The Kingdom

by Clive Cussler

  Finally they reached the last bend in the road. Once around it, they spotted the crest of the hill. Sam gestured for Remi to wait, then ducked off the road and picked his way through the scrub brush until he could see over the crest. He gave her an All clear wave, and she joined him.

  She said, “The promised land.”

  “A promised land that’s seen much better days,” Sam replied.

  Though before leaving for the peninsula they’d studied the structure on Google Earth, the overhead view had shown the church as merely an unremarkable, cross-shaped building. Now, up close, they could see a conical belfry, tall boarded-up windows, and a once-red tiled roof bleached pink from centuries of sunlight.

  They found the main double doors locked, so they circled the church. On the north side they found two items of interest: a waist-high ragged hole in the brick wall and an unrestricted view of the northern half of Sazan, including the Park Rangers station half a mile below, situated on a man-made breakwater cove illuminated by pole-mounted lights. Sam and Remi counted three boats and three buildings.

  Remi said, “Let’s find Bishop Mala and get out of here.”

  24

  SAZAN ISLAND, ALBANIA

  As soon as they ducked through the hole in the wall, they realized their task was going to be much harder than they’d anticipated. Instead of stepping into an open space, they found themselves standing in a labyrinth.

  On either side and ahead of them, eroding wooden coffins were stacked eight high and four deep, forming a corridor that was barely wider than their shoulders. Headlamps illuminating the way, they walked to the end of the corridor. They found themselves at a T-turn. To the left and right, more coffins.

  “Are you keeping count?” Sam whispered.

  “A hundred ninety-two so far.”

  “The Zvernec graveyard isn’t that big.”

  “It is if they were packing them shoulder to shoulder and stacking them. We know Mala died in 1436. Even if his was the first burial, we could be talking about five-plus centuries.”

  “I just got a shiver down my spine. Left or right?”

  Remi chose left. They walked a few paces. Ahead, Sam’s head-lamp washed over an exterior brick wall.

  “Dead end,” he said.

  “Was that a pun?”

  “Freudian slip.”

  They turned around, and, with Remi in the lead, proceeded past the T-turn and down the adjoining corridor. At the end of this, a right turn, followed by another sixty-four coffins, followed by a left turn and more coffins. The pattern continued through another five turns until the body count exceeded six hundred.

  At last they entered an open space. Here the coffins were also stacked eight high, all the way to the vaulted ceiling’s crossbeams. Sam and Remi turned in a circle, headlamps sweeping over walls of white pine.

  “There,” Sam said suddenly.

  On the western wall, behind a mountain of rotting pine, was a row of stone sarcophagi. “Fourteen,” Remi said. “The same as the number of mausoleums in the graveyard.”

  “That’s a bit of good luck,” Sam replied. He counted the coffin wall behind the sarcophagi. “Unbelievable,” he murmured. “Remi, there are over a thousand corpses in this building.”

  “Earta must have been mistaken. After the storm and flood, they must have taken all the bodies. Zvernec isn’t so much a graveyard as it is a charnel pit.”

  “There’s no smell.”

  “According to Selma, the last burial was in 1912. Even with embalming, there’s probably little flesh left.”

  Sam smiled and sang softly, “Dem bones . . . dem bones . . . dem dry bones.”

  “Don’t give up your day job. Let’s check for markings. Mala’s mausoleum bore a huge patriarchal cross; maybe they did the same for his sarcophagus.”

  A quick check of the end of each sarcophagus showed no crosses. Sam and Remi walked along the row, using their headlamps to peer on the top of each stone coffin. Of the fourteen, three had been chiseled with the Eastern Orthodox Church symbol.

  They sat together on the floor and stared at it. Remi asked, “How heavy do you think each one is?”

  “Four, five hundred pounds.” Then, after a moment: “But the lid . . . that’s a different story. Crowbar.”

  “Pardon?” Remi asked with a smile. She was used to her husband’s cerebral non sequiturs; they were his way of working through problems.

  “We forgot a crowbar. That lid weighs a hundred pounds at most, but prying open that seam while the sarcophagus is wedged in there . . . Damn, I knew I had that We’re forgetting something important feeling.”

  “Luckily, you have a plan.”

  Sam nodded. “Luckily, I have a plan.”

  Having long ago learned the universal value of three items—rope, wire, and duct tape—Sam and Remi rarely went into the field without them even when the specific task or journey didn’t obviously call for any of them. This time, in a hurry to beat nightfall, they’d forgotten one of the trio in addition to the crowbar: wire. The fifty-foot coil of climbing rope and the duct tape would be enough, Sam hoped.

  It took only a few minutes of scrabbling over the church’s crossbeams before they found what they needed: a loose L bracket. After twisting it free, Sam used his body weight to smash it closed over the rope’s center point. Next he crawled over the sarcophagus and wriggled the bracket into the rear seam beneath the lid. Then, grasping the rope like reins, he tugged until the L bracket was firmly seated in place. Finally he and Remi tossed the ends of the rope over a beam and used their combined body weight to slowly take up the slack until the far end of the lid began rising.

  “I’ve got it.” Remi said through clenched teeth, taking Sam’s end. “Go ahead.”

  Sam hurried forward, bent over the lid, and slipped his fingers under its near side. He leaned backward and straightened his legs. The lid popped up and slid free between his legs. The L bracket popped free with a metallic twang.

  Together, they stepped around the lid and leaned forward, their headlamps panning over the sarcophagus’s contents.

  “Bones, bones, and more bones,” Remi said.

  “And not a glint of gold in sight,” Sam replied. “One down, two to go.”

  Though neither of them voiced the worry, Sam and Remi both had the gut feeling that whichever sarcophagus they chose next, it too would be the wrong choice. Similarly, neither of them dared acknowledge the nagging voice of doubt in the back of each’s head—that Father/Bishop Besim Mala had not been faithful to the King of Mustang’s request and that the second Theurang disk had been long ago discarded or lost, along with the Golden Man and, if Jack Karna were right, the location of Shangri-La.

  Thirty minutes and a second sarcophagus lid later, they found themselves staring at a second set of bones and a second strikeout.

  Ninety minutes after they entered the church, they slid back the lid of the third and final sarcophagus. Exhausted, Sam and Remi sat before it and took a minute to catch their breath.

  “Ready?” Sam said.

  “Not really, but let’s get it over with,” replied Remi.

  On hands and knees, they crawled forward, went on either side of the stone lid, and, after taking a deep breath, peeked over the edge into the sarcophagus.

  From the blackness a sliver of gold winked back at them.

  25

  SOFIA, BULGARIA

  Shortly after dawn, exhausted but triumphant, they were back on the peninsula and on their way to the hotel in Vlorë.

  Having already expressed to Selma concern over shipping the Theurang disk back to San Diego via standard means, Sam and Remi found their chief researcher had, predictably, made alternative arrangements. Rube Haywood, their old CIA friend, had given her the name and address of a reliable and discreet courier service in Sofia. Whether the service was somehow affiliated with his employer, Rube declined to say, but the sign over the building’s door, which read “Sofia Academic Archivist Services Ltd” told Sam all he needed to k
now.

  “It’ll be there no later than noon tomorrow local time,” Sam told Remi. “You have directions for me?”

  Remi smiled and held up her iPad. “Plugged in and ready to go.”

  Sam put the Fiat into gear and pulled out.

  When they got to within a half mile of their destination, Remi’s iPad became unnecessary. Signs in both Cyrillic and English led them down Vasil Levski Street, then past the Parliament building and the Academy of Sciences, then into the plaza encircling Sofia’s religious heart, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

  The cross-domed basilica dominated the square, its gold-plated central dome rising a hundred fifty feet above the street and its bell tower twenty-five feet above that.

  Reading from her downloaded tourist guide, Remi said, “Twelve bells at a total weight of twenty-four tons, ranging in weight from twenty pounds to twenty-four thousand pounds.”

  “Impressive,” Sam replied, following the flow of vehicles around the cathedral. “And deafening, I would imagine.”

  They circled the tree-lined square twice before Sam pulled onto a side street and found a parking spot.

  Their stop at Alexander Nevsky Cathedral would merely be a launching pad, they both knew. While both Selma and Karna agreed that Bishop Arnost Deniv had died in Sofia in 1442, neither had been able to find any details about his final resting place. They hoped the head librarian at Alexander Nevsky would be able to point them in the right direction.

  They got out and walked into the square, following the stream of locals and tourists to the cathedral’s west side, where they mounted the steps headed toward the massive wooden doors. As they approached, a blond woman with a bobbed haircut smiled at them and said something in Bulgarian—a question, based on the inflection. They caught the word “English,” assumed the gist of the query, and repeated: “English.”

  “Welcome to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. How may I help you?” she said.

  “We would like to speak with the head of your library,” replied Remi.

  “Library?” the woman repeated. “Oh, you mean archivist?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am sorry, there is no archivist here.”

  Sam and Remi exchanged puzzled glances. Remi got out her iPad and showed the woman the PDF file Selma had sent them, a brief on Bulgaria’s Eastern Orthodox Church. Remi pointed out the passage, and the woman read it, her lips moving silently.

  “Ah,” she said sagely. “This is old information, you see. That person now works in the Palast of the Synode.”

  The woman pointed to the southeast, at a building surrounded by a copse of trees. “It is there. You go there, and they will help.”

  “And what is the Synode?” asked Sam.

  The woman slipped into tour-guide-speak: “The Synode is home to a group of Metropolitans, or Bishops, who in turn elect Patriarchs and similarly important officials of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The tradition of the Synode goes back to the days of the Apostles in Jerusalem.”

  With that, the woman smiled, and tilted her head as if to ask Is there anything else?

  Sam and Remi thanked the woman, turned around, and walked to the Palast. Once inside, and standing before the lobby information desk, they explained the reason for their visit—research for a book on the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church—and they were told to be seated. After an hour, a black-robed priest with a long salt-and-pepper beard appeared and escorted them to his office, where it quickly became clear he spoke little English, and Sam and Remi even less Bulgarian. An interpreter was summoned. They repeated their story, then produced the publisher’s letter of introduction Wendy had created for them using Photoshop. The priest listened intently as the interpreter read the letter, and he sat back and stroked his beard for a full minute before answering.

  “I am afraid we cannot help you,” the interpreter said for him. “The records you seek are not kept at the Palast. The person you spoke with at the cathedral was mistaken.”

  “Does he know where we might look next?” Sam said.

  The interpreter put the question to the priest, who pursed his lips, stroked his beard a bit more, then picked up the phone and spoke to someone on the other end. After some back and forth, he hung up. The translator told Sam and Remi,

  “Personnel records for that period are housed in the Sveta Sofia . . . I’m sorry, the Hagia Sophia Church.”

  “And where would we find that?” asked Remi.

  “Directly east of here,” the translator replied. “One hundred meters, on the other side of the square.”

  Sam and Remi were there ten minutes later, where they again waited, this time for a mere forty minutes, before being ushered into yet another priest’s office. This one spoke English very well, so they had their answer in short order: not only was the guide at Alexander Nevsky Cathedral mistaken but the priest at the Palast of Synode was as well.

  “Records prior to the first Bulgarian Exarch, Antim I, who reigned until the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War in 1787, are maintained in the Methodius.”

  Sam and Remi looked at each other, took a breath, and asked, “What exactly is the Methodius?”

  “Why, it’s the National Library of Bulgaria.”

  “And where would we find it?”

  “Just east of here, opposite the National Gallery of Foreign Art.”

  Two hours after leaving their car, Sam and Remi found themselves back standing beside it and standing across the street from the Bulgarian National Library. Without realizing it, they’d parked ten paces from their ultimate destination.

  Or so they thought.

  This time, after a mere twenty minutes with a librarian, they learned that the Methodius had no record of a Metropolitan named Arnost Deniv dying in the early fifteenth century.

  After apologizing, the librarian left them sitting alone at a reading table.

  “Our shell game with the coffins on Sazan is starting to feel like a cakewalk,” Sam said.

  “This can’t be the end,” Remi said. “We know Arnost Deniv existed. How can there be no record of him?”

  From the table beside theirs, a smooth, basso voice said, “The answer, my dear, is there are several Arnost Denivs in the history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and most of them lived prior to the Russo-Turkish War.”

  Sam and Remi turned and found themselves looking at a silver-haired man with twinkling green eyes. He gave them an easy, open smile and said, “Apologies for eavesdropping.”

  “Not at all,” Remi replied.

  The man said, “The trouble with the library is, they’re in the middle of digitizing their records. They haven’t fully cross-referenced the catalog. Consequently, if your request is not painstakingly specific, you miss the mark.”

  “We’re open to any and all advice,” Sam said.

  The man gestured for them to move to his table. Once they were seated, and he had restacked the books piled around him, he said, “As it happens, I’m working on a little history myself.”

  “Of the Eastern Orthodox Church?” asked Remi.

  The man smiled knowingly. “Among other things. My interests are . . . eclectic, I suppose you could say.”

  “Interesting that our paths would cross here,” Sam said, studying the man’s face.

  “Truth is stranger than fiction, I believe. This morning, while I was researching the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria, I came across the name Arnost Deniv—a Metropolitan from the fifteenth century.”

  Remi replied, “But the librarian said there was no—”

  “She said they had no record of a Metropolitan by that name dying during that period. The book in which I found him hasn’t been digitized yet. You see, when the Ottoman Empire—which was devoutly Muslim—conquered Bulgaria, thousands of clergy were killed. Often, those who survived were demoted or exiled, or both. This was the case with Arnost Deniv. He was quite influential, and this worried the Ottomans.”

  “In 1422, after returning from missionary work in the East, he ascended to
the level of Metropolitan, but four years later he was demoted and exiled. Under pain of death, he was ordered by the Ottomans to restrict his ministrations to the village in which he died two years later.”

  “And let me guess,” Sam said. “The Ottomans did their best to destroy much of the EOC’s history during that period.”

  “Correct,” the man said. “As far as many of the history texts of that time are concerned, Arnost Deniv was never more than a lowly priest in a tiny hamlet.”

  “Then you can tell us where he’s buried?” asked Remi.

  “Not only can I tell you that but I can show you where all his worldly possessions are on public display.”

  26

  SOFIA, BULGARIA

  Their benefactor’s instructions were simple: drive ten miles north to the town of Kutina, in the foothills of the Stara Planina Mountains. Find the Kutina Cultural History Museum, and ask to see the Deniv exhibit.

  They pulled into Kutina shortly after one in the afternoon and stopped at a café for lunch. Using cobbled-together phrases, Sam and Remi were able to get directions to the museum.

  “By the way,” Sam said as he opened the Fiat’s driver’s door, “did you get that man’s name? For the life of me, I can’t remember.”

  With her own door half open, Remi paused. Her brows furrowed. “That’s funny . . . neither can I. Something that began with a C, I think.”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, but was that his first name or his last name? Or both?”

  Having seen more than their fair share of Eastern Orthodox churches, Sam and Remi were relieved to find the museum was located in an old butter yellow farmhouse overlooking the Iskar River. On either side of the structure was lush green horse pasture.

  They parked in the museum’s gravel turnaround, got out, and climbed the porch steps. In the front door’s mullioned window was a universal “Be Back At” clock sign but in Cyrillic. The hands were pointed at two-thirty.