Clive Cussler - The Tombs

By the time they reached the chamber, the two men had gone. They had hastily covered the entrance with brush. As Sam and Remi approached, they heard the two vehicles start and drive off. Sam took the rope he had brought and quickly lowered Remi into the chamber.

Her feet had barely touched when she said, “I can see what’s wrong. Come down quickly.”

Sam joined her and they explored the space together. The skeleton of Bleda lay on a slightly raised bier, like a low bed. In a corner was the three-foot skeleton of Zerco, the dwarf. They both lay in the postures of the buried and both had broken skulls. They had obviously been hit with a heavy weapon. The only treasures in the tomb were much-decayed clothing, leather horse harnesses, and saddles.

“Albrecht was right,” Remi said. “Bleda tried to get rid of Attila and lost.”

“That’s the way it looks,” Sam said. “There’s no treasure. It’s just Bleda’s own stuff. And his friend Zerco. If Bleda had died in an accident, Attila wouldn’t have executed Zerco.”

“We’d better find the inscription,” said Remi. She looked at each of the walls, and Sam scuffled his feet around to see if he could uncover anything on the floor. He saw nothing.

From time to time, Sam checked to detect whether he could hear noises outside. As he did, he instinctively looked up and there saw the inscription. The words were engraved in the stone ceiling above their heads. He touched Remi’s arm and pointed upward. “It’s as though he wanted Bleda to see it.”

Remi took three photographs with her cell phone, and Sam realized why they had seen the flashes when Bako had taken his photographs. He had been aiming upward.

They climbed back up their rope and quickly made their way back to the rental car. As they drove, they passed the SUV and the truck making their way back toward the still-open chamber. They were going to see if it was safe to finish their work.

As Sam drove, Remi sent her photographs to Albrecht and Selma in La Jolla. They continued toward Bucharest for a half hour before Remi’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Remi, it’s Albrecht.”

“Did you get our pictures?”

“We did.”

“You saw the way Bleda was buried?”

“Yes.”

“I’d say your theory just got a boost. It was no accident. There was no reason to kill Zerco if Bleda died in an accident.”

“True. But it doesn’t prove which brother was the aggressor.”

“Any news of Bako?” asked Sam.

“Some hopeful signs. Tibor just called and said that two of Bako’s lawyers got on a plane for Bucharest. It could mean he was arrested. But they won’t hold him for long on a charge like removing artifacts.”

“And the inscription we sent?”

“That’s why I called, actually. It says, ‘The death of my dear brother was the saddest day of my life. Before this, the worst was when together we gathered our ancestors’ bones.’”

“We’ve got to get back to Hungary fast,” said Remi. “Bako saw the inscription and tried to leave in that direction. I think we should do the same. If we don’t, Bako might beat us to another one.”

TRANSYLVANIA

“IF WE GET THERE IN TIME, MAYBE WE CAN OUTSMART him,” said Sam. “Bako should still be in Romania dealing with the charge for removing artifacts.”

“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 personnel problems. Anyway, ‘The Huns came back and weren’t very happy. Attila and Bleda demanded that the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople hand the Bishop over to them. The Bishop was a pretty slippery character. He immediately realized that the Emperor would order that he be given to the Huns. So he secretly went to the Huns himself and betrayed the city to them. The Huns destroyed the city. Then they went on to take all of the Illyrian cities along the Danube, and Belgrade and Sofia.’”

“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 annual tribute he paid to twenty-one hundred pounds of gold.”

“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 Vienna. Airport signs directed them to Traian Vuia International Airport, where they were able to return their rental car to the Bucharest-based agency. They found their way to the heliport.

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.