With the shock of the collision just in front of them, Giordino felt sideburns's grip around his neck loosen a fraction and he reacted immediately. Shoving the man's wrist up, Giordino flung his free elbow into the worker's ribs. It was enough to stun the man and allow Giordino to slip his grasp. Giordino turned and ducked as sideburns threw a roundhouse punch, which he countered with a hard jab below the man's ear. The smaller man quickly dropped to his knees, gazing at Giordino with a dazed look in his eyes.
That still left the security guard on foot. Giordino glanced at the armed man a few feet away and was relieved to see that he was no longer pointing the gun in his direction. The guard had instead turned his attention toward the forklift, which was now racing directly toward him. The guard fired two panicked shots in the general direction of the cab, then leaped out of the path of the charging vehicle. Ducking low in the cab, Pitt heard the shots whistle over his head, then yanked hard on the steering wheel as he passed by the guard. The nimble forklift quickly spun around and in an instant Pitt was back on the heels of the man. The surprised guard stumbled as he now tried to flee the rabid forklift and fell facedown in its oncoming path. Pitt quickly lowered the front prongs and moved in for the kill.
The guard should have rolled to the side but instead tried to stand up and run. As he rose, one of the prongs struck him along the backside and rode up his coat. Pitt jammed the lift lever and elevated the twin prongs above the cab, hauling the guard up into the air with them. Kicking and flailing, the guard dropped his gun as he desperately grabbed at the prong to keep from falling to the ground.
"You know, you could hurt someone with this thing, if you're not careful," Giordino said, jumping into the cab and grabbing an overhead roll bar for support.
"Safety first, I always say. Or is it second?" Pitt replied.
He had already spun the forklift around and was accelerating alongside the railroad tracks toward the gate. As he was passing by the loading dock, several workers stepped forward, then jumped back as the forklift raced by, the security guard dangling from the elevated prong and shouting out for help.
Pitt spied a high stack of oil drums ahead and veered the forklift toward the pile.
"End of the line for our first-class passengers," he muttered.
Driving straight for the drums, he slammed on the brakes when just a few yards away. The forklift screeched and skidded, banging to a jolting stop against the lower wall of drums. Dangling from the elevated prong, the sudden stop jerked the security guard forward, sending him flailing like a bird into the upper stack of oil drums. As he backed the forklift away, Pitt heard mumbled curses from the stack that told him the guard was still alive.
Pitt turned the forklift back toward the railroad tracks and mashed the round accelerator to the floorboard. Shouts could be heard from the scene of the wrecked jeep, and Pitt glanced over his shoulder to see that two of the men were on their feet and chasing after them. The popping sound of gunfire echoed from behind, and a few of the rounds found the body of the forklift with a metallic thud. But the humming electric forklift buzzed quietly along, spreading the distance between itself and the angry pursuers.
Nearing the gate, Pitt inched the forklift closer to the railroad tracks until the right wheel was bouncing over the wooden ties.
"Ramming speed," Giordino said, eyeing Pitt's move and bracing himself for impact.
Pitt steered for the left edge of the gate and gripped the steering wheel tight. The left prong struck the gate support post dead-on, severing through the lower metal hinge, as the right prong sliced through the metal fencing. The nose of the forklift then rammed into the gate with the full force of its momentum. The impact drove the forklift into the air momentarily before it mashed the gate off its hinges and sent it flying off to the side.
Pitt had to fight the controls to keep the forklift from flipping as it burst out of the facility. The battered forklift bounded over the tracks and onto the gravel track that sided the rail line before settling onto its three wheels. Pitt steered down the gravel path, never lifting his foot off the accelerator.
"I hope our taxi driver is early," Pitt yelled.
"He better be. We're not going to outrun anybody much longer." Peering back toward the facility, Giordino spotted the headlights of another vehicle skirting the railroad tracks toward the battered gate.
Pitt muscled the forklift's controls as it bounced wildly over unseen ruts and rocks in the starlit darkness. Not wanting to give any pursuing shooters an exact target, he had flicked off the headlights when they broke clear of the facility. The darkened shadow of the burned-out bakery atop the hill finally appeared ahead and Pitt skidded the forklift to a stop.
"Everybody off," he said, holding the brake down until they came to a complete stop. Jumping down, he searched the ground around him until finding a large flat rock. Turning the steering wheel of the forklift so it aimed down the gravel track, he dropped the rock on the accelerator and jumped back. The yellow forklift sprung down the path, humming quietly as it disappeared into the night.
"A shame. I was starting to get attached to that machine," Giordino muttered as they quickly scrambled up the hill.
"Hopefully, a camel herder in the Gobi Desert will put it to good use."
Cresting the ravine, they ducked behind a crumbling wall of the bakery and peered around the front lot. Corsov's car was nowhere to be seen.
"Remind me to bad-mouth the KGB next time we're in public," Giordino said.
A half mile down the road, they suddenly eyed the red flash of a pair of taillights, illuminated from a tap on the brakes.
"Let's hope that's our boy," Pitt said.
The duo took off from the building and ran down the road at a sprint. Approaching the crunching sound of tires on gravel, they jumped to the side of the road and hesitated as a car with its headlights off crept out of the darkness. It was the gray Toyota.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Corsov grinned as Pitt and Giordino climbed into the car. His breath filled the interior with the odor of vodka. "A successful tour?"
"Yes," Pitt replied, "but our hosts wish to follow us home."
Behind the bakery, they could see the flash of a bouncing headlight beam from down the hill. Without a word, Corsov whipped the car around and sped off down the road. In minutes, he was barreling down a mix of back-road city streets before suddenly appearing at the rear of their hotel.
"Good night, gentlemen," Corsov slurred. "We shall reconvene tomorrow, when you can give me a full report."
"Thanks, Ivan," Pitt said. "Drive safe."
"But of course."
As Pitt slammed the door shut, the Toyota burst off down the street disappearing around a corner with its tires squealing. Walking to the hotel, Giordino suddenly stopped and pointed. Across the street, music and laughter wafted from the little cafe, still bustling at the late hour.
Giordino turned to Pitt and smiled. "I believe, boss, that you owe me a diversion."
-19-
THERESA SAT IN THE study, looking through a seismic report with a thousand-mile stare. A melancholy depression, tinged with anger, had gradually replaced her shock at Roy's brutal killing. He had been like a brother to her and his murder the night before was painful to accept. It had been made worse by the appearance of Tatiana in the courtyard shortly after Roy expired. With glaring eyes that spit fire, she'd hissed at Theresa. "Do not obey and the same fate will befall you!"
The guard who had killed Roy was summoned to crudely drag Theresa back to her room and keep her under armed guard.
Since that moment, she and Wofford had been under constant surveillance. She gazed across the study to the entryway, where two stone-faced guards stood staring back at her. Their brightly colored silk dels, or tunics, softened their appearance, but she knew from the night before that they were highly trained killers.
Alongside her, Wofford sat with his bum leg propped on a chair, deeply engrossed in a geological report. He had been shocked by Roy's death but se
emed to have shaken it off quickly. More likely, he was using the task at hand to conceal his emotions, Theresa decided.
"We might as well give them the work they asked for," he had told her. "It might be the only thing that keeps us alive."
Maybe he was right, she thought, trying to regain focus on the report in her hands. It was a geological assessment of a basin area in an unidentified plain. Sandstone and limestone rifts were identified as being overlaid with clay and shale stretched across the basin. It was just the type of stratigraphy that was conducive to subsurface petroleum reserves.
"The geology seems promising, wherever it is," she said to Wofford.
"Take a look at this," he replied, unrolling a computer printout across the table. Known as a seismic section, the printout showed a computer-enhanced image of several layered levels of sediment for a confined location. The chart was created by a seismic survey team that sent man-made shocks into the ground and recorded the sound reflections. Theresa stood up to get a better look, examining the chart with fresh interest. It was unlike any seismic image she had seen before. Most subsurface profiles were opaque and smudgy, resembling a Rorschach inkblot left out in a rainstorm. The profile before her was a crisp image, with clearly delineated subsurface layers.
"Amazing image," she remarked. "Must be made with some cutting-edge technology. I've never seen anything this precise."
"It definitely beats anything we've ever used in the field. But that's not the amazing aspect," he added. Reaching over, he pointed to a bulbous shape near the bottom of the page that extended off the edge. Theresa leaned over and studied it carefully.
"That looks like a classic, not to mention nicely sized, anticlinal trap," she said, referring to the dome-shaped layer of sediments. The cusp of a sedimentary dome like the one before her was a flashing red light for geophysicists, as it is a prime spot for petroleum deposits to accumulate.
"Nicely sized, indeed," Wofford replied. Pulling over a stack of similar profiles, he spread several on the table. "That particular trap stretches nearly forty kilometers. There's six other smaller ones I've found in the same region."
"It certainly looks like the right conditions for a deposit."
"You never know until the drill gets wet, but from these images, it looks pretty promising."
"And there's six more? That's a tremendous reserve potential."
"At least six more. I haven't digested all the reports yet, but it is mind-boggling. Taking a stone's throw from the image, there might be two billion barrels potentially sitting in that one trap alone. Add in the others and you could have over ten billion barrels. And that's just for one field. No telling how much is in the entire region."
"Incredible. Where is the field located?"
"That's the hitch. Someone has carefully removed all geographic references from the data. I can only tell that it is subterranean, and that the surface topography is flat with a predominant sandstone base."
"You mean we might be looking at the next North Sea oil fields and you don't know where they are located?"
"I haven't a clue."
• • • •
Sarghov laughed between sips from a cup of tea, his big belly jiggling with each guffaw. "Charging through the night on a forklift, toting an Avarga security guard through the air," he chuckled. "You Americans always have such a flair for dramatics."
"It wasn't the understated exit I would have preferred," Pitt replied from across the cafe table, "but Al insisted we ride, not walk."
"And we still nearly missed last call." Giordino smirked before sipping his morning coffee.
"I'm sure management is scratching their heads, wondering why a pair of Westerners were waltzing around their facility. A shame you didn't find any evidence that our oil survey friends had been there."
"No, the only item of interest was the tunnel-boring machine. And it was concealed under a canvas tarp similar to the object that was removed from the freighter at Baikal."
"It is possible the machine was stolen and brought into the country surreptitiously. Mongolia does not have easy access to high technology. Perhaps the company does not want the government to be aware of its technological equipment."
"Yes, that could be true," Pitt replied. "I would still like to know what it was that they hauled away from Baikal under wraps."
"Alexander, have there been any developments in the abduction investigation?" Giordino asked before biting into a buttered roll.
Sarghov looked up to see Corsov enter the busy cafe situated across from Sukhbaatar Square. "I shall let our local expert address that question," he said, standing and greeting his embassy friend. Corsov smiled his toothy grin and pulled a chair up to the table.
"I trust everyone had a comfortable night?" he said to Pitt and Giordino.
"Just until the vodka wore off," Pitt grinned, cognizant that Giordino was nursing a mild hangover.
"Ivan, we were just discussing the investigation. Has there been any news on the official front?" Sarghov asked.
"Nyet," Corsov said, his jovial face turning solemn. "The National Police have still not been assigned the case. The investigative request is being held up in the Justice Ministry. My apologies, I misspoke when I said that Avarga Oil has no influence within the government. It is clear that a bribe is in effect at some level."
"Every hour might count for Theresa and the others," Giordino said.
"Our embassy is doing everything they can through official channels. And I am, of course, pursuing leads through unofficial means. Do not worry, my friend, we will find them."
Sarghov drained the rest of his tea and set down the empty cup. "I'm afraid there is little more that we can ask of Ivan. The Mongol authorities often work on their own time frame. They will ultimately respond to the continued inquisitions from our embassy, despite whatever bribes are impeding the investigation. It may be best if we step back and wait for the bureaucratic hurdles to be cleared before any further action. As it is, I must return to Irkutsk to file a report on the damage to the Vereshchagin. I have gone ahead and booked airline tickets for the three of us this afternoon."
Pitt and Giordino looked knowingly at Corsov, then turned to Sarghov.
"Actually, we have already made alternate travel plans, Alexander," Pitt said.
"You are returning directly to the United States? I thought perhaps you would return to Siberia and collect your comrade Rudi first."
"No, we're not going to the United States, or Siberia, just yet."
"I don't understand. Where is your intended destination?"
Pitt's green eyes glimmered as he said, "A mystical place called Xanadu."
-20-
CORSOV'S INTELLIGENCE NETWORK PAID off again. Though the central government in Ulaanbaatar had taken a hard turn toward democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a sizeable communist minority opposition in the government ranks, many of whom still harbored pro-Moscow sentiments. It was a low-level analyst in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that had notified Corsov about the pending Chinese state visit. But it was Corsov who had recognized it as a golden opportunity for Pitt and Giordino. The Chinese minister of commerce was arriving on short notice, ostensibly to tour a new solar energy plant recently opened at the edge of the capital city. Yet the bulk of the minister's time was scheduled for a private visit with the head of the Avarga Oil Consortium, at his secluded residence southeast of Ulaanbaatar.
"I can put you in the motorcade, which will get you past Borjin's front door. The rest will be up to you," Corsov had told Pitt and Giordino.
"No offense, but I don't see how anyone is going to buy us being part of the Chinese delegation," Giordino said.
"They won't have to, because you'll be part of the Mongolian state escort."
Giordino wrinkled his brow at what seemed to be a small difference.
Corsov explained that a formal reception was planned for the minister's arrival later in the day. A large welcoming escort from the Foreign Affairs Ministry would
accompany the Chinese delegation for the evening. But tomorrow, when the delegation toured the solar energy plant and traveled to Avarga headquarters, only a small Mongolian security force had been requested to accompany the minister.
"So we are joining the Mongolian Secret Service?" Pitt asked.
Corsov nodded. "Ordinary officers of the National Police actually fill the roles. It took only a modest enticement to have you inserted as replacement security escorts. You will swap places with the real guards at the solar energy plant and follow the procession to Xanadu. As I told you, I would gladly use my own operatives for the assignment."
"No," Pitt replied, "we'll take the risk from here. You have gone out on a limb for us as it is."
"It is all deniable by me. And I trust you not to reveal your sources," he added with a grin.
"Cross my heart."
"Good. Now just remember to keep a low profile and see if you can prove that your abducted friends are on the premises. We can prompt the Mongolian authorities to action if we have some evidence."
"Will do. What do we owe you for the bribes?"
"That is such an ugly word," Corsov replied, a pained look crossing his face. "I am in the information business. Anything you can share with me about Avarga Oil, Mr. Borjin, and his aspirations will more than repay the pittance spent on the police escort. Which means I expect you back here for borscht tomorrow night."
"Now, there's an enticement," Giordino groaned.
"And just one more thing," Corsov added with a smile. "Try not to forget to keep the Chinese minister alive."
• • • •
Pitt and Giordino took a cab to the solar energy facility, arriving an hour ahead of the Chinese minister's scheduled appearance. Smiling at a sleepy-eyed guard at the gate, they flashed a pair of dummy press credentials provided by Corsov and waltzed right into the facility. It was little more than a ten-acre lot peppered with dozens of flat black solar panels that supplemented the electricity produced by a large adjacent coal-burning power plant. Built by the power company as an experimental test station, it barely provided the power to light a football stadium. With more than two hundred sixty days of sunshine a year, Mongolia was rich in the essential resource needed to generate solar power, though the technology was well beyond affordability at the consumer level. Steering clear of a hastily assembled greeting platform where a handful of state officials and power plant executives waited nervously, Pitt and Giordino concealed themselves behind a large solar panel near the entrance. Dressed in dark Chinese-tailored sport coats and sunglasses, with black woolen beret-type hats on their heads, they easily passed for local security types to those observing from a distance. They didn't have to wait long before the motorcade rolled through the gates a few minutes early and pulled up to the greeting platform.