“It told them the tomb was near, I think,” said Bako. “Attila was buried near the Tisza and then the river was diverted to cover the grave. You know that.”
“Anytime you give us the word, we can shoot them. With four rifles, we could get all of them in a couple of seconds and be on our way.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Bako said. “The casket could be under twenty feet of sediment by now. The outer one is made of iron and the inner ones from heavier metals. That’s why they’re making these elaborate preparations—to dig down, attach cables and chains to it, and lift it to the barge. Then they’ll move it from the barge to a flatbed truck on that road over there. That moment is weeks away and will cost them millions of dollars to reach. Let them do the work.”
While Bako and Székely watched, the people on the boat swung the arm of an electric winch out over the water and lowered the cable. There were a series of sharp tugs on the cable, and then the winch began to pull something up from the bottom. Soon a large nylon net emerged, dripping and draining water. In the net were rusted objects, all of them unidentifiable.
Arpad Bako began to shift his weight, first to one foot, then the other, back and forth, in his excitement. “Look!” he cried. “Look! They’re bringing something up!”
“It looks like a bunch of rusty junk.”
“It’s fifteen hundred years underwater!” he yelled and punched Székely’s arm hard. “Anything from the Huns is what we’ve waited for. Those fools are doing our work for us.” His hands kept clenching into fists. “Watch them! Don’t let anything go unnoticed.” He turned to the man with the camera. “Get clear shots of everything they bring up. Until they move the barge with the crane in over the tomb, they’re working for us. When that happens, you can end their employment.”
SZEGED, HUNGARY
“WE’RE DONE,” ALBRECHT SAID. “WE’VE EXCAVATED THE entire grid. The artifacts and remains have all been removed from the site, and most are properly packaged and catalogued. In a few days we’ll move them to a temporary facility in Budapest for safekeeping while the museum there prepares space for them.”
“That’s a huge accomplishment in a few weeks,” said Remi.
“We knew we didn’t have years to do it, and thanks to my Hungarian colleagues and their students we were able to bring in at least fifty trained assistants every day, and as many as a hundred some days.”
“That’s probably what did the most to keep you safe,” said Sam. “It’s hard to commit a crime in front of that many people.”
“How many warriors did you find in all?” asked Remi.
“A thousand.” Albrecht turned away and took a step or two, suddenly interested in looking closely at the skeleton on the table beside them.
“You mean you just have a rough number?” she said. “You haven’t done a final count yet?”
“Exactly one thousand.”
Sam and Remi looked at each other. “That can’t be meaningless,” said Sam.
“No,” Albrecht said almost under his breath, still staring at the skeleton. He looked up reluctantly. “In fact, before we were willing to accept that number, Imre and Enikö and I counted them again together. Our current theory is that these men were a unit of some kind. The Huns aren’t known to have divided themselves into units of a hundred and a thousand, the way the Romans did. But there’s no reason to think they never formed temporary units for particular tasks. A commander might have said, ‘I need a thousand men for this scouting party and another thousand men to carry out a raid.’”
Remi said, “I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but Sam and I have been doing a lot of reading about the Huns since you called us in. I can’t help wondering if you and the others aren’t ignoring a possible explanation just because it’s too good to hope for.”
Albrecht sighed. “We don’t want to jump at the idea you’re alluding to because of its implications. Not only would it provide encouragement for Arpad Bako, but it could set off a gold rush among the public. Think of the implications.”
“Think of the evidence,” she said. “Here are a thousand men exactly, all of them Huns who were all killed apparently on the same day, around the year 450, but not in a battle. They’re at the center of Hun power, where there were hundreds of thousands of allies but no enemies. They were killed without a fight.”
Sam said, “And they were buried with their belongings, including their weapons. They weren’t dishonored or mutilated after death. I think Remi has to be right. They were Attila’s personal bodyguards. They were sent off to bury him and his treasures in a secret place and then divert the river over the tomb so it wouldn’t be found. When they came home, they were killed to prevent them from revealing the location of the burial.”
Remi said, “They’d need at least a thousand men to divert a river. They’d have had to dig across one of the loops to make a shortcut channel.”
Sam said, “They were all heavily armed, all seasoned warriors with healed wounds. Why would they let themselves be killed without even drawing a sword unless—”
“Unless they were fanatically loyal to Attila, like personal bodyguards,” said Remi. “They would feel they were dying with their leader as they had always expected to.”
“Yes, it makes sense. Yes, it fits,” said Albrecht. “But to accept that story would be a terrible mistake. The tomb of Attila would be worth billions. The Huns were like a giant broom sweeping across Asia and Europe, from beyond the Volga to the Seine, taking everything of value with them. If we announce we’ve found the men who buried Attila, this whole region will be dug up in a year. Other artifacts of incalculable value will be destroyed, and nobody will be any closer to finding the tomb than they are now. If you accept the old stories, the job of the guards was to take the body and the treasure far from here.”
“You’re scholars,” Sam said. “I know you can’t falsify your description of the find when you publish it. An
d as soon as it’s published, others will immediately see what Remi and I see.”
Albrecht looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Arpad Bako thought I might be on the edge of confirming the myth of Attila’s treasure. Should I make him into a genius?”
“But it’s never been about treasure for you,” said Remi. “It’s about uncovering the past. As you already said, this doesn’t bring anybody closer to the treasure. It just confirms one part of the story—that the guards were killed.”