David Gibbins - The Crusader's gold

“They send it home,” Jeremy said.

“They melt it down again, they coin it, they send it back in the treasure fleets to Cadiz and Seville,” Maria said. “Hundreds of pounds of gold, a spectacular bounty. It goes straight into the coffers of the Spanish king. And to the other great power behind the conquistadors.”

“The Catholic Church,” Jack murmured. “And some of that wealth filters back to the powerhouse of the Church, to the Vatican in Rome.”

“Hang on,” Costas said. “You’re losing me again.”

“Don’t you see?” Maria’s eyes were alight. “If we’re correct, the menorah was never lost at all. Three hundred years ago, the gold first cast in sacred form in ancient Israel returned to the lands of its earliest heritage, re-formed as bullion and as holy artefacts for a new world order. Maybe it was staring us in the face all that time, in the gilded splendours of St. Peter’s, in the golden reliquaries of the Vatican treasury, in countless embellishments and artefacts in churches around Christendom that received largesse from the mother Church.”

“And maybe some of it even found its way back to Jerusalem,” Jeremy said. “Remember the saga of Harald Hardrada, offering gifts of treasure to the Shrine of Christ in Jerusalem? The story that climaxed with the Crusades, of western involvement in the Holy Land, wasn’t all one of plunder and greed. Maybe, just maybe, some of the gold of the Itza found its way back in recent centuries to the shadow of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and is still there today.”

Costas suddenly looked crestfallen, and glanced at his blueprint on the rock beside the cenote. “My sub-bottom borer. All my plans. Are we saying what I think we’re saying?”

“All this is just guesswork,” Maria murmured.

“And we have nothing to prove Harald even got here,” Costas said. “The wall-painting’s gone, the site of Harald’s last stand entombed forever. Nobody would believe us.”

“We’ve got this.” Maria removed the smooth chip of stone from her shorts pocket, the runestone she had found inside the cenote.

“It doesn’t actually mention Harald,” Costas said. “And the stone’s not local, it looks like a schist they probably picked up at L’Anse aux Meadows.”

“But we know,” Maria said.

“I’ll go with the Maya theory.” Jeremy was still reflecting on the menorah. “Better than trying to work out what to do with the menorah if we found it.”

Jack got up, walked over to the sacrificial platform and peered down at the impenetrable green of the water. Then he turned his back on the cenote and unclipped a radio receiver from his belt. “The menorah may be in the Well of Sacrifice after all. Or we may have reached the end of the road. But before I even think about another project, I’ve got a small debt to pay to an old friend. Something to do with battle-luck.” He glanced at Maria. “And we need to get out of here.”

Four days later, Jackwas crouched near the stern of Seaquest II, muffling his ears against the churning of the ship’s wake as he took a call from Maurice Hiebermeyer in Istanbul. After a few moments struggling to hear he got up and walked back to where Costas was standing beside Maria and Jeremy, who were sitting on a bench behind the ship’s helipad.

“I read you.” Jack pressed the receiver against his ear. “Set it all out and I’ll see you in the Golden Horn tomorrow evening. And thanks for taking over the excavation, Maurice. Great work. I owe you one. Out.”

Jack snapped shut the radio receiver and weaved his way around the lines that had been laid on the deck to secure the Lynx helicopter after its arrival. Seaquest II was heading back to the Arctic to resume the scientific project at Ilulissat icefjord, and several of the scientists who had disembarked during their diversion to the Caribbean were being flown back on board. The ship was now less than a hundred nautical miles east of Newfoundland, and the final helicopter shuttle was due in later that afternoon. Apart from a deep swell, the sea was settled and the sky was clear, but as they ploughed their way north there was a chill in the air that seemed more pronounced after their days in the fetid jungle of the Yucatan. Maria and Jeremy were both wearing IMU anoraks and were huddled behind the bulwark out of the wind.

“That was Maurice Hiebermeyer,” Jack said. “It’s great news. They’ve finally got artefacts dumped after the siege of Constantinople in 1204.”

“Crusader gold?” Costas said hopefully.

Jack grinned. “A colossal gilt bronze statue of the emperor Vespasian, with a dedicatory inscription showing it had originally been set up in the Forum of Peace in Rome after the Jewish triumph. It’s not exactly what we had in mind, but then archaeology’s like that.”

“It’s what I wanted to hear.” Costas sighed contentedly. “My sub-bottom borer has come up trumps. Anyway, as I recall there was quite a list of items looted from the Jewish Temple other than the menorah. We’ll find them. Just have faith in IMU technology.”

“That might have to go on the back burner for a while,” Jack said. “Maurice had been itching to tell me about a find from the Egyptian desert since we came back from Atlantis, and I finally relented. It’s incredible.”

“Not another papyrus,” Costas said. “The last one got us into enough trouble.”

“This one’s Roman,” Jack said. “Just a scrap, but it holds a fantastic clue.”

“Another treasure hunt?”

“Ever heard of Alexander the Great?”

Costas saw the familiar gleam in Jack’s eye. “Okay. My kind of archaeology. You can count me in. Just no icebergs.”

“Deal.” Jack grinned and turned to Maria and Jeremy, but his expression changed as he saw Maria’s downcast face. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Maria,” he said gently. “Your Ukrainian heritage. I know the Jewish population were Ashkenazi, but any hint of anything farther back? I mean, I’m just trying to understand your passion for the Vikings.”

Maria lightened up and gave Jack a sad smile. “After I put my mother to rest last year, I spent a few days in Kiev, went to the Cathedral of Santa Sofia and studied the famous wall-paintings. The kings and queens who ruled Kiev in the Viking age, traders and warriors who came down the rivers in longships from the north. Blond, bearded, impossibly tall, the very image of Harald Hardrada and his court.”

“Varangians,” Jack murmured. “The Rus.”

“Before my mother died, she told me something of her family for the first time. A story of intermarriage far back in our past, of family legend that had us descended from Rus nobility.”

“Thought so.” Jack smiled.

“Looks like I’m the only one here who doesn’t have a drop of Viking blood,” Costas said.

“Don’t count on it. Halfdan’s inscription of Hagia Sofia isn’t the only evidence of Vikings in that neck of the woods. There’s another runic inscription on an ancient sculpture in Athens. It looks like Harald and his boys had some fun in Greece too. They got pretty well everywhere.”

Costas was looking at a map he had sketched of their adventure. “In the western hemisphere, anyway.”

Jack was serious again. “I also just spoke to the IMU security chief in the UK,” he said, addressing all three of them. “As a precaution, just before she was taken by Loki, Maria emailed the penultimate draft of the dossier she was helping O’Connor prepare to the IMU security chief. As we speak Interpol are instigating a number of high-profile arrests. Apparently the felag were heavily involved in international crime, money laundering, drugs and arms, the antiquities black market. One of them was even implicated in an audacious robbery at the Roman site of Herculaneum in the Bay of Naples, right under the noses of the Italian authorities. It looks like our friend Reksnys wasn’t the only one using the power of the felag to line his own pockets.”