“Thanks,” said Remi. “Now I’m free, and we’re both fine, so we can get back to what we were doing.”
“Terrific,” said Selma. “Let me give Albrecht and the others the good news, and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.”
Sam returned the phone to C.C. Soon, Sam and Remi sat still, watching the steppes outside the window, the land near the train sliding past but the view in the distance unchanging. The plain was always in motion, the winds blowing across the acres of grass and rippling it like the waves of an ocean. The distances were enormous. Sam and Remi would fall asleep, and when they awoke there would be the same sights—the grassy flatlands, the sky, and what seemed to be an endless supply of rails and railroad ties making the wheels clatter beneath their car.
After a few hours, with no warning they could detect, the train would slow down and come to a small station. There would be local people on the platform, all of them gathered to sell local delicacies and staple food—fresh fruit, bread, hot tea, and various kinds of pastries.
The first time this happened, their new friends the Cs came to their sitting room. The woman said, “Let us pick some things for you. I promise you’ll like all of them.” The man whispered to Sam, “Stay here. Station yourself by a window and see if you recognize anybody you’ve seen before.”
Through the curtained windows, Remi and Sam watched the transactions on the platform at the first stop. There were peasant families with their fresh-baked goods and fruit, and plenty of other dishes to choose from. The Fargos’ new friends returned with a picnic for them. They did the same a few hours later at the second stop. Sam and Remi scrutinized the faces but spotted nobody who was familiar, and nobody who was making it his business to study the passengers.
After dinner, when they had spent nineteen hours on the train, C.C. came to their sitting room and held out his phone. “It’s a woman named Selma.” Remi took the call. “Hi, Selma,” said Remi.
“Hi, Remi. Gather whatever belongings you have because you’ll need to get off at Ekaterinburg.”
“Any trouble?”
“No. A chance to leap ahead. Sam didn’t say anything about your passport. Do you still have it?”
“Yes. He had my carry-on bag when I was grabbed. All I lost was my phone. Sam lost his too.”
“They’re easy to replace. I’ll send each of you a new one at your next hotel. At Ekaterinburg, we have you on a plane to Astana. We want to get you there as quickly as possible.”
“What’s in Astana?”
“Your papers have been waiting for you there. We also want to get you out of Russia. It will be harder for Poliakoff to operate there, harder to find you, and harder for him to do anything to you if he does. He’s as much an alien there as you are. Call when you’re at Ekaterinburg Airport.”
Sam and Remi had little to pack and they did as Selma asked. They went to the berth of their friends and told them they would be leaving at Ekaterinburg and thanked them for their help. Just before they pulled into the station, Sam said to the tall man with the white beard, “C.C., I think I should tell you that I don’t believe that the next time I get in trouble a pair of good-hearted strangers will just happen to be passing by to pick me up in a rare antique car.” The man with the white beard looked at him sagely. “I think that’s probably wise, given the odds.”
“Are you CIA?”
The man shook his head. “I’m a man who was taking a car to Vladivostok when somebody I met at the American Embassy in Moscow called to say that two Americans might be coming along that route who could use some help.”
“Just that?”
“Just that.” He looked out the window. “You’d better get going. People will be flooding the platform in a minute and you might want to slip out with them.”
“We will,” said Sam. “Thanks for the ride, Mr. C.”
Remi popped up on tiptoe and gave the white-bearded man a kiss, and they slipped out onto the platform, moving quickly with the rest of the crowd. They found their way to a stand outside the terminal that had a sign with a picture of an airplane on it and boarded the bus that stopped there. Sam watched how much money the other people were paying the driver and did the same.
In a short time, they were at the airport. Without talking about it or making a plan, they had changed their way of traveling. They were much more watchful than they had ever been before. They went together to the counter, where they saw the names of destinations printed in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, bought their tickets together, and then went toward the departure gates. If one of them went to a restroom, the other would wait just outside the door, noting each person who went in and listening for any sound of a scuffle.
Their plane for Astana, Kazakhstan left after five hours. They were both quietly but deeply relieved to get airborne toward Kazakhstan. It seemed to them to be a step away from the conspiracy of criminals who had been trying to harm them since they’d arrived in Berlin weeks before.
The city of Astana was all new and very busy. The airport had two terminals, international and domestic, so they went through the customs office, picked up their written invitation to enter the country and their visas, then made reservations on Air Astana for Almaty, the old capital in the southeast of the huge country.
When they told the airline’s English-speaking representative what their ultimate destination was, they learned that getting to Almaty was easy but that there was just one flight from there to Taraz a week. The Scat Air flight from Almaty to Zhambyl Airport in Taraz took only a couple of hours, but those hours were always five-fifty to seven-fifty p.m., on Thursday. They boarded their first flight for the six hundred five miles to Almaty and later checked into a hotel there to wait for Thursday to come.
They called Selma from the hotel to let her know where they were: the Worldhotel Saltanat Almaty.
“I’m sorry for the delay,” she said. “But, so far, that’s it. I’m working through a jet charter service to arrange an earlier flight, but I’m worried about attracting too much attention when you get to Taraz. Maybe we can get you in late at night.”
Sam said, “We’ve just about decided to hire a car to drive us there. It’s just another six hundred miles. That’s two days.”
“See who you can find,” she said. “Just don’t hire someone who will drive you into the wilderness and then cut your throats.”
“We try not to,” said Remi. “We check their knives for stains.”
“We’ll see what our hotel’s concierge can do for us,” Sam said. “If that doesn’t work, Thursday always comes.”
“Very stoic,” said Selma. “Good luck. I’ll be working on the plane. And I’ll get new cell phones delivered to you at the hotel right away.”
It took Sam and Remi an hour to work with the concierge at the Worldhotel Saltanat Almaty to find a driver. His name was Nurin Temirzhan, and the concierge said he was twenty-three years old and eager for the job of driving to Taraz. But like most Kazakhs, he spoke no English.
Sam said to the concierge, “Are you sure he understands what we want him to do?”
“Yes, sir. My English may not be perfect, but my Kazakh is impeccable. He will drive you to Taraz and wait for you to come back here for up to one week. If he waits longer, he will prorate your bill by one-seventh per day.”
“And the pay has been agreed to?”
“Yes, sir. Seven hundred, American, for the week.” The concierge looked a little uneasy.
Sam smiled reassuringly and leaned closer to him. “Is there something that is still worrying you?” He paused. “If you will tell me, I won’t blame you for it.”
“Well, yes, sir. There have been several recent incidents in Taraz. Muslim fundamentalists have been shooting people, and one blew himself up. The American Peace Corps has left because of safety concerns.”
“Thank you for y
our honesty and your help.” Sam gave him a two-hundred-dollar tip and left his new cell number and Remi’s in case people couldn’t reach them directly for some reason.
Sam and Remi changed dollars for Kazakh tenge tenge at a bank, then went out in Almaty and shopped. An American dollar was one hundred forty-seven tenge. They found their way to Arbat Street, where the Centralniy Universalniy Magasin sold a wide range of merchandise. They bought clothes that would not strike Kazakhs as foreign or overly expensive. They took special care that Remi’s were not formfitting or short-sleeved and that she had scarves to cover her hair, both to keep from offending Muslims and to disguise her if any of Poliakoff’s people had come here to search for them.
They bought food in a modern supermarket in Almaty, concentrating on foods that their driver, Nurin, probably would eat too—fruits, nuts, bread, hard cheese, bottled water and tea—all things that wouldn’t have to be refrigerated on a two-day trip.
The next morning, Nurin drove up to their hotel with a smile on his face and, with gestures and a constant monologue in Kazakh, got them into his car with their backpacks and their food. His car, a Toyota sedan of an odd gold color, was about ten years old. Sam listened to the engine for about ten seconds, then assured Remi that it had been maintained and would last a couple of days. While Nurin put the bags in the trunk, Sam popped the hood just in case, looked in, and reassured himself that the belts and hoses were all still all right.
Nurin drove out of the crowded city and headed west, and, to Sam and Remi’s relief, he kept the car at a sensible but efficient speed, kept its wheels on the pavement and in its own lane. He paid attention to the traffic coming the other way into Almaty, which was still the largest and busiest city in the country despite the fact that it was no longer the capital.
Nurin stopped every three hours in small towns, bought gas when he could, and walked around the central market for a few minutes. He liked to keep the tank full, give his passengers a chance to use the public restrooms, and buy small dishes of food. He was black-haired and handsome, with the thin, strong body of a man who had done physical work, but his expression and manner were prematurely serious, like a man about twice his age.
When people saw Sam and Remi with Nurin, they would speak to them in Russian, but that was of no use. For the next two days Sam and Remi lived with whatever characterization Nurin might be giving them in the Kazakh language.
At one stop, Sam showed Nurin his international driver’s license and his California license. Nurin was curious to look at them, but, no, he wanted to continue to do all the driving himself.
On the first night away from Almaty, Nurin stopped at a small Western-style inn, but he refused to go inside with Sam and Remi. Instead he slept in his car.
“Why do you suppose he wants to do that?” Remi asked.
“I think he’s afraid somebody will steal his tires or something,” Sam said.
They slept well in their room upstairs, and Nurin appeared rested and ready when they awoke the next morning and came outside. During the second day, Nurin took advantage of the flatness of the country to increase his speed. He drove hard until late afternoon, when the sun was low in the west and driving became difficult. And then they were passing larger rows of houses than they had in the little towns along the way, and soon there were streets with curbs and sidewalks. Finally there was a sign that said “Tapa3” and they knew they were in the city.
Nurin drove them up to the Zhambyl Hotel on Tole Bi Street. It was a four-story building that looked a bit like an American high school, but when they went inside they found it was very pretty and well decorated, with patterned marble floors and blue-and-gold Kazakh rugs. There was a clerk at the desk who spoke French and told them there was a pool, a restaurant, a bar, a beauty salon, and a laundry.
Sam rented a room for Nurin as well as one of their own. He asked the clerk to explain to Nurin, in Kazakh, that he was allowed to sign for his meals and any services he needed while the Fargos finished their business. He also asked if there was a secure parking place for Nurin’s car.
The transaction made Nurin happy. He hugged Sam and bowed deeply to Remi, then went outside to drive his car around to the gated lot in back of the building. The clerk announced that Sam and Remi’s equipment had arrived and was being moved to their room.
It was five, still early enough to be sure of three hours of light, so Sam and Remi asked the clerk if he could direct them to the green market, or kolkhoz. The clerk marked it on a map of the city and the Fargos thanked him and set off on foot so they could get a glimpse of the place before darkness came. Sam wore a hat and sunglasses and Remi wore sunglasses and tied a scarf over her head. When they reached the market, they wandered among tables and bins of vegetables and fruits, baked goods and wine, pretending to evaluate the merchandise while all the time studying the people and the layout of the place.
Remi said, “Sam, do you believe this is the site of the old fort?”
“I doubt it. The ground is too low. If you build a fort, you want to use everything that gives you an advantage—altitude, steep approaches, water. I believe the archaeologists in the thirties found something here, but not a fort.”
“That’s what I think,” Remi said. “We’d better call Albrecht and Selma.”
They kept walking at the same pace, gradually making their way around the market to where they’d started. They kept scanning from behind their sunglasses, and then Remi said, “Bad news at two o’clock.”
Sam looked in that direction and saw four men, wearing khaki pants, work shirts, boots, and baseball caps, sitting at an outdoor table, nursing tall drinks. They looked like oil riggers or heavy-equipment operators. “Who are they?”
“Some of Poliakoff’s security guys. The short one with the blond hair is one of the four people who took me to Nizhny in a barrel. He and another man helped the two women. The really tall one I saw the night we escaped from the place.”
“I suppose it was inevitable that they’d get here first,” said Sam. “Did they see us?”
“I doubt it. They didn’t show any sign, and none of them struck me as the type who would pretend not to see us. They’d be more likely to chase us.”
They took a roundabout route to their hotel, stopping now and then to see if they were followed. When they reached their room, they opened the package with Remi’s new cell phone, plugged it in to charge, waited, then called La Jolla.
A voice they hadn’t been expecting said, “Hello?”
“Hi, Albrecht. It’s us.”
“Are you at your hotel in Taraz?”
“Yes. We hired a driver who got us here, but he speaks no English.”
“What does he speak?”
“Kazakh, and a little Russian.”
“Sounds adequate. Tell me what’s happening.”
“We just came from the green market that historians think is the site of ancient Taraz. We spotted four of Poliakoff’s thugs at a café. We don’t think they saw us. We also don’t think the market looks right. It’s too low to be a fort. It’s also not on the river. Maybe there are springs or wells in town, but we haven’t seen them.”
They heard Albrecht typing on a computer keyboard. “Give me a moment to get a better perspective on this computer map. There. No, I think you’re right. The old Chinese sources say that five hundred men worked two years to build the fort. They were in the middle of the Sino-Xiongnu War. Xiongnu was the Chinese name for the Huns. Zhizhi, leader of the Huns, was expecting a Han army of up to three hundred thousand men to arrive at some point, so the fort would have had to be strong. It would be built in the heights, and it would need a water supply. We know it was high-walled because when the Chinese did come, the only way they could storm it was by piling dirt up beside it until it was even with the wall. The fight was furious, and even Zhizhi’s wives shot arrows from the battlements. The Chi
nese overwhelmed them and won. I don’t think the fort was at the modern marketplace. The ruins under the market are more likely to be either a habitation or a cemetery.”
“What will Mundzuk’s grave consist of?” asked Remi. “What do we look for?”
“I’m sending you pictures of the known burials of the earliest Huns in Mongolia. They were buried under mounds. There’s a burial chamber made of stone, and then over it are layers of stone, soil, and logs of Siberian larch.”
“That’s close to the sort of thing we found in France. It had been made of logs plastered with mortar.”
“Look for any natural feature that could have been a mound. Most likely, it was leveled intentionally or by time, the wind, and the river. But Mundzuk would never have been in the fort, which was destroyed three hundred years earlier with Zhizhi’s defeat. It was a ruin long before Mundzuk’s time. Remember, we’re looking for a king who died just during the migration to Europe. If the market is over a burial complex, Mundzuk’s grave would be one of the last.”
Remi said, “Is there any way to know how his father’s death affected Attila?”
“We know quite a few facts,” said Albrecht. “Mundzuk was buried in 418. Attila was born in 406, so he was twelve when his father died and his uncle Ruga became King. I’ve sometimes thought that even in that generation there might have been dual kings—that Mundzuk and Ruga might have shared the throne the way Bleda and Attila did later. At the time of Mundzuk’s death, the Huns were making a big leap historically. The great migration, their conquest of much of Asia and Europe, was already well under way. We know that they were in contact with the Romans near the Danube around the year 370, so it’s almost certain Mundzuk’s body was brought back to the eastern homeland for burial only. Attila would have stayed for it and then returned west. In those days, young princes from all over the Roman Empire and beyond were kept in Rome for a few years at a time to encourage their families to keep their treaties with Rome, and Romans were sent as hostages to neighboring kingdoms. Once Attila’s father was dead, Attila became a convenient choice as a hostage. He was sent to Rome.”