Spartan Gold

“If we’d been spotted, they would have sent more than one boat.”

For the next hour they continued moving north along the coast while playing cat-and-mouse with the mystery patrol boat, which continued to move unseen through the fog around them, engines gurgling and spotlight occasionally glowing to life, sca

“It’s on a schedule,” Remi said. “I’ve been timing it.”

“That will come in handy,” Sam replied. “Do your best to keep track of it.”

“It has to be Bondaruk’s. If it were the navy, why would they be patrolling this same patch of water?”

“Good point.”

After a few more minutes the boat’s engine noise once again faded and Sam put the raft back on course and before long they saw the glow of lights to their right, high up on the cliff. Remi took a bearing on the lighthouse and said, “That’s it. That’s Khotyn.”

With Remi perched in the bow, eyes sca

The hum of the trolling motor changed its tone, echoing off stone walls as they slipped inside the bridge beneath the estate. From the drawings and blueprints of the island, they knew it was a cavernous open-ended tu

“We have to risk a light,” Sam whispered.

Remi nodded and pulled from her pocket a cone-nosed flashlight, which she clicked on and began playing over the passing rock.

“Now we see if Bohuslav is the real deal or a con man,” Remi said. The words had no sooner left her mouth when she murmured, “Well, speak of the devil. Call me a believer. There, Sam, right under my beam. Back up, back up.”

Sam eased up on the throttle, then reversed, inching backward until they drew even with the spot from Remi’s flashlight.

Jutting from the rock face at chin height was what looked like a rusted railroad spike; a foot above it was another, then another. . . . Sam leaned his head back as Remi sca

CHAPTER 37

If they stick to their schedule they’re already headed back this way,” Remi said. “Four or five minutes away at most.”

The presence of the patrol boat had dramatically changed the linchpin to their exit strategy: the raft. If they left it here it would almost certainly be found and the alarm would be raised, and there was no time to find a place to stash it, which left only one option.

They do

“Time?” Sam asked.

“Three minutes, give or take,” Remi replied, and started climbing.

They were halfway to the top when Sam heard the rumble of the outboard engines to their right. As had the raft’s trolling motor, the tone of the patrol boat’s engines suddenly changed, echoing through the arch.

“Remi, company’s arrived,” Sam muttered.

“I’ve got a tu

“Any port in the storm. Just go.”

“Right.”

The gurgle of the boat’s engine was directly below them now, skimming along the face. Sam looked down. While the boat itself was invisible in the fog, he could see the mist cleaving before it like smoke around an object in a wind tu

“I’m in,” Remi whispered from above.

Eyes alternating between the spikes above him and the rapidly ascending pool of light below him, Sam climbed the last few feet then suddenly felt Remi’s hand on his own. He coiled his legs beneath him and pushed off while simultaneously pulling with his arms. He rolled into the tu

They lay huddled together in the darkness, Sam trying to calm his breath as they listened to the boat make its way through the arch and the engine noise finally faded.

“Is this the place?” Sam asked, pushing himself up onto his elbows and looking around. The tu

“I’d say so,” Remi said, pointing.

Bolted to the ceiling at the mouth of the tu

“Well, the winch isn’t original, that’s for sure,” he said. “Unless, that is, Zaporozhian Cossack technology was way ahead of its time. See here . . . those bolts are precisely machined. This might go back to the Crimean War, but my guess is World War II. Just look at the mitered joints . . . this thing could have lifted thousands of pounds.” He stepped up to the mouth of the tu

“I see it.”

“Wow, look at this—”

“Sam.”

“What?”

“I hate to stifle your imagination, but we’ve got a bottle of wine to steal.”

“Right, sorry. Let’s go.”

Having used Google Earth to draw up their own overhead sketch of Bondaruk’s estate, complete with angles and distances, as well as a

Under the moving beam of their flashlights Sam could see signs of limited blast work along the walls, but it appeared most of the tu

Here and there on the floor were wooden toolboxes, coils of half-rotted rope, rusted pickaxes and sledgehammers, a pair of half-rotted leather boots, canvas coveralls that partially disintegrated when Remi nudged them with her shoe. . . . Attached to the right-and left-hand walls every ten feet were oil lamps, their glass globes black with soot, their bronze reservoirs and handles covered in a scabrous green patina. Sam tapped one with his index finger and heard sloshing inside.

After fifty yards of walking, Remi stopped, studied the sketch, and said, “We should be just under the outer wall. Another hundred yards or so and we should be directly under the main house.”

She was off by only a few yards. After another two minutes they reached a widened intersection, the tu

“Straight ahead to the stables, and right to the east wings,” Sam said.

“I think so.”

He checked his watch. “Let’s check out the stables first and see what we can see.”

After another half mile or so of walking, Remi stopped suddenly and placed her index finger to her lips and mouthed, Music. They listened in silence for ten seconds then Sam leaned in and whispered in Remi’s ear, “ ‘Summer Wind’ by Frank Sinatra.”