The Malta Escape

by Chris Kuzneski

  As they walked, they were forced to duck and weave around the dangling roots, some of which were so thick and colorful that they looked like tropical snakes in the darkness. But Marissa was so caught up in the lecture that she was giving that she didn’t even seem to notice the obstacles in her way.

  “Based on his blueprints, we also know that Cassar’s tunnel system was built underneath the entire Sciberras Peninsula. Starting at the Grand Harbour to the south, it passed under the Upper Barrakka Gardens and ran directly through the heart of Valletta to the north, where it went underneath the Auberge d'Allemagne on its way to Marsamxett Harbour. It also extended east and west, like an ancient subway system that ran to every auberge in Malta.”

  As they passed the shaft that they had carved into the tunnel system, Payne paused in its opening for just a moment to listen for noises in the utility corridor. When he heard nothing of consequence, he continued on his journey with the rest of the group.

  “At some point during his correspondence with Paul the First,” Marissa said as the tunnel curved sharply to its right and started to head down a 45-degree ramp that eventually curled back underneath the upper shaft, “Hompesch realized that he was on his own to deal with Napoleon. That is when Jon and DJ’s escape theory comes into play. Realizing that Napoleon would plunder everything of value in Malta, Hompesch presumably ordered his most trusted men to bring the treasure down this ramp, which corkscrews through the depths of the limestone, where it would eventually be met by an awaiting ship in Marsamxett Harbour.”

  As they walked down the spiraling ramp, the group marveled at the precision of the construction. In many ways, it reminded Payne and Jones of Pozzo di San Patrizio—the historic well in Orvieto that Ulster had used as an example in one of his lessons. That had been built in 1527 AD, approximately fifty years before the creation of this tunnel system, and had also left them in awe. By comparison, modern roads were filled with potholes within a few years of being built, yet somehow this corridor was still mostly intact more than four centuries later.

  “Unfortunately,” Marissa said after a long stretch of silence, “the moment the Order’s treasure was loaded onto a ship, history managed to lose track of it. Perhaps there are additional clues in the documents that accompanied the letter from Paul the First in Jarkko’s collection. Or maybe we’ll be able to track down some external leads now that we know what we are looking for, similar to what Petr did with Cassar’s portfolio. After all, until I stepped foot inside of this tunnel system, I did not fully believe that any of this was possible.”

  Having memorized Cassar’s designs, she had timed the pace of her lecture to her immediate surroundings. “For the time being, I’m afraid this field trip must come to an end, because we have run out of research and hit the literal and metaphorical end of the road.”

  As if on cue, they made one final turn and found themselves facing another stone wall. Built just shy of Marsamxett Harbour to the north, it looked remarkably similar to the wall up above, with one major exception.

  The cornerstone on this one read: JUNE 1798.

  The date when Hompesch and his men left Malta forever.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Moscow, Russia

  When Ivan Volkov was a child, history lessons had fallen on deaf ears, but that had certainly changed yesterday. Volkov had paid close attention to Boris Artamonov, the former curator at the Hermitage, when he had described the significance of the historical documents in the collection that Volkov had stolen from Jarkko’s yacht.

  Suddenly, the presence of the two Americans made perfect sense.

  They were seeking an unfound Maltese treasure.

  Although Volkov looked forward to getting revenge on the Finn and his gun-toting friends, he was even more excited about the possibility of unearthing a staggering sum of wealth. As a criminal with connections throughout Eastern Europe, he had heard rumors about a treasure train filled with gold and artifacts that had been located in a remote part of Romania.

  He knew it was somehow tied to the death of Grigori Sidorov, the leader of a Russian extremist group known as the Black Robes that had caused Volkov’s organization a lot of problems over the years. But unlike the religious Sidorov, Volkov didn’t make his decisions based on dogma or blind faith.

  Instead, he acted on reliable information.

  Cold, indisputable truths.

  That’s why he only hired the best hackers in the world.

  They gave him an edge that no one else had.

  The previous night, Volkov had tasked his cadre of computer specialists to track down any information that they could find on the Maltese treasure. He had given them several historical keywords (Hompesch, Paul I, Knights of Malta, etc.) to search for, and a number of modern ones (Payne, Jones, etc.) as well, hoping that they might stumble upon a digital breadcrumb that would give him a tactical advantage in his search for his rivals and/or the treasure.

  At a ripe age of twenty-seven, Mikhail Blokhin was the most experienced member of Volkov’s hackers. He was paid an incredible amount of money to do what he did and rarely had to deal with Volkov in person—which was fine by Blokhin because he knew how unhinged Volkov could actually be. Most of their communication was done via phone or computer, while Blokhin and his crew worked in a non-descript warehouse in central Moscow.

  Volkov had spared no expense when arming the collective. They had the best equipment and the fastest network in the entire city, outside of the government itself. Because of this edge, he expected results, and often got violent when his employees let him down.

  Of course, that hadn’t been mentioned during the hiring process.

  Blokhin had only discovered it when his superior had been fired.

  Not just relieved of his duties, but tied to a pole and burned alive.

  Now the pressure was on him to deliver results.

  Thankfully, he had found something of value.

  Volkov smiled when he glanced at his phone. He knew Blokhin wouldn’t be calling with bad news. That was usually delivered by email or text, if at all. Sometimes if the news was awful enough, the man responsible would simply pack a suitcase and run.

  Little did they know, Volkov always relished the hunt that followed.

  It usually made the bad news worth it.

  Volkov answered in Russian. “Did you find something?”

  Blokhin swallowed hard in his office. Whenever he spoke with Volkov, he assumed his life was on the line, and this was no exception. Even though he was calling to deliver good news, he realized that Volkov could have changed his mind about the project overnight, making this call moot and a waste of Volkov’s valuable time. “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Well, spit it out!”

  Blokhin did the opposite. He swallowed harder. “Sorry, sir. My apologies. As you requested, I took the keywords that you provided and ran a comprehensive search on multiple networks in order to locate any threads that connected those terms in an unusual way. This was done to eliminate the type of results that one would expect in a search of this kind. Obviously historical figures like Paul the First and the Knights of Malta were going to be cross-referenced in thousands of results, but by tweaking my algorithms, I was able to weed out high-traffic sites like Wikipedia and focus on threads that were found in non-traditional forums.”

  “Such as?”

  “Sites about antiquities, treasure hunting, ancient maps, and so on. That’s where you find purveyors of artifacts—people who are buying and selling ancient items. Most of these sites are located on the dark web or similar networks in order to protect the identity of those involved, but as you know, those sites aren’t as secure as people think.”

  Volkov thought of Sergei Bobrinsky and smiled.

  His actions had made all of this possible.

  “And what did you uncover?” Volkov asked.

  Blokhin stared at his computer screen. “I found a post from five days ago on an obscure Maltese forum seeking information on any communication
between Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch and Emperor Paul the First of Russia. A reply came the following day that directed the original poster to a highly encrypted network where they could have a private conversation.”

  Volkov did the math in his head.

  Four days ago was prior to his appearance in Malta.

  But it coincided with Payne and Jones’s flight from America.

  Perhaps this was what had triggered their journey.

  “Please continue,” Volkov said.

  Blokhin nearly fell out of his chair when he heard the word “please”. Until that moment, he didn’t think his boss was capable of pleasantries. “Using the processing power of our clustered network, I was able to crack the encryption within a few hours and view the contents of their conversation. Once we’re done with the call, I can send you the entire transcript if you’d like.”

  Volkov groaned. “Fine! But get to the point!”

  “Sorry, sir,” Blokhin said as his nerves reappeared. “Their chat was more than a simple exchange of information. It was a negotiation for a collection of letters written by Hompesch in the months after he departed Malta, and they settled on a price of one million American dollars.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “As sure as I can be, sir. Obviously I can’t confirm the veracity of the letters or their content, but I can verify the conversation itself. The transcript is quite clear.”

  Volkov smiled at the news. “What do we know about the posters?”

  “That took a little more doing. The two parties involved obviously knew their way around computers. Both of them routed their access through multiple proxies and VPN lines in order to throw off their scent, but I was able to trace the original poster by his device itself. Few people know this, but whenever data is accessed on the Internet, the requesting device leaves a digital footprint. Normally this wouldn’t be that big a deal if the user was working on a brand-name phone or computer, because there are literally millions of those devices floating around and they all have a similar footprint. But in this case, the device signature was extremely useful since the buyer in question was using a prototype manufactured by Payne Industries.”

  Volkov laughed at his opponent’s error. Only a skilled hacker would have spotted it. “Excellent work! Truly excellent! And what about the seller?”

  Blokhin was energized by his boss’s praise. “It gets better, sir. As you know, we constantly keep tabs on your rivals in order to exploit their weaknesses whenever we can, and when I was trying to track down the seller through the digital mist, I started to notice some similarities in tactics between him and one of your competitors. The same proxies. The same VPN lines. The same everything. Sure, their IP information is obscured—meaning we couldn’t track them to a specific location—but their pattern is still recognizable. And since I was already familiar with this particular pattern, I’m fairly confident I have identified the seller.”

  “Who is it?” Volkov growled.

  “Your old friend Kaiser.”

  Volkov practically cackled with delight. Not because the two of them were comrades, but because they were bitter enemies. Two titans who clashed in the night, fighting for the same realm, each desperate to rid the world of the other.

  Much like Volkov himself, Kaiser had emerged from nothing to launch a criminal empire. Starting as a supply sergeant in the U.S. military, he had realized he could make great money by delivering illegal goods to soldiers overseas. Long before Amazon, Kaiser had figured out a way to get people what they wanted faster than anyone else and had made millions in the process. But due to the proliferation of the Internet, Kaiser had been forced to change his business model and extend his network into new regions, and that included a profitable foray into Russia.

  For the past decade, the two criminals had exchanged multiple body blows, yet neither had managed to knock out his opponent, despite several violent attempts.

  But this seemed like a golden opportunity to finally finish the job.

  That, and so much more.

  In one fell swoop, Volkov could take out the Finn, the Americans, and Kaiser.

  And as a billion-dollar bonus, maybe find a treasure as well.

  Volkov was practically salivating. “When are they meeting?”

  “Tomorrow night at nine.”

  “In Malta?”

  “In Finland. On the southernmost island of Suomenlinna.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Saturday, June 16

  Helsinki, Finland

  Unlike his flight to Malta, Payne was fully awake for his trip to Finland, if only to sort through everything that had occurred during the past thirty-six hours.

  Shortly after documenting the ancient tunnel system on video, they had sealed up the historic site with sheets of opaque plastic before meeting Galea in the waiting van. Thrilled to get away unnoticed, he had dropped them back at Jarkko’s yacht just before sunrise. Then they had sailed the boat back to sea for some much needed rest.

  As always, Payne had taken first watch while the others got some sleep. He had been on duty for roughly an hour when Raskin had startled him with a new ringtone: the classic Johnny Rivers song, Secret Agent Man. Played at full volume on his phone, the tune had practically sent Payne diving to the floor for safety, but all was forgiven once Raskin had revealed the reason for his call: the Russians had found his digital breadcrumbs.

  The beauty of Raskin’s trap had been its simplicity. By faking a chat transcript from the beginning of the week and inserting it into a real message board, it had created the illusion that a negotiation had been conducted prior to Volkov’s appearance in Malta, thereby lowering his suspicions and convincing him that it was a legitimate transaction. Based on everything they knew about Volkov, he would leap at the opportunity to get revenge in person, but just to make sure, they had added the name of one of his fiercest rivals to the mix to guarantee his presence.

  Unbeknownst to Volkov, Payne and Jones had known Kaiser for years and had been given his blessing for the ruse. Truth be told, he was almost as eager to take out Volkov as they were, and they were more than happy to get his help with weapons and logistics.

  A former supply sergeant in the U.S. military, Kaiser had started his operation in Kaiserslautern, Germany—hence the nickname—servicing the nearly fifty thousand NATO personnel living in the Kaiserslautern Military Community. Since the majority of the residents were Americans, he had realized that he could make great money by providing them with illegal exports from the States.

  His business had blossomed from there, eventually turning into a criminal empire that extended all the way across Europe and into Russia. His most trusted smuggler on the Baltic Sea was a Finnish fisherman by the name of Jarkko, who had been with him for over a decade and had made a fortune in the process. Kaiser trusted him so much that he had given his name to two of his colleagues who were looking to smuggle an American historian named Allison Taylor out of Saint Petersburg before heading to Greece to look for treasure.

  That was when Payne and Jones had first met Jarkko.

  And it had happened in Helsinki.

  Memories of Allison slowly became thoughts of Marissa as Payne stared out the window at the city below. He had purposely kept her and Ulster from this part of their plan. Not only for their safety—he didn’t want them anywhere near Finland when this confrontation happened—but because he wasn’t sure how she would react to his role in the upcoming battle.

  To guarantee their security, he had flown them to Switzerland, where they would be protected by armed guards at the Ulster Archives while they searched for potential leads on the location of the Maltese treasure. Armed with new evidence from the Order’s secret tunnel system, he hoped they would be able to find something of value in the Archives’ files, much like Ulster had done with Cassar’s portfolio.

  Of course, Payne realized if his confrontation with Volkov didn’t go as planned, the treasure hunt would be over, as would his life.

 
“There it is!” Jarkko said from the seat behind him. “Suomenlinna!”

  “Wow,” Jones muttered. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”

  Jarkko snickered. “Jarkko hear this before.”

  Payne shifted his focus from the city to the north to the water beneath his plane. Scattered across the mouth of the harbor were dozens of brown islands, most of them small and uninhabited like rocky icebergs that never moved, but his gaze was drawn to the southeast where he spotted a stone bastion emerging from the Baltic Sea.

  Spread across six islands, Suomenlinna was a massive sea fortress built by the Swedish crown in 1748 AD, back when Finland was still a part of the Swedish kingdom. Its original goal was to protect Helsinki from Russian expansionism, but it fell to them in 1808 AD, paving the way for Russia’s occupation of Finland the following year. Isolated from Helsinki proper, Payne hoped that the island stronghold would protect innocents and help Jarkko defeat Volkov and his men, finally claiming a Finnish victory against Russian forces, as was its original intent.

  Thankfully, they wouldn’t be alone in their battle with Volkov. Kaiser was so excited about the possibility of eliminating his rival that he had flown to Helsinki on Friday morning before he had even received confirmation that Volkov’s hackers had found the digital breadcrumb.

  In his business, it was tough to know whom he could trust, so Kaiser had assembled a crew of his most loyal men. He had posted some on the ferryboats that serviced the complex to keep track of passengers and potential threats. He had kept a few on the island docks to monitor smaller boats, while several more patrolled the outer paths of the island with their eyes on the sea. He had dealt with Volkov long enough to know that he would come fully prepared.