by Thomas Perry
Sam saw the wooden crates on the rear deck covered with a tarp. He pulled back the tarp and quietly lowered ten of them into the lifeboat at the stern. They were heavy, and it took nearly an hour of backbreaking work. Then Sam draped the bow rope in the water and freed two pins on the davits to lower the boat to the river. The lifeboat made an unexpectedly loud ratchet sound as it hit the water with a splash. Behind Sam there came a sound of running feet and a call: “Stashu?”
Sam jumped from the stern, grabbed his tanks, mask, and flippers from the propeller shaft and put them on and cleared his mask as he sank deeper.
Remi had seen the loose bow rope and now she held it out and they both grasped it and pulled. She and Sam swam, diving deeper and pulling the boat along the surface above them. As they went, Sam kept looking behind them and around the yacht to be sure none of the crew were jumping into the water after them.
First came the muffled sounds of shots from the yacht above the surface, but with each shot they heard a chuff sound as a bullet plowed under, leaving a line of churned water and bubbles behind it. Each one pierced straight into the water until it exhausted its momentum at about four feet, then simply sank into the dark water below them.
Next Sam and Remi heard the engine start and knew the propeller shaft was spinning freely. Without the propeller, the engine was just noise. The helmsman didn’t seem to understand at first because he just gunned the engine harder and louder while the crew at the bow used a power capstan to weigh anchor.
As soon as the anchor was off the bottom, the yacht began to drift downstream, powerless to fight the current or to steer. The anchor kept rising nonetheless, and the boat drifted farther and farther from Sam, Remi, and the lifeboat. At some point the engine stopped, but by then its noise was so far away that Sam and Remi had lost it among the many passing engines above them on the Danube. Sam guessed that they would drop anchor again, but the yacht was too far away to pick out in the murky water.
Sam and Remi arrived at the shore and hauled the lifeboat up onto the mud. Almost instantly the two brawny nephews were beside them, taking the heavy crates out and loading them into the back of the truck. Sam and Tibor joined them. The crates were heavy with precious metal, but ten crates took no more than a few minutes to load. Sam and Remi got in the back, the boys got into the cab with Tibor, and the truck rumbled off into the big, busy city.
As Remi took off the wet suit and set her gear aside to put on street clothes, she said, “We’re not done yet, you know. We’ve still got to find the message from Attila. It will be in one of the graves.”
“Let’s hope the ones waiting for us there are Albrecht’s professor friends and not Arpad Bako.”
THE NORTH SHORE OF THE DANUBE
AS THE POLICE OFFICER HELPED REMI CLIMB UP OUT OF the open grave, she smiled and waved to Sam. She jogged across the damaged garden to Sam’s side. “It was engraved on the wall. I’m sending the pictures to Selma and Albrecht.”
“The bad part is that Bako’s men probably read it hours ago.”
“I know,” she said.
Tibor said, “If he’s got it, then it didn’t make much of an impression or he didn’t understand it. He’s back in his office at the pill factory, looking innocent.”
Sam said, “If he gets arrested, we won’t be able to prove anything unless somebody else saw his men excavating here. And if he ends up in court, so will we. He could send his security men ahead to the next spot, wherever that is.”
“I’d better go,” said Tibor. “It’s my turn to take charge of the surveillance crew. When they translate the message, let me know what it says.” Tibor got into his car and drove up the gravel drive to the highway.
Sam and Remi walked back toward the open graves, looking at the careless devastation that Bako’s men had left behind. They had apparently been ordered to find just the gold and simply thrown everything else aside. There were human bones and fifteen-hundred-year-old fabric, pots, implements, weapons strewn about the gardens and lawns of the estate.
Sam’s telephone buzzed. “Hello?”
“Hi, Sam. It’s Selma.”
“What have you learned?”
“I’ll put Albrecht on.”
“Hello, Fargos,” said Albrecht. “I’ll read you the message from Attila: ‘We buried our father Mundzuk along the river outside Talas. He faces west, the direction he was leading our army. His brother Ruga now leads in his stead.’”
“Where is Talas?” asked Sam.
“Talas was the oldest city in Kazakhstan. A Hun named Zhizhi Chanyu founded it, and it was the site of a battle in 36 B.C.E. It was an important stop on the Silk Road that ran through China, India, Persia, and Byzantium. It was destroyed in 1209, but it’s now a modern city called Taraz. Its location is 42° 54' north, and 71° 22' east, just north of Kygyztan and east of Uzbekistan.”
“It doesn’t sound too hard to find,” Remi said. “I assume we can fly there.”
“As you can see, while we’ve been moving backward in Attila’s life with each of the treasures he buried, we’re also moving east. Kazakhstan is probably where the Huns became the nomadic horseback power they were. It also seems to be the place where they launched themselves toward the Roman world. The name Kazakh means ‘free spirit,’ meaning a nomad of the plains. The country is about one-third dry steppe, and the distances there are enormous. Kazakhstan contains more area than all of Western Europe. Selma will tell you about the travel arrangements.”
“Hi, you two. I’ve made a reservation for you to fly from Budapest Airport to Moscow this evening. From there, you’ll fly to the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. You’ll pick up your visas and letters of invitation there. From Astana, you’ll fly to Almaty, the largest city, and on to Taraz.”
“Sounds like a long trip,” said Remi.
“It will take a while, but maybe after all the running around you two have done, it will give you a chance to rest up. At least sitting in an airplane will help you catch up on your sleep before you reach Taraz.”
* * *
A FEW MILES AWAY, Arpad Bako sat in his office in a rage. He had just learned that the diligence and care he had expended and the risk he had faced to excavate the royal tombs of the Huns had been wasted. His weak and stupid security men had allowed two people, a husband and wife from America, to rob him of ten crates of gold and gems, much of it finely wrought ornaments, chalices, and crosses from the oldest churches in Europe. The rest were Roman-made ornaments from the garrisons along the Danube. This was the plunder the Huns had taken from the whole Balkan region. Some of it was from even farther away and longer ago, probably worn on the wrists, necks, and fingers of Central Asian warriors and their wives and buried with their descendants after reaching Hungary.
It had taken years of study and considerable luck to find this treasure, but he had done it. And now he had been robbed, as he had been in France. He couldn’t even get the culprits arrested because he’d had no legal right to dig on the museum grounds. His foolish men had even fired at the Fargos and the stolen lifeboat, so they’d had to throw their guns in the river before being arrested.
The telephone gave an abbreviated ring on the other end, then some mysterious clicks and disconnection sounds, like doors opening and closing. Finally a female voice with a singer’s lilt to it said in Hungarian, “The offices of the Poliakoff Company are closed for the day. If you would like to leave a message, wait for the tone.” Bako knew that the machine was simply programmed to speak Hungarian to a Hungarian phone number.
He said, “This is Arpad Bako. Please call me back.” He ended the call, then set the cell phone down on his large, highly polished rosewood desk and looked at it expectantly. The telephone rang almost immediately and he picked it up. “Hello, Sergei.”
“I was surprised to hear your voice, Arpad. You’re a fat, lazy plutocrat to call me at night.”
“Ideas come to me like birds flying in my window. When I see a good one, I snatch it out of the air regardless of the hou
r.”
“I like ideas. You can tell me yours. This is a scrambled line.”
“All right,” Bako said. “I have found a treasure hidden by Attila the Hun.”
“A treasure,” said Poliakoff. “Are we using metaphors now?”
“I say the word treasure the way Attila would have. A collection of coins and jewels, works of art, and ornaments made of gold and precious stones. They will be in a burial chamber.”
“Attila’s?”
“Attila’s father’s. You will get a third if you help me.”
“A third of what?”
“A third of whatever we find,” said Bako. “I can tell you we’ve found some of the treasures already. There was one in Italy. There was one in France with so much gold it took a truck to carry it out. There was a smaller one in the Transylvanian forest, and one on the north bank of the Danube that was ten shipping crates of gold and gems.”
“You have all of this gold and jewelry? Send me pictures of yourself standing with it and send me a small sample in your next shipment of pain pills. A ring, a necklace, anything in your next shipment of pills. I’m expecting one by air tomorrow.”
“I can send you a sample. Not much more. While my resources were devoted to searching in France, some competitors went and found the one in Italy. That treasure I never saw. I only read about it in the newspapers. The one in France was dug up by our friend Étienne Le Clerc. He took pictures, but those competitors stole it from his shipping warehouse. The one along the Danube, my men dug up today, and they took pictures. The actual treasure is now in the hands of the Hungarian government.”
Poliakoff said, “So you know these treasures exist, but you don’t have them. Who are these competitors who took these treasures from you?”
“It’s an American couple named Samuel and Remi Fargo. They’re rich treasure hunters, and they’ve found some magnificent riches in other parts of the world, but never anything like this. There can’t be many treasures like these. Attila swept out of Asia across the Ural and the Volga all the way to France, robbing cities. And I found out where he hid most of those riches.”
Poliakoff said, “This is just two people—and one of them a woman—robbing you and Le Clerc of a treasure worth millions and millions?”
“Billions. But it’s not just two people. When Fargo needs men, he hires them. When he doesn’t, they vanish like smoke. He also has the help of Albrecht Fischer, one of the world’s leading scholars on the late Roman Empire. And when Fargo believes he’s about to be outmaneuvered, he calls in the national police to take charge of the treasure.”
Poliakoff said, “Arpad, you must never again tell this story to anyone. If any of the people we both deal with heard it, they’d think you were weak. They’d turn on you like wolves and eat you up.”
“Are you interested in my offer or not?”
“Oh, I’ll do it for you,” said Poliakoff. “Where is your wonderful treasure now?”
“It’s buried in a chamber in the city of Taraz in Kazakhstan. I’ll send you a map.”
“And where are the Fargos? Do they know where it is?”
“They were here in Szeged this afternoon, but they’ve had several hours to learn the next location and I’m sure they’ll be leaving as soon as possible.”
“Find out how they’re planning to get to Kazakhstan from Hungary and let me know immediately. Do you have photographs of them?”
“I have men watching the airports and train stations and men watching the Fargos. I’m sending you the photos right now.”
“Call me the minute you know their flight number and destination. Minutes and seconds will matter.” He hung up.
* * *
FROM THE TOP TOWERS of Sergei Poliakoff’s estate outside Nizhny Novgorod, he could see the Volga, and along its banks the lights of the city of more than a million people were like a galaxy of stars miles away. The city was huge and modern and had long been a center of aerospace research, but here in the calm and quiet of his estate it could easily have been the 1850s. When he sat in the gardens, he could listen to the winds and hear no interruption but for the calls of birds that had come to eat from his currant bushes.
Outside, an American-made Hummer with armored door panels waited with two of Poliakoff’s bodyguards inside. Next came the family’s big black Mercedes with tinted windows and then the follow-up, a white Cadillac Escalade. His wife, Irena, and the children went past the Mercedes and entered the Escalade. If any of Poliakoff’s detractors were to attempt to cause trouble, they would attack the armored Hummer with its guards or the elegant Mercedes that looked as though it held the family. The men in the front seat of the Escalade would drive on through.
Sergei watched them leave, and then the front door closed with a resonant thud and the steel bolts snapped into place. Poliakoff was a good match for Irena. Her parents had been important intellectuals during the Communist era, and, unlike most of the others, they had never gone out of favor.
He picked up his cell phone and clicked his way through the pictures Bako had sent him of golden bangles and trinkets. Then he came to the pictures of the Fargos. The wife was not merely attractive, she was a genuine beauty, he thought. He knew, from his experience with Irena, that living with such a prize was a wonderful thing in daily life. In a fight, it wasn’t such a good thing at all. It gave a man something precious, but also made him fragile and vulnerable, making him love his wife so much he didn’t want to risk her in a fight.
Bako was essentially a merchant—greedy as a tick, but he didn’t love a fight. He thought of enemies as competitors. And Le Clerc, at the bottom of his soul, was the same. Like Bako, he was capable of hiring a few ruthless men and keeping them around, but what he watched were the reports his accountants brought him. They were just dishonest business types, not tough men after real success. Poliakoff had lived in a harder world than the others. Only he seemed to see this situation clearly at a glance. The woman was the treasure.
FERIHEGY AIRPORT, BUDAPEST
SAM AND REMI WERE AT BUDAPEST AIRPORT, WALKING toward the boarding tunnel for their flight to Moscow.
“Astana is supposed to be all shiny and new,” said Remi. “That should be interesting. The whole place was rebuilt in the past fifteen years.”
“We’ll probably have to spend some time in the capital seeing the people who have authority over antiquities,” said Sam. “This time, I’d like to get them in on everything before we start digging.”
“Do you think Bako will beat us there?”
“I can’t predict,” said Sam. “At times, he seems to begin ahead of us. He’s already thinking about every site where Attila ever was and he picks the one he thinks fits. Other times, he seems to turn things over to people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“We’re getting back in time to when Attila was young and to the part of Asia where the Huns came from.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
The flight from Ferihegy to Sheremetyevo Airport took just an hour and forty-five minutes. From there, the fastest available flight from Moscow to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, would take eight hours and five minutes. As they taxied to the end of the runway, Remi gently put her hand on Sam’s as she always did until the plane had taken off. When the plane leveled, she took her hand off his and began to read the book about Kazakhstan she had bought.
They sat together in near silence for the remainder of the short flight. Since they couldn’t tell whether they were being watched by people Bako had placed on the plane, they communicated mostly by touch and whisper. When they got off the plane, they looked up at the electronic boards to find their flight to Astana.
They saw that their plane was expected to leave on time in three hours. They went to sit in a waiting area not far from their gate, and Sam took out his phone to look at a map of their route. After a few minutes of watching Sam, Remi said, “You seem a little jumpy. What’s up?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He watched a small group of men
across the cavernous room, talking quietly among themselves. “I’ve noticed over the years that when you feel uneasy, there’s often a good reason.”
“That sounds a little too much like ESP,” she said.
“You know, I’m not a believer in things that don’t have causes. I just think that we’re picking up tiny clues in large numbers all the time, and, once in a while, they add up to trouble that you haven’t quite understood yet.”
“I can believe that. But here we are in an airport designed and built by . . . let’s say a very controlling government at the height of the Cold War. It’s practically a machine for keeping an eye on people. You’re probably just picking up on features of that design.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But please do me a favor and be just a little bit paranoid.”
“If it helps, I’ve been observant,” she said. “And I haven’t seen any suspicious-looking men. I’m off to the ladies’ room.”
Remi walked across the open floor to the concourse and went toward the sign with the international symbol of the little cookie-cutter lady in a dress. As she walked, she heard the sound of high heels on the hard floor and noticed that a couple other women were converging on the restroom behind her. She glanced subtly to each side as she went, reassuring herself, just a couple young women with carry-on bags. She pushed on the door to enter and saw two large, middle-aged women in uniforms and aprons in front of her. One was at the row of sinks, handing out towels. The other, with a mop stuck in a bucket on wheels, was moving closer to the door. As Remi stepped in, the mop woman let the next couple of women in and then pushed a sign on a plastic cone in front of the door and turned a knob to lock it. She went to work, mopping the floor.
Remi went into an empty stall. When she came out, things seemed to happen all at once. As she opened the door, the two uniformed women stepped to her from both sides. The mop woman threw her arms around Remi and held her in a crushing embrace and the other one reached between two of her hand towels, pulled out a hypodermic needle, and injected Remi in the arm.