by Taylor Buck
High in the sky, the sun cast blue shadows on white snow. The Land Cruiser handled the terrain well, and within only a few minutes the men were climbing a marked access road on the outskirts of town. They ascended a winding trail that appeared freshly plowed, providing easy terrain for the SUV to navigate. The vehicle moved steadily along the path and rounded a bend, then rolled out along a ridge overlooking the town of St. Moritz below. A cerulean lake wrapped around the quaint village and shone vibrantly in the noonday sun.
“Lake St. Moritz,” Chester said.
The Toyota engine roared as they encountered some deeper snow. Jack got out and helped Chester lock the wheels into four-wheel drive, soon the older vehicle lumbered over the bank with no problem.
“Here we are,” Chester said pointing to the hillside. “It’s just up there.”
The road ended and splayed into a trailhead, which wound across the hillside and seemed to continue above the village for quite a way. The path displayed multiple sets of footprints heavily trodden into the snow below—a sure sign that the town hadn’t seen new snowfall for at least a few days. The men hopped out and Chester popped the tailgate.
“Just for safety,” he said as he handed Jack a flashlight and a survival sling bag. “Since it’s proven these hills can’t be trusted.”
Jack took the flashlight and placed it in the pack then slung it over his shoulder. Chester tucked his blonde mop under a wool beanie. The white snow crunched beneath their boots as they stepped carefully along a high ridge that continued across the face of the mountain. As Jack scanned the terrain ahead, he noticed a mound protruding from the mountainside.
“There!” Chester yelled. “It’s just up here.”
They trudged through the snow and made their way over to the bulging mound. As they came upon it, Jack noticed a hole the size of a manhole cover had been drilled into the snow. A single black dot contrasted by the vast whiteness around it.
“What the…?” Chester looked around disconcertedly and returned his gaze back at the hole in the snow. “This is new.”
“You mean this hole wasn’t dug by you guys?”
“Absolutely not.” Chester looked around confusedly, and then motioned down the steep hillside. “That is where Foley and Kathleen were found.” He looked back at the hole. “And this was most definitely not here when we pulled them from the snow.”
The two men stood directly in front of the mysterious hole, staring into the darkness. Without a word, Jack stepped forward.
“Jack…” Chester was about to stop him, but he relented, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to protest.
Jack pulled out his headlamp and adjusted it over a knit cap. He flicked the beam on and made his way inside. The sides of the tunnel were carved methodically as if burrowed by a large machine bit. The light from the headlamp reflected a bluish-white hue from icy sheets on both side of him as he twisted his body through the tight opening. It was a good ten to twelve feet of shimmying along his stomach before the mouth of the tunnel began to widen. Suddenly it opened up. He dropped inside a small sliver of space, like a hollowed out fort within the mountain.
“Chester!” Jack hollered through the tunnel. “I’m in.”
The space inside was roughly 6 feet wide and reached back into the mountain another twelve feet or so. His headlamp shined across the glimmering ice and over the ground beneath him. He saw familiar objects—an old table, a broken chair… even the silverware that they had spotted in the scan. The objects confirmed it was the room from the MOTSU scan. It all checked out, but something felt grossly out of place… something eerie…
Everything is in immaculate condition.
It was as if he was looking at a house that had been buried sometime in the past century—certainly not a cabin that had been buried in ice for nearly 500 years. The furniture and the condition of the objects were well preserved. It was astonishing.
Rustling sounds followed by frustrated grunts and groans became audible from the tunnel opening. Chester must have decided to enter the tunnel. Jack flashed his light through the opening and saw Chester’s backside scurrying toward him. He came in backwards? Chester was swinging his rear back and forth, thrusting his legs and pushing with his arms… like an inchworm. It was such an odd spectacle that Jack couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Glad I can be of amusement,” Chester muffled through a knit scarf. As soon as he reached the mouth of the opening, he slid down into the room on his stomach. He rose to his feet and gazed around the room wearing a look of awe. “This is it,” he said assuredly. “The room they were searching for.”
“Can you believe it?” Jack exclaimed. “Look at the condition of everything.”
“You’re right, it’s pristine.” Chester frowned. “The relative humidity in here must be perfectly balanced.” He glanced over the objects below. “The temperature must be controlled… sustained this far inside the mountain. That’s the only way anything this old could remain in this condition. I just can’t believe it’s actually here.”
“Yes… but someone else got here first,” Jack said.
Chester squinted to follow the beams of light as he searched around. “Did they take anything?”
Jack stepped over a heap of black metal canisters. “Pull up the scan. We can cross-reference the items. Then we’ll know for sure.”
Chester loaded up the tablet and stood back to view the room in a side-by-side comparison. He rotated the perspective of the scan to line up directly with their line of sight.
“There’s the table,” Chester pointed to the middle of the room. “And the chair…”
“The forks and knives are in that corner, there,” Jack added. “The chest,” he said walking across the room, “is located in the same spot as well.”
He reached down and placed his hands around the lid. The metal was darkly aged and brittle to his touch. He gently lifted the lid and felt it pull free, then he moved it aside with eager anticipation as to the contents inside. Jack didn’t know what to expect… a shiny key, a treasure map, a codex… He found himself surprisingly excited as to what lay inside the box. It was…
Nothing.
“Well?” Chester inquired.
“There nothing here.”
“A shame…” Chester replied. “Part of me was hoping our key would be in there.”
Jack sifted through a few more objects including what appeared to be an old lampstand. “It looks like everything’s here,” he said, “all except…”
“The bodies,” Chester answered.
“The bust too,” said Jack.
Chester looked at his tablet, then down at his feet. “According to our map, the bust should be resting directly where I’m standing.”
They searched around to see if it had been moved. After a clean sweep of the room, it was apparent the bust was nowhere to be seen. Whoever had drilled into the room had left everything in place but the bones and the bust. Jack crouched down and looked at the empty chest. “Well,” he said, “it looks as though we’ve found the location of the icona. The only problem is… we got here too late.”
Chester sighed and nodded in response.
Jack remained crouched down in a state of deep thought. After a moment, he stood up. “But at least we know exactly what we’re after.”
Chester turned around and stared back with a confused expression. “We do?”
Jack put his hand on Chester’s shoulder confidently. “Yes,” he said. “We’re on the hunt for the bust of a 1,200 year old philosopher… and I think I know why.”
CHAPTER 21
FLORENCE
SEPTEMBER 8
MARIANNE LEDUC CLOSED THE car door and pressed the lock button on her keychain. The car chirped twice. She slung her purse over her right shoulder and adjusted a grocery bag into the crook of her waist and left elbow, then using her free hand she shut the rolling garage door. The heavy panel screeched sharply as rusty rotors spun inside the warped metal casing. The shrill noise remind
ed her that the door was in need of repair. That WD-40, stuff. I’ll ask the landlord tomorrow.
It was dark outside. Streetlamps offered meager light, hardly adequate, but at least enough to call attention to the snags protruding from the shoddy concrete sidewalk. Even in the affluent parts of Florence, the roads seemed to be crumbling away—a glorious city decomposing slowly like an aging celebrity. Marianne sidestepped the potholes and continued along the sidewalk toward her apartment complex, an upscale studio in Florence’s fashion district. The street gave way to a dark, arched corridor which she entered assertively, picking up her pace ever so slightly.
She smelled it right away. The stench hit her nostrils—the ever-present smell of urine from the transients that used the concealed corridor as a lavatory.
Pungent.
Revolting… filthy leeching beggars, she thought.
The bag in her left arm began to slip. She paused and took a moment to adjust it, nearly spilling the groceries onto the cobblestone in the process. Tucking the bag in closer, she hurried down the dim pathway, the hollow clatter of her stilettos echoing off the stone walls around her. Her pace was brisk. For good reason. The corridor was unnerving and daunting to cross alone at night, especially a lone female. She always dreaded the short jaunt from her garage to her studio apartment. Her nerves tingled. Slowly, she reached her hand down inside her purse. Her fingers fumbled across the contents inside searching for her canister of pepper spray… for comfort—to know it was there. But she couldn’t find it. Not anywhere. In fact, she could barely feel anything inside her purse. Almost as if…
She stopped beneath a light and peered inside her purse. As the light revealed the contents inside, a gasp escaped her lips. The pepper spray wasn’t there. Her wallet wasn’t there… even her teal nail polish was missing. It’s all gone. She flipped the purse upside down and spotted a small incision along the base of the purse—a clean slash through the thick leather hide. Her possessions must have fallen out the bottom. She cursed quietly and stomped her foot. The purse was a Louis Vuitton. Not a knockoff street version either, the real thing. The damage was irreparable. Was it that stupid garage door?
As she flipped the purse over to inspect it, a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It struck her as odd, roughly the size of a note card and it had some kind of writing scrawled in the center. She bent down and picked it up, then read the message curiously.
Beware the mythical beast
Mythical beast? What did that even mean? Bizarre… there was no sense in it. Even so, something about it being in her purse right after an epic tear was discomforting. A shudder crawled across her skin. She flipped the card over to see if there was anything on the other side. Another gasp escaped her lips—this one short and fragile.
No…
Her eyes grew wide and she was instantly paralyzed with fear. A dark and horrifying sensation filled her body. Her eyes darted around the corridor nervously, scanning the shadows. Her fingers began to shake uncontrollably. The card escaped and fluttered slowly to the ground. It landed on the opposite side. Facing back at her from the cobblestone street was a photograph… of her. She was seated at an outdoor café. It was daytime. Sitting across from her at the table was Kathleen Cullen, laughing and looking cheerful. The photograph was from the lunch they had shared a few weeks prior. But who had taken it? My god. Why would someone take our photo?
Then it hit her. She was alone—defenseless.
Mari thought of Kathleen. The coma. Had she been attacked? Mari felt vulnerable… scared. The corridor seemed to be getting darker. Smaller.
Run, a voice inside directed her. She started running. The groceries hit the cobblestones and scattered across the ground. It didn’t matter. Mari flung off her stilettos like a fifty-yard field goal attempt and entered a full out sprint. She moved as quickly as she could, realizing the tight skirt around her thighs was restricting her movement. She couldn’t hit a full stride… it was more of a frantic scamper. Still, she was covering ground. Mari rounded the corner and spotted the elevator forty feet away. A small sconce lit its entrance, flickering off and on. She heard the chime of the bell as the elevator came to a rest on the ground level. A sensation of relief calmed her nerves knowing someone was about to exit. A neighbor, maybe? A security guard? Maybe Antonio—the handsome athletic trainer who lived next door.
The doors opened. A person emerged. Mari’s fear immediately returned.
A dark, slender figure faced Mari. It stared at her. Its mouth and jaw covered by black cloth that stretched down the rest of its frame. Only its eyes were visible—black too, like the sky.
Mari tried to scream… but couldn’t manage it. This fear was paralyzing. The only things that seemed to be working were her legs. She turned and found the stairs, then she burst up the stairwell, tears streaming down her face. Each step seemed like a monumental feat, like trudging up the final ascent of Everest.
Slow. Sluggish. A nightmare.
With a rush of pure adrenaline, she reached the top of the stairs. She grasped a hold of the railing and propelled herself around the corner, directly into a firm, robust object. A strong, powerful body blocked the hallway, sending her stumbling backward, startled and petrified with fear. Again, the scream wouldn’t come—only an intense pressure in her vocal chords. Her feet fumbled to find solid footing. She swayed awkwardly on the top step then fell backward as her arms reached outward desperately to grab hold of something. She groped frantically in the darkness…
Nothing there.
She toppled backward and hit the edge of the concrete steps violently. A snapping sound accompanied a muted cry of terror. Her body tumbled loosely down the flight of stairs and came to a rest headfirst at the base.
Down the hallway, the lift chimed and the doors closed. The small sconce above it sputtered twice more, then died.
CHAPTER 22
ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
SEPTEMBER 8
“LET’S SEE THAT SCAN again,” Jack said, pulling the tablet nearer to get a better look.
The men had left the ruins behind and checked in at a countryside inn on the west bank of St. Moritz. In classic Swiss style, the inn was a picturesque alpine lodge-style resort with multiple cabins adorning the hillside. Jack watched a skier carve down the mountain right up to a cabin door. He and Chester were discussing the recent findings over a sandwich and a pint of Swiss Ittinger Ale.
“Something’s not right,” Jack said rubbing the week’s worth of thick stubble across his jaw. “There has to be something more to this bust than we originally thought. Especially if it’s the only item they took, besides the bones of course.”
He pulled up the scan and enhanced the portion of the room containing the bust, then circled it a few times to get maximum resolution. He paused and brought his face to within inches from the screen. There was something there.
“Does that look like writing to you?”
Chester leaned in and took off his glasses, focusing his eyes on the screen. “Yes… it looks like Greek… or Latin…”
“Latin,” Jack confirmed. He proceeded to decipher.
Scientia…aere…perennius. “Knowledge… more lasting than bronze.”
“Is that a quote?” Chester asked.
“An old saying. A Classical Greek proverb, actually. It’s really quite fitting given its context. It was thought to have been a phrase from Horace’s Ode III… but what most people don’t know is that it isn’t from Horace. In actuality, it was spoken by Plato. The phrase refers to the importance of mind over matter—how philosophy and the pursuit of intellect proves to be of more sustenance than any earthly, or material thing.”
“Plato?” asked Chester.
“Yes. It’s also a blatant clue as to what the bust was made from—bronze. Especially regarding the timeframe this would have been made. In the 15th century there were many Florentine bronze sculptors. In fact—” Jack paused, as if some realization had come to him. His face suddenly lit up. “Let’s br
eak this down a bit,” he said grabbing a napkin and pen. He began sketching out a timeline. “According to Lorenzo’s letter, the icona was a key created by his grandfather, Cosimo, who ‘happened upon’ a vast amount of treasure. We know that Cosimo started an academy, but there is no mention of where the treasure resided. Lorenzo mentions his stepbrother, likely Lenihanio, stole the icona—which as far as we know is the only key… and fled to the Alps in order to escape his family.”
“So Lenihanio lived in the Alps?”
Jack took a sip of his lager. “You can see where I’m going with this.”
“Those bones…” Chester said. “You think they’re his?”
Jack didn’t respond. He drew a circle with the word TREASURE at the top of the napkin and a circle with the name COSIMO at the bottom. He then sketched a line up the middle, connecting the two. Then he worked his way back down, creating tangents at various intersecting points along the line.
“Assuming that Cosimo happened upon the treasure after the fall of Constantinople, he would have acquired it at the middle of the 15th century.” Jack wrote down 1453, The Fall of Constantinople. “Cosimo would have immediately stored it in a secure location and created a key to unlock it for future use.” He roughed out a quick rendition of the bust of Plato and drew a line to it. “Now, if the bust is actually the key, we need to determine how it was created. Cosimo likely would have commissioned the bust as a private assignment to a dear friend—someone that he would have been comfortable sharing the intent of his secrecy if not full details.”
“A student from his Academy?” Chester asked.
“Possibly. Remember, the Medici had direct access to the full assortment of A-list artists, so it could have been anyone of his choosing. However, it would have surely been someone that he could trust. And judging by the bust, whoever he selected was indeed a master sculptor.”
