Spartan Gold - Clive Cussler

“Go,” he rasped to Remi.

She peeked out, then darted into the gloom.

The boat’s engines gurgled to life. Gray smoke burst from the manifolds and filled the boathouse. The water beneath the stern turned to froth and the boat surged forward, nosing through the doors and disappearing into the drifting snow.

“Sail true,” Sam said, then turned and ran.

CHAPTER 49

He had taken three strides out the door when he heard a snow-muffled voice to his left shout, “There!” Unsure whether it was for the escaping speedboat or for him, Sam veered right, along the curve of the building, then sprinted onto the lawn in the direction of the sextant statue. If Kholkov and his partner were in fact after him he didn’t want to lead them back to Remi.

When he saw the statue appear ahead, he dove into a headfirst slide that took him behind the pedestal. He flipped onto his belly and looked back the way he’d come. Ten seconds passed. He heard the sound of feet pounding on gravel. Through the blowing snow he saw two figures appear around the corner of the building and duck into the boathouse. Now the question was, how long would it take Kholkov to reverse his own sabotage? The solenoid wire would take less than a minute, but returning the flywheel to its proper position would be trickier. The longer it took, the harder their automaton boat would be to find.

One minute passed. Two minutes. An engine growled to life and revved up. After a few seconds it faded, moving out onto the lake. Sam got up, circled to the rear of the chapel, and found Remi crouched in the semidarkness of the woodshed.

“I heard,” she said. “The question is, how much time did it buy us?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes at least. In this weather it’ll take them at least that long just to find our decoy. Come on.”

He helped her to her feet. They climbed the steps to the rear door and pushed through.

After the wind and snow, the relative warmth of the chapel felt like heaven. Compared to its grand exterior, the chapel was surprisingly simple, with reddish brown stone tiles, scarred wooden pews, and white walls bearing framed religious icons. Above their heads a balcony spanned the rear wall, while the vaulted ceiling was filigreed in light pink and gray paint. Tall mullioned windows on the side walls cast the interior in milky white light.

They made their way down the center aisle to the far end of the chapel to a narrow door. Through it they found a crescent-shaped room dominated by a spiral staircase. They started upward. After thirty or forty steps they found themselves at a wooden trapdoor secured by a sliding hasp and padlock. The padlock wasn’t locked.

“Looks like somebody missed an item on the evacuation check-list,” Remi said with a smile.

“Our good luck. Wasn’t looking forward to defiling a Bavarian national landmark.”

Sam removed the padlock and slid back the hasp bolt. He carefully lifted the trapdoor, climbed through, then helped Remi up and closed it behind them. Aside from what little light seeped through the shuttered slit windows, the octagonal space was dark. They clicked on their flashlights and began looking around.

“Here,” Remi said, kneeling down. “Got something.”

“Here, too,” Sam said from the opposite wall. He moved to Remi and inspected what she was shining her flashlight on. Stamped into the heavy timber molding beneath the window, nearly obliterated by layer upon layer of paint and lacquer, was a cicada symbol.

“Yours the same?” Remi asked.

Sam nodded and they moved to the opposite side. A second cicada symbol was stamped into the wood. “Why two?” he wondered aloud.

“The line—‘a trio of Quoins’ . . . they must have meant it to apply to more than just the sextant.”

It took them less than thirty seconds to find the third. The first two cicada symbols were situated near the front of the minaret, the third at the rear.

“Let’s form it up,” Sam said.

He crouched beside one of the stamps, and Remi did the same, then they extended their arms, each pointing at the other as well as the third stamp.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Sam said, “but this is an isosceles triangle.”

“It is indeed. But which way is it meant to point?”

“If we extend the lines, the two at the front would point at the lake and into the mountains. The third one points inland—behind us.”

Sam lowered his arms as he sat down, back against the wall. His brows furrowed for a few seconds, then he smiled.

“What?” Remi asked.

“The last part of the line,” Sam replied. “I knew something looked familiar.” He dug into his pants pocket and came up with the Saint Bartholomae’s tour brochure. He flipped through it. “There.” He handed it to Remi. “Frigisinga.”

Remi read: “ ‘Until 1803 the hunting lodge adjacent to the chapel was the private retreat of the Prince-Provosts of Berchtesgaden, the last of whom, Joseph Conrad of Schroffenberg-Mös, had also served as the Lord Bishop of Freising.’ ”

“I knew I’d read something about that during our research,” Sam said. “I mentally misplaced it. The eighth-century name for Freising was Frigisinga.”

“Okay, so this Schroffenberg-Mös fella was here?”

“Not just here. He lived here, and we’ve already been there.”

They climbed back through the hatch and down the spiral staircase, then retraced their steps through the chapel and out the back door and started down the path toward the woods. Five minutes later they were back at the cabin in whose loft they’d first sought shelter. They stopped at the post-mounted plaque beside the front door.

Remi read: “ ‘Once served as the private hunting lodge and warming cabin for the last of Berchtesgaden’s Prince-Provosts, Joseph Conrad of Schroffenberg-Mös.’ ”

“ ‘Formerly of Frigisinga,’ ” Sam finished.

They stepped inside. While most of the cabin was made of heavy timber, both the stanchion footers and the foundation, which rose eighteen inches from ground level, were constructed of blocked stone.

“Let’s check the stonework first,” Sam said. “Timber can be easily replaced; stone, not so much.”

“Agreed. How are we on time?”

Sam checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes since our rabbit ran.”

Knowing what they were looking for, they made quick work of the search, splitting up and walking hunched over along the walls, flashlights playing over the blocks.

“Grasshopper marks the spot,” Remi called. She was kneeling beside a footer beneath the loft. Sam hurried over and crouched beside her. Stamped into the upper-left corner of the block abutting the footer was the familiar cicada stamp.

“Looks like we’re going to have to do a little defiling after all,” Remi said.

“We’ll be gentle.”

Sam looked around, then trotted over the open-hearth fireplace, grabbed a steel poker from the mantel rack, and returned. He went to work. Though the poker’s end was slightly spatula-shaped, it was still wider than the gaps between the stones so it took a precious ten minutes of inching the block outward before together they could pull it free. Remi reached her hand into the alcove.

“Hollow spot around the footer,” she murmured. “Hang on. . . .”

She lay down on the floor and wriggled her arm into the hole until she was elbow deep. She stopped. Her eyes went wide. “Wood.”

“The footer?”

“No, I don’t think so. Pull me out.”

Gently Sam grabbed her ankles and dragged her away from the wall. Her hand emerged from the alcove, followed by an oblong wooden box. Hand clenched like an eagle’s talon, her fingernails were sunk an eighth of an inch into the lid.

Silently they stared at the box for a long ten seconds.

Then Remi smiled. “You owe me a manicure.”

Sam smiled back. “Done.”

The heft of the box told them it wasn’t empty, but they checked anyway. Snug in its bed of straw and enveloped in its oilskin wrappings was another bottle from Napoleon’s Lost Cellar.

Sam closed the lid and said, “I don’t know about you but I think I’ve had enough sightseeing for one day.”

“I’m with you.”

Sam stuffed the box into his rucksack and they stepped outside into the clearing. This far from the boathouse they wouldn’t have been able to hear the sound of a returning speedboat, so they moved quickly but carefully, stopping frequently to hide and watch until finally they were back at the chapel.

“Almost there,” Sam said. Remi nodded and hugged herself. Sam embraced her and rubbed his hands vigorously on her back. “We’ll be drinking warm brandy in no time.”

“Now you’re singing my song,” she replied.

They circled left around the chapel, following the straight and curved walls until they reached the front of the building. Sam stopped ten feet short, signaled for her to wait, then crab-walked ahead and peered around the corner. After a few seconds he pulled back and returned to her.

“Anything?” Remi whispered.

“Nothing’s moving, but the door’s partially shut. I can’t tell how many boats are inside.”

“How about the landing?”

“Nothing there, either, but with the snow—”

“Shhh.” Remi cocked her head and closed her eyes. “Listen.”

After a few seconds, Sam heard it: faintly, somewhere in the distance, came the buzzing of an engine. “Somebody’s out there,” Remi said.

“They wouldn’t have just given up on the decoy,” Sam reasoned. “They’re either still chasing it or on their way back.”

“Agreed. It’s now or never.”

After one last check around the corner, Sam motioned for Remi to move up. Hand in hand they broke from cover, sprinted to the boathouse, and ducked inside. In addition to their decoy boat, the right-hand boat was gone.

Remi jumped aboard the remaining boat and settled into the driver’s seat while Sam set aside his backpack, then lifted the engine cover, quickly installed his makeshift solenoid wire, and bent the brush arm back into place. He closed the engine cover, shimmied under the dash and hotwired the ignition.

“Okay,” he said, crawling back out, “let’s—”

“Sam, the door!”

Sam spun. A figure was rushing through the boathouse door. Sam caught a fleeting glimpse of the man’s face: Kholkov’s partner. Turning, squaring up through the door, his hand came up holding a snub-nosed revolver. Sam didn’t think, but reacted, snatching up the nearest object—a bright orange life vest—and hurling it. The man batted it away, but it had bought Sam the second he needed to leap to the dock and charge. He slammed into the man and they crashed back into the wall. Sam grabbed the man’s gun wrist and twisted hard, trying to break the delicate bones there. The gun roared once, then again.

The man was a professional; instead of fighting the torque on his wrist, he went with it, twisting his body while swinging his left arm in a tight hook that slammed into Sam’s temple. Sparks burst behind Sam’s eyes, but he kept his grip on the man’s wrist, then got his right arm inside the man’s punching arm and wrapped him in a bear hug. Vision still swimming, Sam jerked his head back and slammed it forward. The head butt found its mark. With a muffled crunch the man’s nose shattered. The gun clattered across the planks. With a grunt, the man levered himself against the wall and together they stumbled backward. Sam felt his foot step into empty air. He felt himself falling. He took a gulp of air then plunged into the water.

CHAPTER 50

The water enveloped him, so cold it momentarily stunned him like an electrical charge. Fighting his natural instinct to surface for air, Sam instead did the opposite. With the man still wrapped in a bear hug, he rolled over, flipped his legs straight up, and kicked, driving them deeper. The man was stunned, and with his shattered nose he’d hopefully been unable to snatch a last-second breath.

The man thrashed, punched wildly with his right arm. Sam took the blows and held on. The man suddenly stopped punching. Sam felt his arm between them. He looked down. Through the dark water and froth he saw the man’s hand reaching under his jacket. The hand came out clutching a knife. Sam grabbed the forearm, tried to shove it sideways. The knife arced upward. Sam pushed off. The blade sliced through his shirt; he felt a sting as it sliced across his abdomen. The blade kept rising. Sam released his grip on the man’s other wrist, clamped it around the man’s knife hand. He sensed rather than saw the blade nearing his throat. He jerked his head back, turned it to one side. The tip of the knife skipped over the point of his jawline beneath his earlobe, pierced the upper curve of his ear, and sliced cleanly through.

A dozen years of judo had taught Sam the power of leverage. The man, having extended his more powerful right arm above his head, was at that moment at his weakest. Sam wasn’t about to let the advantage pass. Left hand still gripping the man’s knife wrist, Sam reversed his right-hand grip, cupped the back of the man’s hand, then jerked down and twisted at the same time. With a dull pop, the man’s ulna tore free from his wrist. The man’s mouth flew open and he let out a muffled scream amid a stream of bubbles. Sam kept twisting, heard the grating of bone on bone. The knife fell away and dropped out of sight.

Sam rolled again, kicked downward. They thumped into the bottom. The man clawed at Sam’s eyes with his left hand. Sam clenched his eyes shut, turned his head away, then drove his right hand up and palm-butted the man in the chin. The man’s head snapped backward. Sam heard a sickening crunch. The man jerked once, twice, then went still. Sam opened his eyes. The man’s own eyes, fixed and lifeless, stared back. Behind the man’s head a jagged, triangular-shaped rock jutted from the sandy bottom. Sam let him go and he floated away, trailing tendrils of blood as he bumped along the bottom. After a few moments he disappeared into the gloom.

Sam coiled his legs and pushed himself off the bottom. He broke the surface beneath one of the plank walkways and laid his head back and gulped air until his vision began to clear.

“Sam!” Remi called. “Here, this way, come on!”

Sam paddled toward her voice. Draped in soaked clothes, his arms felt as if they were stroking through molasses. He felt Remi’s hands gripping his. He grabbed the gunwale and let her help him aboard. He rolled onto the deck and lay still, panting. Remi knelt beside him.

“Oh, God, Sam, your face . . .”

“Looks worse than it is. A few stitches and I’ll be back to my devilishly handsome self.”

“Your ear is split. You look like a dog who just lost a squabble.”

“Let’s call it a dueling scar.”

She turned his head this way and that, inspecting his face and neck and probing with her fingers until Sam reached up and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m okay, Remi. Kholkov might have heard the shots. We better get moving.”