Clive Cussler - The Tombs

Remi shook her head. “Too easy to find. It’s precious.”

Sam picked up the engraved shield again, opened the window, and climbed out of the gable onto the steep roof. He walked to the nearest chimney and stuck the shield between it and the slate shingles at the peak. Climbing back inside, he locked the window.

Sam said, “We’ll have to go out and look around. I think we should find the men who are trying to kill us.”

Remi said, “I’d like you to repeat that to yourself and see if it sounds like a good idea.”

“Not the men, exactly,” he said. “What I’d like to find is where they’re hiding the treasure.”

“And how do you want to do that?” she said.

“Well, let’s think about who they must be. They appear to be a group that isn’t usually involved in stealing ancient artifacts. They didn’t notice the shield with the inscription and they left extremely valuable Roman artifacts in the chamber just because they weren’t made of gold.”

“You’re right,” said Remi. “So who are they?”

“Friends and allies of Arpad Bako—almost certainly business connections. So what business is Bako in?”

“According to Tibor, the main one seems to be diverting prescription drugs he manufactures to illegal channels.”

“I’m guessing these men are local drug dealers.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“So let’s call Tibor.” He took out his cell phone and hit Tibor’s preprogrammed number.

“Yes?” a groggy voice answered.

“Tibor, it’s Sam.”

“I was asleep. What time is it? Where are you?”

“We’re still in France. Bako seems to have called in some French crooks to do the searching, just as we feared, and they’ve beaten us to the treasure, but we found the inscription still in the chamber.”

“Some bad, some good. Is there any way to get the treasure before they move it?”

“We managed to lose the French shooters who came after us. We think they’re related somehow to Bako’s illegal activities, so they’re probably in the drug trade. I’m wondering if we can find the addresses in France where Bako ships his legal pharmaceuticals.”

“I’ve been working on this since we suspected someone else was in France. I called a cousin who works for the shipping company Bako uses. I haven’t found a place in France where he ships medicine. We think any legitimate sales are shipped into France by a Belgian company. But he has a supplier for chemicals called Compagnie Le Clerc. They send him chemical compounds in special containers and when he’s unloaded them he ships them back. There are people who believe that when he ships the containers to France, they’re not empty.”

“Do you have the address of Compagnie Le Clerc?”

“Yes.”

Sam took out a pen and a five-euro bill and wrote down the address. “6107 Voie de la liberté, Troyes.”

They returned to the rental agency, parked the car, and took their truck again. “I was hoping I’d seen the last of this thing,” Remi said. “How much do we owe them for the bullet holes?”

“They’re still adding it up.”

“And don’t forget the broken window.”

“I’ll drive,” Sam said. They drove out of town, and Remi used the map on her cell phone to find the route and distance. The two cities were just about seventy-nine miles apart, so the drive took them a bit over an hour and a half on the E17.

When they found the address in Troyes, their mood began to brighten. There was a small blacktop parking lot, a truck garage, and a medium-sized warehouse. As they approached, Remi said, “Slow down so I can look in the parking lot.”

In the lot, close to the warehouse, were the Range Rover with its broken windshield and, beside it, the truck that had run into it. The truck was missing its front bumper, and the left front wheel of the SUV was out of alignment. Sam pulled over on the highway so they could study the complex carefully. There were no windows in either the warehouse or the garage, but each had skylights on its roof. There were no lights turned on and no men walking around on the grounds.

Sam drove onto the blacktop. They sat there for a few minutes with the motor running, but nobody opened a door or came out to see who they were. “Can they have all gone home?” asked Remi. Sam looked at the side of the warehouse, studied the slope of the roof, then backed in the truck so the cargo box fit neatly under the eaves.

He and Remi got out and exchanged a look. It took no words for them to execute the plan. Remi reached into the truck behind the seat, opened the toolbox, and found a tire iron and a rope. They stepped onto the front bumper, onto the hood, up to the cab’s roof, then to the top of the cargo box, and finally onto the roof of the warehouse. They knelt by the closest skylight and stared down into the building.

There were white plastic containers the size of ten-gallon paint cans stacked nearly up to the skylight. On either side were open aisles on a concrete floor. There were two forklifts, and there was an office.

Sam said, “Look away,” swung the tire iron to break the skylight, then reached in and cleared away all the broken glass stuck to the frame. Then he tied the rope securely around the steel strut in the middle.

“Here goes,” Remi whispered and lowered herself on the rope to the top of a row of plastic containers. She tested them. “They’re full of something,” she said. “Pretty stable.”

Sam followed her down. They made their way to lower and lower stacks of containers until they reached the last stack, which was only three high, and they got to the floor. They split up and began to search the warehouse. They kept at it until they’d checked every bit of open space and the office that occupied the end of the building.

Sam stepped close to Remi. “It was a promising idea, but promising ideas don’t always pan out. I thought they’d hide the treasure where they store their drugs.”

Remi shrugged. “We haven’t found those yet either. These all seem to be chemicals.” She was staring at a stack of plastic containers. She stepped to the nearest container and read the label, then tipped the container an inch, moved to another row and lifted another container, then another row and container.

Sam did the same. They all seemed identical, around forty pounds each. Sam and Remi moved from row to row, sampling the containers randomly within each row. Finally, just as Remi set one back down, she saw Sam using his pocketknife to unscrew the band around the top of another. Remi came close as he lifted the lid and they saw the familiar gleam of gold.

The two went to work, quickly lifting each container and setting aside the ones that weren’t filled with an identical quantity of chemical. Some were heavier, some lighter, and many made noises if they were shaken. Sam pushed a wooden pallet close to the row and started putting the containers of artifacts on it. After about twenty minutes, the pallet was loaded, and he brought another. They were expert at spotting the off-weight containers now, and the pallets were loaded more quickly. When they had found every one they could, and all they checked were full of chemicals, Sam said, “Find the switch that opens the doors.”

While Sam brought a forklift to lift a pallet loaded with containers of antiquities, Remi found the right button. As he approached the door, it rose and he drove out, and Remi ran to bring the truck to the front. Using the pallets and forklift, he and she loaded the rental truck within a few minutes. The load consisted of three pallets, each one four containers high and four wide. When they were done, Sam drove the forklift back inside and then returned. They closed the warehouse door, buttoned up their truck, and drove off.