'Yes, thanks to our brother's fire ship incident at Ningbo the Chinese are in a desperate bind.'
'Temuge has been working miracles, hasn't he?'
'I need not remind you that he nearly caused my death in Baikal,' she said irritably.
'An unforeseen side effect, the large wave. But no matter, you are here safe now,' he said with a slightly patronizing tone. 'You must admit, he has been most effective. Coordinating the pipeline destruction in Siberia, then setting fire to the Chinese port when a suitable fault line could not be found. And the Persian Gulf team he assembled has been most effective. After the next demonstration in the Middle East, the Chinese will be crawling to us on their knees.'
'And Temuge is proceeding across the Pacific to North America for the final strike?'
'They are already at sea. The Baikal equipment arrived in Seoul two days ago, and they departed shortly thereafter. I sent the Khentii excavation team with Temuge, since we had to cease operations after the incident with the Russian survey team.'
'Their search efforts have produced nothing anyway. It is apparent from the empty crypt we found near Genghis that the other tomb was ransacked or else never interred. It is a mystery why the associated riches have never come to light.'
'No matter, as the Chinese will soon provide us a healthy cash flow. We'll have to wait a week or two for the next oil shock,' he said and smiled, 'then they will be agreeably inclined.'
Stepping out of the conference room, he walked to the adjacent staircase, his sister following close behind. Stopping at the head of the stairs, he raised his glass to the huge portrait of the ancient Mongol warrior that hung on the facing wall.
'The first step is complete. We are well on our way now to restoring the riches and glory of the Golden Clan.'
'Our father would be proud,' Tatiana said. 'He has made it possible.'
'To father and to our lord, Chinggis,' he said, swallowing a gulp of the cognac. 'May the conquests begin again.'
-24-
Behind the residence, the head of security refastened a handheld radio to his belt. A bear-sized man by the name of Batbold, he had just received word that the Chinese delegation had left the compound. If the two marauders were still alive in the corral, they could be finished off with the rifles now.
The swirling dust obscured the interior of the corral, but the earlier rain of lead and arrows must have taken the two spies down. There was no longer the futile attempt to fling field implements at the surrounding forces. And, in fact, there had been no sight of either man for several minutes. They were surely dead by now, he surmised. Just to be sure, he ordered three more volleys of rifle fire into the center of the corral, then halted the shooting.
Removing a short sword he carried at his waist, Batbold dismounted and led three other men on foot toward the corral to examine the bodies. They marched to within ten feet of the wooden fence when they heard the sound of a wooden crate being smashed inside. As Batbold and his men froze in their steps, a new sound emerged, that of a metallic whirring that slowly died away. The security head took a tentative step forward, finally seeing movement behind one of the wagons as the whirring noise repeated itself again and again.
'There!' he shouted, pointing toward the wagon. 'Aim and fire.'
The three guards raised their carbines to their shoulders as a loud pop reverberated from inside. As the gunmen tried to take aim, a wall of boxes suddenly erupted from the side of the corral, knocking out a section of the wooden fence. An instant later, a low-slung object came bursting toward them accompanied by a screeching din.
Batbold stared wide-eyed as he watched a faded red motorcycle with attached sidecar racing straight toward him. The motorcycle appeared riderless, with a wooden crate propped on the seat, next to another crate atop the sidecar. Sidestepping its path, Batbold realized his eyes were deceiving him and quickly hoisted his sword in defense of the approaching machine. But it was too late.
As the motorcycle brushed by, Al Giordino popped through the crate on the sidecar like a crazed jack-in- the-box. In his hands he gripped a square-bladed shovel, which he swung at Batbold. The blunt face of the blade struck the security chief on the side of his jaw with a hard smacking sound. Batbold quickly melted to the ground, a look of stunned confusion frozen on his face.
The motorcycle charged toward the three guards behind Batbold, who scattered in panic without firing a shot. One man slipped and fell, his legs run over by the sidecar's wheels. The second man dove to safety, while the third got whacked in the back of the head by Giordino's shovel, sending him sprawling.
Peeking through a slot in the wooden crate draped over his shoulders, Pitt gunned the motorcycle away from the mounted riflemen and steered toward the group of archers. Picking a gap in the horses, he blasted toward the hole to break through the siege line.
'Keep down, the heat's about to turn up,' he shouted to Giordino.
An instant later, a flurry of arrows began pinging into the sidecar and ripping into their makeshift wooden armor. Pitt felt a stinging in his left thigh from an arrow nick, and would have noticed a trickle of warm blood running down his leg had his senses not been focused elsewhere.
The aged motorcycle ripped toward the line of horsemen, trailing a cloud of black smoke from its overrich carburetion. As Pitt had hoped, the riflemen behind him had held their fire for fear of shooting the archers. But the archers themselves had no such qualms and let loose with a flurry of flying arrows.
Pitt decided to lessen the fire and drove directly toward one of the horses. The startled beast reared on its hind legs and spun to the side to let the noisy contraption pass, leaving its rider hanging on for dear life.
Pitt saw the flash of a lance go soaring by inches in front of his face, piercing the ground nearby. Then he was past the rearing horse and the line of archers, speeding away from the courtyard.
Giordino spun backward in the sidecar and peeked over the edge of his protective crate. The horsemen had quickly regrouped and began chasing after the motorcycle.
'Still on our heels,' he shouted. 'I'm going to play toss with these guys. Let me know when we get to the ski jump.'
'Coming up,' Pitt replied.
Before climbing aboard the motorcycle, Giordino had noticed a gunnysack full of horseshoes hanging from the wagon. He had judiciously tossed the bag into the sidecar and now used the metal shoes as projectiles. Popping out of the crate, he began hurling horseshoes at the nearest rider's head. The loopy hunks of metal were awkward to throw, but Giordino quickly took note of their aerodynamic qualities and began zeroing in on his targets. He quickly dazed two of the riders and disrupted the bow fire of several others, forcing the pursuers to keep their distance.
In the driver's seat, Pitt raced the motorcycle across the edge of the courtyard while holding the throttle at full. When he rolled against the Czechoslovakian motorcycle in the corral, he figured the 1950s-era bike was a metal corpse. But the 1953 Czech JAWA 500 OHC still had air in its tires, a couple of gallons of stale gas in its tank, and its engine turned over freely. On the seventh kick of its manual starter, the old twin-cylinder motor coughed to life, giving Pitt and Giordino a slim chance at freedom.
With the help of Giordino's horseshoe toss, they had opened up a comfortable lead over the pursuing horsemen. Pitt suddenly swung the handlebars to one side and aimed for the rear edge of the property.
'Fasten your seat belt, we're ready for takeoff,' he yelled to Giordino.
Giordino ducked back into the sidecar and grabbed a handrail that ran across the front of the compartment. In his other hand, he gripped the last of the horseshoes he was preparing to toss.
'For luck,' he muttered, and wedged the horseshoe into the cowling of the sidecar.
There was no wall at the back of the estate, as the edge of the yard dropped down a steep precipice.
Pitt knew it might be suicidal to make the attempt, but there was no other avenue for escape. Blasting toward the edge of the yard, he braked slightly then guided the motorcycle over the brink.
Pitt could feel his stomach drop as the ground disappeared from beneath their wheels and the motorcycle thrust forward. The first thirty feet were nearly a vertical drop and they plunged through the air before the front
