Gold of Kings (34 page)

H
ARRY ATTACKED THE ROCK FACE
with all his might. Emma worked one side of the fish, he the other. He tried to keep the carving intact, though as his frustration grew he was tempted to batter it into oblivion. They kept firm grips upon the rock face, because Harry had serious doubts that the hooks holding his support line would hold. He had not found any pitons in Kyrenia. So he had bought the longest nails he could find, hammered them partway in, then bent them so he had something to knot the rope around. It was there for an emergency only. And to hold him when his fingers cramped and he had to take a moment's break. Like now.

He said, “I think maybe I've found a seam.”

Emma shifted over a notch. “Like a natural rock seam, or one between stones?”

“I can't tell yet. If it's our spot, the stones were wedged in there supertight.” He ran his hand over the face. “Of course, there's a real good chance we've got it totally wrong and we're wearing ourselves out for nothing.”

“This is the right island and this is the right place. I took aim through the sights, the same as you.” She patted the fish, now framed by raw chip marks. “And this baby is set into the only flat space on the whole hill.”

Storm called up from below, “Why don't you two go get a room and let a girl do some real work?”

Harry hammered until his shoulder threatened to fall off, then shifted to his other hand. Overhead, the morning never got a solid start. Clouds rolled in with the sunrise. The longer he worked, the thicker and gloomier grew the overcast. A stiff wind pushed in from the northeast, jamming the covering ever closer to earth.

Then it happened.

One minute he was pounding solid rock. His neck and shoulder and arm and fingers all shrieked for him to stop. The next, the rock just fell away. Into nothing.

Harry's pain vanished instantly. He levered his hammer into the hole, wrenched with all his might, and another stone fell away. “Got your flashlight?”

Emma was already sliding her hammer into her belt. She flicked on the light and shined it through the widening hole.

“Will somebody up there tell me what's going on?”

Harry drew his head back out of the hole, looked down, and said, “We're in.”

 

STORM REMAINED AT THE BASE.
The line she held was cinched around a Jet Ski's steering console. Emma sat on the opening's ledge, ready to pull up the line and drop whatever Harry found down to Storm.

Harry slid his other leg over, ready to descend. “I should have brought another rope.”

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Ready?”

“I've been ready for this all my life.”

Even so, Harry took his time, raking his light over the interior walls, mapping his way down. “Okay, here we go.”

Emma kept tension on the rope now lashed to his waist. But her position was too precarious for him to use her as a mainstay unless there was an emergency. Thankfully the interior wall was uneven enough to offer a multitude of handholds.

About midway down, Harry jerked at a low booming sound. “What was that?”

Emma's voice rolled about the stone interior. “Thunder.”

The first flecks of rain struck his upturned face. “You okay?”

“Don't worry about me, Harry.”

Another dozen handholds into his descent, the rain was steady and drenching. The rocks he held grew increasingly slick. He took as firm a hold as he could manage, pulled the flashlight from his pocket, and took a long look down. “Emma!”

“Here!”

“I'm about twenty feet from the bottom. The interior face is slick like glass. There looks to be a sandy bottom. I'm going to jump.”

“Is it safe?”

“Better than falling. Give me slack.”

When the rope loosened, Harry released his grip and dropped.

The bottom was fine as silt. Harry rolled and came up on the rock wall.

“Harry!”

“I broke my light.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, except I can't see anything.”

Emma's light flashed on. “Here's mine. Ready?”

“Go.”

The light fell, illuminating what Harry had seen up top. The chamber was shaped like a pipe about fifteen feet wide. He caught the light and studied the cave more closely. No shelves, no markings, nothing except the soft sand bottom.

He searched and searched, plowing furrows into the sand with his pick. The rain fell so heavy it filled the chamber with a constant sibilant rush.

Emma called, “Storm wants to know what's happening.”

Harry lowered himself to his haunches. The weariness and the cold and the utter futility left him hollow.

It happened all the time in this game. Searching and hunting and coming agonizingly close. Finally finding the key, the last remaining clue. Opening the door, expecting the big one, the lifetime find. Only to discover he'd been beaten out. By a century, by an hour. The result was the same. Harry shaped the words with his mouth,
it's empty
. But he didn't have the strength to make a sound.

Then he realized, “Something's not right.”

“Harry?”

He stepped around the perimeter. Water kept falling. And
water kept moving out
. None was collecting in the bottom. The ground was muddy, but nothing more.

Harry dropped to his hands and knees and started chipping his way around the base. He plinked the stone over and over and over and…

Hit air.

This time he could use both hands to grip. He swung the pick so wildly he shouted through each chop.

The entire wall crumbled. One moment he was hitting immovable stone. The next he faced a narrow opening about three feet high. Harry crouched and shined his light through. And cried out loud.

“
Harry!
”

His light did a crazy dance over the glittering gold, the temple painting on the opposite wall. The golden pipe folded into a trunk-sized unit.

A woman kept shrieking his name.

Harry turned his face to the rain. Some of the drops on his face were frigid, others so hot they burned.

He said, “Get ready to haul up treasure!”

T
HEY SLIPPED THE TREASURE INTO
the three sleeping bags and lashed them onto the sleds. Every time one sled or the other became stuck on the return journey, all three of them gathered and coaxed the sled over the obstacle. The rain fell and fell. Harry's vision was down to a few feet. The water's surface was clouded by dimples, another reason they got stuck so often. Harry forced himself to take it slow, even when his mind screamed with the urge to get away, get clear, get gone.

Harry's plan was simple in the extreme. Pull the sleds across the eighty miles to Turkey. Hug the shoreline until they found a truly desolate spot. Which Harry figured wouldn't be all that tough. The Anatolian coast was rugged, wild, and vastly underpopulated. All he needed was a place that would stay unnoticed for the two days it would take him to hire a larger vessel and return. Then he would put off for some isolated stretch of sea and wait for a seaplane with a trusted pilot.

Once they were beyond the rocks, they were under way. Harry was tempted to shout his plans across to the ladies. Suggest they work on a map and mark the spot with an X. But neither Storm nor Emma appeared much in the mood for laughs.

Not that he could blame them.

What Harry had not counted on was the tempest. The wind built to
gale force. The rain felt a degree or so above freezing and struck them like ice bullets. They throttled back to one-third power. The sleds were so heavy they acted like sea anchors, dragging and tugging and fighting the waves. Their forward progress was slow and jerky. The Jet Ski motors weren't made for this kind of going, waves lashed and constantly yanked backward by the sleds' weight. Harry's greatest worry, even larger than the very real prospect of hypothermia, was that one of the Jet Skis would lose power. If a sled sank there was no way he could mark the place. But there was also no way for them to turn around. Other than Cyprus, if they ran with the wind the next nearest landfall was Lebanon, the last place on earth Harry wanted to land with a boatload of gold.

Every time the rain let up enough for him to get a decent look, the ladies were shivering harder. But stopping was no good. There was no place for them to take cover. Even if he lashed the two Jet Skis together, the waves could swamp them. His only hope was for a break in the weather. Until then, they had to just keep going.

Out of nowhere, a ghost ship appeared ahead of them. At least, that was how it first seemed to Harry—a vague shadow etched in the rain and lashing wind. He figured it for a fishing boat. But then he saw the superstructure and was gripped by an old familiar dread. It was a patrol vessel. Of which country scarcely mattered.

He shouted, “Scramble left!”

Then a megaphone blasted through the storm, loud and clear enough for the man's voice to carry a familiar accent. “We have you in our sights, Mr. Bennett. Heave to.”

T
HE VESSEL REMAINED BROADSIDE TO
the storm, granting the winch operator calm seas off her lee side. Harry stayed on deck until both sleds and then the Jet Skis were safely on board. He watched the armed guards stow his treasure in the aft hold, lock the portal, then post a guard. Harry stayed well away from both the soldiers and the women. He needed time to seal his emotions in tight. And to scope out the situation, which Harry decided looked somewhere between grim and hopeless.

Hakim Sundera had brought an entire army. The ship was about 150 feet long, heavy at the beam, steady even in these seas. A pair of inflatable pursuit vessels were lashed to the aft holds. The foredeck held a pair of cannons on swivel bases. Harry spotted the NATO shield on some of the foul-weather gear. The soldiers were pros. They treated Harry as both a guest and a suspect, keeping two armed men between him and the treasure at all times.

When he entered the pilot's cabin, Hakim Sundera greeted him with a towel and a steaming mug. Harry ignored both. He stepped over to where Emma cowered in the corner. She looked so miserable he wanted to crush her to his chest and say he'd do his best to make it all better. Which, given the circumstances, was not going to happen.

He had no choice but to face the facts. The treasure had been his for all of about three hours.

Harry said to Emma, “You gave me your word.”

Storm replied softly, “She kept it.”

He gaped. “You sold us out?
You?
”

“It was the only way to save you. Hakim located the prison where you were being held. He arranged for me to borrow that truck.” Storm bore the look of having already been whipped bloody. She watched him in utter submission, her fractured gaze saying she had already called herself everything he could come up with and more. “But I had to agree to this.”

When he started to turn away, Storm gripped his arm. “Sean didn't sacrifice his life to this for you to make a killing!”

Her fingers felt like a branding iron on his skin. “Let go of my arm.”

She only held on more fiercely. “It's been staring me in the face all along, but I only saw it last night. There were never two quests, Harry. They were always one and the same. That was why Sean wouldn't let go.”

This time, when he jerked away, she released her hold. But her fractured voice and eyes held him fast. Storm said, “Sean was a man of treasure and a man of faith, and this quest took just such a man. Remember what I said that night in Kyrenia? I want to hold to his legacy.
All
of it, Harry. My grandfather was murdered by people who'd take these sacred relics and use them as just another weapon. If you put them on the market, they would become just another prize. Sean was after something much greater here!”

Harry turned and fled the pilot's station, chased by Storm's words: “Sean trusted us to do the same!”

 

HARRY SHOWERED AND SHAVED IN
the crew's quarters. Hakim found him in the general mess, dressed in trainee sweats and chowing on meat loaf, potatoes, and regulation navy ketchup gravy.

Hakim recharged Harry's mug and slipped into the booth beside him. And waited.

Harry asked, “How did you track us?”

“I instructed Storm to phone a certain number, one that tied her to an ultra-secret GPS service. The service is used by intelligence agents on clandestine missions. It acts as a homing beacon, precise to half a meter.” Hakim Sundera was not so much small as intensely compact. Even his gaze carried a tensile strength. “You must not condemn Storm, Harry. She is an extremely wise woman who made the right choice at a harrowing time. If she had not agreed to my terms, you would be most extremely dead by now.”

Harry shoved his plate aside.

“Shall I tell you what is already in the process of happening?”

“As in, to my treasure?”

“A Professor Morgenthal at Georgetown University, whom I believe you have met, is making arrangements on your behalf. I cannot be involved in these negotiations, as officially I am not here. But I understand Professor Morgenthal is proving a very tough bargainer. Your treasure is to become the centerpiece of the renovated UN headquarters in New York. This renovation will not be completed for another six years. In the meantime, the treasure will be on exhibition at several major museums. To take part, the museums must come up with a substantial payment. In cash. Which you will all share. Your and Ms. Syrrell's names will feature prominently. Ms. Webb has refused the honor, for reasons I am sure—”

“It's my treasure.”

Hakim sighed. “I will share a secret with you, Harry. Between friends. Once my role in all this is discovered, there are many among my own people who will call me a traitor. To give up this Jewish treasure is to relinquish a major bargaining tool. Which is why, I am certain, your attackers remained on your trail. The Israelis will work through the international courts and eventually their claims will be accepted. In the meantime, I chose the United Nations, a bastion of peace and not war, as the holder and the arbiter.”

Hakim leaned over the table, closing the distance between them. “What Storm told you is the utter and brilliant truth, Harry. This find will become one of the beacons by which this century will be remembered. It may well prove the fulcrum through which lasting peace in the Middle East is finally established. Do you truly believe that such arti
facts should ever appear on the open market? This is more than treasure, Harry. This is
hope.
Even I, an Arab and a Muslim, can recognize this. And so should you.”

Harry slid from the booth and stood. “I'd be grateful if you'd drop me at your next port of call.”