The Balkan Escape (Short Story): A Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure - By Steve Berry Page 0,1

to check out the locale. Her Danish friend, fascinated by anything lost and twenty times wealthier than she could ever hope to be, had stumbled onto the possible location of an undiscovered Thracian tomb.

Which was rare.

The Thracians were a warlike, nomadic people who’d settled the central Balkans nearly 5000 years ago. They were first mentioned in the Iliad as allies of the Trojans against the Greeks, and Herodotus cynically noted that they sell their children and let their wives commerce with whatever men they please. Two and half millennia ago they dominated the mountains of northern Greece and what would later become southern Bulgaria. Eventually conquered by Alexander the Great, then reconquered by the Romans, they were finally assimilated by Slavs in the 6th century. They developed no written language and left no trace of their existence, save for tombs littered with fabulous gold and silver treasures. Most had been found farther north, in central Bulgaria, in what had been dubbed the Valley of the Thracian Kings. But Thorvaldsen had happened on to the location of a more obscure site, to the south. A place that had once been a vital part of ancient Thrace, whose residents had named the mountains Rila—meaning “well watered.” He’d hoped that the site might prove virgin. Unfortunately, others had found it first.

And they weren’t after treasure.

“I’m on holiday and have never seen this part of Bulgaria,” she said to Sokolov.

“Ms. Vitt, you are important. You own multibillion-dollar corporation, inherited from your father. You own grand estate in southern France. Woman like yourself, a person of great means, does not take holiday in these mountains.”

They’d confiscated her passport yesterday after taking her captive, and clearly somebody had been busy.

“What do you plan to do?” she asked. “Hold me for ransom?”

“I simply ask, why are you here?”

She caught something in Sokolov’s eyes, a gentle request that she answer honestly. She wondered if the two other men, who stood on the far side of the chamber, understood the conversation. Their actions did not indicate that they were even listening.

“This is a Thracian tomb,” she said, opting for the truth.

“I wondered who built it,” Sokolov said. “How old is it?”

“Probably third to fifth century BCE.”

“We find this by accident. A demolition in another tunnel opened shaft to here.”

It was bare. No artifacts. “Was it empty?”

He nodded. “This is exactly as chamber appeared when we entered five days ago.”

At least it existed. Thorvaldsen would be thrilled.

Of course, in order to tell him she’d need to escape.

But her hunch was proving correct. She’d thought about it all night while chained to the wall. Bulgaria was rich in manganese, coal, copper, lead, zinc, and gold. These men could be geologists. But if they were simply a survey crew, why take her captive? Why the guns?

Only one explanation made sense.

Another ore came from these mountains, one the former Soviet Union had openly exploited.

“How big a uranium deposit have you found?” she asked.

Sokolov’s eyes betrayed the fact that she’d guessed correctly. “Enough to know you won’t see daylight again.”

Sokolov’s threat carried no menace. It was more informational, one that made clear she was in trouble, but not necessarily from him. He motioned to one of the other armed men and barked out some Russian. The man found a knife and cut the nylon bindings that held her arms behind her back.

She rubbed away the soreness. “I appreciate that. They were tight.”

“These men are not to be fooled,” he said. “They have a job and will do it. I need to know why you here.”

She wondered if Sokolov’s task was to make her feel comfortable, vulnerable, to gain her trust. There was something about him she was drawn to, not the usual arrogance Russians seemed to project. More reserved. Likeable. She told herself to be careful and not say more than she should.

To buy time, she studied the vault.

Thracian kings and nobility were buried in underground temples called heroons. Usually either multichambered and rectangular or singular and circular with a domed roof, they served as places for ritual ceremonies to honor the deceased with funeral gifts. Until the early 20th century the entire culture had been practically unknown, and when Thorvaldsen offered her the chance, she’d been excited about the prospect of visiting one of their forgotten sanctuaries.

But this tomb had obviously been looted. There was nothing here to find.

And it was time for her to leave.

She counted three tunnels leading out. One was the path back outside. Two more led deeper into the