by Estelle Ryan
He nodded and continued studying the painting. Only when he’d finished going over every centimetre of it did he straighten. He handed me the magnifying glass. “Under the arch.”
I looked at the magnifying glass and swallowed. Colin smiled and quickly wiped it down before offering it to me again. I took it and focused on the area Colin pointed out. I saw it immediately. “Nine hundred and eighty-eight. No point.” I straightened, keeping my other observation to myself. “Did you see anything else?”
“No.” He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then looked at Francine. “We need recent high-definition photos of these two paintings, the Oskar Herman that was taken and all Miroslav Kraljević’s paintings.”
“Frey.” Manny rapped his knuckles on the table. “Speak.”
Colin turned to him. “Whoever added these numbers and letters to these two paintings very likely also put something on the Herman. And since we’re dealing with the Munich Four, it would be stupid to dismiss Kraljević’s art.”
“How can you be sure that it’s only these four artists?” Zork asked.
“I can’t be sure, but it’s logical.”
“Presumptuous.” I thought about this some more. “In a much lesser sense, logical.” I narrowed my eyes as I considered the clues we’d found on these two paintings. I looked at Francine, who was swiping and tapping her tablet screen. “Focus on landscape paintings by Miroslav Kraljević first.”
“Makes sense.” Colin nodded. “The Becić and Račić both have bridges, the Becić and Herman both have mountains in the background. The Kraljević will likely have something in common as well.”
Francine nodded and continued tapping. Both Pink and Zork took their tablets, filling the room with the muted sounds of fingers tapping screens.
Pink paused, then looked at the other two. “Let’s divide and conquer. I’ll get the image for Becić. Zork, find high-def images for the Račić and that Herman. Francine can start with the Kraljević search.”
“Good plan.” Francine nodded. “I’m on Kraljević already and will send the images to your tablets as I find them.”
No more than a minute later, Colin’s tablet pinged. I glanced at my tablet and saw the notification icon. I opened the image Francine had sent.
It was not a landscape like the others, but a beautiful painting of a park with large trees casting shade over the vast lawns. Three figures were sitting on a park bench, their backs towards the viewer. The hats made me wonder if all three were women, but the gender of the three people and the person standing to their left wasn’t important.
“Luxemburg Gardens.” Colin stretched the image on his tablet screen. “Hmm.”
I ignored all the comments and questions from the others and zoomed in on the image. I started on the top left-hand corner and slowly worked my way across the whole painting. I couldn’t find a number or a letter cleverly disguised anywhere. The distinct similarity in the graphology of the numbers we’d found on the Becić and Račić made me doubt that it would look any different on another painting.
“I can’t see anything on Luxemburg Gardens.” Nikki shook her head and lowered the new tablet Francine had brought for her. “Anyone else?”
“Nothing.” Colin tapped the screen of his tablet. I glanced over and saw a different image fill his screen.
I closed the image on my tablet and opened the next one Francine had sent. “Mountains.”
“It looks a lot more like the Becić and Herman.” Colin tapped his tablet screen a few times, then looked at me. “Why don’t you check this Kraljević? Nikki and I will check the Herman.”
“Cool.” Nikki swiped her tablet screen.
I moved my attention back to my tablet. This painting was indeed similar to the other two. Yet the mountain range in the back was much smaller and seemed less important in this painting. I tapped back to see the title. Burning Valley. I tapped on the image again and tilted my head. With the exception of a strip of light orange field towards the back, I couldn’t see any of the landscape burning.
Of course, the artist might’ve referred to the sunlight warming up the valley and what looked like tilled fields, but I wasn’t going to guess. I started with the light blue sky and the puffy clouds, looking for numbers or letters. I didn’t find anything there, nor in the mountain range or the green and orange fields leading to the mountains.
I studied the small buildings to the left, their red roofs and the row of trees that drew an almost perfect line along the bottom third of the canvas. Halfway through I stopped. Front and centre of the painting was a large tree. I enlarged the image even more and was pleased that Francine had found such a high-definition photo.
I took a step closer to Colin and tilted my tablet for him to see. I pointed to the left of the tree. “Do you see it?”
He looked up from his tablet and leaned a bit closer. Immediately his eyebrows rose. He looked at me. “Two hundred and fifty-four?”
“Yes.” I looked back at my tablet screen and waited.
Colin took my tablet and on a deep inhale narrowed his eyes. “Is that a circle?”
“Or a small zero.” I had a theory. Unlike the others, I didn’t like sharing anything unsubstantiated, much to Manny’s frustration.
“Ooh!” Nikki ran to us, holding her tablet out to me. “Look!”
I leaned back.
Colin laughed softly and took the tablet from Nikki. He tilted the tablet for me to see the Winter Landscape by Oskar Herman filling the screen. In front of the building I’d assumed was a church were four trees, three closer to the centre and one to the very left of the painting. I found it inconsistent that the roof of the building and the mountains were covered in snow, yet these trees didn’t have any snow on them. A strong wind could be one reason for that, but generally it didn’t seem right to me.
I shook my head to stop the mental detour and looked at the spot Colin was pointing to. The three trees had curious rose-coloured foliage on the top. I exhaled harshly at the annoyance of more questions about these trees and focused on seeing the anomaly.
It was easy to spot. On the side of the building, next to a branch of one of the trees.
“Is that a four hundred and forty-nine or a forty-four point nine?” Nikki asked.
“Forty-four point nine.” I straightened. “I need a pen and paper.”
“You have your tablet.” Francine rolled her eyes when I stared at her.
“Here.” Nikki handed me a white sheet of paper and a pencil.
“Four paintings with four sets of numbers.” There was a possibility of more paintings with numbers, but I doubted it. “Two sets have a point. So we have a forty-four point nine and a thirteen point seven.” I wrote it down, then pointed with the pencil at Račić’s painting of the bridge over the Seine river. “If you look closer, you’ll see the same small circle we found on the Kraljević. I posit these to be latitude and longitude coordinates.”
Colin looked at the two combinations I’d written down. “So we either have forty-four point nine-nine-eight-eight and thirteen point seven-two-five-four...”
“... or forty-four point nine-two-five-four and thirteen point seven-nine-eight-eight.”
“Which set is north and which one east?” Luka asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Francine was tapping on her tablet. “We only have four options.”
“Start with forty-four.” Luka looked at Francine’s tablet as she worked. “That places the coordinates right next to us.”
We waited in silence for less than a minute. Francine’s eyes grew wide. She looked at Nikki, at me, at Manny and finally at Colin. “It’s a fricking fort!”
“We have a few forts.” Zork leaned forward, his hand hovering over his tablet screen. “What are the coordinates you used?”
“Forty-four point nine-nine-eight-eight North and thirteen point seven-two-five-four East.”
He tapped for a few seconds, then looked at Luka. “Fort Forno, Barbariga.”
“Barbariga?
” Colin leaned his hip against the table and looked up at the ceiling.
“What do you know, Frey?”
“Rumours.” Colin winked at me. “I know nothing is substantiated, but since we’re already working with rumours of treasure maps and the mention of the Seuso Treasure—”
“Spit it out, Frey.”
“I’ve been doing some research into the Seuso Treasure and found rumours that have been circulating for years that the treasure had a lot more than only fourteen silver objects. There’s been mention of as many as another eighty objects. Coins, more decorated vessels and plates like the fourteen we know about, cutlery and even brushes.”
“I’ve never heard of such rumours,” Zork said.
Colin’s smile held his secrets. “I’m not surprised. I’m quite familiar with this world and last night was the first time I found out about this secret treasure. Like you, I’d also only known what is official about the Seuso Treasure.”
“Care to share with the rest of the class?” Francine cradled her tablet as if it was a baby.
“Yes, dude.” Vinnie was leaning against the far wall. “I know less than nothing about this treasure.”
“Less than nothing is not pos...” I pressed my lips tightly together and glared at Vinnie when his smile conveyed mischief. “It’s not funny.”
“It is.” His smile widened. “You fall for it every time.”
I turned back to Colin and raised both eyebrows. I also had minimal information about this treasure and would like to know more.
“Okay, then. History lesson.” Colin cleared his throat. “The Seuso Treasure dates back to the late fourth or early fifth century. Like I said before, we know about fourteen silver works, but the treasure also includes the copper cauldron where the silver was stored. There are a lot of questions about the provenance and the history of this hoard.
“It first came to everyone’s attention in 1980 when one of the pieces was offered for sale in London. At that time, this piece was in the possession of two antiquities dealers from Vienna. A very long story short, a consortium acquired the complete hoard. Then Lebanon claimed it had originally been found in the Tyre and Sidon regions of Lebanon. A lot more happened and then Hungary and the then-Yugoslavia also claimed ownership.”
“This I remember.” Zork tapped his index finger on his chin. “Hungary said that a young soldier found the treasure in the nineteen seventies somewhere in the centre of Hungary.”
Colin nodded. “And in 1980 he was killed. As far as I could find out, his murder investigation is still ongoing.”
“Forty years later. Wow.” Nikki huffed. “Talk about a cold case.”
“True.” Colin blinked. “But that’s for another time. Maybe. I think for the moment we want to focus on the fact that Yugoslavia claimed that the treasure was first found in 1960—”
“In Barbariga!” Zork put both hands on his head. “I forgot about that.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Bloody hell, indeed.” Colin leaned towards Manny. “It is said that the treasure was found in old trenches close to an army compound.”
“The Yugoslav People’s Army compound,” Zork added. “And then in the eighties, the army allowed local archaeologists to excavate the site some more.”
“And this is part of the rumour,” Colin said. “Apparently, the soldiers needed almost a week to list everything they’d found at the site. None of this was ever made public.”
“Because it was in a military area.” Manny grunted.
“And because of this secrecy, it was easy to bring this alleged discovery into dispute.” Colin shook his head. “So much fighting over these artworks. Anyway, the soil found on the fourteen known artefacts was tested and it matched soil samples from the Barbariga area.”
“You don’t believe this.” I clearly saw his scepticism.
“It’s hard to believe anything where so much secrecy surrounds this hoard.”
“And it didn’t help when Yugoslavia broke up and Croatia tried to claim formal ownership.” Zork was looking at his tablet, scrolling down the screen. “It says here that the New York Court of Appeals didn’t accept the claims. Huh. The silver was locked away in a bank vault during the court case.”
“Then there were more court cases and claims. More recent claims say that the origin of the treasure was in Hungary.”
Zork jerked and shook his index finger at his tablet. “It says here that an article claimed that the original hoard had a hundred and eighty-seven silver spoons, thirty-seven cups and five silver bowls.”
“That’s not all of it.” Colin gave a half shrug and tilted his head. “Not if the rumours are true.”
“What do you believe, Frey?”
Colin looked at Manny and took a few seconds before he answered. “I don’t know what to believe. I want to believe that we’ve stumbled on a fifteen-hundred-year-old treasure, but I also know that the rumour mills can get wildly out of control.”
I leaned back and considered all the information we had. There was no concrete evidence to support any of these rumours. I narrowed my eyes when a new question arose. I looked at Zork. “When and where did Slavko Radja serve as a soldier?”
“Of course!” Zork tapped his tablet screen for a few seconds. His eyes widened and he looked at me. “He served in the JNA—the Yugoslav People’s Army—in the late fifties, early sixties. And he was stationed in this area. He was in his early twenties then.”
I nodded. “This gives us enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that Slavko might have been one of the soldiers who were at the compound when the rest of this treasure was found.”
“What then?” Nikki raised both hands. “He took some of it for himself, buried it and kept the coordinates?”
“That’s a good theory.” Luka scratched his chin and leaned forward. “But then why the paintings? And the hidden co-ordinate numbers?”
I dismissed his question with a wave of my hand. “That would be speculating as to his frame of mind and we don’t know enough about him to do that.”
“I’ll speculate.” Francine raised her hand as if she was a student in a classroom. “He knew Rene was a good-for-nothing scoundrel and that Goran was into art. He wanted his good son to have this treasure, but he didn’t want the loser youngest to get his hands on it.”
I turned away from Francine and looked at Manny. “We need to go to this Fort Forno.”
“I need to make a lot of phone calls first,” Luka said before Manny could respond. “Already this treasure has had so much international interest and controversy. We need to do this right.”
“But we need to do this now.” Manny shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “We can’t forget Florian’s threat about this terrible thing that is going to happen.”
Luka blinked and nodded. He took his phone from his jacket pocket and swiped the screen. Manny grumbled something and followed Luka, also with his phone in his hand.
I hadn’t been surprised to see Luka’s moment of indecision. This new development was an incredible discovery. It was impossible to tell whether this would only be a distraction or whether going to Barbariga’s fort to see what we could find there might give us the next clue in finding out what had motivated Florian to act so far out of character.
Manny was right. We had to keep in mind that there were approximately twelve hours left to stop an unknown disastrous event.
Chapter FOURTEEN
“THEY DIDN’T FIND ANYTHING at the farmhouse.” Luka leaned in between the two front seats of the SUV we were in.
I pushed myself against the passenger seat door. Luka was too close.
We had just turned off the main road from Rovinj, on our way to the fort. It had taken Luka and Manny less than an hour to mobilise numerous departments and law enforcement units to aid us. When we’d reached the vehicles, Luka had asked Bruno to drive with Vinnie and Manny. Both Luka and Manny had needed to make more phone calls and it would be more convenient in separate vehicles.
Colin laughed softly. “Sometimes she’s really good with directions and there are times when I’m convinced she can’t tell left from right.”
“What did the detectives find?” Maybe there had been physical evidence that could bring us closer to understanding Florian Brasseur’s motivation for kidnapping Nikki and Martin or this looming threat.
“Nothing. The detectives arrived almost eighteen hours after Nikki and Martin escaped. That definitely gave Florian and the others the time to clear out. Apparently, the house smelled like cleaning products. They think a cleaning service might have been hired to clean the place. There wasn’t the tiniest bit of dust anywhere.”
“No art supplies?” Colin asked.
“Nothing connected to Nikki’s kidnapping or this case.” Luka leaned back into the seat. “They did take photos and both Nikki and Martin confirmed that was the house. But we’re not going to get anything from that.”
“Then let’s hope we’ll find answers at the fort.” Colin followed the SUV in front of us, turning left onto a dirt road. “This is a beautiful area.”
“It is.” Luka looked out of the window and smiled softly.
I had spent the last thirty-seven minutes appreciating the views lining the road. It was similar to our drive to where we had first found Nikki and Martin. Olive groves, lavender fields and vineyards were everywhere. Handmade road signs pointed visitors to shops on some of the farms and a few small shops were next to the road. It would be a wonderful place to explore at leisure.
“We should take some wine home with us.” Colin lifted his chin towards a large sign pointing the way to a winery.
“That is a very exclusive place,” Luka said. “The restaurant has fantastic food, but the price is high. If you want, I can recommend some other konobas you guys can try out.”
“What is a ‘konoba’?” I asked.
“Ah, it’s a Croatian word for... I suppose you guys would call it a bistro.”
