Russo had built the campsite inside the hollowed-out tower. Above, snow and wind whipped across a pair of high windows, fierce enough to draft the smoke outward like a chimney.
Though they were exposed to the blizzard beyond the bunker’s main door, the enclosed walls of the tower helped trap in the heat. It had grown so warm that the group had shed their parkas. All their faces shone ruddy from the fire.
Dinner had also been shared. Sausages, hard cheese, and bread. In addition, Russo had brought forth a bottle of wine. Even Sharyn took a splash in the tin cup from Laurent’s camping gear.
Russo finally stood up. “I need to feed Katch, if he’ll eat.” She grabbed a plastic container from her pack. “Raw meat. Best to do it from a distance as it whets his bloodlust. I’ll take him down a level just in case.”
Once the woman left with the cat, Sharyn broached the subject she had raised earlier, keeping her voice low and turning to Laurent. “What exactly happened in Libya? What lessons did theGardienslearn during the recovery of the cache of gold coins?”
Laurent drained his cup. “Foremost, we learnednotto discount the cunning of theConfrérie.”
“Who stole the treasure from under you,” Duncan said.
“Yes. While we were transporting the gold out of Africa. The Brotherhood somehow gleaned word of what was aboard our cargo ship. It was raided in the Mediterranean, and the ship hauled to Italy, where Axis forces eventually commandeered the bulk of the ancient coins.”
Duncan frowned. “And you don’t know what happened to it afterward.”
“Throughout the war, the Nazis stole priceless art and treasures, then as the Reich fell, they shipped everything off by truck, boat, and train.” Laurent shrugged. “We believe the gold ended up in Poland, where it later vanished. Either buried somewhere out there or maybe stolen in turn by the Russian army as it swept through the country.”
Duncan remembered similar stories told to him by his grandfather. Of jewelry, art, currency, gold—all confiscated by the Germans. Most of it stolen from the Jewish people. Additionally, countless cultural artifacts had been removed from occupied countries. It all got whisked away. Gold was melted into bullion. Relics and artwork cloaked behind forged documentation. The treasures ended up being hidden in mines, castles, and bank vaults.
“But going back to your story,” Sharyn pressed Laurent, “how were the coins found? You said theGardiensdeciphered the location from the First Adage, like we did the Second.”
“Indeed.”
Duncan pictured his grandmother’s smiling face. “Using tools devised by the cryptographers at Bletchley Park.”
Laurent nodded. “The site was located in central Libya. About eight hundred kilometers from the coast. Within the spread of a massive dormant volcanic field called the Haruj, which covers forty thousand square kilometers. Large enough to be visible from space.”
Archie winced. “That’s a lot of territory to search.”
“The decryption of the First Adage pointed to a corner of this prehistoric flow, where it had shattered into deep chasms and eroded canyons, an area the Bedouins and other desert peoples eventually used as a mining site. My grandfather joined the expedition to search this region in 1940, during the height of the Western Desert campaign, when British, Italian, Egyptian, and German forces battled fiercely in the area.”
“My grandfather fought in that same desert,” Duncan noted, again feeling the twining of fate. “At the same time, too.”
“And now here we are,” Laurent said. “Continuing in their footsteps.”
Duncan shivered despite the campfire’s heat.
Sharyn shifted this narrative forward. “Back to the lava field. What did your grandfather say about the discovery of the treasure? Did he give any details? Any clues that could help us here.”
“Less clues than warnings.”
Archie shifted straighter. “What do you mean?”
“It took the team a month to uncover a hidden vault deep in a series of lava tubes. Especially as the group had to be careful of boobytraps left to protect the site from errant trespassers.”
Sharyn glanced into the depths of the dark bunker. “What sort of traps?”
“Rockfalls, spiked pits. Even the treasure vault itself had an insidious pressure-triggered setup. When removing the gold, the entire cavern nearly caved in. Only the timely repositioning of a heavy ore cart stopped this from happening.”
Duncan shared a worried look with the others. “If the same’s true here, the Axis forces who refurbished this place might’ve inadvertently triggered one of those traps. It could’ve destroyed the entrance.”
“I can’t discount that. Or that we’re even looking in the right spot.”
“When this vault was eventually found in Libya,” Sharyn asked, “what did the entrance look like? You told us before that Saint-Germain’s book had been needed to open it.”
“That’s true. In deciphering the First Adage, Saint-Germain warned that his book was the doorway’s key. But he offered no further elaboration. It took weeks before the team stumbled upon a small alcove, carved by hand, in a remote cavern. My grandfather had walked past it countless times. He had thought it was a niche for a mining lamp. But when the team tried to use it as such, they discovered their lamp clung stubbornly to the stone. Further inspection revealed the rock to be rich in magnetite.”
