Spartan Gold - Clive Cussler

The position of the remains, which lay sprawled on the deck at the bottom of the ladder with one petrified arm draped over a rung, spoke volumes about the man’s final hours or minutes. Trapped inside this darkened cylinder, knowing death was tightening its grip on him with every inhalation of oxygen, it seemed natural that he would have gravitated to his only exit, half hoping for some miracle that he knew in his heart would never come.

“I assume you won’t mind staying up here while I poke around,” Sam said.

“Be my guest.”

He clicked on the flashlight, then slid his legs into the hatch, probed with his foot until it found a rung, then started downward. A few feet from the bottom, Sam stepped off the ladder, opposite the body, and used his arms to lower himself to the deck.

Immediately Sam felt a gloom wash over him. He wasn’t particularly claustrophobic, but this was different somehow. Not high enough to allow him to straighten up and barely wider than his outstretched arms, the interior had a dungeonlike feel to it. The bulkheads, painted in a dull gray, were festooned with cables and pipes, all seemingly going everywhere and nowhere at once.

“How is it?” Remi called down.

“Disgusting is the only word to describe it.”

Sam knelt down beside the corpse and began carefully checking the pockets. All were empty save the breast pocket, inside which he found a wallet. He handed this up to Remi, then turned and moved forward.

According to what few descriptions of the Molch’s interior he had been able to find, the front section of the bow held the craft’s main battery and behind this, between a pair of trim ballast tanks, an operator’s seat with rudimentary controls for steering, navigation, speed, power, and trimming, as well as a primitive hydrophone for detecting enemy vessels.

Under the operator’s seat Sam found a small toolbox and a leather holster containing a Luger pistol and a spare magazine. These he pocketed.

Bolted to the bulkhead beneath each trim tank was a rectangular footlocker. In one he found a half dozen water jugs, all empty, and twice that number of empty food tins. In the other footlocker he found a leather satchel and a pair of hard-backed black leather journals. He slipped them into the satchel, then took one last look around. Something caught his eye: a piece of fabric sticking out from behind the footlocker. He knelt down and saw that it was a burlap sack; inside was a hinged wooden box the size and shape of a loaf of bread. He tucked the sack under his arm and returned to the ladder, then handed all the items up to Remi and climbed up. At the top, he stopped and looked back down at the corpse.

“We’ll make sure you get home, Captain,” he whispered.

Back on deck, Sam held the line steady to make Remi’s leap back to the bank easier. As he braced his feet, his toe bumped the burlap sack. From inside came the muted tinkle of glass.

Curious now, they both knelt down on the deck. Remi opened the sack and slid out the box, which was devoid of markings. Gingerly she pried open the brass latch and swung open the lid, revealing a sheaf of what looked like aged oilskin. Remi peeled back a flap.

For a long ten seconds neither of them spoke, gaping at the object catching the sunlight. Remi murmured, “It can’t be. Can it?”

It was a bottle, a green glass wine bottle.

Sam didn’t reply, instead using his right index finger to lift the end a few inches out of the box, revealing the punt.

“Good Lord . . . ” Remi murmured.

The symbol etched into the glass was all too familiar:

CHAPTER 10

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

That poor man,” Remi said. “To die like that . . . I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t want to imagine,” Sam replied.

They were stretched out on chaise lounges in the solarium surrounded by potted palms and flowing ferns, the midday sun highlighting every tone of the Tuscan flagstone tiles. It was one of their favorite rooms in the house, not an easy choice by any measure.

Sitting atop the cliffs overlooking Goldfish Point and the indigo waters of the Pacific, the Fargos’ home and base of operations was a four-story, twelve-thousand-square-foot Spanish-style house with vaulted maple-beamed ceilings and enough windows and skylights to keep their maintenance man busy for eight hours every month.

The upper floor held Sam and Remi’s master suite and below this, one flight down, were four guest suites, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen/great room that jutted over the cliff. On the second floor a gymnasium containing both aerobic and circuit-training exercise equipment, a steam room, a HydroWorx endless-lap pool, and a thousand feet of hardwood floor space for Remi to practice her fencing and Sam his judo.

The ground floor sported two thousand square feet of office space for Sam and Remi and an adjoining workspace for Selma, complete with three Mac Pro workstations coupled with thirty-inch cinema displays and a pair of wall-mounted thirty-two-inch LCD televisions. Mounted on the east wall was Selma’s pride and joy, a fourteen-foot, five-hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium.

Sam told Remi, “We can always hope he went quickly and peacefully.”

The man in question, the poor soul they’d found sprawled at the bottom of the Molch’s ladder, now had, thanks to the journals they’d found aboard, a name: Manfred Boehm. Korvettenkapitän (Commander) Manfred Boehm. One of the journals had turned out to be the Molch’s log; the other, Boehm’s private diary dating back to the early days of World War II.

Armed with rough translations courtesy of some software, Sam and Remi had dived headfirst into what quickly began to feel like the last will and testament of both Boehm and his submarine, which they soon learned had a given name: the UM-34—Underwater Boat, Molch type, thirty-fourth constructed.

Sam had been concentrating on the UM-34’s log, trying to piece together where it had come from and how it had ended up trapped in an inlet on the Pocomoke River, while Remi worked through Boehm’s diary, learning about the man beyond the uniform and rank.

After packing up the skiff and leaving the Molch behind, they’d thought it wise to avoid Snow Hill and Maxine’s Bait ‘n’ Boat, assuming Scarface and his friends would be lurking about awaiting their return. Instead, they’d motored ten miles downriver and put ashore just south of Willow Grove, where Highway 113 and the Pocomoke ran closest to one another. From there they’d first called for a Pocomoke City taxi, then Maxine’s. Sam kept his explanation vague and short, offering a generous tip for troubling them to come down and collect the skiff. His final call went to the B&B’s manager, who agreed to ship their belongings back to California.

Five hours later they were at Norfolk International Airport boarding a plane bound for home.

The bottle from the UM-34 they’d immediately turned over to Selma upon their return, but they’d heard nothing from her on the matter since she’d locked herself and her assistants, boyfriend and girlfriend Pete Jeffcoat and Wendy Corden (both of whom had heard all the Peter Pan jokes they’d cared to), in the workshop for a marathon sleuthing session that wouldn’t end until they had an answer.

On the outside, Pete and Wendy were stereotypical twenty-something Californians—tan and lean with easygoing smiles and blond hair highlighted by the sun—but intellectually there was nothing conventional about them, each having graduated from the University of Southern California in the top percentile, Pete with a B.A. in archaeology and Wendy with a degree in social sciences.

Whatever Sam and Remi had discovered, there was no doubt the insect symbol on their bottle was a perfect match for the one on Ted’s shard, nor was there any doubt about the bottle’s general provenance. The writing on the label was French. Handwritten French, no less.

The questions seemed to be piling up quickly: What was the connection between the two pieces? What did the symbol mean? Had both bottles started out aboard the UM-34, and if so how did they get separated? And finally, what about these bottles was worth killing over?

What to do about the UM-34 itself and the remains of Boehm had been nagging at Sam’s and Remi’s consciences since leaving Maryland. Though somewhat of a gray area, it could be argued the submarine was in fact an archaeological site, which in a sense made them grave robbers. They consoled themselves by promising that once they were done with their investigation all of Boehm’s possessions would be returned to their rightful owner, whether that be the German government or Boehm’s surviving family or descendants.

Wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the UM-34, which it now seemed clear was what Scarface was after, they had called their lawyer, who assured them the submarine would be found by a responsible party and that the proper authorities would be alerted to the possible presence of torpedoes lying along the bottom of the Pocomoke.

“He had a wife and son,” Remi said without looking up from the diary’s pages. “Frieda and Helmut, in Arnsburg, outside Düsseldorf.”

“That’s fantastic. Then the chances are better than fair he’s got family there. If so, we’ll find them.”

“How’s the log coming?”

“Slowly. I’ll have to start mapping some of these coordinates, but it looks like the 34 was attached to an auxiliary mother ship Boehm called Gertrude.”

“Gertrude? Did the Kriegsmarine name their—”

“No, it has to be code.”

“Secret codes, lost submarines, and mysterious wine bottles. Sounds like a suspense novel.”

“Maybe when we’ve solved the whole puzzle . . .”

Remi laughed. “I think our plates are full enough.”

“Someday we’ll have to write all this down, you know. It would make a great book.”

“Someday. When we’re old and gray. I talked to Ted, by the way. He’s sitting tight.”

“Thank God. What did you decide? Did you ask him about the sub?”

“No.”

Frobisher clung to his well-ordered cocoon of a life and his run-in with this mystery assailant was all the adventure he could handle. Besides, Sam knew Ted: Once the sub’s discovery hit the airwaves he would wonder, given their proximity, if the shard and sub were connected. He would contact them if he had anything of value to add.

“Here, listen to this,” Remi said, her finger tracing along the page: “ ‘Wolfi gave me two fine bottles of wine today, two of three he brought along. He said we would celebrate together at the end of the mission.’ ”

“Wolfi,” Sam repeated. “Do we know who that is?”

“No. I’ve been skipping around. I’ll start looking. Here’s more: ‘Wolfi said I deserved two since I had the harder task.’ I wonder what it was.”

“Don’t know, but at least we know where Ted’s shard came from. Somewhere along the line Boehm lost one of the bottles.”

The intercom on the wall above Remi’s head crackled to life.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fargo?” Despite repeated attempts, they’d yet to get Selma to call them by their first names.

Remi reached up and pushed the Talk button. “Yes, Selma.”

“I, uh, have something. . . . Well, I’ve found . . .”

Sam and Remi exchanged curious glances. In their ten years working with Selma they’d never heard her sound anything but decisive and curt.

“Is everything all right?” Remi asked.

“Uh . . . well, why don’t you come down and I’ll try to explain.”

“We’re on our way.”

They found Selma sitting on a stool at the center worktable, eyes fixed on the bottle of wine before her. Pete and Wendy were nowhere to be seen.

Selma’s appearance was a mixed metaphor. She wore her hair in what Remi had dubbed a “modified sixties bob,” while her horn-rimmed glasses, which she wore on a chain around her neck when not in use, were straight from the 1950s. Her default fashion usually involved khaki pants, sneakers, and a seemingly endless supply of tie-dyed T-shirts. Selma didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t swear, and had only one addiction: herbal tea, which she drank by the potful. One cabinet of the workroom was devoted to her tea, most of which had names neither Sam nor Remi could pronounce.

Sam asked her, “Where are Pete and Wendy?”

“I sent them home early. I thought you’d want to hear this in private. You can decide later if you want to tell them.”

“Okay . . . ” Remi replied.

“Please tell me you haven’t found a bottle full of liquid Ebola,” Sam said.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“Wherever you’d like,” Sam said gently.

She pursed her lips, thinking for a few moments, then said, “First of all, that symbol on the bottom, the bug . . . I’ve got no idea what it means. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Selma. Go on.”

“Let me back up. Let’s talk about the box itself: The hinges and the latch are brass, and the wood is from a species of beech tree found in only a few places in the world. The biggest concentration is in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France and northern Spain.

“As for the wrapping inside, that could be a discovery unto itself. It may be, depending on how all of this dates, the earliest European example of oilskin. It’s calfskin—six layers of it—soaked in linseed oil. The outer two layers are dried out and slightly molded, but the interior four are in perfect condition.

“The glass is fairly remarkable as well—very high quality and quite thick, almost an inch, actually. Though I’m not inclined to test the theory, I’m fairly certain it could stand up to a fair amount of abuse.”

“The label on the bottle: hand-tooled leather, glued to the glass as well as bound at the top and bottom by hemp twine. As you can see, the markings on the label were etched direcly into the leather, then filled in with ink—a very rare ink, in fact. It’s a mixture of Aeonium arboreum ‘Schwartzkopf’—”

“English, please,” Remi said.

“It’s a type of black rose. The ink is a mixture of its petals and crushed beetle—a spitting beetle native only to the islands in the Ligurian Sea. As for the details on the label itself . . .” Selma pulled the bottle closer, waited for Sam and Remi to come over, then turned on an overhead halogen task lamp. “You see this phrase . . . mesures usuelles—it’s French for ‘customary measurements.’ It’s a system that hasn’t been used for a hundred fifty years or so. And this word here . . . demis—it means ‘halves,’ roughly the equivalent of an English pint. Sixteen ounces.”