The Kingdom

22

VLORE, ALBANIA

“Well, that’s a bit of bad luck,” Selma said a few minutes later when Sam and Remi shared the news. They were sitting on the hood of their Fiat in the parking lot. “Hang on, let me see what I can find out about Sazan Island.”

They heard thirty seconds’ worth of keyboard clicking, then Selma was back: “Here we go. Sazan Island, largest island in Albania at two square miles, strategically located between the Strait of Otranto and the Bay of Vlore in Albania. Unpopulated, as far as I can tell. The waters around the island are part of a National Marine Park. It’s changed hands a number of times throughout the centuries: Greece, Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Italy, Germany, then back to Albania. Looks like Italy put some fortifications on it during World War Two, and . . . Yes, here it is: they converted the Byzantine-era monastery into a fortress of some kind.” Selma paused. “Oh, well, this could be trouble. Looks like I was mistaken.”

“Caves,” Sam predicted.

“Swamps, alligators-oh, my,” Remi chimed in.

“No, about it being uninhabited. There’s a Park Rangers installation on the island. It’s home to three or four patrol boats and about three dozen Rangers.”

“Therefore, off-limits to civilians,” Remi added.

“I would imagine, Mrs. Fargo,” agreed Selma.

Sam and Remi were silent for a few moments. Neither had to ask the other about what came next. Sam simply said to Selma, “How do we get there without being sunk by Marine Park Rangers?”

After skipping Selma’s first and predictable suggestion of “Don’t get caught,” they began exploring their options. First, of course, they would need transportation, an easy enough task, Selma assured them.

Leaving Selma to her task, Sam and Remi drove the Fiat south back to Vlore, where they regrouped at their de facto headquarters: the outdoor cafe at the Hotel Bologna. From their seats they could see in the distance Sazan Island, a speck of land rising from the Adriatic’s blue waters.

Selma called an hour later. “How do you feel about kayaks?”

“As long as they’re nice to us,” Sam quipped.

Remi swatted Sam on the arm. “Go ahead, Selma.”

“On the northern tip of the peninsula there’s a recreation area: beaches, rock climbing, sea caves, coves for swimming, that sort of thing. From the tip of the peninsula to Sazan Island it’s just over two miles. Here’s the catch: they don’t allow motorized craft in the area, and it closes at dusk. I presume you would prefer to do your skullduggery at night?”

“You know us so well,” Sam replied. “You’ve found a trustworthy kayak emporium, I assume.”

“I have. I’ve taken the liberty of renting a pair for you.”

“What about weather and tides?” said Remi.

“Partly cloudy and calm tonight, with a quarter moon; but there’s a storm moving in tomorrow morning. Based on the online nautical charts I’ve been able to find, the current within the bay is fairly gentle, but go too far east of Sazan Island and the peninsula and you’re in the Adriatic. From what I’ve read, the current there is unforgiving.”

Sam said, “In other words, a one-way trip south to the Mediterranean Sea.”

“If you even get that far without being-”

“We understand, Selma,” Remi interrupted. “East is bad.”

Sam and Remi looked at each other and nodded. Sam said, “Selma, how long until dusk?”

As it turned out, the approach of nightfall was the least of their worries. While the shop-located in Orikum, a resort municipality ten miles south of Vlore in the crook of the bay-had a wide selection of injection-molded plastic kayak models available, none of them came in anything but retina-burning reds, yellows, or oranges, or a Jackson Pollockesque mix of the three. With no time to shop for stealthier color schemes, they bought the best pair of the lot, along with double-ended oars and life jackets.

After a quick stop at a hardware store, they returned to Vlore. Having had good luck with them since Kathmandu, they found a military surplus store and bought an all-black outfit for each of them: boots and socks, long underwear, wool pants, knit cap, and an oversized long-sleeved turtleneck sweater to cover the neon orange life jacket. A bag of just-in-case odds and ends and a pair of dark rucksacks rounded out the spree. Then they set out.

Sam drove around the recreation area for several minutes, but they saw no one. The parking lots and beaches were empty. From a cliff overlook, they scanned the waters below and again saw no one.

“Probably too early in the year,” Sam said. “School’s still in session.”

“We should assume there’ll be patrols,” Remi said. “Park Rangers or local police.”

Sam nodded. “Good point.” If found, the Fiat would either be ticketed or towed. In either case, it was a complication they didn’t need. Worse still, the local authorities might push the panic button and assume they had a pair of vacationers lost at sea, which would undoubtedly attract the attention of the Navy and/or Coast Guard-the very thing Sam and Remi were trying to avoid.

After twenty minutes of tooling around the recreation area’s dirt roads, Sam found a brush-choked drainage ditch into which he backed the Fiat. Under Remi’s careful eye for detail, they rearranged the brush until the vehicle was invisible from the road.

Together they stepped back to admire the job.

“They could have used you in England before D-day,” Sam remarked.

“It’s a gift,” Remi agreed.

Rucksacks on their backs, they dragged their kayaks down the hill to a secluded cove they’d spotted earlier. Measuring less than forty feet wide, with a shallow white sand beach, the inlet leading out to sea was two hundred yards long and curved, protecting them from prying eyes.

With forty-five minutes of light remaining, they set about camouflaging the kayaks. Using cans of black and gray marine spray paint, they emblazoned the sides, tops, and bottoms of the craft in jagged overlapping stripes until not a sliver of neon plastic showed. Sam’s paint job, while functional, lacked the artistic flair of Remi’s work. Her kayak bore a striking resemblance to the slashed camouflage pattern found on World War I warships.

He stepped back a few paces, studied each kayak in turn, then said, “Are we sure you aren’t reincarnated from some OSS operative?”

“Not entirely.” She nodded at his kayak. “Do you mind?”

“Have at it.”

A couple of minutes and half a can of spray paint later, Sam’s kayak looked almost identical to her own. She turned to him: “What do you think?”

“I feel . . . unmanned.”

Remi walked over and kissed him. She smiled. “If it helps, I think your kayak is bigger than mine.”

“Very funny. Let’s get changed.”

After they donned their surplus clothes, their regular clothes went into the rucksacks, which in turn each went into the bow compartment of each kayak.

With nothing else to do, they sat together in the sand and watched the sun’s descent, watched as the shadows lengthened over the water, and darkness slowly engulfed the inlet.

When night had fully fallen, they dragged the kayaks down to the water, each shoving halfway out before climbing in and pushing off with the tip of an oar. Soon they were moving through the inlet. They took ten minutes to practice maneuvering the kayaks, getting a feel for the oars and the balance, until they were confident they were ready.

With Sam in the lead, Remi behind and to his right, they paddled down the inlet, oars making a barely perceptible hiss as they cut through the water. Soon the mouth of the inlet came into view; beyond that, a vast dark carpet of water. As Selma had predicted, the sky was partially overcast, with only the faintest moon glow reflecting off the water. Two miles ahead, almost due north, they could see the dark lump of Sazan Island.

Sam suddenly stopped paddling. He held up a closed fist: Stop. Remi took her oar out of the water, laid it across her lap, and waited. Using exaggerated and slow movements, Sam pointed to his ear, then up toward the top of the cliff to the right.

Ten seconds passed.

Then Remi heard it: an engine, followed by the soft squeal of brakes.

Sam looked back at Remi, pointed to the rock wall, then put his oar back in the water and headed in that direction. Remi followed. Sam turned his kayak parallel with the cliff, then rotated in his seat, placed a hand on Remi’s bow, and steered her in.

“Ranger?” Remi whispered.

“Let’s hope so.”

They sat still, eyes cast upward.

At the edge of the cliff a match flared, then went out and was replaced by the glowing tip of a cigarette. In the faint glow Sam glimpsed the brim of a military-style cap. For five minutes they sat motionless, watching as the man finished his smoke. At last he turned and walked back the way he’d come. A car door opened, then slammed shut. The engine started, and the car began moving away, tires crunching on the gravel.

Sam and Remi waited another five minutes in case of a double back, then set out again.

A quarter mile into the bay, it became clear that Selma’s tide prediction was similarly accurate. While neither Sam nor Remi were surprised, they also knew the ocean was a fickle beast; even a relatively gentle one-knot eastward current would have made the crossing twice as hard, forcing them to make constant course adjustments to compensate for the surge. Fail at this, and they could easily find themselves caught in the Adriatic and on their way to Greece.

Soon they found their rhythm, stroking in unison and quickly eating up the distance to Sazan. At the halfway point they stopped for a break. Remi brought her kayak alongside Sam’s, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the gentle rocking of the waves.

“Patrol,” Remi said suddenly.

To the northeast a large speedboat came around the island’s headland from the direction of the base. It kept turning, bow coming about until it was pointed directly at them. Sam and Remi sat frozen, watching and waiting. Though well-camouflaged, their kayaks wouldn’t escape the attention of a spotlight a quarter mile away.

On the boat’s bow a spotlight popped on, skimmed over the island’s southern shoreline, then went dark again. The patrol boat kept coming toward them

“Come on,” Sam muttered. “Go take some shore leave.”

The boat swerved to the east.

Remi said, “Good boy. Keep going.”

It did. They watched for a few more minutes as the boat’s navigation lights grew more distant, then finally merged with the light clutter of Vlore in the distance.

Sam looked at his wife. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

They covered the remaining mile in about twenty minutes. Having already done a virtual reconnaissance of the island with Google Earth, Sam had picked out their landing point.

Measuring roughly three miles from north to south and a mile at its widest point, Sazan resembled, Sam thought, a misshapen guppy. The park station was on the guppy’s back, a cove on the northeastern coast, while their landing site was the guppy’s tail, at the extreme southern tip, near the old World War II-era fortifications.

Mostly devoid of vegetation save ground brush and a few patches of dwarf pines, the rocky terrain was dominated by two high hills near the island’s center. It was on one of these hills that they hoped to find the old monastery and, if Earta’s information was accurate, the occupants of the Zvernec Island graveyard, including the late Bishop Besim Mala.

As was normal for Sam and Remi, they were traveling far and jumping through a lot of hoops based on a big “if.” Such was the life of professional treasure hunters, they’d learned during their years of searching.

As they neared the shore, the waves got choppy, crashing on jutting rocks and half-submerged coquina flats. The plastic kayaks performed admirably, bouncing off the rocks and skidding over shoals, until Sam and Remi were able to half paddle, half push themselves into the shallows, where they climbed out and waded ashore.

They crouched down to catch their breath and survey their surroundings.

The rock-strewn beach was barely deeper than their kayaks were long and was backstopped by a four-foot-tall rock wall; beyond this wall, a steep hill dotted with green scrub. Halfway up the hill, a garage-sized structure was built into the hillside.

“Pillbox,” Sam whispered.

Higher up the hill stood what looked like a stone shack-a lookout post, perhaps-and higher still, a hundred yards away on the crest of the hill, was a three-story brick barracks-style building. Black glassless window openings stared out over the sea.

After five minutes of looking and listening, Sam whispered, “Nobody home. Anything catch your eye?”

“No.”

“I don’t see any graffiti,” Sam remarked.

“Does that mean something?”

“If I were a kid living in Vlore, I doubt I could resist sneaking out here. While it wasn’t my thing as a teenager, I knew plenty of guys who would’ve spray-painted the hell out of that pillbox just to prove they’d been here.”

Remi nodded. “So either Albanian youth are particularly law-abiding or . . .”

“Nobody who sneaks over here stays free long enough to make mischief,” Sam finished.