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Near Gelendzhik, Russia
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As predicted, the temperature dropped by degrees as the night deepened. None of the three escapees from Telesh’s dacha had warm weather clothes and walking briskly could only do so much to keep the chill at bay, so after about an hour of shivering and listening to Petrov complain about the cold, Maddock suggested they move into the woods and warm up with a fire.
“Won’t someone see?” Petrov protested.
Maddock sighed. There’s just no pleasing this guy, he thought. “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about it,” he said. “This place isn’t exactly hopping.”
Although they had been walking along the roadside, not a single car had passed them. Telesh’s men were either still searching for them further down the road, or had returned by some other route.
“It will be a small fire,” he went on, “and we’ll put up a lean-to to help keep the heat in. That should block lines of sight. But if you’d rather freeze...”
“No! A fire would be very nice.”
There was just enough moonlight filtering through the forest canopy for them to gather deadwood and dry moss to use as tinder. While the others fashioned a crude shelter of evergreen boughs, Maddock used his borrowed tire iron to chisel a groove down the center of a more or less flat piece of bone-dry wood. He then split off a stake about eighteen inches long, and chipped a point into its end.
As he knelt over the plank, rapidly dragging the point of the stake up and down the length of the groove, Petrov whispered. “Just like Tom Hanks in movie. Does really work?”
Maddock had no idea what the Russian was talking about, and didn’t want to waste a breath asking. The fire-plow method was one of the most strenuous ways of starting a fire but without any other tools or means of ignition, it was all he had, and if he was going to make it work, it would require complete focus and total effort.
After only a few seconds, he could smell woodsmoke, but he did not relent until, after what felt like nearly five minutes of pistoning the fire-plow back and forth, he spied a faint red gleam at its tip. Working quickly, he dropped in some of the wood shavings and moss, and then leaned close and began blowing on the ember until it caught fire with an audible whoosh. He laid on more tinder and small pieces of wood, blowing on it to increase the amount of oxygen in the fire triangle, and in only about a minute, had stoked a modest blaze.
“I’m impressed,” Leopov said, clapping softly. “I guess you really were Boy Scout.”
In the firelight, her face seemed to glow, and her smile was dazzling. Maddock, who was actually feeling a little lightheaded from his exertions, managed a wan grin.
She settled down next to him, pressing her body against his. It was an oddly forward thing for her to do. Maddock could not recall her showing anything that might be interpreted as romantic interest, but then again, as Bones was fond of pointing out, he could be pretty clueless in matters of the heart. Regardless of what signals she had sent or he had missed, he was definitely receiving now.
Then an accusatory voice sounded in his head. What are you thinking? You’ve got Melissa.
Melissa.
The thought of her brought a pang of guilt, and not just at his momentary indulgence.
What the hell am I even doing here? How many times did I almost die today? How many more times will I have to cheat death to make it home to Melissa? And what if I don’t make it back? I could die, just like....
Just like Mom and Dad.
He had almost forgotten, but now the pent-up grief and guilt descended on him like an avalanche. He blinked back tears, unconsciously pulling away from Leopov.
“Don’t get excited, Boy Scout,” she said, misreading his intentions... Or maybe reading them a little too well. “Just trying to stay warm.”
“Sure,” he muttered.
Leopov regarded him silently for a moment, then looked across the fire to where Petrov was huddled. “Why is Telesh going after Lia? What does he think she knows?”
Petrov’s eyes drew together in a frown. “What did she tell you?”
“Not a lot. There wasn’t a lot of time. She mentioned that you had her searching through old archives looking for missing Nazi loot.”
Petrov offered a thoughtful hum. “Yes, that is what we were told. I have since learned what Sergei Yukovitch Telesh is really looking for.”
“Not Nazi loot?” Maddock asked, trying to pull himself back from the black hole of despair.
“Not exactly.” Petrov hesitated as if unsure how to proceed, then asked, “Do you know story of Priam’s Treasure?”
The name rang a bell, but Maddock was in no mood to fish for the memory. He shook his head.
“You mean Priam, king of Troy during the Trojan war,” Leopov supplied.
Maddock could almost hear Bones’ voice in his head, cracking a terrible joke... Probably something about a war fought over condoms. The thought brought a smile to his lips. “You’re talking about the Iliad, right?”
“The Iliad is story. May be true story, maybe not. But Priam’s Treasure is real. Was discovered in 1873 by archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann.”
Maddock nodded slowly as the memory finally surfaced. “Right. I remember this. Schliemann claimed he found the ruins of the city described in the Iliad. He excavated it and found some relics which he believed belonged to King Priam. From what I’ve heard, most modern scholars doubt the authenticity of that claim, not to mention the historicity of Priam and the other people mentioned in the Iliad.”
“Schliemann smuggled the treasure out of Ottoman Empire. Most of collection ended up in Germany, where it stayed until the end of Great Patriotic War.”
“When it was taken as war booty by the Red Army,” Leopov finished. “They hid it away—in the Pushkin Museum, if I’m not mistaken.”
Petrov scowled. “You are Russian. You know what the Nazi filth did to us. What they took from the Motherland. Is only fair that we take treasure in return.”
“If the Red Army took it,” interjected Maddock, “what does Telesh think he’s going to find chasing down some old Nazi war criminal?”
“He seeks one specific item from the collection that was not found with the rest.”
“One item?” Maddock held up a single finger to emphasize the point. “I know the Kremlin is hard up for cash, but this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just for one artifact. What is it?”
“Sergei Yukovitch calls it ‘Helen’s Charm.’”
“Helen as in Helen of Troy? The face that launched a thousand ships?”
Petrov nodded. “He believes it has... power.”
“Power,” Leopov repeated, incredulous. “You mean like magic power? Something supernatural?”
Maddock glanced back at her, shrugged. Fireside in a gloomy Russian forest, it didn’t really sound so unbelievable.
“There may be something to it,” Petrov went on. “In story, Priam’s son, Paris, takes Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, for himself and refuses to surrender her, even though doing so ultimately results in the destruction of his father’s kingdom. What woman is worth that much trouble?”
He gave Maddock a surreptitious wink. Leopov just rolled her eyes.
“Helen was not merely beautiful,” Petrov went on. “She was daughter of Zeus. A demi-god. She bewitched men. Kings. Entire armies foreswore their lives, left their homes behind to die by the thousands in a foreign land.” He paused a beat. “Can you think of anyone else in history with that kind of charisma?”
Maddock immediately saw where Petrov was leading them. “You mean Hitler, right? You think he got his hands on this... this Charm. And used it to... What exactly? Bewitch the German populace into following along with his mad scheme to rule the world?” He frowned. “Okay, when I say it out loud, it doesn’t actually sound completely crazy.”
Petrov was silent for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “There is story, told by eyewitness, of what happened on night of November 8, 1923.”
“The Beer Hall Putsch,” Maddock supplied. “Hitler’s first attempt to seize power.”
“Yes. Hitler had been trying to gain the support of Gustav Ritter von Kahr, leader of Bavaria, for his plan to seize control of German government, but Kahr did not want to submit to Hitler, whom he viewed as rabble rouser. Eventually, Hitler decides he’s had enough of waiting and orders six hundred of his Sturmabteilung paramilitaries to surround Munich beer hall where Kahr is giving speech to three thousand supporters.
“Hitler marches in, holds crowd at point of machine gun and declares formation of new government in Bavaria, and his determination to overthrow what he called ‘the Berlin Jew government.’ One eyewitness, a history professor, said attitude of crowd changed in seconds. ‘Hitler turned them inside out as one turns a glove inside out,’ he said. Like ‘hocus-pocus, or magic.’ His words.”
A sudden shiver went down Maddock’s spine. It might have been just the chilly night air.
Petrov went on. “More than two thousand marched out of the beer hall carrying the swastika, ready to overthrow government. They failed. Sixteen Nazi stormtroopers were killed and many more arrested, including Hitler, but as you know, that was not the end.” He sighed. “I do not know if Hitler possessed Helen’s Charm, or if it exists at all, but I do know that Sergei Yukovitch believes it is real. That is what he seeks.”
Maddock nodded. “Okay, so Hitler has this Charm, uses it to seduce the German people into following him, fighting his war, even turning a blind eye to the Holocaust, but it’s not enough to guarantee victory.” He cocked his head to the side. “History repeats itself. The Trojans lost their war, too.
“Hitler chooses suicide. Müller takes the Charm, escapes Berlin, escapes Germany and then... What? Disappears?”
“That is what Sergei Yukovitch believes. And Lia Markova is first person to find a clue about where he might have gone.”
“And now he thinks she can lead him the rest of the way,” finished Leopov.
Petrov nodded, then looked thoughtful for a moment. “She is very intelligent. Maybe she can find him. But I also think she is... How do you say? A loose end?”
“That’s how you say it.”
“Da. If she helps him find it, good. But if she is out there, maybe helping someone else find it? Not so good for him.”
I guess that’s why he kept you alive, Maddock thought, but didn’t say aloud.
“What is this Charm, exactly?” asked Leopov. “Some kind of amulet?”
Petrov shook his head. “I don’t know. Among the pieces in Priam’s Treasure are two golden diadems. Schliemann called them ‘Helen’s Jewels.’ There is picture of his wife wearing them. But those are in Pushkin museum with rest of collection. Maybe there is another diadem, or some other piece of jewelry. I think Sergei Yukovitch knows what it is, but he does not tell me.”
Maddock studied Petrov’s gaunt face, looking for some hint of deception. The Russian seemed sincere, but given the circumstances, Maddock wasn’t inclined to trust him. He turned to Leopov. “What do you think?” he said, speaking in a low voice.
“If Telesh really believes the Charm can do all that, it’s no wonder he’s obsessed with finding it. But if you’re asking if I believe...” She shrugged. “It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Even if it isn’t something real, it might have enormous symbolic power, especially in the hands of a man like Telesh.”
“Agreed. We can’t let him get to it.” He looked back to Petrov. “We need to know more about this Charm. How did Telesh learn about it in the first place?”
“Before he becomes gangster, Sergei Yukovitch works for KGB, but his father was with Red Army in Berlin. This is just speculation, but perhaps his father was one of the men who brought Priam’s Treasure to Russia. Maybe there was something in the museum records, or perhaps something revealed during interrogations, that told of Helen’s Charm. And how Hitler was able to use it.”
Maddock nodded. “Okay, that makes a lot of sense. But whatever it was they learned, it didn’t help them find the damned thing.”
“So where do we start looking?” asked Leopov.
“Let’s worry about that once we’ve made it out of Russia alive.” He hugged his arms around his chest, savoring the warmth. “Get some sleep. I’ll take first watch. We’ll leave before first light.”