The Tombs Page 12

  As the three watched, the steel slab was pushed across the opening, narrowing the faint rectangle of moonlight until it became a slit and then disappeared.

  KISKUNHALAS, HUNGARY

  THERE WAS THE SOUND OF DIRT BEING SHOVELED ONTO the iron slab that sealed the stone crypt. The shoveling continued. The first few loads of dirt were louder, and the ones after that quieter, but it was clear the dirt they had removed to dig down to the crypt was all being returned to the hole to cover it.

  Sam whispered, “Stay still, and don’t use more oxygen than we have to.”

  The three sat on the floor of the crypt, leaning against the stone walls, waiting. A half hour passed, then an hour.

  “Do you hear anything?” whispered Remi.

  “No,” Sam said. “I think they’ve gone.” Sam stood and moved to the space just below the slab of iron. “I think we can get out.”

  “How?” asked Albrecht.

  “We dug down about eight feet. The hole was eight feet wide and ten feet long—six hundred forty cubic feet. This room is ten feet wide, ten feet long, and ten feet deep. That’s a thousand cubic feet. We can let the dirt fall in here. We’ll spread it on the stone floor as it comes in and it will raise us as it does.”

  “So simple,” said Albrecht. “You think like a Roman.”

  “I just hope they haven’t left guards on the surface to watch the site,” Remi said softly.

  Albrecht said, “I say we take the chance. We breathe about sixteen times a minute and consume about twenty-four liters of air. We’d better get started.”

  “Right,” said Remi. “Let’s lift Sam up to reach the slab.”

  “No,” said Sam. “It would take both of you to lift me, but I can lift you both. If I brace myself against the wall, you can each step up on one of my knees, then to my shoulder. Push your shovel blade between the wall and the iron slab and pry it open an inch or two. That should be enough.”

  “He’s right,” said Albrecht. “The two of us can exert more force than Sam can alone.”

  Sam selected a spot, braced his back against the wall, and bent his knees. Albrecht and Remi took off their boots. Albrecht took a shovel, then stepped from Sam’s knee to his shoulder. Remi stepped on the other knee and shoulder. They worked the blades of their shovels into the crack between the iron slab and the stone entrance. They moved both hands down to their shovel handles for maximum leverage. Remi said, “On three . . . one . . . two . . . three.”

  Sam didn’t have to wait to find out if his plan had worked. The fine, sandy soil that had made this such a perfect place for viniculture immediately began to trickle from the narrow opening that they had made. It soon fell in an unbroken curtain, coming down steadily, in front of his eyes.

  Remi came down from his shoulder and helped Albrecht step down. Sam raised himself up and sidestepped past the falling dirt. Whenever the soil under the opening got to be a foot deep, the three would shovel it into the empty end of the stone chamber in front of Attila’s message. As the minutes passed, the level rose steadily, and they stepped up on it repeatedly, rising higher and closer to the ceiling each time.

  Filling the stone chamber with dirt left less and less space for air. When the floor level had risen about four feet, Sam lifted his shovel and worked it up into the narrow space between the stone and the iron slab, increasing the opening, and then scraped along the wall’s edge, bringing more dirt into the crypt.

  Remi said, “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to speed up the process before the air in here gets too scarce. I’ve cleared a few inches of space so we can slide the slab into it and make a bigger opening on the other side.”

  The three stood about a foot apart and pushed the slab the other way with their shovels. The slab moved on its rollers, first closing the narrow opening they’d made, then going another few inches. A much wider opening appeared on the other side of the slab, and the dirt sifted in much faster than before.

  “Let’s rest for a while,” Sam said. The others sat down while Sam spread the dirt around. The rate was much faster now, and when they were within four or five feet of the ceiling, the flow stopped. Sam pushed his shovel up into the opening and it broke through the last of the dirt above it. A shaft of sunlight shone through, illuminating particles of dust floating in the chamber.

  They all took off their infrared goggles, blinking in the light. They listened but heard no sound of men above them. There were random chirps of birds, flitting from one row of grapevines to the next. Fresh air flooded in.

  They gathered beneath the opening and worked to clear more room above that side so they could push the slab into the newly cleared space. When they rolled the slab back, there was enough of an opening to allow Remi to slip out. She climbed up, then called down, “It’s still early morning. I don’t see anyone. Pass me a shovel.”

  Sam pushed the shovel up through the opening and she worked for a few minutes. “Okay, push the slab another few inches.”

  Sam and Albrecht moved the slab again, and now there was enough room for them to slip through too.

  “I can hardly believe this,” Albrecht said. “We’re out.”

  They used the shovels to cover the iron slab, but they didn’t have enough dirt left aboveground to level it with the surrounding land. Sam looked around. “Hear that?”

  “A car,” said Remi. They all ducked low in the depression. Remi raised her head and peered out. “Wait. It’s Tibor’s car.”

  The car sped up and stopped and then Tibor got out. “Why didn’t you call?” he asked. “Didn’t you find it?”

  “We’ll explain later. Just get us out of here,” said Sam. “And not toward Szeged.”

  They all climbed in and Tibor drove off. “I’ll go the other way, toward Budapest.”

  “Perfect,” said Sam. “We need to figure out what that message meant. We’ve got a head start. When those men dig their way into the chamber, they’ll be expecting to find a tomb, just as we did.”

  “It wasn’t a tomb?” Tibor said.

  “It’s more than that,” Albrecht said. “Much, much more. How far is it to Budapest?”

  “About fifty miles. Maybe an hour, if I push it.”

  “Then push it,” Sam said. “We’ll try to fill you in on the way.”

  THE ROAD TO BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

  TIBOR DROVE FAR ABOVE THE SPEED LIMIT, BUT IT WAS early in the morning and they saw few other cars. Albrecht sat in the passenger seat beside him and the Fargos were in the back.

  Sam said, “Remi and I plan to go after the five treasures. How do you feel about joining us?”

  “This is my life’s work,” Albrecht said. “Of course I’m in.”

  “Five?” said Tibor. “Five treasures? I’m in five times.”

  “But how do we want to proceed?” asked Albrecht.

  Sam said, “I’ve given it a little thought. First, we need to decipher the message that Attila left us and be sure we understand it.”

  “Fortunately, it’s only Latin.” Albrecht took the newspaper Tibor had left on the seat, then used his pen to write out his translation. “‘You have found my secret but have not begun to learn it. Know that treasures are buried in sadness, never in joy. I did not bury treasure once. I buried it five times. To find the last, you must reach the first. The fifth is the place where the world was lost.’ In this section he tells us where the most recent treasure is.”

  “Where can that be?” asked Remi. “When was the world lost?”

  “There are a couple of good candidates for that description,” Albrecht said. “Remember that, to Attila, the world meant the land between the Ural Mountains and the Atlantic.”

  “Let’s call Selma,” Remi said. “Maybe she and Pete and Wendy can help us sort this out.” She pressed a key on her cell phone. There was a ringing s
ound and then Selma’s voice on the speaker.

  “Hi, Remi.”

  “Hi, Selma. You’re being included in a very important discussion. Did you get the Latin inscription I e-mailed you?”

  “Yes,” said Selma. “It was like a puzzle—or maybe just the beginning of one. Are you going after it?”

  “Yes,” said Sam. “First, we need to know where ‘the world was lost.’ Albrecht was just saying there are a couple of candidates. Go on, Albrecht.”

  “Well, certainly if Albrecht—”

  Albrecht interrupted. “We called because we want you to verify the facts, and, in the end, we’ll want your opinion too. Our command of history and its principles will give us an advantage. But Mr. Bako has done a decades-long obsessive study of Attila’s life. He’s probably got an incredible command of the details. Buffs and fanatics can be powerful opponents in a contest of trivia.”

  “You said you saw two possible meanings for when the world was lost,” Remi said. “What are they?”

  “One would be the battle Attila fought at Châlons-en-Champagne, France, in the year 451. The Huns had advanced to the west through Germany and most of France, pillaging and destroying cities. The Romans, under Flavius Aëtius, along with a larger contingent of allies, raced to cut off the Huns’ advance. They met on the plain at Châlons. Both sides lost many men, but there was no conclusive winner. This was the farthest west that Attila ever got. If he had won a clear victory, he would have gone on and taken Paris, and then possibly the rest of France. He would have ruled most of the area from the Urals to the ocean.”

  “What’s the other candidate?” asked Selma.

  “It’s a bit more complicated story,” Albrecht said. “It began a year earlier, in 450. Honoria, the sister of the Roman Emperor Valentinian III, was in exile, living in Constantinople, the eastern Roman capital, because at the age of sixteen she was pregnant by a servant. Now she was about to be married off to a Roman Senator she didn’t like. Her solution was to write a letter to Attila the Hun, asking him to rescue her. Attila definitely interpreted the letter as a marriage proposal. He believed she would bring him a dowry consisting of half the Roman Empire.”

  “Was that really what she had in mind?” Remi asked.

  “It hardly mattered, because her brother Valentinian wasn’t going to let it happen. He hustled Honoria back to the Western Empire, to Ravenna, Italy, where he had his court.”

  “Attila wouldn’t have put up with that,” said Tibor.

  “He didn’t,” Albrecht said. “In 452, after his disappointment in France, Attila and his men went south and east into northern Italy. They took Padua, Milan, and many other cities. Attila, at the head of his huge army, moved south toward Ravenna, forcing Valentinian and his court to flee back to Rome.”

  “And Attila followed?”

  “Yes. Until a delegation met him south of Lake Garda, near Mantua. The delegation included noble Romans, led by Pope Leo I. They begged for mercy, asking him to spare Rome. History says he turned around and left for Hungary.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I said it was complicated. He had taken northern Italy almost unopposed. He wasn’t a Christian and wouldn’t have been interested in the Pope’s request. Italy was at his feet. They had no army comparable to his. I think that his great army made the conquest of Rome impossible. The country was in the middle of a terrible famine. There was also an epidemic. The descriptions indicate it was probably malaria. If Attila pushed on for Rome, there would be no food to feed his huge army, and many would die from illness. So he left, planning to return another day.”

  “Is that what you think is the meaning of ‘where the world was lost’?”

  “Yes,” said Albrecht. “He was already receiving annual tribute from the Eastern Roman Empire. He controlled most of Europe, from the Urals to central France. If he’d been given the Western Roman Empire, legitimized by the hand of the Emperor’s sister, that was pretty much what he would have considered the world.”

  “Albrecht is the expert, but if my opinion makes a difference, I heartily agree,” said Selma.

  “It’s a year later than the battle in France,” said Sam. “At the end of his life, I think he wouldn’t say the battle was the most recent loss, and ignore losing Rome when he had it in his hands.”

  “Exactly,” said Albrecht. “Fighting to a standstill in France was important. But having Rome was having the world.”

  “Attila says he buried a treasure. So it’s off to Italy.”

  “The place where the world was lost was where he stopped his army and went home,” Albrecht said. “We’ll research it carefully, but it would be south of Lake Garda near Mantua.”

  “All right,” said Sam. “Beginning now, we’re in a race. Arpad Bako will dig up the crypt, expecting to find us in there dead. He’ll find the message, get it translated, and head where we’re headed.”

  “If that’s his interpretation of the message,” said Remi.

  “Right. What’s the plan?” asked Tibor.

  Sam said, “I think that Bako has more reason than ever to want to snatch Albrecht. Interpreting these ancient messages is going to be crucial. So we fly Albrecht to California on the next flight so he can work with Selma in the research center at home in La Jolla. It’s also extremely important that we know what Arpad Bako and his men are doing and where they are from hour to hour. The only one who can hope to accomplish that is Tibor, so he returns to Szeged and recruits people he can trust to help him. Remi and I will catch the next plane from Budapest to the area south of Lake Garda and get started on the search. Other suggestions?”

  “No,” said Albrecht. “Perfectly right.”

  “I’ll be honored to work with you, Albrecht,” said Selma. “All right, everyone. Your plane tickets will be waiting at Ferihegy Airport at Budapest. Except you, Tibor. Might I be so presumptuous as to suggest that you take a different route home?”

  “Thank you, Selma. I will.”

  “And Selma?”

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “See if you can get a scrambled satellite phone to Tibor, programmed with our numbers and yours.”

  “Right away.” They could hear her computer keys clicking at a furious rate. “And while I’m at it, I’ll get new ones for you too.”

  “Good idea,” said Sam.

  “And nobody forget,” Remi said. “A few hours ago, Bako’s men tried to bury us alive. Don’t anybody ever stop looking over your shoulder.”

  SZEGED, HUNGARY

  ARPAD BAKO SAT IN HIS OFFICE OVERLOOKING THE TISZA River and the bridge. On the other side of the river he could see the lights of Új-Szeged. It seemed to him that the lights brightened and extended farther every time he looked. He was in such high spirits that he began to feel a creeping sadness. He should have prepared some kind of celebration. A moment like this should not have been wasted. Gábor Székely and two of his men had reported good news from a vineyard on Route 53 at Kiskunhalas.

  Somehow the two Americans and Albrecht Fischer had sorted out the twists and turns of the Tisza that had disappeared since Attila’s time and found it. They had found the tomb. Székely had received the report from his surveillance team at three a.m. but had the consideration to wait at Bako’s house until he had awakened at seven.

  The surveillance team had followed Tibor Lazar’s sedan all the way to the experimental vineyard, using a transponder they had attached to it. When they caught up, they found Fischer and the Fargos actually inside Attila’s tomb. The two surveillance men had read the situation and made a quick decision not to try to drag them out. They had simply moved the heavy iron seal back over the opening, replaced the dirt, and driven away to wait for them to suffocate.

  Bako could hardly believe his luck. He had the tomb of Attila, containing one of the great treasures of ancient history. And he ha
d trapped inside it the only people capable of preventing him from retrieving it. Last night, Arpad Bako had won the prize of his life. But now it was night again. Why was Székely taking so long?

  His telephone rang. It seemed terribly loud in the dark and solitude of his office. He reached into his suit pocket for it. “Yes?”

  “This is Gábor Székely, sir.”

  “Good. I’ve been waiting.”

  “The news is . . . unexpected,” Székely said. “We’ve dug down to the tomb, but it had been filled with dirt. We dug down into it carefully, brought in more men, and emptied it. There was no treasure, no body of Attila, and there never had been. Attila’s men had simply buried an iron sheet with Latin writing on it. We’ve photographed it, and I just sent it to you as an attachment to an e-mail.”

  Bako whirled his chair around to face his desk and turned on his computer. “What about the Fargos and Professor Fischer?”

  “They aren’t here, sir. They must have escaped, which would explain why the underground chamber is filled with dirt. As the chamber filled up, they—”

  “If you’re sure you’ve found everything, close that chamber and bury it again so no outsider will be able to find it. I don’t want some third party joining the hunt for the tomb.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then come back here to my office. I’ll have orders ready for you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bako saw the e-mail, headed “no subject,” from Székely. He opened it, downloaded the attachment, and saw the picture. He enlarged it so it filled the two-foot screen on his desk. The rough, tarnished surface was gouged deeply, and he could make out the letters easily. He had gone to the best school. While his Latin wasn’t good enough to do justice to Livy or Suetonius anymore, this was the crude and simple Latin of soldiers. He translated it as he read.

  “‘You have found my secret but have not begun to learn it . . . The fifth is the place where the world was lost.’”