The Malta Escape

by Chris Kuzneski

“Ouch,” Payne said as he tried not to smile. “So, that’s how you’re gonna play it. I step outside for one minute, and you guys start a mutiny.”

  “Not mutiny,” Jarkko said with a shake of his head. “This is Jarkko’s ship, so Jarkko is captain. You are merely cabin boy. That is why you sleep in smallest bedroom.”

  “Wait.” Payne glanced at the others. “Did I really?”

  Jones laughed. “That’s what you get for taking first watch.”

  “Fine!” Payne snarled with mock outrage. “If that’s how little you respect me, I’ll let someone else run today’s briefing.”

  Marissa grabbed a towel to dry her hands. “Let’s be honest, Jon. I’m the one with all the expertise on the subject matter, so I can take over from here.”

  Jarkko grinned. “That works for Jarkko. Jon is good cabin boy, but not Jarkko’s type. Jarkko would much rather stare at Marissa.”

  “Me, too,” Jones said as he grabbed a seat at the table. “Besides, do we really want a has-been like Jon running the meeting? The guy doesn’t even have a job.”

  “Neither do you!” Payne snapped as he sat down next to Jones.

  “Which is why I’m not running the meeting. Duh.”

  Jarkko nodded. “Also because you are homeless.”

  “Knock it off!” Marissa growled, trying to imitate Payne’s voice from the night before. “Enough with the jokes. It’s time to get serious!”

  The three men stopped talking and stared at her.

  “How was that?” she asked with a smile.

  Jones burst out laughing. “That was awesome. Much better than Jon. You sounded like a studio wrestler.”

  Jarkko shook his head. “More like dominatrix. Dungeon name could be Mean Marissa.”

  Jones stared at Jarkko. “Dude! Enough with the jokes.”

  Jarkko stared back. “Who’s joking?”

  Payne glanced at Marissa. “See what I have to deal with?”

  “Boys,” she said as she took her seat at the table. “And I do mean boys, because men wouldn’t be acting like that in front of a lady.”

  Jarkko lowered his head in shame. “Sorry.”

  Jones put his hand on Jarkko’s shoulder. “He’s done. I promise.”

  “Glad to hear it,” she said as she tried to remember where she had left off the previous night. “Unless I’m mistaken, the last thing I mentioned before I stormed out of here like a spoiled brat was Napoleon’s invasion of Malta and Grand Master Hompesch’s surrender.”

  Payne stared at her, impressed. Not only had she managed to settle down Jones and Jarkko, but she had also taken responsibility for her less-than-ideal behavior. That was the sign of a great leader, someone who realized that he or she wasn’t above culpability. “That sounds right. You said a week after Hompesch surrendered that he was on a ship to Italy, where he established a temporary new headquarters for the Order.”

  She nodded. “Hompesch went to Trieste, which is an affluent city in northeastern Italy, roughly twenty miles from modern-day Croatia. At the time of his arrival in 1798 AD, Trieste was part of the Habsburg Monarchy and a very prosperous seaport. But Hompesch never viewed it as a permanent home for the Order. Instead, he used it as a base to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate what?” Jones wondered.

  “That’s a very good question—one I’m afraid I can’t answer with much certainty. Until our discussion last night, I would have said that he was trying to find a new home for the Order, just like other grand masters had done over the centuries. Keep in mind, this organization had moved from Jerusalem to Cyprus and then to Rhodes before they had even arrived in Malta, so this type of thing wasn’t new to the Order. However, unlike all of those other moves, the organization was lacking the one thing that they had always possessed in the past: money.”

  Payne nodded in understanding. “Unless they had a treasure.”

  “Exactly!” she said with excitement. “If Hompesch possessed the treasure that we’re looking for, then he would have had some serious bargaining power. He could have bought an island, or bribed a monarch, or done something to keep the Order flourishing, but none of those things happened. Instead, most of the remaining Knights viewed him with shame because of his actions in Malta, and he was forced to resign his position a year later.”

  Jarkko grimaced with confusion. “Why shame?”

  Payne explained his theory. “If Hompesch accomplished what we hope he did—meaning he smuggled the Order’s fortune off the island with the help of a few trusted men—then the majority of the knights wouldn’t have known what had really happened in Valletta. Instead, they would have viewed him as an incompetent coward, someone who didn’t prepare for Napoleon’s attack and, even worse, surrendered to him after a single day of minor fighting. As a former soldier, I can speak from experience that word spreads awfully quick amongst the troops if a leader is viewed as a coward. To soldiers, the only thing worse is a traitor.”

  Jones picked it up from there. “But if Hompesch was forced to resign a year later, then that means one of three things most likely happened. One, there was never any treasure, and all of this is a wild-goose chase. Two, the French spotted Hompesch’s escape attempt and grabbed the treasure for themselves. Or three, Hompesch was a weaselly crook who kept the treasure all to himself. The question is, what does history say?”

  All three men glanced at Marissa, looking for answers.

  She greeted them with a confident smile.

  “If it’s okay with you,” she said, “I’d like to address your points in reverse order. Let’s start with number three. Hompesch resigned under pressure in 1799 AD. Soon after his dismissal, he settled in the city of Ljubljana, which is the modern-day capital city of Slovenia. But back then, it was known as Laybach and was under Habsburg rule. He stayed there until 1804 AD, when he moved to Montpellier in France, where he lived in poverty. Less than a year later, he died of asthma and was buried in the Church of Saint Eulalie in a simple tomb.”

  “In other words,” Jones said, “he didn’t keep the treasure for himself.”

  She nodded. “That seems highly unlikely.”

  “Okay. Moving on. What about scenario number two? Could the French have spotted his men and kept the treasure for themselves?”

  She shook her head. “Also highly unlikely, and here’s why: Napoleon loved to brag. At that point of his military career, he was trying to accomplish as much as humanly possible in order to win over his countrymen in order to fulfill his ultimate goal of becoming emperor of France. If he or his men—who he ruled with an iron fist—had seized a major treasure from the famous Knights of Malta, he would have trumpeted its capture for maximum effect. Additionally, if he had come up with such a significant source of wealth before his march through Egypt, he would have undoubtedly used the treasure for food and supplies.”

  She looked at Jones. “Sorry. I’m not sure why I’m telling you that. Last night you were the one filling us in on Napoleon’s objectives in Egypt. Do you remember anything about a huge surplus of gold or jewels coming from Malta?”

  Jones shook his head. “Nope. Nothing like that, so I guess we can rule that out, too.”

  Marissa nodded. “Which leaves us with number one—the dreaded scenario that none of us want to talk about. What if there was no treasure and all of this was a wild-goose chase?”

  She took a moment to look them in the eye. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is, by far, the most likely scenario. During all of my years studying Maltese history, I have never heard a thing about a secret treasure hoarded by the Knights until you showed up in Valletta. And as far as I can tell, the only evidence we have—make that had—about a treasure was a letter from Emperor Paul the First of Russia to Grand Master Hompesch. Unfortunately, it was stolen by Ivan Volkov before I had a chance to verify the authenticity of the letter.”

  Payne chimed in. “Just so you know, I sent a picture of the letter to Petr before he even texted you about meeting us, and he verified the authen
ticity of the handwriting. He said it matched other surviving documents that were written by Paul the First.”

  “Good to know,” she said as she considered the new information. “That increases the possibility of a treasure by roughly one percent in my mind. However, as a historian—and that’s my role on this team—I still have to express my doubt. Serious, soul-crushing doubt. I know that’s hard to hear, but if you want to know my opinion as an expert on Maltese history, I have to tell you the truth. I honestly don’t think there was a treasure.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Marissa’s skepticism about the treasure dampened the hope on the yacht.

  And she could sense it, too.

  As she glanced around the table, she could see the disappointment on the faces of all the men, and it instantly filled her with regret.

  At that moment, she realized that she had learned nothing from the night before. Despite the harsh criticism from Payne, she was allowing her book smarts to get in the way of creativity and innovation. She was so focused on what she had learned in classrooms and libraries that she wasn’t allowing herself to believe that textbooks could be wrong.

  So she opted to do something about it.

  “Despite my doubt about the treasure,” she said in a much cheerier tone, “I am familiar with one particular crew of pirates that’s had a lot of success with conjecture and wild speculation. Following nothing but their gut instincts and minimal knowledge of history, they managed to sneak onto Mount Athos and make one of the biggest archaeological discoveries of all time.”

  Jarkko whispered to Jones. “She’s talking about us.”

  Jones whispered to Payne. “Minimal knowledge of history?”

  She ignored them and continued. “And since we’ve reached the part of our journey where textbooks end and imagination begins, I think it is in everyone’s best interest if I relinquish control of this briefing to the best cabin boy in the world, Mister Jonathon Payne.”

  Jones and Jarkko pounded on the table to express their approval.

  Payne grinned while nodding at Marissa.

  She smiled and nodded back.

  “My first order of business,” Payne announced, “is to thank Doctor Marissa Vella for her time as mission commander. Although this crew works best when playing it fast and loose, we will still need her vast expertise as we rewrite the history books that she loves so much.”

  Jones and Jarkko pounded on the table once again.

  Marissa smiled and dabbed a fake tear from her eye.

  “Okay,” Payne said, slowly turning serious. “Now that the transition is over, I was hoping we could get some additional information from our esteemed historian. Unless I’m mistaken, you haven’t mentioned any relationship between Russia and Malta—other than Jarkko’s letter. But when I spoke to Petr on the phone yesterday afternoon, he said there were a number of significant connections, particularly when it came to the Order of Saint John.”

  She sensed his change in tone and shifted back to her former role. “As usual, Petr is correct. Coincidentally, the relationship between Russia and the Order of Saint John started exactly one hundred years before Napoleon’s arrival in Valletta. In 1698 AD, Peter the Great sent a delegation to Malta to observe the training and abilities of the Order and its fleet. The Russian contingent was led by Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev, who arrived with a letter of introduction from the czar and a second one from Holy Roman Emperor Leopold. At first, there was mutual distrust between the two sides, but after a week of flowery speeches, given in Latin, where Sheremetev spoke of Russia’s unrelenting war against the hated Turks, the Knights started to view Russia differently. They sensed that this great power to the east might be their best hope against the encroaching powers of the west, which viewed Malta as the key to the Mediterranean. With preservation of the Order in mind, the Knights discussed several future ventures with Sheremetev, including the possibility of a Russian naval base in Malta.”

  Payne grunted, completely repelled by the notion. “I can’t even fathom the worldwide ramifications of a Russian naval base in the Mediterranean. It would’ve been incredible for them, but catastrophic for the rest of the world, particularly during the Soviet era.”

  Marissa nodded in agreement. She knew modern-day Malta would be a much different place if Russia had established a permanent stronghold on her island. “Prior to leaving Malta, Sheremetev established diplomatic relations with the Knights and was given a diamond-studded Cross of Devotion by the Order in return. This marked the beginning of a special relationship between the Knights and the Russian crown.”

  She took a sip of water before she continued her lecture.

  “Throughout the eighteenth century, Russia sent military officers for special training with the Knights of Malta, and in return, the Order sent ambassadors to Russia to lay the groundwork for a continued partnership. By the time Manuel Pinto da Fonseca was elected as grand master of the Order in 1741 AD, there was a growing trust between the two allies. Unfortunately, Pinto’s reign was marred by his lavish lifestyle. During his thirty-two years as grand master, he did a number of impressive things—including the creation of the University of Malta in 1769 AD. However, he is best remembered for the massive debt that he accumulated during his tenure, which forced the Knights into bankruptcy shortly after his death in 1773 AD.”

  Jarkko groaned. “Sorry. Jarkko not happy.”

  Payne nodded. “I can understand why. If the Knights went bankrupt twenty-five years before Napoleon even arrived, maybe Marissa is right. Maybe there wasn’t a treasure.”

  Marissa flashed an ironic smile. Suddenly their roles were reversed, and she was the one providing optimism to the group. “Don’t give up hope just yet. The Order’s fortune is about to change. After a short and unsuccessful reign by Pinto’s successor—a Spaniard named Francisco Ximenes de Texada—the Order got things right by electing Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc as its grand master. As a member of the wealthy and influential Rohan family of France, he sought to win the respect of his knights by fortifying their defenses in Malta and strengthening their finances. During his first few years, he acquired the properties of the Order of St. Anthony in France, several assets from the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in Poland, and most importantly of all, expanded the Order of Saint John into Russia.”

  “Interesting,” Jones said as his mind swirled with theories. “Very interesting.”

  “How so?” Payne asked.

  “What? A brother can’t find something interesting?”

  “Sorry, I thought you had more to offer than an adjective.”

  “Maybe I do,” Jones said, defensively. “But I would prefer to hear the lady out before I dazzle you with my insight. Besides, I also threw in an adverb.”

  Payne rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that. Please continue.”

  “No problem,” she said as she picked up from there. “Believing that Russia was the key to the Order’s future, Grand Master de Rohan sent a young adventurer by the name of Bailiff Count Giulio Renato de Litta to Saint Petersburg in 1789 AD to assist with the reorganization of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. Blessed with a diplomatic and military mind, the twenty-six-year-old knight soon distinguished himself in battle, serving as a commander with the Russian Imperial Navy in its ongoing war against Sweden. For his heroic service, he was honored with the Order of Saint George—which was bestowed upon him by Catherine the Great—and promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in the Imperial Navy.”

  “Really?” Payne said, impressed. “For a foreigner to be given the Order of Saint George—which is still the highest military honor in Russia—and a promotion to Rear Admiral while he was in his twenties is remarkable to me. He must have been revered by the crown.”

  She nodded. “Despite his age, de Litta had made his way into Empress Catherine’s inner circle. When Grand Master de Rohan found out about this, he viewed it as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with the crown, so he appointed de Litta as Minister of the Order in Russia to c
urry favor with the empress. But before they could take advantage of the situation, Catherine died quite unexpectedly in November of 1796 AD, and her son, Paul, ascended to the throne. Initially, this seemed like bad news since de Litta was so well liked by the empress, but as fate should have it, the accession of Paul the First actually strengthened the connection between Valletta and Saint Petersburg.”

  “In what way?” Jones wondered.

  Marissa took another sip of water to soothe her throat. She simply wasn’t used to talking this much. Not that she minded one bit. The truth was she found it exhilarating to be holding court with people that she actually admired. Her social circle was extremely small, consisting mostly of former classmates and professors who were scattered around the globe. Normally the only people that she talked to in person were the librarians that she encountered while doing her research and the employees at her favorite restaurants.

  Other than that, she went through life alone.

  “Fourteen years before Catherine’s death—way back in 1782 AD—she sent her son Paul, then a Grand Duke, to Malta to visit Grand Master de Rohan in Valletta. Although it was her intent to solidify her relationship with the Order with this gesture of admiration and respect, it was actually Paul who came away impressed. The man who would eventually become Paul the First was fascinated by the lore of the heroic Knights, so much so that within a year of becoming emperor, he signed the Treaty of 1797 with the Order of Malta. This agreement did two important things. It established a Roman Catholic Grand Priory of ten commanderies in Russia, and more importantly, Paul was officially named as the temporal Protector of the Order.”

  Jones rubbed his hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So a year before Napoleon shows up in Valletta, Paul the First agrees to be the Order’s secular protector. I’m assuming that means its military protector, as opposed to its spiritual protector, which would still be the Catholic Church.”

  She nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “And who ratified the treaty on behalf of the Order: de Rohan or Hompesch?”