CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

 

The Upper Barrakka Gardens are located on the upper tier of the St. Peter & Paul Bastion in the fortified city of Valletta. Originally used by the Order of Saint John for recreation, the gardens were opened to the public following the end of the French occupation of Malta in 1800 AD.

Payne and Jones entered the gardens from the north in search of the cannons and were immediately transported to a different realm. Thanks to the walls and buildings that lined the gardens, the soothing sound of splashing water quickly replaced the noisy traffic behind them. The source of the sound was a giant fountain that sat in the middle of a plaza that was shaded by a canopy of coniferous trees. Wooden benches faced the fountain, while an assortment of brightly colored flowers filled the gaps between stone paths and sculptures.

Jones stopped next to an oddly shaped tree and stared at its twisty limbs. It was unlike anything they had back in Pittsburgh. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Jarkko, who was several steps behind them and lost in his own little world. He was whistling a tune and dancing a jig to a band that wasn’t there. Whether it was the vodka in his system or the promise of treasure, he seemed extremely happy.

Perhaps it was the presence of his long-lost friends.

“Jarkko,” Jones called out. “Come over here. I have a question.”

Jarkko happily obliged. He danced his way over to Jones and greeted him with a brotherly hug. “What is it, my friend?”

“You’ve been here before, right?”

“Yes. Many times. Maltese women keep Jarkko warm in winter. Why?”

“Do you know what kind of tree this is?”

“No. What kind of tree is this?”

Jones shook his head. “No. I was asking you.”

“How Jarkko know about tree? Jarkko fisherman, not farmer.”

“Sorry, I thought maybe—”

“You point at fish, Jarkko will tell you. You point at tree, Jarkko feel dumb. Why you make Jarkko feel dumb?”

“Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to—”

“Ugh! And splashing sound from fountain make Jarkko have to pee.”

“Well, don’t do it here.”

“Of course Jarkko don’t do it here! Jarkko not animal. Jarkko not going to whip out willy and pee in park in front of kids and babies. What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me. I just wanted to know what kind of tree this is!”

“Then why you talk about my willy?”

Jones honestly didn’t know how to answer that without upsetting Jarkko further, so he was beyond thrilled when he heard his name being called from ahead.

“DJ,” Payne shouted, “the ceremony is starting.”

Jones breathed a sigh of relief. “I gotta go look at some cannons.”

Jarkko nodded. “And I gotta go pee with mine.”

“Meet you here in a little bit.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

Then they hustled off in opposite directions.

Payne was waiting for Jones near a series of stone arches that lined the rear of the gardens. Built by an Italian knight named Fra Flamingo Bambini in 1661 AD, the terraced arches were originally roofed, but the damaged ceiling was removed following the Rising of the Priests, a Maltese rebellion that was squashed by the Order of Saint John in 1775 AD.

“What was that about?” Payne asked.

“I wanted to know what type of tree it was.”

“How’s Jarkko supposed to know that? He’s not a farmer.”

“Wow. That’s exactly what he said.”

Payne smiled. “I know. I could hear him from here.”

Jones laughed as they walked under the first set of arches. Made of large, tan bricks, the massive arches soared over them by at least fifteen feet. “Wow. These are awesome.”

“Wait,” Payne assured him. “It gets better.”

They walked across a long, narrow plaza made of decorative bricks and headed for the second series of arches. As they got closer, Jones could finally see what Payne was referring to. The rear arches opened to a wide terrace that overlooked the breadth of the Grand Harbour. They could see everything Galea had promised and a whole lot more.

“Holy balls,” Jones muttered as he made his way through the small crowd that had gathered for the ceremony. “This view is unbelievable, but where are the cannons?”

The duo slid twenty feet to the left until they found an open spot along the metal railing. Only then could they clearly see the lower level of the gardens—a grassy terrace that jutted out from a hidden set of arches that supported the plaza that they were standing on. A central stone walkway bisected the green grass below, leading to a wide strip of tan bricks at the edge of the bottom plaza that served as a mounting point for eight black cannons.

“My, oh my,” Jones said in appreciation. “Those are smooth-bore, breech-loading thirty-two pounders. They could take down a cruise ship before the lifeboats even hit the water. Truth be told, I’d pay good money to see that happen. It would be awesome.”

A foreign couple standing next to him gave him a look of concern.

Jones quickly realized his faux pas. “Not with people on it. I just meant a ship.”

His explanation didn’t seem to work as the couple scurried away.

Payne couldn’t help but laugh. “First Jarkko, and now them. You’re on quite a roll. Want to make fun of my dead parents while you’re at it?”

“Shut up,” Jones mumbled. “I’m watching the ceremony.”

In truth, there wasn’t much to the ceremony, at least compared to the ones that Payne and Jones had participated in over the years—which, at times, involved hundreds of soldiers, marching bands, and complex choreography to showcase their discipline. And yet, there was something about the simplicity of the saluting battery that was somehow captivating.

A single soldier in a tan uniform marched out to the cannons. He selected the gun for the ceremony (in this case, the fourth from the left), opened the back of the artillery, and loaded it with a three-pound charge of gunpowder. Orchestra music began to swell over the public address system as the soldier attached a cord to the trigger and stepped to his left while facing the crowd on the terrace. With the cord in his right hand, he shifted his focus to the timepiece he held in his left. His gaze never left the sweeping dial of the second hand as it ticked toward the top of the hour. A moment before it reached its apex, he shouted a word of warning to stand clear, and then he pulled the cord in front of his chest with a violent flourish.

White smoke burst from the muzzle as the cannon roared.

In that instant, Payne and Jones were transported again, this time to their former lives—where the sound of gunfire often meant death and destruction. Although they knew it was going to happen, the loud blast made them flinch like thoroughbreds at the start of a race. Their hands instinctively inched toward the weapons they had concealed under their shirts, while their gaze shifted to center mass on the man that had pulled the trigger.

Just like they had been trained to do.

The polite applause of the crowd broke their focus and brought them back to reality. No words were spoken, but each man realized what the other had done.

And it brought a smile to their lips.

It didn’t matter if they were jobless, or retired, or somewhere in between: they would remain deadly until the day they died.

“You ready?” Jones asked.

“Been ready.”

“Then let’s go find us a treasure.”

 

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Before he had killed Sergei Bobrinsky in the tower in Tallinn, Ivan Volkov had obtained as much information as possible about his soon-to-be-extinct smuggling operation. In particular, he was interested in the deliverymen who had received their payments before he’d received his.

In Volkov’s mind, that money belonged to him.

And he was willing to do just about anything to get it back.

He had become even more intrigued when he had found out that one of the smugglers had received his compensation in the form of rare Russian documents. Volkov had an appreciation for his country’s history, particularly its violent past when real Russians handled their issues with the same brutality that he preferred. Back then, the ruling class would beat people in the street just to let them know that they could—and no one would even complain about it.

How he missed the good old days!

Of course, there were some things about the present that he enjoyed as well—like the cadre of hackers on his payroll. In little time, they had been able to track down everything he had needed to find the mysterious Finn, including his yacht’s location in Birgu.

Volkov had loaded his private jet with many of his best men and had landed in Malta that morning. From there, they had headed to the Grand Harbour Marina where they had narrowly missed him and his two apparent bodyguards.

Volkov knew nothing about the black-and-white duo, except that they would be severely outnumbered when his Russian-trained soldiers moved in to question the Finn.

And when that happened, he was certain the duo would meet their doom.