"I believe I said no more sub-Saharan deserts," Pitt replied.
"A technicality. So at what point can we hope that Rudi calls in the Coast Guard?"
"I told him to assemble our remaining equipment off the Vereshchagin and, if he could commandeer a truck, then meet us in Ulaanbaatar at the end of the week. I'm afraid our mother hen won't miss us for another three days."
"By which time we will have walked to Ulaanbaatar."
Pitt grinned at the notion. Given a supply of water, he had no doubt the tough little Italian could walk to Ulaanbaatar carrying Pitt on his back. But without a source of water—and soon—all bets were off.
A cold breeze nipped at them from the north as the night temperature continued to plummet. Moving became an incentive to keep warm, though they took satisfaction in knowing the summer nights had a short duration. Pitt kept them heading toward the ridge to the west, though for a time it seemed as if they weren't moving any closer. After two hours of trudging through a valley of loose gravel, they began climbing a series of low rolling hills. The hills gradually grew in size and height until they crested a high bluff, which abutted the base of the target ridge. After a brief rest, they assaulted the ridge, hiking most of the way up before they were forced to crawl on their hands and knees across a rugged section of boulders near the peak. The climb exhausted the men, and they both stopped and gasped for air when they finally reached the top.
A slow-moving cloud blotted the moonlight for several minutes, pitching the ridge top into an oily blackness. Pitt sat down on a mushroom-shaped rock to rest his legs, while Giordino hunched over to catch his breath. While still tough as nails, neither man was the spry stallion of a decade earlier. Each silently coped with a litany of aches and pains that wracked their legs and body.
"My kingdom for a satellite phone," Giordino rasped.
"I'd even consider the horse," Pitt replied.
As they rested, the silvery half-moon slid from behind the cloud, casting their surroundings in a misty blue glow. Pitt stood and stretched, then gazed down the other side of the ridge. A steep incline sloped into some craggy low bluffs that overlooked a bowl-shaped valley. Pitt studied the small basin, detecting what appeared to be several dark round shapes sprinkled across the central valley floor.
"Al. Check my mirage down the way," he said, pointing to the valley floor. "Tell me if it matches yours."
"If it includes a beer and a submarine sandwich, I can already tell you the answer is yes," Giordino replied, standing upright and walking over to Pitt. He took a long patient look down the slope, eventually confirming that he saw nearly two dozen black dots spread about the valley floor.
"It ain't Manhattan, but civilization it appears."
"The dark spots look to be shaped like gers. A small settlement, or a group of nomadic herders, perhaps," Pitt speculated.
"Big enough that somebody's got to have a coffeepot," Giordino replied, rubbing his hands together to keep warm.
"I'd bank on tea, if I were you."
"If it's hot, I'll drink it."
Pitt glanced at his watch, seeing it was nearly three A.M. "If we get going now, we'll be there by sunup."
"Just in time for breakfast."
The two men took off for the dark camp, working their way cautiously down the short ravine, then snaking their way through the rock-strewn hills. They traveled with a renewed sense of vigor, confident the worst of their ordeal was behind them. Food and water awaited them in the village below, which was now in sight.
Their progress slowed as they wound around several vertical uplifts that were too steep to traverse. The jagged rocks gave way to smaller stands of sandstone that the men could climb over and through. Hiking around a blunt mesa, they stopped and rested at the edge of a short plateau. Beneath them, the black-shadowed encampment sat less than a mile away.
The first strands of daylight began lightening the eastern sky, but it was still too early to offer much illumination. The main structures of the encampment were clearly visible, dark gray shapes against the light-colored desert floor. Pitt counted twenty-two of the round tents he knew to be Mongolian gers. In the distance, they appeared larger than the ones they had seen in Ulaanbaatar and around the countryside. Oddly, there were no lights, lanterns, or fires to be seen. The camp was pitch-black.
Scattered around the encampment, Pitt and Giordino could make out the dark shadows of animals, denizens of the local herd. They were too far away to tell whether the animals were horses or camels. A fenced corral held some of the herd close to theirs, while others roamed freely around the area.
"I believe you asked for a horse?" Giordino said.
"Let's hope they're not camels."
The two men moved easily across the last stretch of ground. They approached within a hundred yards of the camp when Pitt suddenly froze. Giordino caught Pitt's abrupt halt and followed suit. He strained his eyes and ears to detect a danger, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The night was perfectly still. Not a sound could be heard but for the occasional gust of wind, and he saw no movement around the camp.
"What gives?" he finally whispered to Pitt.
"The herd," Pitt replied quietly. "They're not moving."
Giordino peered at the host of animals scattered about the darkness, looking for signs of movement. A few yards away, he spotted a trio of fuzzy brown camels standing together, their heads raised in the air. He stared at them for a minute, but they didn't move a muscle.
"Maybe they're asleep," he offered.
"No," Pitt replied. "There is no odor either."
Pitt had visited enough farms and ranches to know that the smell of manure was never far from a herd of livestock. He took a few steps forward, creeping up slowly until he stood alongside the three animals. The creatures showed no fear, remaining still even as Pitt swatted one on its furry rump. Giordino looked on in shock as Pitt then grabbed one of the animals around the neck and shoved. The camel didn't resist at all but keeled stiffly over onto its side. Giordino ran over and stared at the animal, which lay motionless on its back with its legs in the air. Only they weren't legs sticking up but pieces of two-by-fours.
The fallen camel, like the rest of the herd, was made of wood.
-28-
DISAPPEARED? WHAT DO YOU MEAN they disappeared?" As Borjin's anger rose, a vein in the shape of an earthworm protruded from the side of his neck. "Your men tracked them into the desert!" Though he physically towered over Borjin, the gruff head of security wilted like a shrinking violet under his boss's tirade.
"Their tracks simply vanished into the sand, sir. There was no indication they were picked up by another vehicle. They were fifty kilometers from the nearest village, which was to the east as they were traveling south. Their prospects for survival in the Gobi are nonexistent," Batbold said quietly.
Tatiana stood listening at the bar in the corner of the study, mixing a pair of vodka martinis. Handing a glass to her brother, she took a sip from her own drink, then asked, "Were they spies for the Chinese?"
"No," Batbold replied. "I don't believe so. The two men apparently bribed their way onto the Mongolian state security escort. The Chinese delegation seemed not to notice their absence from the motorcade when they departed. It is noteworthy that they also match the description of the two men who broke into our storage facility in Ulaanbaatar two nights ago."
"The Chinese would not have been so clumsy," Borjin commented.
"The men were not Chinese. I saw them myself. They looked Russian. Though Dr. Gantumur at the laboratory claimed they spoke to him in English with an American accent."
Tatiana suddenly choked on her drink, setting the glass down and coughing to clear her throat.
"Americans?" she stammered. "What did they look like?"
"From what I saw out the window, one was tall and lean with black hair while the other was short and robust with dark curly hair," Borjin said.
Batbold nodded. "Yes, that is an accurate description," he mumbled, neglectin
g to relay how close he was to the two men when he got clobbered by the shovel.
"Those sound like the men from NUMA," Tatiana gasped. "Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino. They were the ones who rescued us from the fishing boat on Baikal. The same men who came aboard the Primoski and captured the Russian scientist shortly before we departed Siberia."
"How did they track you here?" Borjin asked sternly.
"I do not know. Perhaps through the lease of the Primoski."
"They have stuck their noses where they don't belong. Where did they go in the compound?" he asked, turning to Batbold.
"They drove into the garage with a flat tire, then entered the research facility. Dr. Gantumur phoned security immediately, so they were only in the lab a few minutes. They somehow eluded the responding guards, and were probably examining the residence when you spotted them entering the sanctuary."
Borjin's face flushed with anger, the vein on his neck rising to new heights.
"They are hunting for the oil company employees, I am certain," Tatiana said. "They know nothing of our work. Do not worry, my brother."
"You should have never brought those people here in the first place," he hissed.
"It is your fault," Tatiana roared back. "If you hadn't killed the Germans before they fully assessed the field data, we would not have needed further assistance."
Borjin glared at his sister, refusing to admit the truth of her words. "Then these oil people must be eliminated, too. Have them accelerate the analysis, I wish them gone by the end of the week," he said, his eyes raging with fire.
"Do not worry. The Americans know nothing of our work. And they will not survive to talk anyway."
"Perhaps you are right," he replied, his temper cooling. "These men of the sea are a long ways from the water now. But just to be sure they stay that way, send the monk down there immediately for insurance," he added, speaking to Batbold.
"A prudent decision, brother."
"To their dry and dusty demise," he mused now, raising his glass and sipping the martini.
Tatiana swallowed the rest of her drink but silently wondered if the demise of the Americans would come as predicted. They were determined men, she had come to realize, who would not face death easily.
• • • •
It felt as though they were walking through the back-lot set of a Hollywood western, only they were surrounded by camels instead of cattle. Climbing through a fenced corral, Pitt and Giordino were amused to see a large trough to water the wooden livestock. The early-morning sun cast long shadows from the large immobile herd that was strategically placed around the village. Pitt gave up counting when he reached a hundred head of the prop camels. "Reminds me of that guy in Texas who has all those Cadillacs half buried in his yard," Giordino said.
"I don't think these were put out here for art, if that's what you call it."
They made their way to the nearest ger, which was more than double the standard size. The circular felt tent was nearly a hundred feet across and stood over ten feet tall. Pitt found a white-painted entry door, which on all Mongol gers faced south. Rapping his knuckles on the doorframe, he shouted a cheery "Hello." The thin doorframe didn't flex at all under his knocking, which echoed with a deep resonance. Pitt placed his hand against the felt wall and pushed. Rather than simply a forgiving layer of canvas over felt, the wall was backed by something hard and solid.
"The big bad wolf couldn't blow this thing down," he said.
Grabbing an edge of the canvas covering, he ripped a small section off the wall. Beneath was a thin layer of felt, which he also tore away. Under the layer of felt he exposed a cold metal surface painted white.
"It's a storage tank," Pitt said, touching the metal side.
"Water?"
"Or oil," Pitt replied, stepping back and eyeing the other phony gers dotting the encampment.
"They may be large by nomadic-tent standards, but they are still relatively small for oil tanks," Giordino remarked.
"I bet we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. These things might be buried thirty or forty feet down, and we're only seeing the tops."
Giordino scuffed the ground and loosened a small rock, which he picked up and rapped against the tank. A deep empty echo reverberated through the tank.
"She's empty." He took a half step, then lobbed the rock at the next closest ger. The stone bounced off the side, producing a similar pinging sound.
"Empty as well," he said.
"So much for your pot of coffee," Pitt replied.
"Why would some empty oil tanks in the middle of nowhere be disguised as a fake village?"
"We may not be far from the Chinese border," Pitt said. "Maybe someone is concerned about the Chinese stealing their oil? I'd guess the target audience is an aerial survey or satellite imaging, at which heights this place would look pretty authentic."
"The wells must not have panned out if these tanks are all dry."
Wandering around the phony village, the men realized there was no food or water to be found and the mystery lost its allure. They worked their way through the string of fakers, hoping to find some emergency supplies or something more than an empty oil tank. But all the tents were the same, masking large metal tanks half buried in the sand. Only at the very last tent did they find that the door actually opened, revealing a pumping station dug twenty feet into the ground. A maze of pipes led to the other storage tanks, fed from a single four-foot-diameter inlet pipe that protruded from beneath the desert floor.
"An underground oil pipeline," Pitt observed.
"Dug and placed with the help of a tunnel-boring machine?" Giordino posed. "Now, let's see, where have I seen one of those lately?"
"It's quite possible that our friends at Avarga Oil have struck again. May have something to do with the deal they are cooking up with the Chinese, but for what purpose I can only guess."
The two men fell silent again, fatigue and disappointment damping their spirits. Overhead, the rising sun was beginning to bake the sand-and-gravel floor around the mock village. Tired from their all-night trek and weak from lack of food and water, the men wisely decided to rest. Ripping sections of the felt covering from one of the tanks, they bundled a pair of crude mattresses together and lay down in the shade of the pumping house. The homemade beds felt like a cloud to their tired bones and they quickly drifted off to sleep.
The sun was dropping toward the western horizon like a fluorescent billiard ball when the two men finally roused themselves. The sleep break did little to restore their energy levels, however, and they departed the village in a lethargic state. They began hiking with noticeable effort, yet moved at a snail's pace, as if each man had aged forty years in his sleep. Pitt took another bearing with his watch against the sun's rays and led them in a westerly direction again, foregoing any thoughts of trying to trace the underground pipeline. They moved in unspoken unison, willing their bodies forward with each step, as the first hints of delirium began to fog their minds.
The winds gradually began to kick up again, jabbing and swirling in sporadic gusts as a prelude to the force that was to come. The northerly wind brought with it a cold chill. Both men had carried a thin section of felt from the storage tank and wrapped their heads and torsos in the fabric like a poncho. Pitt targeted a distant S-shaped ridge for a bearing as the sun slid away, focusing his efforts on maintaining a straight course. As the winds picked up, he knew his North Star compass would be obscured, and the last thing they needed in their state was to be wandering around in circles.
An annoying mantra, "move or die," began to repeat endlessly in his head, urging him forward. Pitt could feel the swelling in the back of his parched throat and tried to put the unyielding thirst out of his mind. He glanced at Giordino, who bulled ahead with listless eyes. Both their energies and exhausted mental capacities were concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Time seemed to fade away for Pitt, and consciousness nearly as well. He drifted along, then felt his eyes pop ope
n, not sure if he had fallen asleep on his feet. How long he was out, he had no idea, but at least Giordino was still there, trudging along beside him. His mind began to wander, thinking of his wife, Loren, who served in Congress back in Washington. Though lovers for many years, they had only just recently married, Pitt reasoning that his days of globe-trotting adventure were behind him. She'd known the wanderlust would never leave his blood, even if he didn't. Within months of his ascension to the head of NUMA, he grew restless with managing the agency from its Washington headquarters. It was Loren who urged him to take to the field, knowing he was happiest when working with his first love, the sea. Time apart would make their love stronger, she told him, though he doubted she meant it. Yet he wouldn't interfere with her career on the Hill, so he followed her words. Now he wondered if doing so would end up making her a widow.
It was an hour later, maybe two, when the winds decided to make an appearance in earnest, blowing hard from the northwest. The stars above quickly melted away in the dust, obscuring their only source of light. As the blowing dust settled over them in a cottony haze, Pitt's landmark ridge disappeared from view. It was no matter, though, as Pitt stared down at his feet with numb fatigue.
They moved like zombies, lifeless in appearance but unwilling to stop walking. Giordino moved methodically forward alongside Pitt, as if an invisible tether kept the two men linked together. The winds grew intense, stinging their face and eyes with blasting sand that made it painful to see. Still they trudged ahead, though well off their westerly track. The exhausted men began zigzagging to the south, in a subconscious effort to flee the biting wind.
They staggered on in a timeless whirl until Pitt detected Giordino trip over some rocks and fall down next to him. Pitt stopped and reached out to help his friend up. A burly hand rose up and grabbed Pitt's, then yanked hard in the other direction. Pitt sprawled toward Giordino, tripping over him and falling into a bed of soft sand. Lying there dazed, he noticed the blasting sand was no longer peppering his body. Unseen in the turbulent night, Giordino had tripped over a rock piling, behind which lay an indented cove protected from the howling winds. Pitt reached out and touched the rock wall with one hand as he felt Giordino crawl alongside and collapse. With a last ounce of energy, Pitt unwrapped his felt cloth and draped it over both their heads for warmth, then lay back on the soft sand and closed his eyes.