Текст книги "Spartan Gold"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 21

Heaven,” Remi murmured. “Absolute heaven.”

True to his word, upon returning to their Four Seasons villa, Sam had, after they’d shared a long hot shower, ordered first a sumptuous lunch of seafood salad, hot sourdough bread, and a tropical fruit bowl, then a pair of masseuses, who’d spent an hour giving them a hot stone massage before moving to deep-tissue Swedish. Sam and Remi lay side by side on the veranda, the sheer curtains billowing around them in a light tropical breeze. Down the beach, the breakers gently washed in and out, nature’s own lullaby.

Sam, hovering on the edge of sleep, simply muttered, “This is living.”

The surprised couple they’d encountered upon their exit from the cave had in fact been Midwesterners—Mike and Sarah, from Minnesota and on their honeymoon. After three tries, they’d answered Sam’s “Where are we?” question: on Rum Cay’s northern coast between Junkanoo Rock and Liberty Rock. They had, by Sam’s calculation, traveled some nine miles along the underground river.

Mike and Sarah had graciously offered to give them a ride—and a tow to the mini sub, to which Sam had grown quite attached—down the coast in their rented boat. Forty-two hours after first touching down at Rum Cay, Sam and Remi were back at their landing beach. Their host, the mysterious beachcomber, was nowhere to be seen, so they muscled the sub into the undergrowth and left a note on the hut’s wall: Please keep an eye on this. We’ll be back for it. Sam had no idea exactly what he had planned, but it seemed wrong to simply abandon it.

They then climbed aboard the Bonanza and headed for the main island and their hotel.

Massages complete, Sam and Remi lay still for a while, dozing, then got up and went back inside. Having already given Selma a “We’re okay” text message, Sam now called her and put her on speakerphone. He gave her a quick rundown of their cave odyssey.

“Well, no one can accuse the Fargos of taking mundane vacations,” Selma replied. “I may have an answer to one mystery—why it was Kholkov who came after you. Rube called: Grigoriy Arkhipov was found dead in a Yalta parking lot; his hands and feet were missing. Amputation by shotgun. Rube told me to—”

“Tell us to be careful,” Sam finished. “We are.”

“The question is, how did Kholkov find you?”

“We’ve been wondering that ourselves. Did you check our—”

“No credit checks on the account you used, and all our computers here are firewalled, so I doubt they got your itinerary that way. Same with your passport records; the government is tight with those.”

Remi said, “That leaves airlines or . . .”

“Some lead they have that we don’t,” Sam finished. “But that begs the question, why hadn’t they already raided the caves?”

“I’ll keep working on it,” Selma said, “but I don’t think it came from our end.”

“Until we know, we’ll assume the worst and keep looking over our shoulders,” Remi said.

“Good. So, about this submarine . . .”

“The UM-77,” Sam offered.

“Right. You want me to get it back here?”

“We’d better,” Remi replied, “or Sam is going to pout.”

“It’s a piece of history,” he grumbled.

They’d agreed that once this was all over they would tell both the German and the Bahamian governments about the sub pens and let the two sort it out among themselves.

“And if no one wants it?” Remi had asked.

“We’ll put it above our mantel.”

Remi had groaned. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

Now, on the phone, Selma said, “I’ll work it out. Might take a few days, but I’ll get it back here. So: Kholkov got the bottle.”

“Afraid so. Any news for us?”

“Yes, in fact, a few things I think you’ll find interesting. Care to guess what else, besides the spitting beetle, is found only in the Tuscan Archipelago?”

Remi answered first. “Our black rose.”

“Right again. We’ll have to fill in the timeline, but it seems likely the ink was applied to the labels during Napoleon’s stay on Elba.”

“Or afterward with ink from there,” Sam added. “Either way, it’s another piece in the puzzle.”

“Well, here’s another one,” Selma said. “Our bottle appears to be something of an onion wrapped in a riddle. The leather label is not one piece, but two layers pressed together. I managed to peel away the top layer without causing any damage.”

“And?”

“There’s no ink present, but more etchings—a grid of symbols, eight across and four down for a total of thirty-two.”

“What kind of symbols?”

“You name it. Everything from alchemy to Cyrillic to astrology and everything in between. My guess: They’re customized shape codes with no connection to their origin. Sam, you’re probably familiar with shape code.”

He was. During his training at the CIA’s Camp Perry, they’d spent three days on cryptographic history. “It’s essentially a substitution cipher,” he explained to Remi. He grabbed a pad and pen from the nightstand and quickly sketched three symbols:

Sam said, “Now suppose the first symbol represents the letter c; the second, a; the third, t.”

“Cat,” Remi said. “Seems pretty simplistic.”

“It is, in a sense, but in another sense it’s a virtually unbreakable code. The military uses a version of it, something called a one-time pad. The theory is this: Two people have an encoding/decoding book. One sends a message using shape codes, the other deciphers it by substituting letters for shapes. Without a book, all you’ve got is random symbols. To anyone else, they’re meaningless.”

“And we don’t have a book,” Remi said.

“Nope. Selma, can you send us—”

“On the way as we speak. It’s not the original picture I took of the label, but Wendy used a vector drawing program to re-create some of the symbols. This’ll be just a sample.”

A moment later Sam’s e-mail beeped and he called up the image:

“As for decoding it, I might have an idea about that—at least a place to start,” Selma said. “You remember the mystery man, ‘the Major’ who hired the smuggler, Arienne, to sail to Saint Helena?”

“Of course,” Remi said.

“I think I know who the Major is. I ran across an obscure German biography of Napoleon written in the 1840s. In 1779, when Napoleon was nine, he was sent to a French military school, Brienne-le-Château, near Troyes. There he met a boy named Arnaud Laurent and they became friends—all through École Royale Militaire college, then on to artillery school, and so on, all the way to Waterloo. According to the author, up until the mid 1790s, just before the First Italian Campaign, Laurent had been a step ahead of Napoleon in rank. It was said that in private or in close company Napoleon jokingly called Laurent ‘the Major.’ Napoleon had several confidants over the years, but none as close as Laurent.”

“Is there an estate?” Sam asked. “An Arnaud Laurent library, by chance?”

“No such luck. There’s not much out there on Laurent, but from what I gather, when he died in 1825, just four years after Napoleon, he was buried with what one article referred to as ‘his most prized possession.’ ”

“Which, with any luck, will be a handy-dandy decoder ring,” Sam said.

“Or book,” Remi added. “Selma, where’s he buried?”

“After his army was routed at Waterloo, Napoleon’s surrender was accepted aboard the HMS Bellerophon, along with Napoleon’s staff, which I’m guessing included Laurent, who was at the time his chief military adviser. Afterward the Bellerophon sailed to Plymouth, where after a two-week wait Napoleon was transferred to the HMS Northumberland—alone, with no staff—for the final voyage to Saint Helena. When Laurent died, his widow, Marie, asked the British for permission to have him buried on Saint Helena next to Napoleon, but they refused, so she did what she thought was next best thing: She had him laid to rest on Elba.”

“Strange,” Remi said.

“It’s poetic,” Sam replied. “Laurent’s general, his best friend, had died in exile and been buried in exile. His widow had chosen a spot of . . .” Sam searched for the right word. “Symbolic solidarity.”

Remi tilted her head at her husband. “That’s beautiful, Sam.”

“I have my moments. Selma, Napoleon’s remains . . . weren’t they moved from Saint Helena?”

“They were. Interesting story itself, really. In 1830 the Bourbons, who retook the throne after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, were themselves overthrown by the Orléans dynasty. They were a little more nostalgic over Napoleon, so they petitioned the British for permission to bring him home. After seven years of wrangling, the Brits agreed and the remains were fetched from Saint Helena and returned to Paris. His official grave is under the dome of Les Invalides.

“Laurent’s grave is still on Elba—it’s a crypt, actually. The trick is, how do you handle it? I assume you’d prefer to avoid breaking in and playing tomb raiders.”

“Ideally,” Sam said.

“Then you’ve got to get permission. And as luck would have it, Laurent has a granddaughter, five or six times removed, living in Monaco.”

“Ah, Monaco in the spring,” Sam murmured. “How can we say no?”

“We can’t,” Remi chimed in.

CHAPTER 22

PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO, FRENCH RIVIERA

Sam pulled their rented olive green Porsche Cayenne SUV down the lilac-lined driveway and stopped before a four-story, white stucco terra-cotta-roofed villa overlooking the waters off Point de la Veille.

As it turned out, Arnaud Laurent’s distant granddaughter, Yvette Fournier-Desmarais, was embarrassingly wealthy, having inherited her late husband’s interests in a number of Monaco businesses, including a half dozen beach resorts and motor sporting clubs. According to the gossip rags she was, at age fifty-five, Monaco’s most eligible bachelorette and since her husband’s death fifteen years earlier had been courted by an impressive collection of Europe’s jet set, from princes to celebrities to captains of industry. She’d dated all of them, but none for longer than four months, and was rumored to have turned down dozens of marriage proposals. She lived alone in her villa with a modest staff and a Scottish deerhound named Henri.

Surprisingly, Sam and Remi had had little trouble arranging a meeting, first presenting their credentials and request to Ms. Fournier-Desmarais’s lawyer in Nice, who in turn agreed to contact his client. She’d e-mailed them directly within a day and insisted they come immediately.

They climbed out of the Porsche and walked into the front courtyard and along a path between a pair of bubbling fountains to the front door, twin slabs of mahogany and stained glass that rose four feet above their heads. Sam pressed the button on the wall and a soft chime sounded from within.

“ ‘A Marcia de Muneghu,’ ” Remi said.

“What?”

“The doorbell chime—it’s ‘A Marcia de Muneghu.’ The March of Monaco. It’s the national anthem here.”

Sam smiled. “Read some guidebooks on the plane, did we?”

“When in Rome . . .”

The door opened, revealing a rail-thin middle-aged man in matching navy blue slacks and polo shirt. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo, yes?” His accent was British. He didn’t wait for a reply, but merely stepped aside and tipped his chin.

They stepped into the foyer, which was simply but tastefully done: light gray Egyptian slate on the floor and a soft Mediterranean blue plaster on the walls. A silver-framed mirror sat above a nineteenth-century English Sheraton painted demi-lune console table.

“My name is Langdon,” the man said, shutting the door. “The mistress is on the veranda. This way, please.”

They followed him down the hall, past the formal rooms to the private half of the house, then out a pair of French doors onto a mul titiered deck made from polished burled walnut.

“You’ll find her there,” Langdon said, gesturing up a set of stairs that wound along the villa’s outer wall. “If you’ll excuse me . . .” Langdon turned and disappeared back through the French doors.

“My God, look at that view,” Remi said, walking to the railing. Sam joined her. Below an embankment of rock outcrops, palm trees, and flowering tropical shrubs lay the breadth of the Mediterranean, a carpet of indigo stretching beneath a cloudless sky.

A female voice called, “It’s a sight I never tire of either.”

They turned. A woman in a plain white sundress and sunflower yellow broad-brimmed hat stood at the top of the steps. This was, they assumed, Yvette Fournier-Desmarais, but neither Sam nor Remi would have guessed her to be older than forty. Beneath the hat her face was tanned, but not baked, with barely perceptible laugh lines around a pair of hazel eyes.

“Sam and Remi, yes?” she asked, walking down the stairs, hand outstretched. “I’m Yvette. Thank you for coming.” Her English was excellent, with the slightest trace of a French accent.

They shook her hand in turn, then followed her up the stairs and around the back to an open-air sunroom draped in gauze curtains and appointed in teak chairs and chaise lounges. A large, sleek brown and black dog sitting in the shade beside one of the chairs started to rise upon seeing Sam and Remi, but sat back down again at his mistress’s soft, “Sit, Henri.” Once they were all settled, she said, “I’m not what you expected, am I?”

Sam replied, “To be honest, no, Mrs.—”

“Yvette.”

“Yvette. To be honest, no, you’re not at all.”

She laughed, her white teeth flashing in the sun. “And you, Remi, you were expecting someone more matronly perhaps, a French bejeweled snob with a poodle under one arm and a champagne flute in the other?”

“I’m sorry, but yes, I was.”

“Oh, goodness, don’t apologize. The woman I just described is more the rule than the exception here. The truth is, I was born in Chicago. Went to grade school there for a few years before my parents moved us back to Nice. They were simple people, my mother and father—quite wealthy, but with simple tastes. Without them, I might have ended up the stereotype you were expecting.”

Langdon appeared up the stairs and placed a tray containing a carafe of iced tea and frosted glasses on the table between them. “Thank you, Langdon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to go.

“Have fun tonight, Langdon. And good luck.”

“Yes, ma’am, thank you.”

Once he was out of earshot, Yvette leaned forward and whispered, “Langdon’s been dating a widow for a year now. He’s going to ask her to marry him. Langdon is one of the best Formula One drivers in Monaco, you know.”

“Really,” Sam replied.

“Oh, yes. Very famous.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why is he . . .”

“Working for me?” Sam nodded, and she said, “We’ve been together for thirty years, since I started dating my late husband. I pay him well and we like each other. He’s not quite a butler, really, but more of a . . . what is the word . . . in American football he would be called a—”

“Free safety?”

“Yes, that’s it. He wears many hats for me. Langdon was a commando before he retired—British Special Air Service. Very tough fellow. Anyway, we’ll hold the wedding and reception here—providing she says yes, of course. You two should come, you really should. You don’t mind iced tea, do you?” she asked, pouring for them. “Not really the beverage of the wealthy, but I love it.”

Sam and Remi each accepted a glass from her.

“So: Arnaud Laurent . . . My great-great-great-something grandfather. You’re interested in him, yes?”

“Very much,” Remi said. “First, may I ask why you agreed to see us?”

“I’ve read about you, about your adventures. And your charitable work. I admire the way you live your lives. You know, at the risk of being crass, there are families here that are frighteningly rich, so much so that they couldn’t spend all their money if they tried and yet they give none of it away. As far as I’m concerned, the tighter you cling to money, the tighter its hold on you. Don’t you agree?”

“We do,” Sam replied.

“So that’s why I agreed to see you: I knew I would like you, and I was right, and I was also intrigued about how Arnaud fit into whatever quest you’re on—you’re on a quest, yes, an adventure?”

“More or less.”

“Marvelous. Perhaps I can tag along sometime? Well, I apologize, I’m running at the mouth. Do you mind sharing with me the nature of your work?”

Remi and Sam exchanged glances, each reading the other’s expression. Their instincts, which were more often right than wrong, told them they could trust Yvette Fournier-Desmarais.

Sam said, “We stumbled across a bottle of wine, very rare, that might be connected to Arnaud—”

“Napoleon’s Lost Cellar, yes?”

“Well, yes. Maybe.”

“That’s fantastic!” Yvette said, laughing. “Wonderful. If anyone should find the cellar, it should be you two! Of course I’ll help in any way I can. You’ll do the right thing, I know. Back to Arnaud: In all fairness I should tell you you’re not the first ones to ask about him. A man called my attorney a few months ago—”

“Did you get his name?” Sam asked.

“My attorney has it, but I don’t remember. Something Russian, I think. Anyway, the man was quite insistent, even a little rude, so I chose not to see him. Sam, Remi, I can see from your faces this means something to you. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“We might,” Sam replied. “We’ve run into our own ill-mannered Russian and, given how far he’s been willing to go, we’re probably talking about the same person.”

“You haven’t had any unwelcome company?” Remi asked her.

“No, no. And I’m not worried. Between Langdon and his three cohorts—who are lurking around here somewhere—and the alarm system and Henri here, I feel completely safe. Not to mention I’m a fantastic shot with a pistol.”

“Something you and Remi have in common,” Sam said.

“Is that true, Remi, you’re a marksman?”

“I wouldn’t go that far—”

Yvette leaned forward and tapped Remi’s knee. “When you can stay longer we’ll go shooting, just us girls. There’s a wonderful beach club in Menton not far from here; they have an indoor range. So, back to our Russian villain: He was very interested in Arnaud’s crypt on Elba. I assume that’s why you came to see me?”

“Yes,” Remi said.

“Well, we told him nothing. I suspected he’d already been there and came away disappointed, which was why he was so badly behaved.”

“What do you mean?”

Yvette leaned forward and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper: “A few years ago there was some vandalism on Elba, just teenage children running amok, but it got me thinking. Given who Arnaud is, and how . . . zealous some Napoleonophiles can be, we decided to move Arnaud’s sarcophagus.”

“To where?” Sam asked. “Off the island?”

“Oh, no, it’s still there. Arnaud wouldn’t have approved of being taken off Elba. No, we found another graveyard with an empty crypt and moved him there. He’s safe and sound. I assume you’d like my permission to peek inside his sarcophagus? That’s why you’ve come, yes?”

Sam smiled. “I’m glad you said it. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette when asking a relative if they’d mind us poking around their ancestor’s remains.”

Yvette waved her hand dismissively. “Not to worry. You’ll be respectful, I’m certain. Anything you take, you’ll return, yes?”

“Of course,” Remi replied. “Though none of it might be necessary. We’ve been told Arnaud was buried with some personal effects. Do you happen to know what they were?”

“No, I don’t, I’m sorry. I’m sure the only person who knew the answer to that was his wife, Marie. And I can assure you, the sarcophagus hasn’t been opened since his death. So now I’ll gladly tell you where to find the crypt, but on one condition.”

“Name it,” Sam said.

“You’ll both stay for dinner.”

Remi smiled. “We’d love to.”

“Wonderful! When you reach Elba, you’ll be in Rio Marina. From there you’ll drive west on the SP26 into the mountains. . . .”

CHAPTER 23

ELBA, ITALY

He let the beetle crawl up his finger and over the back of his hand before he nudged it with his other finger into his palm. Sam rose from his crouch alongside the dirt road and turned to Remi, who was taking pictures of the ocean far below.

“History’s a funny thing,” he said.

“How so?”

“This beetle. For all we know it could be related to one Napoleon himself used to make the ink.”

“Has it spit on you?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“Selma said the ink came from a spitting beetle.”

“You’re missing my point. Where’s your sense of whimsy?”

Remi lowered her camera and looked at him.

“Sorry,” he said with a smile, “forgot who I was talking to.”

“I understand your point.” She checked her watch then said, “We’d better get moving. It’s almost three. Daylight’s burning.”

Their dinner the night before with Yvette Fournier-Desmarais had gone late into the evening and well into three bottles of wine, by which time she had convinced them to cancel their hotel reservations and stay the night. They awoke the next morning and shared a veranda breakfast of coffee, croissants, fresh pineapple, and French scrambled eggs with leeks, fresh pepper, and mint before heading to the airport.

For reasons neither Sam nor Remi had been able to deduce, daily flights to and from Elba were restricted to one airline, Inter-Sky, which serviced only three cities, Friedrichshafen, Munich, and Zurich. The other two carriers, SkyWork and Elbafly, offered more departure points, but only flew three days a week, so from Nice they’d boarded an Air France flight to Florence, then a train to Piombino, then finally a ferry across the ten-mile stretch of sea to Rio Marina on Elba’s east coast.

Their rental car—a compact 1991 Lancia Delta—paled in comparison to the Porsche Cayenne, but the air conditioner worked and the engine, small though it was, ran smoothly.

Per Yvette’s instructions, they’d driven inland from Rio Marina, passing through one quaint Tuscan village after another—Togliatti, Sivera, San Lorenzo—winding their way through lush rolling hills and vineyards, higher and higher into the mountains, until stopping at this promontory overlooking the eastern side of the island.

If not for Napoleon’s exile, Elba would not be the household name it was, which, as far as Sam and Remi were concerned, was a shame as it had its own unique story.

Over its long history Elba had seen its share of invaders and occupiers, from the Etruscans to the Romans to the Saracens, until the eleventh century, when the island fell under the aegis of the Republic of Pisa. From there it changed hands a half dozen times through sale or annexation, starting with the Visconti of Milan and ending in 1860 when it became a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy.

Remi snapped a few more pictures then they got back in the car and continued on.

“So where exactly did Napoleon spend his exile?” Sam asked.

Remi flipped through her Post-it Note-marked Frommer’s guidebook. “In Portoferraio, on the northern coast. He had two homes, actually, the Villa San Martino and the Villa dei Mulini. He had a staff of somewhere between six hundred and one thousand, and took the title Emperor of Elba.”

“Took the title, or was slapped in the face with it?” Sam asked. “After having had a good chunk of Europe under his thumb, ‘Emperor of Elba’ had to have been something of a letdown.”

“True. Another fun fact: before leaving for Elba Napoleon tried to poison himself.”

“No kidding.”

“Apparently he kept it in a bottle around his neck—a cocktail of opium, belladonna, and white hellabore. Before leaving on the Russian Campaign he had it mixed up.”

“He probably didn’t want to fall into the hands of the Cossacks.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame him. They still don’t like him. Anyway, he drank it but by then it was a couple years old and too weak. He spent the night writhing in pain on the floor, but survived.”

“Remi, you’re a font of knowledge.”

She ignored him, still reading. “What none of the historians seemed to agree on is how exactly he escaped. There were both French and Prussian guards stationed all over the island and offshore there was a British man-o’-war on constant patrol.”

“Tricky little devil.”

“Car behind us,” Sam said a few minutes later. Remi turned and looked out the back window. A half mile down the mountain road a cream-colored Peugeot was rounding a curve. It disappeared from view for a few moments behind a hillside, then reappeared.

“He’s in a hurry.”

Since leaving the Bahamas both Sam and Remi had been hyper-vigilant to signs of pursuit, but had so far seen nothing. The problem with an island as small as Elba was that it had limited points of entry and Bondaruk’s wealth could go a long way here.

Sam tightened his grip on the wheel, eyes alternating between the rearview mirror and the road ahead.

A couple minutes later the Peugeot appeared behind them and closed the gap until it was only a few feet off their bumper. Glare from the sun kept the occupants in silhouette, but Sam could make out two shapes, both male.

Sam stuck his arm out the window and waved for them to pass.

The Peugeot didn’t move, glued to their tail, then abruptly it pulled out and started speeding up. Sam tensed his foot, ready to hit the brake. Remi glanced out the passenger window; there was the narrowest of dirt shoulders there, followed by a sharp drop-off. Five hundred feet below she could see goats grazing in a pasture; they looked like ants. Their passenger tire swerved a few inches right. Gravel peppered the side of the car. Sam eased left, back onto black-top. “Buckled in?” he said through clenched teeth.

“Yep.”

“Where are they?”

“Coming up right now.”

The Peugeot drew even with Sam’s door. Sitting in the passenger seat, a swarthy man with a handlebar mustache stared at him. The man nodded once, curtly, then the Peugeot’s engine revved and it sprinted ahead and disappeared around the next bend.

“Friendly folks,” Remi said with a loud exhale.

Sam relaxed his hands on the wheel, flexing his fingers to get blood flowing back into them. “How far left to go?”

Remi unfolded the map, her finger tracing along. “Five, six miles.”

They reached their destination in the late afternoon. Perched on the slopes of Monte Capanello and surrounded by forests of Aleppo pines and juniper, the village of Rio nell’Elba, population nine hundred, sat under the shadow of the eleventh-century castle, Volter raio, and was to Sam’s and Remi’s eyes the epitome of a medieval Tuscan village, complete with narrow cobblestoned alleys, shadowed piazzas, and stone balconies overflowing with orchids and cascading lavender.

Remi said, “Says here Rio nell’Elba is the rock-hunting capital of Tuscany. They’re still finding mines that date back to the Etruscans.”

They found a parking spot across from the Hermitage of Santa Caterina and got out. According to Yvette, their contact, a man named Umberto Cipriani, was the assistant curator of the Museo dei Minerali, the Mining Museum. Remi got herself oriented on the map and they started walking, finding the museum ten minutes later. As they crossed the piazza Sam said, “Here, let me take your picture. Stand in front of the fountain.”

She did as he asked, smiled for several shots, then rejoined Sam, who called up the images on the camera’s LCD screen. “We should take another, Sam, I’m a little out of focus.”

“I know. Look at what is in focus. Smile, look pleased.”

Remi peered more closely at the image. Fifty feet behind her blurred figure she could see the hood of a cream-colored car jutting from the mouth of a shadowed alley. Behind the wheel a man stared at them through a pair of binoculars.