“Can you head for the north side of the river, along the bank?” asked Remi.
“We’re looking for a place where somebody is digging.”
“Digging?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “It’ll probably be a group of five or six men digging holes with shovels. If we get there early enough, we may find them still searching the ground with electronic equipment. We’d like to get a good look at them but not give them the impression we’re interested in them.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said Emil. “Tibor said you wanted binoculars.” He opened a compartment and lifted the straps of two pair and handed them back to the Fargos.
“Thank you, Emil,” said Remi. “We’re very glad you were available.”
“So am I,” he said. “I don’t usually get to do anything this interesting. Most of the time, I take tourists up to look at the same sights they saw from the ground the day before. Now and then there will be a businessman who needs a quick ride to Budapest or somewhere.”
“Let’s hope this doesn’t get too interesting.”
After a short time, Emil said, “We’re just about at the Hungarian border,” pointing to the river. “Now we’ll swing down along the Danube.”
The Danube was wide and curved, regularly moving around high points in the land. There was plenty of boat traffic, and the river ran through heavily populated areas, with tall buildings almost up to the water’s edge. “The river is an international border, but we’ll be over Hungary on the north side.”
“Stay over land if you can,” said Sam. “We’re looking for ancient graves. We think they’ll be on higher ground and back a bit from the river so they wouldn’t get washed out by floods.”
“I understand,” Emil said. They flew along the Danube from east to west. Where there was an area that looked as though it had been disturbed by digging or had an assortment of trucks and equipment, Sam and Remi would ask Emil to hover so they could take a better look.
They passed near an area that looked peculiar and hovered. About a hundred yards north of the river was an old-fashioned building, painted a buttery yellow, with high roofs and an extensive network of paths leading through formal gardens. There were at least a dozen men with shovels digging holes in the grass, in the middle of flower beds, in the paths. There were another dozen men walking the site with metal detectors and a couple of men pushing magnetometers mounted on wheels along like lawn mowers.
Emil took a second pass above the estate, and what Sam and Remi saw was shocking. Bako’s men had already found several graves and opened them. There were big stones lining open-topped pits and beside them human skeletons thrown aside and piles of metal being loaded into crates. Sam got on his telephone.
“Hello?”
“Albrecht,” said Sam. “We’ve got bad news. I don’t know how Bako did it this time, but my delaying tactics didn’t work. He’s got twenty or thirty men at an estate on the north shore of the Danube. They’re digging up graves and looting them. So far, they’ve got four or five open.”
“We’ve got to move fast,” said Albrecht. “I’ll call our friends at Szeged University and have the authorities move in and put a stop to it. Can you give me an exact location?”
“Our friend Emil probably can.”
“Tell them it’s Count Vrathy’s estate on the south end of Szeged. It’s a museum now. It’s probably closed at this time of day and they must have overpowered the watchman.”
Albrecht said, “I’ve got it. Thank you,” and hung up.
Sam got on his phone again. “Tibor, we’re with Emil in the helicopter.”
“I’d have to be deaf not to hear the rotors.”
“Bako’s men have found the Hun royal graves above the north bank of the Danube at the Vrathy estate. What can you tell me about Bako and the group he took to Romania?”
“They haven’t returned from Transylvania yet.”
“He seems to be substituting quality for quantity, using twenty or thirty men from his businesses to do the digging. We need to prevent them from hiding the treasure.”
“Sam!” said Remi.
“Hold on, Tibor.” He turned to Remi. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ve moved a big boat up to the shore.”
“Tibor? They’re going to load the treasure into a boat. From up here, it looks like a fifty-foot yacht. They’re still digging, so this will take a while. But we need to know where that yacht is from now on.”
“I’ll send men to the river above and below the Vrathy estate to watch where it goes.”
“Good. Thank you. And Remi and I are going to need the equipment we left with the boat on the Tisza. We’ll need our scuba gear, the tool kit, and a covered truck.”
“I’ll call my cousin.”
“And ask him to be sure the air tanks are full.”
“I’ll call when we’re ready.”
Sam, Remi, and Emil kept returning to the airspace above the estate and then flying off into the distance as though they were transporting something on a route that passed over the estate. After about an hour and a half, the boat was loaded and the men with shovels and other equipment had begun getting into trucks to drive away.
Sam leaned forward to talk to Emil. “Emil, you’ve done a wonderful job. We may call on you again. Is there a place where you can set us down within a couple of miles of here without being seen?”
“Yes,” he said. “There’s a landing space near the university. I can put you down there.”
He took them a short distance over the city and set the helicopter down on a large X at the end of a parking lot. “This is it,” he said.
Sam said, “What do we owe you?”
“Nothing. Tibor already paid me for the day.”
Sam handed him five hundred dollars. “Then please accept a small gift with our thanks.”
Emil handed Sam his business card. “I know you can’t read Hungarian, but you can read the phone number. Call it anytime of the day or night. If I can’t help you, I’ll find someone who can.” They shook hands, Sam and Remi got out and the helicopter rose and flew away.
Remi said, “You know, I can’t stop wondering what finally happened to the Bishop who robbed those graves the first time.”
“I think his reputation for shrewdness may have been exaggerated.”
“You think Attila and Bleda killed him?”
“To his people, he was a traitor. To the Huns, he was a grave robber. I’d be surprised if he died in bed.”
“Let’s see if doing the same brings bad fortune for Bako.”
Sam’s phone buzzed. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Tibor. Where are you?”
“At the helipad by Szeged University.”
“Stay there.”
Five minutes later, a white-colored truck with a covered cargo bay appeared at the far entrance to the lot and drove straight across all the lanes to them. When it stopped, Sam and Remi climbed into the cab to join Tibor.
He said, “My cousins tell me the yacht is anchored offshore. Bako’s men loaded fifteen wooden boxes onto the lifeboat and then they took them to the yacht and loaded them onto the deck. So we think they’re getting ready to take the artifacts somewhere by water. The Danube runs through Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania to the Black Sea. Many rivers feed it. They could go anywhere without setting foot on land.”
“Have the police arrived?”
“Nobody has seen them yet.”
“All right,” said Sam. “Let’s go see if we can make Bako unhappy.”
Tibor clapped his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m glad I lived to meet you two. Nobody has made me laugh so much since I was a kid.”