ARPAD BAKO SAT IN HIS OFFICE OVERLOOKING THE TISZA River and the bridge. On the other side of the river he could see the lights of Uj-Szeged. It seemed to him that the lights brightened and extended farther every time he looked. He was in such high spirits that he began to feel a creeping sadness. He should have prepared some kind of celebration. A moment like this should not have been wasted. Gabor Szekely and two of his men had reported good news from a vineyard on Route 53 at Kiskunhalas.
Somehow the two Americans and Albrecht Fischer had sorted out the twists and turns of the Tisza that had disappeared since Attila’s time and found it. They had found the tomb. Szekely had received the report from his surveillance team at three a.m. but had the consideration to wait at Bako’s house until he had awakened at seven.
The surveillance team had followed Tibor Lazar’s sedan all the way to the experimental vineyard, using a transponder they had attached to it. When they caught up, they found Fischer and the Fargos actually inside Attila’s tomb. The two surveillance men had read the situation and made a quick decision not to try to drag them out. They had simply moved the heavy iron seal back over the opening, replaced the dirt, and driven away to wait for them to suffocate.
Bako could hardly believe his luck. He had the tomb of Attila, containing one of the great treasures of ancient history. And he had trapped inside it the only people capable of preventing him from retrieving it. Last night, Arpad Bako had won the prize of his life. But now it was night again. Why was Szekely taking so long?
His telephone rang. It seemed terribly loud in the dark and solitude of his office. He reached into his suit pocket for it. “Yes?”
“This is Gabor Szekely, sir.”
“Good. I’ve been waiting.”
“The news is . . . unexpected,” Szekely said. “We’ve dug down to the tomb, but it had been filled with dirt. We dug down into it carefully, brought in more men, and emptied it. There was no treasure, no body of Attila, and there never had been. Attila’s men had simply buried an iron sheet with Latin writing on it. We’ve photographed it, and I just sent it to you as an attachment to an e-mail.”
Bako whirled his chair around to face his desk and turned on his computer. “What about the Fargos and Professor Fischer?”
“They aren’t here, sir. They must have escaped, which would explain why the underground chamber is filled with dirt. As the chamber filled up, they—”
“If you’re sure you’ve found everything, close that chamber and bury it again so no outsider will be able to find it. I don’t want some third party joining the hunt for the tomb.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then come back here to my office. I’ll have orders ready for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bako saw the e-mail, headed “no subject,” from Szekely. He opened it, downloaded the attachment, and saw the picture. He enlarged it so it filled the two-foot screen on his desk. The rough, tarnished surface was gouged deeply, and he could make out the letters easily. He had gone to the best school. While his Latin wasn’t good enough to do justice to Livy or Suetonius anymore, this was the crude and simple Latin of soldiers. He translated it as he read.
“‘You have found my secret but have not begun to learn it . . . The fifth is the place where the world was lost.’”
Bako laughed aloud and punched the air above his desk. “Five treasures!” He would be one of the richest men in Europe. His mind raced. Of course he knew the place where the world was lost. Anyone would know that. It was the site of Attila’s defeat, the battlefield where Aetius and the Visigoths joined forces to stop his advance on Paris!
Then he remembered something unpleasant. His enemies had been trapped in that stone chamber with the message scraped into the iron sheet. They had gotten out alive. They would be rushing to Chalons right now. There was no time to waste.
Bako snatched up his phone and dialed 33, the code for France, and then a private number. It was the cell phone of Etienne Le Clerc.
“’Allo?”
“Etienne!”
“Hello, Arpad,” he said wearily. “You have caught me at dinner. Is there trouble?”
“There is only opportunity. I’ve discovered the location of one of Attila’s hidden treasures. It’s in a place where you can easily help me get it. But there are other people rushing to get there before I do.”
“So you’re planning to win the race by substituting a person who was born at the finish line? How much do I get?”
“You will have a third of this treasure, but I must see all of it—everything that is found—before we split it.”
Bako could almost hear Etienne Le Clerc’s shoulders shrugging. “
“There are an American couple named Sam and Remi Fargo. They’re amateur treasure hunters. They’ve joined with a German archaeology professor named Albrecht Fischer. I’ll send you their pictures by e-mail. And there’s a Hungarian taxi driver named Tibor Lazar. I don’t think they’ll bring anyone else. They’ll want to slip into France, find the treasure, and get out.”
“And where is the treasure to be found?”
“Before I tell you, are you sure you’re willing and able to do this and to stick to my terms?”
“We must both look at everything and then each take half.”
“I said one-third!”
“You said ‘split.’ To me, that means ‘split down the middle.’ I’m taking all of the risk and doing all of the work. And I’m doing it in my own backyard.”
“Oh, all right. We don’t have time to argue, and there will be more wealth than we can spend in our two lifetimes. Take half. But no matter what you learn during all this, it remains a secret.”
“The treasure must be buried on the field of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, at Chalons-en-Champagne. Look for a buried chamber on the east side of the high stone outcropping in the center of the field near the Marne River. It should show up with metal detectors.”
“Will do, my friend. When we’ve dug up the treasure, I’ll call you.”
“Good,” said Arpad. “And when the Fargos and their party arrive, please do what you can to solve that problem too.”
“If they were to have a fatal accident, it would be a pity, but these things do happen sometimes. If it does, I’ll expect additional monetary consideration. Men who can and will do this sort of thing don’t come cheap.”
“I’ll be waiting. Thank you, Etienne.”
Bako clicked his cell phone to end the call and put it in his inner coat pocket. He was feeling like a great general who had just committed a corps of foreign troops to the distant wing of his battle, neatly outmaneuvering his opponents and trapping them. He had acted decisively, even ruthlessly, a little like Attila.
He thought about Etienne Le Clerc. He was an unapologetic gangster, not a legitimate businessman who cut a few corners. He lived very well by a combination of several schemes that Bako knew about—money laundering, melting stolen jewelry into bars and selling the loose gems, counterfeiting several currencies and trading them outside their home markets for euros, smuggling Bako’s prescription drugs into France—and probably other schemes Bako didn’t know about. Le Clerc had dozens of operatives, dealers, smugglers, and enforcers in his organization and they were already in France, not far from the place where the world was lost.
