'Guess he's anxious to get to Xanadu. The tour of the solar energy facility is apparently not the highlight of his visit.'
Pitt and Giordino scrunched down in their seats as the motorcade looped around the facility and passed right by them on the way to the gate. Pitt then started the car and quickly caught up to the third Toyota in line.
The caravan rumbled east out of Ulaanbaatar, curving past the Bayanzurkh Nuruu Mountains. Mount Bayanzurkh, one of four holy peaks that surround Ulaanbaatar like points on a compass, capped the range. The scenic mountain peaks gradually gave way to rolling empty grasslands that stretched treeless as far as the eye could see. This was the famous Asian Steppe of historical lore, a swath of rich pasture-lands that spanned central Mongolia like a wide, green belt. Stands of the thick summer grass rippled like waves on the ocean under a stiff breeze that blew across the open range.
The lead vehicle followed an uneven paved road, which eventually turned to dirt, then transgressed into little more than a pair of ruts through the grassland. Driving at the back of the pack, Pitt was forced to navigate through a dirty haze kicked up by the other vehicles and magnified by the dust-laden winds.
The caravan traveled to the southeast, bounding across the grass-covered hills for another three hours before ascending a small cluster of mountains. At a nondescript iron gate, the delegation turned onto another road, which Pitt noted was professionally groomed. The road climbed several miles up the mountain before skirting a ridge and approaching a fast-moving river. An aqueduct had been built off the river and the caravan followed the cement-lined waterway as it twisted around a tight bend and approached a high-walled compound. The aqueduct continued up to the compound, running underneath its facing stone wall near a single-arched entryway. Two guards wearing bright silk
'You know, we probably don't want to join the party for the grand entrance,' he said.
'You never were one to fit in with the crowd,' Giordino remarked. 'Do you know if the other Mongol escorts are aware that we replaced their pals for the afternoon?
'I don't know. And I guess there is no sense in finding out.'
Giordino gazed toward the entrance, then squinted. 'Car problems?' he asked.
'I was thinking a flat tire.'
'Consider it done.'
Slipping out the passenger's door, Giordino crawled beside the front tire and removed the valve stem cap. Jamming a matchstick into the stem, he waited patiently as a rush of air whistled out of the valve. In a few seconds, the tire deflated to the ground and he screwed the cap back on. Just as he climbed back into the jeep, the iron gate was shoved open at the front of the line.
Pitt followed the line of cars as they entered the compound but stopped at the gate as one of the guards gave him a cross look. Pitt pointed toward the flat tire and the guard looked, then nodded. Barking something in Mongolian, he motioned for Pitt to turn right after he entered the compound.
Pitt made a show of limping slowly behind the other cars as he quickly surveyed the complex. The ornate marble residence was directly ahead, fronted by the manicured garden. Pitt had no idea what the real Xanadu looked like centuries ago, but the structure before him was spectacular in its own right.
Plenty of pageantry was on display for the minister as a pair of escorts riding snow white horses led the procession to the front portico. A Chinese flag blew stiffly on a mast adjacent to an arrangement of nine tall wooden poles. Pitt noticed that a chunk of white fur resembling a foxtail dangled from each pole top.
As the procession approached the residence, Pitt strained to identify Borjin among the greeting party on the porch but he was too far away to see any faces.
'Any sign of Tatiana in the welcoming committee?' he asked as he began wheeling the car out of line and toward the building on the right.
'There's at least one woman standing on the porch, but I can't make out if it is her,' Giordino said, squinting through the windshield.
Pitt guided the car toward the garage and drove through its open bay doors. The flat tire flopped loudly on the concrete floor as he brought the car to a stop beside a segregated bay flanked with tool chests. A grease- stained mechanic in a red baseball cap came running over, yelling and waving his arms at the jeep's occupants. Pitt ignored the man's ravings and flashed a friendly smile.
'Pfffft,' he said, pointing toward the flat tire.
The mechanic walked around the front of the car and examined Giordino's handiwork, then looked through the windshield and nodded. He turned and walked to the end of the bay, returning a moment later with a floor jack.
'Might be a good time to take a walk,' Pitt said, climbing out of the car.
Giordino followed him as they walked toward the open garage door, then stopped as if to mill about while waiting for the tire to be repaired. But rather than watch the mechanic, they carefully scrutinized the interior of the garage. Several late-model four-wheel drives were parked in front, while the rest of the building was filled with large trucks and some excavating equipment. Giordino rested his foot on a maintenance cart parked by the door and studied a dusty brown panel truck.
'The enclosed truck,' he said quietly. 'Looks a lot like the one at Baikal.'
'Indeed, it does. How about the flatbed over there?' Pitt said, motioning to a cab and flatbed sitting nearby.
Giordino glanced at the truck and flatbed, which were empty save for some canvas and ropes strewn over one side.
'Our mystery prize?'
'Perhaps,' Pitt replied. He peered across the grounds and then at the building next to the garage.
'We probably have some temporary immunity around here,' he said, nodding toward the building. 'Let's take a walk next door.'
Proceeding as if they knew where they were going, they strolled to the brick building next door. They passed a large loading dock and walked through an adjacent glass entry door. Pitt expected to find a reception area, but the entrance led instead into the middle of a large work bay that opened onto the empty dock. Test equipment machines and electronic circuit boards were scattered around several workbenches, being tinkered with by a pair of men in white antistatic lab coats. One of the men, who had small birdlike eyes set behind wire-rimmed glasses, stood and looked at Pitt and Giordino suspiciously.
The man studied Pitt for a moment, then nodded and pointed down a corridor that ran from the center of the room. 'On the right,' he said in Russian, then sat down and resumed his tinkering.
Pitt and Giordino walked past the two men and turned down the corridor.
'Impressive language skills,' Giordino said quietly.
'Just one of the nearly five words I know in Russian,' Pitt boasted. 'I just recalled Corsov saying that most Mongolians know a smidgen of Russian.'
They moved slowly down the wide tiled corridor, which stretched twenty feet across, and whose ceiling was nearly as high. Skid marks on the floor indicated the movement of large equipment up and down the corridor. The hallway was lined with large plate-glass windows that revealed the interior of the rooms on either side. Small labs, stockpiled with various electronic test and assembly equipment, occupied most of the building space. Only an occasional office and desk, decorated in Spartan blandness, broke up the technical areas. The entire building was strangely cold and silent, in part because only a handful of technicians appeared to work there.
'Looks more like the back of a Radio Shack than an Exxon gas station to me,' Giordino said.
'It does give the appearance they are interested in something other than pumping oil out of the ground.
Unfortunately, that may mean that Theresa and the others weren't brought here.'
Passing by the restroom, they continued down the corridor until it ended at a thick metal door that closed over a high floor sill. Glancing around the empty hallway, Pitt grabbed the handle and pushed on the heavy door, which opened inward. The thick door swung back slowly, revealing a vast chamber. The room occupied the entire end of the building, with a high ceiling that rose over thirty feet. Row after row of cone-shaped spikes protruded from the walls, ceiling, and even the floor, which lent the appearance of some sort of medieval torture chamber. But there was no danger from the spikes, as Pitt confirmed when he squeezed one of the foam-rubber cone tips
