Although he had seen plenty of Russian boars in hunting magazines, the pictures didn’t do the animal justice. This beast was huge. Coated in thick brown fur with stiff bristles, it had a large snout, sharp tusks and a muscular torso. Becker walked around it twice, poking it with his rifle, making sure it was truly dead. The last thing he wanted was to be gored by an animal on its deathbed. He quickly realized that wouldn’t be a problem with this boar.
Finally able to relax, Becker laid his weapon to the side and touched the boar with his bare hands. There was something about a fresh kill - when the body was still warm and the blood had not yet dried - that satisfied something deep inside him, a primal urge that had been embedded in his DNA by long-lost ancestors who had hunted for food, not sport. Whether it was the adrenaline rush from the chase or the power he felt when he ended a life, hunting was the only time he truly felt alive.
Ironically, it was the thing that led to his death.
The first time Becker heard the noise, he didn’t know what it was. He paused for a moment, scanning the terrain, making sure another animal hadn’t smelled the blood and come looking for a meal. He knew these mountains were home to wolves and bears and a number of other creatures that would love to sink their teeth into a fresh chunk of meat - whether that meat came from a boar or a hunter. Either way, Becker was ready to defend his turf.
But he wasn’t ready for this.
Before he could run, or jump, or react in any way, the unthinkable happened. A loud crack emerged from the ground beneath his feet and the earth suddenly opened. Becker fell first, plunging deep into the man-made cavern under the forest floor. He was followed by dirt, debris and, finally, the boar. If the order had been reversed, Becker would have lived to tell the tale with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises because the massive boar would have cushioned his fall. But sometimes the universe has a wicked sense of humour, a way of correcting wrongs in the most ironic ways possible, and that’s what happened in this case.
A split second after Becker hit the ground, the boar landed on top of him.
Two tusks followed by 600 pounds of meat.
If Becker had survived the fall, his subsequent discovery would have made him a wealthy man and a hero in his native Germany. But because of his death, several more people would lose their lives as the rest of the world scrambled to discover what had been hidden in the Bavarian Alps and forgotten by time.
2
Saturday, 18 September
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Thirty feet below the surface of the Ohio River, the man probed the riverbed, hoping to find the object before a lack of oxygen forced him to ascend. He had been scouring the rocks for more than four minutes, which was a remarkable length of time to be submerged without air - especially considering the adverse conditions of the waterway.
Thanks to a mid-week thunderstorm that had caused minor flooding in the region, the current was unusually swift. It tugged on his shoulders like an invisible spectre. To remain in place, he had to swim hard, his arms and legs pumping like pistons. Eventually, his movements stirred up the sediment round him, turning the bottom of the river into a murky mess.
One moment it was as clear as vodka, the next it looked like beer.
Equipped with goggles that barely helped, he probed the silt for anything shiny. He found an empty can and a few coins but not the object he was looking for. Yet he didn’t get frustrated. If anything, his lack of success sharpened his focus and made him more determined. This was a trait he had possessed since childhood, an unwavering spirit that kept him going when lesser men would quit. A quality that had lifted him to the top of his profession.
A trait that made him dangerous.
In the darkness behind him, something large brushed against his feet. He turned quickly and searched for a suspect. Weighing over twenty pounds and nearly three feet in length, the channel catfish had four pairs of barbels near its nostrils that looked like whiskers. Known for their ugliness and indiscriminate appetite, the catfish swam next to him for several seconds before it