On the deck of the barge, Summer checked the compressors once more, then took a seat in a beach chair across the deck but within sight of the air lines. A cool offsh.o.r.e gust blew across the barge, sending a shiver up her spine. She was thankful the morning sun was quickly warming up the deck.

She happily soaked in the surrounding environment, admiring the rugged Hawaiian coast and delicious smells of the nearby flora that wafted from the lush island. Gazing seaward, the rolling Pacific waters seemed to shine with an exotic intensity from its blue depths. Absently noting a black ship steaming in the distance, she took a deep breath of the fresh sea air and leaned back in her chair.

If this is work, she thought amusedly, then they can keep my vacation pay.

-41-

PITT WAS ALREADY awake and dressed when an early-morning knock sounded on his hotel-room door. Opening it with some trepidation, he was relieved to find a smiling Al Giordino standing in the doorway.

"I found this vagrant panhandling in the lobby," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "I thought you might know what to do with him."

A tired and disheveled Rudi Gunn peeked behind Giordino's thick frame with a look of relief on his face.

"Well, my long-lost deputy director," Pitt grinned. "We thought perhaps you had found yourself a nice babushka and taken up residence in the wilds of Siberia."

"I was only too happy to depart the wilds of Siberia. However, I would have stayed had I known that Mongolia was twice as uncivilized," Gunn harangued, entering the room and falling into a chair. "n.o.body told me that there isn't a paved road in the entire country. Drove all night on something I'm not even sure was a road. I feel like I hopped on a pogo stick from New York to L.A."

Pitt handed him a cup of coffee from an in-room pot. "You were able to bring our search gear and dive equipment with you?" he asked.

"Yes, I got it all onto a truck that the inst.i.tute was kind enough to loan me, or sell me, I'm still not sure. It cost me every ruble I had to grease the palms of the Russian border guards to let me into Mongolia. I'm sure they think I'm CIA."

"Your eyes aren't beady enough," Giordino muttered.

"I guess I can't complain," Gunn said, looking at Pitt. "Al told me about your traipse across the Gobi Desert. Didn't sound like any picnic."

"No, but a great way to see the countryside," Pitt smiled.

"This nutcase at Xanadu ... he's still holding the oil survey team?"

"We know Roy is dead. We can only presume the others are there and still alive."

A ring of the telephone interrupted the conversation. Pitt answered and spoke briefly, then slid the phone toward the center of the room and activated the speakerphone. Hiram Yaeger's easygoing voice boomed from the speaker.

"Greetings from Washington, where the local bureaucracy is beginning to wonder what has become of their favorite gurus of the deep," he said.

"Simply busy enjoying the delightful underwater treasures of greater Mongolia," Pitt replied.

"As I suspected. Of course, I'm sure you had a hand in the breaking political news coming from your part of the world."

The three men in the hotel room looked at each other blankly.

"We've been a little preoccupied," Pitt said. "What news?"

"China declared this morning that they are acceding the territorial lands of Inner Mongolia to the country of Mongolia."

"I noticed a gathering of people in the square down the street who looked like they were headed for a celebration," Gunn said. "I thought it might be a local holiday."

"China is playing it up as a friendly diplomatic gesture to their old neighbor, and has garnered all kinds of accolades from the United Nations and Western government leaders. Underground movements have been afoot for years to seek independence for Inner Mongolia, or reunification with Mongolia proper. It has been a point of embarra.s.sment with the Chinese for years. Privately, a.n.a.lysts are saying it was less about politics and more about economics. Some have speculated that it involved a pipeline deal and trade agreement to provide oil or other resources needed to keep China's economy growing, though no one seems to think Mongolia actually holds much in the way of oil reserves."

"That's exactly what it is about. I guess you could say Al and I were indeed a part of the negotiations," Pitt said, glancing at Giordino with a knowing look.

"I knew you must have had something to do with it," Yaeger laughed.

"It has a lot more to do with the Avarga Oil Company and Tolgoi Borjin. Al and I saw some of his resources. He's got storage facilities already in place along the border."

"Pretty remarkable that he got hold of the keys to the castle so quickly," Giordino said. "He must have had some pretty good bargaining chips."

"Or misinformation. Hiram, were you able to track down any of the info that I faxed you?" Pitt asked.

"Max and I pulled an all-nighter, digging up what we could. This guy and his company are quite an enigma. Well funded, but operating in an almost clandestine fashion."

"A local Russian contact confirmed similar findings," Giordino said. "What did you make of his oil holdings?"

"There is no record of the Avarga Oil Company actually exporting any oil from Mongolia. But then, there isn't much to export. They are known to operate only a handful of active wells."

"So they are not pumping enough volume sufficient to make a dent in China's demand, or anybody else's, for that matter?"

"There is no evidence of it. Funny thing is, we uncovered a number of sizeable contracts with a couple of Western oil field equipment suppliers. With oil prices surging over one hundred fifty dollars a barrel, there has been a mad rush for new exploration and drilling. The oil equipment suppliers have huge backlogs. Yet Avarga was already at the front of the line. They have apparently been purchasing a ma.s.sive amount of specialized drilling and pipeline equipment for the last three years, all shipped to Mongolia."

"We found some of it here in Ulaanbaatar."

"The only item that was amiss was the tunnel-boring device. We found only one record of that model being shipped out of the country and it was exported to Malaysia."

"Perhaps a front company for our friends at Avarga Oil?" Pitt ventured.

"Probably. The particular model you saw is designated for shallow earth pipeline installations. Perfect, in other words, for burying an oil pipeline in the soft sands of the Gobi Desert. What I haven't been able to decipher is how this Borjin has obtained the resources to acquire all this equipment without any visible revenue stream," Yaeger said.

"Genghis Khan is picking up the tab," Pitt replied.

"I don't get the joke."

"It's true," Giordino said. "He's parked in the guy's backyard."

While Giordino told Gunn and Yaeger about the existence of the tomb in Borjin's sanctuary and the later discovery of Hunt's diary in the crashed trimotor, Pitt pulled out a ten-page fax he had received back from Perlmutter.

"St. Julien has confirmed as much," Pitt said. "Sotheby's and the other major auction houses have had a steady stream of consignments for the past eight years of major twelfth- and thirteenth-century mainland Asian art and artifacts."

"Loot buried with Genghis Khan?" Gunn asked.

"To the tune of over one hundred million dollars. Perlmutter verified that the artifacts have all been consistent with the geographic regions of Genghis Khan's conquests up to the date of his death. The pattern fits, as does the source. The artifacts have all been consigned from a shadowy Malaysian company named the Buryat Trading Company."

"That's the same firm that purchased the tunnel borer," Yaeger exclaimed.