Tracker

He knew she was being hunted.

Seated at a chilly bistro table, wrapped in a woolen jacket, Tucker Wayne watched the woman hurry across the icy medieval plaza known as Szentháromság tér, or Trinity Square. The blonde, early twenties, glanced over her shoulder one too many times. She wore sunglasses even though most of the plaza was already thick with shadows as the sun set. Her crimson silk scarf had been tugged too high over her chin, not because she was cold; such thin material offered little practical protection against the chilly gusts that swept the plaza. Also, she walked too fast compared with the others ambling around the heart of the city’s Royal Castle District, a major tourist hub for Budapest.

The army had trained him to maintain such diligence, to watch for the unusual amid the ordinary. When he’d been a captain with the army rangers, he and his partner had served as the unit’s trackers through two tours in Afghanistan — for search-and-rescue operations, for extraction, for hunting down targets of acquisition. In the outlying districts and villages of Afghanistan, the difference between life and death was not so much about rifles, Kevlar, and the latest risk assessments as it was about noting the rhythms of the environment, the normal ebb and flow of life, and watching for anything out of the ordinary.

Like now.

The woman didn’t belong here. Even the brightness of her clothing was out of place: the ivory knee-length coat, the red shoes that matched her scarf and hat. Among a winter crowd dressed in browns and blacks or tans and grays, she stood out.

Not wise when you were being hunted.

As he watched her nervous progress across the square, he cradled the cup of hot coffee between his palms. He wore a pair of gloves with the fingertips cut out of them. Other patrons of the pastry shop gathered inside the small space, where it was warm and crowded at this hour. They were bellied up to the counter or perched at small window-side tables. He was the only one banished to the outdoor patio at the edge of the cold square.

He and his partner.

The compact shepherd, known as a Belgian Malinois, lay at his feet, the dog’s muzzle resting on the tip of his boot, ready for any command. Kane had served alongside him through two tours in Afghanistan. They’d worked together, eaten together, even bunked together.

Kane was as much a part of his body as his own arm or leg.

When Tucker left the service, he took Kane with him.

Since then, Tucker had been adrift in the world, intending to stay lost, taking the occasional odd job to support himself — and then moving on. He liked it that way. After all he had seen in Afghanistan, he needed new horizons, new vistas, but mostly, he had a drive to keep moving.

With no family attachments in the States, he no longer needed a home.

It came with him.

He reached down and ran his fingers through the dog’s dense black-and-tan fur. Kane’s muzzle lifted. Dark brown eyes, flecked with gold, stared up at him. It was one of the unique features of domesticated dogs—they studied us as much as we studied them.

He matched that gaze and gave a small nod — then flicked his eyes to the square. He wanted his partner to be ready as the woman crossed toward them, about to skirt past the outdoor patio.

He scanned the flow of humanity into and out of the plaza as it wound around the towering statue in the center of the square. Its Baroque façade was covered in marble figures, climbing skyward, toward a brilliant gold star. It represented those in the city who had escaped the Black Plague during the eighteenth century.

As the woman neared, he kept a close eye on anyone staring toward her. There were a few. She was a woman who naturally turned heads: slender, curvaceous, with a fall of blond hair to the middle of her back.

At last, across the plaza, he spotted her hunter — or rather, hunters.

A mountain of a man, flanked by two smaller figures, entered from a street to the north. They were all dressed in trench coats. The leader was black haired, well over six feet, hugely muscled, and, from the prominent pocking over his face, a chronic abuser of anabolic steroids.

Tucker noted bulges under the trench coats that suggested concealed weapons.

The woman didn’t notice the group, her eyes glancing right over them.

So she knew someone might be looking for her, but she didn’t have the skill or knowledge to pick them out. Yet she had the instinct to stay around other people.

She hurried past his location, a whiff of jasmine left in her wake.

Kane tilted his nose up to her scent.

She headed toward the doors of the massive Matthias Church, with its towering stone-laced gothic spire and fourteenth-century reliefs depicting the Virgin Mary’s death. The doors were still open, waiting for the last of the day’s tourists to straggle out. She headed inside, casting a final look around before ducking past the threshold.

Tucker finished his coffee, left a tip, and stood. He grabbed Kane’s leash and exited just as the trio of hunters swept past. As he followed them, bundled in his jacket and coat, he heard the tallest of the three give quick orders in Hungarian.

Local thugs.

Tucker shadowed the group as they moved toward the church. One of the three glanced back at him, but Tucker knew what he would see.

A man in his late twenties, taller than average, sandy blond hair worn a little shaggy, walking a dog outfitted in a brown sweater. Tucker hid some of his muscled height by slumping his shoulders and hunching down. His clothing was already nondescript: worn jeans, a battered olive green coat, a wool cap tugged low. He knew not to avoid eye contact — that raised as much suspicion as staring. So he merely nodded politely back and showed disinterest.

As the other turned around, Tucker touched his nose and ticked his finger toward the mountain of a man in the middle.

Acquire that one’s scent.

Kane had a vocabulary of a thousand words, understood a hundred hand gestures, making the dog an extension of himself. The shepherd trotted forward, sniffing behind the man, close to his heels, nose near the edge of the trench coat.

Tucker pretended to ignore his partner’s efforts, staring off across the square.

Once Kane secured what he needed, the dog dropped back and waited for the next command. His ears remained stiff, his tail high, expressing his alertness.

As the trio reached the church, more orders were passed brusquely in Hungarian, and the group split up, spreading out to cover the exits.

Tucker stepped over to a park bench, crouched down next to Kane, and tied the end of the leash loosely around its iron leg but unclipped the other end. He merely tucked it in place behind Kane’s collar, making it look as if the dog were secured there.

Next, he slid his fingers under the brown sweater to the camouflaged K9 Storm tactical vest. It was waterproof and Kevlar reinforced. His fingers flicked on the built-in camera and snaked up its fiber-optic lens, smaller than a pencil eraser, hiding it between the dog’s pricked ears.

“Stay,” he ordered.

Kane sat in the deep shadows of the church, just another dog waiting for the return of its master.

With a final scratch at his partner’s ear, ensuring the Bluetooth earpiece was secure, Tucker leaned forward, bringing his face close to his dog’s. It was a ritual of theirs.

“Who’s a good boy?”

Kane reached his cold nose forward and touched his.

That’s right. You are.

A tail thumped good-bye as Tucker straightened. Turning, he watched the huge man stride toward the church’s main entrance with the full confidence of a hunter whose prey had been trapped.

He followed, freeing his modified cell phone — courtesy of the military, as was the tactical vest, both stolen when he had left the service. For that matter, so was Kane. But after what had happened at that village outside Kabul…

He shied from that painful memory.

Never again…

His whole unit had helped him escape with the dog.

But that was another story.

He switched on the phone, tapped a few icons on the screen. Then a video appeared: of his backside, walking away, the feed coming from Kane’s camera.

All was in order.

Tucker pocketed the phone and followed the tall hunter through the doors of the church. Inside, massive spiral pillars held up a cavernous space. All around, the plastered walls displayed a frenzy of brilliant golden frescoes depicting the deaths of Hungarian saints, brought to life by the flickering of candles throughout the nave. Farther down, a series of chapels opened off to the sides, containing a few sarcophagi and a museum of medieval carvings. The entire place smelled vaguely of incense and mildew.

Tucker easily spotted the target, again standing out in her ivory coat. She sat in a pew halfway down the length of the nave, her head bowed.

The hulk of a man took a post near the entrance, leaning against the wall, preparing to wait her out. Clearly, the group was afraid to nab her in front of witnesses and was biding its time before making a move. With the sun almost down and the church emptying out, it would not be a long wait.

Unless Tucker did something about it.

He slipped past the wide bulk of the man, noting the earpiece in his left ear, then continued into the main church. He moved down to the pew where the woman had parked herself and slipped in next to her. She moved a few inches farther down the bench, barely glancing his way. She had taken off her hat and sunglasses in respect for the church. He reached up and did the same with his cap.

Her hair shone like gold in the candlelight. Her eyes, as she glanced at him, were a watery blue. In her hands, she fondled a cell phone, as if unsure whom to call — or maybe she was hoping for a call.

“Do you speak English?” he asked softly.

Even the whisper made her flinch, but after a long pause, she answered curtly, “Yes, but I prefer not to be bothered.”

She spoke the words as if she had said them countless times before. Her accent was distinctly British, as was her reserve as she slid a full foot away from him.

He knelt down in the pew, offering a less intimidating pose, bowing his head to his hands as he spoke. “I wanted to warn you that three men are following you.”

She tensed, looking ready to bolt.

“I think you should pray,” he said, motioning her down.

“I’m Jewish.”

“And I’m only here to help you. If you want it.”

Again that calculating pause, but she slipped gently to her knees.

He whispered without facing her. “They are watching each door out of here.” When she tried to glance back, he tightened his voice. “Don’t.”

She bowed her forehead to her hands. “Who are you?”

“Nobody. I saw those armed men following you. I saw how scared you looked—”

“I don’t need your help.”

He sighed. “Okay. I offered.”

He began to stand up, knowing he had done as much as his conscience demanded. He couldn’t help those who were too proud or stubborn to accept it.

She reached low and pinched the sleeve of his jacket. “Wait.” When he settled back to his knees next to her, she asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You can’t know for sure.” He shrugged. “Either you do or you don’t.”

She stared at him, and he met her gaze. “I remember you. You were sitting at that patio with a dog.”

“That you noticed. Not the armed thugs trailing you.”

She turned away. “I like dogs. She was pretty.”

He smiled into his raised palms, warming up to this woman. “His name is Kane.”

“Sorry. Then he was handsome.” She moved a little closer, sounding calmer. “But what can you do?”

“I can get you out of here. Away from them. What you want to do from there is up to you.”

That was one of his specialties.

Extraction.

She glanced over to him, swallowing hard. “Then please, help me.”

He held out his hand. “Then let’s get out of here.”

“How?” she asked, surprised. “What about—?”

His hand closed over hers, silencing her. Her palm burned like an ember in his. “Just stay close to me.”

He drew her back out of the pew, letting go of her hand but motioning her to stay behind him. In his other hand, he held a black KA-BAR fighting knife hidden alongside his leg. He had slipped the blade out of its ankle sheath as he knelt. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

He led her away from the main entrance toward a smaller exit on the south side of the church. He glanced sidelong toward the tall man. The hunter was already swinging away, touching his ear, plainly alerting the man guarding this door. Then his hulking form vanished out of sight as he swung around the church to join his comrade. They were likely planning on ambushing her once she stepped outside.

Once he was gone, Tucker abruptly turned, caught the woman around the waist, and swung her around.

“What are you—?”

“Change of plans,” he said. “We’re going out the other way.”

Without letting go of her waist, he hurried her toward the north-facing portal, hoping that the radioed message from the big man was drawing all eyes to the south, expecting her to exit there.

Once at the door, he paused. He held her back and checked his cell phone. Video bloomed to light on the tiny screen. Though the sun had set by now, the view through the night-vision camera was grainy but bright. It showed the plaza and the main entrance to the church as Kane stared toward where his partner had vanished, waiting patiently.

Good boy.

Satisfied, he stepped toward the exit, hoping the guard posted out there had been tricked into retreating to the other side of the church, along with their leader.

And apparently his ruse worked, unfortunately not to his benefit.

The door swung open as Tucker reached for it.

The third hunter barged inside, plainly intending to take a shortcut across the church rather than around it, planning to bring up the rear behind his fleeing quarry.

Both Tucker and the man were equally caught off guard.

Tucker reacted first as the hunter’s eyes spotted the woman in the ivory coat and struggled to comprehend how she could be there.

Using that momentary confusion, Tucker lunged and barreled into the man with his shoulder, driving him back out the door and into a narrow dark alley. He slammed him against the brick wall on the far side, driving an elbow into his solar plexus, hard enough for the air to burst from his chest.

The man gasped and slumped, but he had enough wits to paw for a hidden weapon. Tucker spun, swinging his arm with all the strength in his shoulder. He struck the hilt of his KA-BAR dagger against the man’s temple — and drove him to his knees, where he fell limply on his face.

Tucker quickly searched him. The woman stepped out, too, smartly closing the door to the church, looking terrified.

For the moment, with the church mostly deserted, no one seemed to note the attack. He confiscated a FÉG PA-63 semiautomatic pistol, used commonly by the Hungarian police and military. He also found an I.D. folder topped with a badge and flipped it open, recognizing the man’s face, but not the badge, though it looked official. Across the top it read Nemzetbiztonsági Szakszolgálat, and at the bottom were three letters: NSZ.

The woman gasped upon seeing it, recognizing it.

That can’t be good.

He stared up at her.

“He’s with the Hungarian national security service,” she said.

Tucker took a deep breath and stood. He had just cold-cocked a member of the Hungarian FBI. What had he gotten himself into? Right now, the only answers lay with this woman.

He knew he didn’t want to be found crouched over this unconscious form, especially by the guy’s teammates. People still had a tendency to disappear in this former Soviet Bloc country, where corruption continued to run rampant.

And, at the moment, was he on the right side of the law or the wrong?

As he stood, he studied the scared eyes of the woman. Her fear seemed genuine, based on confusion and panic. He remembered how she had crossed the plaza, offering so open a target. Whoever she was, she wasn’t some criminal mastermind.

He had to trust his instincts. One of the reasons he had been paired with Kane was his high empathy scores. Military war dog handlers had a saying—It runs down the lead—describing how emotions of the pair became shared over time, binding them together as firmly as any leash. The same skill allowed him to read people, to pick up nuances of body language and expression that others might miss.

He stared at the woman and recognized she was in real trouble.

Whatever was happening was not her fault.

Committed now, he took her hand and headed quickly for a back alley. His hotel was not far off — the Hilton Budapest, right around the corner. Once he got her stashed somewhere safe, he could figure out what was really going on and do something to end it.

But first, he needed more information. He needed ears and eyes in the field — and in this case, a nose, too.

He recovered his cell phone, tapped a button, and radioed a command.

Kane hears the word in his ear, spoken with authority.

“TRACK.”

He stands and tugs free of the leash, ignoring the clatter of the clasp on the pavement behind him. He slinks behind the bench to where the shadows will hide him. He lifts his nose to the night, senses swelling outward, filling in the world around him with information beyond mere sight, which is keen enough in the dark.

The ripeness of garbage rises from a pail…

The tang of old urine wafts from the stone wall…

The smoky exhaust of cars tries to wash through it all…

But he stays focused, picking out the one scent he was told to follow. It is a blazing trail through all else: the smell of leather and sweat, the salt of skin, the musky dampness held trapped beneath the long coat as the man walked in front of him.

He follows that trail now through the air as it hangs like a lighted beacon through the miasma of other scents. He hunts along it from the bench to the stone corner, staying to shadows. He watches the prey come running, circling back into view.

He slinks low.

The prey and another man rush past him, blind to him.

He waits, waits, waits — only then does he follow.

Belly near the ground, he moves from shadow to shadow until he spots the prey bent over another man. They pick him up, search around, then head away.

He flows after them, a ghost upon their trail.

Tucker hurried the woman through the main entrance to the Hilton Budapest. The historic structure was just steps away from the Matthias Church. They had no trouble reaching it unseen.

He rushed her into the lobby, struck again by the mix of modern and ancient that typified this city. The hotel incorporated sections of a thirteenth-century Dominican monastery, integrating a pointed church tower, a restored abbey, and gothic cellars. The entire place was half modern hotel and half museum. Even the entrance they passed through was once the original façade of a Jesuit college, dating back to 1688.

He was allowed a room here with Kane because of a special international military passport that declared the dog to be a working animal. Kane even had his own rank — major, one station higher than Tucker. All military war dogs were ranked higher than their handlers. It allowed any abuse of the dogs to be a court martial offense: for striking a superior officer.

And Kane deserved every bit of his rank and special treatment. He had saved hundreds of lives over the course of his tours of duty. They both had.

But now they had another duty: to protect this woman and discover what they had stumbled into.

Tucker led her across the lobby and up to his guest room: a single with a queen-sized bed. The room was small, but the view looked off to the Danube River that split the city into its two halves: Buda here and Pest across the river.

He pulled out the chair by the desk and offered her a seat, while he perched on the edge of the bed. He glanced to the video feed and saw that Kane continued to track the two men, now carrying their third teammate, groggy and slung between them. The group threaded through a series of narrow winding streets.

He kept the phone on his knee as he faced her. “So maybe now you can tell me how much trouble I’m in, Miss—?”

She tried to smile but failed. “Barta. Aliza Barta.” Tears suddenly welled, as the breadth of events finally struck her. She looked away. “I don’t know what’s going on. I came from London to meet my father — or rather look for him. He is a professor at the Budapest University of Jewish Studies.”

Aliza glanced back at him to see if he knew the university.

When he could only give her a blank expression, she continued, some family pride breaking through her tears. “It’s one of the most distinguished universities of rabbinical studies, going back to the mid-1800s. It’s the oldest institution in the world for training and graduating rabbis.”

“Is your father a rabbi?”

“No. He is a historian, specifically researching Nazi atrocities, with a special emphasis on the looting of Jewish treasures and wealth.”

“I’ve heard about attempts to find and return what was stolen.”

She nodded. “A task that will take decades. To give you some scale, the British Ministry that I work for in London estimates that the Nazis looted $27 trillion from the nations they conquered. And Hungary was no exception.”

“And your father was investigating these crimes on Hungarian soil?” Tucker began to get an inkling of the problem here: missing historian, lost Nazi treasures, and now the Hungarian national security service involved.

Someone had found something.

“For the past decade he had been researching one specific theft. The looting of the Hungarian National Bank near the end of the war. A Nazi SS officer—Oberführer Erhard Bock — and his team absconded with thirty-six cases of gold bullion and gems valued today at $92 million. According to reports at the time, it was all loaded onto a freighter steaming up the Danube, headed to Vienna, but the party was bombed by fighter planes, and the treasure was jettisoned overboard, near where the Morava River joins the Danube.”

“And this treasure was never found.”

“Which struck my father as odd, since this theft was so well known, as was its fate. And the mouth of the Morava River is quite shallow that time of year, made even shallower by a two-year-old drought at the time. To my father, it seemed like someone would have found those heavy crates before the river mud claimed them.”

“But your father had another theory, didn’t he?”

Her bright eyes found his. “He thinks the treasure was never removed but hidden somewhere here in Budapest, stashed away until Erhard Bock considered it safe to return. Of course, that never happened, and on his deathbed, Bock hinted that the treasure was still here, claiming it was buried below where even the claws of the Jewish dead could reach it.”

Tucker sighed. “Like they say, once a Nazi, always a Nazi.”

“Then, two days ago, my father left me a cryptic message on my answering machine. Claimed he had made a breakthrough, from a clue he had discovered in some newly restored archive of the university’s library, something from the Prague cave.”

“The Prague cave?”

A nod, then Aliza explained, “The university library here contains the largest collection of Jewish theological and historical literature outside of Israel. But when German troops marched into the city, they immediately closed the rabbinical university and turned it into a prison. However, just before that happened, the most valuable manuscripts were hidden in an underground safe. But a significant number of important documents — three thousand books — were sent to Prague, where Adolf Eichmann planned the construction of a Museum of an Extinct Race in the old Jewish Quarter.”

“What a nice guy.”

“It took until the eighties for that cache of books to be found in a cave beneath Prague. They were restored to the library here after the fall of Communism in 1989.”

“And your father discovered something in one of those recovered books.”

She faced him, scrunching up her face. “In a geology text, of all places. On the message, he asked for my help with the British Ministry to obtain satellite data. Something my father in Hungary couldn’t easily access.”

“What sort of data?”

“Ground-penetrating radar information from a U.S. geophysical satellite. He needed a deep-earth scan of the district of Pest on the far side of the Danube.”

She glanced out the window toward the river as the spread of the city glowed against the coming night. “After I got that message, I tried calling him for more details, but I never heard back. After twenty-four hours, I got concerned and asked a friend to check his apartment. She reported that his flat had been ransacked, torn apart, and my father was missing. So I caught the first flight down here. I spent the day with the Hungarian police, but they had barely made any headway and promised to keep me informed. When I got back to my hotel room, I found the door broken open, and all my luggage searched, the room turned over.”

She glanced at him. “I didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know who to trust, so I fled and ended up at the square. I was sure someone was watching me, following me, but I thought maybe I was being paranoid. What could anyone want with me? What were they looking for?”

“Did you ever get that satellite information your father asked about?”

Her eyes widened, and her fingers went to the pocket of her coat. She removed a tiny USB flash drive. “Is this what they were looking for?”

“That, and possibly you. To use you as leverage against your father.”

“But why? Where could my father be?”

Tucker stared down at the cell phone on his knee. The party that Kane tracked had reached a parked sedan beyond the historical district. He saw Kane slow to a stop and slink back into the shadows nearby. The leader was easy to spot, leaning against the hood, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

“Maybe these guys can tell us,” he said. “Do you speak Hungarian?”

“I do. My family is from here. We lost most everyone following the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. But a few survived.”

He patted the bed next to him. “Then listen to this.”

She joined him and stared at the live feed on the screen. “Who is filming this?” She leaned closer. “Aren’t those the men who were following me?”

“Yes.”

She squinted up at him. “How—?”

“I had my dog track them. He’s outfitted with a full surveillance package.”

His explanation only deepened that pinched look. Rather than elaborating in more detail, he simply turned up the speakerphone so the audio from the video feed could be heard. Traffic noises and a whisper of wind ate most of the big man’s words, but a few coarse phrases came through clearly.

Aliza cocked her head to the side, listening.

Tucker appreciated the long curve of her neck, the way her lips pursed ever so slightly as she concentrated.

“What are they saying?” he asked.

She spoke haltingly, listening and speaking at the same time. “Something about a cemetery. A lost Jewish cemetery.” She shook her head as the man ended his call and vanished into the sedan. “He mentioned something at the end. A street. Salgótarjáni.”

As the car pulled away, Tucker lifted the phone and pressed the button, radioing to Kane. “Return home. Good boy, Kane.”

Lowering the phone, he watched Kane swing around and begin backtracking his way to the hotel. Satisfied, he turned to Aliza.

“I’m guessing that trio went rogue. Some faction heard about your father’s inquiry, about his possible breakthrough in discovering that lost treasure trove. And they’re trying to loot what was already looted.”

“So what do we do? Go to the police?”

“I’m not sure that’s the wisest plan, especially if you want your father back alive.”

She paled at his words, but he didn’t regret saying them. She had to know the stakes.

“Now that they’ve lost your trail, they’ll run scared.” He saw it even on that grainy footage. “The police are already investigating the disappearance of your father. Since they came after you, to use as leverage, that suggests he’s still alive at the moment. But now with the police closing in and you nowhere to be found, they’ll act rashly. I fear that if they can’t get what they want by tonight, they’ll kill your father to cover their tracks. Likewise, if he gives them what they want, the end result may be the same.”

“So there’s no hope.”

“There’s always hope. They’re scared and will be more apt to make a mistake.”

And be more dangerous, he added silently.

“Then what do we do?”

“We find out where they took your father. That street you mentioned. Do you know where that’s located?”

“No. I don’t know the city that well.”

“I’ve got a map.”

He retrieved it and spread it on the bed.

She leaned next to him, shoulder to shoulder, her jasmine perfume distracting. “Here it is,” she said. “Salgótarjáni Street.”

He ran a finger along the dead-end street. “It lies near the center of Pest, and it looks like it runs adjacent to…” He read the name and looked at her. “Kerepesi Cemetery. Could that be the lost Jewish burial site you heard them talking about?”

“No. I don’t see how. Kerepesi is the oldest cemetery in all of Hungary.” She shifted her finger closer to the Danube. “This is the Jewish Quarter, where you’ll find most of our burial plots. It’s a good three miles away from Kerepesi Cemetery.”

“Then I’ll have to take Kane and check out that street myself.”

“It’s too dangerous.” She touched his arm. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to ask. If I don’t end this, they’ll come after me, too. That guy I knocked down in the alley will know you weren’t alone. I’d rather not spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for a rogue agent from the Hungarian NSZ.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“Sorry. Kane and I work alone. You’ll be safer here.”

She blocked him when he made a move toward the door. “You don’t speak the language. You don’t know what my father looks like. And you don’t know anything about the city. It’s my father’s life that’s in danger. I’m not going to sit idly by, hoping for the best. That didn’t work so well for my people in the past.”

She was ready to argue, but he shrugged. “You had me at You don’t speak the language. Let’s go.”

Tucker shared the backseat with Aliza as the taxi swept along the arched magnificence of the Chain Bridge as it spanned the Danube. She sat in the middle, between him and Kane. The shepherd spent most of the ride with his nose pushed out the crack in the window, his tail thumping happily.

Beside him, Aliza stroked Kane’s shoulder, which probably contributed to much of the tail-thumping. At least the presence of the dog had helped calm her. The tension in her body, while still there, had softened a bit. Still, she clutched an old sweater of her father’s in her lap, her knuckles pale.

Upon exiting the hotel, they had stopped long enough to collect Kane, who had been dutifully waiting for them outside the entrance to the Hilton. They had also stopped along the way out of Buda to meet with a friend of Aliza’s father, one who was willing to sneak into the taped-off apartment and steal an article of clothing from the hamper in the closet. They needed her father’s scent. It was a risky move, but apparently no one was watching the place.

Still, Tucker kept an eye out for any tail as they left the bridge and headed into Pest, leaving Buda behind.

In another fifteen minutes, they reached the heart of this half of Budapest and skirted past the rolling park-like setting of Kerepesi Cemetery, with its massive mausoleums, acres of statuary, and hillsides of gravestones.

The taxi rolled to a stop at Salgótarjáni Street, on the border of the cemetery. Aliza spoke a few words of Hungarian with the driver, who’d spent most of the cab ride eyeing Kane with suspicion. Aliza paid him, handing over a couple extra bills for his trouble.

They all piled out and waited for the taxi to leave.

As it pulled away, Aliza turned to him. “What do we do now?”

“We will let Kane take point from here, but first I need to prep him.”

He pointed to a dark park bench, well hidden and shadowed by an ancient oak. The entire street ahead looked overgrown and forgotten, densely forested with beech and birch, thick with broad-leaf bushes and tangles of wild roses. A few homes dotted the way, evident from a scatter of lights glowing through the trees. The road itself was crumbled and pitted, long forgotten.

He led her to the bench, and they sat down.

Kane came trotting up to them after lifting his leg on an old stump, claiming this street for himself. Tucker scuffled his scruff and shook the hidden tactical vest, making sure nothing rattled to give the dog away. From here, they needed as much stealth as possible. He thumbed on the camera, raised the lens, and checked the dog’s earpiece.

“All suited up, buddy,” Tucker said, nuzzling close. “Ready to hunt?”

A savage swipe of his tail answered that. His dark eyes shone in the shadows.

Aliza passed Tucker the wool sweater. Kane had already taken a good whiff of her father’s scent, but it never hurt to reinforce it.

“Target,” Tucker said as Kane snuffled deep into the woolen garment. As the dog lifted his nose free again, Tucker pointed down the tree-shrouded street. “Track and find.”

The dog twisted and took off. In seconds, he vanished into the shadows as if he were never there.

Tucker stood, freeing his cell phone. He had donned his own earpiece and taped on a throat mike to communicate hands-free with the shepherd. In his ear, he heard the dog sniffing and softly panting, the sounds amplified by the sensitive microphones of the surveillance gear.

Trying one last time, Tucker turned to Aliza. “You could wait here. If we find anything—”

She looked temped but stood up. “I’m right behind you.”

He nodded and checked on the stolen FÉG PA-63 pistol tucked into the back of his belt. “Let’s see what Kane can find.”

They set off down the road. He kept them to the deeper shadows of the overgrown lane, avoiding the pools of light cast by the occasional brick houses. Not that such caution was overly necessary. He heard Kane, and with the aid of the camera, saw through the shepherd’s eyes. The dog was as much an extension of his senses as he was a partner.

As they continued, other dogs barked in the distance, perhaps scenting the arrival of Kane. While humans had on average six million olfactory receptors in their noses, hunting dogs like Kane had three hundred million, which heightened their sense of smell a thousandfold, allowing them to scent a target from two football fields away.

Tucker kept one eye on the road ahead and an ear out for any noise behind him. All the while, he monitored Kane’s progress as he crisscrossed and pursued any evidence of a scent trail through here. Tucker felt his perception widening, stretching to match that of his dog, blurring the line between them.

He became more keenly aware of Aliza: the smell of her skin, the tread of her heels, the whisper of her breath as it wheezed. He even felt the heat of her body on his back when she hovered close.

On the screen, Kane ran low across the street one more time, circling toward what appeared to be a dead end. There were no homes back here, and the forest seemed to grow thicker and taller, the trees even older. A brick archway appeared, half-buried in the woods, its façade cracked and gap-toothed. A rusted black iron gate blocked the way through that archway.

What lay beyond it?

As Kane approached, he swept the edge of the turnaround, staying hidden. A small caretaker’s house abutted the archway, evident from the dark windows to one side. When Kane reached the gate, he sniffed along the lower edge — then his body stiffened, nose out, tail back.

The pointed posture silently heralded his partner’s success.

Tucker turned and touched Aliza’s arm. “Kane found your father’s scent up ahead.”

Her eyes widened with hope. She stepped forward, ready to move faster, but he held her in check, his fingers tightening on her arm.

“Just stay behind me.” He touched his throat mike and subvocalized to Kane. “Good boy. Stand down. Hide.”

On the screen, he watched Kane break from his position, wheel away, and slip into the shadows to the right of the archway.

Tucker led Aliza forward. As they reached the end of the road, all seemed quiet. He maneuvered her under a beech tree.

“I’m going to check on the gate,” he said. “See if it’s locked. You stay hidden until I give you the all-clear.”

She nodded, one hand rising nervously to her throat.

He then took Kane’s example and edged along the periphery of the turnaround versus going straight across, sticking to the deepest shadows. The moon was bright overhead, casting too much light.

He dropped low and kept out of direct sight of the windows of the cottage that merged with the bricked archway. Without raising any alarm, he reached the gate. He saw no chain and risked reaching out to push one side of the gate, but before he could do so, a twin set of lights — headlamps — blazed from beyond the gate, spotlighting and blinding him.

A familiar gruff voice called out of the darkness; unfortunately, it was in Hungarian. So Tucker decided to ignore it. He whipped to the side, yanking out the FÉG PA-63 pistol, and fired at the headlamps.

Return fire pinged off the gate and chewed into the bricks.

One headlamp blacked out in a shattering pop of glass.

Then the car came jamming forward.

Crap.

Tucker danced back out of the archway, diving to the side as the sedan came charging toward him. He shoulder-rolled clear, the gates banging open behind him as the huge black beast came blasting into the turnaround. Gunfire chased him into the forest’s edge. He ducked behind the bole of an old oak and caught his breath.

He subvocalized a command to Kane. “Stay hidden.”

He planned on doing the same.

Then that Hungarian voice yelled to him, heard above the growl of the idling engine. He risked a glance to the street. The back passenger door was ajar. He saw Aliza being dragged into the glow of the headlamp. The burst of the sedan must have caught her by surprise, the light reaching her hiding spot, exposing her.

The gruff Hungarian with the pocked face held her by the throat, a pistol at her temple. The man tried English this time. “You come now or woman dead!”

With no choice, Tucker stepped into the open, his hands high, the pistol hanging loosely from one finger.

“Toss gun!” he was ordered.

Tucker underhanded it toward the sedan. It skidded under the car.

“Come now!”

Now this should get interesting… which was never a good thing.

He joined Aliza, who cast him an apologetic look.

He shook his head. Not your fault.

After his body was given a cursory search, he and Aliza were forced at gunpoint toward the archway and the gate, now broken and hanging askew. The sedan backed up behind them, pushing them all forward.

Beyond the brick span, the forest grew even denser, overgrown with ivy and thick ferns. Graves and mausoleums looked tossed about like children’s blocks. Many looked broken into, leaving gaping holes in the ground. Other markers had been toppled or leaned drunkenly against one another. Moss and lichen etched the white marble and stone. Mounds of leaf matter and broken deadfall obscured many of the rest.

Tucker glanced to Aliza.

He saw the recognition in her eyes.

The closest gravestone bore a deeply inscribed Star of David.

Here was the lost Jewish cemetery.

They were forced to the side, toward the caretaker’s cottage. A small room in back glowed feebly with light seeping past heavy drapes.

As they neared it, a door opened and allowed that blaze to sweep over them.

A stranger stood there, a tall man with a skeletal frame and thick black-rimmed glasses. His eyes swept past Tucker and focused on Aliza.

She stumbled forward, then restrained herself. “Professor Csorba…”

So she knew this man.

“Jó estét, Miss Barta,” he greeted her. “I’m sorry this reunion is under such poor circumstances.”

He stepped clear of the doorway.

“Domonkos, bring our two guests inside.” The professor’s eyes finally found Tucker’s face. “I did not imagine the independent Miss Barta would hire a bodyguard. An oversight of mine, but no harm done in the end.”

The pock-faced hulk named Domonkos shoved Tucker toward the steps and through the door.

Inside, the cottage room was quaint, with a raw-hewn plank floor covered in thick but worn rugs, heavy wood beams strapped to a low ceiling, and a small hearth glowing with embers.

Tucker was forced against one wall, guarded over by Domonkos. One of the other two thugs took a post by a nearby window. The last vanished down a hall, likely to watch the street outside, ready to respond if the brief firefight drew any unwanted attention.

As he settled against the wall, Tucker smelled a familiar sourness to the air, coming from those shadowy spaces beyond this room. Somewhere back there, a body or two moldered and had begun to stink. Likely the original caretakers.

But not all of the bloodshed here was old.

Tied to a chair was an elderly man with a full head of gray hair. His face was bruised, one eye swollen, dried blood running in trails from both nostrils. When Tucker first stepped inside, that remaining eye had blazed with defiance — but no longer, not after the slim figure followed Tucker inside.

“Aliza!” he croaked out.

“Papa!” She rushed forward, collapsing on her knees at his side. Tears were already running down her face. She turned to the man who had greeted her. “How could you?”

“I’m afraid I have ninety-two million reasons why, my dear.”

“But you worked with my father for thirty years.”

“Yes, ten of those years under Communist rule, while your father spent that time in London, raising a family, enjoying the freedom of such a life.” The man’s voice rang with jealousy and pent-up fury. “You have no understanding of what life was like here, if you could call it that. I lost my Marja because they didn’t have enough antibiotics. Then my brave little Lujza, living up to her name as warrior, was shot during a protest. I will not see this treasure handed back to the Hungarian government, one little better than before, with many of the same players in power. Never!”

“So you will take it for yourself?” Aliza asked, not backing down from his vehemence.

“And I will use it for good, to help the oppressed, to heal the sick.”

“And what of my father?” she sobbed. “Will you heal him?”

“I will let him live. If he cooperates, if you do the same.”

Fat chance, Tucker thought.

The same doubt shone from her face.

Csorba held out his palm. “I have contacts enough to know, Aliza, that you have obtained what your father asked. The satellite feed from the Americans.”

“Don’t do it…” her father forced out, though each syllable pained him.

She glanced over to her father, then looked at Tucker.

He recognized she had no choice. They’d search her, punish her, and in the end, they’d get what they wanted.

He lowered his chin, passing on his opinion — but also hiding his throat mike. They had taken his phone, his knife, but hadn’t noticed the earpiece shoved deep in his left ear or the thin sensors of the radio microphone taped over his larynx. It was sensitive enough to pick up the slightest subvocalized whisper.

As Aliza handed over the USB flash drive, stirring up excitement in the room, Tucker covered his mouth and whispered quiet commands.

Kane hides in shadow, his heart thunders, his breathing pants quietly.

He remembers the aching blasts, the screech of tires, the spew of oily exhaust. He wanted to run to his partner, to bark and howl and bite.

But he stays in shadow because that was what he was told.

Now new purpose fills his ear.

“RETRIEVE MY GUN. HIDE UNDER CAR.”

He stares out of the darkness to the moonlit pavement, to the gun out there. He knows guns. He watched it slide under the car when his partner threw it. Then the car left. The gun stayed.

Kane shoots out of the darkness, gliding low. He scoops up the gun, smelling smoke and fire and the whisper of his partner’s sweat. He rushes back into darkness, into hiding, but he does not stop. He swerves on silent paws, diving back around. He races through the archway, drawn to the soft putter of a cooling engine, to the reek of burned oil — ready to slide beneath and wait.

But a growl comes from the left.

Shadows break out of the forest, the largest before him.

He has smelled the other dogs, along the road, upon the bushes, in the air. They marked this place as their own. He lowers the gun to the dirt. He recognizes the leader by his stiff-legged movements as he stalks forward in the slink of the shadows that share this space. This was their wild land, and they claimed it for themselves.

To help his partner, Kane must make it his own — if only for the night.

With a low growl, he leaps for the largest shadow.

The howl and wails of a savage dogfight echoed eerily through to the cottage. It sounded like something from a prehistoric epoch, full of blood, anger, and survival.

Tucker heard it through his earpiece, too.

Kane.

His heart clutched in fear.

Domonkos smiled, drawn by that chorus. He said something in Hungarian that made the one at the window laugh.

Csorba did not lift his face from a laptop he had pulled out of a briefcase. “Wild dogs,” he explained as he worked. “They make their home in this forgotten cemetery.”

No wonder no one had reacted to Kane’s earlier canvass of the place. To those here, he was just another shadowy cur skulking about.

“Dogs!” Csorba continued. “That is who you want to hand that great treasure over to, Jakob.”

Aliza’s father lifted his head enough to glare at the man. Father and daughter clutched hands together. Neither was deceived that they would survive.

“But men in power are more savage than dogs,” Csorba continued. “Give them that much gold, and it will fuel a firestorm of corruption and abuse. Many will die. It is better this way.”

Tucker had a hard time concentrating through the ongoing chorus of growls and snarling barks — then suddenly the dogfight ended, as swiftly as it started. Holding his breath, he strained to listen for the outcome of that fight, but he heard nothing.

No panted breath, no snuffle, no soft pad of paw.

The continuous and reassuring presence of his dog had gone silent. Had the camera’s audio gotten damaged or accidentally switched off during the fight?

Or was it something worse?

His heart pounded in his throat.

Kane…

Csorba rubbed his hands. “At last.”

The screen of his laptop filled with an old map of this cemetery, one drawn by hand, even showing the brick archway.

The professor pointed to the screen. “Jakob discovered this map amid old papers that described an interment back in 1888. How gravediggers broke into a cave beneath this cemetery. The Hungarian landscape is full of such natural cavern systems. Even here under Budapest, over two hundred caves — big and small — are found right under our capital, most formed by the natural geothermic activity of this region.”

Aliza stirred, her eyes widening. “The dying words of Oberführer Erhard Bock. That the stolen gold was buried below where even the claws of the Jewish dead could reach it. He was being literal, referring to a Jewish cemetery. Below a Jewish cemetery.”

“How like a Nazi to bury his looted treasure in a Jewish cemetery,” Csorba said. “Erhard Bock must have heard the stories about this small cemetery, one well away from the Jewish Quarter, and learned about the cave beneath it. After burying his treasure, he likely slew anyone who knew about it, removed all references to it, ensuring the secret would die with him if he wasn’t able to retrieve it later.”

Jakob lifted his head, speaking to his daughter. “But he never thought one of those old books would survive and make its way back to Budapest. Evil never thinks of everything.”

Those last words were directed at Csorba, but they fell on deaf ears.

“Here we go,” the professor said.

On the screen, modern satellite data began overlaying the old hand-drawn map. The ground-penetrating radar was capable of discerning pockets deep beneath the earth: hidden cellars, bunkers, caves, even entire cavern systems. Upon the screen, topographic lines revealed the contour of the cemetery’s surface, while darker splotches revealed hidden pockets below. In the upper left quadrant, an oily blotch grew distinct, underlying one of the graves marked on the map.

Csorba turned, his face glowing with excitement. “That’s it!”

His eyes turned to Domonkos. “Gather your two men, along with hammers, crowbars, and flashlights. If the treasure is here, we’ll have one night to empty it all into a truck and get it out of Budapest before anyone grows suspicious.”

The big man pointed to Tucker, speaking in Hungarian.

Csorba nodded and answered.

Tucker turned to Aliza.

She explained, looking scared. “He says you look strong. That they might need extra muscle to break open the grave.”

And likely it would become his own grave.

Csorba pointed to Aliza. “Tie her down. We will deal with them once we confirm that the treasure is here.”

Aliza’s wrists and ankles were quickly bound with plastic ties.

Once she was secure, Csorba lifted a small case, placed it on the desk, and opened it, revealing blocks of yellow-gray C-4 wired with blasting caps. He flicked a switch, and green lights lit up in a row.

Csorba turned, speaking in English, plainly for his prisoners’ benefit. “This comes courtesy of colleagues of Domonkos at the Hungarian national security service.” He lifted a wireless transmitter. “A small gift to help erase our handiwork here, while creating enough chaos to aid our escape out of Hungary.”

His gaze fixed to Tucker as he pocketed the transmitter. “And for now, I believe, it shall serve as extra insurance in case you decide to try something foolish. With the press of a button, Aliza and Jakob will make this cemetery their final resting place.”

Tucker was shoved toward the door and out into the night. After the brightness inside, the shrouded cemetery seemed infinitely darker. He searched around for Kane.

Had he made it under the sedan with the gun?

There was no way of knowing without looking. He tripped himself and went sprawling flat on his belly, raising a guffaw from Domonkos. On the ground, Tucker searched beneath the sedan’s undercarriage. It was dark, but he saw nothing there.

No sign of Kane.

A meaty hand grabbed him and hauled him up.

“There are hidden grave markers and stones littered across these fifteen acres,” Csorba warned. “It would be easy to crack your head open. So you should best watch your step.”

Tucker heard the veiled threat.

Csorba headed out, taking the lead, holding a flashlight in one hand and a handheld GPS in the other.

Tucker followed, trailed by the other men, across the overgrown cemetery. Ivy scrabbled over every surface. Corkscrewed tendrils snagged at his jacket. Broken branches snapped like brittle bones underfoot.

All around, the flashlights danced over shadows and revealed greater threats than old markers on the ground. Yawning black pits began to open around them, half hidden by foliage or stripped over by vines, revealing collapsed or ransacked old tombs.

Threat or not, Tucker decided to take Csorba’s words to heart and watched where he placed each foot.

The men chattered excitedly behind him in their native tongue, likely planning how to spend their share of $92 million. The professor moved silently, contemplatively.

Tucker used the distraction to touch his throat mike and try radioing Kane.

Can you hear me, buddy?

Kane crouches amid the shadowy pack.

He bleeds, pants, and stares the others down.

None come forward to challenge. The one who first did slinks forward on his belly with a low whine of submission. His throat still bears the mark of Kane’s fangs, but he lives, having known to submit to an opponent who outmatched him. He still reeks of urine and defeat.

Kane allows him to come forward now. They lick muzzles, and Kane permits him to stand, to take his place in the pack.

Afterward, Kane turns. The battle has carried him far from the car, from the gun. As he stares, pondering what to do, a new command fills his ear.

“TRACK ME. BRING GUN. STAY HIDDEN.”

With this wild land now his, Kane heads back to where the fight began. He rushes silently through the woods, whispering through bushes, leaping darkness, dodging stone.

But it is not only the land that is his now.

Shadows ghost behind him.

He is not alone.

Csorba called out in Hungarian, holding out his GPS.

He had stopped near a flat-topped crypt raised a foot above the ground. Its surface was mostly obscured under a thick mat of leaf detritus and mulch, as if the earth were trying to swallow the tomb up.

Tucker was handed a hammer and a crowbar. He considered how best to use them to his advantage, but now the professor had a pistol in hand, pointed his way, plainly not planning on getting his own hands dirty. Plus the man still had the wireless transmitter in his pocket. Tucker remembered the frightened look on Aliza’s face, the grief shining from her father’s.

He could not fail them.

With no choice but to cooperate, Tucker worked with the others. Using hammers, they managed to loosen the lid. Once done, they all jammed crowbars into one side and cranked together on the slab of thick marble, as if trying to pry open a stubborn manhole cover. It seemed an impossible task — then, with a grating pop of stone, the lid suddenly lifted. An exhalation of sulfurous air escaped, like the brimstone breath of the devil.

One of the trio made a sign of the cross on his forehead, in some superstitious warding against evil.

The others made fun of this action, but only half-heartedly.

Afterward, with some effort, they pushed and shoved and worked the lid off the base of the crypt.

Csorba came forward with his flashlight and pointed the beam down. He swore happily in Hungarian. Cheers rose from the others.

Stone stairs led from the lip of the tomb and vanished into darkness below.

They’d found the right tomb.

Orders were quickly made.

Tucker was forced to sit on the edge of another crypt, guarded at gunpoint by two of the men. Domonkos and Csorba, both with flashlights in hand, climbed down together to see what lay below, vanishing away, leaving only the glow of their lights shining eerily out of the open tomb.

With nothing to lose, Tucker sat with his arms behind his back, feigning full cooperation. As if mumbling to himself or praying, he subvocalized into the throat mike. “Kane. Keep hidden. Bring gun.”

He held his palms open behind him and waited.

He breathed deeply to keep himself calm. He let his eyes drift closed.

C’mon, Kane…

One of the men yelped. He saw the man twirl pointing his pistol toward the woods. A low growl flowed from the forest, a shadow shifted to the left, twigs cracked. Other throats rumbled in the darkness, noise rising from all sides. More shadows shifted.

The two men spoke rapidly in Hungarian, their eyes huge.

It was the cemetery’s pack of wild dogs.

Then Tucker felt something cold and wet touch the fingers behind his back. He jumped, startled. He hadn’t heard a thing. He reached back there and found fur. Then something heavy was dropped into his palms.

The pistol.

“Good boy,” he whispered under his breath. “Stay.”

It seemed Kane had won over some friends.

Tucker gently placed the pistol on the tomb behind him. Using the ongoing distraction, he reached blindly back to Kane to investigate the audio glitch. He didn’t want to be cut off from his partner any longer.

Especially not now.

He needed this link more than ever.

He toggled the camera off, then on again, rebooting it, praying that was enough.

A moment later, a satisfying squelch of static in his left ear meant all was right with the world.

“All done, Kane. Go back and hide with your friends.”

All he heard as Kane retreated was the softest scrape of nail on marble. Within another minute, the forest went quiet again, the pack vanishing into the night.

The two guards shook off their fear, laughing brusquely now that the threat seemed to have backed off, sure they had intimidated the pack away.

As Tucker listened to the soft pant of Kane in his ear, he slipped the pistol into his belt and hid it under the fall of his jacket.

And not a moment too soon.

A shout rose from the open crypt. The light grew brighter. Then Domonkos’s pocked face appeared and barked new orders, smiling broadly. Tucker could almost see the sheen of gold in his eyes.

Had they actually found the stolen treasure?

Tucker was forced to his feet and made to follow Domonkos down into the crypt. He guessed they needed as many able-bodied men as possible to haul up the treasure from below. Tucker mounted the steps, trailed by the other two men.

The narrow stairs descended from walls made of brick to a tunnel chiseled out of natural stone. He lost count at a hundred steps. Conversation had died down as they descended, stifled by the weight of stone above and the dreams of riches below. Soon all Tucker heard was the men breathing around him, their echoing footfalls, and somewhere far below the drip of water.

Good.

At last, the end of the staircase appeared, lit by the glow from Csorba’s flashlight.

Reaching the cavern, Domonkos entered ahead of them, sweeping his arm to encompass the space as if welcoming them to his home. He found his voice again and chattered happily to his comrades.

Tucker took a few steps into the space, awed by the natural vault, dripping with water, feathered with thick capes of flowstone and spiked above by stalactites. Tucker wondered how many Jewish slaves Oberführer Erhard Bock had worked to death to tunnel into this secret cavern, how many others had died to keep its secret — and as he stared over at Csorba, he wondered how this Jewish scholar could so blithely discount his own heritage and prepare to steal gold soaked in his ancestors’ own blood.

Csorba stood next to a stack of crates, each a cubic foot in size and emblazoned with a swastika burned into the wood. He had broken one open, pulled down from the top of the pile. Hundreds of gold ingots, each the size of a stick of butter, spilled across the floor.

Csorba turned, wide-eyed.

He spoke to the others, who all cheered.

He even shared the news with Tucker.

“Erhard Bock lied,” he said, awe filling his voice. “There are not thirty-six crates here. There are over eighty!”

Tucker calculated in his head. That equaled over $200 million.

Not a bad haul if you don’t mind murdering some innocent cemetery caretakers, a kindly university professor, his daughter — not to mention yours truly. And who knows how many more?

He’d heard and seen enough.

He slipped out his pistol, raised it, and shot three times.

Three head shots.

Three bodies fell. The last was Domonkos, who sank with the most bewildered expression on his face.

He couldn’t bring all four back to the surface by himself.

Too risky.

But he could bring one, the man behind all of this.

Csorba stumbled into the crate and yanked his wireless detonator out of his pocket. “Another step and I’ll press it.”

To see if he’d actually do it, Tucker took that step and another. He saw the man’s thumb tremble on the button.

Then, with a wince, Csorba finally pressed it. “I… I warned you.”

“I didn’t hear any explosion,” Tucker said. “Did you?”

Csorba pressed it several more times.

Tucker closed the distance, plucked the useless detonator out of his grip, turned it off, and pocketed it. He waved his pistol toward the steps.

“I don’t understand…” the professor mumbled as he obeyed.

Tucker didn’t bother to explain. Once he got hold of the pistol from Kane, he could have shot Domonkos and his two cronies up top, but he feared that if Csorba heard gunfire he might panic and do what he just did — press the transmitter.

So Tucker had to come down here to be certain.

A quarter of the way along the steps, he had lost his wireless connection to Kane. That panting in his ear had died away again. So he was confident Csorba’s transmitter, buried four times deeper, would be equally useless — only after knowing that for sure by coming down here did he feel it safe enough to act.

They finally reached the top of the crypt.

Csorba tried to bolt for the forest.

“Kane, stop him.”

Folding out of the woods, a shadow blocked the professor’s path, growling, eyes shining in the dark. Others materialized, closing in from all sides, filling the night with a low rumble, like thunder beyond the horizon.

Csorba backpedaled in fright, tripped over a stone, and fell headlong into one of the open graves. A loud thud followed, accompanied by a worrisome snap.

Tucker hurried forward and stared into the hole. The professor lay six feet down, his neck twisted askew, unmoving. Tucker shook his head. It seemed the ghosts of this place weren’t going to let this man escape so easily.

Around him, the dark shadows faded back into the forest, vanishing upon some unspoken signal, until only the whisper of leaves in the wind remained.

Kane came slinking up, fearful he had done wrong.

Tucker knelt and brought his friend’s face close to his. “Who’s a good boy?”

Kane reached and touched a cold nose against his.

“That’s right. You are.”

Half an hour later, Tucker sat in the sedan with the broken headlamp, the engine idling. He had freed Aliza and her father and told them all that had happened. He was going to leave it to them to explain as best they could to the authorities, leaving his name out.

Aliza leaned her face through the open window.

“Thank you.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay? If only for another night.”

He heard the offer behind her words, but he knew how complicated things would become if he did stay. He had two hundred million reasons why it was time for him to go.

“What about a reward?” she asked.

He pictured Csorba falling into his own grave, snapping his neck.

“There’s too much blood on that gold,” he said. “But if there’s any spare change, I know of some hungry dogs that share this forest. They could use food, a warm place to lay their head at night, a family to love them.”

“I’ll make it happen,” she promised. “But aren’t those things what we all want?”

Tucker looked at the stretch of open road beyond the brick archway.

Maybe some day, but not today.

“Good-bye, Aliza.”

He revved the engine.

Kane’s tail thumped heavily on the seat next to him, his head stuck full out the window. As Tucker gunned the engine, a howl burst from his partner, an earsplitting call, singing to his own blood.

The sedan shot forward and barreled out the archway.

Behind them, the forest erupted with a chorus of yowls and wails, echoing up into the night and chasing them out into the world.

As they raced away, the wind blew brochures around the car’s interior. It seemed the prior owner had been dreaming of faraway trips, too, ways to spend that gold.

One landed against the windshield and became plastered there crookedly.

The photo depicted palm trees and sandy white beaches.

Its exotic name conjured up another time, a land of mystery and mythology.

Zanzibar.

Tucker grinned, and Kane wagged his tail.

Yeah, that’ll do.

So ends this adventure with Tucker and Kane — but a larger one looms ahead for the pair as they reach Zanzibar in a novel titled Bloodline. A fateful crossing with Commander Pierce of Sigma Force will cast them into an adventure spanning the globe, one that will reveal a frightening scientific truth about the nature of mankind: That immortals are walking among us today.