White Jade (The PROJECT) (27 page)

They
moved slowly, scanning the floor, ceiling and walls for signs of traps. Every fifty feet
he
lit a torch
, trying to dispel the feeling
he
was walking in a dark dream.

The passage curved.
"
Think we have a trap?
"
Ron
nie
said.

T
hree
skeletons lay on the floor ahead
. F
ragments of old cloth
and
leather
h
ung
from yellowed bones
pierced by t
hin wooden spears
. M
ore spears lay scattered and splintered about. Those bones had been there a long time.

Selena pointed at the walls on one side.
"
You can see the openings where the spears came out. They
'
re all at knee height or above.
"

"
What set it off?
"
Ron
nie
got down on all fours and crawled closer.
"
If you look hard you can see a difference in the floor. There
'
s a
thin line
in the mortar. I think they stepped on these stones and that did it.
"

He lay down, reached forward and pressed on the floor. The stone moved. A half dozen sharp wooden shafts whistled out of the walls and splintered against the sides of the passageway. A flat, clacking noise came from behind the walls.

Ronnie inched back.
"
Automatic feed and reload. Pretty slick.
"

"
If these two found their way in, how come the statue was still covering the entrance?
"
Selena asked
Nick
.

"
Maybe somebody put it back and left the bodies here as a warning. We
'
ll worry about the statue later if we have to.
"

They
crawled under the kill zone and past the trap.
They turned a corner. A
head
was
a black opening and the end of the passage.

"
We
'
re getting close.
"
Nick
gestured at the opening.

He
took two more steps and the floor fell away under
his
feet.

Chapter Forty
-One

Elizabeth waved Zeke Jordan
to a chair.

"
We
'
ve got Cathy Chen
,
"
he said.
"
She was booked out of LAX to
Hong Kong
.
"

"
Excellent. Where is she now?
"

"
In
Los Angeles
. She doesn
'
t deny she was at Nick
'
s place. She says she came over to visit an old friend and that Nick and Doctor Connor were drunk and high on something. She claims Connor passed out on the couch and Nick made a grab at her, tripped over the coffee table and landed on the floor. She says she doesn
'
t know anything about a computer and that she got out of there after Nick made the pass. She was going to
Hong Kong
on business. If she
'
d known we were looking for her she would have come in voluntarily.
"

"
Sure she would. What a story. Maybe a few days in isolation will help her memory.
"

"
That
'
s the plan.
"

"
Are you any closer to identifying a possible informer?
"

Jordan
looked unhappy.
"
We do have someone.
W
e
'
re watching him to see if he makes any contacts. He
'
s put aside a lot of money in an offshore account. I hate to admit it, but you were right.
"

"
When are you going to drop the hammer?
"

"
As soon as we can tie him to the Chinese. Until then we
'
re monitoring everything he does.
"
Jordan
tugged at his collar.
"
Is there anything new on the book or why the Chinese want it so badly?
"

"
You
'
re sure this person is the one who tipped off Wu?
"

"
Why do I get the feeling you haven
'
t told me everything, Director? Yes, I
'
m sure. This is our guy.
"

"
I didn
'
t want to brief you until you found the mole. We think we know why Yang wants the book. It might have the location of a new source of raw materials for China
'
s nukes program. We
'
re working to stop him.
"

Elizabeth didn't think
Jordan
needed to know they were working on stopping him in Tibet. She
twirled her pen.

"
We
'
re certain Yang is planning a coup
and that
he's
going to use the
Triads
to initiate attacks here when he makes his move. We think it
'
s set for the Fourth.
"

Jordan
was shocked.
"
That
'
s only two days away.
"

"
I convinced Homeland Security something was up. I
'
m not getting any cooperation from State, so that part is going to have to take care of itself.
"

"
Two days
isn't much time.
"

"
O
ur indicators point to something in the Bay Area. That
'
s the best place to focus resources.
"

Jordan
rubbed his nose.
"
I'm going to have a hard time
getting
the Bureau
to believe
the
Triads
are moving into terrorist activity instead of another criminal enterprise. It
'
s not part of their pattern.
"

Harker tapped her pen on her desk, thinking.
Jordan
watched her.

"
Maybe we should let Yang know we
'
re on to him. What do you think? He might reconsider his options, give us more time to expose him. We could use your informer. He could learn we
'
re on to the threat. Then he
'
d try to contact Wu or Yang. It would kill two birds with the same stone. Yang would know we
'
re prepared and maybe call it off. You
'
d catch your mole in the act and take him down.
"

Jordan
smiled.
"
I like it. Even if Yang goes ahead, it should rattle his cage. People make mistakes when they get rattled.
"

"
Then we
'
re agreed. You let your mole in on our suspicion of a domestic attack tied
t
o a plot to take over
China
. He doesn
'
t need to know where the information comes from. Let him pass it along and then bust him. That ought to give more weight to your argument with the Bureau for an all out focus on July Fourth.
"

"
Three birds with one stone.
"

"
We don
'
t have a lot of time.
"

Jordan
stood up.
"
Then I
'
d better get on it.
"

After
Jordan
left, she brought up the satellite over
Tibet
. Nick hadn
'
t checked in
. I
f they were underground there was no way to send a signal. She was more concerned about the Chinese.

When the image came up she knew her concerns were real. It was nighttime again on the Tibetan Plateau. Heading toward Moincer was a convoy of four vehicles. They were some distance away, but that many vehicles all at once meant Chinese military. She tried the comm link with no response from the team. She had no choice but to wait for things to play out.

Chapter Forty-
Two

Carter
felt the stones tremble under
his
feet
and
jumped
forward
with everything he had
.
He heard Selena shout his name behind him.
Pain shot up
his
spine.
The floor fell away into a
gaping pit
.
He
caught the far edge of the opening with one hand, grabbed hard with the other and hung on, feet dangling.
A cloud of white dust rose around him. He
looked down. Twenty feet below, rows of sharpened wooden spikes
reached for
him
like
a mouth full of
hungry fangs. 

The walls of the pit were smooth.
He
hung above the spikes until
he could
get
his
arms over the edge of the opening and pull out to lie on the floor.
He
lay on
his
back and took a few, deep breaths, waiting for the pain to subside.

"
You all right, Nick?
"
It was Ronnie.

"
Yeah.
"
He
got
to
his
feet, heart pounding.
His back was bad, but if he kept moving, maybe it wouldn't lock up. He popped another pain pill and hoped it had some kind of muscle relaxant in it.

"
Throw me a rope.
"

Ronnie tossed
a line
over
and
Nick
tied it off on one of the torch brackets. Ronnie did the same. Selena and Ronnie went hand over hand until they dropped down on
the other
side of the pit.

"
That was a hell of a jump.
"
Ronnie slapped
him
on the shoulder.
Nick winced.

"
I felt it move just before it went. I hope that
'
s the last of these things.
"

Another fifty yards of creeping along and the passage opened into
blackness
.
They
stepped through
. S
omething gl
ittered in
the light of
their torches
.

They
were in a chamber hollowed out from the heart of the mountain.
They stood on
a floor of smooth stone squares fitted together by a master mason.
A broad flight of steps led up to a
flat, raised platform. The other end of the platform was invisible in the darkness.

The
torches cast shadows from columns spaced along the steps and the sides of the platform. Each column was
elaborately
carved with entwined serpents
and
vines
. On top of each was a large,
golden bowl.

"
We need more light. Let
'
s set up on the platform.
"

They
walked across the stone floor and started up the steps.

The bowls were just above eye level. On a hunch,
Nick
dipped
his
finger into one
. It was filled with s
ome kind of oil
. With a touch of
his
torch a burst of light and flame pushed the dark away.
They
moved up the steps and along the side of the platform, lighting the bowls. On the far end of the platform more steps led up to the entrance of a low, square building
cut into the side of the mountain.

They
stopped and stared.

In the light from the blazing bowls a soaring, giant bird spread wings
of
gold above the building. Upon its back rode a frightening figure sculpted
of red stone
. His head was two-faced, cheeks dripping with gold like melted butter, his
four
eyes black and
burning
. Seven tongues of flame licked out between sharpened golden teeth. His expression was fierce, his hair long, black and tangled, as if by a wild wind. He had seven arms circled with gold bracelets and three legs banded with blue stones set in gold. A necklace of
golden
skulls circled his neck. Seven broad rays of gold streamed like lightning from his body.

Beneath the bird, a frieze of double-headed golden axes capped the entrance to the building below.

The gold
shone
in the flickering light.

"
That
'
s Agni,
"
said Selena,
"
riding the
g
aruda.
"
Her voice was filled with awe.

"
Who
'
s Agni?
"
Carter
asked.

"
He
'
s one of the two most important Vedic gods, before Hinduism, very old. He
'
s the god of fire and immortality. Usually he
'
s riding on the back of a ram or in a chariot. I
'
ve
never
seen him riding a garuda. This is a really early depiction.
"

"
That
'
s a lot of gold up there.
"
Ronnie gazed at the figure.

"
Is that a ruby in
one of his hands
? It
'
s as big as a baseball.
"
Carter
couldn
'
t take it all in at once.
He
'
d never seen anything like it.

"
I think so, and those blue stones are probably sapphires.
"
She turned in a circle.
"
Look at the walls!
"

The flames illuminated murals in brilliant color circling the room. Beneath the pictures, the walls were filled with writing and symbols. The murals looked as if they had
been painted
just
days before.

Selena walk
ed
down the steps and over to a mural next to the entrance. Holding her torch close, she examined the writing.

"
My God. This is Linear A. It
'
s written in Minoan. And beneath it.
"
She stopped dead in her tracks.

"
Beneath it, what?
"

"
Beneath it are passages in Sanskrit.
"

Carter
walked over to her.
"
Can you read it?
"

"
I can read the Sanskrit.
I
f the Sanskrit is telling the same story as the Linear A, it
'
s the greatest linguistic discovery since the Rosetta Stone.
"

"
That
'
s what led to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
"

"
Yes. No one
'
s been able to really
understand
Linear A. There are theories, but none of them work all the time. It
'
s mostly guesswork.
That's what I was doing.
"

"
It looks like pitchforks and chicken tracks.
"

Selena ignored Ronnie
'
s comment.
"
This is a dream for me. I
'
ve been studying dead languages for years. If this is what I think, it will make history.
"

She held her torch high and gazed at the mural above the writing. It
showed
a tranquil harbor scene, sunlit buildings against an azure sky, white clouds, ships with high, curved ends, people bustling near the docks. The details were vivid
, lifelike. Nick
could almost feel the trees swaying in an ocean breeze.

"
I think this is ancient
Crete
.
"
Her voice was reverent.
"
This must be the harbor at Knossos.
"

They
moved along the wall. Men in orange robes gestured before a bearded man on a raised throne. To one side of the throne a group of women dressed in white stood watching. One woman wore blue.

"
King Minos?
"

"
Possible. The Sanskrit says they are presenting a warning to the
'
Great King.
'
T
his is probably the palace at
Knossos
. Do you know what this means in the world of archaeology? It
'
s like finding photographs of 1600 B.C.
"

The King didn
'
t look pleased. Whatever the priests were telling him, he wasn
'
t happy about it.

The sequence of murals grew dark. While children played on the beaches, a malignant
, towering green
wave
b
ore down on the island. A seething, foaming wall of water crashed over the city, smashing trees, boats, people and buildings against the hills. Then came a narrow band painted black, as if the artist could not bear to show the destruction.

The
next panel showed
three sailing ships with high curved ends, plowing across a churning, wave-tossed sea under a smoky red and black sky. Standing on the decks were more of the robed figures in orange and white.

The scenes continued along the wall. A landing site under a blood-red sun. A
long, overland
journey
through desert and plain
, bearers loaded down with boxes and burdens, climbing toward snowcapped mountains
in the distance
.

The bearers came to a bleak hilltop. In the following panels a pyramid roofed building and houses were constructed. It was the temple site above.

The style of painting changed, the work of a different artist. Figures dressed in garments of the early days of the Chinese empire surrounded a large golden palanquin with closed curtains, borne on the shoulders of straining, bare backed slaves.
The procession was entering the temple complex on the hilltop.

In the next panel figures bent over a Chinese man dressed in elaborate robes, lying on a white table.
Men
in orange and women in white, one in blue, stood on a platform lined with blazing sconces, arms raised and faces uplifted in supplication. Behind them the great golden bird soared with its rider. The painting mirrored what
Nick
could see with
his
own eyes.

The last panel was a detailed map
. Carter recognized
India
,
China
and Mongolia
. It was
marked with Minoan and Sanskrit writing.

The murals told the tale of the
end of the Minoan civilization. T
hey confirmed the story in the book about taking the
First
Emperor
of
China
to a secret place.

This place.

"
I need pictures.
"
Selena took out her camera. Her hands trembled.

"
See if the writing can tell us anything we need to know. We
'
ll take a look at the building.
"

Two V-shaped channels lined with white stone
paralleled
the steps going up to the building, ending at square openings on each side of a rectangular white slab in the center of the platform.

Ronnie and Nick
walked around the slab
. They climbed
the steps
and entered a
large,
square
room.
Their footsteps sent a fine cloud of
gray dust
into the air
.
Ronnie
sneezed
. He
wiped
his
nose on
his
sleeve.