Read The Emperor's Tomb for Free Online
Authors: Steve Berry
running toward bustling Holmens Kanal, its lanes jammed with speeding vehicles navigating toward Copenhagen's busiest square.
He saw the two dart left, vanishing around a corner.
He stuffed the gun away and mixed force with polite phrases to bump his way past the crowd.
He came to a traffic-lighted intersection. The Danish Royal Theater stood across the street. To his right, he caught sight of Nyhavn, busy with people enjoying themselves at colorful cafes that stretched the new harbor's length. His two targets were making their way down a crowded sidewalk, paralleling traffic and a busy bicycle lane, heading toward the Hotel d'Angleterre.
A Volvo eased to the curb just before the hotel's entrance.
The man and woman crossed the bicycle lane and headed straight for the car's open rear door.
Two pops, like balloons bursting, and the man was thrown back, his body dropping to the pavement.
Another pop and the woman fell beside him.
Crimson rivulets poured from each body.
Fear spread, a ripple that sent a panic through the afternoon crowd. Three people on bicycles collided with one another, trying to avoid the bodies.
The car sped away.
Tinted windows shielded the occupants as it roared past, then whipped left in a sharp turn. He tried to spot the license plate, but the Volvo disappeared around Kongens Nytorv.
He rushed forward, knelt down, and checked pulses.
Both were dead.
The bicyclists appeared injured.
He stood and yelled in Danish, "Somebody call the police."
He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh.
The trail to Cassiopeia had just vanished.
He eased himself away from the throng of gawkers, close to the outside tables and windows for the Hotel d'Angleterre's restaurant. People with shocked faces stood and stared. Dead bodies on the sidewalk were not commonplace in Denmark.
Distant sirens signaled that help was coming.
Which meant he needed to go.
"Mr. Malone," a voice said, close to his left ear.
He started to turn.
"No. Face ahead."
The distinctive feel of a gun barrel nestled close to his spine told him to take the man's advice.
"I need you to walk with me."
"And if I don't?" he asked.
"You do not find Cassiopeia Vitt."
Chapter Six.
SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA
10:00 PM
KARL TANG STARED OUT ACROSS THE VAST ENCLOSED SPACE. The helicopter ride north, from Chongqing, across the Qin Mountains, had taken nearly two hours. He'd flown from Beijing not only to personally supervise the execution of Jin Zhao but also to deal with two other matters, both of equal importance, the first one here in Shaanxi, China's cultural cradle. An archaeologist in the Ministry of Science had once told him that if you sank a shovel anywhere in this region, something of China's 6,000-year-old history would be unearthed.
Before him was the perfect example.
In 1974 peasants digging a well uncovered a vast complex of underground vaults that, he'd been told, would eventually yield 8,000 life-sized terra-cotta soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses, all arrayed in a tightly knit battle formation--a silent army, facing east, each figure forged and erected more than 2,200 years ago. They guarded a complex of underground palaces, designed specifically for the dead, all centered on the imperial tomb of Qin Shi, the man who ended five centuries of disunity and strife, eventually taking for himself the exalted title Shi Huang.
First Emperor.
Where that initial well had been dug now stood the Museum of Qin Dynasty Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, its centerpiece the exhibition hall spanning more than two hundred meters before him, topped by an impressive glass-paneled arch. Earthen balks divided the excavated scene into eleven latitudinal rows, each paved with ancient bricks. Wooden roofs, once supported by stout timbers and crossbeams, had long ago disappeared. But to bar moisture and preserve the warrior figures beneath, the builders had wisely sheathed the area with woven matting and a layer of clay.
Qin Shi's eternal
He saw the two dart left, vanishing around a corner.
He stuffed the gun away and mixed force with polite phrases to bump his way past the crowd.
He came to a traffic-lighted intersection. The Danish Royal Theater stood across the street. To his right, he caught sight of Nyhavn, busy with people enjoying themselves at colorful cafes that stretched the new harbor's length. His two targets were making their way down a crowded sidewalk, paralleling traffic and a busy bicycle lane, heading toward the Hotel d'Angleterre.
A Volvo eased to the curb just before the hotel's entrance.
The man and woman crossed the bicycle lane and headed straight for the car's open rear door.
Two pops, like balloons bursting, and the man was thrown back, his body dropping to the pavement.
Another pop and the woman fell beside him.
Crimson rivulets poured from each body.
Fear spread, a ripple that sent a panic through the afternoon crowd. Three people on bicycles collided with one another, trying to avoid the bodies.
The car sped away.
Tinted windows shielded the occupants as it roared past, then whipped left in a sharp turn. He tried to spot the license plate, but the Volvo disappeared around Kongens Nytorv.
He rushed forward, knelt down, and checked pulses.
Both were dead.
The bicyclists appeared injured.
He stood and yelled in Danish, "Somebody call the police."
He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh.
The trail to Cassiopeia had just vanished.
He eased himself away from the throng of gawkers, close to the outside tables and windows for the Hotel d'Angleterre's restaurant. People with shocked faces stood and stared. Dead bodies on the sidewalk were not commonplace in Denmark.
Distant sirens signaled that help was coming.
Which meant he needed to go.
"Mr. Malone," a voice said, close to his left ear.
He started to turn.
"No. Face ahead."
The distinctive feel of a gun barrel nestled close to his spine told him to take the man's advice.
"I need you to walk with me."
"And if I don't?" he asked.
"You do not find Cassiopeia Vitt."
Chapter Six.
SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA
10:00 PM
KARL TANG STARED OUT ACROSS THE VAST ENCLOSED SPACE. The helicopter ride north, from Chongqing, across the Qin Mountains, had taken nearly two hours. He'd flown from Beijing not only to personally supervise the execution of Jin Zhao but also to deal with two other matters, both of equal importance, the first one here in Shaanxi, China's cultural cradle. An archaeologist in the Ministry of Science had once told him that if you sank a shovel anywhere in this region, something of China's 6,000-year-old history would be unearthed.
Before him was the perfect example.
In 1974 peasants digging a well uncovered a vast complex of underground vaults that, he'd been told, would eventually yield 8,000 life-sized terra-cotta soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses, all arrayed in a tightly knit battle formation--a silent army, facing east, each figure forged and erected more than 2,200 years ago. They guarded a complex of underground palaces, designed specifically for the dead, all centered on the imperial tomb of Qin Shi, the man who ended five centuries of disunity and strife, eventually taking for himself the exalted title Shi Huang.
First Emperor.
Where that initial well had been dug now stood the Museum of Qin Dynasty Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, its centerpiece the exhibition hall spanning more than two hundred meters before him, topped by an impressive glass-paneled arch. Earthen balks divided the excavated scene into eleven latitudinal rows, each paved with ancient bricks. Wooden roofs, once supported by stout timbers and crossbeams, had long ago disappeared. But to bar moisture and preserve the warrior figures beneath, the builders had wisely sheathed the area with woven matting and a layer of clay.
Qin Shi's eternal
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