The commander figured that the old motorcycle could travel no more than another thirty miles. Ahead of them, there was nothing but open steppe and desert, offering few places to hide for over a hundred miles. Conserving the horses, they would track the fugitives down in less than eight hours, he estimated. There was certainly no need to call in mechanized four-wheel drive reinforcements from the compound. It would be a meager challenge for his fellow horsemen. They all grew up learning to ride before they could walk and had the bowlegs to prove it. There would be no escape for the fugitives. A few more hours and the two men who had embarrassed the guards at Xanadu would be as good as dead.
Through the black night they forged on, riding into the blustery winds while tracking the linear trail left by the motorcycle's tires. At first, the taunting sound of the motorcycle's throbbing engine beckoned on an occasional gust of the rustling winds. But the sound soon evaporated over the distant hills, and the riders were left to their own quiet thoughts. They rode for five hours, stopping only once they reached the gravely plain of the desert.
The motorcycle's tracks were more difficult to follow over the hardened desert surface. The riders frequently lost the trail in the dark, halting their progress until the tire marks could be located under the glow of a flashlight. As dawn broke, the buffeting winds that had blinded them with sand the entire journey finally began to diminish. With the morning light, the trail became more visible, and the horsemen hastened their pace. The patrol leader sent a scout ahead, to alert the others in advance if the trail was lost over particularly hard stretches of ground.
The horsemen followed the trail through a sandy wash sided by a rocky bluff. Ahead, the terrain opened into a broad level plain. The motorcycle tracks snaked through the wash then stretched into the distance, clearly rutting the hard, flat surface. The riders began picking up speed again when the commander noticed his scout perched at a stop a few dozen yards ahead. At his horse's approach, the scout turned to him with a blank look on his face.
"Why have you stopped?" the patrol leader barked.
"The tracks . . . have disappeared," the scout stammered.
"Then move ahead and find out where they resume."
"There is no continuation of the tracks. The sand . . . it should show the tracks, but they just end here," the scout replied, pointing to the ground.
"Fool," the patrol leader muttered, then spurred his horse and wheeled to the right. Riding in a huge arc, he circled around the front of his stationary troupe, finally looping his way back to where they stood waiting. Now he was the one with a confused look on his face.
Climbing off his horse, he walked beside the motorcycle's tracks. The heels of his boots pushed easily into a light layer of sand that coated the hard plain. Following the twin trails of cycle and sidecar, he studied the ground until the tracks came to an abrupt end. Scanning the area, he saw that the soft layer of sand covered the ground in all directions. Yet the only visible markings were those made by the guards' horses. There was no continuation of the motorcycle tracks, no human footprints, and no sign of the motorcycle itself.
It was as if the motorcycle and its riders had been plucked off the ground and vanished into thin air.
-26-
PERCHED LIKE EAGLES HIGH in a nest, Pitt and Giordino peered down at the proceedings from sixty feet above the desert floor. Cautiously scaling the nearby rocky edifice in the dark, they had discovered a high indented ledge that was perfectly concealed from the ground below. Stretched flat in the hollowed stone bowl, the two had slept intermittently until the horsemen arrived shortly after dawn. Lying to the east of the horsemen, the morning sun aided their stealth, casting their pursuers in a bright glow while they remained nestled in the ridgetop's shadow. Pitt and Giordino grinned as they watched the horsemen mope in utter confusion around the abrupt end of the motorcycle trail. But they were far from out of the woods yet. They watched with interest as two riders took off ahead, while the other four horsemen split up and searched along either side. As Pitt had hoped, the horsemen focused their search forward of the trail's end, not considering that the two fugitives had backed down the trail before taking to the rocks.
"You realize, Houdini, that you are just going to make them mad at us," Giordino whispered.
"That's all right. If they're mad, then maybe they will be less observant."
They watched and waited for an hour as the horsemen scoured the grounds ahead before regrouping at the trail's end. At the patrol leader's command, the riders spread out along the trail and retraced their original steps backward. Again, a pair of horsemen rode off to either side, with two of the riders approaching the edge of the rock ridge.
"Time to lay low," Pitt whispered as he and Giordino hunkered down into the hollow. They listened as the clip-clop of horse hooves drew closer. The hidden men froze as the sound paused directly beneath them. They had done their best to brush away their tracks before climbing the rock, but it had been done in darkness. And they weren't the only things at risk of exposure.
Pitt's heart beat a tick faster as he heard the riders converse for a moment. Then one of the horsemen dismounted and started climbing up the rocks. The man moved slowly, but Pitt could tell he was moving closer by the sound of his leather boots scuffing against the sandstone boulders. Pitt glanced at Giordino, who had reached over and clasped a baseball-sized stone near his leg.
"Nothing," the man shouted, standing just a few feet beneath the concealed ledge. Giordino flexed his rock-holding arm, but Pitt reached over and grabbed his wrist. A second later, the mounted horseman shouted up something to the rock climber. By his tone, Pitt guessed he was telling the man to get moving. The scuffle of hard leather on soft rock began to move away, until the man reached the ground a few minutes later and remounted his horse. The clopping hooves echoed again, then gradually faded into the distance.
"That was close," Giordino said.
"Lucky thing our climber had a change of heart. That knuckleball of yours would have left a sting," Pitt replied, nodding toward the rock in Giordino's hand.
"Fastball. My best stuff is a fastball," he corrected.
Gazing off toward the trail of dust kicked up by the horsemen, he asked, "We stay put?"
"Yes. My money says they'll be back for another visit."
Pitt thought back to what he had read about the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century. A feigned retreat was the favorite battlefield tactic of Genghis Khan when facing a powerful opponent. His army often orchestrated elaborate staged retreats, some lasting several days. The unsuspecting enemy would be drawn to a defenseless position, where a punishing counterattack would destroy them. Pitt knew that taking to the desert on foot would place them at a similarly deadly risk against the mobile horsemen. He wasn't going to take that chance until he was sure they were gone for good.
Crouched in their stone lair, the two men rested from their night adventure while patiently waiting for danger to dissipate on the horizon. An hour later, a sudden rumble shook them awake. The noise sounded like faint thunder, but the sky was clear. Scanning to the north, they saw a high cloud of dust trailing the six horsemen. The horses were galloping at top speed, pounding down the path of the original trail like it was the home stretch at Santa Anita. In seconds, the pack raced past Pitt and Giordino's position until they reached the end of the motorcycle trail. Slowing their pace and splitting up, the horsemen fanned out and searched the area in all directions. The horsemen all rode with their heads hung down, scanning the ground for prints or other clues to Pitt and Giordino's disappearance. They searched for nearly an hour, again coming up empty. Then almost as suddenly as they appeared, the horsemen regrouped and headed back north along the trail, moving at a canter.
"A nice encore," Giordino said as the horses finally disappeared over the horizon.
"I think the party is finally over," Pitt replied. "Time for us to hit the highway and find a burger stand."
The men hadn't eaten since the day before and their sto
machs rumbled together in empty harmony. Climbing down the rock ridge, they moved toward the trail, stopping at a clump of tamarisk shrubs growing in thick concentration. Pitt grinned as he eyed the center branch, which was sprouting from the buried shell of the sidecar. A haphazard ring of rocks circled the partially exposed portions of the vehicle, obscuring its sides from the casual observer.
"Not bad for a nighttime camouflage job," Pitt said.
"I think we were a little lucky, too," Giordino added. He patted his coat pocket, which held the horseshoe he had removed from the sidecar's cowling.
Pitt's scheme to make the motorcycle disappear had worked better than he'd expected. After running out of gas, he knew it was just a matter of concealment. Backtracking along their trail on foot, he'd found a hardened gravel gully a few hundred feet behind, then returned to the motorcycle, brushing away the original tire tracks along the way with a thick strand of scrub brush. Then he and Giordino had pushed the motorcycle and sidecar backward along the same path to the gully, stopping periodically to brush away their footprints under the beam of the headlight. To the pursuers following the tracks, there was no way of telling that the motorcycle had actually moved backward from its last marks.
Pitt and Giordino had pushed the motorcycle and sidecar down the gully as far as they could, then set about burying it. Giordino had found a small tool kit beneath the seat of the sidecar. Working under the light of the headlamp, they disassembled the sidecar from the motorcycle. Laying it flat in a nearby hollow, they were able to bury the motorcycle under a few inches of sand. The task was made easier once Pitt fashioned a shovel blade from the seat back. The lightly blowing sand, cursed till now, aided their cause by covering their interment project in a light layer of dust.
The sidecar proved more troublesome to hide once they discovered a hard layer of bedrock lying six inches beneath the surface. Realizing they would never get the sidecar buried without a shovel and pickax, they dragged it to a cluster of tamarisk bushes and buried what they could in the center of the thicket. Giordino stacked rocks around the perimeter while Pitt dug up a thick shrub and planted it on the seat, its droopy branches covering the sides. Though far from invisible, the ad hoc camouflage had done the trick, as evidenced by a set of hoofprints that scratched the sand just a few feet away.
As the midday sun beat down on them, sending a battery of heat waves shimmering off the desert floor, the two men looked nostalgically at the half-buried sidecar.
"Didn't think I'd miss riding in that contraption," Giordino said.
"Not so bad, given the alternative," Pitt replied, scanning the horizon for signs of life. A barren emptiness stretched in all directions, punctuated by an eerie silence.
Pitt brought his left arm up in front of his face, positioning his wrist so that his Doxa watch was flat at eye level. Then he pivoted his body around toward the sun, turning his body until the bright yellow orb was aligned with the hour hand on his watch, which read two o'clock. An old survival trick, he knew that south must be halfway between the hour hand and twelve o'clock if he was standing in the Northern Hemisphere. Peering over his watch at the terrain, he visually lined up one as south, seven as north, and west was between the two at four o'clock.
"We go west," Pitt said, pointing toward some red-hued hills that ambled across the horizon. "Somewhere in that direction is the Trans-Mongolian railway, which runs from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. If we head west, we'll have to run into it eventually."
"Eventually," Giordino repeated slowly. "Why does that sound like we don't have a clue how far that could be?"
"Because we don't." Pitt shrugged, then turned toward the hills and started walking.
-27-
THE GOBI DESERT HOSTS some of the most hostile temperature extremes in the world. Blistering summertime temperatures of over 110 degrees plummet to minus 40 degrees in the winter months. Even in a single day, temperature swings of 60 degrees are not uncommon. Taken from the Mongolian word meaning "waterless place," the Gobi rates as the world's fifth-largest desert. The arid lands were once an inland sea, and, in later eons, a swampy stomping ground for dinosaurs. The Southwest Gobi still rates as a favorite destination for globe-trotting paleontologists in search of pristine fossils. To Pitt and Giordino, the vacant undulating plains resembled an ocean, though one made of sand, gravel, and stone. Pink sandstone bluffs and craggy red-rock outcroppings bounded a gravel plain blanketed with brown, gray, and ebony pebbles. Framed against a crisp blue sky, the barren land teemed with its own brand of wasteland beauty. For the two men trekking across the desolate mantle, the scenic environs were a calming diversion to the fact they were in a potential death zone.
The afternoon temperature bounded over the 100-degree mark as the sun seared the rocky ground. The winds had dwindled to a slight breeze, offering all the cooling power of a blowtorch. The two men didn't dare shorten their sleeves or long pants, knowing the ultraviolet ray protection was more important than a slight improvement in comfort. They reluctantly kept their coats as well, tying them around their waists for the chilly night ahead. Tearing a section of the jacket lining out, they fashioned silk bandannas on their heads, which made them look like a pair of wayward pirates.
But there was nothing humorous about the task at hand. On their second day without food or water, crossing a baking desert by day while facing near-freezing temperatures at night, they faced the double dangers of dehydration and hypothermia. Strangely, their hunger pangs had gone away, replaced by an unrelenting and unquenchable thirst. The pounds of dust swallowed during the motorcycle ride had hardly improved matters, adding to their dry, constricting throats.
To survive the desert heat, Pitt knew that conserving their strength was critical. They could survive three days without water, but over-expending themselves in the heat of the day could cut that time in half. Since they were well rested from their morning concealment, they could push their pace for a short while before stopping, Pitt decided. They still had to find civilization in order to survive.
Pitt picked out a physical landmark in the distance, then began walking at a measured pace. Every half hour or so, they would seek out a rock formation that offered shade and rest in the shadows, allowing their bodies to cool. The pattern was repeated until the sun finally dipped toward the horizon and the ovenlike temperatures fell from high to medium.
The Gobi is a large desert and sparsely populated. But it isn't entirely a void. Tiny villages pepper the regions where shallow wells can be dug, while nomadic herders roam the fringes where scrub grass grows. If the men kept moving, they were bound to run into somebody. And Pitt was right. Somewhere to the west was the railroad line from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar and a dusty road that ran parallel to the tracks. But how far was it?
Pitt kept them trudging on a westerly tack, checking their heading with the sun and his watch. As they marched across the flats, they came to a set of ruts running perpendicular to their path.
"Hallelujah, a sign of life on this alien planet," Giordino said.
Pitt bent down and studied the tracks. They were clearly made by a jeep or truck, but the edges of the ruts were dull and caked with a light layer of sand.
"They didn't drive by yesterday," Pitt said.
"Not worth the detour?"
"These tracks could be five days old or five months old," Pitt said, shaking his head. Resisting the temptation to see where they led, the two men ignored the tracks and continued on their heading to the west. They would cross a few more tire tracks that trailed off in different directions to places unseen. Like most of Mongolia, there were few formal roads in the desert. Traveling to a destination was simply a matter of point and go. If a satellite in space ever mapped the myriad of lone tracks and trails across Mongolia, it would resemble a plate of spaghetti dropped on the floor.
As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the desert air began to cool. Zapped by the heat and lack of fluids, the weakened men were invigorated by the cool air and they gradually picked up their pace a
cross the gravel. Pitt had aimed them toward a rocky three-peaked spire he used as a compass landmark, which they reached shortly after midnight. A clear sky with a bright half-moon had helped illuminate the way under darkness.
They stopped and rested on a smooth slab of sandstone, laying down and studying the stars overhead.
"The Big Dipper is over there," Giordino said, pointing to the easily identifiable part of the constellation Ursa Major. "And the Little Dipper is visible just above it."
"Which gives us Polaris, or the North Star, at the end of its handle."
Pitt rose to his feet and faced toward the North Star, then raised his left arm out from his side.
"West," he said, his fingers pointing to a dark ridge a few miles away.
"Let's get there before it closes," Giordino replied, grunting slightly as he stood up. The horseshoe in his coat pocket jabbed his side as he rose and he subconsciously patted the pocket with a knowing smile.
With a new compass bearing on the horizon, they set off again. Pitt checked the sky every few minutes, making sure the North Star remained to the right of them. The lack of food and water began to show on the two men, as their pace slowed and casual conversation fell silent. The wound in Pitt's leg began to let itself be known, firing a sharp throb with every step of his left foot. The cool night air soon turned chilly, and the men slipped into the coats they had toted around their waists. Walking kept them warm but consumed crucial body energy that was not being replenished.
"You promised me no more deserts after Mali," Giordino said, harking back to the time they nearly perished in the Sahara Desert while tracing a discharge of radioactive pollutants.