Clive Cussler - Spartan Gold

“Let’s go left first.”

They dragged the guard through the door, dropped him on the landing, then descended the steps, hunched over so they could scan the corridor ahead. They saw no blinking green camera lights. They kept going.

After thirty feet the corridor ended at an oaken door bearing a gold plaque embossed in Cyrillic lettering. While neither of them read Russian, the style of the plaque suggested its context: PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. The knob, too, was gold. Sam tried it. Unlocked. He swung it open.

Another circular room, this one thirty feet in diameter and pan eled in polished and center-cut burled walnut. The floor was covered in what looked to be a handwoven Turkish rug.

“That’s a Dosemealti,” Remi whispered.

“Pardon me?”

“The rug. It’s a Dosemealti—they’re woven by Yoruk nomads. Extremely rare and extremely expensive. I read an article about them last month. In every square yard of that thing are almost two hundred thousand hand-stitched knots.”

“Impressive.”

“Yes, but something tells me it’s not the prize of this room.”

“No kidding.”

Spaced every few feet along the curved walls were gleaming glass cases, each containing yet another piece of militaria displayed on a marble pedestal. The room was dark save a single halogen lamp mounted inside each case. Unlike the Sword Room, however, the decor here made it clear this collection was for Bondaruk’s eyes only. Any remaining doubt about this was quashed by the high-backed leather chair sitting in the exact center of the room.

“It has a distinctly thronelike feel, doesn’t it?” Sam asked.

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

They split up, each strolling along a wall, studying each piece in turn. “Here’s something called a gerron ,” Sam said over his shoulder, stopping before a case displaying a tall, oval shield made of wicker and leather. “Used by Persian troops.”

“I’ve got a Persian sword over here,” Remi replied from across the room. “An akinakes , it’s called. It was carried by Persian Immortals of the Achaemenid Dynasty.”

“Looks like we have a theme going. I’ve got a sagaris over here. A Persian battle-ax—also from the Achaemenid Dynasty.”

They continued their tour, each reading aloud from the placards as they went. Shields, spears, daggers, long bows . . . all from the ancient Persian Achaemenid Dynasty of Xerxes I.

“I think someone’s got a fetish,” Remi said as they met back near the door.

“I agree,” Sam replied. “Unless I miss my guess, we may have just found the Bondaruk skeleton we’ve been looking for.”

“Maybe, but that begs the question: What does any of this have to do with Napoleon’s Lost Cellar?”

They made their way back to the blue-carpeted rotunda. Remi crouched by the right-hand door, pulled it open, and took another peek. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Sam said, then quickly explained. “Once I go in, if the camera stops panning, close the door and find a place to hide. It might mean they’ve seen something and guards are on the way.”

“What about you?”

“You worry about you. I’ll be right on your heels.”

They switched places at the door. Sam waited until the camera had panned fully to the right, then dropped to his belly and slithered through the door. He rolled right until his back touched the wall, then crawled along it to the next door.

Now he could hear the faint whirring of the camera’s pivot motor. Remi, once again kneeling beside the door, tapped the floor twice with her fingernail: Camera away. Slowly, Sam turned his head until he could see through the glass. He checked the ceiling and walls above the computer workstations for cameras; he saw none. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the camera panning back toward him. Remi tapped her fingernail once— Camera coming —and he ducked down.

Five seconds passed. Remi tapped twice. Sam reached up and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. He rolled left and got to his knees, careful to keep his head below the glass. He waited until Remi gave him the all-clear double tap again, then turned the knob, pushed open the door, crawled through, and shut it behind him. Three seconds later he was standing pressed against the wall below the camera. He gave her a thumbs-up. Fifteen seconds later she was through both doors and standing beside him.

The control room was twice as big as the alcove. Under the half-glass wall was a long white melamine desk holding two computer towers and twenty-four-inch LCD displays. Fifteen feet down the wall against which they stood was the other door.

Sam tapped his ear, pointed to the camera, then to himself: Might have microphone; will check. Remi nodded her understanding.

Synchronizing his movements with the camera’s panning, Sam ducked first left, then right, rising up on his tiptoes so he could get a clear view of the camera.

“No sound,” he told Remi. “I’ll check the door. You say go.”

They waited, watching the camera pivot above their heads.

“Go.”

Sam slid left down the wall, checked the doorknob, found it unlocked, then slid back. “Our luck is holding,” he said.

“That’s what makes me nervous.”

The camera’s panning speed didn’t leave them enough time to open the next door, peek through, then either pull back or keep going.

“We’ll have to take our chances and risk it,” Sam said.

“I know.”

“Ready?”

She took a deep breath, let it out, then nodded.

They watched the camera, waiting for it to swing fully away, then dashed down the wall, opened the door, and stepped through.

CHAPTER 40

They were greeted by the blinding glare of white light. Before their eyes could adjust, a Scottish-accented voice said, “Hey, who are you? What are you—”

Hand held before his eyes, Sam jerked the Glock up and pointed it toward the voice. “Hands up!”

“Okay, okay, for God’s sake, don’t shoot me.”

Their eyes adjusted. They were in a laboratory clean room, painted all white save the floor, which was covered in white antistatic, antimicrobial rubber tiles. In the center of the space was a twelve-by-six-foot worktable surrounded by rolling stools. On the shelves and tables was, Sam estimated, a quarter-million dollars’ worth of restoration equipment, including autoclaves, glass-fronted refrigeration units, two Zeiss stereomicroscopes, a polarized fluorescence microscope, and a handheld XRF (X-ray fluorescence) device. On the table’s Formica surface rested what looked like pieces from Bondaruk’s war collection—a broken spear handle, a double-sided ax head, a tarnished and bent Civil War cavalry sword. A triangle of articulated stainless steel halogen lamps shined down from the ceiling.

The man who stood before them was short and bald save a fringe of orange hair above his ears. He was dressed in a knee-length white lab coat. From behind a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses his eyes were comically magnified.

“Well, that’s a familiar sight,” Remi said, pointing.

Projected on one of the monitors was a piece of cracked leather bearing a grid of symbols.

“Eureka,” Sam muttered. Then he said to the man, “Who are—”

Even as the words left Sam’s mouth the man spun and began sprinting toward the far wall—heading for, Sam realized, the red mushroom-shaped panic button mounted there.

“Stop!” Sam shouted, to no effect. “Damn it!”

Behind him, Remi was moving. She leaped forward, snatched the spear handle from the table, and hurled it sidearm. It spun through the air in a flat arc and smacked the man behind the knees. Arm already outstretched for the button, he grunted and pitched forward. His head slammed into the wall with a dull thud just below the button. He slid face-first to the floor, unconscious.

Sam, eyes wide, his gun still raised, stared at her. She looked back at him and offered a shrug and a grin. “I used to toss a baton when I was a kid.”

“It shows. Bet you’re hell in a horseshoe pit.”

“Hope I didn’t kill him. Oh, God, I didn’t kill him, did I?”

Sam walked over, knelt down, and rolled the man onto his back. Protruding from his forehead was a purple egg-shaped lump. Sam checked for a pulse. “He’s just down for a long nap. He’ll have a headache for a few days but nothing else.”

Remi was standing before the monitor displaying the symbol grid. “You think it’s the bottle from Rum Cay?” she asked.

“I sure hope so. If not, that means Bondaruk’s got more than one bottle. Look around, see if it’s here.”

They checked the humidity-control cabinets, the refrigerators, and the drawers beneath the worktable, but found no sign of either the bottle or the label.

“It’s probably a digital image,” Remi said, studying the monitor. “See the edge there, on the left? It looks color enhanced.”

“As much as I’d like to get the bottle away from Bondaruk, this might be all we need. See if you can print—” Sam stopped talking and cocked his head. “You hear that . . . ? Oh, crap.” He pointed.

In the corner, partially hidden from view by a cabinet, was a wall-mounted video camera. It stopped panning, the lens aimed directly at them.

“Company’s coming,” Remi said.

“Quick, check the keyboard, see if you can print us a screen capture of the label!”

As Remi started tapping on the keyboard, Sam sprinted to the corner, grabbed the feed wire beneath the camera, and jerked it loose. Next he ran to the door, flipped off the lights, and returned to Remi, who said, “Got it!” and tapped a key. The laser printer’s lights blinked green and it hummed to life.

From the control room they heard a door bang open, then shut, then open again. Footsteps clicked on linoleum, then went silent.

“Down,” Sam whispered, then dropped onto his belly and pulled Remi with him. “Stay here and grab that printout.” He crawled down the short side of the table and peeked his head out.

At the door, the knob was slowly turning. He extended the Glock and took aim.

The laser printer started rhythmically humming.

“Printing,” Remi whispered.

The door burst open, revealing a figure silhouetted by the control room’s LCD monitors. Sam fired once. The bullet struck the man in the calf just below the knee. He screamed and toppled forward. His weapon—a compact Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun—bounced across the rubber floor and landed a few feet from Sam. In the control room he heard a hushed voice bark something—a curse, Sam assumed from the tone—in Russian. The man Sam shot was whimpering and crawling back toward the door.

“Got it!” Remi called. “Detail’s perfect. We can use it.”

“Come around,” Sam whispered. She crawled around the corner and tapped his ankle. “Here.” Sam turned, handed her the Glock, and said, “When I say go, fire three shots through the door. Aim for the glass wall.”

“Okay.”

Sam got to his knees, took a breath. “Go!”

Remi popped up and started firing. Glass began shattering. Sam somersaulted out from behind the table, veered left, grabbed the MP5, then scuttled back to cover.

“What’re they waiting for?” Remi asked.

“Reinforcements or better weaponry would be my guess. We need to get out of here before either arrives.”

As if on cue, a hand appeared around the edge of the door and hurled something. The object bounced off the side of the table, hit the rubber floor, then came to a spinning rest.