Genghis Khan conquered more than half of the known world in the 11th Century. When he fell from a horse and died a couple of days later his burial was done in secret, with many, many valuable jewels and possessions for his afterlife buried with him. His tomb was held a secret and the workers who labored there all killed to ensure the secret. Only the officers left who were sworn to secrecy and they would never tell.
His son Kublai Khan continued the conquests of his father taking over all of China, where he died. He was also buried in secret. To this day no one publicly knows the location of either. However, there is one man who is a descendent of one of the Khan’s servants who did manage to locate Genghis’ tomb. A ruthless Mongolian businessman who runs an oil exploration business in a country with very little oil is selling off the riches of Genghis’ tomb a little at a time for hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance his daring scheme to extort high prices for oil he will be able to deliver. He had obtained a seismic device recently invented by a German scientist that is capable of creating massive earthquakes by aiming a powerful focused beam of seismic energy onto an existing fault line, exciting it and causing it to release energy.
The evil genius is systematically causing massive earthquakes at key oil distribution points and strategic pipelines disrupting the delivery of oil worldwide. Panic is causing oil prices to go sky high and since he wishes to make his demands of China that they contract with him for oil and cede the Inner Mongolian Provincial territories back to Mongolia, he aims most of his disruption at interrupting oil supplies to China. The scheme works and the Chinese agree to his demands.
But, it so happens that Dirk Pitt is working at Lake Baikal in Russia on a joint project to chart currents in this deepest freshwater lake in the world when a giant tidal wave swamps his research ship nearly killing him and the crew along with another oil research crew nearby. Dirk manages to save his own crew and the crew of the other vessel but finds a couple of days later that someone has sabotaged his ship causing it to sink, and has kidnapped the crew of the oil exploration ship. Dirk is enraged and is curious. He has to know what is going on.
Dirk’s investigations take him to Mongolia where numerous attempts are made on his life. Dramatically he escapes each attempt and corners the evil oil man in his mountain hideaway. Against an enemy that massively outnumbers him and his two assistants Dirk prevails, putting the man down and destroying his hideout. In the process he saves the sarcophagus of Genghis Khan and becomes a hero to the Mongolian people and government. Not only does Dirk return Genghis to the Mongolians, he also locates the hidden riches of Kublai Khan and returns them to Mongolia.
“The Treasure of Khan” is another wonderful adventure in a long series of adventures by Clive Cussler and is deserving of a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
