The Tombs Read online

  Remi said, “Has it occurred to you that they’re using the same strategy as the Romans and Visigoths: arriving first at the high ground and then holding us down with fire from a distance?”

  “If only they were shooting arrows,” said Sam. “Here. Take this.” He put another Roman helmet on her head, picked up a Roman scuta, rapped it with his knuckles, then set it aside and chose another. “This one’s better. It’s got a layer of metal on the outside.” He picked up a third scuta.

  “This won’t stop a bullet,” she said.

  “No, but they’ll make us harder to kill.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Hold it over your back like this.”

  “You look like a turtle.”

  “Success. That’s the idea. It’s hard enough to hit someone who’s running in the dark at this distance. If you have this between you and them, it will be hard for them to pick out what’s you and what isn’t. Now, let’s go before it occurs to them that they can advance.” He picked up his bundle of javelins, the round shield with the message, and the scuta he had selected.

  Sam climbed out of the trench, ran away from the road as though he had a miraculous new plan, then made a quick jog to the side just as the shooters fired again. Remi saw he was drawing fire, climbed up and held her scuta behind her as she sprinted straight for the parked truck.

  Sam reversed his direction and ran after her. Not noticing Remi at first, the snipers fired at him again.

  Remi was still dashing for the truck, her body low and the four-foot scuta on her right shoulder to keep it toward the snipers. She ran past the nearest of the test holes, the one filled with artillery shells. As she had feared, the snipers fired round after round at the hole, trying to set off an explosion. But, as she had hoped, from where they were, they couldn’t do anything but hit the dirt piled up around it. Even after she was past the danger zone, she could hear them wasting rounds on the explosives, thinking Sam’s approach was a second chance to hit the old shells.

  After that, each of the shooters seemed to share his shots evenly between Sam and Remi, which showed her that none of them had any training. The sniper’s stock-in-trade was to select a target and ignore everything else in the world until that target was dead. The American sniper’s standard, “One shot, one kill,” was far out of reach of most other services, but all of them were much better than this.

  As she dashed past the next test hole that had uncovered the French cannon, a rifle shot hit the right edge of her Roman shield. It punched the scuta hard to the side, and she felt splinters bouncing off her helmet, but she was able to hold on to it and keep running. The shield’s curvature had served its purpose and diverted much of the force of the bullet. Running even harder, she made it to the shelter of the big truck. She crouched on the street side, away from the snipers, climbed into the passenger seat, slid to the driver’s side, and started the engine. The shooters fired at the cab, blowing one of the side windows inward. They hit the cargo box, then the frame of the truck. Remi kept her body curled in a low-profile crouch.

  Then, just as she was beginning to feel hope, one of the shooters managed to ricochet a round off something at the edge of the ammunition pit, and there was a loud, fiery explosion in the field. She looked, saw Sam dive to the ground with his scuta over his back. He scrambled forward as three more rounds went off, then a volley of six.

  A moment later, Sam, still carrying the two shields and the bundle of javelins, appeared on the safe side of the truck. To her surprise, he climbed into the cargo bay, slammed the door shut, ran to the small window that separated the bay from the cab, and yelled, “Get us out of here.”

  Remi sat up, released the hand brake, depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear, then let the clutch out too tentatively, the truck making a jerky start. It didn’t stall, so she poured on more gas until the transmission whined that it was time to shift again. She worked her way up to fourth gear and kept her foot on the gas. Urging the big truck up to fifty along the dark country road with no headlights on, she just aimed for the center of the pavement. She took off the ancient helmet, threw it on the seat, and moved her head to keep catching the reflection of the moonlight on the dark, smooth surface of the road.

  As soon as she could look in her rearview mirror and not see the rocky outcropping, she switched on the headlights and went faster. She kept adjusting in her lane to straighten the curves. She got up to sixty, then seventy, still climbing. She hoped there would be no cars coming from the other direction, but hoping seemed to make them appear. There was a glow in the sky above the hill ahead, and then a pair of headlights popped over the crest and came down toward her.

  Remi moved as close to the right edge of the narrow road as she dared, trying not to lose any speed. The first car seemed to miss her left headlight by two inches. As its headlights went past and became a pair of red taillights fading into the distance, the driver leaned on his horn, a blare of protest into the night. The next three cars shot by in silence, maybe taking advantage of a slightly wider stretch of road or maybe just speechless with shock over her reckless driving.

  She kept glancing in the rearview mirror, hoping the shooters hadn’t decided to pursue her. Again, her hopes seemed to conjure what she most feared. On the road behind her, a pair of headlights appeared, accelerating toward her rapidly. When she went around a curve, she looked in the side mirror to get a clearer view of her pursuer. The vehicle was bigger than most, and higher—the Range Rover they had seen parked partway up the rocky shelf on the battlefield. There was a larger vehicle behind it, a truck much like the one she was driving. Of course there would be a truck, she thought. The treasure chamber had been as big as the cargo bay of a truck. When these men had taken out the gold and silver, it must have been too much weight for the SUV to carry.

  The Range Rover quickly moved up behind her, and soon the truck was close. She knew the next move would be to come up beside her so somebody could aim a rifle out the window and shoot her.

  The car came closer and closer, and she realized that the driver was trying to hold his headlights to illuminate her tires so rifle shots would bring her to a halt. She heard Sam fiddling with the rear doors of the cargo bay. She steadied the truck and watched the side-view mirror. The Range Rover was about as close as it could be when the doors of the truck swung open.

  An ancient javelin came flying out of the dark cargo bay. It had a small, narrow, sharp tip at the end of a steel shaft that extended nearly half its length, then about three feet of fragile old wood. Flexible, it seemed to slither in the air, spiraling as it flew.

  In Remi’s rearview mirror, she saw the driver’s eyes go wide and mouth gape open as the metal shaft hurtled toward him. The tip struck the windshield with an audible bang, and she saw the white impact mark appear in front of the driver, the tip of the javelin stuck in the safety glass. The wind made the shaft move back and forth wildly, swinging the sharp tip around in front of the faces of the driver and his companion.

  The Range Rover weaved crazily for a moment, as the driver fought for control, and then spun sideways. The truck had been following the Rover too closely to avoid it and plowed into the driver’s side near the left front wheel and spun the car around before both vehicles stopped.

  Remi kept driving. The truck crossed into Reims about ten minutes later, and she parked it at the rental agency. She and Sam put their Roman weapons and armor into the rental car they had left at the agency and drove to their hotel.

  Dressed in black clothes covered with dirt from the field, they carried their heavy armloads of ancient war gear into the lobby. They both had dirt smeared on their faces and hands. When Sam stopped at the front desk, the clerk looked at the ancient helmet and seemed uneasy. “Sir?” he said.

  “I’m Samuel Fargo from Room 27.”

  “Yes, sir. Is everything satisfactory?” He eyed the javelins
and the shields.

  “Oh, this? We were just at a costume party that got out of hand.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve found that any party with a Roman theme seems to be trouble.”

  “I guess we should have asked before we went. Right now, I’d like to rent a second room. I’d like one on a different floor, different hallway. Is that possible?”

  “That we can do.” He looked at a computer screen, produced the papers for Sam’s signature, and then the room key. “Room 315, sir.”

  Sam and Remi took the Roman arms to the new room and leaned the shields and javelins against the wall.

  Remi shook her head. “Too easy to find. It’s precious.”

  Sam picked up the engraved shield again, opened the window, and climbed out of the gable onto the steep roof. He walked to the nearest chimney and stuck the shield between it and the slate shingles at the peak. Climbing back inside, he locked the window.

  Sam said, “We’ll have to go out and look around. I think we should find the men who are trying to kill us.”

  Remi said, “I’d like you to repeat that to yourself and see if it sounds like a good idea.”

  “Not the men, exactly,” he said. “What I’d like to find is where they’re hiding the treasure.”

  “And how do you want to do that?” she said.

  “Well, let’s think about who they must be. They appear to be a group that isn’t usually involved in stealing ancient artifacts. They didn’t notice the shield with the inscription and they left extremely valuable Roman artifacts in the chamber just because they weren’t made of gold.”

  “You’re right,” said Remi. “So who are they?”

  “Friends and allies of Arpad Bako—almost certainly business connections. So what business is Bako in?”

  “According to Tibor, the main one seems to be diverting prescription drugs he manufactures to illegal channels.”

  “I’m guessing these men are local drug dealers.”

  “Seems reasonable.”

  “So let’s call Tibor.” He took out his cell phone and hit Tibor’s preprogrammed number.

  “Yes?” a groggy voice answered.

  “Tibor, it’s Sam.”

  “I was asleep. What time is it? Where are you?”

  “We’re still in France. Bako seems to have called in some French crooks to do the searching, just as we feared, and they’ve beaten us to the treasure, but we found the inscription still in the chamber.”

  “Some bad, some good. Is there any way to get the treasure before they move it?”

  “We managed to lose the French shooters who came after us. We think they’re related somehow to Bako’s illegal activities, so they’re probably in the drug trade. I’m wondering if we can find the addresses in France where Bako ships his legal pharmaceuticals.”

  “I’ve been working on this since we suspected someone else was in France. I called a cousin who works for the shipping company Bako uses. I haven’t found a place in France where he ships medicine. We think any legitimate sales are shipped into France by a Belgian company. But he has a supplier for chemicals called Compagnie Le Clerc. They send him chemical compounds in special containers and when he’s unloaded them he ships them back. There are people who believe that when he ships the containers to France, they’re not empty.”

  “Do you have the address of Compagnie Le Clerc?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam took out a pen and a five-euro bill and wrote down the address. “6107 Voie de la liberté, Troyes.”

  They returned to the rental agency, parked the car, and took their truck again. “I was hoping I’d seen the last of this thing,” Remi said. “How much do we owe them for the bullet holes?”

  “They’re still adding it up.”

  “And don’t forget the broken window.”

  “I’ll drive,” Sam said. They drove out of town, and Remi used the map on her cell phone to find the route and distance. The two cities were just about seventy-nine miles apart, so the drive took them a bit over an hour and a half on the E17.

  When they found the address in Troyes, their mood began to brighten. There was a small blacktop parking lot, a truck garage, and a medium-sized warehouse. As they approached, Remi said, “Slow down so I can look in the parking lot.”

  In the lot, close to the warehouse, were the Range Rover with its broken windshield and, beside it, the truck that had run into it. The truck was missing its front bumper, and the left front wheel of the SUV was out of alignment. Sam pulled over on the highway so they could study the complex carefully. There were no windows in either the warehouse or the garage, but each had skylights on its roof. There were no lights turned on and no men walking around on the grounds.

  Sam drove onto the blacktop. They sat there for a few minutes with the motor running, but nobody opened a door or came out to see who they were. “Can they have all gone home?” asked Remi. Sam looked at the side of the warehouse, studied the slope of the roof, then backed in the truck so the cargo box fit neatly under the eaves.

  He and Remi got out and exchanged a look. It took no words for them to execute the plan. Remi reached into the truck behind the seat, opened the toolbox, and found a tire iron and a rope. They stepped onto the front bumper, onto the hood, up to the cab’s roof, then to the top of the cargo box, and finally onto the roof of the warehouse. They knelt by the closest skylight and stared down into the building.

  There were white plastic containers the size of ten-gallon paint cans stacked nearly up to the skylight. On either side were open aisles on a concrete floor. There were two forklifts, and there was an office.

  Sam said, “Look away,” swung the tire iron to break the skylight, then reached in and cleared away all the broken glass stuck to the frame. Then he tied the rope securely around the steel strut in the middle.

  “Here goes,” Remi whispered and lowered herself on the rope to the top of a row of plastic containers. She tested them. “They’re full of something,” she said. “Pretty stable.”

  Sam followed her down. They made their way to lower and lower stacks of containers until they reached the last stack, which was only three high, and they got to the floor. They split up and began to search the warehouse. They kept at it until they’d checked every bit of open space and the office that occupied the end of the building.

  Sam stepped close to Remi. “It was a promising idea, but promising ideas don’t always pan out. I thought they’d hide the treasure where they store their drugs.”

  Remi shrugged. “We haven’t found those yet either. These all seem to be chemicals.” She was staring at a stack of plastic containers. She stepped to the nearest container and read the label, then tipped the container an inch, moved to another row and lifted another container, then another row and container.

  Sam did the same. They all seemed identical, around forty pounds each. Sam and Remi moved from row to row, sampling the containers randomly within each row. Finally, just as Remi set one back down, she saw Sam using his pocketknife to unscrew the band around the top of another. Remi came close as he lifted the lid and they saw the familiar gleam of gold.

  The two went to work, quickly lifting each container and setting aside the ones that weren’t filled with an identical quantity of chemical. Some were heavier, some lighter, and many made noises if they were shaken. Sam pushed a wooden pallet close to the row and started putting the containers of artifacts on it. After about twenty minutes, the pallet was loaded, and he brought another. They were expert at spotting the off-weight containers now, and the pallets were loaded more quickly. When they had found every one they could, and all they checked were full of chemicals, Sam said, “Find the switch that opens the doors.”

  While Sam brought a forklift to lift a pallet loaded with containers of antiquities, Remi found the right button. As he approached the door,
it rose and he drove out, and Remi ran to bring the truck to the front. Using the pallets and forklift, he and she loaded the rental truck within a few minutes. The load consisted of three pallets, each one four containers high and four wide. When they were done, Sam drove the forklift back inside and then returned. They closed the warehouse door, buttoned up their truck, and drove off.

  They arrived at their hotel in Reims at four a.m. Sam said, “I’ll get the weapons and things out of the new room and you get our belongings we left in the old. Then we’ll head for Paris.”

  They hurried inside. When Sam reached the door of the second room, he could tell something was wrong. There was a light glowing under the door. It was about three minutes later when Remi arrived, pulling the one suitcase they shared. Sam was climbing in through the room’s window. The armor and arms they’d left all seemed still to be there, but the expression on Sam’s face told her all was not well.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Did they get it?”

  Sam held up his empty hands and closed the window. “While we were in Troyes robbing them, they were in Reims robbing us. They’ve got the shield with Attila’s inscription.”

  CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT, PARIS

  “THE SADDEST TREASURE OF ALL IS THE THIRD. IT LIES in the grave of my brother Bleda, who was the one chosen to die on the River at Apulum.”

  “I have no idea where that is,” Remi said to Albrecht and Selma.

  “No, but I have no doubt that Bako will know as soon as he reads the shield,” Albrecht said. “Apulum is the Roman name of the city that the Romans made the capital of Dacia, which was a province of the Empire from the time of Hadrian until around 271 C.E. Dacia was the first Roman province to be abandoned in the contraction of the Empire. It would have been a familiar place to the people of Central Europe during Attila’s time, so it would be familiar to anyone obsessed with Attila. And, of course, the River is the same one that runs into the Tisza River in Bako’s hometown of Szeged. Apulum is now called Alba Iulia and it’s in Transylvania, a part of Romania.”