CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

 

 

 

Stunned by Jones’s sudden disappearance, the group rushed forward to see if he was all right. They crowded around the gap in the tunnel wall and waited for a sign from the other side.

Five seconds passed, and then five seconds more.

But no word came from Jones.

“DJ!” Marissa shouted into the void. “Are you okay?”

Payne was used to his friend’s antics, but even he started to grow concerned. He was a few seconds away from climbing through the wall to check on him, when Jones suddenly popped up and screamed while holding the fluorescent glow stick underneath his chin. Combined with his black clothing, the neon light made it appear that Jones’s face was a green, floating head. Its unexpected appearance caused everyone in the group to recoil in fright.

Jarkko was so freaked out by the ghostly manifestation that he actually ran down the utility tunnel toward the exit, shouting expletives in his native tongue about the devil. In his mind, no treasure was worth eternal damnation.

Meanwhile, Jones roared with laughter.

“DJ!” Payne yelled through the gap as he clutched his chest. “I can’t believe you did that! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

Jones kept on laughing. “You always give me shit about black ghosts, but now I know you believe in them—or else you wouldn’t have just pissed your pants! Hell, I think Jarkko’s still running. You better go catch him before he reaches his yacht.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you. I actually reached for my gun.”

“It would’ve been worth it!” Jones said as he wiped tears from his eyes before turning his attention to Marissa. “Please tell me you got that on film.”

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even capture your leap through the wall. Next time give me some notice.”

“Man,” he whined. “Every time I do something cool, no one catches it on film. First my gymnastics in the library, and now this. I need to hire a publicist.”

“David,” Ulster said tentatively. “I don’t mean to step on your joke or stop a potential rant, but I was hoping I could pose a query of some importance.”

Jones looked at him. “Sure. What’s up?”

Ulster leaned forward. “Have we located the Knights’ tunnel?”

Jones smiled at the historian. In his moment of levity, he had completely forgotten about the significance of this find. “Why don’t you come on over and judge for yourself?”

Ulster grinned. “I was hoping you would say that!”

Once Payne had convinced Jarkko that there wasn’t a poltergeist in the ancient tunnel, the two of them helped Ulster through the narrow opening. Marissa went next, followed by Jarkko, and then Payne, who passed LED lanterns and flashlights through the gap before he made the journey himself. By the time he reached the far side, the space was being lit by multiple lights, which gave him a good view of his surroundings.

Stretching more than eight feet in height and width, the tunnels had been carved through the limestone to the dimensions in Cassar’s original drawings. A tangled web of tree roots hung from the punctured ceiling, giving the space an otherworldly vibe, but as Payne ran his hand along the porous walls, he could practically feel the history of the Knights in the stone.

“What an extraordinary discovery!” Ulster announced for all to hear. “Despite the complex root structures that have grown over time and a bit of seepage from the earth above, this tunnel is in remarkable shape! I truly wasn’t sure what we were going to find, but this surely exceeds the grandest of my expectations.”

Marissa gawked in amazement. “I know I’m supposed to be filming this, but I’m so blown away that I need to soak it all in. I’m sure this will be the highlight of my career.”

Payne smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s hope not. Remember, the reason we’re down here is to look for clues about the treasure. We can film and map the tunnel structure later, but for now, why don’t we focus on our ultimate objective?”

She reached up and squeezed his hand. “That sounds good, but still, thank you for this.”

“My pleasure,” he said as he looked at her in the glow of their surroundings. “Hopefully, this is the beginning of something bigger.”

She smiled at him. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“Jonathon,” Ulster called from afar. “In all of my excitement, I have managed to turn myself around. Tell me, my boy, which way is south?”

Marissa squeezed his hand a second time. “Go help Petr. I want to take a look around before Jarkko breaks something important.”

“Good idea,” Payne said with a grin. “He strong like bear but jumpy like cat.”

She walked away, laughing, as Payne pulled out his phone. Despite their depth underground, it was still accurately tracking his movement and elevation. According to his screen, he was facing Marsamxett Harbour to the north in a tunnel system that supposedly had multiple corridors to the south, as it branched out underneath the heart of Valletta. Ulster was calling to him from behind, which meant Ulster had been walking south.

Payne turned and headed in that direction. “You’re south of me.”

Ulster called out. “Well, it seems I’ve hit a roadblock.”

From his current position in the tunnel, he couldn’t actually see Ulster in the distance. The dangling roots were quite thick at times, and they prevented the beam of his flashlight from reaching too far into the distant gloom. He used his left hand to brush them away as he weaved his way past the thickest tangles of vegetation until he could see Ulster in the tunnel up ahead.

Much to Payne’s surprise, Ulster was standing in front of a roadblock.

A literal roadblock.

Made of cut stone, the giant wall was expertly patched together by mortar and stretched across the entire width of the tunnel, thereby cutting off this stretch of corridor from the rest of Cassar’s ancient system.

Payne glanced at Ulster. “Is that a support wall?”

Ulster shook his head. “I don’t believe so. I have a theory as to its purpose, but I’d love to discuss it with Marissa first. Why don’t you gather the group as I continue to examine the wall?”

It took a few minutes to wrangle the others, but once they heard that Ulster wanted to share some news, they excitedly followed Payne back to the stone barricade. When Marissa saw it, she literally gasped and ran up to Ulster to compare their thoughts. As fate should have it, both of them agreed on the purpose and significance of the wall.

Ulster urged her to speak. “Go ahead, my dear. Tell them.”

“Okay,” Marissa said, bubbling with enthusiasm. “Although we never mentioned it to each other, both of us were privately hoping to find a wall like this.”

Ulster laughed. “Excellent wordplay. Simply excellent!”

Marissa giggled when she realized what she had said. Her use of “privately” had been completely unintentional, but she was happy to have amused her mentor.

Payne walked forward and put his hand on the wall. “I think you better explain, because right now I have no idea how this is a good thing. I mean, it completely prevents us from accessing the other parts of the tunnel system without finding—oh, hang on! Now I get it!”

“Get what?” Jones demanded as he approached the barricade.

“I get Marissa’s pun, and I get the need for this wall.”

Jarkko shined his light on Ulster. “Jarkko confused. Petr explain.”

Ulster grinned. “Despite my private nature and introverted ways, I have always enjoyed a good spotlight, whether that be a gallery opening in Vienna or a karaoke bar in Japan. In fact, I remember this one time I had gathered with some colleagues of mine at a geisha house in Kyoto, where they served the most delightful tea made out of—”

Jarkko made a loud buzzer sound and shifted his light to Marissa. “Sorry, Petr. Time is up. Marissa’s turn to explain.”

Ulster nodded in understanding as Marissa took center stage.

“History tells us that Hompesch became grand master of the Knights in July of 1797, nearly a full year before Napoleon’s arrival. If our theory is correct, that’s when he learned about a massive treasure that had been hidden by the Order for centuries and realized it was his best piece of leverage to protect his organization. With this in mind, he started correspondence with Paul the First of Russia in order to save the Knights from a looming war with France.”

She looked at Jarkko. “With me so far?”

Jarkko nodded as she started to pace in front of the wall.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “the grand master of the Knights prior to Hompesch was a Frenchman named Rohan, who may have told some of his countrymen about the treasure before his death in 1797. Worried about the loyalty of the French knights, Hompesch realized that he had better move the treasure as soon as possible. But how does he do that without being seen?”

Jarkko answered. “Secret tunnels.”

“Exactly,” she said as she pointed at him. “Except the tunnels weren’t that secret to the knights themselves. After all, they had been around for over two hundred years, and they led to all of the major buildings in the Order’s world, including all of the inns for the knights. But as luck should have it, Hompesch was a German, and Auberge d'Allemagne—the inn for the German knights—was the northernmost structure with access to the tunnel system. Suspicious of the other langues, Hompesch confided in some of his most loyal companions and convinced them to move the treasure to the German section of the tunnel in preparation of their departure from Malta. In order to work privately—notice the wordplay—they built a wall in the tunnel behind them to make sure that none of the other factions could discover their secret plans.”

Jones nodded in understanding. “That makes perfect sense. It also explains why the other langues believed Hompesch was a coward. They had no way of knowing what he was doing on this side of the wall. From their perspective, he was cowering with his German knights as Napoleon approached, but he was actually planning their escape.”

Ulster chimed in as he walked toward the right corner of the wall and crouched near the floor. “When Jonathon left my side to collect the rest of the team, I happened to notice a date etched into this cornerstone. In German, it simply reads: JANUARY 1798.”

Marissa hustled over to inspect it. “Finally! Some proof to go along with all of this speculation! I was hoping we’d find some eventually! Truth be told, speculation like this isn’t my forte. But I’m guessing you already knew that.”

Ulster smiled at her. “I’m quite proud of you, my dear. Putting your name on a theory with only a shred of proof to support it. That’s what true visionaries do. They stretch the realm of the understood world with the power of their imagination.”

Jarkko walked over to wall. “Jarkko still confused. Where is treasure?”

Marissa glanced at him. “That, my friend, is a very good question. Do you feel like taking a walk through time?”

Jarkko stepped back. “Like ghost?”

“No,” she laughed as she grabbed his arm. “More like a field trip.”

She turned Jarkko away from the wall and urged him to follow her north in the tunnel. Everyone fell in behind her as she explained her theory aloud.

“Now that we have a starting date, we know that Hompesch had roughly five months to prepare for Napoleon’s arrival in June after building that wall. During that time, Hompesch started correspondence with Paul the First and began to look for allies in the coming war with France, which had seized control of Italy on its way to Egypt.”

As they walked, they were forced to duck and weave around the dangling roots, some of which were so thick and colorful that they looked like tropical snakes in the darkness. But Marissa was so caught up in the lecture that she was giving that she didn’t even seem to notice the obstacles in her way.

“Based on his blueprints, we also know that Cassar’s tunnel system was built underneath the entire Sciberras Peninsula. Starting at the Grand Harbour to the south, it passed under the Upper Barrakka Gardens and ran directly through the heart of Valletta to the north, where it went underneath the Auberge d'Allemagne on its way to Marsamxett Harbour. It also extended east and west, like an ancient subway system that ran to every auberge in Malta.”

As they passed the shaft that they had carved into the tunnel system, Payne paused in its opening for just a moment to listen for noises in the utility corridor. When he heard nothing of consequence, he continued on his journey with the rest of the group.

“At some point during his correspondence with Paul the First,” Marissa said as the tunnel curved sharply to its right and started to head down a 45-degree ramp that eventually curled back underneath the upper shaft, “Hompesch realized that he was on his own to deal with Napoleon. That is when Jon and DJ’s escape theory comes into play. Realizing that Napoleon would plunder everything of value in Malta, Hompesch presumably ordered his most trusted men to bring the treasure down this ramp, which corkscrews through the depths of the limestone, where it would eventually be met by an awaiting ship in Marsamxett Harbour.”

As they walked down the spiraling ramp, the group marveled at the precision of the construction. In many ways, it reminded Payne and Jones of Pozzo di San Patrizio—the historic well in Orvieto that Ulster had used as an example in one of his lessons. That had been built in 1527 AD, approximately fifty years before the creation of this tunnel system, and had also left them in awe. By comparison, modern roads were filled with potholes within a few years of being built, yet somehow this corridor was still mostly intact more than four centuries later.

“Unfortunately,” Marissa said after a long stretch of silence, “the moment the Order’s treasure was loaded onto a ship, history managed to lose track of it. Perhaps there are additional clues in the documents that accompanied the letter from Paul the First in Jarkko’s collection. Or maybe we’ll be able to track down some external leads now that we know what we are looking for, similar to what Petr did with Cassar’s portfolio. After all, until I stepped foot inside of this tunnel system, I did not fully believe that any of this was possible.”

Having memorized Cassar’s designs, she had timed the pace of her lecture to her immediate surroundings. “For the time being, I’m afraid this field trip must come to an end, because we have run out of research and hit the literal and metaphorical end of the road.”

As if on cue, they made one final turn and found themselves facing another stone wall. Built just shy of Marsamxett Harbour to the north, it looked remarkably similar to the wall up above, with one major exception.

The cornerstone on this one read: JUNE 1798.

The date when Hompesch and his men left Malta forever.