crates, still trying to grasp how many items had been rescued from Constantinople. A few of the lids were brittle with age, so they were able to peek inside without risking damage to the precious contents.
And what they saw was amazing.
Gold relics and coins. Marble statues. Silver vases. Bronze weapons. Gemstones and jewelry. Painted vessels. Greek amphoras. And thousands of ancient scrolls.
None of them could be read until they were translated by scholars, but the fountain of knowledge that they might contain was staggering.
“Hey, Allison,” Jones said as they continued to explore, “I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“Your thesis is going to have one hell of an ending.”
She laughed with childlike delight. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Not only that,” he added. “You teamed up with Heinrich Schliemann to find this place.”
“I know! How wild is that?”
“Pretty damn wild.”
“Actually,” she admitted, “only one thing would make this better.”
Jones smiled. “Figuring out how to keep everything for ourselves?”
“No,” she said. “It would have been nice if we had found the Statue of Zeus. I mean, to discover one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. That would have been, well, wonderful.”
While Jones and Allison continued to talk, Payne roamed to the far side of the cavern. In situations like this, the soldier in him always seemed to surface. Before he could enjoy the treasure, he needed to check the perimeter to make sure there were no possible threats. And if there were, he would eliminate them as quickly as possible.
Only in this case, he found no threats.
But he did find something that he couldn’t believe.
“Guys,” Payne called from his position near the back of the cave. “You have to see this.”
“See what?” Jones yelled back. “We’re busy playing with our gold.”
“Trust me, you need to see this. I can’t do it justice.”
Jones and Allison walked to the back of the cavern, where Payne was waiting for them to arrive. He was shining his light into an antechamber that hadn’t been visible from the entrance. Though not nearly as large as the main cavern, the space was big enough to store the most important treasure that the Ancient Greeks had recovered from Constantinople.
The object that Heinrich Schliemann had been looking for at the time of his death.
The one thing that all of them had hoped to find.
The disassembled pieces of the lost throne.
EPILOGUE
FRIDAY, JUNE 6
Limnos, Greece
Sixteen days had passed since the treasure had been discovered inside the Holy Mountain. During that time, Nick Dial had uncovered the answers to several questions.
As soon as he learned that the Spartans had used Richard Byrd’s yacht for their trip to Mount Athos, Dial contacted law enforcement officials in California, who acquired search warrants for Byrd’s home, office, and safe-deposit box. It didn’t take them long to find a direct link between Byrd and Apollo, the leader of the Spartans.
Several weeks earlier, Byrd had flown to Athens, rented a car, and driven to Spárti. A hotel reservation he had made with one of his fake identities confirmed his presence in the small town. While there, he purchased a disposable cell phone that was found at Apollo’s house, along with a map to the harbor in Leonidi, where Byrd’s yacht would be waiting for the Spartans, in case they required transportation. Phone records proved that several calls were made between Byrd’s and Apollo’s cell phones, apparently to coordinate the search for the treasure. This included the attack at Metéora. Since the Spartan village had no regular phone lines, this was the only way for Byrd to stay in touch with the men he had convinced to do his dirty work.
With this information, the Greek police were able to question the rest of the villagers, who were eventually found in the Taygetos Mountains, a few miles from their village. Most of them were uncooperative and unwilling to talk, but a few of them eventually broke down and revealed the Spartans’ motivation to go to Mount Athos.
Byrd had told Apollo that the Brotherhood possessed several documents that cast the Spartans in an unfavorable light. This included a document they referred to as “the book,” a comprehensive examination of Ancient Greece and all the city-states. One section supposedly contained inside information that had been written by a disillusioned Spartan. He hated the brutal culture he had been forced to endure from birth until he was in his mid-twenties, when he finally managed to slip away. Afraid that this information would leave a permanent stain on their heritage, Apollo and his