Thunder God (Joe Hawke Book 2)

by Rob Jones

  Hawke was speechless when the temple finally came into view.

  Lit by the full moon, it rose into the night, its Tang dynasty hip-gable roofs elegantly perched above the various buildings that made up the isolated little complex.

  They emerged from the car and walked across the gravel courtyard to the main entrance.

  Scarlet looked up at a large statue in the center of the yard. “What the hell is that?”

  Lexi laughed. “You’re looking at Samantabhadra, a bodhisattva, or an enlightened being. He’s riding an elephant out of respect for the Buddha’s mother.”

  “Oh, one of those...”

  They were met at the entrance by a thin, lean man with a shaved head who wore the traditional orange robes of the Shaolin.

  Hawke stepped up. “We’re here to...”

  “You were sent by Nambaryn Bayar,” said the man. “I know him well. He was a great friend of my father’s many years ago.” The man stepped forward and shook Hawke’s hand firmly. A good sign, Hawke thought. “You may call me Han.”

  They walked through to a central skywell where a small fountain trickled gently in the cold night air. From there the monk took them into a small room looking out across the valley. A moment later another monk served green tea to everyone.

  “I haven’t seen so many orange clothes since Gitmo Bay,” Scarlet said.

  Karlsson laughed, but Hawke was less amused. “Enough, Cairo – keep your wit to yourself please.”

  Han gave her the subtlest of dismissive glances and returned his attention to Hawke. “I know why you are here.”

  “Then you’re better informed than I am,” Hawke said.

  Han nearly smiled.

  “You are here in search of the Thirteenth Chapter of the Secret History.”

  “Apparently... yes.”

  “The document you seek has been hidden from the world for eight hundred years by the monks of this temple. If it were not for Nambaryn’s endorsement of your quest you would currently be on your way home empty-handed.”

  “I understand, but we need the manuscript to...”

  “I know why you need it. You are not the first person in the world to search for the Great Khan’s tomb, or any of its many treasures. The latest is a very wicked creature by the name of Sheng Fang. We know him and what he wants to do.”

  They sipped the green tea while Han spoke gently in the low light.

  “This is about something very, very old, my friends. I wonder if you are truly ready for the journey to come.”

  Hawke was feeling a tortured blend of impatience, anger and fear.

  “But we don't know what our journey is,” Lea said.

  Han smiled. “A long time ago, the Great Khan launched upon a quest to find the secret to immortality. To this end, he engaged several Tao and Buddhist monks to help him in his search, but they all told him that no such thing existed. He never believed them, and never stopped searching. Here, the subject of immortality is taken very seriously. You can imagine my reaction when I heard about the Swiss magnate Hugo Zaugg and his search for the vault of Poseidon.”

  “You know about that?” Lea said. “I thought there was a media blackout on it?”

  “Only on the true meaning of his death,” Han continued. “To the average man on the street his death was no more than a simple suicide induced by the worsening condition of his stock portfolio, but to those who know a little more, and who are able to use a greater context, the true meaning of his death was clear enough.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lexi said.

  “He means he knew who Zaugg really was long before his death,” Hawke said. “Am I right?”

  Han nodded. “Let’s just say it was in our interest to keep a man like Hugo Zaugg under observation. He sought something a man like him should never acquire, after all.” He smiled broadly.

  “Until I shot him,” Hawke said flatly, no smile.

  “Which is why I am speaking with you now, and why I told Nambaryn to expect you – yes, indeed. In ending the Zaugg threat you proved yourself a friend of the Golden Light, even though at the time you did not know it. This is why we know you can be trusted now in the fight against Sheng.”

  “Then you know why this Thirteenth Chapter is so important?”

  Hawke was finally feeling like they were making progress.

  “No one knows the full importance of the Thirteenth Chapter, Mr Hawke.”

  “But I thought it was lost to history?” Scarlet said.

  “Yes, and no. Five hundred years after it went missing, a Chinese copy was discovered in some private archives in Fujian.”

  “But the original manuscript was never found, right?”

  Han sipped his tea and took a long time before answering. “The original manuscript did indeed disappear from the world, but disappearing is not the same as being lost.”

  “Go on.”

  “As I say, the original manuscript is here, in a manner of speaking, in the Temple of the Golden Light, including the thirteenth chapter detailing Khan’s attempt to locate the source of immortality.”

  “But how did it get here?”

  “The monk who copied the chapters of the Secret History was forbidden to translate the final chapter, so he made a covert reference to it on the back of a painting that was on the wall of the room he was in when he made the copy. It was a fifteenth century image of one of the Four Beauties.”

  “We know – it’s the one that was stolen by Chan.”

  “Having told the world that the thirteenth chapter existed in the only way he could under such close guard, the original was then taken to the Temple where we have guarded it with our lives ever since. I am personally entrusted with guarding it, and with my life. It is an ancient and sacred privilege.”

  “But how did Reichardt work out the clue was on the painting in the first place?”

  “There was a note that the monk who had made the translation had requested devil’s milk to relieve pain in his hands from transcribing the Secret History. But Reichardt knew that devil’s milk – the milk of tithymalus or spurge, had another use – to leave a hidden message. That is when he must have added it all up and realized the monk made a copy. He spent his life searching for the final chapter, but never found it. Please, walk with me.”

  They followed Han down a long corridor where he opened a narrow door and stepped outside into the moonlight. The walked through an ornamental garden, across a low bridge and finally made their way over a series of shiny stepping stones on a smooth gravel bed before arriving at small clearing.

  Thirteen tall acer trees encircled a small area of smooth grass and in the dead center was a large boulder.

  “This is all very wonderful,” Scarlet said, “but we don’t have much time.”

  “She’s right, for once...” Lexi said. “Where is the missing chapter?”

  “Is it in Khan’s grave?” Hawke asked. “If so, we need to go there right now.”

  Han smiled. “You are already at Khan’s grave – is it not obvious?”

  Hawke looked at the pleasant clearing. “This is Genghis Khan’s grave?”

  Han nodded. “Yes. Buried beneath here is one of the greatest treasure hordes in all of human history.”

  Scarlet’s eyes widened as the monk lit a candle and lifted the boulder to reveal a hole in the ground. As they descended into the tomb, Hawke saw the boulder was artificial and fixed on a hinge system to act as a kind of trap door.

  It didn’t take them long to reach an underground chamber, much smaller than any of them had expected, and as Han slowly moved around the tomb, slowly lighting more candles, the vast array of treasure gradually began to glow before their very eyes.

  “There must be fifty million dollars’ worth of gold in here...” Scarlet said, reaching out to touch an enormous gold plate.

  Karlsson whistled loud and long. “Oh my.”

  Lexi pointed in one of the corners. “And look at that heap of diamonds! That has to be impossible. Imagine
how good they would look on my fingers.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Han said. “This is one of the largest collections in the world. You are looking at some of the finest stolen gold and precious stones ever collected by man, and over there is the great man himself.”

  He raised a candle to point at the far end where a small unmarked grave had rested silently for hundreds of years.

  “That’s it?” Hawke said.

  Han nodded. “A modest final end for a man with so much, but he wasn't happy. He dedicated much of his life to trying to cheat death, and in the end died trying, the irony is obvious.”

  Hawke took a deep breath. “We’re not interested in Khan’s treasure, Han. We just need the missing chapter so we can locate the map and stop Sheng.”

  Han was silent for a long time, nodding his head gently and smiling to himself. He seemed to like what Hawke had just said.

  Hawke repeated hs plea. “Han? We just need the map!”

  “But you already have it,” the monk said, smiling. “It is now time for us to fly to Beijing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Eden’s private jet continued its climb until it hit thirty-five thousand feet and leveled out for the duration of the flight. Joe Hawke stretched his arms and yawned loudly, and then glanced at Han who was sleeping peacefully on the other side of the aircraft, holding a small box he had insisted on bringing with him. Han had said they already had the missing chapter, but like all the others, Hawke had no idea what that meant.

  Since Poseidon he had learned to put his trust in others, but to Hawke, none of it made any sense at all. The murdered man in Paris, the stolen Tesla machine in the Pacific, the cryptic Shaolin monk beside him. Sometimes he thought all of this might be just one long dream that could turn into his worst nightmare at any moment.

  He thought about Zaugg and now Sheng, desperately seeking the chance to cheat death and live forever. It was in defiance of everything nature stood for, yet the idea of it had intoxicated great men like Khan and many others through history like a lethal poison, warping their minds and driving them insane.

  Nothing would ever change man’s capacity for evil, he thought, and it was up to the good people of the world to keep that evil at bay. How he had wound up at the center of it he didn’t really know, but maybe it had something to do with his feelings for Lea Donovan. He knew they were the real thing when Eden’s phone call woke him in the night and the old man had told him about her disappearance. He knew they were the real thing when he saw her again at Chan’s villa.

  He watched the darkness below the small jet as they skirted the eastern borders of the Gobi Desert and made their way across the plains of Inner Mongolia. If he knew one thing for certain, it was that there had to be many more people than just Sheng Fang searching for such an awesome power, and the arrival of Bradley Karlsson proved it.

  Beside him, Scarlet sighed. “Just what the hell did that monk mean when he said we already have the missing chapter, Joe?”

  “I know everything you know,” he said and smiled. “I thought all you wanted to do was blast bollocks off? Don’t tell me you’re starting to actually care about other people?”

  Scarlet ignored him. “Maybe it’s in Beijing with this Jenny Tsao woman?” She was referring to the person Han had told them about on their way to the plane.

  “Han says we have what we need, and I for one trust him.”

  She sighed again, long and deep. “When all this is over I think I want to retire.”

  “Retirement’s for pussies.”

  They turned to see Karlsson walking toward them from the rear of the plane. He was gripping a can of beer which looked comically small in his bear-like paw of a hand. Hawke’s instinct was to trust the man because he knew Eden had checked both him and his boss Kosinski out and given them the green light, but Karlsson’s personality made trust very hard, and liking him almost impossible.

  “Who asked you?” Scarlet said.

  “Waiting to be asked is for...”

  “We know,” Lea said, rolling her eyes. “it’s for pussies, right?”

  Karlsson laughed. “Yeah, maybe I was going to say that, maybe not. Listen, I know you guys are suspicious of me, but there’s no need.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Hawke said.

  Lexi interrupted them. “You guys really think it’s possible to live forever?”

  Scarlet shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t ask me, Bumblebee, I’m just a hired gun.”

  “It’s Dragonfly, but gee, thanks for your considered response.”

  “You’re more than welcome, darling.”

  Lexi turned to Lea. “What about you?”

  “Sure, I don’t see why not. Some conversations with Ryan can last forever so I don’t see why a person couldn’t.”

  Hawke laughed and joined Karlsson by grabbing a cold beer from the fridge.

  Lexi sidled up next him, causing Lea to raise an eyebrow. “And what about you, Joe? Do you really believe in all this or do you think something else is going on?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like we’re just being used and all of this is just a distraction.”

  Hawke had considered that, but dismissed the thought. “No, I don’t think anything else is going on here. It can’t get any darker or crazier than the search for immortality, after all. When I started out on all this, back in London at the British Museum, my answer to your question would have been laughter and ridicule and a straight-forward no. But now, after all we’ve been through, I just can’t believe men like Zaugg and now Sheng would go to so much effort and expense for no reason.”

  “Maybe they’re just deluded nuts, ever considered that?” Karlsson cupped a handful of peanuts into his large mouth and began loudly crunching them up with his mouth half-open.

  “Obviously they’re insane,” Lea said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re delusional, Professor Freud. Two different things.”

  “But what would you do if you could live forever?” asked Lexi. “If you could take a sip of magical water and never die?”

  Bradley sat down and ran a hand over the stubble on his head. “Knowing Hawke here, he’d probably fall in the water and drown.”

  “Immortality gags, eh, Bradley?” Lea said. “They never get old, right?”

  “Oh, you’re a funny one,” Karlsson said flatly. “I can see that now. I couldn’t before, but I can see it now that you’ve had more time to be funny like that.”

  “The fact you make jokes about this tells me you are not ready for this fight,” Han said, waking from his sleep. “This is no joking matter. I am entrusted with the most ancient of secrets, and I take it very seriously.”

  “Talking of which,” Karlsson said, “What’s in that little box – the manuscript? Is that what you’re going to show your buddy in Beijing?”

  “Dr Jenny Tsao is not my buddy, she is now the only person in the world who can read the code, and I am the only man in the world who knows how to access the code. It has always been this way – two Keepers of the Truth – for hundreds of years.”

  There was a long silence and then Hawke turned his head back to the window and closed his eyes. He had no idea when he might get the next chance to grab a few minutes of sleep.

  *

  Ryan Bale was in his element, knee-deep in earthquake research and anything else he could find on Tesla and the various conspiracy theories attached to him. Now he was going through a file of documents General McShain had emailed over to him on the subject. They were heavily encrypted but McShain had given Ryan access to the decryption matrix.

  “Not that I needed it,” Ryan boasted.

  “Yeah, right...” Sophie said as she studied the Tesla research for a moment.

  Ryan smiled. “For all its beauty I don’t think this is a particularly complex code.”

  Sophie smiled. She could fall in love with this man. “That’s what I was thinking. If you look here at the first line it’s pretty obvious they’re using a rudiment
ary substitution system.”

  “Yes, exactly, and... you’re messing with me, right?”

  She nodded. “It’s just so easy. I don’t know why you can’t admit that you needed McShain’s matrix to read the files, c’est tout...”

  “And... wait – what have we here?”

  “What is it?”

  “It's Victor Li in Hong Kong – he’s making a phone call, and thanks to when I put the tracking software in his phone we’re about to hear every word.”

  “You can do that?” Hart asked.

  Sophie shrugged casually. “Sure, there are hundreds of well-documented security holes in the Apple operating system. It’s easily done.”

  “No, I meant you can do that, Ryan?”

  Ryan ignored her and opened up the app on his laptop which he was using to track Victor Li’s phone calls. “I’m sure McShain’s files are very fascinating, but something tells me we’ll get more juice out of this.”

  Seconds later they were listening to the gentle trill of a ringing cell phone.

  “You think he’s calling Sheng?”

  “Doubtful, but maybe one of this goons.”

  Then two men began speaking in rapid Chinese.

  “That’s about as helpful as a chocolate teacup, Ryan,” Hart said. “How are we supposed to know what’s going on. They could be talking about their favourite bloody noodle bar for all we know.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said, and activated a real-time translator. Moments later they were reading English subtitles running along the bottom of the app, translating Li’s words from Chinese into English in real-time.

  “I don’t know who they are...” Li said in answer to a question. “But they’re trouble. Big trouble. They humiliated me in my club and really went to town on me, and if I ever get my hands on any of them...”

  “He’s not happy with you,” said a woman’s voice. “I would leave China if I were you.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until you die.”

  “Is that a threat? If that’s a threat maybe I’ll go to the embassy and tell them all about your plans with the stolen American hardware.”