Spartan Gold

On her coal-black steed.”

“That’s it,” Sam replied.

Around them the exposed roots of the cypress trees jutted from the water like disembodied talons of some great winged dinosaur. The previous week a storm had blown across the peninsula, leaving behind mounds of branches like hastily constructed beaver dams. Overhead, the canopy was alive with a symphony of squawks and buzzes and fluttering wings. Occasionally Sam, a part-time bird-watcher, would isolate a trilling and a

Sam found the exercise helped his “by ear” piano playing, something he’d picked up from his mother. For her part, Remi had a nice touch with the violin, which she put to good use during their frequent impromptu duets.

Despite his engineering background, Sam was an intuitive, right-brain thinker, while Remi, a Boston College-trained anthropologist /historian, was firmly grounded in logical, left-brain thinking. While the dichotomy made them a balanced, loving pair, it also led to vigorous debates, ranging in topic from what had started the English Reformation to which actor made the best James Bond to how to best play Vivaldi’s concerto Summer. Most often the debates ended in laughter and an ongoing but good-natured disagreement.

Bent at the waist, Sam probed underwater with his fingers, sliding along the wood until he touched something metal . . . something with a U-shaped hasp and a square body.

A padlock, he thought, visions of an ancient barnacle-encrusted hasp swirling through his mind. “Got something,” he a

Remi turned toward him, muddy arms hanging by her sides.

“Hah!” Sam pulled it from the water. As the mud slid off and plopped back into the water, he saw the glint of rust and silver, then some raised letters. . . .

M-A-S-T-E-R L-O-C-K.

“Well?” Remi said, her voice tinged with skepticism. She was used to Sam’s sometimes premature excitement.

“I’ve found, my dear, a vintage Master padlock, circa 1970,” he replied, then hefted from the water the piece of wood it had been attached to. “Along with what looks like an old gatepost.” He dropped it back into the water and then straightened up with a groan.

Remi smiled at him. “My intrepid treasure hunter. Well, it’s more than I’ve found.”

Sam looked at his watch, a Timex Expedition he wore only on expeditions. “Six o’clock,” he said. “Shall we call it a day?”

Remi ran her cupped hand down her opposite forearm, shedding a layer of goop, and gave him a broad smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”

They gathered their packs and hiked the half mile back to their skiff, which they’d tied to a grounded cypress stump. Sam cast off and pushed the boat into deeper water, wading up to his waist, while Remi yanked the engine’s starter cord. The motor growled to life and Sam climbed in.

She turned the bow into the cha

They motored along in silence, lulled by the soft gurgle of the motor and gazing at the overhanging canopy. Suddenly Sam turned in his seat, looking to the right.

“Remi, slow down.”

She throttled back. “What is it?”

He grabbed a pair of binoculars from his pack and raised them to his eyes. Fifty yards away on the bank there was a gap in the foliage—another hidden inlet among the dozens they’d already seen. The entrance was partially blocked by a tangle of branches piled up by the storm.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Something . . . I don’t know,” he muttered. “I thought I saw a line in the foliage . . . a curve or something. Didn’t look natural. Can you get me over there?”

She turned the rudder and aimed the skiff at the mouth of the inlet. “Sam, are you hallucinating? Did you drink enough water today?”

He nodded, his attention fixed on the inlet. “More than enough.”

With a soft crunch, the skiff’s nose bumped into the mound of branches. The inlet was wider than it looked, nearly fifty feet across. Sam looped the bow line around one of the larger limbs, then slipped his legs over the gunwale and rolled into the water.

“Sam, what’re you doing?”

“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

“Like hell.”

Before she could say more, Sam took a breath, ducked underwater, and disappeared. Twenty seconds later Remi heard a splash on the other side of the branches, followed by Sam sucking in a lungful of air.

She called, “Sam, are you—”

“I’m fine. Be back in a minute.”

One minute turned into two, then three. Finally Sam called through the foliage, “Remi, can you join me, please?”

She could hear the mischievous lilt in his voice, and thought, Oh, boy. She loved her husband’s adventurous impulses, but she’d already started imagining how good a hot shower was going to feel. “What is it?” she asked.

“I need you to come here.”

“Sam, I just now started to dry off. Can’t you—”

“No, you’re going to want to see this. Trust me.”

Remi sighed, then slipped over the side into the water. Ten seconds later she was treading water beside him. The trees on either side of the inlet formed an almost solid canopy over the water, enclosing them in a tu

“Hi, nice of you to come,” he said with a grin and a peck on her cheek.

“Okay, smarty-pants, what are we—”

He rapped his knuckles against the misshapen log he had his arm draped over, but instead of a dull thud she heard a metallic gong.

“What is that?”

“Not sure yet. Part of it—can’t be sure what part until I get down there and get inside.”

“Part of what? Get inside what?”

“This way, come on.”

Taking her by the hand, Sam sidestroked deeper into the inlet and around a corner, where the course narrowed to twenty feet. He stopped and pointed to a vine-covered cypress trunk near the bank. “There. You see it?”

She squinted, tilted her head left, then right. “No. What am I looking for?”

“That branch sticking out of the water, the one that ends in a T shape. . . .”

“Okay, I see it.”

“Look harder. Squint. It helps.”

She did, narrowing her eyes until slowly what she was seeing registered on her brain. She gasped. “Good Lord, is that a . . . It can’t be.”

Gri

CHAPTER 2

SEVASTOPOL, UKRAINE

Hadeon Bondaruk stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his study and stared out at the Black Sea. His study was dark, lit only by dimmed ceiling lights that cast soft pools into the corners of the room. Night had fallen over the Crimean Peninsula, but to the west, over the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts, backlit by the last remnants of the setting sun, he could see a line of storm clouds moving north over the water. Every few seconds the clouds would pulse from within, shooting veins of lightning across the horizon. It would be here within the hour, and God help those foolish enough to be caught afloat in the midst of a Black Sea storm.

Or, Bondaruk thought, God not help them. No matter. Storms and disease and yes, even war, were nature’s way of culling the herd. He had little patience for people who didn’t have the sense or strength to protect themselves against the violence of life. It was a lesson he’d learned as a boy, and one that he’d never forgotten.