Pompeii's Ghosts (A James Acton Thriller, #9) (2 page)

“As do
I, my Caesar,” added Valerius.

Plinius
nodded his appreciation to Valerius, then returned his attention to their
Emperor whose face was creased with a frown.

“And
your plan should something untoward occur?”

“I have over
fifty ships and thousands of men at my command, safely anchored here. With a
favorable wind, we can be in Pompeii within four hours, and secure the area
within minutes of landing. As well, Valerius, my second-in-command and most
trusted man, lives in Pompeii, atop the very vault in question, with a small
contingent of our best men, and his primary duty is the protection and
preservation of that which you have entrusted to me.”

Emperor Titus’
head bobbed slowly, his lips pursing as he looked from man to man. “Then I know
it is in capable hands and I shall fret no longer.” He chuckled. “If the Senate
only knew what resided in a humble basement in Pompeii, I fear many daggers
would hasten my union with Julius Caesar himself!”

He roared
with laughter and Plinius joined him, Valerius smiling but not partaking as he
knew full well that if anything were to happen to that now entrusted to his
safekeeping, he would surely die.

As would
his Prefect and friend.

For no
one could resist the massive fortune now housed on his property overlooking the
sea.

A war
chest, taken from the Empire’s treasury when Vespasian ruled, to put down any
rival’s bid to the throne.

“Have
our guests return!” ordered Emperor Titus. “Let the feast continue!”

Within moments
the others returned, none daring show any annoyance at having been
unceremoniously ejected from the lunch, an earlier than planned gathering made
necessary by the ever changing schedule of the Emperor. If it were Valerius, as
it had been before, he knew he too would have shown no expression that might
betray his inner anger and annoyance, as it would be of no use. He had served
under Plinius for the better of fifteen years and thanks to his Lord’s position
had met his share of emperors, and he found they all had one trait in
common—supreme arrogance. Having never met any before they had attained their
position he couldn’t say whether or not they had always been that way, or if it
was an acquired skill learned upon gaining the highest office in the land.

All Valerius
knew was that it pissed him off.

And he
would never show it.

His Lord,
Plinius, was different. Though of a far higher station than Valerius through
birth, when Valerius had found himself under Plinius’ command, a young officer
fresh from the academy, Plinius had taken him under his wing like a son and
treated him as close to an equal as was permitted in an empire obsessed with
class and caste.

And
through Plinius’ tutelage and care, Valerius was now a wealthy man himself with
a home in Rome and a summer home in Pompeii.
It is essential you pay as
little in taxes as possible.
It was sage advice at any time, and coming
from Plinius when he had gifted his old escape in Pompeii to his underling, he
had explained the importance.
Hide your wealth outside of Rome, and the
Senate cannot take what you have earned. Keep it in Rome, and they would soon
have you parted from it.

The
advice, over a decade old, held true today more than ever. With the economy in
recession, inflation then deflation wreaking havoc, Emperor Vespasian had tried
to stimulate it through massive public works projects to keep the citizenry
employed and distracted, his most ambitious a mighty coliseum that would
dominate the Roman skyline for centuries to come. It hadn’t worked, instead
only draining the treasury, hence the late Emperor’s desire to keep a large
portion in reserve, outside of Rome, in the event of a challenge to his
leadership.

And it
was all kept in Valerius’ basement.

Gold bars
filled the newly excavated underground chambers on his property tucked into the
mountainside. It was impressive, and terrifying. If word were to escape, every
thief and marauder in the empire would descend upon his home and the treasury
hidden away from the people of Rome.

It was a
massive fortune worth dying for, either in pursuit of it, or defense.

The room
shook again, this time harder than even Valerius remembered feeling, eliciting
screams from the women and yelps even from some of the seasoned soldiers. The
floor cracked at their feet as dust and plaster fell from the ceiling. Valerius
leapt to his feet then pulled Plinius to his, ushering him out of the house and
onto the lawn overlooking the Bay of Naples, the Praetorian Guard whisking the
Emperor out at the same time.

The
shaking soon stopped but no one noticed as they all looked across the bay at
the sleeping giant that appeared to be awakening.

Valerius
looked at Plinius. “I think I should check on our charge.”

Plinius
nodded. “Agreed. Send word immediately should you require assistance.”

“I
shall, my Lord.”

Plinius
gripped Valerius by the wrist, squeezing hard and looking deep into his eyes.
“Good luck, old friend.”

Valerius
bowed slightly, then deeply to the Emperor who said nothing, this time betrayed
by his eyes.

For fear
was there, as it was in all of them.

Mount
Vesuvius had awoken, and even in the darkest reaches of their souls, none could
imagine the horrors that were about to befall them all.

Exiting Eritrean Airspace
Present Day

“We’re descending.”

Professor
James Acton opened his eyes and glanced out the window then over at the source
of the comment, Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson, BD to his
friends. “How can you tell?”

Dawson
shrugged. “Years of experience?” He pointed to a lone road that stretched
across the landscape for as far as the eye could see. “We should be at least
thirty thousand feet in the air. We’re no better than twenty and falling.
Slowly though.”

“You can
tell that from a road?”

“The
width of it. That’s a two lane road, which means a fairly standard width.
There’s a distinctly different look to a road from twenty thousand feet than
there is from thirty.”

Acton
nodded, the explanation obvious once actually articulated. “Okay, so it was a
stupid question,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure there’s a reason, though,” he
added, his Spidey senses starting to tingle, setting off a slight adrenaline
rush at the thought of yet another thing going wrong in his life. He was an
archeology professor at Saint Paul’s, a small Maryland university where he had
worked for much of his professional career. And his life now was far too “event
driven” for him to remember what had attracted him to the damned profession in
the first place.

Indiana
Jones.

He had
to admit that was the truth. He had loved those movies and even read the
novels, voraciously devouring anything he could related to the character, and
when he finished that, he chewed through the entire archeology and ancient
history section of his limited school library.

He fell
in love with history.

Especially
ancient history.

Roman
history was his favorite. The great empires. Greco, Roman, Egyptian, Mongol,
Caliphate. Not to mention the more modern ones, British, French, Ottoman, Soviet,
Nazi and American. He was fascinated by them all, and how similar they were in
nature, no matter how old or new. Empires rose, thrived, and fell. It was
inevitable, and he was convinced the empire he lived in now was collapsing.
Would it take a thousand years like the Roman to fall, or would it be rapid
like the British. World War Two essentially ended it for them. Would one good
war end it for America?
Had
one good war already ended it and we just
didn’t know it yet?

He found
himself preoccupied with that thought quite often, and he hoped that with
today’s knowledge of the past and our technology, along with a shared and
distributed information source like the Internet, Western civilization just may
avoid the hard fall that so many before had experienced, and instead might ride
out the current dip. But with challengers to the throne all around, from the
new economic powerhouse of communist China, to the growing powerhouses of India
and Brazil, along with a resurgent and belligerent Soviet Union Version 2.0 if
the West were to survive, it would need to defeat not only these external forces
economically and perhaps militarily, but also the enemies from within who would
destroy what previous generations had sacrificed so much to build. Whether they
were immigrant and Muslim groups trying to change the way of life that created
the wonderful countries they wanted to now live in, or those who would have us
feel shame for actually being great countries amongst comparative cesspools, or
even those who were perfectly content to sit back and live off the avails of
the great Western nations while contributing nothing, all would need to be
defeated.

A
daunting task.

He could
never understand why someone would risk everything to flee their country to
come and live in one of the Western democracies, then immediately try to change
their new home to be more like their old home. Acton had lost count of the
number of discussions he had had with his students on the topic. They made for
lively debates, and he was open to all views on the matter, as long as the
arguments were civil and productive. Unfortunately he found too many times with
today’s youth they had too difficult a time putting together a cogent argument,
and instead resorted to insults, cursing, or complaining to some civil
liberties group about the professor who challenged politically correct thinking,
when in fact all he was doing was forcing them to participate in the greatest
freedom of all.

Freedom
of speech.

He
thought of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark and how in the end the government
had taken the ark and hidden it in a warehouse, the wonders of the find forever
lost to history except for a cameo in a fantastic sequel with a riveting story
line almost thirty years later.

But not
this time.

This
time the treasure they had unearthed was public.

A little
too public for his liking.

And it
was loaded in the hold of this very plane, a priceless trove worth almost a
full billion dollars if simply melted down. But they weren’t conquistadors,
Spaniards melting down priceless Incan and Aztec treasures merely for the metal
and gemstones. They were archeologists, trying to preserve the past.

And in
this case it meant secrecy and heavy security, the former of which had failed
miserably, thanks most likely to the completely inept and corrupt United
Nations that had handled the negotiations. If there was one organization on the
planet that needed a major overhaul, it was the UN. Any organization so warped
as to name countries like Iran to head up women’s rights had to be shutdown.
What was needed in his opinion was a United Democratic Nations, rather than a
collection of dictators constantly looking for ways to make Israel look bad instead
of actually furthering human rights and bettering mankind.

And the
permanent Security Council? Again, why should non-democracies like China and
Russia have veto power? And for that matter, why should the United States? If
the UN was supposed to be a democratic institution, even if its member states
were not, why should there be veto power?

Because
you couldn’t trust the vast majority of the membership to not pass resolution
after resolution impacting the democracies of the world. Though that wasn’t the
original intent of the veto power—it was more to create a balance between the
West and the communists after World War II—it had now become a balance between
the West and the Muslim and African nations of the world, few of which were
democracies and few of which gave equal rights to all of their citizens,
especially women.

Though
half a dozen had died yesterday, he and Laura had made it out alive with a
massive trove of gold the bureaucrats were concerned about though not the
preserved archeological find they had hoped for. He had breathed a tremendous
sigh of relief when the massive transport had taken off and left Eritrea
behind. He had been a little leery however, the enormous Antonov An-124 Ruslan being
insisted upon by the Eritreans, including a “non-Western” crew.

Acton
would prefer to be sitting in the back of a good old American C17 Globemaster
with a dozen armed Delta operators surrounding him, rather than their current situation
of a private Russian aircraft with private contractors at the controls and those
who had survived yesterday’s attack of an unarmed group of security
“observers”, two from each of the permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council, along with two from Italy, the ultimate destination of the
treasure they had found.