Pompeii's Ghosts (A James Acton Thriller, #9) (20 page)

And now
they were all stuck on a Russian transport plane, unarmed, with a billion
dollars of gold in the hold, and half a dozen Russian guards that no one had
vetted.

Acton
sat back in his seat, shaking his head. “If there’s nothing we can do, then
there’s nothing we can do.” He closed his eyes. “Like I said, I’m probably
mistaken.”

He
closed his eyes as the others returned to their seats and tried to forget
everything that had been said over the past five minutes.

Unfortunately,
all he could picture was the cargo hold with six coffins in a single row, with
a seventh tucked between the large pallets of gold.

Near Lucius Valerius Corvus Residence, Pompeii, Roman Empire
August 25
^th
, 79 AD

Costa hit the ground, tossed through the door by his master. He
rolled in the thick powder, looking up and seeing nothing but a dense, dark,
roiling sky, a faint orange glow reflecting off the underside. It matched every
description of Hades he had ever heard, and if he didn’t know better, he would
believe that the world of the damned had been unleashed on the living.

But he
wasn’t a superstitious man, nor a religious man. He had never believed in such
things, and in his mind this was a horror of nature, not gods from Olympus. It
was a horror that could be survived, that had to be survived, and if he were careful,
would be survived brilliantly.

Voices surrounded
him, his master yelling at Plinius, other cries in the night as people rushed
for the water, somebody yelling ‘Hold your breath!’. The stench was
unbelievable and he took the advice, holding it for as long as he could,
finally, when he could take it no longer, he gasped, sucking in semi-fresh air,
then listened.

Silence.

At least
in the immediate area.

For
there was no silence in Pompeii this day.

A dull
roar groaned from the ground, his ear pressed against it as he remained lying
down. The cries of a panicked city filled the air like the background music of
the damned, mixing with the gentle white noise of the ash as it continued to
fall like snow, the sound real or imagined in his hypersensitive state.

He
pushed himself to his knees, barely able to see over the depression his body
had made in the ash.

He was
alone.

He stood
up and gasped, jumping back as he spotted Plinius kneeling nearby.

“My
Lord! I thought you had gone to the ship!”

There
was no reply. Costa stepped over to the Prefect and tapped him on the shoulder.

Again no
response.

He knelt
down and looked at the man’s face and Costa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

He’s
dead!

Costa
breathed a sigh of guilty relief then stood, looking down at the shore. The
boats were setting sail, and he wished them well—he truly did. But his fate was
not with them. His family he was certain had escaped, they having left
yesterday with the others. Their future however was not secure. It never would
be.

But
underneath the pile of rubble that was once the Lucius Valerius Corvus
residence sat enough gold to set every slave free in the empire.

And all
he needed was two bars of it to secure his family’s freedom and future.

He
circled to the front of the house and it was clear there was no way in, at
least none that was obvious. Returning to the back, the nearly equally
devastating sight did present one hope the front didn’t—the still intact
archway Valerius had stepped through carrying the slave girl.

He
stepped through and grabbed a still burning torch from a sconce next to the
door. Holding it out in front of him, he could see the collapsed columns and
roofing spread out in front of him, and as he held his flame out, moving it
slowly to spot any openings that might give him access to the basement, he
stopped, a smile spreading across his face.

Gold!

The glint
was unmistakable. He dropped to his knees, crawling forward and reaching under
a slab of stone that sat askew across a piece of wood. A single gold bar lay
discarded on the floor, probably abandoned by a soldier when they were ordered
to leave. He gripped freedom and stuffed it in a pocket, the weight substantial
and unexpected.

His
heart raced as he pictured the future.

Now
we are free. One more and we are secure.

He
pushed aside the stone that had concealed the first bar, it smacking against
the marble floor with a vibration substantial enough to cause Costa to freeze,
listening for any evidence the house was about to shift on him again. Shoving
aside some wood and straw, he found a narrow A-shaped opening created by two
large portions of the roof having come to rest on a column at the far end. It
was just large enough for a man.

Barely.

He
shoved the torch ahead of him and began to crawl. The dust had him coughing,
his eyes burning, his lungs desperate to suck in large breaths, but instead he
forced in only shallow ones in an attempt to reduce the amount of dust and ash
he inhaled.

Finally
the need proved too much and he sucked in a deep breath, his chest heaving high
and pressing into the stone above him.

He felt
it shift.

He
froze, slowly letting his breath out, which only exacerbated the problem,
causing him to draw the next few in rapidly and hard as he tried to cover his
mouth and prevent a coughing fit.

Finally
under control, he opened his eyes and turned his head, looking up. Everything
seemed stable for the moment, but with the near constant tremors, he knew he
had to get out. He pushed himself back with his hands then reached for the
torch and stopped.

Another
bar!

It was
just a few feet ahead, almost within reach. He pushed forward several times,
careful not to touch anything, then reached out for the gold bar. Still out of reach.

And his
right shoulder was now pressed against the stone above him.

He
crawled his fingers forward, manipulating his body to lower his right side and
managed to get a finger on the bar, but it wouldn’t move.

Just
a finger-length more!

He let
out all his breath, lowering his body further, and shoved with his toes against
the floor, moving forward just enough to get his thumb and forefinger around
the bar.

He
pulled.

And it
didn’t budge.

He tried
jiggling it and it moved slightly, the sound of metal scraping on stone causing
him to pause as he debated what to do next. It was clear that a piece of the
roof was sitting atop this small bar of gold. The question in his mind was how
catastrophic might removing it be to the delicate balance that had been
established above him.

It’s
for your family!

He
vigorously wiggled it back and forth and with a triumphant cry it came loose.

The
debris in front of him shifted with a thud. His heart nearly stopped as he
froze every part of his body. A creaking sound overhead that rapidly became
louder had him pushing back with both hands, the torch abandoned. The stone in
front of him collapsed just as he yanked his hands clear, and he shoved as hard
and as fast as he could, the gold bar in his right hand ineffectual against the
marble floor, his left hand all that was providing the grip. The trusses used
to build the roof began to separate, snapping one at a time from where he had
pulled out the keystone holding everything, including his family’s future.

His
breath was frantic now, his heart slamming against his chest, his hands, elbows
and knees bleeding from the unforgiving shards of marble and stone he now
slipped on as he tried to make his escape. He prayed to the gods he claimed to
not believe in for forgiveness, promising he would never be so greedy in the
future if they were to just let him survive this one stupidity, and as he
neared the end of the narrow passage, he began to think his prayers might just
have been heard.

And
answered.

The
entire tunnel collapsed just as his head cleared, but not before his hand. The
hand that still gripped the gold bar. He cried out in pain as several hundred
pounds of rock pinned his fingers, the rest of his body clear of the immediate
danger.

The
entire ground began to vibrate, a steady, growing rumble surrounding him. He
pulled at his fingers with all his might, the agony incredible as he realized
at least one of his fingers was broken. Lifting with his free hand, he managed
to yank himself free, collapsing on his back, his chest heaving up and down as
he caught his breath and tried to regain the focus lost to the searing pain.

The
floor was shaking violently now, the roar intense and all consuming. He rolled
onto his stomach then pushed himself to his knees. In the distance he could see
an intense orange glow rapidly approaching. The archway behind him collapsed
and he leapt out of the way, coming face to face with the second gold bar now
under a man’s weight in stone.

A weight
he was certain he could move.

If
only there was time.

The sea
was a heartbeat’s dash from where he now stood, and he could begin to feel the
heat of whatever apocalypse was about to befall them all. His eyes fixated on
the gold bar and what it could do for his family. He grabbed the stone with his
left hand and pulled up with every ounce of strength that remained. He felt the
stone lift slightly, and using his toe, he flicked the gold bar free, releasing
the stone triumphantly. He bent over and grabbed it, then ran toward the
terrace, leaping over the collapsed archway, then sprinting down the path the
soldiers had maintained toward the shore. No boats remained except the
abandoned cutter that Prefect Plinius had arrived on, but all he had to do was
reach the water.

He felt
the heat sucking at him, teasing him with delightful warmth, as if his entire
body were sinking into one of Rome’s famous hot baths, then, with the water not
ten paces away, he was engulfed in a raw heat that both deprived him of breath
and life, as his entire body was seared into a single, solid charred piece of
meat.

And as
he collapsed, two gold bars, once held in the pockets of a robe now turned to
ash, fell to the ground, both freedom and future lost to a moment of greed.

Exiting Eritrean Airspace
Present Day

Major Anatoly Kaminski, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), lay
with his eyes closed, his body completely relaxed as he felt the vibrations of
the Antonov’s mighty engines massage every square inch of his being, better
than any coin operated bed in a cheap hotel he had ever experienced. As he
waited for the plane to reach cruising altitude, he hummed the Soviet national
anthem, its proud lyrics heroically challenging the world, unlike the timid
lyrics now sung when Russia’s flag was raised. One of the many bold decisions
made by Vladimir Putin was to restore at least the music of the Soviet national
anthem though including the lyrics as part of that decision would have been
unacceptable at the time. Kaminski was quite certain, however, that in time,
those lyrics that had fired up a country to victory over the Nazi tyranny and
to hold back the evils of Western imperialism for decades, would be restored.

Though
he wasn’t old enough to have been a member of the FSB when it was called the
KGB, his father was and had instilled in him a fierce sense of national pride
that had been tested in his youth after the collapse of the USSR. But now,
under a strong leader determined to restore Russia to its former glory, he
loved his country so much it hurt, and when he had been made a member of the
FSB’s Directorate “A”, or Spetsgruppa “A”, his father had actually cried with
pride. Though his father was now dead, a victim of the harsh Russian economy
where capitalism had failed miserably, enriching only those who embraced its
full corruptness, he would never forget the day he arrived at home in his
uniform, the Alpha Group emblem on his shoulder.