Addison Cooke and the Tomb of the Khan Read online

  Also by Jonathan Stokes

  Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Jonathan W. Stokes.

  Map and chapter opener illustrations copyright © 2017 by David Elliot.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Philomel Books is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Ebook ISBN 9780698189294

  Edited by Michael Green.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For my family.

  Contents

  Also by Jonathan Stokes

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  I | THE SECRET OF THE KHAN Chapter One | The Gentle Art of Persuasion

  Chapter Two | Eddie and Raj

  Chapter Three | The Hidden Tomb

  Chapter Four | The Khan’s Treasure

  Chapter Five | Code Red

  Chapter Six | The Alleys of Kowloon

  Chapter Seven | Sir Frederick’s Clue

  Chapter Eight | The Jade Tiger

  Chapter Nine | Tony the Triad

  Chapter Ten | On the Run

  Chapter Eleven | Dax Conroy

  II | THE EMPIRE OF THE KHAN Chapter Twelve | The Silk Road

  Chapter Thirteen | The Triad Guards

  Chapter Fourteen | The Nestorian Church

  Chapter Fifteen | The Crusader’s Sword

  Chapter Sixteen | The Russian Vor

  Chapter Seventeen | Escape from Kashgar

  Chapter Eighteen | Good News and Bad News

  Chapter Nineteen | The Camel Trader

  Chapter Twenty | The Gobi Desert

  Chapter Twenty-One | Karakoram

  Chapter Twenty-Two | The Hidden Temple

  Chapter Twenty-Three | The Pig’s Whistle

  Chapter Twenty-Four | Mr. Jacobsen

  Chapter Twenty-Five | The Next Clue

  Chapter Twenty-Six | The Black Darkhad

  Chapter Twenty-Seven | The Grasslands

  Chapter Twenty-Eight | Ulaanbaatar

  Chapter Twenty-Nine | The Gala

  Chapter Thirty | The Heist

  Chapter Thirty-One | The Lance of Sir Frederick

  Chapter Thirty-Two | The Templar Medallion

  III | THE TOMB OF THE KHAN Chapter Thirty-Three | Raj’s Mistake

  Chapter Thirty-Four | The Naadam Horse Race

  Chapter Thirty-Five | The Forbidden Lands

  Chapter Thirty-Six | The Darkhad Camp

  Chapter Thirty-Seven | The Shaman

  Chapter Thirty-Eight | The Cliff and the River

  Chapter Thirty-Nine | The City of the Dead

  Chapter Forty | The Tomb

  Chapter Forty-One | The Golden Whip

  Chapter Forty-Two | Malazar

  Chapter Forty-Three | Goodbyes

  Chapter Forty-Four | Runnymede

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  I

  THE

  SECRET OF THE KHAN

  Chapter One

  The Gentle Art of Persuasion

  ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, TODAY was an otherwise excellent day in the life of one Addison H. Cooke. Summer was displaying its usual symptoms: immaculate blue sky, trace of freshly mown grass in the breeze, general feeling that all was well with the world, etc. There was a growing restlessness among the students of Public School 141, like inmates finally up for parole. Not only was June’s thermostat set to perfection, but it was the last day of school and a Friday, to boot. Any way you cut it, Addison knew this was not a day to be spent in detention.

  And yet here he was. He—Addison Cooke! The same Addison Cooke who had crossed the Amazon, outwitted cartel criminals, and rescued an Incan treasure was now standing at humble attention in the school principal’s office, Kangol cap in hand. “Touching on this business of skipping class,” he began, “this is all just a simple misunderstanding.”

  “How?” asked the principal.

  “I misunderstood that you would find out.”

  The principal leaned his elbows on the giant oak desk. He was scarcely tall enough to see over his own name plaque: Principal Ronald W. Stern. But what he lacked in stature he made up for in eyebrows. “You mind telling me why you were skipping gym class?”

  “Not at all, I’d be happy to.”

  “Well?”

  “I was reading a book, that’s the true story. I mean, the book was fiction. But the fact that I was reading the book is true.” Addison bit his lip; it was not his best opening salvo. He clarified, “The fact that I was reading fiction is not fiction.”

  “Reading a book is no excuse for missing out on your education.”

  Addison sighed. He had only himself to blame. After escaping Incan deathtraps in the jungles of Peru, he had a hard time convincing himself that seventh-grade gym class was of any real consequence. He had figured the administration wouldn’t mind him skipping one measly gym class on a Friday afternoon on the last day of school. He had figured wrong.

  Addison tried a different tack. The key to any hostage negotiation was simply to keep the kidnappers talking. “When Gertrude Stein studied at Harvard, she turned in a final exam paper to her philosophy professor. She wrote one sentence: ‘I don’t feel like taking an exam today; it’s too nice out.’”

  “Did she get a detention?”

  “No. Her professor wrote back, ‘Miss Stein, you truly understand the nature of philosophy,’ and he gave her an A.”

  “Is that true?”

  “In philosophy, anything can be true.”

  The principal frowned.

  “The point isn’t whether it’s true,” Addison continued quickly. “The point is to believe in the bigger picture.”

  “I’m not giving you an A for skipping class.”

  “I will settle for a B.”

  “I would give you more detentions,” said Principal Stern, “but the school year is only so long.”

  Addison recognized it was time to improve his tactics. His aunt Delia and uncle Nigel had promised to take him on their summer archaeological dig in China if he could soldier through the last dregs of the school year with perfect behavior. Now here he was, staring down the barrel of a detention. It was like running a twenty-six-mile marathon, limping up to the finish line, and slipping on a banana peel.

  “I’m writing out your detention slip now. You know the drill. The pink copy is for your aunt or uncle’s signature.”

  Addis
on realized things were getting way out of hand. He made a T with his hands, signaling a time-out. He realized, as he did it, that this proved he actually had learned something in gym class.

  “Time-out?” asked Principal Stern, confused. No student had ever called a time-out on him before.

  “Yes. I’ll take off my ‘student’ hat and you take off your ‘principal’ hat, and we’ll just talk to each other like two human beings. Okay?”

  Principal Stern slowly nodded, not sure where any of this was going.

  Addison sat down in the button-tufted leather chair opposite the principal’s oak desk. He crossed his legs urbanely, picking a speck of lint off the smooth crease of his trouser leg. He favored Principal Stern with his most frank and disarming smile. “A few million years ago, some monkeys climbed down out of trees, and now we have schools and principals and I have a detention.”

  “Are you blaming your detention on evolution?”

  “I’m saying there are larger forces at work here. Here’s the thing, Ron. May I call you Ron?”

  “You may not call me Ron.”

  “Ronald, then.”

  “You may not address me by my first name.”

  “Yes, I can—we are in a time-out.” Addison spoke quickly before the principal could retort. “Ronald, what did you want to do before you became a principal?”

  Principal Stern decided to play along. It was, after all, a beautiful afternoon, and he had nowhere pressing to be. Besides, the detention slip was already written. “I was a teacher. Principal seemed like a smart career move. Although in this present moment, I am regretting that choice.”

  “How long were you a teacher?”

  “Longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “And what do teachers do, Ronald?”

  Principal Stern puckered his eyebrows, searching for a trap in the question. “Teach?”

  “Precisely. They teach.” Addison finally felt he was getting somewhere. He just needed to build the “yes ladder.” “Do you value education, Ronald?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you value the pursuit of knowledge?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you value the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and human reason?”

  “I do.”

  “Look me in my eyes, Ron. Really look at me.”

  Principal Ronald Stern hoisted his eyebrows and really looked.

  “If reading a book is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Did you become an educator so you could punish students for reading books?”

  “Well, not exactly. I—”

  “Yes or no, Ron! Tell me to my face: are you going to stop punishing students for trying to learn?”

  “No, I won’t. I mean, yes, I will. Wait, what?”

  Addison stood and crossed to the American flag that stood in the corner of the principal’s office. The Stars and Stripes rippled proudly in the breeze of the open window. “Ronald, if you give me a detention for learning, you will be turning your back on education, on your life’s work, and on America. You will be spitting in the face of progress, of science, and of your own dreams!”

  Addison tilted his chin resolutely in the air as the flag fluttered behind him. “You shouldn’t punish me for skipping gym class, you should pin a medal on me.” He returned to his chair and crossed his legs. “Time in.”

  Ronald Stern sat back in his chair, unsure what to do. “Mr. Cooke, truancy is a crime in the state of New York. I can’t have you skip class without consequences.”

  “Mr. Stern, if you punish me for this, the consequences will be only to the integrity of America’s education system.”

  Principal Stern had heard enough. He suddenly felt exhausted, like a boxer in the twelfth round, praying for the bell.

  Addison knew he had the man against the ropes. He threw his widow-maker. “If you give me a detention, you will have to see me for three more hours. If you let me go, you won’t have to see me again for three whole months.” Addison watched the blow land.

  The principal’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline before settling back down to roost on his forehead. He crumpled the detention slip in his hand and sighed. “Addison, you are free to go.”

  Chapter Two

  Eddie and Raj

  IT WAS A CONTEMPLATIVE Addison Cooke who reclined on the top bunk in the bedroom he shared with his sister, Molly, in their fifth-floor walk-up on 86th Street. He thumbed through a monstrous library book on the stock market, but he found his interest in falling interest rates falling at a monstrous rate. He couldn’t concentrate. He had, in a word, a problem.

  At a museum fund-raiser two months earlier, giddy with good food and wine, Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel had agreed to let Addison bring his friends Eddie Chang and Raj Bhandari along on their upcoming archaeological dig to China. A Song dynasty fortress had been unearthed in the Gobi Desert. Eddie and Raj were Addison’s best friends, neighbors, and accomplices, and he could not conceive of going on an adventure without them.

  Unfortunately for Addison, two months had given his aunt and uncle plenty of time to come to their senses. Addison, Molly, Eddie, and Raj had nearly been killed in myriad ways on their recent jaunt through South America, creating catastrophic damage in nearly every town that stood in their path. Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel felt that it was one thing to unleash Addison and Molly on the unsuspecting Asian continent, but four kids was simply too much. Far better to leave Eddie and Raj at home in New York, a city they had caused considerable damage to in the past but not yet managed to destroy.

  Across the room, Molly practiced palm strikes and side kicks against a punching bag she had hung from the slanted ceiling. She seemed to guess Addison’s thoughts. “There’s no way you’re going to convince them.”

  “Molly, you disappoint me. Where is your can-do Cooke spirit?”

  “It’s been overwhelmed by Aunt Delia’s can’t-do Cooke spirit.”

  “Aunt Delia said she’ll still consider it. I avoided detentions, I got decent grades, I did everything they asked. I lay six-to-one odds I’ll convince them.”

  “All right. What’s your plan?” Molly unleashed a fresh flurry of kicks on the punching bag. She had taken up kung fu lessons the instant she had returned from Peru. To Addison’s amazement, Molly had proved to be a natural and the darling of her dojo. Sending Molly into a sparring match was like handing Shakespeare a parchment and quill. Addison had lived with Molly his whole life and never suspected he was in the presence of genius.

  “Have you heard of Chinese water torture?” Addison asked, sitting up in bed. He decided that the stock market was, for now, a closed book to him. And so he closed his book on the stock market. “A victim is tied down and water is slowly dripped onto their forehead. Drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .”

  “Doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “Not at first. But after minutes, hours, and days, the victim completely loses their sanity.”

  “You’re going to drip water on Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel?”

  “Not water, Molly. Words. A casual mention here, a simple turn of phrase there. A pleading look, a subtle pout. It may take minutes, hours, or even days, but eventually, they will be driven completely out of their minds.”

  Molly slowly nodded. Addison had long since persuaded her not to question his powers of persuasion. “It could work.”

  • • • • • •

  Addison embarked on his campaign. Every morning he filled the kitchen flower vase with daylilies he liberated from Central Park. Every evening at dinner, Molly lit scented candles purchased with money Addison won hustling chess games in Washington Square Park. He sensed Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel wavering in their resolve.

  For his birthday on June 18, Addison was thrilled to finally receive the white linen dinner jacket he’d been hankering for, Roland J. Fiddleton’s pocket-size Asia Atlas, and a copy of Sun Tzu’
s Art of War from his uncle Jasper in England. These were promising signs, signaling a thaw in aunt-nephew diplomatic relations. Addison decided the time was ripe to launch his final assault.

  The next night, he and Molly took it upon themselves to cook dinner for Father’s Day. They set a white tablecloth on the kitchen table and served Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel linguini with a saffron-infused aioli sauce, lightly brushed with truffle oil. Addison and Molly were not gifted cooks, but Addison hooked up a secret work-for-food deal with Trastevere Restaurant on 47th Street and scored Uncle Nigel’s favorite pasta dish premade. It was Addison’s coup de grâce.

  Uncle Nigel pushed back his plate and set down his fork. “Addison and Molly, I don’t know how you did it. But this linguini is even better than Trastevere’s.”

  Addison seized the moment and presented his case for bringing Eddie and Raj to Asia. Uncle Nigel expressed some reluctance over bringing Eddie, who was in a never-ending growth spurt and seemed to eat his body weight in food every time he visited the Cookes. Addison countered that since he was not allowed to keep a dog in their Manhattan apartment, what with all the eating and fur shedding, the least they could do was allow him to keep Eddie. Besides, in addition to Spanish and Turkish, Eddie spoke Chinese, and that is the sort of thing that comes in handy when you are in a place like China. And so at last, with a reluctant sigh over a second helping of linguini, Uncle Nigel relented.

  “You win, Addison,” he declared. “Eddie and Raj may come with us to Asia.”

  Addison smiled and cleared the dishes from the table. Virtue was its own reward.

  • • • • • •

  Having convinced his aunt and uncle to bring Eddie to China, Addison now needed to convince Eddie that he actually wanted to come. This required all of Addison’s powers of persuasion and proved to be his greatest challenge, his Everest. Fortunately, with school out, Addison had full time to devote to this effort.