The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“Which is?” Juan asked impatiently.

“I’m texting it to you now.”

Moments later, the phone dinged with the message.

Cata_om__s Cath__r_l_ Vi__ius.

“It’s the best I could do. I think it’s supposed to spell out ‘Catacombes Cathédrale Vilnius.’ The Vilnius Cathedral is in the center of the city, practically right next to the Neris River, and there’s extensive catacombs underneath it.”

Juan grimaced at being deceived. Marceau was just a pawn. She was killed simply as a diversion, to make him believe the information that had been planted on her phone. And he had been manipulated into wasting his time looking in the wrong place.

“We’re on our way there,” Juan said, then yelled up to Trono, “Mike! You’re going to test your power racing skills after all.”

“Really?” Trono called back with glee.

“I want to be in Vilnius as soon as you can get us there. Gun it.”

FIFTY

Piles of bricks littered the floor in three different locations where Golov and his men had removed them to reveal nothing more than the stone that formed the bedrock beneath the cathedral. But in the fourth spot he had chosen the demolition hammer punched through three layers of brick and mortar into a hollow space behind the wall. It had taken them another hour to pull enough bricks down to open a hole large enough for them to walk through and now Golov took the first step inside.

His flashlight illuminated a vault at least sixty feet long and forty feet wide. It was stacked six feet high with objects. Only a central aisle the width of a car remained accessible.

O’Connor passed him two high-powered work lights mounted on stands and Golov placed them so that they flanked either side of the aisle. When he turned them on, he gasped at the magnificent treasure that lay before him.

The entire wealth of nineteenth-century Moscow that hadn’t been taken or burned by the Russians in their frantic retreat before Napoleon’s army was crammed into this one room. The first item Golov noticed near the entrance was the gilded cross from the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the tallest building in the Kremlin. It was the most famous item thought to be part of the treasure hoard and yet it lay on its side as if it were tossed there in haste. The gold leaf was just as bright as it had been over two hundred years ago when it was sealed in its hiding place.

The heaviest objects lay closest to the front, including at least a dozen ancient cannons, crates brimming with tarnished silver housewares, and iron boxes. He used a crowbar to open one and found it full of antique weapons dating back to the Gothic period. The next box he opened was only half full, but that’s because it was filled with gold jewelry that outweighed the steel weapons.

Golov imagined the soldiers hiding this hoard, exhausted from their retreat through the frigid Russian winter, many having survived on nothing more than moldy bread and horsemeat they could scavenge from fallen animals. They would have carried the heaviest items only as far as they needed to, putting the lighter objects to the rear, before completing the arduous task of bricking up the entrance so that it would be virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the catacombs.

Now Golov had his chance to make sure that none of Alexei Polichev’s formulas had survived and fallen into Napoleon’s hands. If they were still here, he had to either retrieve them or destroy them.

Sirkal was the next into the room and surveyed the cache stoically. He walked with a measured pace behind Golov. He understood that the treasure in this chamber was nothing more than a stepping-stone to their true objective.

O’Connor and Jablonski, however, whooped it up as they came through and saw the riches before them. O’Connor scooped up a handful of gold jewelry to stuff in his pocket when Golov barked, “Put that back.”

“Nobody’s going to miss it,” O’Connor protested.

“You can buy all the gold you want when we’re done with Dynamo. I don’t want this to turn into a scavenging free-for-all. We’re here for a purpose.”

“Fine,” O’Connor grumbled. He tossed the jewelry back in the box.

Golov walked to the end of the aisle, scanning the crates and boxes for any sign of something from Moscow State University. He got to the dim end of the chamber without seeing anything that stood out. Relieved, he turned on his heel and walked past Sirkal, who had paused three-quarters of the way in.

Golov stopped next to him. “What is it?”

Sirkal pointed at something near the wall. “There’s an illustration that looks like the one Ivana showed us. It seems to be a seal or a logo.”

Golov never would have seen what the taller Indian had spotted. He climbed onto a crate and shined his flashlight in the direction Sirkal was pointing.

There it was. The old seal of Moscow State University. It was blackened at the edges but readable. The seal was affixed to the side of a leather trunk, which was also charred but intact.

“Bring

it out here,” Golov instructed. Sirkal and O’Connor hauled the trunk back to the aisle, where they set it down in front of Golov. The trunk was latched but unlocked.

Golov knelt and worked to unclasp the latches. The brass fittings had corroded shut over the centuries, so it took several strikes of his hammer to free them.