The Tombs (A Fargo Adventure) (7 page)

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,” Tibor 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.”

“Greed? I don’t follow,” said Remi.

“It’s the tomb. He wants to find the tomb and claim it as his own.”

“The tomb of Attila the Hun?” she said. “He won’t have much luck. It’s one of the great known tombs that have never been found. Does he claim to be a relative of Genghis Khan too?”

“Not yet.”

She turned to Sam. “What do you think we should do?”

“What can anyone do?” Tibor said. “Bako doesn’t just have money. He has his own little army of security people to guard him, his houses, his factories. There’s no question he would kill to keep someone else from finding Attila’s tomb or kidnap them if he thought they knew something he could use.”

Sam said quietly, “We’re not just going to stand by and do nothing.”

“What will you do?”

“Find our friend and take him back,” said Remi.

Tibor was silent for a moment. “Really?”

“Yes,” said Sam. “He called us because he thought he might need help. He was right.”

“Sam,” Remi said. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

“No, I think Tibor’s our guy, Remi. Tibor, I believe we can do this, but we need a man who’s Hungarian, who’s brave, and who hates Arpad Bako. We’ll pay you well for your trouble and your time. If you’re arrested, we’ll get you the best lawyer. It won’t be any extra trouble because he’ll have to defend us too.”

“Maybe I’d better show you who this man is before anybody does anything. I’m driving you to my garage to get a different car first.”

“Wait,” said Sam. “I’d like to get rid of those men who are following us. Let me drive. If I damage your car, I’ll pay for the repairs and your loss of the use of it.”

Tibor looked skeptical, but he pulled over and let Sam get behind the wheel. He sat in the passenger seat. Sam made a quick U-turn and then a left to pass behind the big black car. Tibor gripped the dashboard and stomped the nonexistent brake.

“You’ll enjoy riding with Sam,” said Remi. “He’s barred from driving in four countries.”

Sam accelerated up the road. When the black car followed and began to pull closer behind him, he let the left tires stray off the pavement onto the dusty shoulder and throw a big cloud of dust and bits of gravel into the air. The driver of the black car tried unsuccessfully to swerve to avoid it, almost lost control, and veered from side to side, overcompensating. Sam said, “He’s not too good. Is there a place near here with very narrow streets?”

“There’s a very old village about two miles ahead. It’s too far from the river to have been destroyed by floods.”

Sam accelerated more on the long, straight stretch across the plain, but roads like this were made for the big black car. It began to gain on Sam steadily. He delayed by weaving from side to side, then moving into the center of the road so they couldn’t pull up beside him. When he saw the village coming up, he swerved to the left lane abruptly. The black car moved to the right, Sam stomped on his brake, and the black car shot past them.

Sam made a slow, safe turn onto the main street of the village, then went past a few stone buildings before he turned to the right into an alley so narrow that he could barely fit the taxi between the buildings. “Careful, careful,” Tibor muttered. At the far end of the alley, Sam stopped.

Sam, Remi, and Tibor watched the back window and saw the black car, moving fast, flash past the opening of the alley. “Now we see if he’s angry enough or we need to work on him some more,” Sam said.

The black car made a tire-squealing stop, backed up rapidly into sight, turned, and sped into the alley after the taxi. Sam pulled forward out of the alley into a small open square. He got out. “Take the wheel,” he said to Tibor. Then he stepped back to the open end of the alley. He picked up the handles of a wheelbarrow loaded with stones and prepared to push it into the opening.

Before he could, there was a bang, and then a loud scraping sound that rose to a screech, then stopped. Sam put down the wheelbarrow, ran to the taxi, and got into the rear seat with Remi. Tibor backed up to glance down the alley. He and the Fargos could see that the big black car had gotten wedged between the first pair of buildings. Its mirrors were gone, and it was jammed against the bricks on both sides. The engine roared, and there was a painful shriek of metal but little progress. Tibor pulled forward around the end of the row of buildings to the main street and drove back the way they had come.

They drove to a building that looked like a small warehouse. There were five men in overalls and work clothes. “Those two,” he said, “the good-looking ones, are my brothers. The others are cousins.”

Tibor got out and went to talk to a couple of them, then brought them back with him. A third man pulled a van out of the garage and left it running. Everyone smiled, shook hands, and pantomimed their delight to make one another’s acquaintance. Tibor got into the van’s driver’s seat, and Sam and Remi got into the back. They were surprised to see that a man got in with them. He said, “I’m János. I’ll be taking the pictures.”

“Thank you,” said Remi. She whispered to Sam, “What pictures?”

János snapped her picture. “You’re welcome,” he said.

Tibor drove them out to the east side of the city, then farther out onto the grassy plains. Five miles later they came to a large complex with five rows of white buildings. Most of them were long and low rectangles with no windows. János aimed his camera and began to shoot, clicking and winding automatically. He kept shooting as they drove along the tall chain-link fences with coiled razor wire along the top. They passed a guard gate that looked like the entrance to a military base, complete with armed guards in gray battle dress uniforms.

Remi said, “Why all the guards?”

“The reason they give is that they make and store narcotic drugs here, and they do research on new medicines, so competitors might steal their secrets. The real reason is so Bako can do as he likes and nobody asks questions.”

All through the trip, Sam was silent. He looked closely at everything, but he said nothing.

When the van returned to the garage, Sam asked for a piece of paper and said to Tibor, “I’m going to make a list of things we’ll need and give you money to buy them. If you can’t get something, tell me and I’ll have them flown here.” He began to write as he spoke. “Four gray uniforms like the ones Bako’s men wear. Four pistols with two spare magazines each in holsters on belts of black webbing. The ones they carry looked to me like Czech CZ-75s. If there’s a Hungarian model that looks like that, it’ll be fine. Black boots, four pairs, mid-calf height. We’ll need to have the boots polished and the uniforms pressed. And remember, one set is for Remi, so get one size small. And get one short black leather dog leash and collar.”