Treasure

by K. T. Tomb

  While she waited on Thorin, she sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop. In spite of herself, she did a search for Marie Antoinette and started reading.

  Marie was an excessive queen whose extravagance probably helped spell the end of the French monarchy. Born in Austria to Marie Therese, who had a knack for placing her daughters in great houses throughout Europe, she was flamboyant in every sense of the word. Where her husband Louis XVI was reserved and sometimes at a loss for words, Marie had no problem with being the life of the party. She was a fashion icon and likely responsible for the fact that Paris had become the capital of the fashion world.

  “Let them eat cake,” a cold phrase concerning the plight of the common man, which was wrongly attributed to Marie, nevertheless reflected her mindset toward the bourgeois. That attitude brought the monarchy to a very violent end…

  Chyna looked at her watch. It was just after 4 a.m.; too early to call Sandra in New York. If the team was going to find this lost crown, they’d need everything they had in their arsenal and that included her father’s extensive archives. Inside the climate-controlled rooms where the Found History private collection of documents was housed, was a large leather-bound portfolio containing several original pieces of correspondence predating and originating around the time of the French Revolution. Many of Marie Antoinette’s personal papers were included among these.

  Chyna remembered being allowed to read them as a child. She remembered the comfort she got while imagining the life of that fantastic princess and how she came to her tragic end.

  The brief text message on her cell phone followed by the knock on the door was a signal that Thorin often used to let her know when he’d arrived. She left her computer and went to the door, looking through the peephole to make sure that it was, indeed, her giant, blonde bodyguard.

  “So, what’s up?” Thorin asked as he stepped into the foyer. His eyes scanned the interior automatically as he asked the question.

  “Nothing,” Chyna replied. She really didn’t want to tell him about her visitor. “I just got a little spooked.”

  “Huh.” A half smile came to his mouth. “I know you, Chyna. You don’t get a ‘little spooked.’ Tell me the truth.”

  “I had a visitor,” she responded, still not wanting to reveal too much.

  “Uh huh,” he growled. “Who?”

  “Nobody, really.”

  “Tony,” he said.

  “How the hell did you know?”

  “Because pretty much anyone else would be laid out on the floor bleeding.”

  “Fine,” she sighed. “It was Tony.”

  He looked her over for a moment.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Tony is good. Maybe even the best.”

  “Huh.” It was her turn for a half smile. It was hard to argue with him on that point. After all, unless you were a ghost, it was nearly impossible to penetrate the security that she had in place, and yet, Tony had been there, had a perfect opportunity to make it so that she never woke up and he didn’t take advantage of it. She wasn’t sure how to process that little bit of information.

  “You look okay. He didn’t hurt you. So, what did he want?”

  “To talk,” she replied.

  Thorin raised his eyebrows and spread his hands in the universal sign that she was stating the obvious and that he expected a little bit more.

  She could trust Thorin with her life and with anything else. He wasn’t the type to run his mouth about anything. He was, in fact, the very best person for her to confide in at that moment.

  “He had some bullshit story about being deep undercover and needing my help. Can you believe that? Deep undercover? I mean, the shit that he’s put me through… us, all of us through. What he did in Dresden and what he did in Cordoba. How am I supposed to believe such a stupid story? How could I even consider helping him? What kind of arrogance does he have to think that he could show up here and ask for my help?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him to fuck off.”

  Thorin nodded.

  “What do I do? I got him out of my mind. I got closure. I was moving on and now, this. What do I do?”

  Thorin shrugged.

  “That doesn’t help. Tell me what to do.”

  “I won’t tell you what to do, but there are really only two ways to look at this. He’s either telling you the truth or he’s setting you up.”

  “Okay?” Chyna raised her eyebrows and spread her hands, waiting for more.

  “If he’s telling the truth and he needs your help for a major undercover op, then you’d be doing what you’ve always done; helping save the world,” he grinned.

  “And if he’s setting me up?” she asked.

  “Then we ought to bring the bastard down,” Thorin growled.

  “Are you seriously suggesting that we ought to take on Anthony Stewart?” Both her mouth and her eyes were wide open with shock.

  “You’ve heard the adage: keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chyna cocked her head to the side and stared at him as she narrowed her eyes.

  “No matter what happens, it gives us an opportunity to keep an eye on him.”

  “It could get us all killed.”

  “Everything we’ve ever gotten into could have gotten us killed.” Thorin shrugged. “But if anyone has a chance at taking on Tony, it’s you.”

  Chapter Four

  Though after their conversation, Thorin and two other members of his security team did a thorough sweep of the home and everywhere near her home, it did little to help her sleep. Even having the big Swede posted by her door made little difference.

  The suggestion to take on Anthony Stewart thrilled her and terrified her at the same time. It was like grabbing a lion by the beard and only having a club for a weapon and yet…

  Her buzzing phone interrupted her thoughts. She opened the text message.

  Got your text. I’ll call you back at a decent hour.

  Chyna pressed the speed dial for Lana and listened to it ring twice before her second in command answered the phone.

  “So, I see that ‘decent hour’ doesn’t mean much to you. What’s up?” Lana asked.

  “Do you have a number to the curator of the royal artifacts at the Louvre?”

  “Okay, well, I’m awake now. I do, but why do you need it?”

  “Can you get me an appointment?”

  “Well, uh, yeah, but why?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “I just love it when you keep me in the dark on things.”

  “I’m still trying to figure out how to explain everything.”

  “Do you have an ETA on your explanation?”

  “I’ll have one at our team meeting.”

  “I suppose you want me to call the team too?”

  “You’re so good,” Chyna laughed.

  “Lunch?”

  “Actually, I’m feeling like brunch.”

  “How savoir faire of you… or should I say cosmopolitan?”

  “Cosmo,” she responded.

  “Any preferences?”

  “Surprise me,” Chyna replied, disconnecting the call.

  Surprisingly enough, that short conversation had given her a boost of confidence and pushed away the fogginess of her sleepless night. Thorin was right. If anyone could take down Anthony Stewart, Chyna Stone and the Found History team were the ones to do it.

  Thorin’s advice to keep Tony where they could keep an eye on him made perfect sense. The best way to do that was to jump right in and play Tony’s own game. She’d find Marie Antoinette’s crown and in the process, figure out what he was really up to. The fact that the other artifacts that had been recovered had disappeared again, had gotten under her skin. The fact that they were all feminine, just as Tony had pointed out had gotten under it even further.

  If Tony wasn’t the mastermind behind those thefts, then who was? More importantly, what purpose
did having those artifacts serve? “If it is really you who is doing this, Anthony Stewart, I’ll figure it out and I’ll take you down,” she said aloud as she stripped out of her pajamas and stepped into the shower.

  ***

  At 10:30 a.m., flanked by Thorin and Demetri, she entered the conference room in the Found History East offices and examined the spread that Lana had surprised her with.

  Lana waved at the mountain of food that was spread out on the conference table and then began to read off the menu. “On this end we have:

  Eggs Benedict on toasted sourdough with Amish hickory smoked ham,

  Brioche French Toast with toasted pecans and Belgian style waffles,

  New Hampshire country sausage links and applewood smoked bacon,

  Hash browns, watermelon salad and tomato salad.

  On the far end is:

  Smoked Atlantic salmon with brown butter caper sauce, chives, red onions and crème Fraiche.

  In the middle are:

  Cheese, cinnamon raisin, honey pecan, raspberry and cherry danish,

  Blueberry, banana nut, and lemon poppy seed muffins,

  Vanilla and strawberry yogurts,

  Strawberry, huckleberry and orange marmalade, cream cheese, whipped butter and Vermont maple syrup.”

  She stopped reading and smiled at Chyna. “Oh, and Bloody Marys and champagne. Surprised?”

  “I am,” Chyna gasped. “Tell me one thing though, Lana. How many people did you intend to feed?”

  “There’s enough here for Cox’s Army,” Oscar called out.

  “Oh good Lord, Oscar,” Chyna laughed. “Your Southern is showing. Nobody else uses that term.”

  “Really? Only Southern people use that? That’s ironic, because Father Cox was from Pittsburgh.”

  “Anyway,” Chyna said, turning back to Lana. “It’s actually good that there is so much, since we have a few extra mouths to feed.”

  “And rather large ones at that.” Lana laughed as she saw Thorin, Demetri and two other members of the group that looked like the only thing they lacked for being the Incredible Hulk was the green skin.

  “Are you calling me a big mouth, Lana?” Thorin grinned, pulling her in for a bear hug.

  “Everybody dig in and get comfortable and then we’ll start our meeting,” Chyna directed. “You and your guys too, Thorin.”

  When everyone had a full plate, the room fell silent. While they all began to devour the mountains of food on their plates, Sirita spoke up. “So, with this kind of spread, you must have some sort of announcement to make.”

  “Yeah,” Mark joined in. “Are we all getting fired or something?”

  “Of course,” Chyna teased. “That’s why I brought in the extra security.”

  “What is it really?” Lana asked.

  “I was going to wait until we finished eating, but since you asked…” Chyna plunged ahead. “I had a visitor last night. Some of you might know him, Anthony Stewart.”

  Except for Thorin, Demetri and the other two security members, everyone stopped eating and stared at her. Not a single one of them could form the words for a response, even Oscar.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen all of you shut up at once,” she laughed. “I’m fine, as you can tell. He just wanted to talk. He told me that he was in a deep undercover operation and that he needed my help…”

  “And you believed him?” Mark asked, interrupting her.

  “No. I didn’t believe him.”

  “What did you tell him?” Oscar asked.

  “I told him to fuck off,” Chyna replied.

  With those words, the team began eating again. They were still shocked into a state of semi-silence due to the fact that Tony had paid her a visit.

  “However, a very wise man,” she glanced at Thorin and winked, “advised me that it is best to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “Meaning?” Mark asked, drawing the word out.

  “We’re going to help him recover Marie Antoinette’s crown.”

  Chapter Five

  As Oliver Branko, his life had held little meaning. In fact, it had begun in the most dismal of circumstances that a person’s life could begin. He had been left on the stoop of the Eastern Orthodox monastery Rakovica in the countryside outside of Belgrade, Yugoslavia by parents who had found that it was difficult enough to feed themselves and their other six children without the seventh edition, whom they hadn’t even bothered to name.

  He’d been named in the orphanage to which he was delivered on the very same day that he was found, by one of the nuns whose father had died when she was very young. She had believed that she could honor his memory by naming an abandoned orphan after him. Oliver had detested that name all of his life. He had detested the parents who had seen fit to abandon him even more.

  He kept to himself, focused all of his energy on whatever physical or academic challenge was presented to him and rarely failed to win. Because he was so often victorious in athletics and academics, he began to look down upon the other children, believing them to be inferior to him in every way. Needless to say, he wasn’t well liked.

  He knew that he was unique and vastly superior to all of his peers and knew that it had something to do with both his history and his destiny, though the limited resources at his disposal in the orphanage library would hardly serve to help him to discover it. At the age of 16, however, Oliver Branko got a chance to widen his perspective greatly when his arrogance had grown to such a point that he had challenged the authority of a visiting monsignor. After this, he was summarily removed from the orphanage and cast out into the street without much ceremony.

  For a time, Oliver Branko lived a much humbler existence, which was mostly focused on surviving from one day to the next. He made use of both of his greater attributes and was able to provide for himself, mostly by stealing whatever he needed or tricking others into turning it over to him.

  He found belonging among fellow Serbians in and around Belgrade as they began to protest the extravagance, injustice and bureaucratization of the Yugoslavian federation. His acceptance was based on nothing more than the fact that he was a Serb and bore the name of a Serb. That bond, for the first time, made him feel like he was really part of a family.

  As the Yugoslavian federation splintered and war broke out between ethnic groups, Oliver found that he was very adept at the art of making war. His physical prowess, his tendency toward superiority and his ability to quickly grasp and make use of intelligence, made him as proficient at commanding troops as it had in every other endeavor that he’d undertaken in life.

  Oliver was in the perfect position, as the Republic of Serbia came into being and he capitalized on a number of opportunities that came to him, manipulating the markets around him in such a way that he began to become very wealthy.

  His superiority in wealth suited him in a similar way as had his earlier expertise in athletics and academics. He began to look upon others around him in the same way that he had the other children in the orphanage. The consequence of his narcissism led to a life of isolation once more. He accepted that life as a consequence of being a unique individual with a special, greater purpose than everyone else around him.

  It was because of that belief in his superiority that he began a search for his parents. He was successful in tracking down his parents, who he found, still living a very humble existence in a very poor part of Belgrade. He made it known to them who he was, made them believe that he had come to rescue them from their fate and then in a cruel twist of vengeance, simply turned away and never laid eyes upon them again.

  Finding his parents had started him along the trail of tracing his roots. A trail that was full of disappointment after disappointment. He learned that it had been a rather common occurrence for his ancestry to abandon children, give them up for adoption or to turn them over to other family members to raise. The branches of his family tree had been extremely difficult to follow, but he had continued following them as a man possessed
, knowing that the hardships that had befallen those who went before him had only been a sort of tempering of the steel that he’d become.

  The long, grueling search eventually paid off in a way that he could never have imagined. After ten years of difficulty and disappointment mixed with triumph, he finally found the link that he had been searching for. It was at the end of his search that he changed his name to Louis Charles Bourbon, for he had discovered that he was a descendant of the eldest daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He was, in essence, Louis XX; the real one, not the pretty boy pretender Louis Alphonse the Duke of Anjou—who everyone seemed to believe to be the leading pretender—to the defunct royal family of Bourbon.

  Besides discovering the source of his ancestry, Oliver/Louis had also made another dark discovery. While struggling to survive the harsh streets of Belgrade as a teen, he’d discovered a powerful cult that had secretly grown in the Serbian underworld and was heavily embraced by Serbia’s soldiers. It had its roots in the Roman worship of the sun and was called Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun). As he rose in military rank, he also rose in power within the secret society.

  Realizing that he had been empowered and enlightened by the unconquerable god of the sun, he began to understand the reason behind his superiority over everyone around him. From that understanding came a great purpose. It was toward that great purpose and an approaching phenomenon to which all his energy was focused.

  The great purpose was to rule the earth and the approaching phenomenon was a coming full moon at midnight on the summer solstice. For that event, he had begun to gather items of great, magical, feminine power. And, he would have the Jeweled Crown of Marie Antoinette, the greatest feminine force in history, from whom he was descended.

  Chapter Six

  Versailles. 21 May 1770