255. Scaling giants

Scaling giants might sound like fun to the uninitiated, but it is a dangerous endeavour, suitable only for those brave souls willing to risk their lives for a folly.

I myself was uncertain whether I was cut out for it when the giants were first spotted in the Andes. They had slept for eons, hidden between the mountains, gathering moss. Their rumbling awakening frightened me to the core: immovable rocks shaking off the accumulated snow and flicking off entire villages on their backs. Soon they were on the move, roaming the continents.

 

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246. Manitoba Lee

Manitoba Lee took a swing at Dr. Gerhardt Messerschmidt, renowned historian, chief art collector of the Third Reich and – foremost – his nemesis. The doctor, a keen boxer in his youth, avoided the punch and slammed his fist in Manitoba’s side, who sank to his knees in pain.

“Hand me the painting,” the Nazi yelled.

“Never!”

“You are really prepared to die for a piece of art?”

“Only if you are prepared to kill for it.”

“Offensichtlich,” Messerschmidt said with a sardonic smile on his unnaturally thin lips as he produced a thin rapier from his sleeve.

The train – still gaining speed – hit an uneven rail at this point, catching Messerschmidt off-balance and giving Manitoba Lee the chance to grab a meat fork from the dining cart. He countered the first wave of attacks with it and cut Messerschmidt on the shoulder. The Nazi was not perturbed.

“Fencing is a funny game. Every competitor will take hits. But in the end, the German wins.”

And he leapt forward, pushing Manitoba back, against the coach door, which after a few knocks flung wide open and rushed a fierce cold wind through the carriage. Sparks flew as iron hit iron and the superior fencing technique of the Nazi shone through. Within half a dozen blows, he disarmed Manitoba Lee.

“The painting,” Messerschmidt demanded once more.

Manitoba unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the small, exquisite canvas, taped to his chest.

“Es ist wunderschön,” the Nazi said.

“It is. Better take a good look,” Manitoba said. “It’s the last time you’ll see it.”

And on those words, he flung himself out of the carriage, into the 200 feet deep ravine below.

He would not survive the fall, that was certain.

But the painting would not hang on the Fuhrer’s walls.

That was all that mattered.

 

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57. The wreck of the San Vincenzo

The wreck of the San Vincenzo languished for three centuries at the bottom of the Caribbean before famed Quebecois treasure hunter Robert Duvallier exhumed her from her watery grave, spurred on by the promise of the gold and silver coins the ship was carrying at the time of her demise.

Salvaging the wreck had consumed most of Duvallier’s life. He’d obsessed about the San Vincenzo ever since as a child, he’d seen an engraving that depicted a horrific hurricane swallowing the ship whole. In ensuing years, every treasure hunt he undertook was just a midway point to his ultimate goal: claiming the treasure trove that had made such a childhood impression.

Tears thus flowed freely on his cheeks as the wreck emerged from beneath the waves, aided by the cranes on floating platforms constructed especially for the occasion. The mouldy masts were covered in barnacles while weeds and starfish populated much of deck, bow and stern. Even in its bygone glory the San Vincenzo was an awe-inspiring ship.

After the cranes had tugged the vessel ashore, Duvallier and his TV crew entered the hull. They searched every nook and cranny but did not find a single ducat. All the treasure hunter’s hopes and dreams, decades of desire, shattered.

Until his assistant, a bright and beautiful girl sixty years his junior, discovered a hidden message beneath three centuries of coral in the captain’s cabin. On the wall behind his writing desk was marked, quite clearly, a treasure map that depicted how and where – in case of a shipwreck – the survivors were to hide the San Vincenzo’s cargo.

Duvallier was ninety years old but his eyes hadn’t sparkled this way since he was a kid watching an old engraving.

“Allons-y,” he said. “Allons-y.”

 

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