Treasure of Khan

-32-

Good-bye, Dirk. And good-bye to your friend Al.'

Noyon bounded up the steps and bowed. Pitt stood up and shook the boy's hand, marveling at the maturity of the ten-year-old.

'So long, my friend,' Pitt replied. 'I hope that we shall meet again.'

'Yes. Next time, you ride the camels,' the boy grinned, then ran down the path toward the waiting school bus at the edge of the monastery. The doors closed behind him and the old bus roared off up the ridge toward the setting sun.

The rumble woke Giordino from his nap and he padded onto the porch, stretching his arms to awaken.

'Noyon and the kids headed home from school?' he asked, catching a glimpse of the bus before it disappeared over the hill.

'He just came by and said farewell. Wanted me to tell you that his best camel is available for riding excursions at any time.' Pitt stuck his nose back into Hunt's diary with a mesmerized look on his face.

'How's the kiss-and-tell saga of our petrified archaeologist?'

'One that you won't believe,' Pitt said.

Giordino saw the serious look in Pitt's eyes and took a seat on the steps.

'What did you find?'

'Dr. Hunt, his Mongolian assistant, and a team of Chinese laborers were excavating the remains of a vanished city in northern China named Shang-tu.'

'Never heard of it.'

'You might know it by its more romanticized Western name ... Xanadu.'

'Not another one,' Giordino said, shaking his head. 'Did it really exist?'

'Most definitely. It was the summer palace of Kublai Khan. He built the joint about one hundred twenty miles northwest of Beijing to get out of the summer heat. It was surrounded by a walled hunting ground and an adjacent village of upwards of one hundred thousand people. By the time Hunt came along, it was no more than a pile of rock and dust on an empty plain.'

'So the artifacts on the plane date from Kublai Khan's reign? They must be worth a small fortune. That is, the few items not broken into a thousand pieces during the plane crash.'

'Quite possibly. Though Hunt himself was disappointed with the haul. He writes that there was really nothing of significance uncovered until the very last day of the excavation. That's when your wooden box and the cheetah skin were dug up.'

Pitt had the open wooden box sitting on the porch, the cheetah skin and bronze tube sitting inside. He pulled out the animal skin first.

'Hunt made little mention of the cheetah skin, but look at this,' he said, laying out the fur, then flipping it over. On the skinned side was a series of eight small paintings in separate boxed panels. The first image showed a large Chinese junk sailing down a river trailed by two smaller vessels. The subsequent paintings showed the ships at sea, then anchoring in a small bay. The final panel showed the large ship on fire in the bay. A rippled banner of a blue dog fluttered in flames from the ship's foremast. On the shore, some boxes were stacked near the ship, but they, too, were surrounded by fire. Flames and smoke consumed the land all around the bay.

'Seems to relay a voyage that ended in a firestorm,' Giordino said. 'Perhaps they ran into some adversaries who were skilled with Greek Fire. Or it looks like they might have moored close to a forest fire ashore and were caught by blowing embers. There was no interpretation by the British archaeologist?'

'None. I wonder if he even examined the back side of the skin before he died.'

'Any significance to the box?'

'It wasn't the box that was noteworthy but the bronze tube. Or, rather, something that was inside the bronze tube. A silk scroll of some sort was apparently rolled up inside. Painted on it was a treasure map to an unbelievable find.'

'The canister was empty when we found it. Do you suppose it's still with Hunt on the plane?'

'Here, read Hunt's last entries,' Pitt said, passing the diary to Giordino. Three brief passages were written on the last page of text.

August 5, 1937. En route to Ulaanbaatar by aircraft. With a heavy heart, I must write of a dreadful discovery. Tsendyn, my loyal associate, partner, and friend, has betrayed me in the end. The silk scroll is gone, stolen from its canister, which I carefully guarded since its excavation. Tsendyn was the only person who could have removed it, striking a dagger in my back before the plane left the ground. With it, the trail to G.K. is lost. I shall endeavor to recall the clues and reconstruct the map by memory. Then I will outfit a small party in U.B. and make the search attempt. Perhaps if nothing else, I will run into Tsendyn on the slopes of Burkhan Khaldun and obtain fair retribution. My only hope The entry ended midsentence, resumed later in a shaky hand. Giordino noted that the dusty page was stained with drops of blood.

Date unknown. We have crashed in the desert, shot down by a Japanese warplane. Both pilots dead. I fear my back and legs are broken. Am unable to move. Waiting for help. I pray we will be discovered soon. Pain is unbearable.

Then later, in a crude scribble:

Last entry. All hope is gone. My sincere regrets to Leeds at the British Museum, and my love to my dear wife, Emily. God save our souls.

'Poor bugger,' Giordino said. 'That explains why he was lying atop the debris in the plane. He must have lay there several days before dying.'

'His pain must have been all the worse, knowing what he lost.'

'So what was the treasure on the silk map? Who or what is G.K.?'

'Hunt describes the silk scroll in an earlier entry, after its discovery. He was convinced, as was his aid Tsendyn, that it depicted the map to a lost tomb. The location in the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia, the royal markings, even a legend about a weeping camel all fit the historical records. The silk map indicated the final burial place of Genghis Khan.'

Giordino let out a low whistle, then shook his head. 'Genghis Khan, eh? Must have been sold a phony map. Old Genghis has yet to be found. His grave still rates as one of the biggest archaeological mysteries on the planet.'

Pitt gazed at a swirling cloud of dust on the horizon, a thousand images running through his mind. Then it was his turn to shake his head.

'On the contrary. His tomb has indeed been found,' he said quietly.

Giordino stared at him with a blank look on his face but knew better than to question Pitt's assertion. Pitt flipped through the diary to a page near the beginning and held the passage open for Giordino to see.

'Hunt's assistant from Mongolia, Tsendyn. His last name is Borjin.'

'It can't be. His father?'

'If I'm not mistaken, we recently visited the marble tomb of the late Tsendyn Borjin.'

'If that was Borjin's father in the stone chapel, then the sarcophagus in the center of the chamber ...'

'That's right,' Pitt said ruefully. 'The tomb of Genghis Khan is sitting in Tolgoi Borjin's backyard.'

***

They joined the lama and monks at sunset for dinner in one of the gers. Like all their meals of late, it was a simple affair, consisting of a vegetable broth with noodles, washed down with some earthy black tea.

The monks ate in silent reverence, nodding only in reply to the lama's occasional spoken word. Pitt casually studied the faces of the wizened monks who moved with stoic grace. Most were older than sixty, their studious brown eyes peering from crevice-lined faces. All wore their hair shaved close to the head but for one younger man with a thick build. He quickly gulped down his meal, then turned and grinned incessantly at Pitt until the others were finished.

After the meal, Pitt and Giordino observed an evening prayer in the temple, then retired to the