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623. Chapter 623

After Wrapped Up in Death

Episode 2.19

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Curses! I don't own Castle. Rating: K. Time: See above.

"Dr. Beckett? There are some vehicles headed this way."

Dr. Katherine "Idaho" Beckett looked up from the potsherds she had been cataloguing. Standing in the doorway of her tent was her "chaperone", Captain de Ming. Although women had won the right to vote, for some reason the idiotic US Consul in Shanghai had refused to let her go on her expedition without a suitable male escort. And, the Consul's decision had carried weight with the Chinese authorities. They wouldn't sign her permits unless the Consul agreed to let her go.

And so she was stuck with de Ming, who knew nothing of archeology, less about China and was infuriatingly familiar with her. "It's probably just a passing caravan, de Ming." She said and went back to work.

"No, Katherine. They're motor vehicles."

"It's Dr. Beckett, remember?" She said coldly as she got up and headed for the door. She had to glare at de Ming to make him move to let her pass, but he still gave her a look she hated.

Once out on the vast plain, she could clearly see the vehicles. "A large touring car, a Rolls, I'm sure and three, no four, REO trucks. It's an expedition of some sort, but what are they doing here?"

"They probably heard we were here and just dropped by to be friendly. Do you like people to be friendly, Kath…Dr. Beckett?"

Beckett just glared at him and watched as the small convoy pulled up at her archeological dig. Three men dismounted from the car, the first was tall, dark haired and had blue eyes. Beckett had to admit he was quite handsome. Behind him was a heavily built, swarthy man who carried a Browning Automatic Rifle. With him was a slender fellow with light hair and blue eyes. This one carried a Thompson submachine gun. Beckett noticed that the first man had a Thompson slung over his back. Her hand moved slowly to her own pistol.

"Hold up." The big man cried, smiling at her. "We're friendlies. I'm Richard Castle, these are my friends, Mr. Esposito and Mr. Ryan."

She nodded. "I'm Dr. Katherine Beckett. I'm an archeologist, excavating the lost city of Ji An, which was sacked by a Mongol army in…"

"1210 Common Era." Castle finished, smiling. "I'm something of an archeologist myself."

Beckett suddenly remembered where she'd heard his name before. "Richard Castle? The playboy? The man who rode in the Shanghai Derby on a stolen police horse?' The man who…"

"I am an amateur archeologist, although I do other things." He said, defensively. "Why are you nicknamed Idaho?" He asked, quickly changing the subject.

"You'll never find out, and you have no business here. I have a permit from General Chan, himself, the Governor of Inner Mongolia, stating that I have exclusive rights to dig here." She pulled the document from her pocket and showed it to him. "It says right here…."

"I can read Chinese and that's old Chan's signature, all right. And that's his seal. But there's a problem." Castle pulled out a piece of paper of his own. "I have a permit from General Cho, the Governor of Sinkiang. And you're in Sinkiang. Inner Mongolia ends about ten miles north of here."

"That's impossible. I had de Ming…." Something horrible occurred to Beckett. "You did use the sextant to establish our exact position, didn't you?" She said, glaring at de Ming.

"I put the sex tent up over there, but you rebuffed my advances…."

Beckett rolled her eyes. The mystery of the garish red tent with the sign reading, "If the tent is rocking, don't be knocking.", was solved. She turned on her heel and walked back to her tent, coming out moments later with a sextant, chronometer, maps and other impedimenta. She did her calculations three times, but the results were the same. "You're right. We're ten miles inside of Sinkiang." She gritted her teeth. "We'll break camp at once and see if we can find…."

"Oh, no need for you to move, Dr. Beckett. You're here to excavate for Ji An. I'm looking for the lost treasure of Genghis Khan."

Beckett actually laughed. "You can't believe that old story. That's a myth, a fantasy, a fable. And if there was any truth at all to the rumor, it would be far to the north in Mongolia itself."

"I have a map." Castle said proudly.

"Thank you for letting us stay here." Beckett said coldly and went back to her tent. Treasure maps were for sale all over Asia. Only gullible fools bought them. Amateur archeologist, indeed. Professional buffoon is more like it.

As the sun set, she began to get ready for bed as there was no point in staying up. They had only enough kerosene for the lamps to use in an emergency. Suddenly, the horizon outside was lit up. Beckett looked outside. Castle had a generator and it was powering electric lights. As she watched, she heard music coming from the camp not a hundred yards from hers. He has a phonograph as well. She thought. The music playing was jazz, and although she preferred classical music, her toe started tapping. She looked down and glared at the offending toe. I will not envy some playboy who's playing archeologist. I'm a professional, not some….She couldn't think of a word to describe Castle adequately. Then the smell of steaks being cooked hit her nostrils. Wong, her cook, was a competent enough fellow, but his food was very bland. Beckett shook her head to clear it of the offending light, music and smell of steaks and went to bed.

The next three days passed uneventfully for Beckett. They continued to find evidence of the city, but not the city itself.

Beckett kept an eye on Castle's camp through her binoculars. She concluded he wasn't much of an archeologist. The trenches he dug seemed to be in no pattern she was aware of and surrounded his whole camp. She also noticed that all of Castle's Chinese workers carried rifles with them at all times.

On the fourth day, something changed. Castle came over to invite her for dinner that night.

"I don't think that I'm your type, Mr. Castle." She said coldly.

"Of course you're my type. We're both archeologists."

She was about to tell him what she thought of his abilities when de Ming interrupted. "I say, old boy, am I invited?"

"And you are?"

"Captain Thomas de Ming, late of the South Kent Regiment."

"Late of? You mean cashiered from, don't you? You were court martialed for having unnatural relations with a goldfish."

De Ming turned pale. "They weren't unnatural! Goldie was a girl goldfish. We were in love." De Ming turned and ran to his tent.

Under the circumstances, Beckett thought she had better accept the invitation and let de Ming cool down.

She came back late that night, having allowed herself to have two cocktails after a sumptuous dinner, prepared by a Chinese chef who had worked in Shanghai's finest restaurants. She had danced with Mr. Castle and had found him surprisingly knowledgeable about archeology. She went to bed quite happy and with a better opinion of Richard Castle.

She woke the next morning to the sound of gunfire. She threw on her clothes, only to be grabbed as soon as she left her tent and dragged before the leader of the bandits who had attacked her camp.

The tall, dark haired man smiled at her. She didn't like the man or his smile at all. "Good morning fraulein Beckett. I am Ritter Joshua von Davidson and you are my prisoner."

"You're our prisoner." De Ming spoke up from behind von Davidson.

Von Davidson slapped de Ming across the face. "She is my prisoner."

"But you said I could have her."

"After we find the treasure and after I'm done with her. Now, take her to the red tent and tie her up."

As she was led away, she saw that most of her men were dead, or had fled, and her work was being looted by over a hundred heavily armed Mongols. Her work was being destroyed before her eyes. She also saw that Castle had hurriedly left. The vehicles were gone. I was right about him. He just ran and left me here.

All that day and into the night, von Davidson drove his men to find the famous lost treasure of Genghis Khan, but to no avail. After dark, she sat alone in the red tent, tied to a tent pole when she heard on odd sound. Someone was cutting through the back of the tent.

She struggled to her feet and prepared to fight as best she could.

"Beckett?" Said a familiar voice. "Are you here?"

"Castle? Is that you? What are you doing?"

"Rescuing you, of course. You didn't think I'd go off and leave you, did you?"

Kate made no reply as he cut her bonds and led her out of the tent to a pair of Mongolian ponies. In minutes, they were in Castle's new camp.

"Who goes there?" A voice called.

"Easy, Sergeant Esposito. It's me and Dr. Beckett."

"Sergeant Esposito? Sergeant of what?" She asked, puzzled.

"US Marines, ma'am. Me and Sergeant Ryan are on loan from the Legation guard in Peking to help Mr. Castle with his mission."

She turned to Castle. "Your mission?"

Castle nodded. "Von Davidson was sent to Central Asia by the Germans at the start of the World War. He was to cause as much trouble as he could for the Russians, or the British in India, of for Allied interests in China. When the Germans lost the war, he stayed on here and teamed up with Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, the infamous Mad Baron. The Baron was defeated by the Mongolians and their Bolshevik allies and was shot back in 1921. Von Davidson gathered up what was left of the baron's troops and made himself a warlord out in the wastes of the steppes of Central Asia. He found a real map of where Genghis Khan's treasure is, although being centuries old, it's inaccurate. If he finds it, he'll have enough money to raise an army that can tear Asia apart. The US Ambassador asked me to do something about him. But he had a far larger force than I had counted on. We had to run, but I couldn't leave without you."

"You work for the government?" She asked, disbelievingly.

He shook his head and smiled. "No. I'd be bored silly if I did. But occasionally they need the kind of help I can provide. I'm happy to oblige."

As dawn was breaking, they could see a long column of cavalry heading their way. "It's von Davidson and the rest of his troops. He must have four or five hundred men." Castle said.

"But we have the machine guns." Ryan said, patting the barrel of a Browning heavy machine gun.

One rider rode towards them under a flag of truce. He handed Castle a note.

"What's it say?" Kate asked.

"Von Davidson says he'll let us live if we hand over the treasure we have and show him where we found it."

"But we don't have any treasure."

"Doesn't make any difference, Dr. Beckett, he'd kill us anyway."

Once the messenger returned, von Davidson launched a wild cavalry charge at Castle's small force. As had happened so many times before in the Great War, the machine guns chopped the cavalry down and drove them off.

Seeing de Ming scurrying to the rear, Kate grabbed a rifle and fired at him, but missed. By the time she had another round in the chamber, he was nowhere to be seen.

Von Davidson led his men away, and after making sure he was gone, Dr. Beckett and Castle returned to her wrecked camp.

She stood there with tears in her eyes. "Everything is wrecked. It took me years to get funding, to do research, to plan this and assemble the workers. My notes are all burned, photographs destroyed, what we've recovered is smashed to bits, and now…" She threw herself into Castle's arms and sobbed.

Three months later, back in Shanghai, Kate Beckett woke up in the arms of her lover. "Castle, it's creepy to stare at me when I'm asleep."

"I can't help it, you're just so beautiful."

"Flatterer."

"The truth." He ran his hand over the top of her right thigh. "At least I found out why they call you Idaho." He gently stroked the birthmark in the shape of that state.

Kate finally asked the question she had dreaded for the past three months. "How long will you stay with me here in Shanghai?"

He thought for a second. "Three, no make that four months."

"Four months?" I knew he wasn't the kind who'd stay with me. Four months is more than I expected.

Castle went on. "We should spend at least a month enjoying Shanghai and it'll take us at least three months to prepare for our expedition to find the lost city of Ji An."

"Our…what?" Kate said, suddenly sitting up in bed and jiggling nicely. "What did you say?"

"We're going to look for Ji An. I'm an archeologist, remember and so are you. How could I not want to go back with you?"

"The American Consul will insist that I have a male chaperone, you know."

"Will your husband satisfy him?" He asked, softly.

"Are you asking me to marry you?"

"I am."

"While were naked in bed? Not a chance. We'll have to get up and get dressed so you can do this properly."

"But you will say yes, right?"

"I'll let you know when you've proposed properly."

"Then I want to stay in bed with you until you tell me if you'll accept my proposal."

Eventually he proposed properly and they were wed. They found the lost city of Ji An some miles south of where Kate had originally looked for it, but they never found any of Genghis Khan's treasure.

Had they gone back to where Castle had dug his trenches, they would have found a black, viscous substance oozing up from below. When it was found again fifty years later, it was indeed a treasure.

Von Davidson and de Ming rode through the wilds of Eastern China, remembering their defeat at the hands of the Castles, and planning their revenge, but that is another story.