Treasure of Khan (Dirk Pitt 19)

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 carry

ing 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.