The Eye of God (Sigma Force 9)

He stared across the breadth of his collection. To accommodate its growth, he had turned the upper loft of his penthouse into his personal museum. A bank of windows overlooked the brightly lit parliament square and offered a spectacular view of the stars and the shining comet in the night sky.

But at the moment, he returned his full attention to a small case holding a gold wrist piece. The cuff was hinged on one side, featuring a phoenix being beset by demons. He had purchased the exquisite work from Father Josip Tarasco, back when Batukhan had considered the priest nothing more than a trafficker in antiquities, a crackpot in the desert.

In the end, the man had proved much more than he seemed.

Still, like the rest of his collection, the gold cuff was not just for show. He sometimes wore it proudly when among his brothers, knowing it had once adorned the wrist of Genghis himself.

For that privilege, Batukhan had paid dearly for the golden relic—only to have that money squandered by the priest, turned into hundreds of holes in sand and salt.

What a waste.

At last, the phone in his pocket chimed. He removed it and spoke, not bothering with greetings.

“Have you reached Father Josip? Are the Italians there?”

The caller was accustomed to his brusque manner and responded just as tersely. He pictured the young man huddled out of sight with his satellite phone. “They are here, along with a trio of Americans.”

“More archaeologists?”

“I don’t believe so. They look military, at least the men.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, I have my crew taking them into consideration. We’re almost set. But I wanted you to know that Father Josip believes he has a lead on a significant clue that could point to the great khan’s tomb. They are all very excited and determined to set out this night to investigate.”

A significant clue . . .

Batukhan stared across the breadth of his museum. It was a pale mirror of the true wealth and wonders that might be found in Genghis’s lost tomb.

“Discover what that clue is,” Batukhan decided. “And let them go search. If anything is discovered, make sure you secure it. After that—or if they don’t find anything—proceed as planned. Bury them all under that rusted ship.”

“It will be done.”

Batukhan did not doubt it.

Arslan had never failed him.

14

November 18, 11:22 P.M. KST

Taedong River, North Korea

Gray raced along the river road with his bike’s headlamp off, trailed by the other two motorcycles, running equally dark. Tall marsh grasses and stands of willow trees further hid their race from Pyongyang to the Yellow Sea to the west. With the moon down and only starlight and the glow of the comet to light their way, their progress was agonizingly slow.

It didn’t help matters that his shoulder burned. Half an hour ago, Seichan had halted their flight for a brief pit stop, removing the med kit from the bike’s pack. As the others guarded from a distance ahead and behind, she had cleaned his wound, bandaged his shoulder, and popped him with an injectible analgesic and antibiotic.

It was the least she could do since she had shot him.

Luckily the bullet wound was only a deep graze. With the pain meds dulling the worst of the fire, he took the last shift on the bike, wanting to keep his arm from stiffening up in the cold. He didn’t know what they would face once they reached the coast.

To their left, the expanse of the Taedong River reflected the starlight, winding from its source high in the mountains to the north, through its capital city, until it drained into the sea. They did their best to avoid the few industrial plants along the way, sticking to the smaller roads.

The city of Nampho glowed in the distance, marking the mouth of the river basin. Gray used that marker to gain his bearings. A rutted track, an agricultural road, split off and headed away from the river.

He slowed to check the GPS reader on his wrist. Though the distance from Pyongyang to the coast was only thirty miles as a crow flies—on a motorcycle in the dark, winding through mud or gravel tracks, it seemed ten times that.

Still, they were close to the end, but they dared not miss their midnight rendezvous at the beach. Their window of opportunity was very narrow. They would only have this one chance.

Gray pointed down the side road, wincing with the motion, and called to the others. “This is it! Should take us straight to the sea.”

With a growl of his engine, he turned his bike and headed in that direction. It was less a road than a series of potholes and boulders strung together. They set off, moving as swiftly as possible. Gray found firmer terrain by running his motorcycle along the very edge of the road, where it wasn’t as churned by tractors and other agricultural equipment.

The fields around them were fallow with the start of the winter season, rolling away in frost-crusted furrows. Closer at hand, tangles of barbed-wire fencing ran to either side.

Gray felt exposed out in the open like this.

Even the rumble of their motorcycles seemed to grow louder, echoing over the empty farmlands. But they only had a couple of miles or so to go.

Then a new noise intruded, an ominous thump-thumping.

Gray slowed enough to crane around, searching the skies.

Seichan clutched his good shoulder and pointed to the southeast. A dark shadow swept low over the barren fields, slightly silhouetted against the glow of Nampho.

A helicopter, running without lights.

It wouldn’t be doing so unless it had already acquired its target. It flew in the dark, attempting to close as much distance on them as possible before being detected.

From this, Gray knew they had been found.

Someone in Pyongyang must have given up this escape route, or maybe some rural farmer reported the passage of the three dark motorcycles in the night. Either way, there was no hiding from here.

Knowing the helicopter was likely equipped with night-vision equipment anyway, Gray stabbed on his headlamp to better illuminate the road. They needed as much speed as possible from here.

“Keep with me!” he yelled to the others, gunning his engine.

Lights flared behind him, coming from the other bikes.

Off to the southeast, the sky ignited with the chopper’s navigation lights. A spotlight beamed down upon the farmlands, sweeping toward them.

Gray raced his motorcycle along the edge of the rutted road. Kowalski took the other side, trailed close by Zhuang and Guan-yin. They had no means to take out the helicopter. Back at the prison, they had used up all their rockets. Any additional heavy equipment had gone with the truck, a defensive necessity. The vehicle was meant to be the larger target, intended to lure the hunt away from the bikes.