The Lost Throne

by Chris Kuzneski

  She corrected him. “Not a throne. The throne. Like a very specific throne. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound familiar to me. I’ve been studying Schliemann for two years, and I don’t remember him searching for any thrones.”

  Jones glanced at Payne. He was sitting quietly, listening to their discussion like an outsider. “Hey, Jon, while we’re looking through Richard’s stuff, why don’t you run an Internet search for ancient thrones? Maybe you can find something related to Schliemann.”

  Payne stood up from the table. “I can do that. Where’s her computer?”

  “On the writing desk in the corner.”

  Normally, computer searches would have fallen into Jones’s area of expertise. He wasn’t as skilled as Randy Raskin—then again, nobody was—but Jones had majored in computer science at the Air Force Academy and spent half his free time designing and building computers in his garage. He simply loved tinkering with electronics. Making things faster and more powerful.

  Payne, on the other hand, used his computer for simple tasks, like checking e-mail and sports scores. Other than that, his knowledge was pretty limited. In some ways that embarrassed him—especially since his company, Payne Industries, had its own high-tech division—but when it came right down to it, Payne didn’t like being stuck behind a desk, typing on a keyboard.

  In fact, he hated it.

  But, in the context of this particular mission, Payne knew that his computer skills were far more advanced than his knowledge of ancient history. And Jones realized it, too, which was the reason he asked Payne to use the Internet to get some background material.

  Payne couldn’t read multiple languages, interpret historical data, or discuss the most important moments in Heinrich Schliemann’s life.

  But he was fully capable of running a search for ancient thrones.

  He could handle that like a champ.

  Payne took his job seriously, even though it didn’t seem quite as important as the work going on behind him. But in missions like this, he knew a breakthrough could occur at any time.

  He remembered a similar situation at the Ulster Archives when he and Jones had been asked to help some colleagues look for information about the crucifixion of Christ. Payne had been relegated to menial tasks while Jones dug through a series of ancient texts. Yet it was Payne who had made the most important observation, one that led to a major archaeological discovery.

  To this day, he still teased Jones about it every chance he got.

  Viewing this opportunity in the same light, Payne went to his favorite search engine and typed “ancient thrones.” A split second later, he had several hundred thousand links to choose from. He scrolled through the most popular choices and ignored anything that seemed unlikely—relics from Asia, Africa, and Western Europe. Instead, he focused on the areas that could be linked to Heinrich Schliemann, particularly Italy, Russia, and Greece.

  Payne changed his search query to “ancient thrones + italy” and scanned the results. One article stood out. A Roman throne had been recently discovered in Herculaneum. Payne clicked on the link and read the entire story.

  “How big of a discovery am I looking for?”

  “Why?” Jones asked from the table.

  “Back in December, experts found a wood-and-ivory throne in Herculaneum. It was discovered in the house of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law. According to this, it’s the first original throne from the Roman era ever to be recovered.”

  Allison spoke up. “I remember reading about that. Academically speaking, it was a wonderful discovery. But that’s not the type of item that Richard would have been interested in. Think much bigger. Something that would’ve put him on the cover of Time.”

  “Like a huge treasure?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Also,” Jones cracked, “you probably shouldn’t look for things that have already been discovered.”

  “That is a very good point.”

  Payne tweaked his search criteria for Italy a few different ways and found nothing of interest. So he decided to move on to the next region on his list.

  He typed “ancient thrones + russia” and scanned the results.

  At first glance, Saint Petersburg seemed to have more thrones per square mile than any other place on earth. The Winter Palace, which was part of the Hermitage Museum that Ivan Borodin once worked for, had multiple thrones—including the Great Throne Room, where the emperor and empress used to receive their guests. There was also a different throne at the Peterhof and a few more in locations near Nevsky Prospekt that Payne had seen during the past day.

  But they weren’t looking for thrones that were on display.

  They were searching for thrones that hadn’t been found.

  55

  Payne moved the computer into the kitchen so he could eat dinner and search for ancient thrones at the same time. Halfway through a three-course meal that consisted of cabbage salad, meat soup, and broiled fish, Payne shifted his focus to Greece.

  Despite his limited knowledge of Heinrich Schliemann, Payne knew the German had spent most of his time looking for Greek treasures. This was reinforced by a simple Internet search. Whether Payne was reading about a new exhibit in Athens or an ancient site in the Peloponnese, Schliemann’s name always seemed to get mentioned. Some of the articles praised him; others despised him. Yet there was no denying he’d had a major impact on modern-day archaeology.

  With too many articles to choose from, Payne changed the parameters of his search. Instead of looking through long sections of text, he clicked the image-only option on his search program. A few seconds later, his screen was flooded with pictures of Ancient Greece.

  “Much better,” he said to himself.

  He carefully scrolled through the images, looking for anything that resembled a throne. He paid more attention to paintings and sketches than he did to photographs. His rationale was simple. If an artifact had been photographed, it had already been discovered. Unfortunately, most of the artwork he saw depicted scenes from Greek mythology and the gods of Mount Olympus. He recognized many of their names in the captions—Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Zeus—but assumed these ancient deities would play no role in his current search.

  His opinion changed a few minutes later.

  Ironically, it wasn’t a colorful painting that caught his eye, rather a photograph of an antique coin that made him think of America. Minted by Elis, an ancient district on the western coast of Greece, it depicted the profile of a bearded man who looked strangely similar to the image of Abraham Lincoln on the American penny. Payne admired the precise details of the face—the swirls of his beard, the curve of his cheekbone, and the shadows near his nose—and wondered if the U.S. Treasury had based their design on this two-thousand-year-old coin.

  His curiosity piqued, Payne clicked on the link and was redirected to another website. The moment the page opened, his eyes widened in surprise. Two images filled the screen. The same picture as before, plus a different one showing the back of the coin. In it, the bearded man was now seated on an elaborate throne. He clutched a scepter in his left hand and held a winged female in his right. She was roughly one-sixth of his size.

  Underneath the photograph, the caption read:Statue of Zeus at Olympia

  Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

  Payne moved his cursor over the text and realized there was another link, one that would take him to a detailed description of the statue. Suddenly, the coin didn’t matter. Only the statue did.

  With the click of a button, details filled the screen.

  The Statue of Zeus was made by Phidias, a famous Greek sculptor whose art adorned the Parthenon, in 432 B.C. The chryselephantine statue—it was made of wood and overlaid with gold and ivory—had been housed in a massive stone temple at Olympia, the site of the original Olympic Games. Though Zeus was seated, the statue stood forty feet tall and filled the width of the great hall in which it was placed. His robe, sandals, and scepter were made of gold. An olive crow
n was sculpted on his head. The throne itself was made of cedarwood and ornamented with ivory, gold, and precious stones. To put its original value into perspective, a first-century historian had compared its worth to three hundred warships.

  As a graduate of the Naval Academy, Payne was staggered by that amount. He knew how important warships had been to ancient cultures and realized that if a single statue cost that much to build, then its modern-day value would be immeasurable. Simply put, it was the type of discovery that would have put Heinrich Schliemann or Richard Byrd on the front page of every newspaper around the globe. After all, it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

  Unfortunately, Payne had no idea what had become of it.

  Had it been lost or destroyed? Or was it still standing in Greece?

  As far as he knew, the Great Pyramid of Giza was the only ancient wonder that still existed, but Payne wasn’t one hundred percent sure about that. To find out, he skipped ahead in the article. He spotted a section labeled “The Fate of Zeus” and began reading the report. A minute later, there was no doubt in his mind that he needed to tell Jones and Allison, who were still sorting through Byrd’s notes about the throne.

  Payne carried the laptop toward them. “Are you familiar with the Statue of Zeus?”

  “The one at Olympia?” Allison asked. “What about it?”

  “Zeus is sitting on a large throne covered with gold, ivory, and precious jewels. From top to bottom, the whole statue was forty feet tall.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “it was destroyed fifteen hundred years ago when the Temple of Zeus collapsed.”

  Payne shook his head. “Not according to this. Some scholars believe it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was housed in a new temple. Supposedly it was part of the Roman emperor’s plan to beautify his new city with the finest relics of Greece and Rome.”

  Jones crinkled his forehead. “Really?”

  “But it doesn’t end there. Some experts believe the statue was moved once again, prior to the great fires that engulfed the city in the sixth century A.D. In fact, many of the most valuable relics were thought to have been removed before the fires were set by rioters.”

  Jones pointed at the computer. “Let me see that.”

  He quickly scanned the article, which was featured on a reputable website, then leaned back in thought. Allison took the opportunity to grab the computer and read the story as well. When she was done, she had the same reaction as Jones. She sat back and said nothing.

  Silence filled the suite. For an entire minute, nobody spoke.

  Payne stared at them and grinned. He knew what they were thinking.

  Heinrich Schliemann had found the Statue of Zeus, and he died before he could recover it.

  Jones was the first one to speak. He glanced at Allison and said, “Let the record show that I told Jon to search the Internet. I expect to be given full credit in your thesis.”

  She laughed. “Screw my thesis. If we find this statue, I can buy a college and give myself a doctorate.”

  Payne smiled at both comments. “So what do you think? Could this have been the throne that Schliemann was talking about?”

  “Yes,” she said, turning serious. “I mean, if anyone had inside information about a treasure in Turkey, it would have been Heinrich Schliemann. After all, he discovered the city of Troy on Turkish soil, so he would have heard rumors about any artifacts near Constantinople. In fact, he and his wife spent a lot of time in that city.”

  “But if he knew about the statue, why didn’t he get it?”

  “Why? Because there’s a big difference between knowing about a treasure and actually acquiring it. According to his journals, Schliemann took nearly a decade to locate Troy even though he used Homer’s epic poems like a road map. Now imagine trying to find something that was moved from place to place over fifteen hundred years ago. That search would take a very long time. Especially with the interference he was bound to face.”

  Jones asked, “What type of interference?”

  “Even though the citizens of Turkey loved him, the Turkish government did not. As I mentioned last night, he smuggled Priam’s Treasure out of their country, which upset all the officials who had given him permission to dig. Over time, he eventually smoothed things over, and they let him back into Turkey to do further excavations at Troy. Only this time, they assigned a guard to follow him. In fact, every time he went to Turkey from that point forward, he was followed around the clock.”

  Jones nodded in understanding. “Which would have prevented him from searching for the throne. He might have known where it was located, but he wasn’t able to recover it.”

  “Exactly. And Schliemann wasn’t the trusting type, so there’s no way he would have asked someone to do it for him. He had screwed over too many people in his life to trust anyone.”

  “Speaking of trust,” Payne said, “can we believe anything that Schliemann said? So far, you’ve painted a pretty negative picture of the guy. Despite his genius, he was a known charlatan, a con man of the highest degree. Isn’t it possible that he was making all of this up? Perhaps this was a big joke to him. A final cry for attention before he passed away.”

  Allison considered his comment. The thought had crossed her mind, too.

  “Normally, I’d agree with you. I’d say this had the makings of a wild-goose chase. But the more I read Richard’s notebook, the more confident I became that Schliemann wasn’t conscious when he talked about the throne. At least that’s what the police officer claimed in his journal. And if that’s the case, the odds of Schliemann lying were pretty slim. He was an amazing man and all, but I don’t think he was capable of making stuff up while he was in a coma.”

  Payne smiled. “You’re probably right.”

  Allison smiled as well. Then slowly but surely her expression turned into a frown, as if the weight of the world was Suddenly, on her shoulders.

  “What is it?” Payne wondered.

  She took a moment to answer. “We aren’t the only ones who think Schliemann found the throne. Obviously, Richard believed it as well.”

  Payne corrected her. “Make that two people. Richard and the person who had him killed.”

  56

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 21

  Saint Petersburg, Russia

  The process took a lot longer than they had hoped. In fact, it chewed up half the night.

  Allison read the police officer’s journal aloud, sounding out the words phonetically, while Jones used a translation program from the Internet to determine what language was being spoken. Then, after a healthy debate, the two of them decided what Schliemann had said.

  It wasn’t an exact science, and it was made even tougher by the evolution of language that had occurred during the past century. But by the time they reached the end of the journal, they were satisfied with the results. Although the translated passages couldn’t be read smoothly—the officer had skipped far too many words for them to reconstruct complete sentences—enough clues had been uncovered to assure them that they were on the right track.

  While this was going on, Payne left the Palace Hotel to work on another project. He realized he wouldn’t be much help during the translation process. If anything, another voice would have slowed them down. Besides, his skills were much more useful on the streets of Saint Petersburg. Their meeting with Ivan Borodin was scheduled for ten o’clock, and he wanted to survey the residence to make sure they weren’t walking into a trap.

  At first glance, everything appeared fine, but he would check again in the morning.

  When Payne returned to the suite, he felt a palpable buzz in the air, as if Jones and Allison had important news and they couldn’t wait to share it. For some reason it made him think of his dad—the moment when his father would come home from work and a five-year-old Payne would run into his arms and tell him about all the things that had happened that day. Now the roles were reversed. Payne walked through the door and was greeted by a burst of enthusiasm.r />
  “Get over here,” Jones said excitedly. “We just finished the translations.”

  They were still sitting in the same chairs as before. Most of Byrd’s documents were now on the floor. The only things that remained on the table were the officer’s journal, Byrd’s legal tablet, the computer, and the notebook filled with their work. The top page was divided into three columns, and those columns were filled with words in different-colored ink. Payne wasn’t sure where they’d got the colored pens from, but he assumed they belonged to Allison. She seemed like the type of person who would carry office supplies in her purse.

  Jones handed him their notebook. “We translated the entire journal.”

  “The entire thing?”

  He nodded. “Tell me what jumps out at you.”

  “The dumb-ass grin on your face. I’m guessing you’re pleased with the results.”

  “Just look at the damn notebook.”

  Payne smiled. “Okay, I’ll look at the damn notebook.”

  He scanned the blue list first, and many terms stood out. THRONE appeared several times, as did STATUE, ZEUS, OLYMPIA, and GOLD. All of them seemed to support their theory: Schliemann had been talking about the lost throne right before his death.

  Next, Payne moved on to the middle column. It was written in red ink. The words weren’t used as frequently as those in the first list, yet CONSTANTINOPLE, FIRE, TREASURES, BOOK, and CAVE were repeated. How they were connected, he wasn’t sure.

  The third list, written in green, was much shorter than the others. But it was the list that caught his eye: COAT was written at the top, then LOCATION, then KEY.

  “Tell me more about the green,” Payne said as he took a seat.

  Allison obliged. “Richard said the coat equals the key. Now we have linguistic proof of that. Schliemann mentioned coat and key on two different occasions.”