Текст книги "Treasure of Khan"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Dirk Cussler
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Scattered around the encampment, Pitt and Giordino could make out the dark shadows of animals, denizens of the local herd. They were too far away to tell whether the animals were horses or camels. A fenced corral held some of the herd close to theirs, while others roamed freely around the area.

"I believe you asked for a horse?" Giordino said.

"Let's hope they're not camels."

The two men moved easily across the last stretch of ground. They approached within a hundred yards of the camp when Pitt suddenly froze. Giordino caught Pitt's abrupt halt and followed suit. He strained his eyes and ears to detect a danger, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The night was perfectly still.

Not a sound could be heard but for the occasional gust of wind, and he saw no movement around the camp.

"What gives?" he finally whispered to Pitt.

"The herd," Pitt replied quietly. "They're not moving."

Giordino peered at the host of animals scattered about the darkness, looking for signs of movement. A few yards away, he spotted a trio of fuzzy brown camels standing together, their heads raised in the air.

He stared at them for a minute, but they didn't move a muscle.

"Maybe they're asleep," he offered.

"No," Pitt replied. "There is no odor either."

Pitt had visited enough farms and ranches to know that the smell of manure was never far from a herd of livestock. He took a few steps forward, creeping up slowly until he stood alongside the three animals.

The creatures showed no fear, remaining still even as Pitt swatted one on its furry rump. Giordino looked on in shock as Pitt then grabbed one of the animals around the neck and shoved. The camel didn't resist at all but keeled stiffly over onto its side. Giordino ran over and stared at the animal, which lay motionless on its back with its legs in the air. Only they weren't legs sticking up but pieces of two-by-fours.

The fallen camel, like the rest of the herd, was made of wood.

-28-

Disappeared? What do you mean they disappeared?" As Borjin's anger rose, a vein in the shape of an earthworm protruded from the side of his neck. "Your men tracked them into the desert!"

Though he physically towered over Borjin, the gruff head of security wilted like a shrinking violet under his boss's tirade.

"Their tracks simply vanished into the sand, sir. There was no indication they were picked up by another vehicle. They were fifty kilometers from the nearest village, which was to the east as they were traveling south. Their prospects for survival in the Gobi are nonexistent," Batbold said quietly.

Tatiana stood listening at the bar in the corner of the study, mixing a pair of vodka martinis. Handing a glass to her brother, she took a sip from her own drink, then asked, "Were they spies for the Chinese?"

"No," Batbold replied. "I don't believe so. The two men apparently bribed their way onto the Mongolian state security escort. The Chinese delegation seemed not to notice their absence from the motorcade when they departed. It is noteworthy that they also match the description of the two men who broke into our storage facility in Ulaanbaatar two nights ago."

"The Chinese would not have been so clumsy," Borjin commented.

"The men were not Chinese. I saw them myself. They looked Russian. Though Dr. Gantumur at the laboratory claimed they spoke to him in English with an American accent."

Tatiana suddenly choked on her drink, setting the glass down and coughing to clear her throat.

"Americans?" she stammered. "What did they look like?"

"From what I saw out the window, one was tall and lean with black hair while the other was short and robust with dark curly hair," Borjin said.

Batbold nodded. "Yes, that is an accurate description," he mumbled, neglecting to relay how close he was to the two men when he got clobbered by the shovel.

"Those sound like the men from NUMA," Tatiana gasped. "Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino. They were the ones who rescued us from the fishing boat on Baikal. The same men who came aboard the Primoskiand captured the Russian scientist shortly before we departed Siberia."

"How did they track you here?" Borjin asked sternly.

"I do not know. Perhaps through the lease of the Primoski."

"They have stuck their noses where they don't belong. Where did they go in the compound?" he asked, turning to Batbold.

"They drove into the garage with a flat tire, then entered the research facility. Dr. Gantumur phoned security immediately, so they were only in the lab a few minutes. They somehow eluded the responding guards, and were probably examining the residence when you spotted them entering the sanctuary."

Borjin's face flushed with anger, the vein on his neck rising to new heights.

"They are hunting for the oil company employees, I am certain," Tatiana said. "They know nothing of our work. Do not worry, my brother."

"You should have never brought those people here in the first place," he hissed.

"It is your fault," Tatiana roared back. "If you hadn't killed the Germans before they fully assessed the field data, we would not have needed further assistance."

Borjin glared at his sister, refusing to admit the truth of her words. "Then these oil people must be eliminated, too. Have them accelerate the analysis, I wish them gone by the end of the week," he said, his eyes raging with fire.

"Do not worry. The Americans know nothing of our work. And they will not survive to talk anyway."

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, his temper cooling. "These men of the sea are a long ways from the water now. But just to be sure they stay that way, send the monk down there immediately for insurance,"

he added, speaking to Batbold.

"A prudent decision, brother."

"To their dry and dusty demise," he mused now, raising his glass and sipping the martini.

Tatiana swallowed the rest of her drink but silently wondered if the demise of the Americans would come as predicted. They were determined men, she had come to realize, who would not face death easily.

***

It felt as though they were walking through the back-lot set of a Hollywood western, only they were surrounded by camels instead of cattle. Climbing through a fenced corral, Pitt and Giordino were amused to see a large trough to water the wooden livestock. The early-morning sun cast long shadows from the large immobile herd that was strategically placed around the village. Pitt gave up counting when he reached a hundred head of the prop camels.

"Reminds me of that guy in Texas who has all those Cadillacs half buried in his yard," Giordino said.

"I don't think these were put out here for art, if that's what you call it."

They made their way to the nearest ger,which was more than double the standard size. The circular felt tent was nearly a hundred feet across and stood over ten feet tall. Pitt found a white-painted entry door, which on all Mongol gersfaced south. Rapping his knuckles on the doorframe, he shouted a cheery

"Hello." The thin doorframe didn't flex at all under his knocking, which echoed with a deep resonance.

Pitt placed his hand against the felt wall and pushed. Rather than simply a forgiving layer of canvas over felt, the wall was backed by something hard and solid.

"The big bad wolf couldn't blow this thing down," he said.

Grabbing an edge of the canvas covering, he ripped a small section off the wall. Beneath was a thin layer of felt, which he also tore away. Under the layer of felt he exposed a cold metal surface painted white.

"It's a storage tank," Pitt said, touching the metal side.

"Water?"

"Or oil," Pitt replied, stepping back and eyeing the other phony gersdotting the encampment.

"They may be large by nomadic-tent standards, but they are still relatively small for oil tanks," Giordino remarked.

"I bet we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. These things might be buried thirty or forty feet down, and we're only seeing the tops."

Giordino scuffed the ground and loosened a small rock, which he picked up and rapped against the tank. A deep empty echo reverberated through the tank.

"She's empty." He took a half step, then lobbed the rock at the next closest ger.The stone bounced off the side, producing a similar pinging sound.

"Empty as well," he said.

"So much for your pot of coffee," Pitt replied.

"Why would some empty oil tanks in the middle of nowhere be disguised as a fake village?"

"We may not be far from the Chinese border," Pitt said. "Maybe someone is concerned about the Chinese stealing their oil? I'd guess the target audience is an aerial survey or satellite imaging, at which heights this place would look pretty authentic."

"The wells must not have panned out if these tanks are all dry."

Wandering around the phony village, the men realized there was no food or water to be found and the mystery lost its allure. They worked their way through the string of fakers, hoping to find some emergency supplies or something more than an empty oil tank. But all the tents were the same, masking large metal tanks half buried in the sand. Only at the very last tent did they find that the door actually opened, revealing a pumping station dug twenty feet into the ground. A maze of pipes led to the other storage tanks, fed from a single four-foot-diameter inlet pipe that protruded from beneath the desert floor.

"An underground oil pipeline," Pitt observed.

"Dug and placed with the help of a tunnel-boring machine?" Giordino posed. "Now, let's see, where have I seen one of those lately?"

"It's quite possible that our friends at Avarga Oil have struck again. May have something to do with the deal they are cooking up with the Chinese, but for what purpose I can only guess."

The two men fell silent again, fatigue and disappointment damping their spirits. Overhead, the rising sun was beginning to bake the sand-and-gravel floor around the mock village. Tired from their all-night trek and weak from lack of food and water, the men wisely decided to rest. Ripping sections of the felt covering from one of the tanks, they bundled a pair of crude mattresses together and lay down in the shade of the pumping house. The homemade beds felt like a cloud to their tired bones and they quickly drifted off to sleep.

The sun was dropping toward the western horizon like a fluorescent billiard ball when the two men finally roused themselves. The sleep break did little to restore their energy levels, however, and they departed the village in a lethargic state. They began hiking with noticeable effort, yet moved at a snail's pace, as if each man had aged forty years in his sleep. Pitt took another bearing with his watch against the sun's rays and led them in a westerly direction again, foregoing any thoughts of trying to trace the underground pipeline. They moved in unspoken unison, willing their bodies forward with each step, as the first hints of delirium began to fog their minds.

The winds gradually began to kick up again, jabbing and swirling in sporadic gusts as a prelude to the force that was to come. The northerly wind brought with it a cold chill. Both men had carried a thin section of felt from the storage tank and wrapped their heads and torsos in the fabric like a poncho. Pitt targeted a distant S-shaped ridge for a bearing as the sun slid away, focusing his efforts on maintaining a straight course. As the winds picked up, he knew his North Star compass would be obscured, and the last thing they needed in their state was to be wandering around in circles.

An annoying mantra, "move or die," began to repeat endlessly in his head, urging him forward. Pitt could feel the swelling in the back of his parched throat and tried to put the unyielding thirst out of his mind. He glanced at Giordino, who bulled ahead with listless eyes. Both their energies and exhausted mental capacities were concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

Time seemed to fade away for Pitt, and consciousness nearly as well. He drifted along, then felt his eyes pop open, not sure if he had fallen asleep on his feet. How long he was out, he had no idea, but at least Giordino was still there, trudging along beside him. His mind began to wander, thinking of his wife, Loren, who served in Congress back in Washington. Though lovers for many years, they had only just recently married, Pitt reasoning that his days of globe-trotting adventure were behind him. She'd known the wanderlust would never leave his blood, even if he didn't. Within months of his ascension to the head of NUMA, he grew restless with managing the agency from its Washington headquarters. It was Loren who urged him to take to the field, knowing he was happiest when working with his first love, the sea. Time apart would make their love stronger, she told him, though he doubted she meant it. Yet he wouldn't interfere with her career on the Hill, so he followed her words. Now he wondered if doing so would end up making her a widow.

It was an hour later, maybe two, when the winds decided to make an appearance in earnest, blowing hard from the northwest. The stars above quickly melted away in the dust, obscuring their only source of light. As the blowing dust settled over them in a cottony haze, Pitt's landmark ridge disappeared from view. It was no matter, though, as Pitt stared down at his feet with numb fatigue.

They moved like zombies, lifeless in appearance but unwilling to stop walking. Giordino moved methodically forward alongside Pitt, as if an invisible tether kept the two men linked together. The winds grew intense, stinging their face and eyes with blasting sand that made it painful to see. Still they trudged ahead, though well off their westerly track. The exhausted men began zigzagging to the south, in a subconscious effort to flee the biting wind.

They staggered on in a timeless whirl until Pitt detected Giordino trip over some rocks and fall down next to him. Pitt stopped and reached out to help his friend up. A burly hand rose up and grabbed Pitt's, then yanked hard in the other direction. Pitt sprawled toward Giordino, tripping over him and falling into a bed of soft sand. Lying there dazed, he noticed the blasting sand was no longer peppering his body.

Unseen in the turbulent night, Giordino had tripped over a rock piling, behind which lay an indented cove protected from the howling winds. Pitt reached out and touched the rock wall with one hand as he felt Giordino crawl alongside and collapse. With a last ounce of energy, Pitt unwrapped his felt cloth and draped it over both their heads for warmth, then lay back on the soft sand and closed his eyes.

Beneath the screeching desert sandstorm, both men fell unconscious.

-29-

Giordino was dreaming. He dreamed that he was floating in a still pond of tropical water.

The warm liquid was unusually dense, like syrup, making his movements a slow and laborious effort. The water suddenly lapped at his face in a series of small hot waves. He jerked his head to escape the surf, but the warm moisture followed his motion. Then something about the dream became overly vivid. It was an odor, a very unpleasant one at that. A smell too powerful to reside in a dream. The repulsive aroma finally spurred him awake and he forcefully cocked open a heavy eyelid.

Bright sunshine stung at his eyes, but he could squint enough to see there was no aqua blue water lapping at his body. Instead, a giant pink swab descended on him with a hot wipe across one cheek. Jerking his head away, he saw the pink swab roll behind a picket fence of large yellow teeth housed in a snout that appeared a mile long. The beast exhaled a breath that bathed Giordino's face in a putrid cloud of onion, garlic, and Limburger cheese.

Popping open both eyes and shaking off the cobwebs, he stared past the expansive snout into two chocolate-brown eyes shrouded behind long eyelashes. The camel blinked curiously at Giordino, then let out a short bellow before stepping back to nibble at a fringe of felt protruding from the sand.

Giordino struggled to sit up, realizing the syrupy water in his dream was a layer of sun-warmed sand. A drift of sand nearly a foot thick had piled up in the little cove during the sandstorm the night before.

Weakly pulling his arms out of the morass, Giordino nudged the figure next to him similarly buried under felt and sand, then scooped away handfuls of the brown silica. The felt rustled a bit then was thrown back, exposing the drawn and haggard face of Pitt. His face was sunburned, his lips bloated and chapped. Yet the sunken green eyes sparkled at seeing his friend alive.

"Another day in paradise," he rasped through a parched mouth, taking in their surroundings. The overnight sandstorm had blown itself out, leaving them bathed in sunshine under a clear blue sky.

They heaved their bodies upright, the sand falling off them in rivulets. Giordino sneaked a hand into his pocket and nodded slightly in reassurance, finding the horseshoe still there.

"We've got company," he wheezed, his voice sounding like steel wool on sandpaper.

Pitt crawled weakly from under the blanket of sand and peered at the beast of burden standing a few feet away. It was a Bactrian camel, as evidenced by the two humps on his back that sagged slightly to one side. The animal's matted fur was a rich mocha brown, which darkened around its flanks. The camel returned Pitt's stare for a few seconds, then resumed its nibbling on the blanket.

"The ship of the desert," Pitt said.

"Looks more like a tugboat. Do we eat him or ride him?"

Pitt was contemplating whether they had the strength to do either when a shrill whistle blared from behind a dune. A small boy bobbed over the sand, riding a dappled tan horse. He wore a green del,and his short black hair was hidden under a faded baseball cap. The boy rode up to the camel, calling it by name as he approached. When the camel popped his head up, the boy quickly looped a pole-mounted lasso around the animal's neck and pulled the rope tight. Only then did he glance down and notice Pitt and Giordino lying on the ground. The startled boy stared wide-eyed at the two haggard men who resembled ghosts in the sand.

"Hello." Pitt smiled warmly at the boy. He climbed unsteadily to his feet as a pool of sand slid off his clothes. "Can you help us?"

"You ... talk English," the boy stammered.

"Yes. You can understand me?"

"I learn English at monastery," he replied proudly, enunciating each syllable.

"We are lost," Giordino said hoarsely. "Can you share food or water?"

The boy slipped off his wooden saddle and produced a goatskin canteen filled with water. Pitt and Giordino took turns attacking the water, taking small sips at first then working up to large gulps. As they drank, the boy pulled a scarf out of his pocket, which was wrapped around a block of sun-dried curds.

Cutting it into small pieces, he offered it to the men, who gratefully split the rubbery milk residue and washed it down with the last of the water.

"My name is Noyon," the boy said. "What is yours?"

"I am Dirk and this is Al. We are very happy to meet you, Noyon."

"You are fools, Dirk and Al, to be in the Gobi without water and a mount," he said sternly. His youthful face softened with a smile, and he added, "You come with me to my home, where you will be welcomed by my family. It is less than a kilometer from here. A short ride for you."

The boy slipped off his horse and removed the small wooden saddle, then prodded Pitt and Giordino to climb aboard. The Mongol pony was not tall, and Pitt easily pulled himself onto its back, then helped hoist Giordino on behind him. Noyon grabbed the reins and led them north across the desert, the roped camel following behind.

They traveled just a short distance before Noyon led them around a thick sandstone ridge. On the opposite side, a large herd of camels were scattered about a shallow plain, foraging for scrub grass that sprouted through the stony ground. In the center of the field stood a lone ger,shrouded in dirty white canvas, its southerly door painted a weathered orange. Two poles with a rope tied across acted as an adjacent corral, securing several stout brown horses. A rugged, cleanshaven man with penetrating dark eyes was saddling one of the horses when the small caravan rode up.

"Father, I have found these men lost in the desert," the boy said in his native tongue. "They are from America."

The man took one look at the bedraggled figures of Pitt and Giordino and knew they had flirted with Erleg Khan, the Mongolian lord of the lower world. He quickly helped them down off the horse, returning the feeble shake of the hand offered by each exhausted man.

"Secure the horse," he barked at his son, then led the two men into his home.

Ducking and entering the ger,Pitt and Giordino were amazed at the warm decor of the interior, which was in stark contrast to the tent's drab exterior. Brightly patterned carpets covered every square inch of the dirt floor, melding with vibrant floral weavings that covered the tent's lattice-framed walls. Cabinets and tables were painted cheerful hues of red, orange, and blue, while the ceiling support frames were painted lemon yellow.

The interior was configured in a traditional gerlayout, symbolic of the role superstition plays in daily nomadic life. To the left of the entrance was a rack and cabinet for the man's saddle and other belongings. The right section of the ger,the "female" side, held the cooking implements. A hearth and cooking stove was situated in the center, attached to a metal stovepipe that rose through an opening in the tent's ceiling. Three low beds were positioned around the perimeter walls, while the back wall was reserved for the family altar.

Noyon's father led Pitt and Giordino around the left side of the gerto some stools near the hearth. A slight woman with long black hair and cheerful eyes tending a battered teapot smiled at the men. Seeing their exhausted state, she brought damp towels to wash their face and hands, then set some strips of mutton to boil in a pot of water. Noticing the bloody bandage on Pitt's leg, she cleaned the dressing as the men downed cup after cup of watery black tea. When the mutton was cooked, she proudly served up a giant portion to each man, accompanied by a tray of dried cheeses. To the famished men, the flavor-challenged meal tasted like French haute cuisine. After devouring the mutton and cheese, the man brought over a leather bag filled with the home-fermented mare's milk, called airag,and filled three cups.

Noyon entered the gerand sat down behind the men to act as interpreter for his parents, who did not speak English. His father spoke quietly in a deep tone, looking Pitt and Giordino in the eye.

"My father, Tsengel, and my mother, Ariunaa, welcome you to their home," the boy said.

"We thank you for your hospitality. You have truly saved our lives," Pitt said, sampling the airagwith a toast. He decided the brew tasted like warm beer mixed with buttermilk.

"Tell me, what are you doing in the Gobi without provisions?" Tsengel asked through his son.

"We became separated from our tour group during a brief visit into the desert," Giordino fibbed. "We retraced our steps but got lost when the sandstorm struck last night."

"You were lucky my son found you. There are few settlements in this region of the desert."

"How far are we from the nearest village?" Pitt asked.

"There is a small settlement about twenty kilometers from here. But enough questions for now," Tsengel said, seeing the weary look in both men's eyes. "You must rest after your meal. We will talk again later."

Noyon led the men to two of the small beds, then followed his father outside to tend the herd. Pitt lay back on the cushioned bed and admired the bright yellow roof supports overhead before falling into a deep, heavy sleep.

He and Giordino woke before dusk to the recurring smell of mutton boiling on the hearth. They stretched their legs outside the ger,walking amid the docile herd of camels that roamed freely about. Tsengel and Noyon soon came galloping up, having spent the afternoon rounding up strays.

"You are looking fit now," Tsengel said through his son.

"Feeling fit as well," Pitt replied. The food, liquids, and rest had quickly revitalized the two men and they felt surprisingly refreshed.

"My wife's cooking. It is an elixir," the man grinned. Tying their horses to the hitching rope then washing at a bucket of soapy water, he led them back into the ger.Another meal of mutton and dried cheese awaited them, accompanied by cooked noodles. This time, Pitt and Giordino consumed the meal with much less relish. The airagwas produced earlier and poured in larger quantities, consumed out of small ceramic bowls that never seemed to empty.

"You have an impressive herd," Giordino remarked, complimenting his host. "How many head?"

"We own one hundred thirty camels and five horses," Tsengel replied. "A satisfactory herd, yet it is a quarter the size of what we once owned on the other side of the border."

"In Chinese Inner Mongolia?"

"Yes, the so-called autonomous region, which has become little more than another Chinese province."

Tsengel looked into the fire with a glint of anger in his eyes.

"Why did you leave?"

Tsengel nodded toward a faded black-and-white photograph on the altar, which showed a boy on a horse and an older man holding the reins. The penetrating eyes of the boy revealed it was a young Tsengel, alongside his own father.

"At least five generations of my ancestors have herded on the eastern fields of the Gobi. My father owned a herd of over two thousand camels at one time. But those days have vanished in the winds.

There is no place for a simple herder in those lands anymore. The Chinese bureaucrats keep commandeering the land without regard to its natural balance. Time and again, we have been pushed out of our ancestral grazing lands and forced to drive our herds to the harshest portions of the desert.

Meanwhile, they suck the water out wherever they can, for the noble cause of industrializing the state. As a result, the grasslands are disappearing right under their noses. The desert is growing day by day, but it is a dead desert. The fools will not see it until the sands begin to consume their capital of Beijing, by which time it will be too late. For my family's sake, I had no choice but to cross the border. The grazing conditions are sparse, but at least the herder is still respected here," he said proudly.

Pitt took another sip of the bitter-tasting airagas he studied the old photograph.

"It is always a crime to take away a man's livelihood," he said.

His gaze drifted over to a framed print mounted at the back of the altar. The portrait of a rotund man with a stringy goatee peered back, drawn in an ancient stylized hand.

"Tsengel, who is that on the altar?"

"The Yuan emperor, Kublai. Most powerful ruler of the world, yet benevolent friend of the common man," Tsengel replied, as if the emperor were still alive.

"Kublai Khan?" Giordino asked.

Tsengel nodded. "It was a far better time when the Mongol ruled China," he added wistfully.

"It is a much different world today, I'm afraid," Pitt said.

The airagwas taking its toll on Tsengel, who had consumed several bowls of the potent brew. His eyes grew glassy and his emotions more visceral as the mare's milk disappeared down his throat. Finding the geopolitical conversation becoming a little too sensitive for the man, Pitt tried to change the subject.

"Tsengel, we stumbled upon a strange sight in the desert before the sandstorm struck. It was an artificial village surrounded by wooden camels. Do you know the place?"

Tsengel responded by laughing with a throaty guffaw.

"Ah, yes, the richest herdsmen in the Gobi. Only his mares don't produce a drop of milk," he smiled, taking another sip of airag.

"Who built it?" Giordino asked.

"A large crew of men appeared in the desert with equipment, pipe, and a digging machine. They dug tunnels under the surface that run for many kilometers. I was paid a small fee to direct their foreman to the nearest well. He told me that they worked for an oil company in Ulaanbaatar, but were sworn not to tell anyone of their work. Several of the crewmen who talked loudly had disappeared suddenly and the rest of the workers were very nervous. They quickly built the wooden camels and large tanks that look like gers,then the men vanished. The tanks in the village stand empty, collecting only dust from the wind.

That was many months ago, and I have seen no one return since. It is just like the others."

"Which others?" Pitt asked.

"There are three other camps of metal gerslocated near the border. They are all the same. They stand empty, but for the wooden camels."

"Are there existing oil wells or oil drilling in the area?" Pitt asked.

Tsengel thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I have seen oil wells in China many years ago, but none in this area."

"Why do you think they disguise the storage tanks and surround them with wooden livestock?"

"I do not know. Some say that the metal gerswere built by a wealthy herder to capture the rains and that the water will be used to bring back the grasslands. A shaman claims the wooden animals are an homage, placed in appeasement for the desecration of the desert that occurred by their underground digging.

Others say it is the work of a tribe of madmen. But they are all wrong. It is simply the work of the powerful, who wish to exploit the wealth of the desert. Why do they disguise their efforts? Why else but to disguise their evil hearts."

The airaghad nearly finished Tsengel off. He slurped the remains of his bowl, then rose uneasily to his feet and bid his guests and family good night. Staggering over to one of the beds, he collapsed onto the covers and was snoring loudly minutes later. Pitt and Giordino helped the others clean up the remains of the meal, then strode outside for a dose of fresh air.

"It still doesn't make any sense," Giordino said, gazing at the night sky. "Why hide some empty oil tanks out in the desert to collect dust?"

"Maybe there is something more important than the storage tanks that is being hidden."