The Tombs

The man who had been punching Nurin raised his hands and stepped backward, but Nurin used his feet to push off from the car and drive his head into the man’s solar plexus like a linebacker and run him into the side of the building. The man’s injuries could not be determined, but he lay on the blacktop, clutching his thorax and shallowly gasping for air. Nurin’s foot delivered a soccer kick to his face.

Sam quickly dodged in front of Nurin and pushed him away from the man, shaking his head. “No, Nurin. Please. We don’t want to kill anybody.” Sam’s soothing tone restrained Nurin and seemed to bring him back to his usual calm. He nodded and leaned back against his car, touched his mouth, and looked at the blood on his hand.

Sam pointed at the two men, then held up his hands as though the wrists were tied. Nurin opened the trunk of his car and pulled out a length of nylon rope. Sam hog-tied the two men, then used a length of electrical tape from the trunk to secure some rags in their mouths for gags. Then he opened the driver’s door and pushed Nurin toward it. “We’ve got to go now. Please, drive us.” He pretended to be steering a car.

Nurin got in and started the car, then looked at them, half dazed from the beating and not sure he understood what Sam wanted. As he started out of the lot, Remi opened the laptop computer.

“Amazing how tough these things are,” she muttered as she typed the word airport into the Internet browser search engine. There was a large color photograph of a major airport that looked like Heathrow, with a varied group of airplanes shouldered up to the terminal. She tapped Nurin on the shoulder and tilted it toward him.

After that, he drove with speed and confidence, heading toward Taraz Airport, beyond the southwest edge of the city. Nearly all of the traffic was heading in, bringing workers and merchants and country people into the busy city as the day began.

As Nurin drove, Remi typed some more. She brought up a map of southern Kazakhstan, then adjusted the screen so it showed the route from Taraz to Almaty. When Nurin reached the airport, she held it up so he could see it. She pointed at Nurin and then the map and said, “Go home to Almaty, Nurin.” Then she pointed at herself and then Sam and then at the airline terminal, and said, “We’re going away.” She used her hand to imitate an airplane taking off.

Sam took out all of the tenge from his wallet and his pockets, and then almost all of his American cash, handed it to Nurin, and then patted his shoulder. “Thank you, Nurin. You’re a brave man. Now go to Almaty before somebody finds the two Russians.” He held the computer and ran his finger from Taraz to Almaty.

He and Remi got out of the car, waved to Nurin, and stepped into the terminal. Remi stopped when Sam went to the ticket counter and went back to look out the door. Nurin was pulling his car away from the terminal. As he reached the turn onto the highway, she saw him put on his sunglasses and turn to the east toward Almaty.

*  *  *

IN MIDAFTERNOON, Sergei Poliakoff got off his airplane at Taraz Airport. He hated leaving Nizhny Novgorod now that he was middle-aged and financially comfortable. He would not have minded going with Irena to Paris or Barcelona or Milan, but coming to this godforsaken place had taken him a whole day and night and, here he was, on a pile of sand and rock. All he had learned before he had left home was that Sam and Remi Fargo had been spotted in Taraz. He could hardly believe that they were simply continuing their hunt for the spoils of the Huns as though nothing serious had happened to them.

Poliakoff was aware that the Fargos often solicited help, or even backup, from various allies and authorities. But coming here was insane. Fargo had just finished rescuing his wife and forcing Poliakoff to burn his own house down. Had they never heard of revenge?

The police who had been digging around in the smoking ruin of Poliakoff’s house had thought the chemical content of the ash and debris in the basement to be unique in their archive. They had no idea what it contained, and Poliakoff hoped that they had not enough patience to analyze it. He had been born a Russian and so he knew that an “unknown chemical substance” recorded on a police report could always one day be made to look like just about anything—even something worse than the truth. So he had not allowed the substance to remain mysterious. He had said in his deposition that the mess was the residue of various medicinal compounds because he had been working in a chemistry lab in his basement to concoct lifesaving drugs.

The two jumping horses belonging to his daughters had been found safe in a farmer’s field seventeen miles from his house, so that part had worked out without trouble. But he hated that this couple, the cause of all his misery, seemed not to be afraid that they might fall into his hands a second time. They were wrong not to be afraid. He’d had four men here for days, watching for them. He also had a group of oil drillers from Atyrau searching for the tomb of Attila’s father in the hills.

As he came into the baggage area, he saw two of his men waiting for him. One of them—the blond—had helped with the kidnapping of Remi Fargo, the last thing Poliakoff could recall that had been done right. As he approached, he said, “Tell me what’s going on now.”

“They were here,” said the blond man.

“They ‘were’ here? Where are they now?”

“They took off about two hours ago.”

“For where?”

“They filed a flight plan for Odessa.”

“Odessa?” he said. “That’s not their destination. That’s a refueling stop.” He reflexively looked up and away from them toward the terminal building. He would have to dream up some way of finding out the plan they would file in Odessa.

“There!” The blond man pointed. “Danil and Leo. They were at the hotel, searching the room. They must have found something.”

Poliakoff saw the two men get out of a cab and begin to hurry toward him. He could see that one man’s face was bruised and the other man could barely walk. He didn’t need to speak with them and ask what had happened. He knew.

*  *  *

BEING AIRBORNE was a relief. Sam and Remi lay, with their seat backs tilted and their legs up, in big leather seats like overstuffed easy chairs. After the private plane landed in Odessa, Sam sat looking out the window as the ground crew chocked and grounded the plane and then hooked up hoses and began to refuel. He pressed the button for Tibor Lazar’s number in Hungary. It rang once and there was Tibor’s voice. “Sam?”

“Yes.”

“How is the search going so far?”

“It’s done. Let’s leave it at that. Do you remember the morning when we were in your car on the way to Budapest and all agreed to be partners in this project?”

“Of course.”

“Well, now is the moment for all of us to come together one more time. We’ve read the fifth message,” said Sam. “We’re going to find and open the tomb of Attila.”

“Woohoo!” Tibor called out. It was a wordless shout, a celebration.

“Come to Rome,” Sam said. “There will be a room for you in the Saint Regis Grand Hotel. You can bring János and anybody else you want. Just be sure Bako’s men don’t follow you and nobody knows your destination.”

“I will bring János, but we’ll need to leave the others here to warn us if Bako or his men move.”

“All right. Come as soon as you can.”

“We’ll leave tonight. I wouldn’t miss this if I had to walk to Rome.”

Sam hung up. “Well, he seems enthusiastic.”

“Without that enthusiasm, the rest of us would be dead—Albrecht, you, me.”

“True,” said Sam. He watched the two fuel men disco