White Jade

Chapter Twenty-Six

Next morning Harker was dressed in her trade mark black pants suit. She wore gold and ruby hanging earrings, a wild variation for her.

"How are you feeling, Nick?"

"Like I've got a world class hangover."

"I'm wondering how they knew you were here, and how they found you."

"It would have been easy enough. They had my name. I just didn't believe they were after us. They had to think we were killed in the mine."

"I agree. So how did they make the jump back to Washington?"

"Someone must have told them Selena was here," Ronnie said. "They could have tracked her to Nick's."

The Director tapped FDR's pen on her desk, thinking things through.

"Not many people knew you were here. The people in this room. The FBI. No one else is in the loop at this point. It must be the FBI."

"A mole at the Bureau?"

"Has to be. Someone told Wu you were alive and here in Washington. Sending your friend was smart, Selena, you would never suspect her."

Carter rubbed his bandaged ear. "They have Selena's computer and that means they have the book. It's what they've been after all along."

"We can't do anything about that now. Selena, how far did you get?"

"I translated all of the Sanskrit and I have good assumptions about some of the Linear A. It's an unbelievable story."

"How so?"

"The first part is a treatise on the immune system and circulation of the blood and has part of a formula for creating an elixir of immortality. Nothing we didn't know. Some information needed to complete the formula is missing. There's a reference to a second book called 'The Silver Garuda' that has the rest of it.

"The formula isn't what's important. If the book is true, it changes history. It says the First Emperor isn't buried at Li Shan. It claims he was taken to Tibet, where an order of priests would give him the secret of immortality. The text says the secret is thousands of years old."

"You're kidding," Carter said.

"That's what it says. It has a map showing where the emperor was supposedly taken. It's near Mount Kailash in the Tibet Autonomous Region."

Harker was toying with her pen again. "How do you evaluate the historical material? Is there any truth in it?"

"I don't know, but if it's true the emperor isn't in Li Shan and someone found his real burial site, it would be a fantastic archeological and cultural discovery. Emperor Huang was obsessed with immortality. He would have done anything to obtain it. Maybe he built his tomb to throw his enemies off track.

"One of the ingredients of the elixir is the powder of 'burning silver rocks'. The computer confirmed that those rocks must be very high grade uranium ore. Ore like that would impact China's nuclear weapons production."

Harker's pen drummed away on her desk. "Yang might want the book to find out where those priests got their supplies. But how would he know that? We just translated it and no one read it before."

"If he has the companion book," Carter said, "he'd know your book would have what he's looking for. Did you find out where these rocks came from?"

Selena brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "No. But directions can be found where the emperor was taken. That location is marked on the map."

"How accurate is the map?"

"The names of the landmarks are archaic and we'd need to find modern equivalents. Mount Kailash is unmistakable. It shouldn't be hard. That part of the Tibetan Plateau is fifteen thousand feet high and barren. There's not much there except yaks and a few villages."

"We can pin down landmarks with satellite imagery and GPS," said Harker. She made a note. "We'll get that today. In the meantime, how shall we handle the FBI? Nick, you know Jordan. Is he our mole?"

"I can't see that. He's dedicated. I don't think he's the one."

"Then we need to bring him up to speed. We have to inform the FBI we think there's a leak. Steph, how are you coming with those risk scenarios?"

"They'll be finished this morning."

"Good. We'll meet with Jordan this afternoon. Anything else?"

No one had anything to add.