The Tombs

“What?”

  “That’s right. You haven’t read the message. It says, ‘I am Attila, son of Mundzuk. My father is dead and so I am to be sent to the Romans to secure the peace, but one day I will conquer Rome. You find my father here, but I will be buried in Rome, guest of a daughter of the Flavian emperors.’”

  “Does that suggest a location to you?”

  “I know exactly where it is,” said Albrecht. “I’ve been there.”

  Selma cut in. “Sam? I’ve already chartered your plane. It will be waiting for you at Taraz Airport at noon today. It’s shockingly expensive, but it will take you to Rome, where we’ll be waiting for you. We’ll be staying at the Saint Regis Grand Hotel.”

  Remi said, “We’ll try to manage it in our busy social schedule. Good-bye, Selma. See you there.”

  Nurin pulled up in front of the hotel and let them off and then drove on to the car lot behind the building. Sam and Remi went up to their room. They opened it and stood still in the doorway, looking in.

  The room had been thoroughly searched. The mattress and springs were leaning against the wall, all of the drawers from the dressers were stacked in two neat piles, the chairs had been overturned so someone could look beneath them. The cushions were all unzipped. The towels that had been piled neatly in the linen cabinet were draped over the shower curtain. The Bokhara rug had been rolled up.

  Remi said, “The expression having your room tossed doesn’t really apply, does it? This is the neatest break-in we’ve ever had.”

  “They’re pros. They were quiet so the hotel guests and employees wouldn’t hear anything.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  Sam said, “Nurin.” He stepped back toward the door.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Bring the laptop and leave everything else.”

  They closed the door and hurried down to Nurin’s room. They knocked, but there was no response. They ran outside and around to the back of the building. There was Nurin, backed up against his car. Two of the men they had recognized from Poliakoff’s estate were with him. One of them held a gun on him, while the other punched him. Nurin was bent over, unable to do anything but use his arms to try to protect his vital organs.

  Sam and Remi came closer and closer, moving quietly and hoping the sound of Nurin’s groans would cover their footsteps. At home, he and she had trained together for years and practiced for every unpleasant situation they could think of. They both knew that the only one to fear was the man with the gun and that both of them should attack him at once.

  As soon as she was close enough, Remi took two running steps and leapt. She had the laptop computer raised above her head with both hands, tilting it so the thin edge would come down on the back of the gunman’s head.

  In the last half second, the man heard or felt the Fargos’ presence. He half turned in time to have the computer hammered against his head right at the eyebrow. Remi’s trajectory brought the computer downward from there to break his nose while its flat side obscured his vision for an instant.

  As the man rocked backward, Sam’s powerful punch to his midsection broke two ribs and bent him over. Sam grasped the man’s gun hand and wrist, spun him and twisted his arm behind him, and ran him face-first into the car as he wrenched the gun out of his hand.

  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 tha
t 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 disconnect the hoses from the private jet. “It looks as though we’re almost ready to head to our last stop.”

  “I am,” she said. “I want a view of Rome, a nice hotel, a bath, and a dress that shows how little I’ve eaten since Moscow. And I want to sleep in a bed for at least one night instead of being out digging holes.”

  “That all sounds within our reach,” Sam said. “Just one last dig and we’re done.”

  ABOVE ROME

  SAM AND REMI’S PLANE DID NOT COME IN TO LEONARDO da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, the huge international hub with forty million visitors a year. Instead they flew into Ciampino Airport, fifteen kilometers southeast of Rome. They had no luggage except a laptop computer, so they passed through customs quickly.

  It took much longer to get through the Roman traffic to reach the St. Regis Grand Hotel. The hotel was spare and elegant on the outside but luxurious inside, with ornate public spaces adorned with vases of flowers. At the desk was a message from Professor Albrecht Fischer, inviting them to his suite on the tenth floor. Remi said, “I’m going to buy myself some clothes, take a bath, and then I’ll be ready to see people.” She looked at Sam, who said nothing.

  “And I’d better get you some clothes too,” she said. “You look as though you’ve been digging for bones like a dog.”

  “A noble beast engaged in a noble profession, but I’d better go with you,” said Sam.

  They checked in, then asked the concierge to get them a driver to take them to the right stores for buying the best-quality ready-made clothes. They both bought new casual attire, and Sam bought a suit while Remi bought a cocktail dress, shoes, and purse. They took a cab to their hotel and retired to their suite for an hour before they came to Albrecht’s room and knocked.

  The door swung open, and it looked as though a party was in session. There was Albrecht, and Selma Wondrash was across the room carrying around a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Pete Jeffcoat and his girlfriend and coresearcher, Wendy Corden, were acting as bartenders. Tibor Lazar and his brother János sat on a couch. There was a large table set for dinner.

  “Sam! Remi!” Albrecht called out as though announcing them. “Welcome to our humble abode.” People stood up and surrounded them and then put wineglasses in their hands. Remi whispered in Sam’s ear, “This is like a dream.”

  “It is,” he said. They took seats at the big table. “Sorry we’re late,” he said. “We arrived wearing the clothes we wore in a fistfight.”

  “We’ve been eager to talk about the tomb,” said Selma. “Albrecht wanted to wait for you.”

  Albrecht stood. “All right,” said Sam. “Go ahead.”

  Albrecht said, “Well, what I believe we’re going to find is the chamber containing Attila’s remains. His message to us—to the people who found the five treasures, whoever they turned out to be—was very clear. He wanted to be buried as the guest of a daughter of the Flavian emperors.”

  “Which were the Flavian emperors?” asked Sam.

  “Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, a father and two sons, who ruled Rome from 69 to 96 C.E. They built the Colosseum. Vespasian was a general commanding the eastern forces who essentially took the throne by showing up in Rome at the head of his army. That made him a hard man to argue with. Titus and Domitian inherited.”

  “Why would Attila care about them?”

  “I’m not sure. They were strong emperors who ruled near the height of Rome’s power. They were the first emperors who tried to take over Dacia on the Danube as a colony, and that was near the Huns’ territory, but it didn’t happen until some time after the Flavians died.”

  “Then it doesn’t seem like enough,” said Remi.

  “Connections are tricky. As everyone here knows, the Roman who fought Attila at Châlons, France, was named Flavius Aëtius. He was not an aristocrat from Rome but was born in what is now Bulgaria. He was sent as a young man to be a hostage of the Huns at the court of Attila’s uncle Ruga. He and Attila were friends. The name may be part of the attraction. Maybe it symbolized the ruling class of Rome for Attila.”

  “And you said that Attila was a hostage too,” said Remi.

  “Yes. Attila was sent to Rome by his uncle, King Ruga, at the age of twelve in 418. He was there for at least two years, I believe. What he saw was extreme wealth, along with extreme corruption and murderous conspiracies. He saw that Rome was the ultimate prize for a conqueror. He also observed and studied the practices and strategies of the Roman army, the best in the world—its strengths, methods, and its weaknesses. Since he was from a warlike people, this was probably of most interest to him.”

  “And that made him want to be buried like a Roman?”

  “It made him realize that Rome was the greatest empire of his era and that it was vulnerable to him. He wanted to conquer it. The burial would have been secondary, a sign he had won.”

  “And you said y
ou knew exactly where he wanted to be buried in Rome.”

  “A crucial point is that none of the early Roman emperors were buried. The custom was to cremate them. If Attila wanted to be buried, as his father, uncle, brother, and other relatives were, as well as Huns as far back as we know about them, his choices were limited. For nearly all of Roman history, it was illegal to bury a body anywhere within the limits of the city.”

  “So what happened?” asked Tibor.

  “What happened was, the catacombs. The early Christians believed in the resurrection of the body, so they wanted to be buried, just as the Huns did. They began to dig tunnels at the edge of the city and bury people there. The first were the Catacomb of Domitilla. She was a daughter of the Flavians, a niece of Vespasian, and first cousin of both Titus and Domitian. The land originally belonged to her. Like all of the forty other catacombs that came after it, this one was dug along one of the major roads.”

  “How long will it take us to find the Catacomb of Domitilla?” asked Tibor.

  “Not long,” said Albrecht. “The address is 282 Via delle Sette Chiese. It’s just west of the Via Ardeatina and the Appian Way.”

  “You mean it’s that simple? It’s right there in the open?”

  “Not exactly,” said Albrecht. “With Attila, nothing ever seems to be simple. The Catacomb of Domitilla held one hundred fifty thousand burials. It’s fifteen kilometers of underground passages on four levels. Each tunnel is about two meters wide and over two meters high, with shelves, or platform-shaped depressions, that hold the bodies of the dead. There are offshoots and rooms, each of which has more shelves dug into the rock. This kind of rock is called tufa, which is a soft volcanic stone that hardens after it’s exposed to air. It’s what is under all of Rome. If you wished to bury someone, you would find an unused spot or extend a tunnel to make one, then hollow out a shelf in the wall and put the deceased in it. Next, you would seal the space with a slab. Carved into the slab was the name of the deceased, his age, and the date of his death.”