Caught in the light were four men who leapt out of the blind corner and grappled with them, trying to overpower them and bring them to the floor of the crypt. Sam, who had been training in judo for most of his life, put the first man down in his initial moment of surprise and delivered a debilitating punch to his chest. The second man had thrown himself on Sam’s back and clung to it. Sam ran hard at the wall, pivoted and hurled himself into it. The man slumped down the wall to the floor.
Captain Boiardi was a police officer trained in hand-to-hand combat and a tall man who was stronger than either of his attackers. He put the first one down with combination punches to the jaw and belly, then put the second out with a choke hold.
As Sam squatted to pick up the flashlight Boiardi had dropped, he saw that two women were crouching in a shadowy corner of the crypt.
Boiardi shouted something in Italian and they looked frightened. Both held their hands up. “We don’t understand you.”
“Don’t shoot just yet,” said Sam. “I know who they are.”
“Who?”
“They work for a company called Consolidated Enterprises, based in New York.”
“How do you know them?” asked Boiardi.
“They seem to be following Remi and me around. They’re supposed to be commercial treasure hunters, but I don’t know if they are or not.”
“Why would they assault a captain of the Carabinieri?”
“You’ll have to ask them. They were following us when we were diving off Louisiana and then again in Berlin. They got arrested in Berlin and then Hungary. I don’t know how those arrests were resolved, but we can call Captain Klein of the Berlin police.”
“You framed us,” said the young woman with the short blond hair who had followed Sam and Remi in Berlin. “Of course the charges were dropped.”
The tall man with the shaved head said, “They held us for two weeks!”
One of the other men said, “Don’t say anything else until we have a lawyer.”
“What’s wrong with you Americans?” Boiardi said. “Do you watch only American movies? The whole world doesn’t require a Miranda warning. And if you want legal advice, I’ll give you the best. Don’t attack any police officers.”
Sam nodded. “I’ve found that to be excellent advice. How did you people even get into the catacomb?”
The brown-haired woman said, “We followed you. We went into the church as soon as we were sure you’d be in the catacomb. When that monk saw us, we said we were part of your group and we were late. He was really nice and showed us which way you’d gone.”
“Very clever,” said Boiardi. “Trespassing for the theft of national treasures, but still pretty good.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the man with the shaved head.
Boiardi waved the six prisoners over and said, “Come this way if you like treasure. You’ll get to see the biggest find of your life.”
Sam and Boiardi walked behind the six American interlopers so they wouldn’t try to run away, directing them to turn one way or another to get back to Attila’s tomb.
When they made the final turn and reached the opening, János, Tibor, and the two policemen set the second stone a few feet from the opening.
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.”