Napoleon's Gold: A Jack Starling Adventure

by Guy Roberts

  ‘Is he still around?’ Cleo looked at him curiously.

  ‘No,’ Jack shook his head. ‘Both my parents are dead. Mum of cancer when I was a toddler and Dad a few years after that. He took us to Moscow on holiday but there was an accident – he fell in front of a train on the Moscow underground and was killed.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Cleo raised a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. David had never said anything.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jack protested. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  Cleo looked at him steadily. Jack sighed for a moment then looked at her and smiled. ‘But either way, you’re right.’ He looked over at Waterloo Bridge. ‘There are some lovely views from there. Thanks for the sandwich. My treat next time.’ He brushed the crumbs away from his jacket and pulled out David’s poem.

  ‘Right. The next clue, have a look.’ Cleo craned forward and read the stanza out aloud.

  ‘From Sun lit city to England’s gloom,

  Now tower on this time locked womb.

  By monstrous gaze are questions asked,

  Which step for too three of man are cast

  What secret needs this timely doom,

  When breaking into hallowed tomb?’

  ‘Ok,’ Cleo said after a moment’s thought. ‘Tower… womb, hallowed tomb. A church with a tomb and a tower? Maybe St Pauls? Or Westminster?’

  Jack sighed, looking out across the Thames. He could just see the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and the two squat towers in front.

  ‘It could be.’ Jack frowned. ‘In fact… the Duke of Wellington is buried there... and Nelson as well!’

  ‘What secret needs this timely doom, When breaking into hallowed tomb?’ Cleo recited from the poem again. ‘I hope we don’t have to break into their caskets to find something like we did with the Napoleon Statue.’

  ‘But what about the other lines?’ Jack asked. ‘By monstrous gaze are questions asked, Which step for too three of man are cast. Monstrous gaze – are we looking for a church with some ugly gargoyles? Or with steps? Or a cast… is it tilted?’ Jack frowned. ‘It’s still too vague.’ His grey eyes swept the far side of the Thames in frustration. There were hundreds of churches in London – perhaps thousands.

  He slapped a hand onto the armrest of the bench in frustration. ‘There’s got to be a simpler answer. Right now it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

  Cleo’s clear laugh rang out next to him like a bell.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ she declared, then reached over and landed a kiss on Jack’s cheek. ‘You’re a wizard!’

  ‘What?’ Jack was confused.

  ‘The monstrous gaze…’ she grinned, ‘I know exactly what we’re looking for!’

  1130 hrs 16 June 2015, COBRA, Whitehall, London.

  GR 51.503721, -0.126270

  ‘I’ve got them!’

  Highgrove’s voice rang out clearly over the muted buzz of the COBRA headquarters. Brice jerked himself out of his seat like a rocket and lumbered over to Cleo’s desk.

  ‘What, where?’ He leaned in close over her shoulder, staring intently at the screen.

  ‘Our long range cameras on the southern side of the Thames just found Jack Starling sitting on a bench overlooking the Thames,’ Highgrove declared. ‘They’re on the Victoria Embankment; visuals confirm the girl is with him.’ Her fingers clacked professionally across the keyboard and a picture was thrown onto the TV screens of Jack and Cleo sitting on a bench overlooking the mighty river.

  ‘My God.’ Brice stared at the TV with a look of disbelief on his face. ‘They’re a five minute walk from this bloody office.’ He stepped back to his position at the head of the table and drew himself up to his full height.

  ‘Right,’ he declared imposingly. ‘This time there’ll be no excuse. Get me everything!’

  1130 hrs 16 June 2015, Victorian Embankment, London.

  GR 51.507394, -0.121535

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Jack looked at her blankly, trying to understand her excitement.

  ‘The bench!’ Cleo exclaimed. ‘Look at the bench!’

  Jack looked down at the park bench they were sitting on. The two ends of the bench featured a cast-iron image of a female in Egyptian headdress. Jack stepped around to have a closer look, seeing that the rest of the image curled backward into the body of a cat. ‘It’s a Sphinx?’

  Cleo smiled. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But so what?’

  ‘It’s another monster… like an Ogre, or a Cyclops. But what did the Sphinx do?’

  Jack frowned, trying to remember back to his days at school. ‘Erm, he asked a riddle… I think?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Cleo nodded encouragingly, ‘she did. The riddle was this: What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?’

  Jack frowned. ‘Um. A robot?’

  ‘A what?’ Cleo gave him a strange look, ‘No, Jack, It’s an ancient Greek riddle. They didn’t have robots.’ Her look was suddenly tinged with some degree of asperity. ‘Come on. If you figured out the clue about Nelson’s Column then this one is easy.’

  Jack sighed. ‘Ok. Four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the…’ He grinned. ‘I remember this! David told me about it years ago - it’s a man. Four legs when he crawls as a baby, two legs during the day when he’s an adult and three legs in the evening, when he’s an old man walking with a stick.’ Jack looked at her expectantly. ‘But why is the Sphinx important?’

  ‘Look at the middle lines of the stanza. By monstrous gaze are questions asked, which step for too three of man are cast. It’s not for too three… it’s the stages of man – four, two and three!’

  ‘Ok,’ Jack nodded cautiously. ‘The monstrous gaze and the questions about the steps of man means that we’re not looking for a church, but for a Sphinx,’ he frowned. ‘But the only Sphinx I can think of is the big one in Egypt. How can that help?’

  ‘Not one Sphinx, but two,’ Cleo corrected him, leading him toward her conclusion. ‘But you got it right when you said we’re looking for a needle in a haystack.’

  Jack frowned. ‘I still don’t get it.’

  Cleo smiled, looking at him expectantly. ‘Jack… we’re not looking for a church, we’re looking for a needle. Now come on, the answer is staring you in the face.’

  Jack blinked slowly, then a grin spread across his face like sunshine as understanding finally arrived. It was a quirky landmark on the Thames, an ancient Egyptian obelisk installed after the Victoria Embankment had been built in the 1860s. As children, he and David had often clambered around the base of the obelisk and its two Sphinx guardians. When he was a little older he had gazed sombrely at the bomb damage it had received from Nazi bombs during the Second World War.

  ‘Cleo… or Cleopatra!’ he exclaimed. ‘Cleopatra’s Needle!’

  ‘Exactly.’ Cleo smiled broadly. ‘Cleopatra’s Needle. And that’s where the first line makes sense. From Sun lit city to England’s gloom – the Needle was brought from Heliopolis to London in the late 1800s and Heliopolis means City of the Sun – a Sun lit city! The clues about the ages of man – that’s a reference to the two Sphinxes guarding it… Jack,’ she grinned infectiously, ‘we’ve found the next clue!’

  Jack smiled, thinking through the rest of the stanza. ‘And the rest of the poem fits perfectly; what secret needs this timely doom, when breaking into hallowed tomb?’’ He clicked his fingers. ‘There’s a time capsule built into the base of the obelisk. We might have to break into it to find the next clue!’

  Cleo nodded. ‘Well, the first thing to do is go and have a look. It’s only about half a mile from here, further down the embankment. That’s why the park bench has a Sphinx on it.’

  ‘Really?’ Jack frowned. ‘But that’s as close as Nelson’s Column. Why would the clues be so close together?’

  ‘I was wondering about that too,’ Cleo nodded, ‘but I think it does make sense, in a way.’

  ‘How so?’

 
‘Well,’ Cleo shifted in her seat as she ordered her thoughts, ‘the men that Wellington trusted to hide the gold - the people who kept the secret – must have been some of the most powerful men in the British Empire. Wellington himself became Prime Minister. The officers he chose could have become just as influential and powerful as he was. London was the centre of their world, the heart of the British Empire and it was being rebuilt full of glorious monuments to crown and country; easy for them to have an influence on what things were built and where. Putting the numbers onto the Wellington Statue would have been as simple as slipping the sculptor five pounds before the statue was cast. The little gap in the pillar under Napoleon could have been left there by a couple of workmen – or chipped out by the Duke of Wellington himself, slipping downstairs after the builders had gone home. It was easier to do things like that in those days – there was no Occupational Health and Safety, no public oversight to stop the powerful from doing what they wanted.’

  ‘So why have such things so close together?’ Jack frowned. ‘It doesn’t seem safe. The Wellington Statue used to be on the doorstep of Apsley House – less than fifty yards from the Napoleon Statue. Nelson’s Column is barely a mile away and Cleopatra’s Needle is just as close. If they really wanted to keep it secret, why hide the clues so close together? Why not spread them all across the country?’

  ‘Well, secrets are secrets…’ Cleo shrugged. ‘Keeping a secret always makes a person feel more powerful – these men probably enjoyed walking around the middle of London and seeing these statues and monuments, knowing that they knew something about those things that everyone else walking past didn’t. Hiding something in plain sight makes a person feel powerful. Knowledge is power and power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.’

  ‘So you’re saying the reason all these things are so close together is about male ego?’ Jack snorted.

  ‘No,’ Cleo shook her head. ‘Not just ego, not just power. These men hid the gold because it was too much of a temptation for any government to use, so they were trying to do a good thing. But they did it in such a way that they, or whoever they entrusted the secret to, could always remind themselves how important they were and how cleverly their secrets were hidden – they wanted a daily reminder of their superiority. That sense of power was an irresistible compensation for hiding the gold in the first place.’

  ‘So what about their successors?’ Jack frowned. ‘The first five keepers of the secret might have been happy enough to see those monuments, but what about their descendants? Surely the temptation to track down the gold would be irresistible?’

  ‘That’s the clever part.’ Cleo smiled. ‘By then the secret location would have been lost – the men like Wellington, who knew the actual location of the gold, had passed away. What was left for individual descendants was the fact that there was a secret – of which they knew one part. It wasn’t until your brother pieced it all together that finding the gold became a genuine possibility for the first time in nearly 200 years.’

  ‘And that brings us back to the 21st Century.’ Jack concluded. ‘When the keepers of the secrets have been forgotten by history, it took David Starling to pick up the trace once more.

  ‘And now the treasure is being hunted by a British soldier and a New Zealand burglar. Who would have thought it?’ Cleo grinned at him. ‘Life has a sense of humour at times.’

  ‘Except there’s some murderous Frenchmen on the trail as well.’ Jack cautioned her.

  The smile on Cleo’s face quickly faded and she nodded seriously. ‘And some murderous Frenchmen as well.’ She echoed Jack’s words and pulled her jacket close.

  ‘Come on.’ Jack pushed his jaw out once more and stood up. ‘Deschamps can go to hell. Let’s go find this Needle.’

  They moved off, Jack limping several steps to the rear. Cleopatra’s Needle, he thought ruefully. She figured it out on her own. I didn’t do that, even though David wrote the clues for me! He smiled, thankful that Cleo was there to help him navigate the clues. He really was lucky to have her there, constantly rescuing him from trap after trap and leading him past the thousand-eyed London CCTV network. He could distantly remember David lecturing him about the riddle of the Sphinx on some prior occasion, but it would have taken hours, perhaps days, to figure out the clue without Cleo’s help.

  ‘We make a pretty good team,’ Cleo declared as they walked along the sunlit Embankment, matching Jack’s thoughts without realising it. ‘I’d be looking at every church in the city if it wasn’t for you.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be looking!’ Jack smiled, wincing for a moment as the Lego in his shoe jabbed upward. ‘We just need to keep an eye out for another of Deschamps’ goons. The last one tried to pull a gun on me without a second’s thought.’

  ‘And look what happened to him.’ Cleo turned to him and smiled. ‘I think you’re tougher than anything Deschamps can come up with.’

  Jack grinned for a moment, awkwardly pleased, before something caught his eye further up the Embankment. ‘Look, there it is.’ He pointed ahead excitedly, to where a towering stone spire could be seen poking out above the trees.

  1300 hrs (1200 hrs GMT) 15 June 2015, Rue de Passy, 16th Arrondissement, Paris.

  GR 48.857847, 2.280398

  Deschamps held the phone tightly against one ear, willing the connection to be made.

  ‘Quickly, quickly, quickly,’ he swore under his breath, eyes darting around the room in stony frustration. The phone call from the Termite had set his heart racing. That COBRA had discovered Starling and the woman was wonderful news, except it was clear the two fugitives were closing in on Cleopatra’s Needle – the exact place where Reynard was due to arrive. The COBRA surveillance on Starling could fatally expose Reynard’s operation and snatch the clue from their hands before it had even been found. Deschamps had to call Reynard and warn him of the coming threat.

  ‘Reynard, Reynard…. Idiot!’ Deschamps ground his teeth. His mistress stood fearfully by the door, cupping her elbows in her hands, unsure of how to calm her agitated master. They made fleeting eye contact and it was enough for Deschamps unleash his rage.

  ‘Get out!’ the Frenchman roared in frustration, ‘Out!’ The beautiful 19 year-old cowered in fear and fled the room like a beaten dog.

  Deschamps glared vindictively at her retreating figure, resisting the urge to crush the mobile phone in his hands. Instead he stabbed Reynard’s telephone number into the machine once more. Veins throbbed visibly at his temples as he waited for the phone connect. All he could do was hope it was not too late.

  Two hundred miles away, Reynard was bracing himself in the cockpit of a speedboat, savouring the sun on his face as the boat raced down the River Thames toward the Victoria Embankment. The murderer carried a taut smile on his face and a slim MAB PA-15 pistol holstered under one arm. Set to silence, the cell phone rang unheeded in his pocket, the killer’s mind distracted by the engine’s roar and the anticipation of destroying a landmark close to the very centre of Britain’s power.

  1200 hrs 15 June 2015, Cleopatra’s Needle, London.

  GR 51.508645, -0.120346

  ‘Hang on,’ Jack paused cautiously. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  The base of the landmark was cordoned off behind temporary fencing, a handful of workers in safety gear milling around the towering obelisk. The two Sphinxes sat on plinths on either side of the marked off area, both twice the height of a man. The Needle itself stretched up into the sky, a narrow column of rock carved with ancient hieroglyphs. Its base was anchored into a great granite pedestal and clamped into place with another series of bronze reliefs covered with Egyptian flourishes.

  Blocked by the fence, Jack and Cleo stopped and watched the workmen manoeuvring around the column. Jack gritted his teeth in frustration, itching to duck past the fence and inspect the monument close to.

  ‘Well,’ Jack groaned, ‘we’re stuck.’

  Cleo looked across at him in concern.

  ‘Not the fence,�
�� Jack explained, ‘the rest of the poem.’ He sighed. ‘When they brought that thing over from Egypt and put it here… they put a time capsule under the pillar. The clue is in there, inside the time capsule in the middle of that monument. What secret needs this timely doom, when breaking into hallowed tomb? This is the right clue,’ Jack’s face tightened with frustration, ‘but the only way we’re going to get our hands on the secret is by cracking the front of that pedestal open and digging out whatever’s inside.’

  Cleo winced in exasperation. ‘They didn’t make this one easy, did they?’

  Jack shook his head in agreement. ‘Any more explosive jewellery?’ He looked at her hopefully.

  Cleo shook her head and looked in dismay at the granite of the monument base. ‘Nothing that could break through that.’

  They stood silently for a moment, nonplussed. Jack sighed in frustration. ‘Well, they wanted the secret kept somewhere safe and this is certainly it. There’s no way we could get it out without a hell of a lot of noise and some pretty powerful equipment. How did they get it in there in the first place?’

  ‘Easy as anything,’ Cleo declared. ‘Can you imagine the scene? A bunch of rich white men shouting ‘God Save the Queen’ and celebrating their cleverness in bringing a huge lump of carved stone all the way from Egypt, busy showing the crowd what they were putting into the time capsule. All they had to do was keep quiet about what else they were hiding in there – and there you are. Secret hidden, clue made.’

  ‘And here we are,’ Jack sighed as he watched the workmen mill aimlessly around the base of the obelisk, ‘right next to the secret and blocked off by a bunch of bloody maintenance workers. We’ll have to come back for a closer look after dark.’

  Cleo suddenly stiffened by his side, a look of alarm on her face. ‘No, we won’t. By then it’ll be too late.’