The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“In Lithuania,” Eric said. “It fits the path that Napoleon took, back out of Russia.”

Max frowned. “Did he get any more specific than a whole river?”

Gretchen went to another page. “It says here that they unloaded it somewhere between Vilnius and Grigiškes.”

“That does seem to narrow it down,” Juan said. “Stoney, show us the river.”

Eric put the map up on the screen. Grigiškes was practically a suburb of Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. The town was only five miles from Vilnius’s city center, but the winding river’s route doubled the distance.

“How long would it take us to search ten miles of river using a metal detector?” Juan asked.

Murph’s eyes jittered as he did the calculation in his head. “Maybe only three or four days, but it depends how much mud and silt has covered the objects in the last two hundred years.”

“Whatever Antonovich has planned,” Juan said, “it’s going down soon, so we need to get moving. Linda, tell Tiny to get the plane ready to take us to Lithuania. We need to begin the search as soon as we can. Linda, Gretchen, Trono, MacD, and I will go. Eric and Murph will stay here and continue working on the diary and column clues to see if they can narrow down the search grid.”

“We’ll also keep nosing around with those other items that Marceau mentioned before she died,” Eric said. “Polichev, zings, and lightning grid.”

Murph said, “They sound like an antidepressant, a Hostess snack, and a game show round.”

“Whatever they are,” Juan said, “I want to know why Marceau thought they were important enough to use her dying breath to get them out. In the meantime, Max, I want you to take the Oregon up to Hamburg. My gut tells me that the Achilles is part of the plan—as is something in Germany, according to Marceau—and I want to be ready to intercept that yacht if we need to.”

“And if we meet her again,” Max said, “how do we defeat them?”

Juan paused as all eyes were on him. “I’m working on that.”

“One more thing, Chairman,” Linda said. “We’re going to require a boat and scanning equipment in Lithuania. I’ll have to find a supplier. It may take a while to procure exactly what we need.”

“We may be able to get NUMA’s help on that one,” Juan said as he gave a knowing look to Gretchen. “Kurt Austin and I owe each other a favor.”

FORTY-SEVEN

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA

As their SUV crawled through the center of Lithuania’s largest city, Golov could barely contain his excitement at the possibility of seeing the fabled treasure Napoleon had spirited out of Moscow during his retreat. Normally, he wouldn’t come along on a shore mission like this, but he wanted to lay eyes on the Russian hoard before it was destroyed forever.

Much of the seven-hundred-year-old city was a winding jumble of cobblestone streets flanked by

quaint row houses that were topped with red tiles, but the area where they drove teemed with modern skyscrapers and smooth asphalt roads. It was nearly the end of the workday, and traffic was at its worst. But even if they were late, Golov was quite sure that the person they were meeting would wait.

He, Sirkal, O’Connor, and two of their former Special Forces mercenaries had arrived in Vilnius just a day after the assassination of Marie Marceau. The deception had been conceived by his daughter.

They’d had the three missing pages from Napoleon’s Diary for over a month, thanks to Maxim Antonovich’s purchase from an underground rare-documents dealer, the same one who’d sold them Polichev’s mathematical formulas a year ago that had set the Dynamo plan in motion. They’d known about the treasure and Napoleon’s St. Helena kidnapping from Delacroix’s letter, but the location of the loot had been a mystery until the pages showed up. By then, the operation to steal the diary and column from the auction in Malta were well under way, so Golov, at the time, thought that finding the treasure himself just to get rid of it was superfluous and would expose them to unnecessary risk.

He did, however, know where it was, courtesy of those three pages Napoleon had taken with him when he escaped exile. He pictured them in his mind, completely intact and pristine.

The images Ivana had loaded onto Marceau’s phone had been digitally altered with the information they wanted the Oregon crew to have. Although most of the emails were, in fact, unaltered messages that Ivana and Marceau had actually exchanged, the message about the missing pages was a complete fabrication. The elaborate ruse to convince them that the data was real counted on them thinking the assassination attempt was intended for their captain, not Marceau. Of course, Sirkal had been instructed to make it look like he missed his target. Marceau, who knew how good a shot he was, wouldn’t have realized until it was too late that she had been used.

The deception gave them time to get to Lithuania and carry out their mission to wipe out the treasure and the evidence of the formula that it held. As a side benefit, Golov got another chance to strike at the country that had ruined his career. Russia would never be reunited with the precious items that had been taken from it.

The SUV arrived at the prearranged meeting place, a coffee shop two blocks away from the glass-clad offices of the local natural gas utility, Metanas Energija. Golov, Sirkal, and O’Connor entered the shop, while the two other men stayed with the vehicle.

They all ordered drinks and sat down. Two minutes later, Robertas Kulpa entered, surveying the other customers before letting his eyes settle on Golov. He was a burly man in his forties with long sideburns and an aquiline nose that looked like it had been broken several times. He took a seat at their table without ordering.

“This is not a good place for me to meet,” Kulpa said in a low voice. “People I know from Metanas may come in.”

“That is your problem, not mine,” said Golov. “You’ve been paid well enough to take the risk. I assume you received the deposit?”

He nodded as he kept an eye on the front door. “Thirty thousand euros, just as you promised. And the other half?”