The Prisoner's Gold

8

The Travels of Marco Polo.

McNutt smiled when he heard the title. ‘Marco Polo had a treasure?’

Maggie nodded. ‘Supposedly, yes.’

He whistled softly. ‘Holy hell, that has to be huge! He invented polo and that game where people call out his name.’

Garcia stared at him. ‘Actually, he did neither.’

‘Really? What about Polo cologne?’

‘Nope.’

‘Are you positive? Double-check that on your computer.’

‘I don’t have to. Marco Polo died in 1324. Polo cologne came out in the 1970s.’

‘Exactly. So they owe him, like, six hundred years of royalties!’

Sarah grinned. This was the McNutt she remembered from their previous missions, not the polite ass-kisser from upstairs. ‘It’s about freakin’ time. Where have you been?’

McNutt glanced at her. ‘When did I leave?’

‘Anyway,’ said Papineau, who rolled his eyes at McNutt’s antics, ‘the book is a good place to start, but it is merely an introduction to the subject matter. On his deathbed, Polo himself said that he had only revealed half the story.’

‘Let me guess,’ Cobb said. ‘Our job is to figure out the other half.’

Papineau nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Jack. I have something to help your cause.’

Without saying another word, Papineau strolled past the railing that separated the room into two and sat at the head of the computer table. The others got the hint and followed his lead. Within seconds they had taken their normal seats around the hi-tech device.

Still worried about fitting in, Maggie stared at the lone empty chair — the one where Jasmine used to sit — but opted to remain standing off to the side out of respect.

That is, until Sarah spoke up.

‘What’s wrong? Not used to sitting in chairs? You can sit on the floor if you’d like.’

‘Actually,’ Maggie said, ‘I’m Chinese, not Japanese. We’re big fans of chairs. In fact, we probably built most of the furniture in this house.’

McNutt laughed. ‘You’re probably right!’

Sarah pointed at the chair. ‘Then what are you waiting for?’

Maggie nodded and took her seat.

Papineau tapped a few keys on his virtual keyboard. ‘Hector, I’ve just sent you the name of a file on our server. Please project it on the wall behind me.’

Garcia did what he was told, and the video screen came to life. But unlike the large maps of Eastern Europe and Ancient Egypt that the team had studied in previous briefings, the only thing that appeared on the screen was the name of a single file: UA11273_MP.

Cobb recognized the UA prefix as belonging to the Ulster Archives, a private facility in Küsendorf, Switzerland, that had aided their efforts in the past. He rightly assumed the MP was for Marco Polo, but he wasn’t quite sure about the numbers.

Garcia clicked on the file, and the first page appeared on the screen. It was a scanned copy of a worn and yellowed document, with cramped writing in a foreign language that the team struggled to translate. That is, everyone except Maggie.

She gasped as soon as she saw it. ‘Wait. Is that …?’

Papineau smiled but did not reply.

Sarah showed her frustration. ‘What are we looking at? Polo’s book?’

‘I don’t understand,’ McNutt said. ‘I know we have his book in the library upstairs. I’ve seen it. Why don’t we just look through that one? It’s typed and in English.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘That one is most likely a compilation of over fifty manuscripts, each edited by different publishers and editors over the centuries, and based on multitudes of sources, notes, and ideas.’ She stared at the image on the screen. ‘What we’re looking at is something different. This appears to be penned by Rustichello da Pisa himself: the man who wrote the original version of the book.’

‘The prison mate?’ Cobb asked.

Maggie nodded as she struggled to translate the document on a notepad.

Sarah opted to fill the silence. ‘I have to admit I’m kind of impressed. Who knew that Josh had been in the library — let alone looked at the books?’

‘Hey, I read. Not the so-called “classics” and literary novels. That stuff is crap. I was looking for the latest Kuzneski.’

Sarah stared at him. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘Some Polack. Medium talent. Anyway, given our adventures over the past year, I’ve taken an interest in history. And his books are easier to read than the encyclopedia.’

‘It’s better than nothing,’ Cobb said, although he knew McNutt was reading more than just thrillers. He had tasked the sniper with researching several historical eras and had asked him to write reports on a number of lost treasures. Cobb had sensed there would be more missions, and he wanted to familiarize himself with what was out there. To that end, Garcia had been told to study various legends and stories about South America while Sarah had been assigned Europe. Cobb had figured they would eventually obtain a new historian, but he wanted each member of the group to be well rounded.

‘So,’ Cobb said as he focused on Papineau, ‘how did we get this manuscript from the Ulster Archives? And what does it tell us about the treasure?’

‘Actually, Jack, I was the one who gave it to the Archives for authentication and preservation, not the other way around. As for your second question, I was just getting to that.’

Papineau double-tapped the table’s hi-tech surface and a copy of the document on the main screen appeared under the glass. Then, by pushing his hand toward the team members in turn, he digitally slid the documents to their individual workstations. Now each of them could flip through the document at their own pace.

‘As Maggie pointed out, this document seems to have been written by Rustichello da Pisa. Though he only had it for a few days, Petr Ulster is reasonably certain it is authentic. The document is written in a mixture of Italian dialects, along with Old French and Latin. Curiously, it also contains some words and phrases in Asian languages, which is what convinced Petr of the manuscript’s authenticity. That and carbon dating.’

Cobb knew that Ulster wasn’t just the head of the archives; he was also its most revered scholar. Cobb trusted his opinion implicitly. ‘So what does it say?’

‘We can’t answer that yet,’ Papineau admitted. ‘Maggie will need to spend some time deciphering it.’

‘And once she does?’

Papineau smiled. ‘Your mission is to locate and retrieve Marco Polo’s treasure.’

‘If it exists,’ McNutt said.

‘Yes.’

‘And in exchange?’ Cobb asked.

‘Our standard arrangement. Five million dollars each.’

‘You still need to pay us for the second mission,’ Sarah complained. ‘I don’t start on this one until you pay up for the last one.’

‘Me, too,’ Garcia said.

McNutt looked to Cobb for his opinion on the matter, but Cobb just sat there, silently watching Papineau.

The Frenchman put on a show of considering the request, but Cobb could tell he had already anticipated the complaint and planned to acquiesce. ‘Very well. Those of you who participated in the last mission will each be paid for it before you leave for Asia, or Europe, or wherever the trail leads. But you will need to begin researching now. Agreed?’

‘Yep,’ Sarah said.

Garcia and McNutt both nodded. Maggie remained quiet.

All eyes turned to Cobb.

He looked at Papineau for a long moment, and at first the Frenchman gazed back impassively. But then his resolve began to crack as he realized what was about to happen.

‘Sorry,’ Cobb said. ‘No deal.’