The Hunters

55

None of the group looked back.

‘That’s Decebal, and a revolver,’ McNutt said through clenched teeth.

Cobb saw McNutt’s pinkie tap the handle of the duffel bag, just once. It was almost unnoticeable, but it was in no way an accidental twitch. He said, ‘It was just a warning to behave. Otherwise we’d all be face down. Let’s go.’

Decebal had positioned himself between the treasure train and the cave’s exit. He didn’t understand English enough to bother joining the others inside the cars. Even if he was right beside them, they could easily talk amongst themselves in secrecy. Frankly, he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was ensuring that no one made it past him with any of the treasure.

‘Please,’ Borovsky said, ‘come with me.’

He led the group toward the first car. The lights in the cave gave them enough eerie illumination to make out shadows, and they used their flashlights for clarification. Cobb suspected the only reason they didn’t stop him was because there was still a veneer of entente in place. And Cobb knew there were two major reasons for that: arresting or killing them might bring others to the area, in even greater numbers; and they still had the Black Robes to worry about.

Against either foe, Borovsky would surely need reinforcements.

‘We’re up,’ Garcia said in their ears. ‘I can see everything you see.’

Without asking aloud, Jasmine, Sarah, and McNutt turned to Cobb for answers as to what Garcia meant. Without drawing attention, Cobb purposefully tapped his thumb against his flashlight, letting the others know that they doubled as high-definition video cameras. Even from almost a mile away, Garcia had isolated the signals being transmitted by the flashlights.

McNutt glanced down at the flashlight in his hand.

‘Damn, that’s slick,’ he murmured under his breath.

Seven thousand miles to the east, Jean-Marc Papineau watched on his laptop in his compartment on the decoy train that he had taken to Vladivostok. Garcia had looped Papineau into the broadcast with Cobb’s express permission — the images captured by the video cameras were being relayed through a satellite uplink. Cobb wanted the Frenchman to know that despite his treachery, Cobb’s personal code dictated that once he accepted a job, he finished it.

‘You’re getting the audio and video feeds?’ Garcia asked in the shrunken video chat window in the corner of Papineau’s screen.

‘Perfectly,’ Papineau replied. ‘Who am I watching?’

‘This is Jasmine’s cam,’ Garcia informed him. ‘She’ll be the first one inside.’

‘And what of your image recognition software?’

‘We’re about to find out if it works,’ Garcia answered.

The program Garcia had designed would use computer-generated silhouettes to match any objects they encountered with known objects in the database. He had already uploaded images of countless artifacts into the system. If any of the Romanov treasures were here, they would know soon enough.

Papineau watched anxiously as Jasmine approached the train. From the video, he could see they were dealing with a sad necropolis of semi-gutted cars. It appeared as if the prince and his men had torn the interior asunder to make room for additional cargo. Their primary obstacles were apparently the passenger benches, most of which had been removed, mainly by means of brute force or being chopped into bits.

Why the hasty renovations? he thought. What were they trying to hide?

Then he had his answers… if only for an instant.

As Borovsky helped her into the first car, the image from Jasmine’s flashlight held steady long enough to reveal a literal pile of treasure. Heaps upon stacks of crates, filling the space. Unfortunately for Papineau, Jasmine momentarily reverted to a six-year-old on Christmas morning, overcome with joy and unsure where to start.

‘Queen Maria’s jewelry!’ he heard her say, but the images blurred as she spun around, trying to take it all in. ‘The lost artwork! The historical archives! It’s all here!’

‘Tell her to focus!’ Papineau yelled at Garcia, who relayed the message. As Jasmine gained control over her emotions, Garcia’s program finally had a chance to make its comparisons. Papineau watched his screen as thin, red outlines began to encircle various objects. When a possible match was found, the system briefly flashed an image of the artifact before adding it to a list of results. Like a massive, multi-player online game, the program kept a running tally of the discoveries.

Papineau watched with fascination as the program continued to outline, display, and compile with increasing speed, until his screen looked like an explosion of digital fireworks.

Borovsky smiled at the sight of Jasmine and the others combing through the artifacts. It was the fact that she seemed genuinely interested in the historical value of the pieces, rather than the price they would fetch, that pleased him the most. He hoped the others understood the heritage of these items, and the lengths to which he would go to protect them.

He was beginning to like these newcomers.

He sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t have to shoot them.

‘Before the prince fled,’ Borovsky explained, ‘decisions were made as to which pieces were to accompany him. Time was not on his side, and he left the treasure nearly exactly as you see it today. With no way to accurately determine which pieces are related, those sworn to protect it simply left it as the prince had left it.’

‘This is amazing,’ Jasmine blurted.

Again Borovsky smiled. ‘It makes me happy to hear you say that. There are six more cars, all similar in content and disarray. But the eighth car is different… Come, there is something you must see.’

After helping everyone from the first car, Borovsky silently led them to the rear of the train. The suspense was working its own particular brand of magic on each of them. Jasmine couldn’t wait to inventory the historical artifacts of the other six cars. Now that they had found it, Sarah and McNutt were wondering if they had to deliver the train before Papineau would hand them their money. Anna wondered how long her superior had been guarding his secret.

Meanwhile, two questions burdened Cobb: what treasure among treasures was in the eighth car, and what price would they have to pay for seeing it?

Cobb cautiously entered the eighth car and started to examine the last compartment. The front half was filled with crates, paintings, sculptures, and files — nothing noteworthy as far as he was concerned. Then Borovsky pointed toward the far corner. When he saw it, Cobb felt a rolling chill as a wave of goose pimples covered his arms.

It was a coffin.

As Cobb approached it, he studied the exterior of the box. Made of thick, heavy wood, it was spiked down in sixteen places along its edge. Strangely, it was also latched on either side with heavy iron locks that required a large key to open.

They all followed Cobb toward the coffin. Everyone except for Jasmine, who literally froze for a moment in the doorway as if she’d gazed at the face of the Gorgon.

‘Someone didn’t want us to get into that box,’ McNutt said.

‘Garcia? You got anything?’ Cobb quietly asked.

‘Searching, boss, but I’m not optimistic,’ he said.

It didn’t matter. Borovsky was about to show them what was inside.

Borovsky removed a chain from around his neck and used the attached key to unlock the ancient locks. Picking up a small pry bar from a nearby crate, he thrust the sharpened end under the lid. Struggling to simply remove one of the sixteen nails, he motioned for Cobb to pick up the second pry bar and start on the opposite side. Working together, it still took them nearly five minutes to move their way around the coffin. As Borovsky pried loose the final anchor, Cobb and McNutt gently pulled back the wooden curtain while bracing themselves for the expected and inevitable stench of death.

There was none. Much to everyone’s surprise, there were also no spiders, cockroaches, ants, maggots, flies, mice, or rats. There was only a slight aroma.

‘What is that smell?’ McNutt said. ‘It’s like… fruit.’

‘Shellac,’ Jasmine said, transfixed by the object within. ‘Used as a preservative — made from lac, a deposit found on trees across this continent.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be prune.’

McNutt was only partly kidding because the object inside the coffin looked like a human-sized, human-shaped prune.

Time seemed to have sealed its limbs against, and slightly into, its desiccated yet lumpy body, which consisted of what seemed to be eroding clothing combined with mummified flesh.

Whatever hair was left on its wrinkle-skinned skull now looked like stringy mold. There were only vague suggestions of ears, eyes, nose, or mouth. Over the years, its shape had shifted severely. Now it looked like a Halloween mask.

The only thing seemingly untouched by time was a ring that clung to what used to be its finger. The wide, gold band of the ring was encrusted with sparkling diamonds. The girdle held a magnificent, blood-red ruby. The face of the ring was oblong, with bands of onyx standing out against the polished jewel.

The emblem was clear.

It was the three-barred cross of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The ring was sanctimonious, yet righteous; decadent, yet humble. It somehow reflected lust and virtue at the same time. As if the designer recognized the sin of creating such a lavish bauble before asking for God’s forgiveness by adorning the piece with the holy sign of his faith.

‘We’ve found the ultimate treasure,’ Jasmine said.

‘We have?’ Cobb asked. ‘I mean — is this what I think it is?’

She looked back at the others with a palpable sense of dread.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s Rasputin.’