Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

“But these are enormous,” she said. “How could they even have moved them, never mind lifted them . . . ?”

“Nobody knows,” Gabriel said. “But here they are. And the map says we need to be on the other side.”

“I don’t see a way around,” Sammi said.

“There isn’t one,” Gabriel said. He was already undoing the closure of his rucksack and gestured to Sammi to do the same. “We’re going to have to go over.”

He took out a length of rope and tied one end to her waist, then fastened the other to his own. “I’ll go first. Just follow my lead. Place your feet exactly where I put mine. All right?”

She leaned in and kissed him, just briefly. “For luck,” she said.

“Let’s hope we don’t need it,” he said.

Gabriel shimmied up the first boulder, found a foothold, and then struck the pickax into the rock above him. That gave him something to grab. He hammered a spring-loaded camming device into the crack between two big rocks and quickly attached a carabiner to it, then secured the rope. Using this anchor, he was able to climb to a higher rock, repeat the procedure, and move on. When he was four boulders up, he called for Sammi to follow. She bounded up the first rock like a pro, carefully mimicked Gabriel’s footwork, and scurried onto the second. They were on their way.

It took them a little over forty minutes to reach the top of the boulders. “That wasn’t so bad,” Sammi said.

“We’re not done,” Gabriel said. “Now we go down.”

They reversed the process. Down generally took less time than up, but was more dangerous. When ascending during a rock climb, you can see what’s ahead. When you’re going down, you can’t.

“Take it slow,” Gabriel said. “Pay attention to every step. It just takes one—” Gabriel felt some loose pebbles slip beneath his sole and leaned in toward the rock face to regain his balance.

“Are you okay?”

“As I was saying,” Gabriel said.

They went the rest of the way slowly, cautiously, Gabriel wondering with every step whether Amun or Kemnebi or another of Khufu’s minions was watching them at this very moment, from the branches of a nearby tree or through the high-powered scope of a sniper rifle.

Sammi dropped to the ground beside him, a little out of breath. “How did I do?”

“You’re a natural.” Gabriel quickly packed the climbing tools and took out his handmade map. “Here is where it gets complicated. I’m not sure where we’re supposed to go next. Neither was the Alliance. The place we’re looking for—” he pointed to the area labeled in Arabic “—is somewhere around here, but exactly where . . . I don’t know.” He looked at the thick wall of trees directly ahead of them. “You’d think there would be a marker of some kind.”

“After two hundred years?”

“There’s apparently a group still in existence that’s devoted to keeping the secret.”

“Then wouldn’t they want to get rid of any markers?”

“Not if the markers are part of the secret they’re protecting,” Gabriel said.

Sammi studied the terrain in front of her. “Is this what you Americans mean when you say ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’?”

“Might as well be.” Gabriel began to walk along the tree line, studying the ground and the trunks. He found no signs of recent visitation, nor any indication of any man-made objects. He looked at the map again. “I don’t get it. It’s as if the trail stops cold.”

“Are you sure it really exists?”

He thought of the nonexistent urn he’d come to Corsica to find the last time. “I’m beginning to wonder.”

He put the map away and moved forward, through the trees. There was no trail, so the brush was difficult to step across. Sammi tailed behind him.

“Watch your step,” he warned.

As they continued deeper into the maquis , Gabriel systematically scanned their surroundings left and right. If they didn’t find something concrete soon, they’d have to turn back. What consequences that might have for Lucy, he didn’t know and didn’t want to contemplate. He could tell the Alliance that in his expert opinion the Stone didn’t exist, or at least the hiding place on Corsica didn’t. They might even believe him—but that wouldn’t stop them from killing him. Or Lucy.

Maybe if he could break her free again, get her back to New York—

He never had the chance to finish the thought, because at that moment he saw the menhir.

It was twenty yards in front of them and off to one side, hidden by an especially dense group of trees, a menhir similar to the ones behind them at Filitosa. Gabriel ran toward it, Sammi at his heels. He pushed aside a branch and stepped closer. This one wasn’t ancient. It was old—but not prehistoric. The stone wasn’t nearly as weathered, the features on the carved face at the top more distinct.

It was the face of a young man—a boy, really—and on the sides of the towering stone were the suggestions of a military uniform. The figure’s face was turned to the left, in profile.

“I don’t believe it,” Sammi said.

“What?”

She pointed up toward where the figure’s shoulders would have been if it were a full sculpture. “The insignia of the Military College of Brienne. He was not yet ten years old. This is Napoleon, Gabriel.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It was when he first left Corsica. He came back during the Revolution, and once later, after returning from Egypt—but he was never again to make his home here for any length of time. This was the last age at which he was purely a Corsican—when he was still Napoleone di Buonaparte, not yet Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Gabriel walked around the menhir. “That tells us the trail exists. The question is, where do we go from here?”

Sammi followed the statue’s gaze to the left. “Maybe this way?”

“Makes as much sense as anything.”

They walked through the brush in that direction. A hollow log, the remnant of a fallen tree, lay across their path. Gabriel stepped over it, but as he set his foot down, something snapped.

“Don’t move,” Gabriel said.

Sammi looked around. “What is it?”

Gabriel was studying the log and the ground around it. He picked up a thin cord that had been attached to a spring mechanism. “It was booby-trapped.”

“But nothing happened,” Sammi said.

Gabriel shook his head. “Nothing we can see,” he said. He let the cord drop. “It triggered something. Probably an alarm.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Neither do I. Yet.” He drew his Colt.

They continued on in as close to a straight line as they could, through another thick grove of trees. On the far side, a narrow path opened up. Gabriel hurried along it until it widened into a clearing, roughly the same size as the one beside the wall of boulders. Only here there were no boulders, no wall—just a grassy slope, and in the side of the slope, an opening loosely concealed behind dead tree branches.

“Sammi, I think we may have found it,” Gabriel said. He heard something behind him, something heavy thudding to the ground. “Sammi?”

He spun around.

Silently and out of nowhere, six armed men had appeared between the trees. They all had guns—rifles and pistols—pointed at Gabriel. Sammi was lying facedown at the feet of a seventh man who held the butt of his rifle angled above the back of her head.

Gabriel let his gun fall to the ground and slowly raised his hands. The man standing over Sammi, his broad Corsican features ruddy, had dark eyes, gray-black hair, and a full beard. He stepped forward.

“You are trespassing,” he said. “You may not go farther. In fact, you will not leave this place alive.”