Spartan Gold

by Clive Cussler

  “We’re interested in Pietro Tradonico,” Sam said. “Do you know if he was buried on Poveglia?”

  Signora Bernardi got up, walked across the kitchen, and opened a cabinet above the sink. She pulled down what looked like a brown leather photo album and returned to the table. She opened the album and flipped to a page near the middle. Under a sheet of acetate was a yellowed sheet of paper bearing dozens of lines of handwritten notes.

  “Is that an original reference?” Remi asked.

  “Sì. This is the 1805 government census data of Poveglia. When Napoleon ordered the island annexed the government hurried to erase its checkered past.”

  “Which included the settlements established by Tradonico and his followers?”

  “Yes, those, too. According to this, Pietro Tradonico and his wife, Majella, were buried side by side on Poveglia. When they were disinterred, their bones were stored together in the same coffin then temporarily placed in the basement of the Basilica della Salute.”

  Sam and Remi exchanged a glance. Here was the solution to the riddle’s last line, Together they rest.

  “You said temporarily,” Sam said. “Does it say where the remains went after that?”

  Signora Bernardi traced her index finger down the sheet, then flipped to the next page; halfway down the next sheet she stopped. “They were taken home,” she announced.

  “Home? Where exactly?”

  “Tradonico was Istrian by birth.”

  “Yes, we know.”

  “Members of the Tradonico clan came and took the bodies to their village of Oprtalj. That’s in Croatia, you know.”

  Remi smiled. “Yes.”

  “What they did with Tradonico and his wife once they reached Peroj we don’t know. Does that answer your questions?”

  “It does,” Sam said, then stood up. Both he and Remi shook Signora Bernardi’s hand, then walked down the hall and out the front door, where she stopped them. “If you find them, please let me know. I can update my records. I doubt anyone else will ask, but at least I’ll have it written down.”

  Signora Bernardi gave them a wave, then shut the door.

  “Croatia, here we come,” Remi said.

  Sam, who had been tapping on his iPhone, now held up the screen. “There’s a flight leaving in two hours. We’ll be there for lunch.”

  Sam’s estimate was generous. As it turned out the quickest route was an Alitalia flight from Venice to Rome, then across the Adriatic to Trieste, where they rented a car and drove across the border and south to Oprtalj, some thirty miles away. They arrived in late afternoon.

  Situated atop a thousand-foot hill in the Mirna Valley, Oprtalj had a distinctly Mediterranean feel, with terra-cotta pantile roofs and sun-drenched slopes covered in vineyards and olive groves. Oprtalj’s history as an ancient medieval fort showed itself in the town’s labyrinth of cobblestone streets, portcullis gates, and tightly packed, row-style buildings.

  After stopping three times for directions, which came in either halting English or Italian, they found the town hall a few blocks east of the main road, behind the Church of Saint Juraj. They parked their car beneath an olive tree and got out and walked.

  With only 1,100 inhabitants in Oprtalj, Sam and Remi were hoping the Tradonico family name would be renowned. They weren’t disappointed. At their mention of the former Doge, the clerk nodded and drew them a map on a piece of scratch paper.

  “Museo Tradonico,” he said in passable Italian.

  The map took them north, up a hill, past a cow pasture, then down a zigzagging alley to a garage-sized building painted in peeling cornflower blue. The hand-painted sign above the door had six words, most of them in consonant-heavy Croat, but one word was recognizable: TRADONICO.

  They pushed through the door. A bell chimed overhead. To their left was an L-shaped wooden counter; directly ahead a twenty-by-twenty-foot room in white stucco and dark vertical beams. A half dozen glass display cases were situated around the room. Along the walls shelves displayed tiny sculptures, framed icons, and knickknacks. A rattan ceiling fan wobbled and creaked.

  An elderly man in wire-rimmed glasses and a tattered argyle sweater vest rose from his chair behind the counter. “Dobar dan.”

  Sam opened the Croat phrase book he’d picked up at the Trieste airport, and opened it to a dog-eared page. “Zdravo. Ime mi je Sam.” He pointed to Remi and she smiled. “Remi.”

  The man pointed a thumb at his chest. “Andrej.”

  “Govorite li Engleski?” Sam asked.

  Andrej waggled his hand from side to side. “Little English. American?”

  “Yes.” Sam nodded. “From California.”

  “We’re looking for Pietro Tradonico,” said Remi.

  “The Doge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doge dead.”

  “Yes, we know. Is he here?”

  “No. Dead. Long time dead.”

  Sam tried a different tack: “We came from Venice. From Poveglia Island. Tradonico was brought here, from Poveglia.”

  Andrej’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “Yes, 1805. Pietro and wife Majella. This way.”

  Andrej came out from behind the counter and led them to a glass case in the center of the room. He pointed to a framed wood-carved icon painted in flaking gold leaf. It showed a narrow-faced man with a long nose.

  “Pietro,” Andrej said.

  There were other items in the case, mostly pieces of jewelry and figurines. Sam and Remi walked around the case, inspecting each shelf. They looked at one another, shook their heads.

  “Are you a Tradonico?” Remi asked, gesturing to him. “Andrej Tradonico?”

  “Da. Yes.”

  Sam and Remi had discussed this next part on the plane, but hadn’t decided how to handle it. How exactly did you tell someone you wanted to gawk at their ancestor’s remains?

  “We would like to see . . . perhaps we could—”

  “See body?”

  “Yes, if it’s not an inconvenience.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  They followed him through a door behind the counter and down a short hallway to another door. He produced an old-fashioned skeleton key from his vest pocket and opened the door. A wave of cool, musty air billowed out. Somewhere they heard water dripping. Andrej reached through the door and jerked down a piece of twine. A single lightbulb glowed to life, revealing a set of stone steps descending into darkness.

  “Catacombs,” Andrej said, then started down the steps. Sam and Remi followed. The light faded behind them. After they’d descended thirty feet the steps took a sharp right and stopped. They heard Andrej’s shoes scuffing on stone, then a click. To their right a string of six bulbs popped on, illuminating a long, narrow stone passageway.

  Cut into each wall were rectangular niches, stacked one atop the other to the twenty-foot ceiling and spread down the length of the passage. In the glare of the widely spaced bulbs, most of the niches were cast in shadows.

  “I count fifty,” Sam whispered to Remi.

  “Forty-eight,” Andrej replied. “Two empty.”

  “Then not all of the Tradonico family is here?” Remi asked.

  “All?” He chuckled. “No. Too many. The rest in graveyard. Come, come.”

  Andrej led them down the corridor, occasionally pointing at niches. “Drazan . . . Jadranka . . . Grgur . . . Nada. My great-great-great-grandmother.”

  As Sam and Remi passed each niche they caught glimpses of the skeletal remains, a jawbone, a hand, a femur . . . bits of rotted cloth or leather.

  Andrej stopped at the end of the passageway and knelt at the bottom niche in the right-hand wall. “Pietro,” he said matter-of-factly, then pointed at the niche above. “Majella.” He reached into his pants pocket, withdrew a tiny flashlight, and handed it to Sam. “Please.”

  Sam clicked it on and shined it into Pietro’s niche. A skull stared back. He shined it down the length of the skeleton. He repeated the process with Majella’s niche. Just another skeleton.


  “Nothing but bones,” Remi whispered. “Then again, what were we expecting, that one of them would be holding the bottle?”

  “True, but it was worth a try.” He turned to Andrej. “When they were brought from Poveglia, was there anything else with them?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Were there any belongings?” Remi said. “Personal possessions?”

  “Yes, yes. You saw upstairs.”

  “Nothing else? A bottle with French writing on it?”

  “French? No. No bottle.”

  Sam and Remi looked at one another. “Damn,” he whispered.

  “No bottle,” Andrej repeated. “Box.”

  “What?”

  “French writing, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was box inside coffin. Small, shaped like . . . loaf of bread?”

  “Yes, that’s it!” Remi replied.

  Andrej stepped around them and walked back down the passageway. Sam and Remi hurried after him. Andrej stopped at the first niche beside the steps. He knelt down, leaned inside, rummaged about, then scooted back out with a wooden crate covered in Cyrillic stencils. It was a World War II ammunition crate.

  Andrej opened the lid. “This?”

  Lying atop folds of rotted canvas and half buried under spools of twine, rusted hand tools, and dented cans of paint was a familiar-looking box.

  “Good God,” Sam murmured.

  “May I?” Remi asked Andrej. He shrugged. Remi knelt down and carefully lifted the box out. She turned it over in her hands, inspecting each side in turn, before finally looking up at Sam and nodding.

  Sam asked, “Is there . . .”

  “Something in it? Yes.”

  CHAPTER 55

  TRIESTE, ITALY

  Sam’s iPhone trilled and he checked the screen. To Remi, he mouthed, Selma, then answered. “That’s a new record. Took you less than two hours.”

  They were sitting on the balcony at the Grand Hotel Duchi D’Aosta, overlooking the lights of the Piazza Unità d’Italia. Night had fallen and in the distance they could see the lights twinkling in the harbor.

  “We’d already decoded eleven lines of riddles and hundreds of symbols,” Selma replied. “It’s starting to feel like a second language.”

  After opening the box and confirming it did in fact contain a bottle from Napoleon’s Lost Cellar, Sam and Remi had faced a dilemma. Clearly Andrej didn’t know the value of what had been tucked away in his family’s catacombs for the past two hundred- plus years. Still, they weren’t about to give up the bottle. In truth, it didn’t belong to them or to Andrej, but to the French people; it was a part of their history.

  “This is a rare bottle of wine,” Sam told Andrej.

  “Oh?” he replied. “French, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Andrej snorted. “Napoleon disturb Tradonico grave. Take bottle.”

  “Let us give you something for it,” Remi said.

  Andrej’s eyes narrowed. He stroked his chin. “Three thousand kuna.”

  Sam did the conversion in his head. “About five hundred dollars,” he told Remi.

  Andrej’s eyes brightened behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “You have U.S. dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  Andrej stuck out his hand. “We make deal.”

  Now Selma said, “I just e-mailed the riddle.”

  “We’ll call you when we’ve got an answer.” Sam hung up and checked his e-mail. Remi scooted her chair closer and looked over his shoulder. “A long one this time,” he said.

  East of the dubr

  The third of seven shall rise

  The King of Iovis Dies

  Alpha to Omega, Savoy to Novara, Savior of Styrie

  Temple at the Conqueror’s Crossroads

  Pace east to the bowl and find the sign.

  “The first five lines fit the pattern,” Remi said, “but the last is different. They’ve never been so explicit, have they?”

  “No. This is the first time they’ve come out and said, ‘go here’ and ‘find this.’ We may be coming up on the finish line, Remi.”

  She nodded. “Let’s get cracking.”

  They started as they had before, picking from the riddle what seemed like places and names. For “dubr” they narrowed the references to two likely candidates: Ad Dubr, a village in North Yemen, and dubr, a Celtic word meaning water.

  “So something either east of Ad Dubr or east of some body of water. What’s east of Ad Dubr?”

  Sam checked Google Earth. “About eighty miles of mountains and desert, then the Red Sea. Doesn’t seem likely. Up until now all of the locations have been in Europe.”

  “I agree. Let’s move on. Try the ‘King of Iovis.’ When did he die?”

  Sam checked. “No such person. Iovis wasn’t a kingdom or a territory. Here’s something. . . . We’re grouping the words wrong—‘Iovis Dies.’ The original Latin for Thursday.”

  “King of Thursday?”

  “Jupiter,” Sam said. “In Roman mythology, Jupiter is the king of gods, like Zeus is to the Greeks.”

  Remi caught on: “Also known as the Jovian planet. So from the Latin Iovis they got Jovis, then Jovian.”

  “You got it.”

  “So try a search with ‘Jupiter,’ ‘dubr,’ ‘three,’ and ‘seven.’ ”

  “Nothing.” He added and subtracted the search terms and again came up empty. “What’s the fifth line?”

  “ ‘Temple at the Conqueror’s Crossroads.’ ”

  Sam tried “Jupiter” combined with “Conqueror’s Crossroads,” turned up nothing, then tried “Jupiter” and “temple.” “Bingo,” he muttered. “There are lots of temples dedicated to Jupiter: Lebanon, Pompeii . . . and Rome. This is it. In Rome the Capitoline Hill is dedicated to the Capitoline Triad—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. And here’s the kicker: it’s located on one of the Seven Hills of Rome.”

  “Let me guess: the third one. ‘The third of seven shall rise.’ ”

  “Yes.” Sam found an artist-rendered map of how the area would have looked during Rome’s peak. He turned the screen so Remi could see. After a few moments she smiled. “You see anything that looks familiar there?”

  “You mean other than Capitoline Hill? No.”

  “Look due west.”

  Sam traced his finger across the screen and stopped on a blue serpentine line running from north to south. “The Tiber River.”

  “And what’s the Celtic word for water?”

  Sam grinned. “Dubr.”

  “If those were the only lines to the riddle I’d say we’d need to go to Rome, but something tells me it isn’t going to be that easy.”

  Having assumed the last line—Pace east to the bowl and find the sign—would sort itself out whenever they reached their destination, they turned their focus to the fourth and fifth lines—Alpha to Omega, Savoy to Novara, Savior of Styrie / Temple at the Conqueror’s Crossroads—and spent the next two hours filling their notepads and going in circles.

  A little before midnight Sam leaned back in his chair and raked his hands through his hair. He stopped suddenly. Remi asked, “What is it?”

  “I need the biographical sketch of Napoleon—the one Selma e-mailed us.” He looked around, grabbed his iPhone from the nightstand, and called up the correct e-mail. “There,” he said. “Styrie.”

  “What about it?” She paged through her notes. “It’s a region in Austria.”

  “It was also the name of Napoleon’s horse—or at least until the Battle of Marengo in 1800. He renamed Styrie to commemorate the victory.”

  “So the ‘Savior of Styrie’ . . . someone who saved Napoleon’s horse. Are we looking for a veterinarian? Doctor Dolittle, perhaps?”

  Sam chuckled. “Probably not.”

  “Well, it’s a start. Let’s assume the two previous phrases—‘Alpha to Omega, Savoy to Novara’—have something to do with whoever did the saving. We know Savoy is a region in France and Novara is a province in Italy—”

>   “But they’ve also got a Napoleon connection,” Sam replied. “Novara was the headquarters for his Department of the Kingdom of Italy before it was given to the House of Savoy in 1814.”

  “Right. Go back to the previous phrase: ‘Alpha to Omega.’ ”

  “Beginning and end; birth and death; first and last.”

  “Maybe it’s talking about whoever ran the Department of the Kingdom of Italy first, then took over in 1814. No, that’s not right. We’re probably looking for a single name. Maybe someone who was born in Savoy and died in Novara?”

  Sam punched different terms into Google, playing with combinations. After ten minutes of this he came across an encyclical on the Vatican website. “Bernard of Menthon, born in Savoy in 923, died in Novara in 1008. He was sainted by Pope Pius XI in 1923.”

  “Bernard,” Remi repeated. “As in Saint Bernard?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know this isn’t it, but the only thing that comes to mind are the dogs.”

  Sam smiled. “You’re close. The dogs gained their notoriety from the hospice and monastery at the Grand St. Bernard Pass. We were there, Remi.”

  Three years earlier they’d stopped at the hospice during a biking trip through the Grand St. Bernard Pass in the Pennine Alps. The hospice, while best known for ministering to the injured and lost since the eleventh century, had another claim to fame: in 1800 it had offered respite to Napoleon Bonaparte and his Reserve Army on their way through the mountains toward Italy.

  “I don’t know if there are any accounts of it,” Sam said, “but it doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine a grateful Napoleon handing Styrie over to the hospice’s farriers. In the middle of a blizzard it would have seemed like salvation.”

  “It would at that,” Remi replied. “One last line: ‘Temple at the Conqueror’s Crossroads.’ Those mountains have seen their share of conquerers: Hannibal . . . Charlemagne . . . Roman legions.”

  Sam was back at the laptop typing. His query—“Jupiter,” “temple,” and “Grand St. Bernard”—returned an Oxford University article recounting an expedition to the site of the Temple of Jupiter at the summit of the pass.