The Prisoner's Gold

59

Before charging off to Sigiriya, the site of an ancient palace that sits upon a massive column of rock in central Sri Lanka, Cobb needed to know how Maggie had reached her conclusion. Stationed with McNutt at a tiny guesthouse in Colombo, they set up a secure, encrypted video chat through Cobb’s computer.

Not surprisingly, Garcia answered the call.

‘Cool news, huh?’ he said as his face filled Cobb’s screen.

‘That depends on the details,’ Cobb said. ‘Is Maggie there?’

Garcia turned his computer so Maggie could be seen on the webcam, too.

‘Hey guys,’ she said, beaming. ‘I think we found the site. We won’t know for sure until we get there, but I’m fairly confident that the treasure is at Sigiriya, which is in the Matale district of the country near the town of Dambulla.’

‘Tell us why,’ Cobb said, sitting next to McNutt.

‘The diary tells us of Polo’s interest in a place that Lobsang described as a “heavenly monastery”,’ Maggie explained. ‘I didn’t catch it at first, but then it dawned on me—’

‘Buddhists don’t believe in heaven,’ Cobb said. ‘At least not in the same way that Polo would.’

Maggie smiled. ‘Exactly. What Lobsang really meant was “elevated”.’

‘So the guy was high,’ McNutt said. ‘How does that help us?’

‘He wasn’t high,’ Maggie said with a laugh, ‘the monastery was.’

McNutt grimaced. ‘So you’re saying that all the monks were stoned?’

‘Josh,’ Cobb grunted, ‘let her finish.’

Maggie was too excited to be offended by the interruptions. ‘Anyway, I cross-referenced this new understanding with the Thokmay manuscript, and something jumped out at me. Thokmay explains that Lobsang spent a significant amount of time at a monastery on top of the giant rock known as Sigiriya.’

‘An elevated monastery,’ Cobb said. ‘One near the heavens.’

‘Precisely!’ Maggie replied. ‘And that’s not all. Hector, if you would …’

The screen changed to an image from the Thokmay codex that Kunchen had given them at the Potala Palace. Cobb could see what looked like blueprints of a building or maybe a series of buildings. Rectangles and squares indicated rooms or plazas, and zigzagged lines resembled stairs. Based on the complexity of the drawing, it could have been a university or a small town.

‘What am I looking at?’ Cobb asked.

‘It is a floor plan,’ Maggie said. ‘Lobsang created it during his stay on the island, as an architectural study.’

‘And this floor plan matches Sigiriya?’ Cobb guessed.

‘Almost,’ Garcia said. ‘With one major exception.’

The image changed to a modern blueprint of the site with the Thokmay plans overlaid on top of it. A single discrepancy was circled in red.

‘There’s an extra room,’ Maggie stressed. ‘A hidden room.’

Cobb smiled at the significance. ‘Nice work, you two.’

‘Thanks,’ Maggie said. ‘Do you want us to head there now?’

‘Not until Josh and I scope out the place,’ Cobb said before shifting his gaze to Garcia. ‘Hector, what have you learned about the Fists?’

‘They started courting gang members from all over China in the 1990s. They lured them in with promises of better money, a better lifestyle, and a China for the Chinese — not foreigners. Most gang members were quick to take to the propaganda, since it meant an increase in income. I can find a lot of rumors about it in chat rooms and private forums until 2010 or so. After that, things started to go quiet. By that point, a lot of the former gangs were just gone, either absorbed or eradicated by the Brotherhood.’

Maggie spoke up. ‘No one knows for sure who runs the Brotherhood, but a few key businessmen in Hong Kong are rumored to have gotten their start in the gangs.’

‘Feng He is the most prominent businessman on the list — and the most secretive.’ Garcia displayed a photo of Feng on the cover of a Chinese financial magazine on the screen. ‘He owns both the mining operation in Loulan, and several steel factories throughout Gansu province, via holding companies. I had to hack through a shit-ton of firewalls and protected VPNs, but it looks like he’s running the Brotherhood. And best of all …’

Garcia paused with a flourish as the screen changed once again, this time to a CCTV camera photo taken of a Chinese man in a dark suit, handing his passport to an immigration official. ‘He just landed at Bandaranaike International Airport, two hours ago. So he’s in Sri Lanka. We can assume he’s not alone even though there was only one other person on the private flight with him. A man named Lim Bao.’

The screen changed to show a corporate photo of Lim.

‘Anything on him?’ McNutt asked.

‘Just business stuff. He runs a lot of deals for Feng. He’s seen in a lot of media photos with him. But nothing more than that.’

‘Stick with it,’ Cobb said. ‘As for Feng, he’s most likely going to converge on us at the site — if he’s figured out where it is. So you should be safe in Kandy for the time being.’

‘About that,’ Maggie said, ‘I’m not sure how he could know about the site without the information we possess. We’ve been very careful on our end.’

‘Hector, any thoughts?’ Cobb asked.

Garcia nodded. ‘My guess is that they’re hacking the CCTV feeds at airports and comparing the video stills to photos that they’ve taken of us. Once we leave the airport, they lose us until we pop up again on another camera. Thankfully, Sri Lanka doesn’t have a huge number of cameras, at least not compared to Western countries.’

‘Still,’ Cobb said. ‘If they’re in country, they’ll be coming for us eventually. Contact Papi and tell him to move tonight. I’ll let Sarah know as well.’

‘Wait,’ Garcia said. ‘We’re out of the line of fire, and Sarah and Papi will have distance on their side. But what about you guys? The Fists will be coming, sooner or later.’

McNutt grinned at the thought. ‘I’m hoping for sooner.’