Jada hurried forward, shielding her face against the wind. Her heart quailed at the sight of Duncan’s blood-soaked pant leg.
The others gathered with her.
“What happened?” Jada asked.
“I tried to go down with the sinking ship,” Duncan said. “But Monk convinced me otherwise.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Monk warned, squinting through the storm. He noted someone was missing. “Where’s Sanjar?”
Jada searched around. She had failed to notice that he had slipped away.
Vigor answered, “He went to check on our pilot.”
Jada felt a flare of guilt, glancing toward the shadowy bulk of the helicopter. She had not even considered the man’s fate. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she must have assumed him dead, murdered like the rest of Josip’s crew at the onset of this assault.
Monk headed toward the helicopter with Duncan. Along the way, they found three bodies, sprawled in cooling pools of blood.
All shot.
Duncan limped through them. “Seems like our flyboy put up quite the fight.”
“And saved our lives at the same time,” Monk said. “His showdown likely delayed Arslan from blowing up the ship long enough for us to make our escape.”
Jada felt doubly guilty now. She had never even learned the pilot’s name.
They crossed to the helicopter and found its flank peppered with bullet holes, its canopy chipped and splintered. The tarps around it flapped and twisted in the wind.
A fast search found no sign of Sanjar.
Then from out of the dark storm, a pair of shadowy shapes appeared, leaning against each other, huddled against the fierce winds and the sting of blowing salt.
Sanjar and the pilot.
Monk left Duncan with Jada and helped the other pair back to the helicopter.
“I followed his blood trail,” Sanjar said, as he rejoined them. “From the helicopter out into the storm . . .”
“Got shot in the upper thigh,” the pilot said. “Pinned under the helicopter, I thought I was a goner, but then there was a big blast from the ship. Used the distraction to limp off into the storm, hoping to get lost. Which apparently worked.”
Jada pictured the shattered hatch down below.
So in the end, it sounds like we both saved each other.
“Can the bird still fly?” Monk asked.
The pilot frowned, eyeing the damage. “Not in this weather. But with a little bit of spackle and glue, I can probably get her flying after that.”
“Good man,” Monk said.
They all retreated into the helicopter’s cabin as the winds howled. But the storm was the least of their problems.
Monk turned to Sanjar, who had recovered his falcon from a seat, still covered in a blanket. He must have secured the bird inside the cabin before searching for the pilot.
“Do you know where Arslan was taking the relics?” Monk asked.
“I can’t say with certainty. But most likely back to Ulan Bator.”
Vigor pressed him. “Once there, what then? Who is he going to give them to?”
“Now that I can state with certainty. He’ll hand them over to head of my clan. A man who goes by the title Borjigin, meaning the Master of the Blue Wolf.”
“That was Genghis Khan’s old title, too,” Vigor said.
Sanjar nodded.
“What’s his real name?” Monk asked.
“I do not know. He came to us always wearing the mask of a wolf. Only Arslan knows his true identity.”
“Fat lot of good that does us,” Duncan said as he bandaged a deep gash on his leg.
“Without that last relic,” Vigor said, “we are doomed.”
Jada stared out the window as the storm began shredding apart, revealing the glow of the comet in the night sky. As a scientist, she put her faith in numbers and facts, in solid proofs and indisputable calculations. She had scoffed at the superstitions that led to this side excursion to the Aral Sea, dismissing it as irrelevant.
But as she looked skyward, she simply despaired, knowing the truth with all her heart.
The monsignor was right.
We are doomed.
THIRD
HIDE & SEEK
Σ
18
November 19, 11:09 A.M. ULAT
Ulan Bator, Mongolia
“And you all believe this cross is important,” Gray said.
He sat with everyone in a suite of rooms at the Hotel Ulaanbaatar in the center of the capital city’s downtown. The façade of the building looked Soviet industrial, a holdover from the country’s oppressed past, but the interior was a display of European modernity and elegance, representing the new Mongolia, a country looking to an independent future.
Their suite even featured a meeting room with a long conference table. Everyone was seated, with Monk’s team on one side, Gray’s on the other.
Only an hour ago, a knock at Gray’s door revealed a familiar bald and smiling face. Monk had grabbed him in a bear hug, almost ripping his shoulder back open. Behind him, his new partner, Duncan Wren, bowed his tall physique inside. He was accompanied by a young Mongolian man wearing a midthigh sheepskin coat. He had a pet carrier in hand and something stirring inside.
But it was the pair who came last who triggered his strongest reaction, a mix of joy, warm memories, and deep affection.
Gray had grabbed Vigor with as much enthusiasm as Monk had him a moment ago. He found the monsignor his same self: tough, resolute, yet gentle of spirit. Only now Gray saw the man’s age physically, how his frame seemed thinner, wasted. Even his face looked more gaunt.
Then there was Rachel.
Gray had greeted her just as warmly as the others, memories blurring as he held her in his arms. She clung to him an extra moment longer than ordinary friendship warranted. The two had been close for some time, intimate even, beginning to talk of something long term, until the shine of new romance waned into the practical realities of a long-distance relationship. The romance settled instead into a deep friendship, not that it didn’t occasionally well up into something more physical whenever they still happened to cross paths.
But circumstances had since changed . . .
Gray looked at the woman seated across from Rachel.
Seichan also knew of their past history and had her own complicated relationship with Rachel, but the two had come to terms, respecting each other, but were still cautious.
Once Monk’s team had time to settle in, Gray had ushered them into the meeting room, needing to decide how to proceed from here. They all placed their figurative cards on the table.
After receiving permission from Painter, Monk had shared the details of the crashed satellite with Vigor and Rachel, even with the Mongolian named Sanjar. The young man had offered his services as a guide into the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, the mountainous region northwest of the city.