The Lost Throne

by Chris Kuzneski

  Jones glanced at Payne but said nothing.

  And Dial happened to notice. “What?”

  Payne grimaced. “Nick, let’s take a walk.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to talk.”

  The two moved away from Andropoulos, so the young Greek couldn’t hear what was about to be said. And Jones made sure of it by keeping an eye on him. Over the years, Payne and Dial had shared confidential information to help each other with various missions and assignments. And this was one of those times when they needed to speak in private, for both of their sakes.

  “What’s up?” Dial asked.

  “I want to tell you why we’re here. But only if it’s off-the-record.”

  Dial stared at him, wondering where this was going. “Fine.”

  “I think I know what the Spartans are looking for. It’s probably the same thing we’re looking for.”

  “Which is?”

  Payne reached into his pocket and pulled out a copy of the treasure map. “A colleague of mine recently called me from Russia and asked for my help. By the time I responded, it was too late. Someone had killed him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Payne shrugged it off. “D.J. and I poked around a little bit and figured out why he was murdered. He was looking for this.”

  Dial took the map from Payne and studied it in the beam of the headlight. He instantly recognized the geography of Mount Athos. “Is this a treasure map?”

  Payne nodded. “The man who killed my colleague was a hit man who used to work for the FSB. When I questioned him, he said he’d been hired by someone with a Mediterranean accent. We assumed he might be Greek, but we don’t know that for sure.”

  “Why Greek?”

  “Because the treasure is Greek. That is, if it even exists.”

  Payne gave him a quick summary of the story of Richard Byrd, Heinrich Schliemann, and the possible existence of the lost throne. In addition, he filled him in on all the other treasures that could have been removed from Constantinople before the fire, everything from gold relics to ancient manuscripts.

  “I think you’re right,” Dial said. “Our two matters are probably related.”

  “I know. So what are we going to do about it?”

  Dial gave the question some thought. “As far as I’m concerned, Interpol is here for one reason only: to catch the men who killed the monks. Everything else is a nonissue to me.”

  Payne nodded in appreciation. “Glad to hear it.”

  “And,” Dial said as he pointed at the map, “since my suspects seem to be heading toward this location, it might be nice if we could tag along with you.”

  “That’s fine with me. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless the kid is going to be a problem.”

  “You mean Marcus? He won’t be a problem at all. D.J. just saved his life. I really doubt he’s going to ask to see your visitor’s pass.”

  Payne smiled. “Good. Because there’s one other thing I’ve been keeping from you. And it’s kind of hard to explain. . . .”

  71

  Payne asked Allison to step out of the shadows where she had been ordered to wait.

  Dial stared at her in disbelief. He wasn’t expecting Payne’s big surprise to be a female. “You brought a woman to Mount Athos? The Virgin Mary is going to be pissed.”

  Payne ignored the comment. “Nick, this is Allison. She was with Richard Byrd when he was killed in Russia. She goes wherever I go until this thing is done.”

  Dial nodded in understanding. “Nice to meet you, Allison.”

  She smiled and shook his hand. “You too.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Okay,” Payne said, cutting them off. “Now that the introductions are out of the way, we’d better get moving. The longer we stand around, the more time we waste.”

  Jones walked toward Dial and handed him a radio. “I got this from Petros. You should update the guards and tell them to stay below this ridgeline. We’ll leave the headlights on as a beacon.”

  “Wait,” Dial said, “isn’t that counterproductive? Obviously, the Spartans have made it this far. It stands to reason that they’re ahead of us.”

  “Some probably are,” Jones explained. “But so far, we’ve killed four soldiers who seemed pretty intent on stopping us from climbing this mountain. My guess is there are more Spartans down there, lying in wait. Let the guards worry about those guys. We can take care of the rest.”

  The Spartan scout listened from the nearby trees, and then ran off to warn Apollo.

  If they stopped this group of five, who were only a few minutes behind, they would have all the time they needed to locate the book. But that task would be tougher than it sounded, because these soldiers seemed to be far more competent than the other guards. The two largest men had already killed four hoplites in the last hour. Normally, it was the Spartans who showed such efficiency in battle, not their opponents.

  Of course, if there was one thing the Spartans enjoyed, it was a worthy adversary.

  Payne led the way, followed by Dial, Allison, Andropoulos, and Jones. They trudged single file up the steep terrain, with enough space between them to lessen the effects of a sneak attack. If a Spartan leapt out of a tree, he would only be able to attack one person in Payne’s group before someone got off a gunshot. At least that was Payne’s rationale. The truth was that in all of his years of soldiering he had never faced an opponent who preferred ancient weaponry to guns.

  It forced him to view things from a whole new perspective.

  Twenty minutes after leaving the motorcycles, the group came across a narrow chasm in the center of a long ridge. Payne and Jones shined their flashlights along the steep rock face, searching for an easier way around it, while the other three members of their party caught their breath. The temperature had started to drop, and the minor injuries that Dial and Andropoulos had suffered in their bike crash had started to take their toll. Their breathing had become labored, not only because of the thinning air but because their ribs had been bruised in the fall.

  None of the three spoke as they took turns gulping bottled water.

  Meanwhile, Jones caught up to Payne along the ridge. “What do you think?”

  “We either go through here or walk a half-mile out of the way.”

  Jones nodded. “We have to be careful. A smart soldier would use this to his advantage.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  The two of them walked back and joined the others. Jones explained to them what needed to be done. “This is a classic choke point. We need to pass through it as quickly as possible. Jon will go first, followed by Nick, and so on. Once you climb through, be on full alert.”

  While the others got ready, Payne pulled Allison aside.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered. “Tired, but fine.”

  “Well, you’re doing great. Just keep it up.”

  She smiled in appreciation.

  “Do you understand what we need you to do here?”

  “Climb through and be ready to move.”

  “Simple enough, huh?”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  “For the next few minutes, can you do me a small favor?”

  She nodded. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

  Payne pulled out the gun they had taken from Petros. “Can you carry this for me?”

  She stared at the weapon with disdain in her eyes.

  “Listen,” he said, “I know you’re not comfortable with guns. Up until now I haven’t given you one because I’ve seen the way you’ve looked at mine. But here’s the problem. For the next few minutes, our numbers will be cut in half. If we’re going to be attacked, this is where they’re going to do it. Tactically speaking, I need to do whatever I can to strengthen our odds. That means I need everyone to be armed.”

  “Wel
l,” she said, “since you put it like that, how can a gal resist?”

  Apollo knew he was outnumbered. His scout had warned him of that. But the beauty of his plan—which was similar to King Leonidas’s tactic to hold off thousands of Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae—was that he wouldn’t have to fight all his opponents at once. He would wait until their numbers were divided, then he would attack.

  Instead of five against three, he would fight them three against three.

  Then he would pick off the others when they rushed into the fray.

  The gap in the stone face was about three feet wide. During rain-storms, water gushed through the chasm like a waterfall. Over the years, it had smoothed the rock and made it slick. Traction was difficult to find. The angle of the hillside wasn’t particularly steep, so ropes and anchors weren’t needed. Still, in order to climb the fifteen feet to the next ridge, they needed to concentrate.

  For a large man, Payne was unbelievably nimble. Most Special Forces officers were small and wiry, soldiers who could run forever and hide in the blink of an eye, yet somehow Payne was able to keep up with them. In fact, he did more than that; he surpassed his peers by matching their agility and endurance and adding a brute strength that none of them possessed.

  It was one of the reasons he had been asked to lead the MANIACs.

  They were a special group, and Payne was the best of the best.

  Using his hands and feet to climb, he scurried up the rock with ease. He dropped his pack on the ridge, and then scanned the nearby trees. With gun raised, he stared into the darkness, listening for the crack of a branch or anything else that seemed out of place.

  But the area seemed deserted.

  “Let’s go,” he said to his friends, who were waiting down below.

  Dial was up second. He grimaced in pain as he used his arms to assist with the climb. Though his ribs were tender to the touch, they weren’t broken and weren’t going to stop him. Ten seconds later, he was crouching next to his friend on top of the ridge.

  “Next,” he said to Allison.

  She nodded and tucked the gun into her belt, nervous about the task at hand. Unlike the men, who had all been trained in one service academy or another, she had no experience with climbing—unless she counted gym class in junior high. She was in good shape from her frequent jogs around the Stanford campus, but this was something new to her.

  Rock climbing in the dark simply wasn’t offered at her local health club.

  While Dial stood guard, Payne kept his focus on Allison. In his hands, he held a thick tree limb that he had found nearby on the ground. If she struggled during her ascent, she could grab hold of it, and he could pull her up. “Don’t stop. Just keep moving forward.”

  She followed his instructions, churning one leg after the other, using her hands to steady herself against the side of the chasm, never pausing to think. Her foot slipped once on the slick surface, but she maintained her balance with her arms and made it to the top without help.

  “That was fun,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m glad,” Payne said. “Now stand over there so Marcus can take his turn.”

  Allison nodded and shuffled off to the side.

  A moment later, the Spartans started their attack.

  72

  Allison saw the Spartan before anyone else. He burst from the trees, twenty feet away from her. His shield was in one hand, his sword in the other. Since her gun was still tucked in her belt, she did the only thing she could think of. She screamed as loudly as she could.

  Payne whirled in her direction and spotted the Spartan who was sprinting at them. Unable to pull his gun in time, Payne stepped in front of Allison and lowered his shoulder, hoping to duck under the Spartan’s shield. A moment before impact, Payne arched his back as if he was going to tackle him. But instead of wrapping his arms, he thrust his shoulders upward, slamming the tree branch that he still held into his opponent’s legs. The force, coupled with the Spartan’s momentum, launched the soldier high into the air and over the edge of the ridge.

  Jones, who had heard Allison’s scream, was on full alert when the Spartan took flight. Like a superhero out of control, the Spartan crashed into a nearby tree and landed roughly on the ground as his helmet bounced down the hill.

  But Jones showed no sympathy for him.

  He stood over him and ended his life with a bullet between the eyes.

  Meanwhile, on the ridge above, the other two Spartans charged into battle. Both of them had learned from the hoplite’s mistake, so they approached quickly yet under control. Shields in front of them, swords ready to strike, prepared to fight to the death.

  Ready for a challenge, Apollo went after Payne. During the past few minutes, he had watched Payne and knew he was their leader. They were roughly the same size and build, and both of them moved with dexterity. The main difference was in their training.

  Apollo had learned his skills from the greatest warrior culture of all time.

  His opponent had not.

  In Apollo’s mind, the outcome was all but decided.

  Before Payne could recover from the previous assault, Apollo was upon him. Using his shield as a battering ram, he launched himself into Payne, knocking him onto his back. Payne skidded to a halt a few feet short of the chasm. A second later, Apollo was above him, swinging his sword as hard as he could. Somehow, through it all, Payne had held on to the tree limb. It was sturdy and knotted with age. He lifted it above his chest just in time to stop the path of the blade.

  A mighty thump echoed through the night as the wood splintered from the force.

  The unexpected block left the Spartan off balance. His weight was leaning forward, and his stride was too wide. Payne spotted the flaw and quickly took advantage. With a sweep of his feet, he knocked Apollo to the ground and rolled on top of him. The limb that had once been whole was now in two pieces. Payne dropped one and used the other like a crazed drummer. Time after time, he pounded on his opponent’s head and face, trying to beat him to death.

  But the Spartan’s helmet held firm.

  Though he was dazed, years of training told Apollo what to do. With all his strength, he used his hips to thrust upward, bucking Payne into the air. The maneuver worked better than he could have imagined. The slope of the hill coupled with the edge of the ridge cost Payne his advantage. One moment he was pummeling the Spartan, the next he was tumbling down the chasm, losing chunks of skin as he bounced between the narrow rocks.

  With a loud thud, Payne hit the ground below.

  Andropoulos reached down to help him, but his hand was pushed away.

  Payne simply said, “That son of a bitch!”

  Then, riding a burst of rage, he scurried back up the chasm.

  Ready for round two.

  Dial had his own battle to worry about. He had turned toward Allison when she screamed, which had allowed the other Spartan to slip in behind him.

  Sword raised high, the Spartan was set to strike when Dial heard the clanging of armor. Instinctively, he dropped to his knees as the Spartan’s blade whizzed overhead. Momentum carried the warrior forward, but he remained balanced and under control. Planting his front foot and turning, he put himself into position to swing again.

  Dial lifted his gun and got off a single shot that was deflected by the Spartan’s shield. A moment later he used his shield as a weapon, slamming it against the side of Dial’s head.

  Stunned by the blow, Dial slumped to the ground.

  Blood oozed from a gash on his cheek as he tried to regain his senses.

  But the Spartan wouldn’t allow it. Even in the darkness, he recognized the dazed look in his opponent’s eyes. He knew it was time to finish him off.

  With that in mind, the Spartan lifted his sword and prepared to strike.

  After knocking Payne down the chasm, Apollo grinned in triumph. His opponent had been a worthy adversary, but like all the others before him, he had been vanquished.

  Rising to his feet, Apoll
o searched the ridge for his next victim.

  Only one person was not engaged in battle.

  The woman.

  The thought of fighting her disgusted him. His ancestors never had to deal with women on the battlefield, since they were all forced to stay at home. In his mind, they were good for only one thing: breeding. That had always been the Spartans’ stance on women. Mothers were loved. Wives were tolerated. And girls were a wasted opportunity to have had a son.

  Still, in this day and age of modern weaponry, he knew women could be dangerous. They could pull a trigger just as easily as a man. Therefore, she couldn’t be overlooked.

  She would be treated like all the others.

  She would have to be killed at once.

  Dial was dazed from the blow to his head, but somehow his instincts took over.

  As the Spartan raised his sword, Dial raised his gun and fired two quick shots, just over the top of the shield. The first bullet hit the Spartan in his collarbone, shattering it with a sickening snap. The next one struck him right in the mouth. Teeth cracked like crushed ice and embedded themselves in the lining of his throat as the bullet tore through the back of his neck.

  This wasn’t the movies, so the Spartan didn’t fly ten feet backward and die quietly.

  Instead, he slumped forward on top of Dial, pinning him to the ground. The whole time the Spartan was spitting and gurgling and trying to breathe, and Dial was trapped underneath.

  For the next twelve seconds, he listened to the man choking on his own blood until Dial was able to squirm away. Once he did, he fired his weapon again and ended the Spartan’s life.