The Prisoner's Gold

58

Papineau dreaded the call he was about to make. He had received a simple text message from Maurice Copeland, which read: CALL NOW. It had been typed in all caps, which was undoubtedly his boss’s way of shouting at him from halfway around the world. Delaying the moment for as long as he could, Papineau took a deep breath and glanced out from the deck of the Wijarama Princess, a rented yacht he had docked in the quiet waters of the harbor.

Just as Polo had claimed, it really was a beautiful country.

The walled city of Galle was eighty miles south of the capital city of Colombo. With a population just shy of 100,000 people, the fourth-largest city in Sri Lanka was a shining example of Portuguese and Dutch colonial artistry. The walled portion of the city was the largest standing fortress built anywhere in Asia by colonial hands. By day, the walls and ramparts were a sight to behold, but now that the sun had set, the sleepy city had little to offer.

Papineau tried his best to enjoy the moment.

Away from the chaos. Away from Copeland.

Even away from his team.

Separating had been Cobb’s idea, but he happily went along with the plan.

McNutt had arrived first to secure weapons and other supplies on the island. Then Maggie and Garcia had flown to Colombo with a connecting flight to the Maldives that they simply didn’t use. Instead, they had slipped off toward the interior of the country to a small guesthouse in the Hill Country capital of Kandy.

Sarah had flown commercial into Colombo and connected on a private charter up to Jaffna in the north, where she would make her way down to Trincomalee on the formerly beleaguered and war-torn east coast. She would attempt to secure freighters that could get the treasure out of the country — assuming they could pinpoint where it was.

Cobb, as usual, kept his own movements to himself.

Papineau was to fly from Chennai in India, which he had done, although he had refused to fly commercial. Still, he had left the Gulfstream and his pilot behind, instead renting a charter. He then took a helicopter down to Galle with the rental agent for the yacht, a small Tamil man with dark skin and an obnoxious sinus infection.

The idea was for Papineau to set sail in the morning, around the south of the island and up to Batticaloa in the east, which would put him a three-hour drive from the others in Kandy and only two from Sarah in ‘Trinco’, as it was called locally. With everyone spread out, they would be harder to find, and they had flexibility to get someone on site as soon as Maggie determined the hoard’s exact location. Meanwhile, Garcia was feverishly trying to pinpoint key members of the Fist’s hierarchy in order to see if any of them were headed to Sri Lanka.

The idea of having to face Copeland’s wrath now, when they were this close, filled Papineau with unease. The man was mercurial, swinging from happy to furious over the slightest things, and Papineau hated to be on his bad side. He suspected the distance between his emotions could mean the difference between a stern lecture and a bullet in the back of the head.

Still, he needed to make the call or things would be worse. He pressed SEND on his phone and waited for it to connect. It was 6.30 a.m. in California, but he knew Copeland would be wide awake, following the strict boxing regimen of his youth.

The phone rang six times, and Papineau was about to hang up. The line had no voicemail, so Copeland would either accept the call or not. Those were the only options.

Just as his finger hovered over the red button, Papineau heard the call connect. Oddly, there was only silence on the other end.

‘Hello,’ Papineau said. ‘Are you there?’

‘I am, Jean-Marc. Just swallowing a glass of carrot juice and my daily vitamins. I’m also trying to hold on to my composure, but I’m losing the fight. Tell me, how do you expect me to stay calm after your latest fuckup in Tibet?’

Copeland took a deep breath to rein in his anger. ‘Florence was bad enough. At least in Italy, they had nothing to tie us to the heist at the museum. But in Tibet, I’m hearing things about shootouts at the Potala Palace, car chases with some kind of armored Batmobile, and a border skirmish with an armed group of brigands. That’s the word they used on CNN, Jean-Marc: brigands. The last time I heard that fucking word I was watching Robin Hood, yet you managed to find some in Lhasa. Unless I’m mistaken, I seem to recall having a talk with you after Egypt about your team keeping a low profile.’

‘Yes, sir, you did—’

Copeland cut him off. ‘I’m pretty sure I impressed upon you the need for secrecy. I believe the actual words I used were, “Keep your team out of the spotlight.”’ He took a deep, calming breath, then said in a softer voice, ‘So, explain yourself.’

‘It seems there is an organized criminal enterprise in China stretching back to before the start of the twentieth century. This brotherhood was the cause of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Today they have their hands in a number of legitimate enterprises. We only just learned their identity on the way out of Tibet. These were the same men that Cobb and McNutt skirmished with in Xinjiang. They also attempted to scuttle our operation in Guangzhou.’

‘Jean-Marc,’ he said as the tone of his voice began to rise, ‘I hope you understand that this information is actually making it more difficult for me to maintain my poise. Please tell me you have some good news, or my arteries are going to burst.’

‘We do,’ Papineau said. ‘We recently acquired a digital copy of Polo’s diary.’

‘Really?’ Copeland’s tone was markedly different. ‘That’s fucking brilliant.’

‘Yes, sir, and we’ve narrowed the location to Sri Lanka — the land Polo referred to as Taprobane. We are already making plans to transport the hoard. We haven’t located it yet, but with Polo’s handwritten diary I expect it will be no time at all before we have our hands on the treasure.’

‘And this Brotherhood?’

‘If they actually follow us to Sri Lanka, Jack has a plan for smoking them out. They’re a very xenophobic group. They might stay in China.’

‘Or they might hire some mercenaries to wipe you out,’ Copeland suggested.

Papineau noted a hint of glee in his voice. ‘Again, sir, Jack has a plan.’

‘So, to sum up,’ Copeland said with a sarcastic chuckle, ‘you have aroused the wrath of a criminal syndicate that may or may not chase you to Sri Lanka where you’ll probably have to kill some people and, knowing your crew, probably blow up half the island. You know, they’re just coming off a war that was, like, forty years long? I’m guessing they won’t be keen on gunfire and explosions.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m aware.’

‘And even though you have Polo’s personal diary, you can’t narrow down the location to more than … what? A twenty-five-thousand-square-mile radius? Do I have all of these facts correct?’

Copeland paused, waiting for Papineau’s response.

Just then, Papineau’s phone beeped in his hand. He glanced at the screen and saw a text from Maggie that completely changed his mood. It read: We found it: Sigiriya.

‘You have things nearly correct, sir,’ Papineau said, a grin clawing its way across his face. ‘There’s just one last thing.’

‘Really? And what would that be?’

‘Maggie just texted me. The team has found the location.’

‘That was fast,’ Copeland said. ‘And just in time, too. I was tempted to fire you. These pep talks are really paying off for you, aren’t they? Maybe we should have them more often.’

‘Does that mean I still have a job?’ Papineau asked.

‘I hope that’s not sass, Jean-Marc.’ Anger fueled Copeland’s tone. ‘Remember, you and your team are only as good to me as the next treasure.’

With that, the line went dead.