Spartan Gold (11 page)

“The glass is fairly remarkable as well—very high quality and quite thick, almost an inch, actually. Though I’m not inclined to test the theory, I’m fairly certain it could stand up to a fair amount of abuse.”

“The label on the bottle: hand-tooled leather, glued to the glass as well as bound at the top and bottom by hemp twine. As you can see, the markings on the label were etched direcly into the leather, then filled in with ink—a very rare ink, in fact. It’s a mixture of
Aeonium arboreum ‘Schwartzkopf’—
”

“English, please,” Remi said.

“It’s a type of black rose. The ink is a mixture of its petals and crushed beetle—a spitting beetle native only to the islands in the Ligurian Sea. As for the details on the label itself . . .” Selma pulled the bottle closer, waited for Sam and Remi to come over, then turned on an overhead halogen task lamp. “You see this phrase . . .
mesures usuelles
—it’s French for ‘customary measurements.’ It’s a system that hasn’t been used for a hundred fifty years or so. And this word here . . .
demis
—it means ‘halves,’ roughly the equivalent of an English pint. Sixteen ounces.”

“Not much fluid for a bottle that size,” Remi said. “Has to be the thickness of the glass.”

Selma nodded. “Now, let’s look at the ink itself: as you can see it’s faded in places, so it’ll take time to re-create the image, but do you see the two letters in the upper right- and left-hand corners, and the two numbers in the lower right and left?”

The Fargos nodded.

“The numbers represent a year. One and nine. Nineteen.”

“Nineteen nineteen?” Remi said.

Selma shook her head. “
Eighteen
nineteen. As for the letters—
H
and
A
—they’re initials.”

“Belonging to . . . ?” Sam prompted.

Selma leaned back and paused. “Now, bear in mind, I’m not certain of this. I need to do some more research to make sure—”

“We understand.”

“I think the initials belong to Henri Archambault.”

Sam and Remi absorbed the name, then looked at one another, then back to Selma, who offered a sheepish grin and a shrug.

Remi said, “Okay, just so we’re on the same page: We’re talking about
the
Henri Archambault, correct?”

“The one and only,” Selma replied. “Henri Emile Archambault—Napoleon Bonaparte’s chief enologist. Unless I miss my guess, you’ve found a bottle from Napoleon’s Lost Cellar.”

T
he ring-necked pheasant burst from the undergrowth and streaked across the sky, wings beating wildly in the sharp morning air. Hadeon Bondaruk waited, letting the bird get a good lead, then tucked the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. The pheasant jerked in the air, went limp, and started tumbling to the earth.

“Good shot,” Grigoriy Arkhipov said, standing a few feet away.

“Go!” Bondaruk barked in Farsi.

The two Labrador retrievers who’d been sitting patiently at Bondaruk’s feet leaped up and charged after the fallen bird. The ground around Bondaruk’s feet was littered with no less than a dozen pheasant corpses, all of them having been torn to shreds by the dogs.

“I hate the taste of the things,” Bondaruk explained to Arkhipov, using the toe of his boot to kick one away. “But the dogs love the exercise. What about you, Kholkov, do you enjoy the hunt?”

Standing a few feet behind Arkhipov, Vladimir Kholkov dipped his head to one side, considering. “Depends on the quarry.”

“Good answer.”

Kholkov and Arkhipov had served most of their time together in the Spetsnaz, Arkhipov the commander, Kholkov the loyal executive officer, a relationship that had continued into their civilian life as highest-bidder mercenaries. For the past four years Hadeon Bondaruk had been the undisputed highest bidder, making Arkhipov a wealthy man in the process.

After reporting to Bondaruk their failure to find the Fargos, Kholkov and Arkhipov had been summoned here, to their boss’s vacation home in the foothills along the Crimean Peninsula. Though he’d arrived the afternoon before, Bondaruk had yet to mention the incident.

Arkhipov was afraid of no man—that much Kholkov had seen proven on the battlefield dozens of times—but they both knew a dangerous man when they saw one, and Bondaruk was as treacherous as they came. Though he’d never personally witnessed it, he had no doubt of Bondaruk’s capacity for violence. It wasn’t fear that put them on edge when they were around Bondaruk, but a hard-won and healthy caution. Bondaruk was unpredictable, like a shark. Placidly swimming along, paying attention to nothing and everything, ready to attack in the blink of an eye. Even now, as they talked, Kholkov knew his boss was keeping a soldier’s eye trained on Bondaruk’s shotgun, watching the movement of the barrel as though it were the mouth of a Great White.

Kholkov knew a little about Bondaruk’s youth in Turkmenistan. The fact that his current boss had likely killed many dozens of his own countrymen—perhaps even men he knew—during the conflict along the Iranian border mattered very little to him. War was war. The best soldiers, the ones that excelled and survived, usually went about the work of killing the enemy with dispassion.

“It’s easy to be a good shot with a good gun,” Bondaruk said, cracking the breech and extracting the shell. “Custom-made by Ham brusch Jagdwaffen in Austria. Care to guess how old it is, Grigoriy?”

“I have no idea,” Arkhipov replied.

“One hundred eighty years. It belonged to Otto von Bismarck himself.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s a piece of living history,” Bondaruk replied as though Arkhipov hadn’t spoken. “Look down there.” Bondaruk pointed southeast toward the lowlands along the coast. “You see that series of low hills?”

“Yes.”

“In 1854, during the Crimean War, that’s where the Battle of Balaclava was fought. You’ve heard of the poem by Tennyson—‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’?”

Arkhipov shrugged. “I think we read it in elementary school.”

“The actual battle has been overshadowed by the poem—enough that the average person today has no idea about the story. Seven hundred British soldiers—cavalrymen from the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers, and the 8th and 11th Hussars—charged a Russian position fortified by cannon. When the smoke cleared, less than two hundred of those soldiers were left alive. You’re a military man, Vladimir. What would you call that? Foolish or courageous?”

“It’s hard to know what was in the mind of the commanders.”

“Another example of living history,” Bondaruk said. “History is about people and legacies. Great deeds and great ambition. And great failures, of course. Come, both of you, walk with me.”

Shotgun cradled in the crook of his arm, Bondaruk strolled through the high grass, casually blasting the occasional pheasant that popped up.

“I don’t blame you for losing them,” Bondaruk said. “I’ve read about the Fargos. They’ve got a taste for adventure. For danger.”

“We’ll find them.”

Bondaruk waved his hand dismissively. “Do you know why these bottles are so important to me?”

“No.”

“The truth is, the bottles, the wine inside, and where they came from aren’t important. Once they’ve served their purpose you can smash them to pieces for all I care.”

“Then why? Why do you want them so badly?”

“It’s about where they can take us. It’s what they’ve been hiding for two hundred years—and for two millennia before that. How much do you know about Napoleon?”

“Some.”

“Napoleon was a shrewd tactician, a ruthless general, and a master strategist—all of the history books agree on that, but as far as I’m concerned his greatest trait was foresight. He was always looking ten steps ahead. When he commissioned Henri Archambault to create that wine and the bottles that held it, Napoleon was thinking about the future, beyond battles and politics. He was thinking of his legacy. Unfortunately, history caught up to him.” Bondaruk shrugged and smiled. “I guess one man’s misfortune is another man’s good luck.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t.”

Bondaruk started walking away, calling to his dogs after him, then suddenly stopped and turned back to Arkhipov. “You’ve served me very well, Grigoriy, for many years.”

“It’s been my pleasure.”

“As I said, I don’t blame you for losing the Fargos, but I need your pledge that it won’t happen again.”

“You have it, Mr. Bondaruk.”

“You’ll swear to it?”

For the first time, Arkhipov’s eyes showed a trace of uncertainty. “Of course.”

Bondaruk smiled; there was none of it in his eyes. “Good. Raise your right hand and so swear.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, Arkhipov raised his hand to shoulder height. “I swear I will—”

Bondaruk’s shotgun spun in his hands and the barrel spat orange flame. Arkhipov’s right hand and wrist disappeared in a spray of blood. The former Spetsnaz stumbled backward one step, staring for a few moments at the gushing stump before letting out a moan and dropping to his knees.

Kholkov, standing a few feet behind and to the side, sidestepped, his eyes fixed on Bondaruk’s shotgun. Arkhipov clutched feebly at the stump, then looked up at Kholkov. “Why . . . ?” he croaked.

Bondaruk strolled up to Arkhipov’s side and looked down on him. “I don’t blame you, Grigoriy, but life is about cause and effect. Had you worked more quickly with Frobisher, the Fargos wouldn’t have had time to intervene.”

Bondaruk shifted the shotgun again, leveled it with Arkhipov’s left ankle, and pulled the trigger. The foot disappeared. Arkhipov screamed and toppled over. Bondaruk broke open the shotgun, loaded two more shells from his pocket, then methodically blasted off Arkhipov’s remaining hand and foot, then watched his subordinate writhing on the ground. After thirty seconds Arkhipov went still.

Bondaruk looked up at Kholkov. “Do you want his job?”

“Pardon me?”

“I’m offering you a promotion. Do you accept?”

Kholkov took a deep breath. “I have to admit your management style gives me pause.”

At this Bondaruk smiled. “Arkhipov isn’t dead because he made a mistake, Vladimir. He’s dead because he made a mistake that couldn’t be fixed. The Fargos are involved now, and it is a complication we can’t afford. You’re allowed mistakes—just not irreversible ones. I’ll need your answer now.”

Kholkov nodded. “I accept.”

“Wonderful! Let’s have some breakfast.”

Bondaruk turned and started walking away, his dogs trailing behind him, then he stopped and turned back.

“By the way, when we get back to the house you might want to check the American news sites. I heard a local man, a Maryland State Police officer, in fact, stumbled across a half-sunken German midget submarine.”

“Is that so.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Y
ou can’t be serious,” Sam said to Selma. “Napoleon’s Lost Cellar isn’t . . . It’s just a—”

“Legend,” Remi finished.

“Right.”

“Maybe not,” Selma replied. “First, let’s talk a little history so we’ve got some context. I know you’re both generally familiar with Napoleonic history, but bear with me. I won’t bore you with his entire personal history, so we’ll pick it up with his first command assignment.

“A Corsican by birth, Napoleon won his first acclaim at the siege of Toulon in 1793 and was appointed the rank of brigadier general, then General of the Army of the West, Commander of the Army of the Interior, then Commander of the French army in Italy. For the next few years he fights a series of battles in Austria, then returns to Paris a national hero. After spending a few years in the Middle East on his Egyptian Campaign—which was at best a marginal success—he returns to France and takes part in a coup d’état that ends up with him as the First Consul of the new French government.

“A year later he takes an army across the Pennine Alps to wage the Second Italian Campaign—”

Remi said, “The famous painting of him on the horse . . .”

“Right,” replied Selma. “Sitting atop a rearing horse, chin set, arm pointed into the distance . . . The truth is a little different, though. First of all, most people think that horse’s name was Marengo, but it was actually known at that time as Styrie; its name was changed after the Battle of Marengo a few months later. And here’s the kicker: Napoleon actually did most of the crossing atop a mule.”

“Not quite befitting his image.”

“No. Anyway, after the campaign, Napoleon returns to Paris and is appointed First Consul for life—essentially open-ended benevolent dictatorship. Two years after that he proclaims himself Emperor.

“For the next decade or so he wages battles and signs treaties and so on until 1812, when he makes the mistake of invading Russia. It doesn’t work out quite as he plans, and he’s forced to conduct a winter withdrawal that all but decimates his Grand Army. He returns to Paris and over the next two years finds himself fighting Prussia and Spain, not only abroad, but on French soil as well. Soon after that, Paris falls. The Senate declares Napoleon’s empire dead and in the spring of 1814 he abdicates his rule to Louis XVIII of the Bourbon line. A month later, Napoleon is exiled to Elba and his wife and son flee to Vienna—”

“Not Josephine, right?” Sam asked.

“Right. Pulling a page from Henry VIII’s book, Napoleon divorced her in 1809 because she failed to give him a male heir. He married the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, Marie Louise, who managed to produce a son.”

“Okay, go on.”

“About a year after he was exiled Napoleon escapes, returns to France, and puts together an army. Louis XVIII flees the throne and Napoleon takes over again. This was the start of what historians call the Hundred Days Campaign—though it didn’t even last that long. Not quite three months later, in June, Napoleon is routed by the British and Prussians at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon abdicates again and is exiled by the British to Saint Helena—a chunk of rock about twice the size of Washington, D.C., dead center in the Atlantic Ocean between West Africa and Brazil. He spends the remaining six years of his life there and dies in 1821.”