It hadn’t reached that level of freeze yet. Farther out on the lake, he saw waves churning across its surface. He had read up enough on this body of water to know it was a geological marvel, the deepest lake on the planet, formed by filling a gap between tectonic plates that were slowly pulling apart, enlarging the lake until eventually it would be a new ocean.
That is, if the planet were still intact by then.
He checked his watch. He had spoken to Painter after landing in the nearby city of Irkutsk in Russia, where he learned of the new tighter timetable. Even now, they were down to roughly twelve hours. He imagined Monk was lifting off right about now from Ulan Bator, on his way to California with Dr. Shaw and Duncan.
The plan was for her to study the gyroscopic Eye out there, while he attempted to retrieve the cross here. Maybe she could figure out some solution on her own, but Gray was their fail-safe—assuming he could find that saintly artifact.
But both he and Dr. Shaw were severely constricted by time.
She had a seven- to eight-hour flight back to the States, eating up precious hours. He was in no better position.
He couldn’t begin his search until sunrise. It was too dark to accomplish anything now, and worse, they had no concrete lead on where to even start. The island was forty-four miles long and thirteen wide. The eastern half was all steep mountains, fringed in fir forests, rising to its highest peak, Mount Zhima. The rest of the terrain was a mix of sand dunes, grassy steppes, and patches of larch woods.
Even in daylight, it would be a nearly impossible search, especially without some road map of where to begin looking.
So Vigor had suggested another route.
Why not ask somebody?
The island was populated by about fifteen hundred natives, an aboriginal people called the Buryats, descendants of the original Mongol settlers.
Vigor had used his connections at the Vatican to arrange a rare meeting with their highest shamans. If anyone knew the island’s secrets, it would be the head of this enigmatic religion, an odd mix of Buddhism and natural worship. The Buryats were notoriously leery of foreigners. Women were forbidden from their most sacred places. It was a singular event even to meet a shaman.
But how to get the man to talk?
Gray had suggested laying all their cards on the table—or in this case, showing the shaman all their relics from Genghis Khan. Gray hoped they might act as a key to unlock any secrets his people had about the island.
In the end, the shaman had agreed to meet them, but only at dawn, requiring that they be cleansed in the day’s first light before he would speak to them. No amount of persuading moved the man from this position.
So many hours lost . . .
But he had to admit, they were all bone-tired, needing sleep and recuperation. Plus, by the time they met with the shaman, Monk and the others would be touching down in California. That left both sides about four hours to work out some solution to the threat looming over their heads.
No pressure there.
Kowalski flinched as the bus hit a ridge of ice and bounced. He had a white-knuckled grip on the seat in front of him, his nose glued to the window. “What’s that out there, near that hole in the ice?”
Gray searched and watched a dark mass slip off the ice and into the water, disturbed by the passage of the bus. “Calm down. It’s just a seal.”
“That’s what they want you to believe,” Kowalski mumbled. “You can’t trust what’s hiding under the ice.”
Clearly the man had some prior trauma concerning ice and open water. Gray let it go. They were almost to land anyway.
Vigor crossed and slipped into Gray’s seat. He pointed out the window toward the dark bulk of the island. “Look at that cape of rock jutting out. It’s called Khorin-Irgi in the native tongue, meaning Horse Head. See how it resembles a horse drinking water from the lake. There are stories of Mongol warriors from Genghis Khan’s time who came here and paid homage at this spot, believing the shape of the cape was some universal acknowledgment of their leader.”
Gray stared harder at the shadowy bulk. He knew the Mongols held their horses in high esteem. He remembered Vigor describing the tunnel that led to the boat of bones in the Aral Sea. It had been shaped like a horse, too.
“Do you think that’s a good place to start looking?” Gray asked.
“I doubt it,” Vigor said. “The cape is one of the busier spots on the island. Someone would surely have found something hidden there by now. My point was that many locations on this island are tied to the mythos of Genghis Khan. We just have to find out which one holds his tomb.”
“And maybe that shaman can tell us.”
“If he knows something, then it’s only professional courtesy that he shares it with another man of the cloth.” Vigor gave him a tired grin. “Do not lose faith, Commander Pierce. If the cross is here, we’ll find it.”
“Yes, but will we find it in time?”
Vigor patted his knee in a fatherly fashion and returned to his own seat. He slipped his arm around his niece, who continued to keep a sharp, concerned eye on her uncle.
With a large bump, the bus climbed off the ice road and onto solid rock. It trundled up the sandy embankment and onto a narrow road that ran the long axis of the thin island. Gray’s team was traveling half its length to reach the largest village on Olkhon. They were to meet the shaman at a sacred spot near there.
Forty-five minutes of rough terrain later, sweeping through the broken brown steppes along the western shore, the bus rumbled down into the sleepy, picturesque village of Khuzhir, a neat little town of timber-framed homes with mossy roofs and brightly painted picket fences marking off small yards or sheep pens. The village hugged a small bay on the western side of the island and had only a couple of places for lodging.
Gray had chosen the smaller of the two. As it was the off-season for tourists, he had rented out the entire place, which consisted of only a dozen bedrooms anyway.
The bus delivered them to its doorstep. It was a two-story log lodge with a nice view of the bay off in the distance. There was a horse barn in back and a line of all-terrain vehicles parked along one side, clearly meant as rentals for its guests to explore the island.
They offloaded and headed inside. The proprietors—an older Russian couple, who did a lot of bowing and gesturing to make up for their poor English—had been expecting them and had a fire roaring in a stone hearth in the small communal room, a welcoming space of plank floors, overstuffed chairs, and a long dining table on one side.
The heat of the fire felt stifling for the first few breaths after the long chilly ride, but as they checked in and settled their room arrangements, Gray found himself drawn to the flames, warming his hands.