The Tombs Page 19
“It’s not over?”
“I’m afraid not. We still have to see the chamber.”
“Be safe.”
They drove through Alba Iulia again, past the wooded area where they had found Bako’s vehicles. They parked at the next parking lot and walked back through the forest. As they came close, they heard a voice shouting in Hungarian what seemed to be instructions. They crept closer, staying low behind bushes, until they could see Bako sitting on the edge of the chamber with his feet dangling in the dark void below. Four men held a rope that was tied around him under his armpits. A fifth man ran up and handed him a flashlight.
Bako pushed off and slid into the chamber. Sam and Remi could see from the twisting of the rope that he was moving around, trying to shine his flashlight into the chamber in every direction at once. A couple of times his men, exhausted from digging and moving stones, seemed likely to lose their grip on the rope and drop him.
At last he was in the chamber. The men relaxed and rubbed sore muscles while the rope went slack. There was a shout from the chamber. The men pulled up the empty harness, and one of the security men put it on and was lowered inside. The rope went slack again, and the men knelt by the entrance to hear the conversation of their superiors. They looked at one another in consternation.
Remi whispered, “Something’s wrong.”
There was another yell from the echoing chamber, and the men exerted themselves to pull their colleague up quickly. He spoke to the others and then they lowered a camera into the chamber. Several times light flashed from the dark entrance up into the surrounding trees. When they pulled up Bako, he stomped around, looking angry, muttering to himself. Suddenly he shouted orders at his men.
The security men worked at loading their equipment into the truck, but they didn’t seem to be bringing many artifacts up from the chamber. There were a few weapons, some textiles, some pottery. There was much conversation in Hungarian, and Bako, his head security man, and two others got into one of the two SUVs.
Remi whispered, “They’re not taking any of the artifacts in Bako’s car.”
Then one of the other security men came and opened the hatch at the back of Bako’s SUV and lifted the rug and a panel to reveal the spare tire and jack. He slipped a sword in a sheath, a belt with a dagger, and a bullet-shaped steel helmet inside. He closed things up and shut the hatch.
“Thank goodness,” she whispered. “At least now he’s guilty of something.”
The SUV backed up, then turned and drove off along the River toward the blocked road.
Two men had been left behind to clean up and then drive the other SUV and the truck back to Hungary. Remi and Sam crawled back through the brush and then walked the rest of the way to their car. They drove back to the last parking lot, playing the car radio so loudly that the men couldn’t help but hear. They slammed the doors and began to walk up the path, making all the noise they could.
By the time they reached the chamber, the two men had gone. They had hastily covered the entrance with brush. As Sam and Remi approached, they heard the two vehicles start and drive off. Sam took the rope he had brought and quickly lowered Remi into the chamber.
Her feet had barely touched when she said, “I can see what’s wrong. Come down quickly.”
Sam joined her and they explored the space together. The skeleton of Bleda lay on a slightly raised bier, like a low bed. In a corner was the three-foot skeleton of Zerco, the dwarf. They both lay in the postures of the buried and both had broken skulls. They had obviously been hit with a heavy weapon. The only treasures in the tomb were much-decayed clothing, leather horse harnesses, and saddles.
“Albrecht was right,” Remi said. “Bleda tried to get rid of Attila and lost.”
“That’s the way it looks,” Sam said. “There’s no treasure. It’s just Bleda’s own stuff. And his friend Zerco. If Bleda had died in an accident, Attila wouldn’t have executed Zerco.”
“We’d better find the inscription,” said Remi. She looked at each of the walls, and Sam scuffled his feet around to see if he could uncover anything on the floor. He saw nothing.
From time to time, Sam checked to detect whether he could hear noises outside. As he did, he instinctively looked up and there saw the inscription. The words were engraved in the stone ceiling above their heads. He touched Remi’s arm and pointed upward. “It’s as though he wanted Bleda to see it.”
Remi took three photographs with her cell phone, and Sam realized why they had seen the flashes when Bako had taken his photographs. He had been aiming upward.
They climbed back up their rope and quickly made their way back to the rental car. As they drove, they passed the SUV and the truck making their way back toward the still-open chamber. They were going to see if it was safe to finish their work.
As Sam drove, Remi sent her photographs to Albrecht and Selma in La Jolla. They continued toward Bucharest for a half hour before Remi’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Remi, it’s Albrecht.”
“Did you get our pictures?”
“We did.”
“You saw the way Bleda was buried?”
“Yes.”
“I’d say your theory just got a boost. It was no accident. There was no reason to kill Zerco if Bleda died in an accident.”
“True. But it doesn’t prove which brother was the aggressor.”
“Any news of Bako?” asked Sam.
“Some hopeful signs. Tibor just called and said that two of Bako’s lawyers got on a plane for Bucharest. It could mean he was arrested. But they won’t hold him for long on a charge like removing artifacts.”
“And the inscription we sent?”
“That’s why I called, actually. It says, ‘The death of my dear brother was the saddest day of my life. Before this, the worst was when together we gathered our ancestors’ bones.’”
“We’ve got to get back to Hungary fast,” said Remi. “Bako saw the inscription and tried to leave in that direction. I think we should do the same. If we don’t, Bako might beat us to another one.”
TRANSYLVANIA
“IF WE GET THERE IN TIME, MAYBE WE CAN OUTSMART him,” said Sam. “Bako should still be in Romania dealing with the charge for removing artifacts.”
“But he’s seen the inscription, so he could easily call in his security people to start digging,” said Remi.
“Try to reach Tibor and ask him to watch for any unusual activity among Bako’s men.
“And ask him to find us a helicopter.”
“He’s going to love this,” she said as she autodialed the phone. “Hello, Tibor?”
“Hello, Remi. Am I going to be sorry I answered this call?”
“Probably, but for a short time only. All we need for the moment is for you to have Bako’s men watched—all of them, not just the worst five. And we need a helicopter.”
“A helicopter?”
“Yes. Please tell me you have a cousin.”
“I have a friend. Where do you want him to pick you up?”
“Can he fly in Romania?”
“Yes.”
“Then he can pick us up at Airport. It’s the closest airport. And ask him to bring a pair of binoculars.”
“I’ll call him now.”
“Thanks, Tibor.” She ended the call, then saw something on her phone. “Selma sent us an e-mail.”
“Read it to me so I can keep driving.”
“Okay. Here it is. ‘The next treasure was buried in 441 on the north shore of the Danube River. That was the border between the land controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire and the land of the Huns. The Huns had been gone from the region for a couple of years, 438 through 440. The Romans—or the optimistic Romans, anyway—figured they were gone for good.’”
“That has
to be one of the worst assumptions ever.”
“About as bad as they could make.” Remi continued: “‘The Huns had gone east to join the Armenians in their war against the Sassanid Persians. When they came back to their strongholds north of the Danube in 440, they found that while they were gone the Bishop of Marga had crossed the Danube to loot some of the royal graves of the Huns.’”
“A Bishop did that?”
“The church must have had personnel problems. Anyway, ‘The Huns came back and weren’t very happy. Attila and Bleda demanded that the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople hand the Bishop over to them. The Bishop was a pretty slippery character. He immediately realized that the Emperor would order that he be given to the Huns. So he secretly went to the Huns himself and betrayed the city to them. The Huns destroyed the city. Then they went on to take all of the Illyrian cities along the Danube, and Belgrade and Sofia.’”
“I can’t blame them for being angry, but what about the Bishop?”
“I have no idea. Maybe they agreed to keep him alive or killed him, or both,” she said. “‘They reburied the remains of their people. The conjecture is that for funeral goods they used the artifacts stolen by the Bishop, as well as some of the wealth they picked up in sacking all of the other cities.’
“It doesn’t say who was in the royal graves,” said Remi. “But in the tomb message, Attila called them ancestors.”
“So what happened after the reburial?”
“The Huns don’t seem to have been in a better mood. In 443, they looted Plovdiv and Sofia again and then kept going. They made it all the way to Constantinople, where the Emperor Theodosius had to pay them nineteen hundred sixty-three kilograms of gold to leave and had to raise the annual tribute he paid to twenty-one hundred pounds of gold.”
“I hope Bako is waiting to get out of jail and can’t do anything.”
Sam and Remi reached and found it beautiful. The Habsburg-era architecture reminded them of Vienna. Airport signs directed them to Traian Vuia International Airport, where they were able to return their rental car to the Bucharest-based agency. They found their way to the heliport.
The helicopter was already on the pad, and a middle-aged man with a sand-colored mustache and sand-colored hair and wearing a sand-colored leather jacket met them at the gate. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo?”
“Yes,” said Sam. In spite of the man’s smile, Sam was not ignoring the possibility that he had been sent by Arpad Bako. Bako was probably sending men out in every direction looking for them by now. But he couldn’t have known they wanted to rent a helicopter. He waited for the man to say something convincing.
“Tibor said you were in a hurry, so I came right away. I’m Emil.”
“You speak such perfect English,” said Remi.
“English is the universal language of fliers,” said Emil. “If a pilot is Swedish and the air controller in Bhutan is from the same Swedish village, they speak English on the radio. Tibor and I both studied English to qualify for pilot training.”
“Tibor is a pilot?” Remi said.
“Much better than I am. He was an airline pilot. He retired only a couple of years ago and started his taxi business.”
“I wonder why he never told us.”
Emil chuckled. “Tibor is one of those people who wants to know about you but thinks it’s a waste of time to tell you all about himself.” He opened the door on the side of his helicopter. “You sit in those two seats,” he said, pointing out two sets of earphones. “You can listen but don’t talk until I tell you. All right?”
“Right,” said Sam. He and Remi climbed into their seats, belted themselves in, and put on their earphones.
Emil radioed the control tower, told them his course, and immediately started the rotors moving. As the engine whipped the rotors around faster, the noise grew, and then they rose into the air, tipped and leaned forward slightly, and headed up, out, and away from the airport and its pattern of runways. Emil headed southwest, climbing gradually as he went. After a while, he reached a ceiling, flew low and steady, but when he was a couple miles from the airport he climbed again. “Now we’re away from the flight paths. You can talk now.”
“Can you head for the north side of the river, along the bank?” asked Remi.
“We’re looking for a place where somebody is digging.”
“Digging?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “It’ll probably be a group of five or six men digging holes with shovels. If we get there early enough, we may find them still searching the ground with electronic equipment. We’d like to get a good look at them but not give them the impression we’re interested in them.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said Emil. “Tibor said you wanted binoculars.” He opened a compartment and lifted the straps of two pair and handed them back to the Fargos.
“Thank you, Emil,” said Remi. “We’re very glad you were available.”
“So am I,” he said. “I don’t usually get to do anything this interesting. Most of the time, I take tourists up to look at the same sights they saw from the ground the day before. Now and then there will be a businessman who needs a quick ride to Budapest or somewhere.”
“Let’s hope this doesn’t get too interesting.”
After a short time, Emil said, “We’re just about at the Hungarian border,” pointing to the river. “Now we’ll swing down along the Danube.”
The Danube was wide and curved, regularly moving around high points in the land. There was plenty of boat traffic, and the river ran through heavily populated areas, with tall buildings almost up to the water’s edge. “The river is an international border, but we’ll be over Hungary on the north side.”
“Stay over land if you can,” said Sam. “We’re looking for ancient graves. We think they’ll be on higher ground and back a bit from the river so they wouldn’t get washed out by floods.”
“I understand,” Emil said. They flew along the Danube from east to west. Where there was an area that looked as though it had been disturbed by digging or had an assortment of trucks and equipment, Sam and Remi would ask Emil to hover so they could take a better look.
They passed near an area that looked peculiar and hovered. About a hundred yards north of the river was an old-fashioned building, painted a buttery yellow, with high roofs and an extensive network of paths leading through formal gardens. There were at least a dozen men with shovels digging holes in the grass, in the middle of flower beds, in the paths. There were another dozen men walking the site with metal detectors and a couple of men pushing magnetometers mounted on wheels along like lawn mowers.
Emil took a second pass above the estate, and what Sam and Remi saw was shocking. Bako’s men had already found several graves and opened them. There were big stones lining open-topped pits and beside them human skeletons thrown aside and piles of metal being loaded into crates. Sam got on his telephone.
“Hello?”
“Albrecht,” said Sam. “We’ve got bad news. I don’t know how Bako did it this time, but my delaying tactics didn’t work. He’s got twenty or thirty men at an estate on the north shore of the Danube. They’re digging up graves and looting them. So far, they’ve got four or five open.”
“We’ve got to move fast,” said Albrecht. “I’ll call our friends at Szeged University and have the authorities move in and put a stop to it. Can you give me an exact location?”
“Our friend Emil probably can.”
“Tell them it’s Count Vrathy’s estate on the south end of Szeged. It’s a museum now. It’s probably closed at this time of day and they must have overpowered the watchman.”
Albrecht said, “I’ve got it. Thank you,” and hung up.
Sam got on his phone again. “Tibor, we’re with Emil in the helicopter.”
“I’d have to be deaf not to hear the rotors.”
“They haven’t returned from Transylvania yet.”
“He seems to be substituting quality for quantity, using twenty or thirty men from his businesses to do the digging. We need to prevent them from hiding the treasure.”
“Sam!” said Remi.
“Hold on, Tibor.” He turned to Remi. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ve moved a big boat up to the shore.”
“Tibor? They’re going to load the treasure into a boat. From up here, it looks like a fifty-foot yacht. They’re still digging, so this will take a while. But we need to know where that yacht is from now on.”
“I’ll send men to the river above and below the Vrathy estate to watch where it goes.”
“Good. Thank you. And Remi and I are going to need the equipment we left with the boat on the Tisza. We’ll need our scuba gear, the tool kit, and a covered truck.”
“I’ll call my cousin.”
“And ask him to be sure the air tanks are full.”
“I’ll call when we’re ready.”
Sam, Remi, and Emil kept returning to the airspace above the estate and then flying off into the distance as though they were transporting something on a route that passed over the estate. After about an hour and a half, the boat was loaded and the men with shovels and other equipment had begun getting into trucks to drive away.
Sam leaned forward to talk to Emil. “Emil, you’ve done a wonderful job. We may call on you again. Is there a place where you can set us down within a couple of miles of here without being seen?”
“Yes,” he said. “There’s a landing space near the university. I can put you down there.”
He took them a short distance over the city and set the helicopter down on a large X at the end of a parking lot. “This is it,” he said.
Sam said, “What do we owe you?”
“Nothing. Tibor already paid me for the day.”