The Tombs

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THE BAKO Gyogyszereszeti Tersazag had ended its daylight shift hours before the new security van arrived at the front gate of the complex. It was dark, and the lights above the checkpoint were the brightest in sight. Two armed guards stepped to the van outside the tall fence. The young guard stood beside Janos, the driver, and looked past him into the van, and the other, the senior man, stood on the passenger side where Tibor sat. Sam had decided that Tibor should wear the high rank so he could be the spokesman. Tibor had gold hash marks on his right sleeve and a gold star on his baseball cap while the others had no insignia of rank.

When the guard asked a question, Tibor appeared to say what had been arranged earlier, that they had brought a search dog because one of the labs had reported an intruder. When the man asked him a second question, Tibor seemed to find the high-ranking officer that lived in the back of his brain. He turned a disdainful look on the man and answered wearily. The man began to say something else, but Tibor interrupted him, coldly furious. He gestured at the gate and shouted something in Hungarian that could only be, “Open up! You’re wasting time!”

The other guard on Janos’s side had been looking in the back of the van, smiling at Remi. Tibor’s shout startled him, and then he heard a low growl, and saw the big shepherd start to bare his teeth, leaning toward the open window. The man jerked back, stepped to his post, and activated a circuit to make the gate swing inward.

Janos drove through the gate and kept going up the asphalt road, then made a turn beyond the first row of buildings so the van was out of sight of the two guards. He stopped and everyone got out. Remi and the big dog went first, Janos and Sam came next, while Tibor stood a little apart like a drill sergeant next to his marching platoon. As a group, they looked very formidable and professional. Sam’s care in being sure all wore pressed uniforms, identical sidearms, boots, utility belts, and caps was paying off. Remi also had a matching black shoulder bag. She gave Zoltan a biscuit, patted him hard, murmured a few words to him in Hungarian, then reached into her leather bag. She pulled out the scarf that Albrecht had lost in his lab and let the dog sniff it. Then she said, “Vadaszat!” Hunt!

Zoltan began to sniff, moving back and forth across the paved area between the rows of buildings. He seemed to be at a loss at first, but then he moved on ahead, pulling Remi with him. She spoke to the dog in English as they went, her voice barely above a whisper. “Come on, you big boy. You’re going to use that big beautiful nose to find Albrecht.”

The rest of the group followed at a distance of just a couple yards, giving Remi and the dog space to move or double back, but Zoltan walked along at a slow, comfortable pace, holding his head up and turning from one side to the other, no more interested in one spot than another. Sam said, “Has he lost him?”

Remi said, “He’s got the scent in mind and now he’s hunting. We just have to let him search for another whiff of it.”

“Look up there,” said Janos. There was a low rectangular building at the edge of the compound farthest from the road. It had its own high chain-link fence around it with coiled razor wire on top. Inside that fence was a second one that had four strands of thinner, tightly strung wire.

Sam said, “It’s an electrified fence.” He pointed to a sign in Hungarian. “What does that say?”

“Danger. Contagious Disease Research Laboratory. No Unauthorized Personnel. Protective Suits Required at All Times. Gate Sets Off Alarm.”

“Do you think it’s real?” asked Janos. “If I kidnapped someone, I’d put him in a place like that.”

“Bring Zoltan,” Sam said. Remi brought the big dog close to the gate. He sniffed around dutifully and then moved on.

They kept going and then turned a corner, and, as they did, they came face-to-face with a pair of security guards dressed exactly as they were. The two men had AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The one nearest to Sam lifted a flashlight to shine on their faces.

Sam’s judo training made him move quickly. His arm shot out like a striking snake to snatch the flashlight out of the man’s hand as he stepped into the man’s body and put him on the ground, then shone the light in the other man’s face.

Tibor was as shocked as the two sentries, but he recovered more quickly. He spoke loudly and harshly in Hungarian, and what he said was not a compliment. Sam and Remi could guess that it involved the guards’ dress and deportment. Tibor took the flashlight and shone it on them as he found fault with their shaves, then tapped one man’s shirt because its buttons did not line up with his belt. He didn’t like their shoeshines either. Finally he waved them past with a final threatening growl.

Sam said, “Very well done.”

“Thank you. But have you noticed we’ve been here only ten minutes and we’ve been stopped twice by men with automatic weapons?”

“It’s an encouraging sign,” said Sam. “This place is too well guarded to be an honest drug company. Let’s hope one of the things they’re hiding is Albrecht Fischer.”

Suddenly the big dog surged ahead. His leash tightened and jerked Remi’s arm, then pulled her relentlessly forward. “We’ve got a scent,” she said. Zoltan tugged Remi along the roadway between the windowless buildings, and the others followed closely. Sam and Janos spread out on both sides of her and watched for obstacles ahead and either way, with their hands resting on their pistols.

They reached a building near the farthest corner of the complex, some kind of utility or storage building. There was one door made of steel, and around it was a steel cage with its own door and an electronic card reader on the latch. Zoltan went to the cage, nosed around it, trying to find a way in, getting more and more excited, sniffing under the grating and then jumping up to put his forepaws on it.

“Ul, Zoltan,” Remi said. “Jo fiu.” She patted Zoltan as he sat. To the others she said, “This is it.”

Sam said, “We can knock or we can wait for somebody with a card key.”

“I’ll knock,” said Remi. “Take Zoltan out of sight with you.”

The three men and the dog stepped to either side into the shadows while Remi went up to the cage and pressed a button next to the card reader. A loud buzzer went off inside.

A small window in the steel door slid open at eye level, then closed. The door opened. A man in the usual gray uniform appeared and asked her a question in Hungarian. She laughed as though he’d said something charming. He was clearly intrigued by the sudden arrival of an attractive woman. She smiled brightly at him and he pressed a button on the inner wall of the building that buzzed and unlocked the cage door.

As Remi stepped inside, the man saw Zoltan materialize out of the darkness beside her. He began reflexively to shut the steel door, but Zoltan was much faster and pushed in ahead of Remi.

There was a low growl as the dog’s jaws closed on the man’s forearm, and the man let out an involuntary yelp. As the door was swinging shut, Sam hit it with his shoulder, and he, Tibor, and Janos were inside, guns drawn. Janos shut the door.

“Ul!” Remi said to the dog: “Sit!”

The man in Zoltan’s grip sat. When he did, Zoltan released him and sat too. “Jo fiu,” Remi said. “Good boy.” The man remained seated on the concrete floor while Janos relieved him of his gun and kept it pointed in his general direction.

“Sam!”

They all spun and saw, across the empty floor of the building, an enclosure that looked like a tool cage, with a steel grating that went from the floor to the ceiling and a padlocked door. Behind it stood Albrecht Fischer.

“Albrecht!” called Sam. “Is he the only guard?”

“There are two others on duty now. They both have rifles. They left a few minutes ago to bring back some coffee.”

As they hurried to the cage, Sam said to Tibor, “They’re probably your friends with the flashlight and the badly shined shoes.”

In the enclosure, Albrecht had a bed with a steel frame and a thin mattress over wire mesh like a military bunk and he had a portable toilet. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn in Berlin, which looked worse for wear and had dried bloodstains on the front of the shirt.

Sam called, “Bring the guard over.”

Janos spoke to the man and the man got up to walk over to the cage. Zoltan followed at the guard’s heels,