"I think they're taking the bait," Giordino whispered.
The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, drawing close and then passing by. Peeking through the glass, Giordino could see two men in silk uniforms marching toward the chamber door.
"Find me a broom," he whispered to Pitt, then flung the door open.
In a flash, he was running down the hall. But instead of heading for the exit, he ran barreling toward the two men. Like a charging linebacker delivering a blindside hit, he plowed into the backs of both men as they were peeking through the chamber door. The collision reminded Pitt of a bowling ball striking a pair of pins to pick up a spare. The two men went sprawling into the chamber, flying face-first onto the padded floor. Before they knew what hit them, Giordino had popped up from the ground and yanked the chamber door shut behind them. Pitt arrived a second later with a mop he found by the bathroom and broke off a four-foot section of the handle. Giordino rammed the stick through the door handle and wedged it tightly against the side frames.
"That should give us a head start," Giordino said, rubbing his shoulder in pain.
Pitt smiled at hearing shouts from the men, their voices muffled to a whisper by the sound-deadening materials inside the chamber. They began moving down the corridor when Pitt suddenly stopped by the room in which they had hidden.
"Just curious," he said, flicking the lights on and reentering the lab.
"Remember the cat."
Pitt circled the room surveying the steel vats, which were filled with a clear fluid that smelled of formaldehyde. He stopped in front of one of the vats, gazing at a shiny object that lay in a tray at the bottom. Finding a pair of tongs, he pulled out the item and dried it off on a towel.
It was a pendant, made of silver formed in an ornate diamond shape. A falcon or eagle with two heads was engraved on the top edge, above a lustrous red stone that sparkled from the center. A finely detailed inscription in Arabic lettering circled the bottom. It had an ancient and imperial look about it, as if it was commissioned for a woman of high royalty.
"An artifact conservation lab mixed in with an electrical engineering facility?" Pitt asked. "An odd combination."
"Maybe he just likes to collect coins. How about we get out of here before our friends remember they are carrying guns?"
Pitt slipped the pendant into his pocket, then shut off the light and followed Giordino down the corridor at a fast clip. Reaching the large bay at the end, they zipped through the exit door as the white-coated engineer stared at them in surprise.
"Thanks for the pit stop." Pitt smiled, then disappeared out the door.
Outside, the winds had gradually increased, buffeting the compound with gusting swirls of thick dust. Pitt and Giordino stepped back into the garage, finding the mechanic wrestling some frozen lug nuts to get the front wheel off. Pitt moved to the doorway and looked across the lawn toward the main residence. He could just barely make out the two Mongolian escorts talking casually on the porch. Two other men stood on either side of the doorway that led into the residence.
"If they didn't let our Mongol cohorts in the front door, then I don't think they are going to let us stroll right in," he said.
"We'll have to find another entrance. If Theresa and the others are here, they would have to be somewhere in that building." Giordino said, scanning the grounds around the residence. "We won't have a lot of time to walk around the complex before our chamber maids get loose."
"Who said anything about walking?" Pitt asked.
Returning to the garage, he nodded toward the grounds maintenance cart parked near the doorway and checked to see that the key was in the ignition. When nobody in the garage was looking, he grabbed the steering wheel and pushed the cart toward the open door. Giordino stepped over and helped, practically lifting the cart out the door and around the side wall. Out of view of the garage occupants, Pitt hopped in and started up the gas engine.
Normally utilized by golf course maintenance crews, the green cart had a small flat bed built behind the two front seats. Pitt jammed the accelerator down and the cart burst off across the grounds as the rear tires spit gravel. Glancing to his right, he noticed two men on horseback exiting the stable at the far end of the laboratory building, their shapes temporarily disappearing in a blowing swirl of dust. He quickly spun the steering wheel to the left and drove toward the opposite side of the compound.
The cart zipped past the main entrance as Pitt followed a path around the perimeter wall, the guards outside paying no attention to the green maintenance vehicle whizzing by. Pitt slowed as the gravel path led to a small decorative bridge. Beneath it, the deep aqueduct waters from the nearby river flowed into the numerous canals that crisscrossed the landscaped grounds.
"Nice irrigation system," Giordino remarked as Pitt stopped the cart on top of the bridge. To their left, they could see the top halves of a pair of large pipes that carried the water under the compound wall before being dispersed into the canals. Pitt continued on, following the wall around toward the left edge of the residence. There still appeared to be no access to the building, other than through the main portico where the Mongol escorts and entry guards still stood.
Ahead, the compound wall ended abruptly at a sharp, rocky precipice. On the other side of the wall, an underground pipe spewed the outgoing canal water in a man-made waterfall that tumbled down the mountainside before rejoining the river below. Pitt parked the cart behind a tree and walked to the edge.
An open gap stretched between the wall and the residence, too steep to drive the cart down but not as harrowing as the waterfall drop-off. A small footpath zigzagged down to a narrow plateau that formed the foundation for the hillside residence. Beyond the narrow strip of level ground, the terrain sloped steeply down the mountain for nearly half a mile, eliminating the need for a rear security wall.
"Try the back door?" Giordino asked.
"It's either that, or drive the golf cart through the front door. Let's just hope there is a back door."
They proceeded to hike down the short but steep trail, which they found heavily trodden with hoofprints.
Mist from the adjacent waterfall blew onto them from the strong breeze, sending a damp chill through to their bones. Making their way to the back side of the residence, they found it was built up on a slight berm that rose above them, sided by a rock wall.
"Not a lot of easy ways in and out of this joint, are there?" Giordino asked, eyeing the rock wall that appeared to stretch for the length of the building.
"I guess the fire marshal hasn't paid them a visit yet."
They moved toward the center of the house, hugging the stone wall so as to stay out of view of any windowed rooms above them. The wind was gusting fiercely now, and they shielded their faces with their hats to keep the blowing dust from stinging their eyes.
Reaching the edge of the courtyard, they crept behind a low hedge and surveyed the grounds. They immediately spotted the entry door off the courtyard, which was advertised by the presence of two silk-clad guards standing at either side.
"Do you want to try your language skills with these two?" Giordino asked in seriousness.
Pitt really didn't want to fight his way into the residence, as there was no real proof that Theresa and the others were even there. But they were already facing a tenuous departure after the encounter at the lab, so there was little more to risk anyway. They needed to know one way or the other.
"There's a line of bushes across the interior that runs close to the door," he noted. "If we can get over to that stone building and work our way around the back side, we might be able to creep up and surprise them."
Giordino nodded, looking at the odd stone building across the courtyard. They waited until a thick swirl of dust kicked up, then sprinted toward the round stone structure. Skirting around its back side, they moved toward its entryway. Ducking into the tunnel-like opening, they crouched down and peered at the two guards across the yard. The security men were still standing beside
the residence door, cowering slightly in the alcove to escape the bite of the wind. Pitt and Giordino had made it across the courtyard unseen.
Or so they thought.
-21-
After a bouncy four-hour ride across the mountains and steppes of Central Mongolia, traversing a road that barely qualified as a pair of ruts, Commerce Minister Shinzhe was convinced his trek was a wild-goose chase. There was no magic supply of oil hiding in Mongolia. He had seen not a single oil well during the entire trip. It was President Fei's fault, foolishly charging at windmills rather than accepting reality. Only Shinzhe had inherited the Don Quixote outfit.
The commerce minister waited angrily for his driver to pull up to the next ger, half expecting the president of Avarga Oil to welcome him on a broken-down pony. His anger and disgust softened rapidly when the dusty caravan rolled through the iron gates and into the stately compound of Tolgoi Borjin. Arriving at such an outpost in the middle of nowhere suddenly gave a jolt of credence to their journey. And pulling up to the front of the elegant residence, Shinzhe could see that Borjin was no sheepherder.
The host was dressed in a finely cut European suit and bowed deeply as Shinzhe exited the vehicle. A translator at his side relayed his greetings in Mandarin.
"Welcome, Minister Shinzhe. I trust your journey was pleasant?"
"A delight to see the beautiful Mongolian countryside," Shinzhe replied, maintaining his diplomatic form as he rubbed dust from his eyes.
"May I present my sister Tatiana, who is our director of field operations?"
Tatiana bowed gracefully to Shinzhe, who noted she wore the same look of conceit that Borjin carried.
Shinzhe smiled warmly, then dutifully introduced his entourage. He turned and admired a contingent of horsemen in warrior attire that ringed the driveway.
"I have heard much about the Mongol horse," Shinzhe said. "Do you breed horses, Mr. Borjin?"
"Just a small stock for my security detail. I require that all my security employees be proficient in horsemanship and expert marksmen with the bow."
"An interesting testament to the past," Shinzhe said.
"A practical one as well. In these parts, a Mongol horse can go where no vehicle can. And some skills of warfare never lose their value. Modern technology is well and fine, but my ancestors conquered half the world with the horse and bow. I find they are still perfectly useful skills today. Please, let us escape this infernal wind and relax indoors," Borjin said, leading the group through the front door. He then led the group down the main hallway toward the large room at the end. Admiring the array of antiques decorating the corridor, Shinzhe stopped in front of a bronze sculpture of a prancing horse. The patinated green stallion was reflected off a colorful, framed mosaic mounted on the wall.
"A lovely sculpture," Shinzhe said, recognizing the design as Chinese. "Yuan Dynasty?"
"No, the Song Dynasty of slightly earlier," Borjin replied, impressed with the minister's eye. "Most of the antiques in the house date from the early thirteenth century, a time of the greatest conquests in Mongol history. The tile mosaic on the wall is an ancient work from Samarkand, and the carved pedestal on which the sculpture sits is from India, circa 1200 a.d. Are you a collector?"
"Not officially," the minister smiled. "I possess a few modest pieces of porcelain from the Yuan and Ming dynasties, but that is all. I am very impressed with your collection. Objects from that era are not readily marketed."
"I have an antiquities dealer in Hong Kong," Borjin explained with a flat look.
The entourage reached the conference room at the end of the corridor. Its huge floor-to-ceiling windows normally offered an expansive view from the hilltop, but little could be seen beyond the courtyard and sanctuary just below. The strong winds obscured most of the vista with swirling dust, the distant steppes peeking through the haze at only random intervals. Borjin strolled past a sitting area with couches and a bar, leading the group to a formal mahogany table where everyone was seated.
Borjin took a seat at one end, with his back to the wall. Behind him was a wide set of shelves that displayed a medieval arsenal. A collection of ancient spears, lances, and swords lined half the wall, while several handmade composite bows and metal-tipped arrows were hung opposite. Round metal helmets spiked with horsehair plumes lined the top shelf, fronted by several round clay objects that resembled primitive hand grenades. Guarding the entire collection was a huge stuffed falcon, its wings spread ominously at full breadth. The bird's head was tilted upward and its sharp beak pried open, as if it were shrieking a final cry of death.
Shinzhe looked from the weapons to the falcon and then to the man who owned them and felt an involuntary shiver. There was something about the oil executive that was savage like the falcon. The cold eyes seemed to hint at a hidden brutality. Shinzhe imagined that his host could pull one of the spears from the wall and thrust it through a man without a second thought. As a cup of hot tea was placed before him, the commerce minister tried to dispel his feelings and focus on the purpose of his visit.
"My government has received your proposal to supply a significant quantity of crude oil to our country.
The party leadership is grateful for your offer and most intrigued by the bountiful nature of the proposal.
On behalf of the party, I have been asked to confirm the validity of the proposal and discuss the remuneration necessary to conclude an agreement."
Borjin leaned back in his chair and laughed.
"Yes, of course. Why does Mongolia, nemesis to Cathay for a thousand years, suddenly desire to assist our uneasy neighbor to the south? How can a dust-laden receptacle of sand and grass, inhabited by ragtag peasants and sheepherders, suddenly materialize as a major source of natural resources? I will tell you why. It is because you made us prisoners in our own land. You and the Russians have barricaded us from the rest of the world for decades. We have become an isolated wasteland, a landlocked island of a forgotten time and place. Well, I'm afraid those days are over, Minister Shinzhe. You see, Mongolia is a rich land in more ways than one, and you didn't take the time or effort to appreciate that when you had the chance. Only now, Western companies are clamoring to come in and develop our mines and cut timber from our forests. But they are too late for the oil. For when nobody was even interested in prospecting our grounds we made the effort ourselves, and now we shall reap the rewards."
He nodded at Tatiana, who retrieved a map from a side bureau and unrolled it in front of the Chinese minister. She plucked a pair of jade carvings from the center of the table and used them to hold open the scrolled chart.
It was a country map of Mongolia. An irregular red oval was overlaid on a section near the southeastern border, appearing like an amoeba that had drowned in a cheap Merlot. The spot stretched for nearly fifty miles, its lower end rounding alongside the border of Chinese Inner Mongolia.
"The Temujin field. A natural basin that makes your aging Daqing field look like a bowl of spit," Borjin said, referring to China's largest oil field, which was in a state of decline. "Our test wells indicate potential reserves of forty billion barrels of crude oil and fifty trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The million barrels a day we will sell to you will be a pittance."
"Why has such a discovery not been publicized?" Shinzhe asked with a hint of skepticism. "I have heard nothing of such a find so close to our borders."
Borjin smiled, his teeth bared in a sharklike grin. "Few living people outside of this room are aware of the find," he said cryptically. "My own government knows nothing of these reserves. How else do you think I was able to acquire the entire land rights to the region? There have been minor exploratory forays into Mongolia that have touched upon the oil potential, but they have all missed the primary bonanza, if you will. A proprietary technology of ours helped pinpoint the windfall somewhat by accident," he said with a smile. "These are deep reserves, which explains in part why they were overlooked by previous exploration teams. But I need not bore you with the details. Suffice it
to say that a number of test wells have provided initial confirmation of the reserve estimates."
Shinzhe sat quietly, the color draining from his face. He had little choice but to acknowledge the reality of the vast oil field. The fact that an arrogant charlatan of questionable morality controlled it made him sick to his stomach. Shinzhe was playing a weak hand and he knew that Borjin controlled the deck.
"Having oil in the ground is one thing, but delivering it within ninety days is quite another," the minister said soberly. "Your offer suggests we could see crude oil flowing within that time frame. I don't see how that is possible."
"It will take some doing on your part, but it is quite feasible," Borjin replied. Turning to Tatiana, he asked for another map from the bureau. She unrolled a second chart, which showed a map of Mongolia and northern China. A spiderweb of red lines crisscrossed the Chinese section of the map.
"The existing oil pipelines of China," Borjin explained. "Take a look at your recently completed northeast pipeline from Daqing to Beijing, with a spur from the port terminal at Qinhuangdao."
Shinzhe studied the map, noting a small X along a barren stretch of pipeline that ran through Inner Mongolia.
"The X is thirty kilometers from the Mongolian border and forty kilometers from a nearly completed pipeline span I am building to the border. You need only extend the pipeline from my termination to that spot on your Daqing line and the oil will begin to flow."
"Forty kilometers of pipeline? That can't be completed in ninety days."
Borjin stood up and paced around the table. "Come now, the Americans laid ten miles of rail track in a day constructing their transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. I have taken the liberty of already surveying the route and have the necessary pipe committed from a supplier. For additional consideration, I can also provide temporary excavation equipment. Surely for the country that has built the Three Gorges Dam, this should be child's play."
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