The Explorer's Code (12 page)

Sinclair remembered the first time they had met at the club. Charles had been tearing up opponents for an hour or so when Sinclair had approached. Charles had beaten him in seconds, the start of a good friendship.

“Hey, I tried to get you earlier,” Charles said, testing the grip on his saber.

“I turned off my cell. I went to lunch at Hotel du Cap,” said Sinclair.

Charles looked over at him.

“Why, you like the burgers?”

“No, I ran into Cordelia Stapleton and asked her to lunch.”

“No. Really? I was going to ask her out myself, but you beat me to it,” Charles admitted. “So . . . what do you think?”

“Lovely girl,” said Sinclair, checking the fit of his jacket.

“I
told
you she was fantastic,” said Charles.

“No, it’s not like that. I was just being hospitable. I wanted to show her the neighborhood.”

“Sure,” said Charles.

“Seriously, I’m not interested in anything right now. I can’t stand another go-around. I’ve had it.”

“Look, don’t let a coked-out boozer like Shari put you off women.”

“Shari’s not a coked-out boozer. A lot of other things, but not that.”

“OK, you would know.” Charles changed the subject. “But seriously, what do you think of Cordelia? I talked to her after the gala. She said she ignored you during dinner and was worried about it.”

“Good. Serves her right for flirting with Jean-Louis Etienne right under my very nose.”

“She did?”

“No, actually they were talking about the ice pack.”

“Very romantic. You must be slipping if you couldn’t break up that kind of chatter. So what do you
really
think of her?”

“I don’t know. We just had lunch. She seems smart. Great-looking, of course, but sort of reserved. Almost shy.”

“Anyone would seem shy after Shari.”

“Agreed,” said Sinclair with a wry smile. “Shari
was
a bit of an exhibitionist.”

“I would say so,” said Charles. “Remember that time on Yanni’s yacht?”

“God, how could I forget? The papers had a field day.”

“So what about Cordelia. Going to see her again? She doesn’t leave for a day or so.”

“Well, you won’t believe it, but I invited her to Ephesus.”

“To
Ephesus
!!” Charles was staring.

“Yeah, to show her the dig.”

“Are you
insane
? What woman would like that? It’s a pit!”

“Literally,” said Sinclair.

They both laughed.

“Great move, I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“Oh, hell. I don’t know. She’s going on the
Queen Victoria
down through the Med. It ends up in Izmir. So I tried to convince her to join me.”

“Well, here’s a thought. Why don’t you just jump on the ship and ride down there with her? You’re going there anyway.”

“What? No, that’s really too much.”

“Are you kidding? She would probably find it very romantic.”

“Charles, no. Forget it. I’m finished talking about this.”

“OK. See you out there.”

Sinclair picked out his jacket and mask, and slammed his locker shut. She hadn’t been that interested. She made that clear at lunch. Why chase her?

The fencing salon had floor-to-ceiling windows. The brilliant Mediterranean light poured in. The room was the size of at least two American basketball courts. Approximately thirty fencers were now laboring up and down their individual pistes. Squeaks and squeals of the rubber fencing shoes, grunts of extreme exertion, were the only sounds. It was a temple of concentration; not a word was spoken. Only now and then a particularly fierce flurry would culminate in a sharp cry of victory or defeat.

Charles was at the far end, warming up. He had been one of the top-ranked fencers in Europe for nearly a decade. His technique and skill had been well chronicled. Extremely thin and light, he had such flexibility his arm appeared to bend in places that were physiologically impossible. He had his own distinct style, which was now emulated widely in the international fencing world. The point of his saber was impossible to see when in motion. In saber fencing, a touch can be scored with the blade as well as with the tip. In technique, Charles was the best Sinclair had ever encountered. Sinclair learned early on that despite his affable appearance, Charles had a competitive nature that was truly revealed only in the fencing lane.

Charles stepped into place on the strip without a word. Sinclair faced him. There was a slash of impatience in their mutual salute; blade to the mask and down to the floor.

“En garde.”

“En garde.”

Sinclair had fenced Charles so often he knew the opening moves like a chess game. Charles would hold back, taunting, drawing Sinclair out. He would pull him further into his trap, tempting him to risk more and attack closer. Sinclair, with his left-handed advantage, used every device. He had unique combinations, but Charles had fenced Sinclair often and was wily enough to recognize all the obvious moves. In their bouts Sinclair could always sense when Charles would be about to coil for a final spring. It was
the way a naturalist instinctively senses when a snake is going to strike. But today Charles had not yet pulled back for an attack.

Sinclair fought on, breathing heavily—parry, riposte, parry, riposte. Sinclair was grounded and strong, and much taller. But as the bulkier of the two, and a decade older, he worked harder to keep his movements quick. Charles’s feet flew across the floor barely touching it. He was—as the reviews claimed—miraculous.

Sinclair gritted his teeth, spoiling for a fierce exchange. Charles kept delaying his attack. He could hear Charles laughing behind the impenetrable mesh face mask.

“Come on,” Sinclair growled. “Come
on
!”

His blood was up and he craved battle.

Charles ignored him, teasing back and forth, advancing and withdrawing. Sinclair felt his muscles starting to rebel. They were beginning to tire, dragging down his strokes.

Then Charles sprang, out of nowhere, with an assault so rapid and fierce Sinclair would have been astonished if he had not experienced it before. Sinclair fought like a man possessed. Blazing fast, the sabers connected again and again. It was beyond training, practice, or even experience. It was a contest of pure skill, and their talent was almost evenly matched. Charles attacked like a dervish for what seemed an endless amount of time. Sinclair tried to take over the attack, advancing almost the entire length of the strip in the process, and Charles let him come at him.

But then Charles drew back, and a moment stretched and suspended, defying the normal physical rules. Time stood still. Charles was about to strike.

Sinclair felt the survival surge of adrenaline and executed a classic disengage. He ducked his blade under the other weapon. Charles attacked, but Sinclair executed a lightning parry, riposte. Charles parried clumsily, leaving his right shoulder open. Sinclair sprang and scored with a triumphant shout.

They both ripped off their masks, streaming sweat and breathing heavily.

Charles looked at him and smiled.

“You got me.”

E
vgeny looked out over the lawn of La Villa Alberta and savored the commanding view. The legendary French estate sat on twenty acres of manicured gardens filled with hundreds of cypresses, lemon trees, and a parterre garden of boxwood filigree. This morning the ocher stucco mansion was in full sail, with striped awnings and pendants flying in the brilliant sunshine. It was questionable if Versailles in its heyday had been more meticulously groomed. In the gardens, a legion of thirty workers never let a leaf linger for more than an hour on a gravel pathway.

Throughout the decades, the villa had passed from hand to hand, with an elite ownership of European monarchs, industrial tycoons, and idle rich. It now belonged to Oleg, the son of Russian peasants from Yegoryevsk. Oleg was one of the endangered Russian superrich. In the current tough financial times, he had neither the peace of mind nor the culture to enjoy what he owned. Oleg knew the property was a work of art, but he valued it only as a marquee possession. Without an audience of admirers, the villa would be worth nothing to him.

Oleg came out onto the terrace, and Evgeny turned to greet him, rising out of respect for his immense power and wealth.

“Dobro pozhalovat,”
Oleg greeted him, waving him back into his seat.

Oleg’s wicker chair creaked ominously when he flopped onto the cushions. He wiped his face with a linen handkerchief, sitting under the striped canopy, and looked at the sparkling Mediterranean. His white linen guayabera hid his vast flesh, but his fat toes were visible in his sandals. His Cohiba polluted the beautiful morning, as foul-smelling and unexpected as the sudden whiff of a sewer drain.

Oleg’s corpulence was legendary. Most oligarchs had earned monikers
because of their tastes or habits: “the curator oligarch,” “the football oligarch.” In the tabloids Oleg was “Obese Oleg.” His girth was the focus of public criticism, but the real cause of animosity was his vulgar display of wealth. He had drawn international outrage last year when his housekeeper leaked to the tabloids that guests had amused themselves one idle evening by throwing five hundred euro notes into the air and setting them on fire.

From the looks of things now, Oleg wouldn’t be igniting banknotes any time soon. And it wasn’t because he was worried about the press.

Only two years ago, Oleg had been estimated as the third-richest oligarch. His vast wealth was built on commodities dug out of the hard Russian earth, but with liquidity problems and plunging share prices his net worth had been devastated. His fortune was now one-eighth of what it had been. The Vnesheconombank, the Russian state-owned bank, had bailed him out with a $6 billion loan last year, to be repaid to the Royal Bank of Scotland. In turn, he had to transfer 50 percent of his shares of his company to Vnesheconombank.

As he sat on the terrace of his legendary estate, Oleg was now technically bankrupt—his assets did not cover his obligations—but things were fluid. He was working on it.

Just then Shari came through the French doors and walked over to Oleg.

“Good morning, Oleg. Is everyone else at the pool?”

“Da,”
he grunted.

Because Oleg barely acknowledged her, she turned her attention to Evgeny.

“Lovely day,” she said.

Her blond hair was pulled up into a sleek chignon. She wore a yellow string-bikini top and an Emilio Pucci pareu that revealed her left leg all the way to the hip. Evgeny stared and nodded, but didn’t engage her in conversation.

“I’m going for a swim,” she said, tossing the words over her shoulder as a taunt and wiggling her magnificent bottom down the gravel path through the garden.

“Isn’t she . . . ?”

“
Da
. The fashion model.” Oleg nodded.

“Very pretty,” said Evgeny.

“Have you found the deed?” Oleg asked as he watched Shari walk away.

“No. We are looking for it. So are the Norwegians, the CIA, and, of course, our benefactors.”

Oleg and Evgeny were creatures of the Kremlin. They both desperately needed a bailout. The recovery of the land deed of the Arctic Coal Mining
Company was the price the Russian government was asking. Monetarily the deed was worthless to the Russians. It had been made out to Elliott Stapleton. But if it were destroyed the Russians could claim ownership of the land. Their claim would be based on the land grants to Russian miners in Spitsbergen in 1900. That would give them a foothold in a bid for territorial sovereignty.

“When are you meeting with your bank?” Oleg asked. Evgeny blanched.

“I have a meeting in Florence in a few days. I got Raiffeisen Bank to refinance the five-hundred-million-euro loan from Deutsche Bank.”

“That’s chickenshit,” said Oleg dismissively. “Listen to me, we have to think bigger than that.”

“Believe me, I want to think bigger than that. I need two point six billion dollars for my syndicated loan.”

“I’m looking at the same thing, so here’s my plan.” Oleg, despite his thick features, had a mind like surgical steel.

Evgeny leaned forward. Oleg’s voice had a low timbre that indicated he was about to impart something important.

“Let’s merge.”

“Merge?”
Evgeny was stunned.

“Yes, we will merge most of our assets, the mines and factories, and turn them into a state-controlled conglomerate. And in exchange the Russian government could refinance the bank debt.”

“What are we, Soviets? That would be like reversing the privatizations that set up our companies in the 1990s.”

“Who cares? We would be first in line for the Kremlin money. There won’t be enough for everybody.”

“The government promised fifty billion,” Evgeny said.

“And froze it after the first eleven billion,” said Oleg, looking out over the lawn. “The faucet is closed. If we go in together, they will take half our companies, but we could both survive.”

“Not bad,” said Evgeny, thinking hard. “But what about the deed? They want the deed. And they expect us to produce it. We haven’t got it.”

“We could always kidnap the girl. She has got to know where it is,” said Oleg.

“I have people following her. She’s here in Monaco right now. If she doesn’t lead us to the deed, we’ll grab her.”

Oleg gave a curt nod, replaced his cigar in his mouth, and looked out to the sea below.

T
he nurse on duty in the emergency room at the Royal London Hospital could see that the man was very ill. He was chalk white and sweating, his eyes bloodshot. You really didn’t see that kind of pallor except in intensive care. With deep edema under both eyes, he was barely ambulatory. He walked up to the glass booth and stared at her, dazed, swaying.

“Your name please?” she asked.

He rallied and began talking urgently, but she didn’t understand the language. Then he fell in a heap on the floor.