The Prisoner's Gold

18

Sarah paced the floor of the swank living room, asking herself the same question over and over again for the last several hours. ‘Where the hell are they?’

She knew Cobb had touched base earlier in the day, but the data from the ground-penetrating radar had stopped suddenly and all attempts to contact him since had been unsuccessful. Normally she wouldn’t be worried about Cobb, who tended to be very focused when he was on a rekky, but thanks to the volatile weather in Loulan, she couldn’t help but wonder if a giant sandstorm had ravaged their communications gear, their vehicle, or them.

If so, they could be stranded in the dead zone.

She walked irregular patterns through the Doric columns of the living room, ignoring the crystal chandeliers overhead and the gorgeous hardwood and marble floors beneath her feet. She eventually noticed that she had been subconsciously avoiding the exotic Turkish rugs and was instead weaving a path around on the parts of the floors that were uncovered.

Even lost in thought she was cognizant of the treasures around her.

She changed her course and headed into the compound’s vast library to speak with Maggie. Lined with dark wood shelves that stretched up into the alcoves of the loft ceiling, the room contained close to 5,000 volumes, many of which were leather-bound first editions.

All were meticulously free of dust.

Sarah wondered briefly who performed the actual dusting. She guessed that Papineau had a professional cleaning crew come in once a week or so. Even the most perfectly constructed homes in Florida required constant maintenance. And if the air conditioning went out for even a week, every volume in the spacious library would be crawling with mold.

Surrounded by sheaves of loose paper and piles of open books, Maggie sat at a long table, completely focused on her work. Sarah stood in the doorway for a moment, hoping to be noticed. When that didn’t happen, she pulled out a wooden chair and sat at the table across from Maggie, who welcomed her with a smile.

‘Any more leads?’ Sarah asked.

Maggie nodded. ‘Actually, yes. It’s a bit complicated, but I think if we follow—’ She caught herself and smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I was about to start a long historical explanation. Do you actually want to hear it, or were you just interested in the end result?’

Sarah was surprised by the question. It was one that Jasmine had never asked — even when they were in the field under fire. Bullets would be flying, and Jasmine would launch into a graduate-level thesis on a historical tangent that had nothing to do with the original query because she felt it was a teaching moment.

It was annoying as hell, but part of her charm.

And one of many things that Sarah missed about her.

‘Please,’ Sarah said, ‘regale me with details. I need to understand everything anyway, and I need to keep occupied. I’ve already procured new gear for the team, and I really can’t move much further in my preparations for extraction if I don’t even have any clue as to what the treasure is, how much there might be, or where in the world we might find it. Right now all I have to go on is: treasure … somewhere in Asia. That’s a hell of a big haystack, especially when you don’t even know what the needle looks like.’

Maggie laughed. ‘Well, let’s see if we can narrow things down a bit. The first thing you need to know is that even though the Polos logged thousands of miles on their travels, they weren’t exactly trailblazers. Most of the paths that they followed were established trade routes of the indigenous population. What made the Polos special were the places they went and the people they met. They did things that no Europeans had ever done before.’

‘Like Columbus “discovering” America.’

‘Exactly,’ Maggie said. ‘Niccolò and Maffeo left Istanbul around 1259. They traveled to Uzbekistan and traded there for a few years. They then joined up with a caravan that was on its way from Persia to Dadu. That trip took roughly two years, but the members of the caravan had made the trip before. They were emissaries for Hulagu Khan and Kublai Khan.’

‘And who were the Khans?’ Sarah asked.

‘They were brothers — grandchildren of Genghis Khan, former supreme ruler of the Mongol Empire. At that time, Hulagu ruled everything from Turkey to the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Kublai held Mongolia and the west and northern parts of China. The point is, the members of the caravan knew their way.’

‘Got it,’ Sarah said.

‘The brothers were received warmly in Dadu, which is modern-day Beijing. As I mentioned in my initial briefing, Kublai Khan sent them back to Europe with two tasks. Do you remember what they were?’

‘Oil from the Holy Sepulcher and one hundred Christian scholars.’

Maggie nodded. ‘When they returned to Dadu, they were now covering the same ground a third time — only this time with young Marco.’

‘So,’ Sarah said, understanding the significance of the story, ‘Marco would be experiencing the route for the first time, but to his father and uncle—’

‘Correct. The route was becoming more and more familiar to them. Along the way, they shared all their knowledge with Marco and showed him the sights that impressed them the most. Marco would almost certainly have passed through Loulan at this point, but it would have been the third time for his father and uncle. It took them roughly three years to reach Beijing, and they remained there for seventeen more. During that time, Marco took several voyages for Kublai Khan to various locations around the empire.’

‘And then the Khan finally let them go home?’ Sarah asked.

‘Not exactly. He sent them on a mission to escort a princess to her betrothed in Ilkhanate, part of Hulagu’s empire.’

‘Ilkhanate? Where’s that?’

‘Modern-day Iran,’ Maggie answered. ‘That trip was primarily by sea, and it may have taken as long as three years before the Polos finally parted ways with the rest of their group. There were some six hundred people with them on the return journey. Only eighteen made it to their destination. The official accounts don’t say much about why. Neither does Rustichello’s manuscript. The description of the return journey is sketchy at best, but I can tell you for sure that the Polos left the wedding party at the Strait of Hormuz and headed home.’

‘And Marco found himself in jail shortly thereafter,’ Sarah concluded.

‘Yes. And here is an interesting bit. After narrating his tale to Rustichello in Genoa, Marco was released from incarceration and made a small fortune as a merchant in Venice. Rustichello’s book on Marco’s travels was a huge success. But then, ten full years later, Marco himself spent years writing a new version of the book, this time in Italian.’ Maggie whispered the last part, as if it were scandalous information.

‘What language was Rustichello’s version?’

‘Old French,’ Maggie answered. ‘My point is, I wonder whether Marco’s version was written to obscure certain details that might lead people toward the treasure. So I’ve been comparing the extant versions of the manuscript, of which there are one hundred and fifty-two, to be precise. I’m looking for places where the memoirs from Rustichello differ from the other accounts by even the slightest detail.’

‘And what are you finding?’

‘Well, here is where it gets difficult. The versions of the book that we have today are all written like travel guides. It is likely Marco and Rustichello were hoping the book would act as a manual for future traders who were brave enough to head east. The accounts are big on practical detail and shy on personal depth.’

‘So no, “Dear Diary, today we ate yak meat … again,”’ Sarah joked.

‘Exactly. There’s nothing like that. You end up comparing details against details without the aid of anyone’s actual viewpoint. It’s all the same perspective without any individual thought.’

‘Sounds like we’re shooting in the dark,’ Sarah said.

‘I wouldn’t say that just yet. We know that Rustichello believed Polo had visited Loulan multiple times. That’s at least something to go on. This kind of research is all about making connections between the bits of information you have and the ones you acquire along the way. We don’t have the guard’s account yet, and Hector is still cross-referencing all the versions of the published editions of The Travels on his computer.’

‘Actually,’ Hector said from the doorway, ‘I still have nothing on that front, but I do have something important to talk about.’

Sarah flinched from the sound of his voice. ‘Is it about Jack?’

Garcia shook his head. ‘No. It’s about me.’