The Emperor's Tomb полностью

“Men and equipment working in the dark. Workers present who were not part of the site’s labor force. One of the disadvantages of our form of government was that no one would have ever reported what they may have seen or heard. Pau was in charge and no one challenged him.”

“Except you.”

“I conducted a probe, but it was weeks later. We could not locate where Pau had disappeared into the ground. So much digging was occurring, the area ridden with deep gashes carved from the earth, it was impossible to know. But I did discover something else, years later. I was ordered back to the tomb mound by Beijing. This was after Pau had fled China. I was told to find a way inside the mound, and I did.”

“Why has no one ever spoken of this?”

“There is a good reason for the secrecy.”

He stared into the shadows that engulfed the dilapidated shanties. Trees blocked the sky allowing only thin fingers of light to poke through the canopy. Water, though, found a path and tapped the ground in a steady beat. The tomb mound started its rise less than fifty meters away. He was perhaps as close to the base as one could get. The fencing that had protected the front also ran behind the buildings, blocking any route upward.

He spotted the well exactly where the premier had said. A circular pile of masonry, two meters high, more wet vegetation clinging to its stones.

He hadn’t walked around the buildings to the well because he wanted to slow down his adversary. This way, Tang would see him enter the building but not exit.

He stepped to the well and gazed inside. Less than a meter down, a rusted iron plate blocked the opening. Two makeshift handles had been welded to its surface. For all intents and purposes the plug was there to prevent anyone, or anything, from falling down the shaft.

But he knew better.

He gripped the handles, the wet rust staining his skin, making it difficult to keep a firm hold.

And lifted the plate away.

MALONE WAS PUZZLED. “WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

Pau knelt down and began to brush away a layer of dust and debris from the floor. “When I originally entered this chamber, the room was intact except that I noticed sunken areas in two places.”

He understood. “Given these three stone tables, that meant there was solid ground everywhere—”

“Correct. I told you outside about the symbolism of the chariot and the ramp pointing left. The reason that is obvious to me now is because of what I found inside this room.”

“It’s getting quiet out there,” Cassiopeia said.

Malone had noticed that, too. “Keep an eye out.”

She assumed a position near the exit.

Pau completed his clearing and Malone spotted faintly etched symbols, one on each brick face.

“What are they?” he asked.

“The one that looks like a house is the symbol for 6. The X with a line above and below is 5. The T-looking one is 7.”

He noticed that the lines clumped together, which obviously was 4, appeared more often than the other numerals, except for the spoon with a line through its handle. “What’s that?”

“9.”

“There’s a pattern,” Pau said. “But I confess I was able to decipher it only because the floor itself had depressed.”

Malone followed where Pau had pointed.

“The numbers 4 and 9 are important to the Chinese. 9 is pronounced jiu, which is the same for ‘long’ and ‘forever.’ 9 has always correlated to long life and good fortune. It came to be associated with emperors. 4, on the other hand, is pronounced si, which is the same as ‘death.’ 4 has always been regarded as unlucky.”

He inventoried the symbols 4 and 9 and saw that there were two concentrations.

“When I entered the chamber, I saw that these bricks”—Pau pointed to a cluster of 9s—“were depressed. So was that cluster of 4s. I discovered that there were openings beneath the floor that led down to two separate passages.”

“So you chose the lucky one,” Malone said.

“It seemed the right selection.”

Malone still held a shovel. He wedged the blade between two of the floor bricks with a 9 and pounded the sole of his shoe against the top edge. The ground was hard but gave way, and he angled the handle, forcing the brick upward.

“How we doing out there?” he asked Cassiopeia.

“Too quiet.”

“Minister Tang is on the way,” Pau said.