Spartan Gold

by Clive Cussler

  “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 w
ay, 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.”

  “Right.” She lifted the nearest seat cushion and dug around until she found a rag, which Sam pressed to his wounds. Remi gestured tentatively toward the water. Is he . . .”

  “Gone. He didn’t give me much choice.” Sam sat up, rolled onto his knees, and stripped off his Windbreaker and sweatshirt. “Wait, the gun . . .”

  “Already got it. Here.” She handed him the revolver, then settled into the driver’s seat as Sam untied the bow line. Remi turned the ignition and the engine rumbled to life. “Hold tight.” She shoved the throttle to its stops and the speedboat surged through the doors.

  “Look for an emergency kit,” Remi said. “Maybe there’s one of those space blankets.”

  Sam checked beneath each seat cushion until he found a large tackle box. Inside, as Remi had predicted, he found a rolled-up silver Mylar sheet. He unrolled it, draped it around him, then settled into the passenger seat.

  Later Sam wouldn’t remember hearing the sound of the other engine over the roar of their own—only seeing the white wedge of the speedboat’s bow emerging from the mist to his left and the orange firefly winks of Kholkov’s gun.

  “Remi, hard right!”

  To her credit, Remi reacted instantly and without question, spinning the wheel over. The boat slewed sideways. Kholkov’s bow, which had been aimed directly at Sam’s passenger seat, glanced off the hull and slid over the gunwale. Already ducking, Sam jerked his head sideways and felt the fiberglass hull skim over his hair. Kholkov’s bow crashed through the corner of the windscreen, shattering glass and twisting aluminum, then crashed back down into the water. Sam caught a glimpse of the boat arcing away to the left.

  From the floorboards, Sam asked, “Remi, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. You?”

  “Yes. Turn hard left, go for five seconds, then shut off the engine.”

  Again Remi asked no questions and did as Sam asked. She throttled down, shut off the ignition, and the boat glided through the water until finally stopping. They sat in silence, the boat gently rocking from side to side.

  Sam whispered, “He’ll circle back. He’ll assume we kept going in the same direction for a while.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Natural instinct to panic and run directly away from him.”

  “How many bullets do we have in that thing?”

  Sam pulled the revolver from his belt. It was a five-shot Smith & Wesson .38. “Two gone, three left. When we hear him off to our right, head left toward the shoreline. Go as fast as you can for thirty seconds, then throttle down again.”

  “Another hunch?”

  Sam nodded. “That we’ll run straight for Schönau.”

  “We’ll have to eventually. It’s either that or we hike for three days through the mountains in this snowstorm.”

  Sam smiled. “Or plan C. I’ll explain later. Shhh. You hear that?”

  Moving from left to right off their bow came the sound of an engine. After a few moments the pitch changed, echoing off the shoreline.

  “Go!” Sam rasped.

  Remi started the engine, jammed the throttle forward, and swung the boat to port. They drove for a count of thirty, then throttled back down and coasted to a stop. It was silent save the lapping of waves on the boat’s hull. The wind had slackened to an almost dead calm; fat snowflakes began piling up on the gunwales and seats.

  “What’s he doing?” Remi whispered.

  “Same thing we are. Listening. Waiting.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s a soldier; he’s thinking like one.”

  Directly astern, perhaps two hundred yards distant, they heard an engine revving. Remi’s hand moved to the throttle. Sam said, “Not yet.”

  “He’s close, Sam.”

  “Wait.”

  Kholkov’s engine kept coming, closing the distance. Sam pointed astern and to their left, then held his index finger to his lips. Barely visible through the falling snow, a ghostly, elongated shape glided past. They could see a man-shaped silhouette standing behind the wheel. Kholkov’s head pivoted left and right. Sam raised the revolver and took aim, tracking the boat until it faded from view. After ten seconds Remi let out a breath and said, “I can’t believe he missed us.”

  “He didn’t. It was barely noticeable, a little pause when he turned this way, but he saw us. He’ll double back now. Reverse engines. Take us backward—slowly. Quiet as you can.”

  Remi did so. After they’d covered fifty feet Sam whispered, “Slow ahead. Angle us back toward shore.” He grabbed the eight-foot boat hook from its mount below the gunwale and peered through the mist. To their left he heard water lapping on rocks. “Okay, shut it down,” he told Remi. “Ease right.”

  She did so.

  Silence.

  Off the beam the fuzzy, conical outline of a pine tree appeared, then another. Branches stretched out toward them like skeletal fingers. Sam snagged a larger limb with the boat hook, dragged them to a stop, and hauled until the hull bumped against the bank. The snow-laden boughs formed a canopy over their heads, drooping to within a foot of the lake’s surface. Sam knelt beside the gunwale and peeked through the branches. Remi joined him.

  From ahead and to the right came the revving of an engine. After ten seconds it stopped. A moment later, their boat started wallowing as Kholkov’s bow wake reached them.

  “Any second now,” Sam whispered. “Be ready to move.”

  As if on cue, forty feet away Kholkov’s boat drifted past, heading back toward the church docks. His engine was gurgling softly, just above idle. Then he was gone, lost in the snow.

  “He didn’t see us,” Remi whispered.

  “Not this time. Okay, let’s move. Follow him. Five seconds of low throttle, ten seconds of glide.”

  Remi got back into the driver’s seat and they pulled out from under the boughs, came about, and fell into Kholkov’s wake.

  For the next twenty minutes they continued their glide-and-throttle headway, always keeping Kholkov’s engine noise directly on their bow, going silent when he did, moving only when his engine resumed. Their progress was slow, covering less than fifty feet at a time. Saint Bartholomae’s docks drifted by on their right, the red-roofed onion domes seemingly floating in midair.

  Directly off their bow Kholkov’s engine spooled up and began arcing away to the left. Sam gestured for Remi to ease right, back toward shore. “Slow and easy.” Kholkov’s engine noise was moving toward the center of the lake.

  “Cut the engines,” Sam whispered, and Remi did so.

  “He thinks we’re hiding out or heading back to Schönau, doesn’t he?” she asked.

  Sam nodded. “He’ll set up an ambush somewhere to the north. Unfortunately for him, we’re not going to play his game.”

  The minutes slipped by. Five turned into ten, then into twenty. Finally Sam said, “Okay, let’s keep going. Follow the shoreline south. Keep it just above an idle.”

  “Something tells me that warm brandy is going to have to wait.”

  “Would you settle for a roof over your head and a cozy campfire?”

  CHAPTER 51

  HOTEL SCHÖNE AUSSICHT GRÖSSINGER, SALZBURG

  Message from Evelyn Torre
s,” Remi said, sitting down on the king-sized bed and kicking off her shoes. “Just a ‘call me.’ She sounded excited, though. She lives for this stuff.”

  “First that brandy I promised you, then Evelyn,” Sam said.

  “We’re going to need clothes and essentials.”

  “Brandy, Evelyn, sleep, then shopping.”

  Since eluding Kholkov on the Königssee, they’d been awake and on the move for over twenty-eight hours. Heading south along the shoreline at a snail’s pace, they reached the Obersee’s Salet docks an hour later and disembarked. Sam opened the boat’s scuttle cock, waited until a foot of water was sloshing on the deck, then pointed the bow toward the center of the lake and eased the throttle forward a notch. It disappeared into the snow.

  Remi said, “We haven’t exactly been low-impact tourists, have we?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said with a wink. “We’ll make an anonymous donation to the Saint Bartholomae’s Historical Society. They can buy a fleet of speedboats.”

  From the docks they followed the gravel path inland for a half mile, then across the land bridge to the mouth of the Obersee proper, where they found another boathouse similar to the one at Saint Bartholomae’s. This one, however, had an adjacent warming room. Inside they stripped down to their underwear, draped their clothes over coat hooks on the wall, and then found a kerosene lantern around which they huddled until nightfall when Sam started a small fire in the woodstove. They spent the remainder of the night curled together around the stove then rose at eight thirty, donned their clothes, and waited for the day’s first boatload of tourists. They intermingled themselves with the crowds, strolled about for a few hours, and kept their ears tuned for any discussion of gunshots the previous day or a floating body having been found in the lake. They heard nothing. At noon they took the boat back to Schönau.

  Once ashore they decided to err on the side of slight paranoia and not return to the hotel; nor would they use their rental car. Watchful for Kholkov and his men, they ducked into the nearest gift shop, then out the back door into the alley. For twenty minutes they picked their way away from Schönau’s waterfront until they found a café on a secluded side street, where they called Selma.