Thunder God

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ryan finished his coffee and walked to the minibar for something stronger. Years ago he’d filled his late night computer hacking with cannabis and super strength lager, but these days he was more sophisticated. He passed Sophie a cold bottle — Hart declined with a frown — and they settled back into the research. They all knew Hawke and the others were depending on them, maybe even placing their lives in their hands.

Hart stepped up. “So where are we, Ryan?”

“Apparently Anton Reichardt was Hoffmann’s doctoral supervisor, and he spent his entire life searching for the secret of eternal life until he died around twenty years ago, according to this he burned himself out in the search.”

“Talk about irony,” Hart said.

Ryan ignored her. “Reichardt had worked out that all of this revolves around something called the Secret History of the Mongols.”

“The what?”

“The Secret History of the Mongols. It looks like everything we’re dealing with here in China goes back to it,” Ryan said, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he unlocked more and more of Hoffmann’s most confidential research.

“Keep talking.”

“The Secret History has twelve chapters and famously disappeared hundreds of years ago, but Reichardt seems to have worked out that not only does it still exist but that there are thirteen chapters in it — the missing final chapter being the key to our puzzle.”

“How so?”

“There was a translation made and the secret message written on the back of the Xi Shi portrait in milk of tithymalus was actually put there by the monk who had been asked to make a translation into Chinese by the Mongolians, so the existence of the thirteenth chapter wasn’t lost forever.”

“Why would a monk do that?”

“This is where old Reichardt really hots up! As I say, the original Secret History of the Mongols is twelve chapters long, but according to this there was a thirteenth chapter, but the Mongolians forbade the monk from making a translation of it because…”

“Because it contained the part of Genghis Khan’s life when he was searching for the secret of eternal life?” said Sophie.

“Exactly! At some point the Mongolians must have made some kind of discovery with reference to the hunt for immortality and recorded it within the Secret History, but when they had the translations made they stopped the final chapter from being told to the rest of the world.”

“So where is this original?” Hart said. She set her coffee cup on the desk and ran her fingers though her hair. It was late and she hadn’t slept since London.

“Not worked that out yet, but we know it’s in Mongolia, of course.”

“We need more than that.”

“Thanks to our mysterious monk and his hidden message on the back of the Xi Shi portrait we know they’re linked. Although the reference to the ‘Great Khan’ could mean either Kublai or Genghis, but I don't think it matters. Either way, this is getting very interesting!” Ryan rubbed his hands together. Outside far below in the streets of Shanghai a cacophony of car horns drifted up to their open balcony.

“So what do we know about Khan, honey?” Sophie said. He’d never told her, but he liked it when she called him that. It sounded pretty damned great in her French accent. He knew that much.

“Okay — let’s start at the beginning. We all know that Genghis Khan was obsessed with immortality, right?”

Sophie and Hart looked at each other for a second with vacant expressions.

“I don’t know the first thing about Genghis Khan,” Hart said first.

“He had red hair and green eyes!” said Sophie proudly. “I know that!”

Ryan sighed. “Maybe I should start before the beginning… Anyway, Genghis Khan was obsessed with immortality, as I just said, and…”

“And you think that’s where all this nightmare begins,” Sophie said. “With Khan?”

“No, I don’t think so at all. Poseidon predates Genghis Khan by a long way — thousands of years. I think Genghis Khan was really just like us — he was on the trail of something far more ancient and mysterious, and that Hoffman and this Reichardt guy were trying to work out what that was.”

“Okay,” Hart said, sipping her coffee. “I’m listening.”

“You sound just like a senior naval officer sometimes,” Ryan said.

Hart replied: “Funny… but we have to move faster than this. We can’t let Sheng get ahead now we’ve got the advantage. If Genghis Khan or his grandson knew something about this missing manuscript — and I guess we’re all thinking it’s something along the lines of where this bloody map is — then we’ve got to do everything we can to stop Sheng Fang getting hold of it. We have some phone calls to make.”

Under Hart’s direction, Sophie Durand ordered some coffee from room service and the three of them set about the almost impossible task of organizing what had quickly become a mission now totally out of control.

Hours later, after Hart had taken a shower and Sophie had grabbed some sleep, Ryan was still hammering away at the keyboard.

“So what have you got now?” Hart asked him, drying her hair.

Ryan scratched his head and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The hidden message on the back of the Xi Shi portrait was clear enough — it’s a simple whisper from the ancient past about Genghis Khan knowing a secret — some kind of ancient truth, and we’ve already worked out this somehow involved a previously unknown chapter of the Secret History. The real question is, what’s that manuscript hiding? We’ll need to work this out.”

“That’s supposing we find it.”

Hart laughed. “If there’s anyone in this world who can find it, his name is Joe Hawke. That man could rescue an astronaut stranded on Mars if he had to, believe me.”

“We’ll leave the heroics to Hawke then,” Ryan said. “But we’ve got a job to do as well. We need a lot more knowledge on this subject if we’re going to beat this Sheng Fang. I just hope Joe knows what he’s getting himself into up there.”

“Don't worry about the Major, he’ll be all right.”

Ryan looked over his shoulder at Hart. “The Major? Who the hell’s that?”

“Hawke, who’d you think I was talking about?”

“No one, just that Lea told me Hawke was a sergeant before he left the Special Boat Service.”

“He was,” Hart said. “Hawke was busted down from Major a long time ago but I can’t break the habit of referring to his old title.”

“Hawke was busted down to a non-commissioned officer?” Ryan leaned forward in his chair, enthralled. “I had no idea.”

“I thought everyone knew,” Hart said. “It's one of the reasons he hates officers so much.”

“What was he demoted to sergeant for?”

Hart sighed. “If you don't know that then I’m certainly not going to tell you. That’s Joe Hawke’s business and no one else’s. Let's move on, please.”