Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

Chapter 21

The new tunnel they were in looked much the same as the one that had led into the echo chamber. With flashlights in hand, Gabriel and Sammi ducked their heads and walked along in single file. The passage twisted and turned and at one point became so constricted that they had to crawl through on their hands and knees. They emerged on the edge of a chasm, the lip wide enough to stand on but not much more than that. Past this ledge, the ground dropped away as if cut by a knife, and there was no indication that there was another ledge anywhere on the far side. Across didn’t seem to be an option—only down.

Gabriel leaned over and shined his light toward the bottom. He estimated it was approximately thirty yards to the cavern floor. Not terrible for an experienced climber—but possibly a challenge for Sammi.

“Think you can do it?” he asked her.

“Of course. Don’t be silly.”

“All right. I’ll go first.” He removed the various tools he needed from his rucksack and laid them on the ledge. He uncoiled the rope and searched for an adequate place to anchor it. There was nothing suitable, so he took a piton with an eye and hammered it into the ledge itself. Not trusting the single piton, Gabriel grabbed two more and drove them into the rock as well. He then threaded the rope through all three eyes and tied a sturdy knot. He tugged on the rope as hard as he could to make sure the pitons would hold. Gabriel then tossed the rest of the rope over the ledge. He wasn’t sure if it was long enough to reach the bottom, but it would have to do.

Gabriel showed Sammi how to put on her harness and then fastened a Petzl stop to it with a locking carabiner. He prepared his own harness the same way. Once they were in their gear and ready to go, he gave her a quick lesson on how to use the Petzl stop as a descender.

“You control your descent by applying friction to the rope that’s threaded through here.” He showed her how to do it. “To be safe, you want to keep it pretty tight. And take your time. We’re not in a race.”

“We don’t know that,” Sammi said. “The Corsicans could come after us at any point. Or the Egyptians.”

“Only if they know the Chant du Départ.”

“The Corsicans would,” Sammi said.

“Then maybe we are in a bit of a race,” Gabriel admitted. “Still. Slower but alive is better than quick and dead.”

He took hold of the rope and threaded it into his Petzl stop. “I’ll tell you when to start down.” He then climbed over the ledge, feet first and facing the wall. He loosened the descender and slipped down several feet. Stopping, he took his flashlight and shined it all around him. There was nothing in the pit except vertical stone walls. He continued the descent and then called for Sammi to follow when he was twenty feet below the ledge. He watched as she hesitantly climbed over, dropped down and hung on the rope by her harness.

“Just hold on to the rope and use the descender.”

“All right.” She loosened the Petzl enough to inch down a few feet.

“Good,” Gabriel said.

She opened it again, wider this time—and screamed as her harness slid down the rope at a terrifying speed. Gabriel looked up at her rapidly approaching form.

“Squeeze the Petzl!” he shouted.

She managed to do so, stopping with her feet inches from Gabriel’s head.

They each took a moment to breathe.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“You all right?”

“I think so.”

“Take all the time you need. I’m going to keep going and get a little distance between us.” He loosened his descender and rappelled down several feet. If he’d been on his own, he could have gone the whole way down in one go—he’d had plenty of experience with vertical caving and didn’t need to proceed in starts and stops. But he didn’t want to leave her hanging there alone.

When he was thirty feet below her, Gabriel called for her to continue. She carefully loosened the Petzl and moved down. She got the hang of it after a few tries and was soon rappelling with confidence. Gabriel reached the end of the rope and saw the bottom ten feet below him. He unfastened the Petzl and free fell to the floor, rolling as he landed.

“I’m down,” he called as he stood. He shined the light up at Sammi and saw her some fifty feet above him. “Take it easy, you’re doing great.”

He warned her when she got near the end of the rope and explained how to unfasten the descender and drop, legs first, to the ground. She landed beside him and sprang back up.

“You okay?” he said.

“My head still hurts,” Sammi said, “but that has nothing to do with the climb.”

“When we get out of this, I’m going to buy you the biggest bottle of aspirin you’ve ever seen.”

“Such a romantic,” Sammi said.

Their flashlights revealed an opening in the wall at the bottom of the pit. The passage beyond led into darkness too deep for their lights to make more than a small dent. Gabriel walked in and inched forward carefully, his free arm extended to one side and his feet testing the ground before placing each step.

Once again, the passage twisted, narrowed, widened, forked. It was remarkable just how complex the internal structure of this cave system was. Gabriel was a seasoned caver and even he was having a hard time holding a mental map of the space in his head. He couldn’t help thinking some of the branches and forks must have been man-made, added solely to get would-be treasure hunters who were lucky enough to make it this far well and truly lost.

It took them more than a half hour of spelunking before they finally came to the opening of another vaulted chamber. If the first one had struck Gabriel as being the size of a large bedroom, this one seemed more like a good-sized living room.

And it was full of treasure.

“My goodness, Gabriel . . . what is all this?”

Their lights reflected off glittering, shiny, sparkling objects made of gold and silver, jewels of all types, caches of old swords and rifles, even framed paintings. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies . . . coins, gold bricks . . . fine art . . . weapons . . .

Gabriel reached out to touch an antique carbine rifle that must have been from Napoleon’s army—and stopped.

On the ground in front of it, a clothed skeleton lay horizontally, a spear skewered through its rib cage.

“Don’t touch anything,” he said, pulling his hand back. Sammi pulled hers back as well; she’d been about to pick up an elaborately filigreed gold cup.

He pointed the light directly at the skeleton. Swinging it around the rest of the room, he located several more. In all, there were half a dozen skeletons, each still wearing the tattered remnants of its clothing; these remains, from periods that must have spanned a hundred years, were the only clues to the identity of the unfortunate men who had made it this far and no farther. Every corpse had a spear stuck through it. Gabriel looked around the room and then pointed his flashlight up toward the ceiling. It was a latticework of small circular holes.

He rummaged in his sack and found the strap that had held the rope in a coil. He balled it up and tossed it across the room at one of the paintings. The buckle of the strap jostled the frame—and a spear shot out of the ceiling. It struck the stone floor directly in front of the painting and ricocheted away.

“Trap number two,” Gabriel said. “I’m guessing all this treasure is rigged.”

Gabriel continued to shine the light around the room, walking forward cautiously, taking enormous care not to touch anything. Finally they neared the room’s far wall, where another inscription had been chiseled into the stone:

Lui seul qui montre ce qui n’est pas répertorié peut avancer.

Sammi moved to his side and peered at the words. “ ‘Only he who shows what is not in the inventory may advance.’ ”

“What is not in the inventory? What inventory?”

“It doesn’t say. Just ‘what is not inventoried’ or ‘what is not catalogued.’ ”

He swung his light down, illuminating a stone shelf built into the wall beneath the inscription. Sitting on the shelf was an open, empty chest the size of a small suitcase. “We have to figure out what it means.”

Sammi read the inscription aloud again, first in French and then in English. “I think it must have something to do with the Napoleonic Code.”

“How so?” Gabriel asked.

“You said there were three traps, correct? Well, the Napoleonic Code was divided into three books. The first has to do with People, the second was about Property, and the third . . . well, the third was about Acquiring Property—sort of boring stuff for lawyers.” Gabriel was reminded of the text of the Rosetta Stone, about taxes and putting statues in temples. Sometimes the greatest discoveries in history had to do with boring stuff. “The first trap,” Sammi went on, “with the anthem . . . knowing the anthem would have been one of the tests for citizenship. It would have been covered in Book One of the Code.”

Gabriel shined his light around. “And you think all this . . .”

“Property,” Sammi said. “Book Two.”

“So what does Book Two have to say about property?” Gabriel said. “Other than ‘Don’t take it or you’ll get stabbed with a spear.’ ”

“The Code defined what was designated as a French citizen’s personal property as opposed to what was owned by the state.” Sammi looked around at all the accumulated wealth, all untouchable. “Or by the emperor.”

Gabriel thought about that. “So this is his property. We’re not allowed to take it. We have to show something that is not on his list of property to get out of here.”

“But show it to whom?” Sammi said.

Gabriel bent to examine the chest and the shelf it sat on. The two seemed to be attached in some way—at least he wasn’t able to move the chest off. And when he pressed down gently on the shelf, it had some give, almost like the balance of a scale.

“I think we have to put it in here—it’s a receptacle. Like the hopper of a machine. You put something in, and—” He tested the chest’s lid; it moved on surprisingly smooth hinges. “You put it in, close the chest, and hope you don’t get a spear in your back for your troubles. The question is what goes in the chest. Just something that’s our property and not his?”

“Not just anything,” Sammi said. “Under the Code, ‘Property’ wouldn’t refer to ordinary consumables or goods of minor note. It would have to be something of real value.”

Gabriel looked around again. “Something like what’s on display here, only ours rather than his.”

“Right. But—” Sammi took in the display of jewels and gold bars and framed paintings. “How could we possibly have anything like this? Unless you’re carrying a painting on you that I don’t know about?”

“Nope.”

“Or a gold bar . . . ?”

“I’m sure Michael’s got some back home, in a safe deposit box somewhere. But that won’t do us any good down here.”

Sammi was digging through her rucksack, trying to find anything that might work. But no amount of pitons and carabiners would do.

Gabriel thought about it. His Bulova A-11 wristwatch was worth a decent amount; his Zippo lighter, too, since it dated back to World War II. But there was a second problem, beyond the question of whether they were valuable enough—whatever he put in the chest also had to be something the two-hundred-year-old mechanism, whatever it was, would somehow be able to recognize. And he didn’t think Napoleon’s engineer could possibly have forseen wristwatches and Zippo lighters.

“Hang on,” Gabriel said. “I have an idea.”

“What?” Sammi said.

“Just stay back. If I’m wrong, I don’t want you getting hit, too.” He positioned himself directly in front of the chest. Looking up, he saw the circular openings through which spears might shoot at any moment.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to show Mr. Bonaparte some property and see what happens.”

“Gabriel, please be careful—I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“Neither do I.” Slowly he stepped forward. And taking his Colt out of its holster, he set it down on the bottom of the chest.

It was a gun—and there were guns on display here. What’s more, it was an antique; the provenance was a bit murky, but the man he’d gotten it from had sworn it had once belonged to either Wyatt Earp or Bat Masterson. Now, that would have been around 1870, not 1800 . . . but at least it was the right century. He gave the pistol a last lingering look. If this worked it might be the last time he’d see it—and if it didn’t work it might be the last time he’d see anything . . .

He swung the top of the chest shut and shot a glance up at the ceiling, poised to leap left or right at the first sign of motion.

But the motion, when it came, came from the wall beside the chest. With a loud grinding noise, two of the giant stone blocks slowly rotated as one until they sat perpendicular to their original position. The opening revealed a chamber on the other side.

“I don’t believe it,” Sammi said. “How could it possibly have known what you put in . . . ?”

“Maybe it didn’t. Maybe anything the same weight would have worked.”

She looked around at the speared skeletons on the ground. “Somehow I doubt it.”

“Well, then you might want to get over here, before this thing changes its mind.”

He stepped forward, cautiously watching the holes in the ceiling as he passed through the opening—but no spears came.

Sammi followed carefully in his footsteps, not deviating from his path by so much as an inch. As she reached the rotated wall, the top of the chest slowly and silently rose. She looked inside. “The gun’s still there,” she said. She reached in to get it.

“Don’t!” Gabriel shouted—but she lifted the Colt out of the chest without any ill effect.

She held the gun out to him. “What—do you think you are the only one permitted to take risks?” she said. “Besides, it wasn’t all that much of a risk. Napoleon was a tyrant, but he was not a thief. He might take another man’s country—but not his property.”

Gabriel took the Colt and returned it to his holster. “Thank you. I can tell you, I feel a lot safer with this old friend on my hip.”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Sammi said. “Look.”

She directed her flashlight’s beam toward the ground. In the previous room there had been half a dozen human skeletons. Here, the entire floor was littered with them, many of them horribly contorted, their bony hands clutching at their skeletal throats. Here, circular holes did not just cover the ceiling, they lined the walls and floor as well. And at the far end of the chamber was a metal cage containing a stone tablet. The tablet was covered from top to bottom with minute carvings and inscriptions.

The Second Stone.