“Really,” Nina smirked sarcastically.
“Really, Dr. Gould,” Virgil answered sincerely, almost defensively. “And if you go there for whatever reason you will eat your words on Mr. Cleave's camera. You will wear this stupid smile too, because you will not understand what happened, or did not happen, to you.”
“So, this patch of land is essentially anti-historical?” Sam joked, trying to lighten the mood, but the others were too immersed in the true and false of the matter to find the humor in it.
“That was not the end. Jobie and his one cousin thought my attempt was not conclusive, right, so they decided to beat the crap out of each other,” Virgil spoke as if it were the first time in his life that he could actually talk about it. “When Jobie tried to dive tackle his cousin his feet stopped. I mean, I could see his upper body lunge over from the speed he was going, but his feet would not advance to make contact. His cousin threw a punch which was guaranteed to connect, but Jobie's body had shifted a few inches away without any of us noticing! I’m telling you, that place scares the holy hell out of me, but I know what I saw and I know what I felt.”
“Oh my God, this is gold,” Sam exclaimed. “People are going to love this.”
“Just please, don't disclose the location, Mr. Cleave,” Virgil warned. “We don't want fools from all over the place disturbing Inuit land for some urban legend crap. Chalk this up to some old superstition on your program, alright?”
“Relax, Captain,” Sam replied professionally. “I appreciate the need for some arcane and magical places to stay unknown.”
“Aye, you can trust Sam,” Nina assured Virgil, giving the journalist a wink of approval that set everything right in his heart.
Chapter 23 — Unlikely Treasures
It was nighttime when the Scarlet pulled into a cove in Martin Bay. There the vessel bobbed on the breathing tide, a cold and restless heaving chest beneath the hull. The gales swept over the bay surface in hard breaths, sounding like wailing sirens and leaving the passengers of the boat thoroughly freaked out.
“God, this is creepy. This is right out of H.P. Lovecraft,” Nina remarked. “Hope your Alexander the Great makes it worth our while, Earle-Girl.”
“I hope so too,” Joanne replied as they lugged their bags off the boat and onto the dingy that would get them onto land. “Because I just don't think I can take more of your insults toward my boy Alex.”
The women dared have a laugh as they toiled through the icy waters to an unknown, uninhabited outpost in the stormy twilight. Sam asked Virgil to come along, but the captain preferred to stay with his vessel until his passengers returned. As the three of them started hiking, each one was armed with food rations and basic clothing, along with whatever gear Sam needed to record what they would hopefully discover there.
“Why the hell would Alexander's treasure be out here in the godforsaken Arctic archipelago?” Nina huffed in the cold.
“Think about it,” Sam shrugged. “It is nowhere near his Kingdoms, right? Nobody would think to plunder here.”
“That is true. He was a master of misdirection and strategy as much as he was good at head-on attacks,” Joanne agreed.
“But his treasure, most of which he obtained from empires he toppled, like Persia, Syria, and Egypt, could not possibly have been hauled all the way here. And let's not deny it — he was not afraid of a fight, hardly the type to sneak around to hide his gold when he believed he practically owned everything anyway,” Nina debated. “He would not have bothered to conceal his treasure at all. I would imagine Alexander the Great would have more than enough soldiers to guard his hoard instead of hiding it.”
“Unless that hoard contained something more important than gold and silver,” Sam mentioned.
“You know, that could be a strict possibility,” Nina conceded. “Perhaps something more powerful was hidden among his treasures, because most pillagers would only see the gold and valuables and not pay attention to the real item that he treasured.”
“Which would be?” Sam asked. Neither of the ladies could come up with a speculative answer yet, both falling silent to consider what it could be.
“Look!” Sam cried out. “Just ahead, a bit to the right. See that? Is that the weather station Erich spoke of?”
They squinted through the pitch dark with only the weak beams of flashlights to light the way. But in the haze of the cold, misty weather appeared what looked like compact, temporary structures showing signs of severe disrepair. There were two identical buildings constructed side by side with a large mess of iron and copper wiring hidden behind the weathered walls.
“Super creepy,” Joanne said with a shiver.
“Yep,” Sam answered. “Go on ahead, ladies. I'll film you from behind.”
“Not funny, Sam. We all go together, alright?” Nina suggested.
“I think those iron rods used to be a tower to mount weather instruments,” Sam remarked as they came closer to the deserted post. “This must be where Erich and his colleagues loaded the boats. Look, on the other side of this ridge there is more ocean hugging the land. That must be were the U-boat is submerged.”
“Aye, when I researched Weather Station Kurt,” Nina said, gesturing at the structures in front of them, “I read that German submarine U-537 was en route to this location when a storm broke the hull right off the coast here. I bet they were sending more than a mock-weather station out here. History says the U-boat departed again after the weather station was erected, but word of mouth says it is still sunk in Martin Bay.”
“So this is… was… weather station Kurt?” Joanne asked. “Then it makes perfect sense that Leslie must have snagged the medallion here. I bet there are quite a bit more lost gold medallions around here between the submarine and these buildings. There has to be.”
“Okay, let's go and see what is inside,” Sam urged, tugging up his collar against the sting of the cold. When they rounded the right side structure they found that its door had been ripped off the hinges at some point. “Ah! Easy access,” Sam sighed, “although that usually spells trouble for us.” He leered back at the women in ominous jest.
Inside they found the entire cubicle barren, save for one or two loose switches jutting from the wall and a pulverized office chair. “This must have been the front for a transmission center, in case the Allied Forces discovered it,” Nina observed as their lights fluttered about the inside of the prefab box.
Nina was looking out the glass-less window frame. “Looks like the building next to us is bigger than this one. It is built out towards the other side, see?”
“That must have been the barracks, the place with the beds, whatever,” Joanne guessed. “I think we will be getting more out of that one. Unless this little room has a dungeon with secrets, I think we are done here.”
Sam chuckled at Joanne's manner. “Then let's go. You don't actually think this room has a dungeon, Dr. Gould?”
Nina was looking at the floor with considerable fancy, pondering, before she looked up at them and plainly said. “No, that would be silly.” Filled with some doubt as to the obviousness, Nina followed her two friends out of the small room. “Actually…”
“No way,” Sam uttered at the front of the line, as if he knew that she would have second thoughts about the absurdity.
“Look, if there was anything worth anything, I would not hide it in a residential stock house where other people shared my space. I would hide it in the most insignificant place,” she speculated, shrugging with a face that implored them to trust her instincts.