Sam looked through the opening. Beyond was a much larger space, a whole room carved out of the tufa. The ceiling was about eight feet high and five feet wide. He could see that the left side of the room had been opened and then bricked up to close it off again. He could see it was Attila’s burial chamber. There, in the middle of the room,
surrounded by randomly strewn piles of gold coins that had once sat in baskets or leather sacks that had rotted away, as well as jeweled swords, belts, daggers, and ornaments, was a seven-by-four-foot iron casket.
The two Carabinieri guarded the prisoners while, one by one, Remi, Sam, Albrecht, and Boiardi all climbed in through the narrow passage and began to photograph and chart every inch of the tomb, making the original location of each item clear. After three hours, they began to remove the items around the coffin. They were boxed, listed, and loaded on the eight carts.
Boiardi stepped close to his prisoners, who were sitting on the floor of the tunnel, looking glum. “Well? What do you think of this?”
The blond girl shrugged. “I’m glad I got to see it.”
Boiardi said, “So you have curiosity and an adventurous soul. So do I. How about the rest of you?”
The other five nodded and mumbled various forms of assent.
“Good,” Boiardi said. “Because I’m going to give you a job. It’ll give you a chance to begin working off your debt to the people of Italia. You can help us carry these priceless artifacts up to the surface.”
“That can’t be legal,” said the man with the shaved head. “You can’t make prisoners work unless they’re convicted.”
“Okay,” Boiardi said. “This gentleman is excused from work. The prosecutor will be told he didn’t want to make up for his crimes. He’s not sorry yet. Sergeant Baldare, handcuff him. What would the rest of you like me to tell the prosecutor?”
The others all said, “I’ll work,” or, “Okay,” or, “Tell him I helped.” The man with the shaved head said, “Wait a minute. I’ll help.”
Boiardi nodded at Sergeant Baldare, who removed the handcuffs. “One warning, of course. My men are not fools. You will be thoroughly searched at the top and the contents of all the boxes will eventually be compared with the photographs we’ve taken. If anything has stuck to you or in you, there will be a very picturesque and ancient prison in your future. Understood?”
“Yes,” said each of the six in turn.
An hour later, the first carts of gold, precious gems, and jewel-studded weapons that once belonged to conquered kings began to make their way on the long corridors and up the long stairways toward the upper world, where they had not been since the year 453.
It took five days of careful yet grueling labor to complete the exhumation of Attila’s treasure. At the top, where Selma, Wendy, Pete, and three Carabinieri worked to verify and load the artifacts, things worked smoothly. The first truck left for the National Archaeological Museum at Naples at three a.m. on the first night, accompanied by two unmarked police cars, and a new truck was moved into its place.
The Divine Word Missionaries lived up to their name by issuing the true story only, that the Catacomb of Domitilla was the site of some archaeological investigation and would be closed to the pubic temporarily.
On the sixth day the team brought in four chain hoists and lifted the lid of the iron coffin. Inside was a coffin of pure silver surrounded by more of Attila’s treasures. There were the crowns, scepters, daggers, and personal ornaments of a hundred kings, princes, chieftains, sultans, and khans. It took a whole day to empty and catalog the artifacts.
On the eighth day the team lifted the lid of the silver coffin. They found the old accounts were true. The last one was made of gold. It was surrounded by colored gem stones—emeralds, rubies, sapphires, garnets, jade, coral, lapis lazuli, jasper, opal, amber—stones from everywhere in the ancient world.
On the last day, they opened Attila’s gold casket. Inside was the skeleton of a man about five feet four inches tall, wearing a red silk tunic and trousers, knee-length leather boots, and a fur cap. His bony hand held a compound bow made of horn, and he wore a sword and a dagger. On the inner side of the gold coffin’s lid was an inscription.
“You have found the tomb of Attila, High King of the Huns. In order to stand before me you must be a brave and cunning warrior. My last treasure will make you a rich and strong king. Only time, failure, and sorrow can make you a wise one.”
THE ST. REGIS GRAND HOTEL, ROME
“PLEASE, EVERYONE, MAKE THREE ROWS.” THE PHOTOGRAPHER from the New York Times waved them into place. Seated in the front row were Albrecht at the center, flanked by Selma and Wendy. The second row was János, Tibor, and Pete. In the back row were Sam and Remi Fargo, and Captain Boiardi of the Italian Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale.
Dozens of shutters clicked in a complicated volley, with flashes that fluttered like strobe lights. The reporter from Der Spiegel was delighted because he could take many close-ups of the famed German historian and archaeologist Albrecht Fischer while he was posed as leader. Reporters from the Italian papers Giornale di Sicilia, Il Gazzettino of Venice, Il Mattino of Naples, Il Messaggero of Rome, Il Resto del Carlino from Bologna, and La Nazione all jostled one another to get pictures of a sampling of the magnificent treasure, which had been laid out on a white sheet on the carpet and was being guarded by the tall, serious Italian Carabinieri in their dress uniforms. The Carabinieri just looked upward, immune to the allure of the glittering gems and crowns and swords on the sheet.
After the photographs, the interviews began. Sam and Remi moved off to the far end of the hotel meeting room, but reporters from Le Figaro, Le Monde, the Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian still found them.
The Guardian’s reporter, a woman named Ann Dade-Stanton, cornered Sam. “Everyone I’ve talked to privately says you were the leader of this series of expeditions and that most of the time the only ones even present were Sam and Remi Fargo. Is this some kind of a dodge? A tax strategy or something?”
Sam said, “Everybody here traveled, took risks, and worked at some point in a deep hole. Some of us contributed by doing research, making arrangements for travel and equipment, and so on. Others spent more time on the scene. But I wasn’t the leader.”
Remi said, “The one Sam and I considered our leader and guide to the ancient world was our friend Professor Albrecht Fischer. He has spent his career studying Roman times. He telephoned us after he had made the initial discovery in a field in Hungary and asked us to come and help him. We did.”
“But you’re world-famous treasure hunters and adventurers. And I understand you paid all the expenses.”
“We and Albrecht Fischer and Tibor Lazar were partners from the morning when we found the first stone chamber in Hungary. Albrecht had the most knowledge of history and the archaeology of the late Roman Empire. Tibor was born in the part of Hungary where Attila had his stronghold and could get people there to help us, including those with equipment and vehicles. Sam and I had some experience with historical research and donated some money. We all contributed what we had and we all brought in other people who could help.”
“That’s right,” said Sam. “And along the way, the culture ministries of a number of countries helped us and provided physical protection and preservation of our finds where the world’s scholars will be able to study them—particularly Hungary, Italy, and France. We also had help from the police forces of Berlin and Moscow.”