Ancient Echoes

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Mongolia

Michael and Jianjun fled the nightmare of murder and destruction at Bayan Ölgiy, and made a frenzied cross-country drive to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city, in Batbaatar's jeep, stopping only for gas. Once there, Jianjun went off to find a way for them to leave the country without attracting unwanted attention.

Michael hadn’t slept since Bayan Ölgiy. Whenever he shut his eyes, he saw the corpses of the men who had worked for him, who had trusted him. He’d failed those he should have protected. Again.

He was a child the first time it happened. Only ten years old. People around him, and later psychiatrists and psychologists, told him a child couldn’t be expected to take care of his mother, couldn’t stop an adult from doing as she pleased. Couldn’t stop her from taking her own life. But he had been there, and no one else was.

His father never forgave him. And he never forgave himself.

His older brother, Lionel, ignored him more than ever.

Only one person ever looked at him with understanding, forgiveness, and love. And then she, too, walked out of his life. He’d gotten over it, eventually. But now, memories of the past rushed back.

He might not have slept on the trip across Mongolia, but he had thought a great deal.

He believed some secret arm of the government or shadow government had taken Lady Hsieh's coffin, and suspected that may have been why, after months of being told ‘no,’ he had suddenly been granted access to the dig site.

A team of soldiers or mercenaries would have been needed to remove the sand from the dig site and then steal the coffins. And clearly they had been ordered to not only remove the site’s contents, but to eliminate everyone who knew of its existence. If Michael and Jianjun hadn't left the ger, they would be dead as well. Lady Hsieh, he was sure, had saved them. Somehow, he must save her.

An idea struck. Having left Jianjun, he hurried across Ulaanbaatar.

The city reflected its tenure under the Soviet Union's bleak rule. Old city walls had been pulled down so only fragments remained. Large open streets for trucks and soldiers ran where bazaars once stood. Colorful homes, shops, and temples had been replaced with grim quadrilateral Communist buildings. Since the Soviets had gone, a gloomy dust hung over everything.

Up ahead, he saw Gandan, short for the Gandanlegchinlen Monastery. It was the only place in Ulaanbaatar Michael genuinely liked. Tibetan style gold and crimson pagodas with pavilion roofs filled the skyline, along with a cloistered Buddhist university, and the Migjid Janraisig Süm temple, which held a one-hundred-foot, gold leaf-covered Buddha. Under communist rule, many of the Buddhist monks had been slaughtered, and all religion prohibited, including ''ongoing reincarnations.” All were back now.

Just beyond the monastery grounds, Michael saw the Natural History Museum. Four stories high and lining several blocks, it housed Mongolia's enormous collection of dinosaur fossils and more dinosaur eggs than any other place in the world.

Bitterly, he realized his find would have changed all that. How could dinosaur eggs compare to a perfectly preserved human?

The museum was the only place in Mongolia with a climate-controlled environment and instrumentation. If the government was involved in Lady Hsieh’s theft, her body should be there. In a half hour the building would be closed for the night.

As Michael made his way through the cavernous site, he became surer than ever that Lady Hsieh had been brought here. She deserved better than to be shut up like some bizarre feat of early science to be studied, bits of her carved and diced and placed under a microscope. He wandered the halls and displays along with the few other tourists, but spent most of the time checking the museum's security.

He found a stairwell and when no one watched, ran down it to the basement where the laboratories were. He looked around until he found an exit, knowing that at some point he might need to make a quick escape.

Nearby he found a large, unlocked closet, and snuck inside. There, in total darkness, he waited for the buzzer to sound indicating the museum had closed for the day. He continued to wait for thirty minutes after that.