The Hunters

43

Garcia followed their progress on his Goldfinder program. They had traveled nearly nine hundred miles since they had left the station, and thus far everything had gone smoothly. ‘Good news: we have left the Ukraine and entered Romania. Next stop: Gold City.’

McNutt groaned at the comment. He was an optimistic fellow, one who lived in a dream world where bears could fire cannons, but he knew this mission was still a long shot unless all of the team’s theories proved to be accurate.

First, they assumed that Prince Felix had taken the treasure train from Moscow. Second, they believed that every soldier capable of walking had been massed for an aborted attempt to slash through Poland and attack East Prussia. This meant that the treasure could not have been offloaded from the train because there was no one on board to do the heavy lifting. Third, they guessed that the train would head to at least one major spur where they could change directions to confuse would-be followers. However, this change needed to be done without witnesses. That meant a well-hidden spur in a thinly populated region.

After punching all that information into the Goldfinder program, it spit out a logical choice: the Transylvanian Plateau in Romania. Despite its name, the Transylvanian Plateau was a land of steep hills and valleys. The higher peaks of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains rose in nearly every direction, but here in the middle the rocky terrain gave way to vast forests and scenic cliffs. Given the difficulty of locating anything among its seemingly endless woodlands, they figured it was a great place to hide treasure.

Now all they had to do was find it.

McNutt, who had openly wondered if they were on the wrong train heading in the wrong direction, glanced at the screen. ‘There’s the calm before the storm, but this is nuts. Nearly twenty hours, and there isn’t even a breeze out there.’

He was right. There was nothing ominous on the overhead satellite feed, nothing in the 360-degree video sweep, no radio chatter, no complaints from the pressure-sensitive tabs in the couplings, and nothing but Russian folk tunes from Andrei Dobrev in the engine. Dobrev had shown Jasmine the rudiments of how to run the engine so that she could spot him for rest periods. She was up there with him now.

Cobb, via his earpiece, told McNutt not to worry. ‘Sometimes a day with nothing but sunshine is just that: a sunny day. Don’t read into it.’

‘Actually, I’m pissed because it’s sunny.’

Garcia turned around. ‘You’re pissed at the sun?’

McNutt nodded. ‘I was hoping to do some sightseeing before we left Moscow, and today would’ve been a perfect day to stand in line at Red Square. I could’ve worked on my tan.’

Cobb ignored the ‘tan’ part and focused on ‘Red Square’. He was stunned that McNutt wanted to visit a historical site. ‘I didn’t know you were a history buff.’

‘I’m not,’ McNutt assured everyone, ‘but I’m a huge Beatles fan. Before we left town, I was hoping to visit Lennon’s tomb.’

Laughter erupted all over the train, so much so that Garcia had to temporarily excuse himself from his workstation to avoid laughing in front of McNutt. Even Jasmine, who could barely hear the chatter over the roar of the engine, laughed so hard she started to cry. Confused by her outburst, Dobrev demanded to know what had happened on his train. While giggling uncontrollably, it took her nearly five minutes to translate the story into Russian, but once she did, Dobrev laughed harder than anyone — so much so, he had to run to the bathroom because he was afraid he was going to wet his pants.

Meanwhile, McNutt had no idea what had set them off.

‘I don’t get it,’ he mumbled to no one in particular. ‘Is it because I like the Beatles? I know they’re old, but I love their songs. Lennon was a musical genius.’

It took a while for the laughter to subside. Once it did, things returned to normal.

With Papineau elsewhere, Cobb had commandeered the desk, which was covered with paper maps and charts. Garcia returned to his workstation where the extra monitors he had initially ordered as back-up were now arrayed to accommodate the new security cams he had installed on, over, and under the train. The screens now stretched around him like blinders.

Between fits of pacing, watching over Garcia’s back, and doing squat-thrusts and deep knee bends to stay limber, Sarah was lying on the sofa, studying maps on her tablet. Except for a few bruises on her neck, she was outwardly recovered from the Black Robe attack.

‘This is so boring,’ McNutt announced from a chair beside the couch, where he was enjoying a pungent sandwich he had just made in the galley — black bread, chopped sweet gherkins, crushed garlic cloves mixed with olive oil, black forest ham, Kusendorf Swiss cheese, and cucumber slices. ‘Come on, Jack. I want to shoot somebody. When is that going to happen?’

‘Hopefully, not on this trip,’ Cobb said.

‘Bite your tongue,’ McNutt snapped.

Sarah rolled her eyes. McNutt was still having trouble with the big picture. ‘Let me ask you a question: why would anyone try to stop us when we have no real idea where we’re going?’

‘Because Russians are ornery that way.’

‘You make it sound like we should be watching out for Cossacks on horseback.’

‘Hey, watch what you say,’ Jasmine cautioned from the engine. ‘There are still large pockets of Cossacks, and they are intensely xenophobic.’

‘See?’ McNutt said.

Sarah and McNutt both happened to glance over at Cobb. He seemed to have tuned them out. His focus was a pin that let the air out of the conversation. The car was quiet, save for the endless clack of the heavy cars passing over old rails set in a slightly uneven track bed.

They were all wearing what had rapidly become their uniforms. Black, ultra lightweight, long-sleeve T-shirts made of the latest sports fabric. It kept them cool in heat and warm in cold. Their Eisenhower-style jackets and cargo pants were dark olive and featured stealth material that made the soft, strong cloth virtually silent. They were equipped with cunningly placed pockets for a variety of each person’s needs — mostly extra ammo, since the jackets were long enough to cover their dark brown holster belts. Their shoes were also black and looked like a cross between hi-top slippers and combat boots. They were waterproof, slip-proof, and insulated, much like their shirts. In addition, every team member wore a watch that was synchronized and had a reflection-free face. The crystals were polarized along a vertical axis, meaning no one could read the watch except the owner, and ambient light bounced up, not out.

After a few minutes of silence, Cobb told Sarah to bring up a specific map on her iPad. He pointed to a variety of lines he had made on his own map with different colored pencils.

‘I think the prince was trying to both find a place to hide the treasure and make sure his family’s path to Yalta was still clear,’ he said. ‘So we’re looking for a road less traveled.’

‘To Yalta?’ she said.

‘Toward Yalta,’ he corrected.

‘Aren’t we a bit far afield, then?’ Sarah asked, pointing east. ‘We’re headed southwest. Isn’t Yalta a few hundred miles that way?’

‘I don’t think the prince wanted to hide the treasure in the Ukraine — or, as it was known then, Little Russia.’ He shook his head. ‘Too close to anti-Romanov armies. I’m betting that somewhere along this path he split the two groups — family one way, the way which led out, and the treasure another way.’

‘Was it Malta or Yalta that his family left from?’ McNutt wondered, chewing on a crunchy bite of sandwich. ‘I can never keep those straight.’

‘Malta,’ Jasmine said. ‘British warship — remember?’

‘No,’ he said as he wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin.

Changing the subject, Cobb drew his thumb across his throat, signaling that everyone should deactivate his or her microphone. He wanted a private conversation.

Everyone nodded in understanding. Around the room, team members whispered their personal codewords, the ones they had personally chosen to mute their individual microphones. One after another, their vocal feeds shut down. Cobb scanned the room, watching his team as they gave him the sign they were all clear.

He finished with Garcia, who gave him a thumbs-up.

‘We’re good, Hector?’ Cobb asked.

‘Good as gold,’ Garcia replied.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course, I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

Cobb held up his hand, signaling Garcia to be quiet.

‘Panther,’ Cobb stated. It was the code word for his microphone, which was now reactivated. ‘Jasmine, do me a favor.’

Garcia scanned the room nervously, suddenly realizing that not everyone was present and accounted for in the command center.

Cobb continued. ‘Please confirm that Garcia’s microphone is still active. Did you hear his chatter from a moment ago?’

‘I sure did,’ Jasmine said. ‘He said we’re as good as gold, then you challenged it.’

Cobb grimaced. ‘That’s what I figured.’

McNutt instantly raised his MP7 and aimed it at Garcia’s chest. Garcia looked down and saw the bright red dot that was projected by the laser sight attached to the rifle’s barrel.

One false move, and he was dead.