The Tombs fa-4

by Clive Cussler

  “I speak English,” Sam said.

  “Good. Then you can correct me if I make a mistake.”

  The man’s English was perfect. His slight accent showed he had learned the language from a British teacher. “So far, you could correct me,” Sam said.

  “Where can I take you?”

  “First, to our hotel. After that, we would like to take a look at the city.”

  “Good. City Hotel Szeged, then.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s a good, respectable hotel, and you look like smart people.” He took their suitcases and put them in the trunk of his car, then drove. “You’ll be glad you made time to see Szeged. It’s the place where the best sausage and the best paprika come from.”

  “I like the architecture,” said Remi. “The buildings have such interesting colors, mostly pastels, and baroque styles with all the intricate details that make them very distinctive.”

  “It’s partly a good thing and partly bad,” said the driver. “The bad part happened first. In March 1879, the river—the Tisza, over that way—flooded and destroyed the whole city. The good part is that afterward, the people thought hard about what they were building.”

  “It worked. For a city with a hundred seventy-five thousand people, it’s gorgeous.”

  “You’ve been reading guidebooks.”

  She shrugged. “It’s a way to pass the time on the train.”

  He stopped in front of the City Hotel, took the Fargos’ two suitcases out of the trunk and set them in the doorway, and then handed Sam a card. “Here is my card. My name is Tibor Lazar. You can ask the people at the front desk about me and they’ll say I’m honest and reliable. I know that because two of them are cousins.”

  “Thank you,” said Remi. “Should we call when we’re ready or will you wait for us?”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  A bellman was already carrying their suitcases to the front desk. They registered and went up to their room.

  Sam sat on the bed and began to look at Google maps on his iPad. Remi whispered, “What are you looking for?”

  “The field. We know that sooner or later, the kidnappers will take Albrecht to his find so he can show them where he’s dug.”

  “Can you see where it is on the map?”

  “I’m trying. It was on the east side of the Tisza River, north of the Mura River. I remember it in relation to the place where the two meet. He used that to orient his chart.”

  “I’ve got something you want,” she said. “When we were in the lab and asked Albrecht if we could share the details with Selma, I took a picture of the chart with my phone so she’d know the spot we were referring to.” She took out her phone and showed him the picture of the chart.

  He kissed her cheek. “Perfect.” He used his phone to call Selma and put her on speaker.

  “Selma here. Fire away.”

  “Hi, Selma. Did you get the drawing of a site from Remi last night?”

  “Yes. I assume that’s the site Albrecht’s been working on?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said. “He said it would be fine to bring you in on this, so Remi sent it right away. The problem is that last night the reason Albrecht didn’t come to dinner was that he was kidnapped from the lab in Berlin. The police have been watching plane and train stations, but I’m afraid these people got Albrecht out of Germany before we reported it.”

  “Was it those people from Consolidated Enterprises?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t see that group of people doing something that would put them in a foreign prison for life. But the cops are detaining them for a while to be sure, which is fine with us.”

  “Are you in Szeged now?”

  “We are.”

  “I used the computer to match the shape of the drawing to the shapes of the world’s rivers to find out where Albrecht had been digging. I knew you’d be going to the find.”

  “Now we really have to,” said Remi. “Nobody would grab Albrecht for ransom. He’s not rich, just smart. They must want him to take them to his discovery and probably tell them all about it.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  Sam said, “First, e-mail me a conventional road map with Albrecht’s site marked on it.”

  “I’ll have it for you in a minute.”

  “And abducting professors isn’t something every criminal does. We need to know who is interested in the archaeology of this area, both legitimate and not.”

  “I’ll see if Interpol will tell us who has been dealing in smuggled artifacts from Hungary, and the rest of Central Europe, lately. I’ll also check with museum curators and antiquities dealers. If I got the date right, it was 450 C.E.?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said. “And one more thing.” He took out the card the cabdriver had given him. “I’d like you to check out a driver in Szeged named Tibor Lazar. He was waiting for a fare outside the train station when we arrived and he speaks English like the average Londoner. See if he’s too good to be true.”

  “I’m on it. Another question for Interpol.”

  “Thanks,” said Remi. “Meanwhile, we’ll be here trying to draw attention to ourselves.”

  “Is that the best idea?”

  “At the moment, it doesn’t have much competition,” Remi said. “If we do what Albrecht did, maybe we’ll get a reaction from the same people who noticed him.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not the same reaction,” said Selma. “I’ll get this information to you as soon as I have it. The map is already on your iPad with the site marked. Good-bye.”

  Sam turned off his iPad. Remi said, “Ready to face the tour?”

  “Eager.”

  They went outside to where Tibor was sitting in his cab. He got out and opened the back door. When they were in, he said, “You wanted to see the town?”

  “Yes,” said Sam. “Can we start at the river?”

  “Of course,” he said. “This is a good year for the Tisza. There are no floods, no droughts, no chemical spills upriver, no anything. Last year, we had everything.”

  Sam was watching his telephone, where Selma’s map was on the screen. “It looks like a big river.”

  “It runs from north of Hungary, in the Ukraine, all the way down here, about a thousand kilometers, and empties into the Danube on the Serbian border. It’s been important since ancient times. We don’t get a lot of rainfall here on the southern part of the great plain. But the water comes south from the high country in the Ukraine, and the Mura River comes in from the east in Romania and brings the snowmelt and rain from the Transylvanian mountains.”

  Remi said, “I suppose the course of the river has changed since ancient times?”

  “Many times. It was a slow, meandering river, with big loops going back and forth across the plain. But people never leave anything alone. In 1846, Count István Széchenyi started straightening it. He cut it down to about a thousand kilometers just by cutting across the loops. Now there are about six hundred kilometers of dead channels. They did more to improve it in the eighteen eighties, nineties, and the nineteen hundreds. Maybe there was some more that I’m not remembering or never heard about. But then in 1937 they realized that they’d better start fixing the parts that they’d ruined. Now the river is pretty straight, but it still floods—maybe worse than ever. The channels fill up with silt. But they’ll keep fixing it as long as new politicians are born.”

  Sam said, “Up ahead, can you cross the bridge and show us the other side of the river?”

  “Certainly,” said Tibor. “We call that side Új-Szeged. It means ‘New Szeged.’ The old city was all on the west side.”

  “Is the east side really new?”

  “It was always here, of course, but the city has grown mostly in the empty areas.” He crossed the low, recently painted iron bridge, and they looked down on the river.

  “Can you take us along this side a few miles?”

  “Sure,” said Tibor. “It’s a beautiful, sunny day. We have the
sunniest city in Hungary.”

  He drove them along until Sam could see they were near the spot that Albrecht had mapped. It was a large open field that was planted with alfalfa and left fallow.

  “What is this land on the right?” asked Remi.

  “This? Oh, it’s just an old farm. It used to have cattle grazing on it. During the Communist times when I was a kid, it was part of a big farm collective. Since then, the government has been part of an effort by all the countries in the Danube basin to clean up the rivers. They haven’t reopened the cattle farm. It’s too dirty to be this close to the river.”

  “Can we stop and take a look?”

  “Of course,” Tibor said. He pulled over to the side of the road and parked. Sam and Remi walked a bit on the field by themselves.

  “Well, we came,” said Remi, “and I don’t see anybody.”

  “No signs of recent digging either,” Sam said. “Albrecht must have replaced the turf when he left and it hasn’t been disturbed.”

  “Do you think Albrecht managed to persuade his kidnappers that his find was somewhere else?”

  “I doubt it. All Selma needed was the outline of the river to find it, and Albrecht knew somebody had been watching him while he was here. I have a strong feeling they’re keeping him somewhere close by. In order for him to be of use, they’d have to bring him here to tell them where to dig and what to look for or have him where they can bring the things they find to him.”

  “Maybe. But how do we find him?”

  Sam looked past her. “I think the watchers have found us.”

  Remi turned her head to see a dark car that was stopped far up the straight two-lane road that ran along the river. A person with sharp eyes could detect that there were heads visible above the seats. She took out her phone and took a few pictures of the field, the river, and then up the road where the dark car stood.

  Sam said, “Albrecht mentioned a big black car with four men in it. Do you think your phone will catch a license plate at that distance?”

  “Maybe, but I have a feeling we’ll get a closer look,” said Remi.

  They walked back toward the car, and Tibor said, “Do you know those men in the black car?”

  “No,” Sam said. “Do you?”

  “I don’t think so. I saw a reflection a minute ago. One of them seems to be watching us with binoculars. That’s the right word, isn’t it?” and he held both hands up to his eyes with the fingers circled.

  “That’s the word,” said Remi. “They’re probably just wondering what we’re doing walking around an old cow pasture.”

  “All right,” he said. He started the car and made a three-point turn and drove back to the bridge they had crossed, returning to the west side of the river. He kept looking in the mirror. “Are you sure you don’t know them?”

  “Positive,” said Remi. “We’ve never been to Hungary before.”

  They drove to Arad Martyrs Square and saw the monument to the men killed in the 1848 revolt, the Musical Clock with sculpted figures from a medieval university, Klauzál Square, Schéchenyi Square, all in the city’s center. The district was full of flowers and trees and pastel-colored baroque buildings that didn’t look real.

  As Tibor took them from place to place, Sam and Remi kept track of the black car. When they stopped abruptly near the center of the city, the car nearly caught up with them. Remi took another photograph through the rear window.

  Tibor noticed. “Those men remind me of the way things were under the Communists. There were people who seemed to have no jobs except to follow people around and report them.”

  “I’d like to know who they’re reporting us to,” Remi said.

  “I wonder if we can find out,” said Sam. “Will the police tell us who owns a car if we have the license number?”

  “I think they might.”

  Remi magnified the picture she had taken of the black car. She took a piece of paper from her purse and copied the license number on it, then handed it to Sam.

  Sam said, “I’ll double your fare if you’ll find out. Here’s the number.” He handed the paper over the seat to Tibor.

  He pulled the car into a parking space near the police station and disappeared inside.

  Sam dialed the number at the Fargo house. “Hi, Selma,” he said.

  “Hi, Sam. I was just getting ready to call you with some of the information you asked for.”

  “Let’s save most of it for later. I think we’ve reached the moment when we’ve got to know whether Tibor Lazar is a good guy or a bad guy.”

  “I have a tentative answer for you. He hasn’t done anything to give him a criminal record or bring him to the attention of Interpol. He owns a small house and a small taxi company, and there are no suspicions that it’s a front for anything. He has three cabs and owes money on all of them. He’s too poor to be anything but honest.”

  “Perfect,” said Sam. “Thanks, Selma.”

  After about twenty minutes, Tibor came out again. He got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. As he backed out of the space and drove forward, he said, “Bako.”

  “Bako?”

  “Arpad Bako.”

  “Do you know who he is?” asked Remi.

  “I’ll tell you all about my visit to the police while we’re on the road.” He moved down to the river and drove to the south. As he picked up speed, he looked in his rearview mirror as though he expected to be followed. “We must start with you. You are Samuel and Remi Fargo of La Jolla, California.”

  “We knew that,” said Remi.

  “Did you know that the local police knew that? They’re operating on a directive from the national government. They have been asked to keep you under loose surveillance—when you leave your hotel, when you return, and so on. They believe you are here in search of ancient treasures. Is that right? Are you treasure hunters?”

  Sam said, “We’re amateurs who are interested in history. We have made some valuable archaeological finds, both under the sea and on land. But some of the most important were made of wood or bronze or steel and are treasures because they revealed things about the past. It’s true that some of the artifacts we’ve found include gold or gems. But to dismiss us as treasure hunters is simplistic.”

  Remi said, “We never find a site and loot it, as treasure hunters would. We register it with the government of the country where we find it. We get permission from the authorities to dig and report what we find. In most places, the government owns whatever we find.”

  Tibor said, “They say you’ve become very rich. Is that a lie?”

  Remi smiled. “Not a lie. A misunderstanding. Sam is an engineer. Some years ago, he invented a machine. It’s an argon laser scanner that is used to identify mixed metals and alloys at a distance. We borrowed all the money the bank would lend us and started a company to build and sell the scanners. If we’d failed, we would’ve been in debt forever. But the company thrived. We’re the only source for the scanners. Larger companies began to ask us if we would like to sell our company. When we got the right offer, we sold. All of that happened before we ever began to search for old secrets.”

  “So you’re just very lucky,” Tibor said.

  “We have been so far,” Sam said, nodding. “And I’d like it to continue. Maybe we should speak with the police if they’re suspicious of us.”

  “It would be better if you didn’t,” Tibor said. “They’re not interested in you yet, so let them stay uninterested.”

  “So were the four men who have been following us police officers?”

  “No. They’re creatures of Arpad Bako.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Describing him taxes my poor ability in your language. I can say he’s a greedy, evil man. But that’s not enough. He’s a thief. He’s a pig, a dog, a rat, a snake, a cockroach!” Tibor shifted into Hungarian for another sentence or two, then subsided.

  “He doesn’t sound good,” said Remi. “He’s a zoo.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ti
bor said. “I hate him. I’ve hated him since before I was born, and, since then, I’ve learned to hate him more.”

  Remi said, “Can you tell us anything about him that we’ll understand? What does he do for a living?”

  “He inherited the family businesses. The biggest one is a medicine factory. Pharmacology, you understand? They make pills and vaccines and things.”

  “We understand.”

  “It’s a big company. There are people like me who think the way it got so big was selling drugs to people whose only sickness is their need for drugs.”

  Sam said, “You said you hated him before you were born. What did that mean?”

  “His family and mine were on different sides for hundreds of years. His were against the revolt of 1848 and got members of my family arrested for treason. In World War Two, his family became Nazis just so they would be able to confiscate land and businesses. They informed on my grandfather’s brother to get him tortured and shot because he had a small farm the Bakos wanted. The next generation of Bakos were Communists to get privileges they then used to run the black market. When that government fell, they bribed people in power to let them take control of the medicine factory. Every time the world turns upside down, a Bako ends up on top and steps on other people’s heads. Arpad is the worst of the worst. He was in the car when his driver hit my second son, going over a hundred kilometers an hour. Bako made up the story that my son was a pickpocket who had stolen something from a man and run into the street without looking. He got five of his creatures to swear to it.”

  Sam said, “Do you hate him enough to take a risk to deny him something he wants? Maybe to punish him?”

  “I? Tibor? I would jump at the chance.”

  “A good friend of ours, a German archaeologist, was kidnapped yesterday in Berlin. He’d made a discovery near here and gone to Berlin to study what he’d found because he was afraid. He’d seen those four men in the black car following him.”

  “I understand,” Tibor said. “Bako is one of those people who claim they’re direct descendants of Attila the Hun. A few years ago, a bunch of them petitioned the government to have themselves declared an official minority group. It’s just greed.”