The Tombs - Cussler Clive - Страница 61
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They manipulated the fiber optics, the size and brightness of the computer image, and searched for the most important part of the treasure, the message from Attila. After twenty minutes or so of recording every item in the tomb, Remi whispered, “I haven’t seen anything that could be it, have you?”
“No. I’m going to try something else.” Sam pulled the rigid rig up, then went to work on it. He removed the metal tubes that housed the cable and then he removed the extension. What he had left was a long, black, insulated optical fiber. On the far end was the rounded tip with the light and the tiny camera. Slowly, carefully, he inserted the flexible cable into the drill hole. Many times he had to pull it back an inch or two to straighten it or twist it to get around a snag. At last, after many minutes of feeding it in, it cleared the drill shaft, then curled a bit so they could see the sides of the stone chamber. “Wait. I see something.”
“There,” said Remi. “There it is.”
She took the fiber-optic cable and twirled it with her fingers so she could aim it. The image was a set of deep scratches made with a knife on the wall. Ego Attila filius Munzuci. It went on, and Remi made sure to get every bit of it recorded, then sent it to Selma’s computer, and then copied it on the disk, which she took out and put into the deep cargo pocket of Sam’s pants. They began to dismantle their equipment and put it into their backpacks. As they began to open the hinged bottom of the box, Sam stopped.
“Wait,” Sam whispered. “I hear something. Footsteps.”
Remi closed the computer, turned off the fiber-optic light, and pulled it out of the hole. Sam put it into one of the backpacks, with the drill and bit, while Remi put the computer into the other backpack.
They listened. Remi lowered her head to the ground and squinted through the opening at the edge. “It’s men. Five—no, six. They’re coming this way, of all the million ways.”
The footsteps grew louder and louder, as did the men’s voices. There was laughter. They were loud and jovial. There was the clank of a bottle dropping into an empty steel drum used as a trash barrel. Sam and Remi remained motionless, barely breathing.
The footsteps passed by so close that Remi thought she could pick out each man from the others. There was one who seemed to have a stone in his shoe because his walk was scrape-thump, scrape-thump, trying to get it out from under his foot. He called out to his friends as they moved off.
Next there was a creaking sound. The man had sat on top of their box. He took off a shoe, and when he shook it to get the stone out, they could hear the squeak of the dowels in the holes. He put his shoe back on and tied it, and then they heard him trot off after his friends.
Remi exhaled and leaned on Sam. They sat still for a few minutes, and then she looked out again. “It’s clear.”
They opened the hinged section of the box, crawled out, put their backpacks on, then unhooked the box’s sides and top and made it into a pile. Sam took a cap from the end of the fiber-optic machine, pushed it a couple of inches into the hole he had drilled, and then poured dirt over it and walked across it a couple of times.
They began to walk away from the spot toward the edge of the green market, carrying the pieces of their box. As they did, they heard the sound of a car starting. They stepped close to a wall in the shadows and waited until the car pulled up, its headlights off, and stopped. Nurin got out and opened the trunk. They put the collapsed box inside and then the backpacks. They got into the car and Nurin drove off toward the Zhambyl Hotel.
Sam took out his telephone and called Selma. “Sam?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s around five in the evening there, right?”
“That’s right. And five a.m. there.”
“Remi just sent you the video of the inside of the tomb, including the message.”
“We’ve got it and it’s unbelievable. Here’s Albrecht.”
“Sam. Does the other side know where the tomb is?”
“No. When we saw them, they seemed to be waiting for something, not searching with archaeological equipment. They were just sitting around a table at an outdoor cafe.”
“Then I implore you, don’t try to excavate. It’s not essential that we be the ones to excavate Mundzuk’s tomb and attempting to do so could easily get you both killed. As soon as we’re there, I’ll send a letter, with the magnetic map and the exact position marked, to Taraz State University and the national government in Astana. The country takes enormous pride in its heritage and they have more right to the burial you found than we do.”
“As soon as you’re where? Here?”
“Rome, Sam. Rome!”
“What?”
“That’s right. You haven’t read the message. It says, ‘I am Attila, son of Mundzuk. My father is dead and so I am to be sent to the Romans to secure the peace, but one day I will conquer Rome. You find my father here, but I will be buried in Rome, guest of a daughter of the Flavian emperors.’”
“Does that suggest a location to you?”
“I know exactly where it is,” said Albrecht. “I’ve been there.”
Selma cut in. “Sam? I’ve already chartered your plane. It will be waiting for you at Taraz Airport at noon today. It’s shockingly expensive, but it will take you to Rome, where we’ll be waiting for you. We’ll be staying at the Saint Regis Grand Hotel.”
Remi said, “We’ll try to manage it in our busy social schedule. Good-bye, Selma. See you there.”
Nurin pulled up in front of the hotel and let them off and then drove on to the car lot behind the building. Sam and Remi went up to their room. They opened it and stood still in the doorway, looking in.
The room had been thoroughly searched. The mattress and springs were leaning against the wall, all of the drawers from the dressers were stacked in two neat piles, the chairs had been overturned so someone could look beneath them. The cushions were all unzipped. The towels that had been piled neatly in the linen cabinet were draped over the shower curtain. The Bokhara rug had been rolled up.
Remi said, “The expression having your room tossed doesn’t really apply, does it? This is the neatest break-in we’ve ever had.”
“They’re pros. They were quiet so the hotel guests and employees wouldn’t hear anything.”
“What do we do about it?”
Sam said, “Nurin.” He stepped back toward the door.
“Oh, no.”
“Bring the laptop and leave everything else.”
They closed the door and hurried down to Nurin’s room. They knocked, but there was no response. They ran outside and around to the back of the building. There was Nurin, backed up against his car. Two of the men they had recognized from Poliakoff’s estate were with him. One of them held a gun on him, while the other punched him. Nurin was bent over, unable to do anything but use his arms to try to protect his vital organs.
Sam and Remi came closer and closer, moving quietly and hoping the sound of Nurin’s groans would cover their footsteps. At home, he and she had trained together for years and practiced for every unpleasant situation they could think of. They both knew that the only one to fear was the man with the gun and that both of them should attack him at once.
As soon as she was close enough, Remi took two running steps and leapt. She had the laptop computer raised above her head with both hands, tilting it so the thin edge would come down on the back of the gunman’s head.
In the last half second, the man heard or felt the Fargos’ presence. He half turned in time to have the computer hammered against his head right at the eyebrow. Remi’s trajectory brought the computer downward from there to break his nose while its flat side obscured his vision for an instant.
As the man rocked backward, Sam’s powerful punch to his midsection broke two ribs and bent him over. Sam grasped the man’s gun hand and wrist, spun him and twisted his arm behind him, and ran him face-first into the car as he wrenched the gun out of his hand.
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