“I don’t want to sound like an ingrate and a shallow woman, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been alone with my husband when I didn’t have a shovel in my hand and nobody was shooting at us.”
Sam put his arm around her as they walked to the elevator. “Now, that’s true. The first thing it does is make me glad that I married a beautiful woman who likes my company. The other thing is, it makes me glad that most criminals are such terrible marksmen.”
She stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I can’t wait to get home.”
“You’ll get no backtalk out of me.” He unlocked the suite door and they stepped inside.
The next morning, at nine, they met the others in the lobby, then got into their rented limousines for the fifteen-kilometer drive to Ciampino Airport. The jet Selma had ordered was waiting on the tarmac outside the small private terminal. The group waited until their luggage was loaded and then climbed the steps to board.
It was just five hundred ninety-six miles from Rome to Frankfurt, where Albrecht left them. “Well, you’ve given me something to think about,” he said. “If I lived two lifetimes, I still wouldn’t be able to complete my study of what we’ve found. I thank you one and all.”
It was another six hundred ninety miles to Szeged. When they landed at the airport, Tibor and János Lazar stood up and Tibor said to Sam, “Are you coming?”
Sam took Remi by the hand and said, “Everybody, we’ll be back in just a few minutes.”
Remi looked at Sam with curiosity, then watched her step as they climbed down from the plane and caught up with the Lazar brothers.
Remi said, “Tibor, János, I hope we see you again soon. You’re welcome to visit us in La Jolla, you have our phone numbers and e-mail addresses.”
Tibor said, “We may, but not yet. We’ve decided to stay home for a while and rest. Now and then we’ll get up to laugh at Arpad Bako. But only for that.”
“I don’t know how much your share of the treasures will be,” said Sam. “A lot of it will never leave a museum. But you’ll get millions of dollars from what’s sold.”
“See?” Tibor said. “I told you that it was a good idea to be your friend.”
The four walked into the terminal and there, on the other side of the waiting area, was a man sitting beside a very large plastic carrier on a wheeled cart. Remi said, “Sam—?”
The man seemed to hear her voice and turned around in his seat to look at the newcomers from the plane. Remi’s eyes widened and she ran toward him. She came around the large container, looked inside, and sank to her knees. She began to cry. “Jo fiu,” she said quietly. She popped up to her feet and threw her arms around Sam. “Oh, Sam. I don’t believe this.”
“I thought you deserved a present,” he said. “But Zoltán deserved a present too and what he seemed to want was you.”
Tibor, János, and Tibor’s wife’s cousin the dog trainer helped Sam push the cart to the plane. At the foot of the steps, Remi said, “We can’t carry him up those steps in a box.”
She knelt, opened the cagelike door, and out came Zoltán, first the big black snout and then the broad head and long-furred neck and then the muscular shoulders and body. She put her arms around the dog’s neck and held him for a moment. “Jo fiu,” she whispered. “Good boy.” She stood. “Fel,” she said. “Up.” She began to climb the steps and Zoltán followed her up into the plane.
Tibor helped Sam carry the big travel carrier and set it down, then used its straps to secure it to an empty row of seats. Then he said to Sam and Remi, “We’ll see each other before long,” and went quickly down the steps and into the terminal.
As Remi and Zoltán walked back into the passenger area, Selma eyed the big dog. “Oh, good. He’s finally bought you a pony.”
Remi said, “Selma, this is Zoltán. Come here and let him sniff your hand. He won’t hurt you.”
Selma put out her hand for Zoltán and then patted his thick neck.
“—unless I tell him to.”
Pete and Wendy laughed as Selma retreated. “He’s just right,” Pete said. “If you go to Alaska, he can pull the sled by himself.”
“Okay,” said Remi. “Now you two.” Pete and Wendy approached Zoltán and patted him. He stood still and tolerated the attention.
Remi went to her seat beside Sam. To Zoltán she said, “Ül.” The dog sat at her feet. She tickled him behind the ears.
The refueling and the preflight inspection were completed and the steward closed the cabin door. Sam got up, went to the carrier, and came back with a bag of dog treats.
“Good idea,” Pete said. “Those will buy us time if he decides to eat us.”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Sam. “He’s better educated than we are. He’s trained to recognize which people need eating and to protect the rest of us.” Remi leaned down and hugged Zoltán again, then gave him a treat.
The pilot started the engines and the passengers fastened their seat belts. As the plane moved ahead, taxiing over the pavement, Zoltán looked watchful and ate his treat. The plane reached the end of the runway and turned into the wind. While the plane accelerated along the runway and then rose into the air, Remi kept her hand on Zoltán’s shoulder to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Zoltán. I’m here with you.” Her safe, calm, musical voice seemed to relax him. As the rattles and vibrations ended and the plane lifted off the ground, Zoltán let his big head rest on the carpet and settled in for a long flight.
Remi leaned close to Sam and whispered, “I love him. And I love you. But this is so extravagant. A dog like him, with his training, costs as much as a Rolls-Royce.”
“A Rolls-Royce is a great machine. But it won’t trade its life for yours.”
Sam tilted back his seat and so did Remi. She rested her head on his chest. Zoltán looked up at them once, then surveyed the cabin and laid his head down again and closed his eyes.
GOLDFISH POINT, LA JOLLA
THE FIRST FLOOR
IT WAS SUNSET WHEN REMI AND ZOLTÁN WENT OUT FOR their evening run along the beach. In the weeks since the Fargos had returned from Europe, Remi had devoted a great deal of time to working with Zoltán. She had wanted him to get used to the part of the world that would be his home.
So far, Zoltán seemed to like La Jolla. He was utterly calm and peaceful. When she walked, he walked. When she ran, he ran. Today she had run to the little protected beach at the south end of La Jolla that was called the Children’s Pool. Lying on every inch of the beach and the concrete breakwater were about a hundred seals and sea lions. She knew there was no way Zoltán could have seen seals or sea lions in Hungary, but he seemed no more inclined to bother the resting sea mammals than he had been to bother a tree or a park bench.
They turned back and ran along the concrete path toward Goldfish Point, then up onto the green lawn and past the palm trees of the park to the Valencia Hotel. As she looked out beyond the park’s vast lawn to the ocean, she thought about what an incredible place this was. La Jolla meant “the Jewel,” and it was the right name. She and Sam had chosen to build their house up above Goldfish Point, at the north end of the little district. The point was the entrance to the surf-splashed caves along the rocky part of the coast and was named for the bright orange Garibaldi that swam in La Jolla Cove.
When Remi and Sam had designed their house, they had just spent six years devoting all their time to building and running their company, which produced and sold the argon laser scanner that he had invented. They had been offered an astonishing sum for the company and its patents and had made the sale. For the first time not only could they afford to build a large and expensive house, they had the time and energy to devote to it.
When it was finished, the house was twelve thousand square feet on four floors planted above Goldfish Point. The top floor held Sam and Remi’s master suite, two bat
hrooms, two walk-in closets, a small kitchen, and a sitting room with a wall of windows that looked out on the ocean. The third floor held four guest suites, the main living room, the main kitchen, and the dining room. They had decided to use the second floor for a gym, an endless lap pool, a climbing wall, and a thousand-square-foot strip for Remi’s fencing and Sam’s judo.
The only place for an office was the ground floor. It had open work spaces for Sam, Remi, Selma, and up to four researchers. There were more guest bedrooms, a lab, and a fourteen-foot-long saltwater aquarium with plants and animals from the California coast.
As Remi and Zoltán took their evening jog home, she looked out beyond the cove and saw two yachts she had not noticed there earlier. They sat offshore about a half mile and, from her perspective on the path above the beach, they looked as though they were almost touching. They were both big, fast cruisers in the 130-foot class, a kind of yacht that she had seen European celebrities charter in the western Mediterranean. They were commonly capable of about sixty knots, and a few were faster. She’d seen a few like them in the San Diego Harbor in the past couple years, but they were extremely expensive and better suited for speeding people between the Greek islands or along the French Riviera than plying the Pacific.
She and Zoltán were past the hotel now and beginning to make their way up to the street that led to the higher wooded plateau where their house stood. She could see it from where they were, perched up on the hillside, its walls of windows facing the ocean on three sides. The lights in the house were warm and welcoming to her. Sam had designed and installed a system of individual sensors that automatically turned on a few lights on each floor at dusk. Because there were few interior walls, that gave most of the house a golden glow.
Remi kept trotting up the hill, which was the hardest part of her daily run, when she noticed that, all at once, Zoltán became oddly agitated. He leapt forward and then stopped abruptly at her feet and stared ahead with his amber-and-black German shepherd eyes. Remi stopped and stood beside him, trying to determine what he was staring at. Something ahead on the winding street was worrying him.
Remi was concerned and now even more impatient to get home. She knew enough about Zoltán’s sense of smell, his training, and his predator’s ability to detect the presence of living things hidden from human view to know he was evaluating something he considered unusual and important. She considered putting his leash on. Maybe she had discovered a situation where he was unreliable. She’d heard stories of shepherds going after postal workers because of the smell of dry-cleaning fluid on their uniforms. It could be something like that. Actually, no, it couldn’t. He was exquisitely trained, and using the leash would have seemed to her to show a lack of faith in him.
While she was waiting for him, Zoltán began to move forward again. He didn’t trot, as he had before. His head was low, his nose sniffing the air and his eyes fixed on something Remi couldn’t see. His shoulders flexed as he began to stalk. His whole body went lower now, compact like a compressed spring.
Remi didn’t talk to calm Zoltán or rein him in. He wasn’t investigating now. He was sure there was a threat. She walked along behind him, marveling at his single-minded concentration. He stopped again, and then she heard the sound. She felt it in her body, the nerves in her hands, because she had heard the same sound so many times when she pushed a loaded magazine up between the grips and into the receiver and it clicks into place. She heard the slide being pulled back to allow a round to pop up into the chamber.
Zoltán took four steps at a dead run and leapt into the foliage ahead. He came down halfway into a privet hedge, gripping a man’s arm in his teeth. He shook it until the man lost his grip and the gun clattered on the pavement. Zoltán charged forward, pushing the man backward so he couldn’t retrieve his weapon.
Remi ran forward, kicked the gun off the road into the darkness, and kept going. Now Zoltán was ahead of her again, running toward the house. He didn’t wait for the driveway but instead took the shortcut through the pine woods, and she followed him. He tore ahead of her in the darkness, running silently on the thick layer of needles. Twice as she ran, she saw him veer off, heard him tear into something with a growl, and then heard the scream of a human voice join his snarl. She sprinted to catch up and then she saw a silhouette. It was the shape of a man making a quick dash across the path. Zoltán collided with him, not changing his pace and throwing his big body against the man, shunting him aside onto the ground.
Then Remi and Zoltán were through the woods and running across the lawn, then up the concrete walkway, then up the steps. She heard the men running after her, and they were fast, only a couple of steps behind her now. Zoltán turned, growling, and charged. She heard the sounds of the fighting as she flung the door open and Zoltán ran inside with her. She slammed the door and as she slipped the bolt she let out a scream: “Sam!” There was a thud against the door as someone tried to shoulder it open.
Zoltán barked, and Remi screamed again as she ran deeper into the house. “Sam!”
On the ocean end of the first floor, where the open office space was, Selma called out, “Remi! What’s wrong?”
“Men are here! They chased me and tried to ambush me on the path in the woods.”
Selma ran to Remi, then stopped and stared at Zoltán in horror. Remi looked too and saw that his muzzle was dripping blood. He turned to stare at the door and crouched, his teeth bared.
As they looked, the whole house went black. There was the sound of men running up the steps and then a loud boom as they swung something that sounded like a battering ram against the steel door. The impact set off the battery-operated alarm system, so there was a loud, pulsing tone that kept on as the ram hit again with another boom.
The house’s emergency generator was running now, and a few low-watt lights came on, so they could see. Boom! There was a whining sound as the vibration from the battering ram turned on the motor that lowered the steel shutters on the first floor. Now the whole floor was lit only by those few bulbs, deprived of the moonlight and the glow from the rest of La Jolla’s electric lights.
Then Sam was in the room with them. He went to the metal control box built into the wall, opened it, turned on the monitor for the cameras over the door, and looked for just a second. “Selma, call the police.”
He used the intercom to speak to the men outside. “You, on the porch. Get the battering ram out of here or you’ll regret it.”
Boom! The men seemed to try harder. They stepped back, then forward again and swung the heavy steel cylinder. Boom! Remi could see the door bump inward without giving way.
Sam reached for a covered switch in the control box and flipped it on. In the monitor, Sam and Remi could see the men on the porch react to a hissing sound. When they looked up, they dropped the battering ram, covered their eyes and faces with their hands, and blindly staggered off the porch.
“What’s that?” Remi asked.
“Pepper spray. It’s one of the things I added to the security system.”
“That kind of paid for itself, didn’t it?” she said as she watched men from the woods hurry onto the lawn to pull the injured back to the cover of the pines.
Selma called out, “The phones are dead.”
“Use your cell.”
“They seem to be jamming 850 megahertz.” Selma took another phone out of her desk and they recognized it as one of the ones they’d used in Europe. “Some kind of device. 1900 megahertz too. 2100 and 2500.”
“Then send someone you know an e-mail to call the cops for us.”
“The Wi-Fi is jammed too. I can’t get online. I can’t use the phone line because it’s dead.”
“All right. Of course,” Sam said. He manipulated a toggle on his control board to alter the aim of the surveillance cameras. “Wow. We’re in trouble,” he said. “Look at all the men out there.”
“Are Pete and Wendy home?” asked Remi.
“I’ll go tell them what’s up,” said Selma.
Sam said, “Tell them to open the gun safe and bring us—”
“I’ll do that,” said Remi, already running for the stairs. She took them two and three at a time, but Zoltán seemed to have no trouble staying ahead of her. She reached the second floor and met Pete and Wendy on the way to the third. “Hold it!” she said. “I need you upstairs for a minute.”
Pete and Wendy followed Remi upstairs to the fourth floor. There was the big bedroom suite straight ahead from the staircase and to the left were the two big closets. Between the two was a plain panel on the wall that would have escaped notice unless you knew it was there. Remi pushed a spot on it and it opened like a door. Inside was a narrow corridor that held two gun safes and a third safe that looked as though it had come from a small bank. Remi quickly worked the combinations of the gun safes.
Remi said, “Wendy, get five Glock 19 pistols—one for everybody—and two extra magazines each. Then take as much nine-millimeter ammo as you can carry and go to the first floor. You can leave the two for Pete and me.”
“What’s going on?” asked Wendy.
“Not sure yet. I think it’s the people we thought we left in Europe. Pete, get some long guns and ammo—a couple of short-barreled shotguns and the two semiauto .308s. Lots of ammo.”
Pete and Wendy hurried from the fourth floor to the narrow stairway down to the third floor, their arms piled with weapons and boxes of ammunition. Remi closed the two safes without relocking them and then closed the panel that hid them. She went into the bedroom, not looking at Zoltán but feeling him coming in with her. She said, “Ül, Zoltán.” He sat. She petted his big head. She backed out and closed the door.
She picked up the Glock that Wendy had left her, released the magazine to be sure it was loaded, then put the two spares into the waistband of her shorts and ran down the stairs to the third floor, whirled to go down the next flight to the second floor, and got halfway down when she saw something through a window that made her freeze.