Dara, first wiped the dust off the board. From time to time the varnish on the board fell in places, covered with cracks.
The top board, connected to a cherry wood frame, had a gap on one side. Like the open mouth of a crocodile. Opening the game like a book on the inside, the doors were connected by a silver metal pivot mechanism. But some of the screws were missing.
The dice were not all original, one was made of bone and the other was made of modern plastic. The stones were also replaced out of 30 original ones, there were only 17 others were corks from Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. There was a lot of restoration work. In the corner of the blackboard was the print of the author of the blackboard, which had almost lost over time - "1920, assistant to the right minister, Colonel Alexander Vasilyevich Petrov, Keder, Grand Duchy of Small-An".
It was this inscription that attracted Dar's attention. The year was significant in that the Principality was occupied by the Second Great Northern Empire. This means that people who had power fled hid their treasures.
Probably, this Petrov did not have such a good ending. Since the author's seal was self-made. With a high degree of probability, there was a cache in this backgammon board. Dara, it was necessary to find out if the cache was empty or there was something there.
He was lucky that the owners of this board were intelligent people who did not repair this board on their own, old communists who were carried away by their idea. Fanatics, in their way. His grandfather was the same.
So he was lucky. The treasure was probably hiding in this detached board of the top cover. "Eh, you saw that old woman, and that young pimple, he gave her a lot of money!"
"Let's go, follow!" Let's take the money! "We'll beat and take the board, it can be seen it's valuable!" "Look, young and bastard, encrypted, obfuscates traces, changes cars!" "You won't leave, brat!" Such conversations took place in the car that followed Dara.
He didn't know that hypothetical trouble was following him. "Look, and the tail is tied behind him ...". Object 3 is being followed!
"Car 2, 3 and 5," box ", the car of the violators to the fine parking lot, from the car of all to the control." Dara did not know this either, that his grandfather had put a "tail" on him from the outdoor surveillance of the city security department.
So just in case. Like grief, the hooligans did not know about it. In the evening they gave confessions.
And in the morning of the next day, on the desk of the head of the city security department, there was a report about the incident. The city market, an inspection was carried out, was confiscated from dealer's values stolen earlier from the village museums. Values of interest for the preservation of the cultural heritage of Small An, and the entire Great Central Asian Plains region have been returned.
The management was encouraged. A chain of resellers and organizers of the theft of exhibits from local museums was revealed, quite by accident. But all this remained in the ignorance of the Gift. That is why Grandfather insisted on transferring the game to the state museum. Dara, the game itself was not interested, although it was later evaluated by experts as a board made in 1780 in India, from cherry and sandalwood. He was interested in the hiding place inside. After examining the board, the top panel, Dara saw that it was glued to the frame. This greatly simplified the matter.
True, he was not a jack of all trades, but after a while, he managed to separate the board from the frame. As Dara suspected, there was an object in the void, this makeshift hiding place, apparently built in a hurry.
The object was a textile sack containing tracing paper, a map of the city walls was drawn on it, in some places there were crosses. And also two short notes: an inventory of the Grand Duke's property - gold coins, gold bullion, silver bullion, precious stones. Signed, large seal, date 12 August 1920.
The second cost estimate - the bottom line was that all the wealth was spent on the purchase of modern weapons. But this could no longer save the Grand Duke, his poorly trained army from feudalism, against the empire from capitalism. The fate of the Grand Duke and his family was sad. But Dar himself was no longer interested in this. Judging by the inventory, this was the treasury of the Grand Duke, but it was catastrophically small. However, if he managed to find what was preserved, it would have fully recouped all his expenses, and would still have left to buy a new SUV of domestic assembly. This is a little bit of all, probably thousands for 40-50 dollars.
But not bad either. Although Dara did not realize, rather forgot, it flew out of his head that the sale of precious metals and stones in Small-An was fraught with huge problems. This entire market was controlled by the security department. So in reality, he could only get an honorary diploma, maybe a bonus in the amount of 2-3 thousand dollars with the payment of tax and a headache with checking his house to hide the treasure. Plus another year of surveillance. Therefore, in reality, he could only pass this find on to his grandfather ... and he, as a faithful son of his fatherland, would donate everything to the state as an honest and stubborn communist.
But Dara did not think about it, he was in his dreams. Small-Ann, although it ceased to be a socialist country, had not yet switched to the rails of complete capitalism, so the old treasure laws were in force.
All night Dara, feverishly worked on his laptop, he looked for old maps of the city, collected new space images, superimposed the found plan on them. Layer-by-layer analysis, the entrance went to Photoshop, special programs for binding raster images to coordinates.
Digitization. Creation of thematic layers. By the morning he had a new map with the exact location of the hiding places on the modern map of the city. It only remained to check if they were there?
Grandfather, he was unhappy that Dara was breaking traditions, they said - when it got dark, throw the bolt on the door, cover the open water with a saucer and go to sleep.
"Are you fooling around again"? "I was sitting on my stupid Internet"!
"No, grandfather! I was doing socially useful work "! The grandson objected.
"You're lying! Bastard "! The grandfather's eyes were red, the nodules played, the veins in his arms were swollen.
"That's not lying, I can prove it!" Shouted in Dara's impetuosity.
"Prove if you can"! The grandfather answered sternly. "If you cheat, I will not see that you are an adult, you will taste my belt!" Grandfather growled menacingly.
"look, look!" Almost in a whisper, "old fart"! But that was his mistake. He forgot that his grandfather worked in counterintelligence. "The asshole himself!" "If it's not true, I'll make you work as a janitor for six months"! Grandfather threatened. The grandson knew that this was true, the grandfather could easily arrange such a life for him. In a softer, respectful tone, he said, "Look, my grandfather, look, I found a cache in that backgammon game, but during the night, I made a map where these treasures could be in our city"!