The Tombs (A Fargo Adventure) (32 page)

Caught in the light were four men who leapt out of the blind corner and grappled with them, trying to overpower them and bring them to the floor of the crypt. Sam, who had been training in judo for most of his life, put the first man down in his initial moment of surprise and delivered a debilitating punch to his chest. The second man had thrown himself on Sam’s back and clung to it. Sam ran hard at the wall, pivoted and hurled himself into it. The man slumped down the wall to the floor.

Captain Boiardi was a police officer trained in hand-to-hand combat and a tall man who was stronger than either of his attackers. He put the first one down with combination punches to the jaw and belly, then put the second out with a choke hold.

As Sam squatted to pick up the flashlight Boiardi had dropped, he saw that two women were crouching in a shadowy corner of the crypt.

Boiardi shouted something in Italian and they looked frightened. Both held their hands up. “We don’t understand you.”

“Don’t shoot just yet,” said Sam. “I know who they are.”

“Who?”

“They work for a company called Consolidated Enterprises, based in New York.”

“How do you know them?” asked Boiardi.

“They seem to be following Remi and me around. They’re supposed to be commercial treasure hunters, but I don’t know if they are or not.”

“Why would they assault a captain of the Carabinieri?”

“You’ll have to ask them. They were following us when we were diving off Louisiana and then again in Berlin. They got arrested in Berlin and then Hungary. I don’t know how those arrests were resolved, but we can call Captain Klein of the Berlin police.”

“You framed us,” said the young woman with the short blond hair who had followed Sam and Remi in Berlin. “Of course the charges were dropped.”

The tall man with the shaved head said, “They held us for two weeks!”

One of the other men said, “Don’t say anything else until we have a lawyer.”

“What’s wrong with you Americans?” Boiardi said. “Do you watch only American movies? The whole world doesn’t require a Miranda warning. And if you want legal advice, I’ll give you the best. Don’t attack any police officers.”

Sam nodded. “I’ve found that to be excellent advice. How did you people even get into the catacomb?”

The brown-haired woman said, “We followed you. We went into the church as soon as we were sure you’d be in the catacomb. When that monk saw us, we said we were part of your group and we were late. He was really nice and showed us which way you’d gone.”

“Very clever,” said Boiardi. “Trespassing for the theft of national treasures, but still pretty good.”

“What are you going to do?” asked the man with the shaved head.

Boiardi waved the six prisoners over and said, “Come this way if you like treasure. You’ll get to see the biggest find of your life.”

Sam and Boiardi walked behind the six American interlopers so they wouldn’t try to run away, directing them to turn one way or another to get back to Attila’s tomb.

When they made the final turn and reached the opening, János, Tibor, and the two policemen set the second stone a few feet from the opening.

Sam looked through the opening. Beyond was a much larger space, a whole room carved out of the tufa. The ceiling was about eight feet high and five feet wide. He could see that the left side of the room had been opened and then bricked up to close it off again. He could see it was Attila’s burial chamber. There, in the middle of the room, surrounded by randomly strewn piles of gold coins that had once sat in baskets or leather sacks that had rotted away, as well as jeweled swords, belts, daggers, and ornaments, was a seven-by-four-foot iron casket.

The two Carabinieri guarded the prisoners while, one by one, Remi, Sam, Albrecht, and Boiardi all climbed in through the narrow passage and began to photograph and chart every inch of the tomb, making the original location of each item clear. After three hours, they began to remove the items around the coffin. They were boxed, listed, and loaded on the eight carts.

Boiardi stepped close to his prisoners, who were sitting on the floor of the tunnel, looking glum. “Well? What do you think of this?”

The blond girl shrugged. “I’m glad I got to see it.”

Boiardi said, “So you have curiosity and an adventurous soul. So do I. How about the rest of you?”

The other five nodded and mumbled various forms of assent.

“Good,” Boiardi said. “Because I’m going to give you a job. It’ll give you a chance to begin working off your debt to the people of
Italia
. You can help us carry these priceless artifacts up to the surface.”

“That can’t be legal,” said the man with the shaved head. “You can’t make prisoners work unless they’re convicted.”

“Okay,” Boiardi said. “This gentleman is excused from work. The prosecutor will be told he didn’t want to make up for his crimes. He’s not sorry yet. Sergeant Baldare, handcuff him. What would the rest of you like me to tell the prosecutor?”

The others all said, “I’ll work,” or, “Okay,” or, “Tell him I helped.” The man with the shaved head said, “Wait a minute. I’ll help.”

Boiardi nodded at Sergeant Baldare, who removed the handcuffs. “One warning, of course. My men are not fools. You will be thoroughly searched at the top and the contents of all the boxes will eventually be compared with the photographs we’ve taken. If anything has stuck to you or in you, there will be a very picturesque and ancient prison in your future. Understood?”

“Yes,” said each of the six in turn.

An hour later, the first carts of gold, precious gems, and jewel-studded weapons that once belonged to conquered kings began to make their way on the long corridors and up the long stairways toward the upper world, where they had not been since the year 453.

It took five days of careful yet grueling labor to complete the exhumation of Attila’s treasure. At the top, where Selma, Wendy, Pete, and three Carabinieri worked to verify and load the artifacts, things worked smoothly. The first truck left for the National Archaeological Museum at Naples at three a.m. on the first night, accompanied by two unmarked police cars, and a new truck was moved into its place.

The Divine Word Missionaries lived up to their name by issuing the true story only, that the Catacomb of Domitilla was the site of some archaeological investigation and would be closed to the pubic temporarily.

On the sixth day the team brought in four chain hoists and lifted the lid of the iron coffin. Inside was a coffin of pure silver surrounded by more of Attila’s treasures. There were the crowns, scepters, daggers, and personal ornaments of a hundred kings, princes, chieftains, sultans, and khans. It took a whole day to empty and catalog the artifacts.

On the eighth day the team lifted the lid of the silver coffin. They found the old accounts were true. The last one was made of gold. It was surrounded by colored gem stones—emeralds, rubies, sapphires, garnets, jade, coral, lapis lazuli, jasper, opal, amber—stones from everywhere in the ancient world.

On the last day, they opened Attila’s gold casket. Inside was the skeleton of a man about five feet four inches tall, wearing a red silk tunic and trousers, knee-length leather boots, and a fur cap. His bony hand held a compound bow made of horn, and he wore a sword and a dagger. On the inner side of the gold coffin’s lid was an inscription.

“You have found the tomb of Attila, High King of the Huns. In order to stand before me you must be a brave and cunning warrior. My last treasure will make you a rich and strong king. Only time, failure, and sorrow can make you a wise one.”

T
HE
S
T
. R
EGIS
G
RAND
H
OTEL
, R
OME

“
P
LEASE, EVERYONE, MAKE THREE ROWS.”
T
HE PHOTOGRAPHER
from the
New York
Times
waved them into place. Seated in the front row were Albrecht at the center, flanked by Selma and Wendy. The second row was János, Tibor, and Pete. In the back row were Sam and Remi Fargo, and Captain Boiardi of the Italian Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale.

Dozens of shutters clicked in a complicated volley, with flashes that fluttered like strobe lights. The reporter from
Der Spiegel
was delighted because he could take many close-ups of the famed German historian and archaeologist Albrecht Fischer while he was posed as leader. Reporters from the Italian papers
Giornale di Sicilia
,
Il
Gazzettino
of Venice,
Il Mattino
of Naples,
Il Messaggero
of Rome,
Il Resto del Carlino
from Bologna, and
La Nazione
all jostled one another to get pictures of a sampling of the magnificent treasure, which had been laid out on a white sheet on the carpet and was being guarded by the tall, serious Italian Carabinieri in their dress uniforms. The Carabinieri just looked upward, immune to the allure of the glittering gems and crowns and swords on the sheet.

After the photographs, the interviews began. Sam and Remi moved off to the far end of the hotel meeting room, but reporters from
Le Figaro
,
Le Monde
, the
Daily Telegraph
, and
The
Guardian
still found them.

The Guardian
’s reporter, a woman named Ann Dade-Stanton, cornered Sam. “Everyone I’ve talked to privately says you were the leader of this series of expeditions and that most of the time the only ones even present were Sam and Remi Fargo. Is this some kind of a dodge? A tax strategy or something?”

Sam said, “Everybody here traveled, took risks, and worked at some point in a deep hole. Some of us contributed by doing research, making arrangements for travel and equipment, and so on. Others spent more time on the scene. But I wasn’t the leader.”

Remi said, “The one Sam and I considered our leader and guide to the ancient world was our friend Professor Albrecht Fischer. He has spent his career studying Roman times. He telephoned us after he had made the initial discovery in a field in Hungary and asked us to come and help him. We did.”

“But you’re world-famous treasure hunters and adventurers. And I understand you paid all the expenses.”

“We and Albrecht Fischer and Tibor Lazar were partners from the morning when we found the first stone chamber in Hungary. Albrecht had the most knowledge of history and the archaeology of the late Roman Empire. Tibor was born in the part of Hungary where Attila had his stronghold and could get people there to help us, including those with equipment and vehicles. Sam and I had some experience with historical research and donated some money. We all contributed what we had and we all brought in other people who could help.”

“That’s right,” said Sam. “And along the way, the culture ministries of a number of countries helped us and provided physical protection and preservation of our finds where the world’s scholars will be able to study them—particularly Hungary, Italy, and France. We also had help from the police forces of Berlin and Moscow.”

“Sam?” Selma whispered. “The website.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Sam. “This is Selma Wondrash, our chief researcher.” He nodded to her.

Selma said, “We will be putting up a website containing the complete catalog of all the artifacts in each of the treasure hoards and the tomb of Attila. It will include photographs of all of the items inside the treasure chambers in the positions where they were found, as well as close-up pictures made under museum conditions. From time to time, as scholarly articles about them are produced, the articles will be added to the site. We also expect to reproduce this information in a book, under the editorship of Professor Albrecht Fischer.”

The reporters all dutifully wrote down what they were told and then joined in the celebration. The party went on late into the night. When Captain Boiardi and his men had packed the sample artifacts into their locked cases, they prepared to leave.

“Sam, Remi,” he said. “The news will be in every major newspaper in the world tomorrow. Before the early-morning online editions come out, we’ve got to take the last of the treasure and transport it to the museum.”

“Do you have to go so soon?” Remi asked.

“The longer we wait, the more dangerous it will be. Ancient treasures capture people’s imaginations, and not always in a good way. In the 1920s, Tut’s tomb was a huge fad. And who was Tutankhamen? A rich teenager. This is
Attila
.” The captain grinned, kissed Remi’s hand and shook Sam’s. “This has been a great pleasure, and the greatest accomplishment of my career.”

“It has been for us too,” Remi said. “I hope you didn’t mean it when you said you were retiring.”

“If you don’t retire, I won’t,” he said. “I want to see what else you can find.”

“We’ll call you,” said Sam.

The Carabinieri left the hotel, and then the reporters and photographers. Soon the only ones left in the banquet room were Albrecht, Sam and Remi, Tibor and János, Selma, Pete and Wendy. Sam picked up a spoon and tapped it against a champagne glass, making a musical tinkling. Everyone stopped talking and looked in his direction. “All right, everyone. We’ve had a great party. Now Remi and I are going off to get some sleep. Please meet us in the lobby downstairs at nine a.m. with your packed bags. We have drivers coming to take us to the airport. We’re giving you a ride home.”

As they walked lazily to their suite, Remi yawned. “You’re flying everybody home on a rented jet?”

Sam shrugged. “Selma, Pete, and Wendy live at our house and we’d have to pay their airfare anyway. Tibor and János saved our lives at least twice each. And Albrecht invited us to be part of one of the great treasure hunts of all time. It’s just two stops.”

“I don’t want to sound like an ingrate and a shallow woman, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been alone with my husband when I didn’t have a shovel in my hand and nobody was shooting at us.”

Sam put his arm around her as they walked to the elevator. “Now, that’s true. The first thing it does is make me glad that I married a beautiful woman who likes my company. The other thing is, it makes me glad that most criminals are such terrible marksmen.”

She stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I can’t wait to get home.”

“You’ll get no backtalk out of me.” He unlocked the suite door and they stepped inside.

The next morning, at nine, they met the others in the lobby, then got into their rented limousines for the fifteen-kilometer drive to Ciampino Airport. The jet Selma had ordered was waiting on the tarmac outside the small private terminal. The group waited until their luggage was loaded and then climbed the steps to board.

It was just five hundred ninety-six miles from Rome to Frankfurt, where Albrecht left them. “Well, you’ve given me something to think about,” he said. “If I lived two lifetimes, I still wouldn’t be able to complete my study of what we’ve found. I thank you one and all.”

It was another six hundred ninety miles to Szeged. When they landed at the airport, Tibor and János Lazar stood up and Tibor said to Sam, “Are you coming?”

Sam took Remi by the hand and said, “Everybody, we’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

Remi looked at Sam with curiosity, then watched her step as they climbed down from the plane and caught up with the Lazar brothers.

Remi said, “Tibor, János, I hope we see you again soon. You’re welcome to visit us in La Jolla, you have our phone numbers and e-mail addresses.”

Tibor said, “We may, but not yet. We’ve decided to stay home for a while and rest. Now and then we’ll get up to laugh at Arpad Bako. But only for that.”

“I don’t know how much your share of the treasures will be,” said Sam. “A lot of it will never leave a museum. But you’ll get millions of dollars from what’s sold.”

“See?” Tibor said. “I told you that it was a good idea to be your friend.”

The four walked into the terminal and there, on the other side of the waiting area, was a man sitting beside a very large plastic carrier on a wheeled cart. Remi said, “Sam—?”

The man seemed to hear her voice and turned around in his seat to look at the newcomers from the plane. Remi’s eyes widened and she ran toward him. She came around the large container, looked inside, and sank to her knees. She began to cry.
“Jo fiu,”
she said quietly. She popped up to her feet and threw her arms around Sam. “Oh, Sam. I don’t believe this.”

“I thought you deserved a present,” he said. “But Zoltán deserved a present too and what he seemed to want was you.”

Tibor, János, and Tibor’s wife’s cousin the dog trainer helped Sam push the cart to the plane. At the foot of the steps, Remi said, “We can’t carry him up those steps in a box.”

She knelt, opened the cagelike door, and out came Zoltán, first the big black snout and then the broad head and long-furred neck and then the muscular shoulders and body. She put her arms around the dog’s neck and held him for a moment.
“Jo fiu,”
she whispered. “Good boy.” She stood.
“Fel,”
she said. “Up.” She began to climb the steps and Zoltán followed her up into the plane.

Tibor helped Sam carry the big travel carrier and set it down, then used its straps to secure it to an empty row of seats. Then he said to Sam and Remi, “We’ll see each other before long,” and went quickly down the steps and into the terminal.

As Remi and Zoltán walked back into the passenger area, Selma eyed the big dog. “Oh, good. He’s finally bought you a pony.”

Remi said, “Selma, this is Zoltán. Come here and let him sniff your hand. He won’t hurt you.”

Selma put out her hand for Zoltán and then patted his thick neck.

“—unless I tell him to.”

Pete and Wendy laughed as Selma retreated. “He’s just right,” Pete said. “If you go to Alaska, he can pull the sled by himself.”

“Okay,” said Remi. “Now you two.” Pete and Wendy approached Zoltán and patted him. He stood still and tolerated the attention.

Remi went to her seat beside Sam. To Zoltán she said,
“Ül.”
The dog sat at her feet. She tickled him behind the ears.

The refueling and the preflight inspection were completed and the steward closed the cabin door. Sam got up, went to the carrier, and came back with a bag of dog treats.

“Good idea,” Pete said. “Those will buy us time if he decides to eat us.”

“Don’t worry about him,” said Sam. “He’s better educated than we are. He’s trained to recognize which people need eating and to protect the rest of us.” Remi leaned down and hugged Zoltán again, then gave him a treat.

The pilot started the engines and the passengers fastened their seat belts. As the plane moved ahead, taxiing over the pavement, Zoltán looked watchful and ate his treat. The plane reached the end of the runway and turned into the wind. While the plane accelerated along the runway and then rose into the air, Remi kept her hand on Zoltán’s shoulder to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Zoltán. I’m here with you.” Her safe, calm, musical voice seemed to relax him. As the rattles and vibrations ended and the plane lifted off the ground, Zoltán let his big head rest on the carpet and settled in for a long flight.

Remi leaned close to Sam and whispered, “I love him. And I love you. But this is so extravagant. A dog like him, with his training, costs as much as a Rolls-Royce.”

“A Rolls-Royce is a great machine. But it won’t trade its life for yours.”

Sam tilted back his seat and so did Remi. She rested her head on his chest. Zoltán looked up at them once, then surveyed the cabin and laid his head down again and closed his eyes.