The Tombs

VERONA AIRPORT, ITALY

SELMA WONDRASH’S VOICE CAME OVER THE SPEAKER ON Remi’s telephone. “The village of Châlons-en-Champagne has just two hundred twenty-seven people, and the spot Albrecht and I believe is the battlefield is five miles north near the hamlet of Cuperly on D994, La route de Reims.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Sam.

Albrecht took over the phone. “Near the center of the battlefield was a rock shelf, a high outcropping, that rose from the ground at an angle. The Roman army, which also included the Visigoths, the Alans, and the Celts, rushed in, in a forced march, to control the high ground before the Huns arrived. When the Huns swept in on horseback from the east, they were greeted by arrows raining down on them from the rocks. The Huns made a tentative attempt to dislodge the defenders, then fell back to the east on lower, level ground. They fortified their position by circling their wagons around the encampment.”

“How far east from the shelf?” asked Remi.

“They would have retreated beyond arrow range,” said Albrecht.

“How far was arrow range?”

“Well, I suppose you could stand on the top of the rocks and shoot an arrow off at a forty-five-degree angle and see.”

“I just might do that.”

“Or you could estimate. I’d say two hundred fifty yards would probably do it.”

“We’ll take the guess,” Sam said. “Selma, could you send us another magnetometer and a metal detector at the hotel in France?”

“It’s done. They should be there tonight. You’re staying at L’Assiette Champenoise, an old estate with four acres of grounds and modern conveniences in the center of town.”

“Thanks, Selma,” said Remi. “If it’s got a nice bathtub I’ll be happy. And I think we could use some sleep. This has turned into a lot of night work.”

“You’re welcome. Pick up your car at Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1. Head east out of Paris on the N44 to Reims, about a hundred ninety kilometers. Then take D994, La route de Reims, to Cuperly.”

“Got it,” said Sam.

“Albrecht, what else can you tell us about the battle?” asked Remi.

“Well, after the initial skirmish, Attila could see he wasn’t going to take the high ground on the rocky shelf. He fell back to await developments. In those days, that meant watching enemy troop movements and opening up a few birds to read their entrails. Attila let his enemies stew for most of the day. When the afternoon was nearly over, he attacked. The battle lasted until dark and left thousands dead on the field in about equal number for both sides. Attila’s horsemen couldn’t overcome the other side’s advantage of holding the high ground. He fell back to his fortified camp. The Roman commander Aëtius got lost in the dark, separated from his Romans, and found shelter with some Visigoths, who had lost track of their own leader, Theodoric. His son Thorismund found his body the next day. Attila, apparently not knowing the poor shape his enemies were in, prepared to make a stand. He gathered a huge pile of the wooden frames of his men’s saddles. If he were to die, he wanted his body thrown on them and burned. But then his men noticed that the Visigoths were leaving the field. They were going home so Thorismund could claim his father’s throne. So Attila left, going east across the Rhine.”

“Perfect,” said Remi.

“Perfect?” said Albrecht.

“That’s where the treasure will be.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Sam and I have been thinking about this since we began. The treasures are always buried at some bad moment—a defeat, someone’s death. How did they accomplish that? If we look at the accounts of Attila’s death, there was a huge tent set up for Attila and his retainers, so big that you could ride horses in it.”

“I don’t think I see where you’re going,” said Selma.

“The saddle frames never got burned. They were a distraction, a show. Inside Attila’s huge tent, where nobody could see, there were men digging another crypt, a treasure chamber like the two we’ve found. As soon as the hole was dug, the masons would disappear into the big tent to set the stones. Attila’s trusted palace guards loaded the treasure into the chamber without leaving the tent. They sealed the chamber, covered it, and then struck the tent. Nobody had seen any hole or any digging. As they left, they probably herded their horses across the camp. Nobody but a trusted few knew where the treasure was or even that it existed.”

“I think you’ve figured him out,” said Albrecht. “From Châlons, he went to northern Italy and found new plunder on his way to invading Rome. He was probably already preparing to turn south into Italy the day of the battle. Rome was the biggest prize and probably always was his goal. Everyone knows Attila’s enemies fought him to a standstill at Châlons. What they all forget is that he fought them to a standstill too.”

Sam said, “The sources say Attila delayed his attack until it was nearly night. Maybe he was delaying until his chamber was dug and the stones brought from somewhere—probably the Marne River, which was right near the battlefield.”

“I think you’re right,” said Albrecht. “If you can ascertain where Attila’s tent was erected, you’ll find the treasure chamber under it.”

Their flight from Verona reached Paris in two hours and they picked up their rental car and drove out of the traffic and congestion of the city. Even with Sam’s excessive speed, the one hundred ninety kilometers on the N44 took three hours.

Sam and Remi found their way to Châlons-en-Champagne, then the road to Cuperly, and drove the five additional miles to the tiny hamlet. Late in the afternoon they were among farmers’ fields, various trapezoid shapes so closely interlaced that the land looked as though every inch belonged to someone and was under full cultivation.

“Let’s keep searching from the road until we find the rocky outcropping or we run out of daylight,” Sam said.

“Everything depends on finding that outcropping,” Remi said. “There’s no other feature mentioned in the old story we can use to orient ourselves.”

They drove for miles on D994, La route de Reims, then went north on D977, then north on D931, La voie de la Liberté. They were just northeast of the Marne when they saw the outcropping. From a flat field, it rose abruptly at a tilt, jutting higher as the eye moved from west to east. Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road and Remi took pictures with her cell phone and sent them to Selma.

“There,” she said. “If this isn’t it, then maybe Selma, Pete, and Wendy will be able to match the contours to some geographic source—satellite photos or something—and they’ll be able to set us straight.”

“I’m pretty sure this is it,” said Sam. “If they could have done that, they would have. And we haven’t seen a lot of candidates for the right spot before now.”

Remi climbed up to stand on the seat of the convertible and then put one foot on the top of the door to raise herself a little more. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“What is it?”

“I wish we had binoculars with us. I think somebody has been digging out there in the flat part of the field.”

“Is it east of the outcropping?”

“Yes, and it seems about the right distance.” She pointed at the spot. “Do you think that’s beyond an arrow shot away from the rocks?”

“That would be my guess,” he said. “If people were aiming at me, I’d certainly err on the long side.” He stood on the seat beside her.

“See?” she said. “There and there. And over there.”

There were small mounds of fresh dirt around holes in the vast green field. “That’s just about what it would look like if Bako got here first. The small ones could be test holes, and that big one over there would be something they thought might be the chamber.”

Remi hit a programmed number on her phone and put the call on speaker. “Tibor? This is Remi. I know you’ve been home only a few hours. But has anything changed with Arpad Bako?”

“No,” said Tibor. “He and his security men are still here. It was the first thing I checked when I arrived. Why? Has something happened?”

“We’re in France at the next site and it looks like someone has been digging.”

“I don’t like to hear that,” Tibor said. “But we should have thought of another possibility.”

“What?”

“Bako has been here in Hungary. But he has friends and business acquaintances in other places—customers and suppliers, both legitimate and criminal. Maybe he called one in France. I would be very careful if I were you.”

“We will,” she said. “Let us know if anything changes.” She turned to Sam. “Well, you heard him.”

“Tibor was right. We should have thought of this. If Bako has friends all over Europe, we’ve got a problem. While we’re rushing to reach the next hiding place, his friends could already be on the scene digging.”

“Now what?”

“Behave as though we can still win until somebody proves we didn’t. Drive the rest of the way to Reims, check into our hotel, and spend the last of the afternoon preparing to come back here after dark.”

* * *

AT HIS OFFICE in Szeged, Arpad Bako sat at the head of a long rosewood conference table, studying the executives ranged around it listening to a report by the director of foreign sales. He used such times, when they were paying attention to something else, to study them. They were smart men, all of them. Some were scientists—biologists, pharmacists, chemists—who worked to improve various medicines the company sold and discover new ones. Others had medical degrees and performed the drug testing and dealt with hospitals and universities. Still others were lawyers. Bako had gone to the university, but he was not their equal in education or intellect.

He was, however, a cunning man. It must be obvious to these men that the report they were listening to was impossible, a piece of fiction. The sales of narcotic painkillers and tranquilizers that had value in the underground economy of Europe were being overreported. The numbers on the board showed they were being bought by legitimate foreign entities in far from proportionate numbers in every market. Even in countries that had famous hundred-year-old pharmaceutical companies like Switzerland and Germany, the doctors must all be prescribing Bako products. It was absurd. In a couple of instances, the sales manager reported sales of Bako drugs in distant countries that must be larger than the number of prescriptions written for every other purpose during a year. Yet Bako’s executives listened to it without blinking. No numbers were kept secret from them. Everyone in the room had gotten rich by phantom sales, he knew, and they should be forced to hear the numbers. If they wisely chose not to compare the numbers with anything else they knew or to express doubts, then all must be well for the present. They were content with the status quo.

Bako’s cell phone buzzed. A couple of the men jumped and then turned to look at the others with wry expressions, hoping some rival had been caught being rude and foolish in the meeting, but when they saw Bako taking his phone from his pocket they looked away. He read the number on the display and said, “Please excuse me, gentlemen. I need to take this call.”

All of the dozen men stood up instantly, gathered items like laptops and tablets, pens and coffee cups, and filed out of the room. The last man out was the sales manager, who looked relieved. When the soundproof door was shut, Bako flipped his thumb to receive the call.

“Hello, Étienne,” said Bako. “I’ve been wondering when you would call. Good news?”

Étienne Le Clerc chuckled. “It’s such good news that you might think it’s bad. We found the treasure chamber right where we expected it, in the middle of the old battlefield. It’s big. Attila must have left Germany and France without two coins to rub together. You could have left me out of this, done it yourself, and made an extra hundred million euros.”

“There’s that much, eh? And you could be calling now to lie and tell me that there was no treasure—that someone beat us to it.”

Le Clerc laughed. “I suppose this means we’re both almost honest.”

“Nearly so,” said Bako. “Or maybe we choose our victims wisely. The treasure is wonderful news. Can you send me a photograph of the inscription?”

“Inscription?”

“The Latin message. Somewhere in each treasure chamber there is a message from Attila. Didn’t you find it?”

“I suppose we must have taken it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“It’s hard to miss.”

In Le Clerc’s voice was a faint warning, just a small cloud forming on the horizon. He said, slowly and distinctly, “You haven’t seen the contents of the chamber. It is literally tons of gold and silver, much of it ancient, even pre-Roman. If you want Latin writing, I’ve got plenty of that. There are whole books of it, with gold bindings studded with gemstones.”

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Bako said. “It must be different this time. The first one was deeply engraved into an iron slab the size of a door.”

“We didn’t find anything like that,” said Le Clerc. “I’ll look into it. Oh, and that reminds me. You said we should watch for the man and woman who would try to get there first. They were actually what prompted me to call. They’re here. My men saw them drive up to the battlefield in a convertible and survey the field.”

“Then things are better than I thought. If you can kill them, then we have all the time in the world to find that inscription.”

“Don’t worry,” said Le Clerc. “I’ve still got men out at the site tonight removing the last bits before they cover everything up. We’ll find the inscription. And, in the meantime, those people can be made to disappear.”

* * *

AS SOON AS they were in the city, Sam inquired about renting a truck. He found an agency and rented one that had a bed eight feet wide and nearly twenty long, with a closed cargo bay. Remi took a photograph of a sign from a feed store and went to a printer to have it blown up and reproduced as magnetic signs and then stuck two to the truck’s sides.

Sam and Remi went to their hotel, which was like a gated château, and slept for a few hours before they woke to get ready. Sam assembled a metal detector and a magnetometer. They packed up their shovels and crowbars, night vision gear, and backpacks, and ate a dinner in the hotel consisting of duck l’orange with Rosé des Riceys, a local wine that was reputed to be one of Louis XIV’s favorites. They ended it with crêpes suzette.

At midnight they got into their rental truck. Sam drove and Remi sat beside him, trying to navigate. They drove along the curving rustic highway to the hamlet of Cuperly and then headed north. It was only a short time before they reached the field they had found in the late afternoon. Sam pulled the truck to the side of the road.

“Well, let’s go see what they were digging out there,” said Remi as she put on her backpack.

Sam replied, “Let’s hope they just have big gophers in France.”

They climbed a stone fence and walked into the field. Remi consulted the photos she’d taken that afternoon to guide them to the first hole they’d seen from the road. As they approached the hole, they put on their night vision goggles and knelt beside it. The sight was confusing, so they used their shovels to clear away some of the dirt.

“What is that?” Remi said. She reached down and touched it. “Steel. It looks like a cannon.”

“You’re right.” Sam dug around it a bit with his hand, then stopped at the muzzle. “I think it’s a French 75.”

“That’s a cocktail,” she said. “Gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar, I think.”

“Well, this is the cannon they named it after,” he said. “Something about the hangover, I imagine. This is also why we have to be careful when we dig in France. The Marne is just to the south and east beyond that field. In the summer of 1918, General Ludendorff planned a big offensive to take the Champagne region. The allies got a copy of his plan, moved a lot of artillery around, and, an hour before the German attack, opened fire with over three thousand cannons. I’m guessing from the position and condition of this cannon that it probably got damaged in the return fire—or just got too hot.”

“Whoever got here before us probably picked up a big spike on their magnetometer, dug down, and found it,” said Remi.

“Let’s go look at the next hole.”

They moved toward the next one in the field, stopped, and looked in. At the bottom of the hole was what seemed to be the remains of a couple of wooden crates, both age-darkened and rotted-away. There was also the metal rim of a wagon wheel and the hub. Sam cautiously poked at the crates, which were as soft as wet cardboard. He saw the row of five cannon rounds, shaped like giant bullets, the brass casings green with patina from being buried for so long and the projectiles a uniform gray. “There’s a find,” he said. “Unexploded ordnance. It looks like a buried caisson. Let’s move on.”

“We should call somebody,” Remi said.

“We will. There are so many bombs and mines and artillery shells from both world wars that France still keeps teams on the payroll to dispose of them when they turn up.”

“This must have been quite a surprise to Bako’s French friends when they dug their test holes,” Remi said.

“Well, there’s just one more hole dug in the field and it looks bigger than the first two,” Sam said. “Whatever they found must be something that doesn’t blow up.” They walked toward the third hole.

They stepped up to the mound of earth that had been thrown aside in the digging.

“Look at the entrance,” Remi said. “It’s like the other—made of mortared stones.”

“Let’s see what’s left in there,” Sam said. Sam took a nylon climbing rope out of his backpack, tied a loop, put it over the shaft of his spade, then propped the spade in the corner of the hole’s entrance to hold it. They adjusted their night vision goggles, and he lowered Remi into the chamber. After a few seconds, the rope went slack. There were a few seconds of silence.

“What do you see?”

“It’s not empty, but I think it’s been looted. There aren’t any piles of gold down here. Come look.”

Sam rappelled down the inner wall of the chamber. His feet touched a surface and he knelt. “It’s cement,” he said.

“The Romans had cement. Why not Attila?” Remi said.

“I know. If he wanted a mason, I’m sure he could have captured a thousand of them. It looks as though they made this chamber of timbers and then plastered the whole thing with cement, probably on both sides.”

“Look,” said Remi. She was standing a dozen feet away, beside a pile of metal that still had a dull gleam in the amplified green light of the night vision goggles.

Sam joined her. “I don’t see any gold, but this is amazing—Roman shields, helmets and breastplates, swords, javelins. This must have been part of the spoils of the campaign.”

“They’re historically valuable,” Remi said. “But still, it doesn’t make me happy to know that Bako’s French friends beat us here.”

“Let’s find the inscription, unless they took that too.”

They searched the walls, looking for any faint scratches. Then, at the bottom of the pile of Roman equipment, they found a shield that was not like the four-foot-high rectangular Roman scuta that curves back at the sides. This was a round one with a steel boss at the center that stuck out like a spike. On the inner side, engraved around the rim, was an inscription in Latin.

Remi took a picture of it with her cell phone’s camera, then had Sam hold the shield and took several pictures from different angles to bring out the carved letters in sharp relief. “There,” she said. “That should do it. Wait a second. It shouldn’t be here. Bako’s friends should know that this shield was important—maybe more important than anything else in the chamber. Why would they leave it?”

Sam shrugged. “They must have dropped in, seen lots of gold and silver and stones, taken them, and left. It’s incredible luck for us.”

“Let’s get moving, then,” Remi said. “You climb up and pull these things out with the rope and I’ll tie the next load.”

Sam ran the rope through the hand straps of the first two Roman scuta, then made a bundle of javelins and a bundle of Roman gladius swords, the standard-issue Roman short sword. He climbed to the surface, set the artifacts in piles, then threw the rope down to Remi.

After a couple of minutes, she called, “Haul away!”

When he pulled up the rope this time, there were five undecorated helmets belonging to common soldiers, two scuta, and four breastplates. He leaned down into the entrance, wearing a helmet as he stuck his head in the chamber. “Is that everything?”

“My heart goes pit-a-pat for a man in uniform,” said Remi. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“There was a light, like a beam, that went past in the air behind you.”

He pulled back and looked across the field in each direction. “I don’t see anything now. Probably just an airplane’s landing lights as it came in toward Reims. It’s not the year 451 anymore.”

“Then you should update your wardrobe.”

“Grab the rope and I’ll pull you up.”