Treasure of Khan

The crew of the Japanese plane watched with minor disappointment as the Fokker rolled across the ground, failing to explode or burst into flames. Instead, the silver trimotor simply flipped twice, then slid inverted into a sandy ravine.

Despite the difficulty in downing the civilian plane, a cheer rang out aboard the Mitsubishi.

"Well done, men, but next time we must do better," Negishi lauded then banked the bomber back toward its base in Manchuria.

On board the Fokker, Schodt and his brother were killed instantly when the cockpit was crushed on the first roll of the aircraft. Hunt survived the crash, but his back was broken and his left leg nearly severed.

He painfully clung to life for nearly two days before perishing in the jumbled wreckage of the fuselage.

With his last gasp of energy, he pulled the lacquered box close to his chest and cursed his sudden turn of luck. As his last breath left him, he had no idea that still clutched within his arms, he held the clue to the most magnificent treasure the world would ever see.

Part One

Seiche

-1-

The still waters of the world's deepest lake radiate the deep translucent blue of a polished sapphire. Fed by cold ancient streams that are free of silt and sediments, Lake Baikal possesses remarkably crystalline clear waters. A tiny crustacean, Baikal epishura, aids the cause by devouring algae and plankton growths that degrade most freshwater lakes. The combination produces such a stu

Surrounded by craggy snowcapped peaks to the north and dense taiga forests of birch, larch, and pine to the south, the "Blue Pearl of Siberia" stretches as a beacon of beauty across an otherwise hostile landscape. Situated in the dead center of lower Siberia, the four-hundred-mile-long crescent-shaped lake curves south to north just above the border with Mongolia. A massive body of water, Lake Baikal is nearly a mile deep in some spots and holds one-fifth of all the fresh water on the planet, more than all of North America's Great Lakes combined. Just a few small fishing villages dot the lake's shore, leaving the enormous lake a nearly vacant sea of tranquility. Only at its southern end does the lake sprawl toward any significant population centers. Irkutsk, a modestly hip city to a half million Siberian residents, sits forty-five miles west, while the ancient city of Ulan-Ude lies a short distance from its eastern shoreline.

Theresa Hollema glanced up from a laptop computer and briefly admired the purple mountains at the edge of the lake, crowned by cotton-ball clouds that grazed their peaks. The Dutch geophysicist delighted in the clear blue skies that so seldom graced her home outside of Amsterdam. Drawing a deep breath of the crisp air, she subconsciously tried to absorb the scenery through all her senses.

"It is an agreeable day on the lake, no?" asked Tatiana Borjin. She spoke with a deep voice in the emotionless ma

"I had no idea that Siberia was so beautiful," Theresa replied. "The lake is breathtaking. So calm and peaceful."

"She is a calm jewel at the moment but can turn wicked in an instant. The Sarma, sudden winds from the northwest, can burst onto the lake with the force of a hurricane. The local graveyards are filled with fishermen who failed to respect the forces of Baikal."

A slight chill ran up Theresa's spine. The locals seemed to constantly speak of the spirit of the lake.

Baikal's pristine waters were a proud cultural resource to the Siberians, and protecting the lake from industrial pollutants had fostered an environmental movement that had grown globally. Even the Russian government was surprised at the widespread outcry when it had first decided to build a wood-cellulose-processing plant on its southern shores fifty years earlier. Theresa just hoped that a Greenpeace rubber boat armada would not appear to assail their presence on the lake.

At least her involvement was relatively harmless, she convinced herself. Her employer, Royal Dutch Shell, had been contracted to survey a section of the lake for reported oil seeps. Nobody said anything about drilling or exploratory wells, and she was confident that would never happen on the lake anyway.

The company was just trying to cozy up to the owners of some exploratory Siberian oil fields in hope of landing more significant business.

Theresa had never heard of the Avarga Oil Consortium before traveling to Siberia but knew there were a variety of oil companies clamoring in the Russian marketplace. A few of the government-sponsored companies, like Yukos and Gazprom, grabbed all the headlines, but, like anywhere in the world, there were always some little wildcatters owning a smaller piece of the pie. From the looks of what she'd seen so far, the Avarga Oil Consortium didn't even have a piece of the crust.

"They're obviously not pumping their revenues into R & D," she joked to the two Shell technicians that accompanied her as they climbed aboard the leased survey boat.

"Clever how they designed her to resemble a decrepit fishing boat," cracked Jim Wofford, a tall, friendly geophysicist from Arkansas who wore a thick mustache and a ready smile.

The high-prowed black fishing boat looked like it should have been scuttled years earlier. The exterior paint was peeling everywhere and the whole vessel reeked of wood rot and dead fish. It had been decades since the brightwork had been polished, and only the occasional rainstorm accounted for any washing of the decks. Theresa noted with unease that the bilge pump ran continuously.

"We do not possess our own sea vessels," Tatiana said without apology. As the representative from Avarga Oil, she had been the sole interface with the Shell survey team.

"That's all right, for what it lacks in space it makes up for in discomfort." Wofford smiled.

"True, but I bet there's some caviar hiding aboard someplace," replied Wofford's partner, Dave Roy, a fellow seismic engineer who spoke in a soft Boston accent. As Roy knew, Lake Baikal was the home to enormous sturgeon that could carry up to twenty pounds of caviar.

Theresa helped lend a hand as Roy and Wofford lugged aboard their seismic monitors, cable, and towfish, organizing the equipment on the cramped stern deck of the twenty-eight-foot fishing boat.

"Caviar? With your beer tastes?" Theresa chided.

"As a matter of fact, the two make an excellent combination," Roy replied with mock seriousness. "The sodium content of caviar produces a hydration craving that is perfectly fulfilled by a malt-based beverage."

"In other words, it's a good excuse to drink more beer."

"Who needs an excuse to drink beer?" Wofford asked indignantly.

"I give up." Theresa laughed. "Far be it for me to argue with an alcoholic. Or two."

Tatiana looked on without amusement, then nodded toward the boat's captain when all the equipment had been stowed aboard. A dour-faced man who wore a jacquard tweed hat, the captain's most notable feature was a wide bulbous nose tinted red from a steady consumption of vodka. Ducking into the small wheelhouse, he fired up the boat's smoky diesel engine, then released the dock lines. In calm waters, they chugged away from their berth at the small fishing and tourist village of Listvyanka, located on the lake's southwest shoreline.