Tomb of the Khan
“So do the rest of us have some of this sub-DNA?” Grace asked.
Monroe turned around to face her. “You don’t have some of it. Between the six of you, you have all of it. That is the Ascendance Event. The collective unconscious, rising up.”
Grace looked over at Owen. He looked puzzled, with eyebrows pinched, sporting a frown. She felt the same confusion. “Okay,” she said. “But what does that actually mean for us?”
“I wish I could tell you,” he said, turning Grace’s confusion into frustration. “That’s what I was doing in all of your schools. I’d left Abstergo, but I hadn’t given up my research. I was trying to gather more fragments of the sub-DNA. It was purely scientific. But after I found all of you, I learned that your Genetic Memory Concordance goes beyond that, to the Pieces of Eden. That was … unexpected. I’m still trying to figure out how the relics and the sub-DNA are connected.”
“So is Isaiah,” Grace said.
The sound of a vehicle engine approached the shipping container from outside, and the three of them stopped to listen. Then the whole unit shifted suddenly, and Monroe dropped to the nearest crate, almost losing his balance.
“We’re on our way,” he whispered.
Owen pretended to look at a watch on his wrist. “Twenty-four hours to go.”
When the plane struck the ground, the impact hurled David forward, but his seat belt kept him in his seat, bending him in the middle, while his glasses flew the length of the cabin. The entire plane shook, grinding against the earth, and then bounced back up into the air for a moment, before crashing again. The next few moments seemed endless, and terrifying, but eventually they slid to a stop, and David looked up around the cabin. Its smooth lines all looked bent and crooked now.
“You kids okay?” Griffin asked. “Give me a name and a yes.”
Natalya, yes. David, yes. Javier, yes.
“I’ll go check on the pilot,” Yanmei said. “And then we need to move out quickly.” She staggered forward toward the cockpit.
David blinked, rubbing his head and his neck, feeling as though he’d just been a mountain’s chew toy. “Why do we need to move out so fast?”
“Because the Templars will try to find the crash site,” Griffin said. “We need to not be here when they do.”
“Forget the element of surprise,” Javier said.
“Unless you count their surprise that we’re still alive,” David said.
Yanmei returned from the cockpit. “Pilot’s unharmed. He’s already radioed the crash.”
Griffin unbuckled and got out of his seat. “Let’s move, people.”
David did the same, along with Javier and Natalya, and after he’d recovered his glasses, unbroken, he followed Griffin to the rear of the plane. There they pulled on their warmer clothing, and loaded up as much of the weapons and equipment as they could carry, leaving the rest behind. David didn’t really know what most of it did, except for the obvious flashlight, and he both wanted and didn’t want to find out for himself. After they’d prepared, Yanmei pulled the emergency exit hatch, and a yellow inflatable slide exploded from the opening.
Griffin went down first, then Natalya, then David, squeaking his way down. At the bottom, on the ground, he was able to get a view of the wide track the plane had carved through the field, ripping up the grass and vegetation to the dirt, and he saw just how far they had slid. Hills stood to both sides, covered in pine trees, and beyond the rise on the right, the Burkhan Khaldun climbed up to its icy reaches.
Well below the snowline, just visible over the nearer ridge, a rock formation stood out, shaped like the horn of an ox. David turned to point it out to Natalya, but she was already staring right at it. When she noticed David looking at her, she quickly turned around and faced a different direction.
David looked back up at the horn and realized that Natalya probably recognized it from her simulation. Maybe she had even stood in this same spot before. But she also didn’t seem to want anyone to notice her recognizing it, which meant the horn might be connected to the Khan’s tomb.
“Did you see where the shot came from?” Griffin asked Yanmei.
She pointed. “It came from the west, near those mountains, but I’m not certain beyond that.”
“What does your gut tell you?” Griffin asked.
Yanmei turned to Natalya. “I’m more interested in her gut.”
Now everyone else turned toward Natalya, and David had to decide whether to talk about what he’d just seen her do, or let Natalya reveal it in her own time. He thought he knew what Grace would probably do. She’d say something about it to the others, not wanting to waste time with secrets, to get it all out in the open so they could deal with it. But David wasn’t sure that was the best idea in this situation, because he wondered if Natalya was right. Perhaps the Assassins weren’t any more trustworthy than the Templars.
David had to think about who he could actually trust, and right now, that was Javier and Natalya, and wherever she was, his sister.
Natalya pointed toward the south side of the mountains. “I think that way.”
Yanmei nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Okay, then,” Griffin said. “Let’s try to keep quiet.”
“And watch out for wolves,” Yanmei said.
She led the way forward, up the slope to the west, and before long they entered the forest. A persistent wind whipped up the thin, cold air, and the pine trees grew tall and narrow, as if they’d pulled their branches in tight. Tough grass and moss covered the ground, with very little undergrowth. They proceeded without talking, and when they reached the top of the ridge, David saw they still had a few more ridges just like it before they would actually reach the Burkhan Khaldun. Below them, another small valley spread out with a fairly wide expanse of open grassland.
“I haven’t heard any helicopters,” Griffin said.
Yanmei looked up. “They might have drones we can’t hear.” She turned to the left. “We’ll skirt around and keep to the trees.”
“This is your territory,” Griffin said.
So they followed Yanmei around the bowl of the valley, and managed to stay mostly hidden under the forest’s canopy. Another silent mile went by, and then another, with still more valleys and draws. At one point, David saw a fox dart away from them, and later watched an eagle missile-dive into a meadow, where it then pulled apart and ate whatever animal it had just skewered with its talons.
At last they reached what David hoped would be the final ridge before the Burkhan Khaldun, and as they crested it, he looked down into the widest valley they had yet encountered, a sweeping plain at least a half mile across, running far to the north and to the south, with a shimmering river right down the length of it.
“This is the source of the Kherlen River,” Yanmei said. “According to legend, this area is one of the possible burial places of Genghis Khan. One story claims they diverted the river to flow over his tomb, so that it would never be found.”
“What’s that down there?” Javier pointed to the south, where the valley nearly doubled in width.
David strained, and thought he saw something glinting, either metal or glass, near the river, as well as some structures and possibly vehicles. “It’s them!” he said, and wondered if Grace was down there with them.
Griffin pulled out a pair of binoculars and looked through them. “It’s a camp,” he said, and passed the binoculars to Yanmei. “David’s right. It’s Abstergo. They beat us here.”
Yanmei turned to Natalya. “Are they searching in the right place?”
Natalya didn’t answer.
“They’re way off,” Griffin said. “I saw enough of the simulation to know that much. I think the tomb is farther west, across this valley and up the slopes of the Burkhan Khaldun.”
But David wasn’t worried about that anymore. “What about my sister and Owen and Sean?” he asked. “We need to rescue them.”
“That would be too risky,” Griffin said. “Besides, didn’t you
r sister and Sean choose to stay behind?”
“She got trapped,” David said, getting angry. “She would have come.”
He noticed that Natalya frowned at that, but she said nothing.
“I agree with Griffin,” Yanmei said. “The Piece of Eden is the mission. If we locate that, then we can discuss a rescue.” She looked to the west. “It’s going to be difficult to cross this valley. There’s no cover at all. They could easily spot us.”
“That’s it?” David said. “We’re just pretending like our friends aren’t down there?”
“I get it,” Javier said. “Owen is my best friend. But we don’t even know if they are down there.”
“Even if they were,” Griffin said, “the Piece of Eden has to come first. Look, don’t you guys think Owen and Grace would want you to stop Isaiah before saving them?”
David knew he was probably right, so he couldn’t argue with that.
Javier turned back to Yanmei. “I think I could get across without being seen.”
“You’ve had training,” Griffin said. “These two haven’t.”
David didn’t like being referred to as one of the ones holding them back, but he didn’t have the skills Bleeding through that Grace had talked about. In the New York simulation, he’d been an old man, while Natalya had been an opera singer.
“What if we cross at night?” Javier asked.
“That’s a possibility,” Yanmei said. “We should wait for the moon to go down, and then make a decision.”
“Then for now, let’s get some rest.” Griffin looked around them at the ground. “Make a camp in the trees, sit tight, and watch.”
They all agreed, so they unpacked a bit of food and their sleeping bags. They lit no fire, and bundled up with whatever they had. A few hours later, the sun went down, and the ridge grew frigid. David leaned against a tree, chin tucked into his coat, breathing out puffs of air that turned to steam and fogged his glasses, and then watching the fog slowly retreat. He listened to the wind that had yet to weaken, and over it heard the warble of an owl or some other night bird.
Yanmei had been right to worry about the moon. It lit the valley floor and polished the river to silver. Away to the south, the lights of the Abstergo camp shone even brighter, and David wondered about Grace. If she really was down there, or if she was still back in the Aerie. He felt as if he’d let her down in some way, taking so long to understand why the Animus mattered to her. He had to get her away from Abstergo, somehow. He had promised her that.
Something moved in the trees nearby. Something big, but it was too dark in the shadows to see what it was. Yanmei had mentioned wolves.
“Everyone hold still,” Yanmei whispered. “Griffin?”
“Stun grenade armed.”
“My crossbow is loaded, too,” Javier said.
David’s breath came in short gasps as the thing got closer to him with the sounds of feet much too big and heavy to be a wolf. His mind leapt to a bear.
“What is that thing?” Natalya asked.
“I’m not sure,” Yanmei said.
The animal’s breathing came in long, deep snorts, and seemed to be just a few yards away from David now. He thought he could smell it, a musky odor. His hands trembled as he reached for his flashlight.
“Stay calm,” Griffin said.
But David couldn’t. When it took another step toward him, the sudden shiver up his back jerked his arm, and before he thought better of it he’d switched the flashlight on, pointing it toward the sound.
It was enormous, a towering moose with antlers five or six feet wide. Its eyes glowed back at David.
“Kill that light!” Griffin hissed.
David switched the flashlight off, and then waited. He’d heard that moose could be very aggressive, and listened as the animal took a step, and then another, but realized it was moving away from him, off into the forest. He sighed.
“That thing was huge,” Javier said.
“That light was bright,” Griffin said. “Bright enough for Abstergo to see if they happened to be looking up this way.”
That was David’s fault. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what it was.”
“It’s done,” Yanmei said. “Let’s be silent.”
So David went quiet again with the rest of them, but now he watched the Abstergo camp not only thinking about his sister, but also waiting for signs of movement toward them. None came, and the cold night got colder.
As the moon fell, first gilding the peak of the Burkhan Khaldun, then sliding down behind it, the valley grew much darker, and the river turned to ink. The others directed their attention west, but David kept his eyes on the Templars. He couldn’t move past the idea that Grace might be down there, in need of help.
“What do you think?” Griffin asked.
“I think maybe we should try,” Yanmei said. “This might be our best chance. That Abstergo camp is only going to expand. So is their surveillance.”
“Let’s do it, then,” Griffin said.
They packed up their sleeping bags and the other gear they’d pulled out, and then moved slowly down into the valley, staying low, using the uneven swells of ground to hide as best they could. They all kept the Abstergo camp in sight, looking for any indication that they’d been noticed, and soon they reached the valley floor.
As they started across—Yanmei first, then Javier and Natalya, then David, followed by Griffin—David noticed a new red light shining from the camp. But then it changed and became a green light. Then it changed again, and became an amber light.
Red, green, and amber.
The light went out, and David stopped. Those were the colors of the aircraft recognition lights on the P-51 Mustang, the plane David had flown in the memories of his great-grandfather.
Was that a coincidence?
The light blinked in sequence again. Red, green, and amber. Then went out.
David knew he had told Grace about those lights, and he wondered if it was some kind of code from her. Even though she’d given him such grief about how much he enjoyed the flight simulation, maybe she’d been paying attention to him, after all. And maybe she had seen David’s flashlight earlier, and she was sending him back a message.
“David, what’s going on?” Griffin whispered behind him.
“I think it’s Grace,” he said.
“What is?”
“The lights. Red, green, and amber. They’re from my simulation back at the Aerie.”
Griffin glanced toward the camp.
“They’re gone now,” David said. “But I saw them. It’s Grace. It has to be.”
“We can’t know that for sure,” Griffin said. “And our mission is the same. The Piece of Eden comes first.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry.” Griffin pushed past David. “Let’s keep moving.”
The Assassin prowled ahead across the field, though still trailing behind the others, but David stayed where he was. He couldn’t dismiss what he’d seen, or rid his mind of the feeling that the lights had come from Grace. She needed him. He knew it. He’d left her behind once before, and he wasn’t going to do it again, even if it meant going in on his own.
He turned around and ran back toward the hill and the trees. He had to get closer to the Abstergo camp without being seen, and he wouldn’t be able to do that from the valley floor.
As he ran, he half expected Griffin to tackle him, or maybe get one of those Assassin sleep darts in his rear, but none came. He wasn’t even sure if they’d noticed he was gone, but they would any moment. Would they just let him go, or keep to their own mission? He didn’t turn around to find out.
When he reached the base of the hill, he climbed it back out of the valley to the trees, and only then did he stop, chest heaving, to turn around.
He could barely see the dark shadows of the others against the open field down below. They hadn’t moved far from where he’d left them, which probably meant they’d stopped to figure out what to do about him. But now th
ey seemed to be moving again, slowly westward.
David turned to the south, toward the camp, and crept forward through the trees. With the moon down, he stumbled several times over roots and rocks he couldn’t see, but he kept moving. It felt as though a clock had started ticking, counting down to something. Counting down to something happening to Grace. Counting down to one of the groups finding the Piece of Eden. Counting down the time that David had to do something about it.
Along the way, he kept his ears and eyes aware of the woods to his left, and he didn’t venture any deeper into them than he had to for cover. The moose had freaked him out, and again he remembered Yanmei’s mention of wolves.
The cold wasn’t as bad now that he was moving, but his breath still fogged his glasses up, which didn’t help with his stumbling. Eventually, he reached a close-enough point to see more of what was going on in the camp.
There were five very large tents, shaped like simple cartoon houses, with straight walls and peaked roofs. David also noticed a few large shipping containers, as big as semitruck trailers, and many SUVs. They also had two helicopters, one smaller, and one with double propellers, front and back, for carrying heavy loads. Bright floodlights lit the entire camp, and several Templar agents patrolled the perimeter.
David searched for any sign of Grace, but saw none. He also couldn’t see a point from which the colored lights might have come. His best guess was one of the tents. Some of them had windows. But which one?
He didn’t know how he’d be able to find that out, with the floodlights and the agents everywhere. But he had to try, and he figured the middle of the night would be the best chance he would get.
He took a deep breath, about to sneak down the hill, when he heard a footstep behind him. He spun around, fearing an animal.
“Freeze!” The agent wearing the full uniform with the black helmet and SWAT gear pointed a gun at David. “Tell Isaiah the girl’s plan worked,” he said into a radio. “Her brother came.”
For the last part of the journey to Mongolia, Owen could hear helicopter rotors overhead, and gusts of wind that set the shipping container swaying and trembling. Motion sickness rolled down to his stomach from his head, and then came back up through nauseous tingles in his cheeks. But before he threw up, the helicopter set the container down, and the floor stabilized beneath his feet.