The Tombs

“But he’s seen the inscription, so he could easily call in his security people to start digging,” said Remi.

“Try to reach Tibor and ask him to watch for any unusual activity among Bako’s men.

“And ask him to find us a helicopter.”

“He’s going to love this,” she said as she autodialed the phone. “Hello, Tibor?”

“Hello, Remi. Am I going to be sorry I answered this call?”

“Probably, but for a short time only. All we need for the moment is for you to have Bako’s men watched—all of them, not just the worst five. And we need a helicopter.”

“A helicopter?”

“Yes. Please tell me you have a cousin.”

“I have a friend. Where do you want him to pick you up?”

“Can he fly in Romania?”

“Yes.”

“Then he can pick us up at Airport. It’s the closest airport. And ask him to bring a pair of binoculars.”

“I’ll call him now.”

“Thanks, Tibor.” She ended the call, then saw something on her phone. “Selma sent us an e-mail.”

“Read it to me so I can keep driving.”

“Okay. Here it is. ‘The next treasure was buried in 441 on the north shore of the Danube River. That was the border between the land controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire and the land of the Huns. The Huns had been gone from the region for a couple of years, 438 through 440. The Romans—or the optimistic Romans, anyway—figured they were gone for good.’”

“That has to be one of the worst assumptions ever.”

“About as bad as they could make.” Remi continued: “‘The Huns had gone east to join the Armenians in their war against the Sassanid Persians. When they came back to their strongholds north of the Danube in 440, they found that while they were gone the Bishop of Marga had crossed the Danube to loot some of the royal graves of the Huns.’”

“A Bishop did that?”

“The church must have had perso

“I can’t blame them for being angry, but what about the Bishop?”

“I have no idea. Maybe they agreed to keep him alive or killed him, or both,” she said. “‘They reburied the remains of their people. The conjecture is that for funeral goods they used the artifacts stolen by the Bishop, as well as some of the wealth they picked up in sacking all of the other cities.’

“It doesn’t say who was in the royal graves,” said Remi. “But in the tomb message, Attila called them ancestors.”

“So what happened after the reburial?”

“The Huns don’t seem to have been in a better mood. In 443, they looted Plovdiv and Sofia again and then kept going. They made it all the way to Constantinople, where the Emperor Theodosius had to pay them nineteen hundred sixty-three kilograms of gold to leave and had to raise the a

“I hope Bako is waiting to get out of jail and can’t do anything.”

Sam and Remi reached and found it beautiful. The Habsburg-era architecture reminded them of Vie

The helicopter was already on the pad, and a middle-aged man with a sand-colored mustache and sand-colored hair and wearing a sand-colored leather jacket met them at the gate. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo?”

“Yes,” said Sam. In spite of the man’s smile, Sam was not ignoring the possibility that he had been sent by Arpad Bako. Bako was probably sending men out in every direction looking for them by now. But he couldn’t have known they wanted to rent a helicopter. He waited for the man to say something convincing.

“Tibor said you were in a hurry, so I came right away. I’m Emil.”

“You speak such perfect English,” said Remi.

“English is the universal language of fliers,” said Emil. “If a pilot is Swedish and the air controller in Bhutan is from the same Swedish village, they speak English on the radio. Tibor and I both studied English to qualify for pilot training.”

“Tibor is a pilot?” Remi said.

“Much better than I am. He was an airline pilot. He retired only a couple of years ago and started his taxi business.”

“I wonder why he never told us.”

Emil chuckled. “Tibor is one of those people who wants to know about you but thinks it’s a waste of time to tell you all about himself.” He opened the door on the side of his helicopter. “You sit in those two seats,” he said, pointing out two sets of earphones. “You can listen but don’t talk until I tell you. All right?”

“Right,” said Sam. He and Remi climbed into their seats, belted themselves in, and put on their earphones.

Emil radioed the control tower, told them his course, and immediately started the rotors moving. As the engine whipped the rotors around faster, the noise grew, and then they rose into the air, tipped and leaned forward slightly, and headed up, out, and away from the airport and its pattern of runways. Emil headed southwest, climbing gradually as he went. After a while, he reached a ceiling, flew low and steady, but when he was a couple miles from the airport he climbed again. “Now we’re away from the flight paths. You can talk now.”

“Can you head for the north side of the river, along the bank?” asked Remi.

“We’re looking for a place where somebody is digging.”

“Digging?”

“Yes,” Sam said. “It’ll probably be a group of five or six men digging holes with shovels. If we get there early enough, we may find them still searching the ground with electronic equipment. We’d like to get a good look at them but not give them the impression we’re interested in them.”

“Ah, that reminds me,” said Emil. “Tibor said you wanted binoculars.” He opened a compartment and lifted the straps of two pair and handed them back to the Fargos.

“Thank you, Emil,” said Remi. “We’re very glad you were available.”

“So am I,” he said. “I don’t usually get to do anything this interesting. Most of the time, I take tourists up to look at the same sights they saw from the ground the day before. Now and then there will be a businessman who needs a quick ride to Budapest or somewhere.”

“Let’s hope this doesn’t get too interesting.”

After a short time, Emil said, “We’re just about at the Hungarian border,” pointing to the river. “Now we’ll swing down along the Danube.”

The Danube was wide and curved, regularly moving around high points in the land. There was plenty of boat traffic, and the river ran through heavily populated areas, with tall buildings almost up to the water’s edge. “The river is an international border, but we’ll be over Hungary on the north side.”

“Stay over land if you can,” said Sam. “We’re looking for ancient graves. We think they’ll be on higher ground and back a bit from the river so they wouldn’t get washed out by floods.”

“I understand,” Emil said. They flew along the Danube from east to west. Where there was an area that looked as though it had been disturbed by digging or had an assortment of trucks and equipment, Sam and Remi would ask Emil to hover so they could take a better look.

They passed near an area that looked peculiar and hovered. About a hundred yards north of the river was an old-fashioned building, painted a buttery yellow, with high roofs and an extensive network of paths leading through formal gardens. There were at least a dozen men with shovels digging holes in the grass, in the middle of flower beds, in the paths. There were another dozen men walking the site with metal detectors and a couple of men pushing magnetometers mounted on wheels along like lawn mowers.