up again. “Why?”

Montross hung his head. He scratched over his shoulder, where the backpack would have been, the one confiscated in the helicopter, the one with his sketchbook.

He closed his eyes, and when he spoke, the descriptions echoed the visions he had suffered. Dreams pervading into his every waking thought, nightmares parading about his nocturnal slumber; images that never relented, despite every attempt to thwart the final assault on his mortality. Visions that never, ever let up.

All his life.

He stands in the shadow of an immense statue, a figure whose crown blots out the sun, and whose upstretched arm has served as a beacon to millions of hopeful voyagers.

He stands with his arms out, ready to embrace what he knows is coming.

What he has failed to prevent. What he can never prevent.

At least, not alone.

His face turns to the heavens, but first settles on the face of the Lady high above, on her sad, impassioned eyes that seem to cry for him.

For the world.

The ground trembles.

In the harbor, the water boils.

Something crashes beside him, shatters into thousands of pieces, none of which hit him.

Her arm.

The torch bounces, rolls, then falls into the seething water where boats are capsizing, tankers exploding. The air sizzles. Beyond the statue, the city’s skyline erupts from an invisible wave that crashes through the buildings, exploding glass and concrete as if they’re mere castles of sand. But the debris — instead of falling, seems to suck back, vacuumed to the west, along with huge chunks of earth. Central Park’s trees are uprooted, skyscrapers topple, then shatter, collapsing and hurtling away.

The shadow is gone.

Lady Liberty is bent backwards, spine broken, head sheared off, crown tumbling.

And trails of phosphorescent light streak across the globe, rending the fabric of the very air, tearing through the world, splitting the earth, the seas, sweeping away the atmosphere itself until only the blackness of space, bedecked with frightened stars, remain.

Montross opened his eyes, then looked deep into Caleb’s before shifting to see Alexander.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and pointed to the box. “But that is all that matters. Preventing it from falling into their hands. Or destroying it utterly. Nothing else. I’ve done what I could. Stopped every vision of death from coming true, all my life. Countless times, I’ve cheated mortality. So I know it can be done. But this one… this vision. I’ve tried everything, RV’d every strand of my future. I know what causes my death. And I know, this time, it’s not just me.” He lowered his eyes.

“It’s everyone.”

23

Caleb shuddered. Took a step toward Alexander, put his arm around his son. “I didn’t see all that exactly, but I did see what could happen. What the tablet contains and how it’s been used before.”

“Before?” Alexander asked.

Montross nodded. “You saw it? The first war?”

“Tiamat. Marduk. Whoever they were. Whatever they were. Ages ago, something was released. Marduk was reckless, desperate to beat her at all costs. Tiamat and her son had used it for defense only, protection, but when Marduk got it, deciphered it and understood its powers…”

“He destroyed her. Utterly. And her people.”

Caleb closed his eyes and again saw an unbelievable vision, something straight out of Hollywood science fiction disaster epics. He felt the cosmic explosion, felt the seismic rift before the release of such energy, shattering an entire world, spitting debris across the system, remnants floating in space.

Alexander looked from his uncle to his father, not understanding. “What do you mean? What’s going to happen if they get the translation?”

“I’m not exactly sure how it works,” Montross said, “but it starts in the most unlikely of places.”

“Where?”

“Alaska.”

Caleb blinked at him. “What’s there?”

“That’s what I wondered, but a quick search showed only one thing of interest.” He sighed and said, “HAARP.”

Alexander chuckled. “A harp?”

“HAARP. Short for High Frequency Active Aural Research Project. HAARP is a facility dedicated to the study of the ionosphere for the purpose of improving radio communications and surveillance efforts. Currently, there are all sorts of wild theories and paranoia about tests being done up there in Gacona, Alaksa. Rampant fears that such powerful radio transmitter array — capable of outputs nearing billions of kilowatts — could disturb the ionosphere over any part of the earth, manipulating weather, and possibly, using scalar wave technology, even instigating earthquakes. Powerful earthquakes.”

“That’s nuts,” Alexander whispered. “But still cool.”

Caleb thought quietly, then said, “So this facility, Robert Gregory must have had a connection there? Another cult member? And the information contained on the Emerald Tablet — there must be something, some calculation or set of instructions that could be used to enhance the power of the array.”

“To do what?” Alexander asked.

“To do what I saw in my vision,” Montross replied.

“Destroy the world? But they’ll just kill everyone, even themselves.”

“The ultimate sacrifice?” Montross voiced. “Possibly. I don’t know if it’s a simple matter of revenge, or if it’s something more. Maybe they have some way out reserved for themselves.”

“I think you’re right,” Caleb said. “It is something more. Much more.” He considered everything he had learned, everything he knew about the tablet, about its connection to alchemy, to psychic powers and spiritual transformation. “I think they believe in a special kind of reward. An immortality to be obtained, at the expense of the rest of humanity.”

“Reincarnated off-planet maybe?” Montross suggested.

“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “But there are other players at work here, other forces. I can’t help recall the story of the Tower of Babel.”

“Why?” Alexander asked, then thought it through. “Oh wait. All the worlds’ people working together. Building that tower to go to heaven.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a tower,” Caleb suggested.

“Then—?”

“A rocket?” Montross said, shrugging. “But in any case, what’s important is that the gods, of which Marduk was a chief entity, were greatly alarmed by this challenge humanity was mounting against what they perceived as their realm. Their space.”

“So they knocked it down.”

“And remember the main part? They confused our tongues, made it impossible for mankind’s races to speak one language again, so that we could never again collude in such a way.”

“Yeah,” Montross said. “I never really understood that story until recently. Its implications, in light of our powers, are a bit staggering.”

“I don’t get it,” Alexander said.

“One language,” Caleb said with emphasis. “One language, which I believe wasn’t a spoken one.”

“Telepathy,” Montross offered. “Psychics. Maybe they were all psychics back then, able to share visions, thoughts, impressions. Communicate mentally, instantaneously. Combining their ideas, working through scenarios and calculations at vast speeds. Pooling their resources in ways we can’t imagine today.”

“The gods didn’t like that,” Alexander said.

“Maybe because they thought only they should be able to do it, and having a race that multiplied and expanded like ours, with access to that kind of unchecked power was just too much. Who knew what we’d do?”

“So,” said Montross, “they knocked us down. Took away the gift, wiped it from our minds somehow.”

Caleb nodded, still working it through. “But maybe a few of them didn’t agree with this action. Some had mankind’s interests at heart, and felt responsible for our protection.”

“Thoth,” Alexander said.

“He preserved a way for us to reacquire those powers. Codified it, wrote it down on something that would outlast even the gods. And his followers, even if they couldn’t read it or discover a way to find it, sought to protect it from the other side, the lingering elements of those like Marduk. Men who now realized they could have it both ways — restore their own powers, advance themselves to immortality, and then close the door on the rest of us. Forever.”

Montross nodded again. “So, back to HAARP. I went there, entered with a visitor’s pass, and studied the layout, analyzed the guard shifts, the defenses. All with thoughts about blowing it up somehow, or killing everyone who might be involved. But in the end, I couldn’t get in where I needed to, couldn’t get close to the central control chamber.”

“Why not?” Alexander asked. “If it’s just a research place?”

“Co-funded by the U. S. Army, the Air Force and the Defense Department.” Montross smiled. “Further fuel for the conspiracy nuts who, by the way, have been blocked at every turn, discredited and turned away despite some quite logical questions about the functions and research done at HAARP, and the patents they have on file — patents which demonstrate clear military applications.”

“Okay,” Caleb said. “So sabotage isn’t a likely possibility.”

“Every time I embarked on an idea or outlined a mission, I was struck with a vision of pre-emptive death. I would fail. They would kill me before I even got close. The place has defenses no one could have imagined. Nobody gets close without their permission.” He sighed again. “No, the only way, the only possibility that offered a glimmer of success, was this one. Getting the tablet myself.”

“But that wasn’t enough,” Caleb said.

“No. But I knew it would buy us time. Robert was going to find it soon himself if I didn’t trick him and take it first. He would have used Alexander against you and made you open the vault. So I had to do it my way.”

“You could have destroyed it,” Alexander said in a shaky voice, as if fearing even by voicing such an option he might be committing the worst sacrilege.

Montross shook his head. “It’s nearly indestructible.”

“What about going all Lord of the Rings on it and tossing it in a volcano? That should do the trick.” Alexander beamed at the concept. “Or — like in The Incredibles, remember, Dad?”

“What?” He frowned, trying to follow.

“The only thing that could break through the metal skin of the indestructible enemy robot?”

“Oh yeah,” Caleb said, remembering. “Itself. Something made of the same material.”

“Maybe,” Montross said. “But the point is moot now, since we don’t have it.”

“But,” Alexander said, still giddy with the thought of a new quest, “once we get it back, we need to be ready. And can’t let it get in their hands again. I say destroy it.”

“We could hide it,” Caleb offered. “I don’t want to lose such a gift, if possible.”

Montross shook his head. “No, it gives off radiation. Minimal, but enough to locate it if you’ve got the right equipment. Satellites could locate its signature. Can’t bury it. Can’t drop it in the ocean. No, short of launching it on a rocket to the sun, I had to find another way.”

“So you knew there were two components. The tablet alone wasn’t enough. No one today could still read it.”

“I needed the translation, the cipher.” He pointed to the box. “Located here.”

“Well,” said Caleb. “We’ve secured it, stopped them.”

“For now. But they’re coming.”

Alexander’s face brightened. “Can we destroy these things? The books in the chest? Or the keys themselves?”

“The keys, no. They’re made of the same stuff as the tablet. But the books? I would assume we can demolish those.”

“Then let’s do it!”

“The only problem,” said Montross, “is that we might not be able to open the chest.”

“But we have the keys.”

“Try them.”

Alexander glanced at Caleb.

“Trust me,” Montross said. “We don’t die now. I just think it won’t open.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Kind of like the door outside, I’d wager. Having the keys gets you to the event, but you still have to ask the right girl before you get to dance.”

Alexander frowned. “You mean, I have to ask the right questions? RV something else — maybe inside the box?”

“I don’t think so. I believe you were right before. All three of you are needed.”

Alexander looked crushed. “Well, so what do we do? The box looks pretty heavy, we can’t take it with us. If there even is a way out of here.”

“There’s a way,” Caleb insisted. “I saw it.”

“We have to leave the box,” Montross said.

“Can we blow it up?” Alexander asked. “Shoot it open, throw a grenade at it?”

“Don’t have guns,” Montross replied. He shined his light on Marco’s body. “And no grenades on our friend here.”

“Then we’re screwed,” Alexander said, glancing at his father. “Sorry. Anyway, they’ll just bring the other two here. My brothers. And they’ll open the door.”

“But they won’t have the keys,” Caleb said excitedly. “We’ve got them, and we’re going to get out.” He pointed the light at the corner again, and this time moved in closer, finding the outline of a door. He closed his eyes as he touched the wall. Furrowed his brow, and let his mind break free, scatter into the infinite and pluck the answer from tangle of his visions.

“Damn it,” Caleb said after a moment, holding his head. “This means that Waxman was right after all.”

Alexander frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Waxman believed the Emerald Tablet was the greatest threat to the security of humanity, and now I realize he was right after all. He just didn’t know the true nature of the threat, didn’t know what it would be used for. But another one of his psychics had foreseen this and warned him. Which is why he spared no effort to get into the Pharos Vault.” He shook his head. “Maybe I should have let him succeed.”

“But he wouldn’t have been able to burn it like the other scrolls,” Montross said. “You did the right thing. Now it’s up to us to finish it.”

Alexander pouted. “But, what about Aunt Phoebe and Orlando?”

“They’ll be ok,” Caleb said. “If I know my sister, she’s already figured a way out of there, and they’re on the run, somewhere safe.”

“And Nina?”

Caleb paused. “She’s got other priorities now.”

Montross shrugged. “She’s inscrutable. She owed me for breaking her out of that facility, but that debt’s been repaid many times over. My guess is that she’s going to side with her boys. You know how she was always drawn to power, and she’s just been elevated to their high queen, the mother of the messiahs. At least in their minds.”

Caleb shook his head. “Then let’s go. This isn’t over.”

“But what can we do?” Alexander asked. “Even if we make it through the maze that I know is waiting for us under the pyramids, probably loaded with more traps and things to squash us or impale us, how do we stop the end of the world?”

Glancing from Alexander back to Montross, Caleb smiled hopefully. “I keep coming back to that image the Morpheus Initiative had been seeing every time we asked about the tablet, asked to be shown its origin and its function. There’s something else we’re missing, some piece that I have to believe we’re being drawn to because it might help us.” He thought again for a moment. “Remember, Marduk wasn’t the only one with followers. Thoth had his believers, scholars and philosophers who, knowing the threat, may have secreted something else away. Something that we can use to counter what the other side is planning.”

Montross’s eyes sparkled with sudden vigor. “Yes. I hadn’t thought back on this. Hadn’t considered this aspect. Instead, I just used it as a lure to get you away from guarding the tablet. But you’re right.”

“What are we talking about?” Alexander asked.

“The head,” Montross said. “The crowned head we’ve been seeing and searching for.”

“Nina said something,” Montross whispered, “about the Statue of Liberty.”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “The twins were there. With someone. Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Montross. “But if something we need is on Liberty Island, we’ve got to get it before they do.”

“Something else to RV when we get the chance,” Caleb said, then paused, frowning.

“What, Dad?”

Caleb nodded to himself. “I just thought of something. I may know what it is — what they’re looking for.”

“What?”

“You jogged my memory just now. The Incredibles… the sharp claw-thing used by Mr. Incredible to tear through the robot’s shell.”

“Yeah,” Alexander said. “So what?”

Montross’s eyes went wide. “I think I know, too.”

Caleb smiled. “The symbol of Marduk. The slaying of the dragon. He had—”

“A lance!” Montross licked his lips and then swooned, holding his head.

Alexander glanced around helplessly as Montross slowly recovered.

“Later,” Montross said. “I’ll tell you later. Now we need to get out of here. Fast.”

Caleb went to the first pillar and turned it clockwise, then went to the second, twisting it in the other direction for three rotations.

The side door opened. Inside, a hallway flickered into view as floor-lamps filled with glowing light, like a runway guiding them in.

“Time to move,” Montross said, a spring in his step. “And trust me, we don’t die down here in this sprawling, sadistic labyrinth of hell, one that I fear might make Genghis Khan’s place look like a kid’s playpen.” He stopped, glancing back, frowning. “Well, at least I know I don’t die.”

24

Despite Caleb’s assessment, Phoebe remained restrained in the back of the helicopter, along with Orlando, until the pilot, acting on orders transmitted over his headset, came into the cabin and cut them free. He disconnected the transfusions and saline drip, bandaged Orlando up, then escorted them out onto the desert to a waiting limousine.

Between the Sphinx’s paws, Nina stood in the middle of a crowd of soldiers, barking orders and pointing to locations around the site. She glanced over to them once, nodded, then looked away quickly.

“Here,” said the pilot, tossing Orlando’s pack to him, then pushing both of them inside the limo. “This man will take you to the airport, where you’ll have a flight waiting.”

“Going where?” Phoebe asked, her mouth dry, her head spinning.

“New York. Your part in this is done.”

“But my brother? My nephew—?”

“I won’t say it again. You’re going home, where you’ll be watched. If you try to leave the country, we’ll have you detained.” He smirked under his visor. “Or killed.”

“That seems fair.” Orlando leaned on the open car door, trying to be chivalrous and let Phoebe in first. Then he slid in beside her, with his pack on his lap.

On the ride to the airport, as they passed through the perimeter of jeeps and men with guns, Orlando took out his iPad and turned it on. He leaned back, then fell sideways, resting his head against Phoebe’s shoulder. Her breathing was quick, raspy.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “No crying. Not yet. We’re not done.”

“I heard gunshots down there.”

“Hey, we’ll find out how they are. Just a moment. Let me get my strength.”

“You do that,” she said. “I need to see.”

Behind them, the Great Pyramid glowed brightly, dwindling in their window before they turned, and Cairo’s choppy hills, crammed with homes, stores and museums, took its place.

“Okay, but—”

Just then, the iPad beeped. Groaning, Orlando sat up, opened to the screen and blinked at it for a long time before cursing.

“What?” Phoebe said, looking over. Her eyes focused and her brain slowly perceived the image. “What is that?”

Orlando could barely breathe. “It’s the program I’ve been running.”

“Jeez, Orlando. Which one? Your Morpheus Initiative work, or something related to finding the perfect World of Warcraft character, some blend of mage, warrior and thief?”

“The head,” he whispered. “The crown, the program!”

“I thought we gave up on that after Antarctica.”

“I never give up.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “You know that.”

“Okay, so what was this program?”

“The usual. I had it searching all known images and visuals for a match to the drawings our group had done. You know, the pictures of the head buried in sand-like stuff, crown partially revealed. Unknown size and specs.”

“Yes, I know. The only match was in Antarctica. The fake Montross planted, knowing we’d find it.”

“Not true,” Orlando said. “There were actually two other, earlier matches. Both passed over because they didn’t fit the location. But the head itself was a match.”

“I wasn’t aware of that. Why wasn’t I told?”

“Only spoke to the boss-man about it in private, and he said we’d come back to these, but they weren’t likely to be major hits at the time. Nowhere to spend our energies.”

“So, what were they?”

Orlando clicked on the upper left section of the program’s readout. An image appeared, an artist’s rendition of a giant head, severed at the neck, on a beach, being worked on by artisans. In the distance was a statue astride a circular harbor, pyramids and obelisks along the shore and a sail boat departing under its legs. It held a torch aloft.

“The Colossus of Rhodes,” Orlando said. “Another of our friends, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Itself a lighthouse, the immense Colossus collapsed in — what else — an earthquake, in 226 BCE. But its remains, so huge and impressive, stayed on the ground for over eight hundred years, a major tourist attraction.”

“What happened to the pieces?” Phoebe asked. “Where’s the head?”

“No one knows for sure. Lots of rumors about Arabs taking the remnants, melting them down or storing them somewhere. At the time, I didn’t think much of this, but I did try to RV the head. But never got anything specific. Thought we should bring it up at the next meeting, but then we got the Antarctica hit.”

“Okay, so that’s a possibility. What’s the other one?”

Orlando smiled and clicked. “This.”

“Ah,” Phoebe said, and whistled. “Lady Liberty.”

“Yep, inspired by the Colossus. Built almost exactly to its specifications in size and possibly posture.”

“Except they changed the gender.”

“Yeah, well you can’t fight progress.” He smiled. “At this point, if Caleb were here, he’d go into all sorts of conspiracy stories about Freemasons and symbols, about the significance of the dedication date, the Masonic service, and hidden purposes behind Liberty’s delivery to the new world of light and reason, yada, yada.”

“Of course,” Phoebe groaned. “And we’d all just nod and hope he got to the point. Which is…?”

Orlando shrugged. “No idea. The head’s still on her shoulders, and doesn’t fit our images, so we passed on this hit. Although, I think it might still be worth a look. Maybe there’s something there.”

“Maybe,” Phoebe urged, leaning in. She clicked on the back button, returning to the first image that had filled the screen. “So what’s this?”

“That,” he said slowly, “is new. Hit Number Three.”

“It’s…” Phoebe said, squinting, “small. Can you enlarge it?”

“Hang on.” He expanded the magnification, and the view increased, the details solidifying. It appeared to be a photograph taken from high above, of a desert with boulders, rocks and mountains, a desolate plain. Except there was something imbedded in the desert floor. Something half in shade, with a mouth, an outline of a crown, and an eye staring back at them.

“I’ve seen this before somewhere. That’s a face?”

Orlando nodded. “If you believe the nutcases out there. The same people who see the Virgin Mary in potato chips and Elvis in some guy’s liver spots.”

“But—”

“Yeah,” said Orlando grimly, now taking the pointer and decreasing magnification. Ten times. Fifty. A hundred.

“Jeez.”

“Yeah,” Orlando said again. “You see, back in China, waiting for you guys at that mausoleum, I had the idea of expanding my search, looking for matches… elsewhere.”

“You expanded it all right,” Phoebe said, staring along with him at the reddish globe set against the stars.

“It’s—”

“Yeah,” he repeated, one more time, incredulous.

“Mars.”