The Prisoner's Gold (The Hunters 3) (12 page)

Papineau knew that the second option was far more likely.

‘Yeah, I planned for it,’ Copeland said, taking a swig from a bottle of Dos Equis. Papineau watched as the lime slice the man had shoved down the neck of the brown bottle jammed in its throat, flavoring the Mexican beer. ‘He surprised me, though. I didn’t think Cobb would have the stones to dig deeper into who was pulling the strings until the fourth mission.’

While his face showed nothing, inside Papineau raised a mental eyebrow. His boss – the man who had ruined him in the world of business and then offered him a lifeline of servitude – had let it slip that there would be another mission after the Polo treasure.

That is, of course, if they were successful.

For all his own private investigations, Papineau had failed to discover why Copeland was so intent on discovering these treasures. The man was already fabulously wealthy, and he didn’t really seem to want them. He had repatriated a good portion of the Romanian treasure to Bucharest and had allowed the Ulster Archives to examine the findings in the tomb of Alexander before the treasure was carefully packaged and shipped to Cairo. Copeland’s only desire had been to visit the burial site before Papineau had notified anyone else of its location.

Copeland took another sip of beer. ‘Obviously you can agree to all of Cobb’s terms. Let’s also throw him a small bone; something that will get him to slow down his search for me. You can confirm that you work for a nameless benefactor. Tell him I prefer to remain anonymous for the time being, but if the team is successful on this mission I’ll reveal myself to him and him alone. The others must never know my name.’

Copeland smiled, but it did little to improve his bulldog looks. With a cauliflower ear and a nose that had been broken many times, his grin only made him look constipated.

‘I don’t think he will accept those terms,’ Papineau said with just the right hint of uncertainty in his voice. He looked out past the massive swimming pool to the expansive view, feigning uncertainty as to how he might sell Cobb on the idea.

He knew full well that Cobb would accept the terms.

He was merely playing to Copeland’s ego.

‘He’ll agree to it,’ Copeland assured him. ‘And in the meantime, he’ll still be hunting me. So we’ll throw him a bone there, too. Something that makes him feel like he’s getting closer.’

Copeland inhaled his last crab cake in one giant bite and started speaking again before he was finished chewing. ‘Where is the team on Polo?’

Papineau hid his disgust. ‘Hector has finished the computer translation of the Rustichello manuscript, and Maggie is done with her contrastive analysis. Jack and Joshua are in northwest China while Sarah and the others are planning a trip to Florence to retrieve a different manuscript that might have some leads.’

Copeland leaned forward in his wrought-iron chair. He was a short man with an even shorter fuse. ‘In other words, you have nothing.’

Papineau was prepared for Copeland’s reaction. ‘You knew this one would be tougher than the others. They are working with very thin leads. The manuscript you procured is full of Rustichello’s suspicions, not maps. There is no “X marks the spot”.’

‘Then why is Cobb in Asia?’

‘They are performing reconnaissance in Xinjiang. Obviously, they’ve stumbled upon a clue of some sort. It’s in Cobb’s M.O. to investigate a location before bringing the team in. He calls these trips “rekkys”.’

‘But this time he’s done it without telling you the reason why,’ Copeland goaded.

‘Or so he believes. It’s all part of my calculated management style. I’ve actually been taking pointers from you.’

Copeland leaned back. ‘Are you trying to flatter me, Jean-Marc?’

‘Never, sir.’

Copeland let loose a throaty laugh, then stood and began to walk around the infinity pool set into the side of the verdant hill. Papineau stood and followed the man without being told.

The immense estate might have looked like just another lavish home in yet another exclusive neighborhood, but Papineau knew that it was actually the centerpiece of a sprawling collective. All of the surrounding mansions were also owned by his employer, making the entire hilltop his personal dominion. It was an act of both convenience and arrogance. While he loved a good fight, he was uninterested in spending any time with adversarial neighbors he considered beneath him – at least not when victory could be bought instead of battled for. To ensure his complete control over both his property and his privacy, Copeland had convinced the local zoning board to declare the land outside of the township’s authority. It had been money well spent.

He not only owned the land, he ruled it.

It was his kingdom.

The estate was surrounded by a low stone wall and landscaping that was so perfect it looked like it had been planted by a robot. The compound made the security at the house in Fort Lauderdale look primitive. The house itself resembled a reinforced castle piercing skyward out of the soil of the hilltop. The stones had been quarried from all over the country and presented a tapestry of shades of gray against the piercing blue of the California sky. The inside of the home was just as impressive, with tasteful artwork, handcrafted furniture, and multitudes of skylights to fill the place with natural light. Despite all the man-made luxury, the thing that Papineau liked best about the home was the view.

He walked in silence as he absorbed the transcendent vista of the Pacific Ocean.

‘Just be sure he’s still on mission,’ Copeland said, shattering the moment. ‘I need him hunting for me, not hunting
for
me. Understand?’

Papineau understood the distinction. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘One more thing, Jean-Marc. I may not want him looking for me, but it is the only acceptable alternative. If you ever sense that he’s lost interest in the treasures
and
my identity, I need to know immediately.’

‘May I ask why?’

Copeland stopped walking and stared at Papineau. ‘Because if he’s no longer trying to find a treasure or find out who I am, it’ll be because he’s figured out what I’m doing. And once he does that, I’ll be forced to kill him … and his whole fucking team.’

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.’