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“For the better,” Sam replied “She deserves it”
Following the confrontation in the cave they’d spent two hoursahead, setting pitons and rock screws and taking as o for help They’d coether
Once outside, Sam made himself comfortable while Remi sprinted back to the hotel, where she called for help
The next day they were at the hospital in Martigny The bullet had missed any major o
rgans, but left Sa He was kept two days for observation and then released Three days later they were back in San Diego, where Selma explained how Bondaruk and Kholkov had tracked theuards sent by Rube’s friend had been approached days earlier by Kholkov and given an ultihters kidnapped Putting themselves in the man’s shoes, Sam and Remi couldn’t fault the choice he made The police were left out of it
The nextthe Karyatids to the Greek government Their first call went to Evelyn Torres, who iical Museum From there events moved rapidly and within a week an expedition sponsored by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture was in the cave beneath the Grand St Bernard lake On its second day inside, the team found a side cavern Inside were dozens of Spartan and Persian skeletons, along with their weapons and equipment
It would be weeks before the expedition would attempt to extract the columns from the cave, Evelyn reported, but the ministry was certain the Karyatids would safely find their way home and eventually be put on display at the oing to have to rethink a good portion of Greek and Persian history
Hadeon Bondaruk had died never laying eyes on his beloved and elusive Karyatids
Once Sam was fully on the mend, they returned their attention to the Lost Cellar According to the legend, Napoleon had ordered his enologist, Henri Emile Archambault, to produce twelve bottles of the Lacanau wine Sam and Remi could account for only five: one lost by Manfred Boehm and destroyed, based on the Pocomoke shard found by Ted Frobisher; three recovered by them—aboard the Molch, at Saint Bartholomae’s, and in the Tradonico family catacombs in Oprtalj—and finally the bottle stolen by Kholkov from the Marder at Rum Cay and presumably delivered to Hadeon Bondaruk at his estate, an issue the French and Ukrainian govern to settle For their part, Sam and Remi had already turned over their bottles to France’s Ministry of Culture, which had offered an endowo Foundation A quarter of a million dollars per bottle
One mystery remained: What had happened to the other seven bottles? Were they lost, or were they so to be discovered, either superfluous parts of Napoleon’s riddle or hidden for their own safety? The answer, Saht lie with the ler-captain of the Faucon, Lionel Arienne, whoedly hired to help stash the bottles
As far as they could tell, Napoleon had been willing to trust only Laurent with the task, and they’d gone to great lengths to ensure the bottles remained hidden Why then had Laurent enlisted the help of a random sea captain he met in a Le Havre tavern?
It was a question that would take teeks to answer Their first stop was the Newberry Library in Chicago, where they spent three days sorting through the Spencer Collection, hoinal source material in the United States Fro four days and three days respectively at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the defense archives at Château de Vincennes Finally, aral pad full of notes, copies of birth and death certificates, discharge documents, and transfer records, they drove west to Rouen, the capital of the Normandy province There, in the basement of the provincial archives, they found the last link in the chain
In Septeeant Léon Arienne Pelletier, a decorated veteran grenadier in Napoleon’s Reserve Ar the 1800 Italian Caed for reasons unrecorded and returned to his home in Beaucourt, 115 miles east of the port of Le Havre Two months later he disappeared from Beaucourt, resurfaced in Le Havre with a set of new identity papers, and purchased a three-masted barque naeant could have ed the Zodiaque’s na arafoul of the French authorities Two years later in June of 1820 Arnaud Laurent walked into a pub and hired Lionel Arienne and the FauconTwelve months after that Arienne returned to Le Havre, sold the Faucon, and returned hoambled away his fortune
Why Pelletier/Arienne had chosen to reveal the secret on his deathbed neither Sam nor Remi knew, but it seemed clear that he, Laurent, and Napoleon were the only ones who’d known about the Siphnian Karyatids Nor would they probably ever kno the three men had found the columns in the first place
Selma’s completed translation of Laurent’s diary/codebook had solved two smaller riddles: Ten months after he and Arienne picked up the wine fro bottles around the world, they received word Napoleon had died Heartbroken, but already enroute to Marseille, Laurent hid three bottles at Château d’If before returning to port Of the other bottles, he’d said nothing