"A near miss. Almost nailed me to the bike," Pitt said, pulling the broken arrow shaft from the engine.

Giordino turned and gazed in the direction they had traveled. "How far behind do you suppose they are?"

Pitt mentally computed the time and approximate speed they traveled since leaving Xanadu. "Depends on their pace. I'd guess we have at least a twenty-mile buffer. They couldn't run the horses faster than a trot for any sustained amount of time."

"Guess there wasn't a short road down the back of that mountain or they would have sent some vehicles after us."

"I was worried about a helicopter, but they couldn't have flown in that dust storm anyway."

"Hopefully, they got saddlesore and threw in the towel. Or at least stopped until morning, which would give us a little more time to thumb a ride out of here."

"I'm afraid there doesn't appear to be a truck stop in the vicinity," Pitt replied. He stood and turned the motorcycle handlebars in an arc, shining the headlight across the desert. A high, rocky uplift stretched along their left flank, but the terrain was empty and as flat as a billiard table in the other three directions.

"Personally speaking," Giordino said, "after that marble-in-a-washing-machine ride down the mountain, a small stretch of the legs sounds glorious. Do you want to keep marching into the wind?" he asked, pointing along the motorcycle's path, which led into the face of the breeze.

"We have a magician's trick to perform first," Pitt said.

"What trick is that?"

"Why," Pitt said with a sly smile, "how to make a motorcycle disappear in the desert."

The six hors.e.m.e.n had quickly given up any effort to keep pace with the faster motorcycle and settled their mounts into a less taxing gait, which they could maintain for hours on end. The Mongol horse was an extremely hardy animal, bred over centuries for durability.

Descendants of the stock that conquered all of Asia, the Mongol horse was nail tough. The animals were renowned for being able to survive on scant rations yet still gallop across the steppes all day. Short, st.u.r.dy, and, on the whole, mangy in appearance, their toughness was unmatched by any Western thoroughbred.

The tight group of horses reached the base of the mountain, where the lead horseman suddenly held up the pack. The dour-faced patrol leader peered at the ground though the heavy eyelids of a bullfrog. Shining a flashlight, he aimed the beam at a pair of deep ruts cut through the gra.s.s, studying them carefully. Satisfied, he stowed the light and spurred his mount to a trot along the trail of ruts as the other hors.e.m.e.n fell in behind.

The commander figured that the old motorcycle could travel no more than another thirty miles. Ahead of them, there was nothing but open steppe and desert, offering few places to hide for over a hundred miles. Conserving the horses, they would track the fugitives down in less than eight hours, he estimated. There was certainly no need to call in mechanized four-wheel drive reinforcements from the compound. It would be a meager challenge for his fellow hors.e.m.e.n. They all grew up learning to ride before they could walk and had the bowlegs to prove it. There would be no escape for the fugitives. A few more hours and the two men who had embarra.s.sed the guards at Xanadu would be as good as dead.

Through the black night they forged on, riding into the bl.u.s.tery winds while tracking the linear trail left by the motorcycle's tires. At first, the taunting sound of the motorcycle's throbbing engine beckoned on an occasional gust of the rustling winds. But the sound soon evaporated over the distant hills, and the riders were left to their own quiet thoughts. They rode for five hours, stopping only once they reached the gravely plain of the desert.

The motorcycle's tracks were more difficult to follow over the hardened desert surface. The riders frequently lost the trail in the dark, halting their progress until the tire marks could be located under the glow of a flashlight. As dawn broke, the buffeting winds that had blinded them with sand the entire journey finally began to diminish. With the morning light, the trail became more visible, and the hors.e.m.e.n hastened their pace. The patrol leader sent a scout ahead, to alert the others in advance if the trail was lost over particularly hard stretches of ground.

The hors.e.m.e.n followed the trail through a sandy wash sided by a rocky bluff. Ahead, the terrain opened into a broad level plain. The motorcycle tracks snaked through the wash then stretched into the distance, clearly rutting the hard, flat surface. The riders began picking up speed again when the commander noticed his scout perched at a stop a few dozen yards ahead. At his horse's approach, the scout turned to him with a blank look on his face.

"Why have you stopped?" the patrol leader barked.

"The tracks ... have disappeared," the scout stammered.

"Then move ahead and find out where they resume."

"There is no continuation of the tracks. The sand ... it should show the tracks, but they just end here," the scout replied, pointing to the ground.

"Fool," the patrol leader muttered, then spurred his horse and wheeled to the right. Riding in a huge arc, he circled around the front of his stationary troupe, finally looping his way back to where they stood waiting. Now he was the one with a confused look on his face.

Climbing off his horse, he walked beside the motorcycle's tracks. The heels of his boots pushed easily into a light layer of sand that coated the hard plain. Following the twin trails of cycle and sidecar, he studied the ground until the tracks came to an abrupt end. Scanning the area, he saw that the soft layer of sand covered the ground in all directions. Yet the only visible markings were those made by the guards' horses. There was no continuation of the motorcycle tracks, no human footprints, and no sign of the motorcycle itself.

It was as if the motorcycle and its riders had been plucked off the ground and vanished into thin air.

-26-

PERCHED LIKE EAGLES HIGH in a nest, Pitt and Giordino peered down at the proceedings from sixty feet above the desert floor. Cautiously scaling the nearby rocky edifice in the dark, they had discovered a high indented ledge that was perfectly concealed from the ground below. Stretched flat in the hollowed stone bowl, the two had slept intermittently until the hors.e.m.e.n arrived shortly after dawn. Lying to the east of the hors.e.m.e.n, the morning sun aided their stealth, casting their pursuers in a bright glow while they remained nestled in the ridgetop's shadow.

Pitt and Giordino grinned as they watched the hors.e.m.e.n mope in utter confusion around the abrupt end of the motorcycle trail. But they were far from out of the woods yet. They watched with interest as two riders took off ahead, while the other four hors.e.m.e.n split up and searched along either side. As Pitt had hoped, the hors.e.m.e.n focused their search forward of the trail's end, not considering that the two fugitives had backed down the trail before taking to the rocks.

"You realize, Houdini, that you are just going to make them mad at us," Giordino whispered.

"That's all right. If they're mad, then maybe they will be less observant."

They watched and waited for an hour as the hors.e.m.e.n scoured the grounds ahead before regrouping at the trail's end. At the patrol leader's command, the riders spread out along the trail and retraced their original steps backward. Again, a pair of hors.e.m.e.n rode off to either side, with two of the riders approaching the edge of the rock ridge.

"Time to lay low," Pitt whispered as he and Giordino hunkered down into the hollow. They listened as the clip-clop of horse hooves drew closer. The hidden men froze as the sound paused directly beneath them. They had done their best to brush away their tracks before climbing the rock, but it had been done in darkness. And they weren't the only things at risk of exposure.

Pitt's heart beat a tick faster as he heard the riders converse for a moment. Then one of the hors.e.m.e.n dismounted and started climbing up the rocks. The man moved slowly, but Pitt could tell he was moving closer by the sound of his leather boots scuffing against the sandstone boulders. Pitt glanced at Giordino, who had reached over and clasped a baseball-sized stone near his leg.

"Nothing," the man shouted, standing just a few feet beneath the concealed ledge. Giordino flexed his rock-holding arm, but Pitt reached over and grabbed his wrist. A second later, the mounted horseman shouted up something to the rock climber. By his tone, Pitt guessed he was telling the man to get moving. The scuffle of hard leather on soft rock began to move away, until the man reached the ground a few minutes later and remounted his horse. The clopping hooves echoed again, then gradually faded into the distance.

"That was close," Giordino said.

"Lucky thing our climber had a change of heart. That knuckleball of yours would have left a sting," Pitt replied, nodding toward the rock in Giordino's hand.

"Fastball. My best stuff is a fastball," he corrected.

Gazing off toward the trail of dust kicked up by the hors.e.m.e.n, he asked, "We stay put?"

"Yes. My money says they'll be back for another visit."

Pitt thought back to what he had read about the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century. A feigned retreat was the favorite battlefield tactic of Genghis Khan when facing a powerful opponent. His army often orchestrated elaborate staged retreats, some lasting several days. The unsuspecting enemy would be drawn to a defenseless position, where a punishing counterattack would destroy them. Pitt knew that taking to the desert on foot would place them at a similarly deadly risk against the mobile hors.e.m.e.n. He wasn't going to take that chance until he was sure they were gone for good.

Crouched in their stone lair, the two men rested from their night adventure while patiently waiting for danger to dissipate on the horizon. An hour later, a sudden rumble shook them awake. The noise sounded like faint thunder, but the sky was clear. Scanning to the north, they saw a high cloud of dust trailing the six hors.e.m.e.n. The horses were galloping at top speed, pounding down the path of the original trail like it was the home stretch at Santa Anita. In seconds, the pack raced past Pitt and Giordino's position until they reached the end of the motorcycle trail. Slowing their pace and splitting up, the hors.e.m.e.n fanned out and searched the area in all directions. The hors.e.m.e.n all rode with their heads hung down, scanning the ground for prints or other clues to Pitt and Giordino's disappearance. They searched for nearly an hour, again coming up empty. Then almost as suddenly as they appeared, the hors.e.m.e.n regrouped and headed back north along the trail, moving at a canter.

"A nice encore," Giordino said as the horses finally disappeared over the horizon.

"I think the party is finally over," Pitt replied. "Time for us to hit the highway and find a burger stand."

The men hadn't eaten since the day before and their stomachs rumbled together in empty harmony. Climbing down the rock ridge, they moved toward the trail, stopping at a clump of tamarisk shrubs growing in thick concentration. Pitt grinned as he eyed the center branch, which was sprouting from the buried sh.e.l.l of the sidecar. A haphazard ring of rocks circled the partially exposed portions of the vehicle, obscuring its sides from the casual observer.

"Not bad for a nighttime camouflage job," Pitt said.

"I think we were a little lucky, too," Giordino added. He patted his coat pocket, which held the horseshoe he had removed from the sidecar's cowling.

Pitt's scheme to make the motorcycle disappear had worked better than he'd expected. After running out of gas, he knew it was just a matter of concealment. Backtracking along their trail on foot, he'd found a hardened gravel gully a few hundred feet behind, then returned to the motorcycle, brushing away the original tire tracks along the way with a thick strand of scrub brush. Then he and Giordino had pushed the motorcycle and sidecar backward along the same path to the gully, stopping periodically to brush away their footprints under the beam of the headlight. To the pursuers following the tracks, there was no way of telling that the motorcycle had actually moved backward from its last marks.