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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.”
Sam rubbed his shoulder. “Okay. Let’s get the truck to a place where we can see the yacht.”
Tibor drove them down to the road that ran along the Danube and turned east. After a few minutes, the road swung inland a bit to avoid a row of old estates along the river. When it swung back to the river, Tibor pointed. “There. See it?”
“The one with the high bridge?”
“That’s the one.” It was sixty-five feet long, with an aluminum lifeboat hanging from davits in the stern.
“All right,” Sam said. “Remi and I need to put on our scuba gear.”
“I have nephews in the back of the truck. I’ll get them out and let you get changed.” He stopped the truck by the side of the road and opened the back, summoned the two young men out, and let Sam and Remi in to put on their wet suits and organize their gear.
Sam tested the underwater light and examined the tools that he’d requested. He put them in a net bag and attached it to his belt. “We’ll drift with the river’s current. When we get there you’ll have to hold the light so I can see what I’m working on. I’ll try to work quickly.”
Remi looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not saying what you’re working on?”
“I know how much you like surprises. But don’t surface no matter what. Stay as deep as you can.”
Tibor’s nephews helped Sam and Remi go down a path to the water on the far side of the truck, where they couldn’t easily be seen from the yacht. They put on their flippers and stepped backward into the dark water of the Danube. As soon as there was enough water to cover them, they submerged.
The big white yacht was at least a hundred yards from shore, anchored just at the edge of the channel where much larger boats and small freighters traveled. Sam and Remi headed for the yacht, staying deep in the murky water and checking their progress occasionally by shining the light on the riverbed below them and ahead of them.
Finally Remi’s light found the anchor chain approximately where they had expected it, a straight diagonal line from the upstream end leading up to the dark shape above them on the silvery surface.
Sam gestured to Remi and slowly rose, coming up under the hull, but not touching it. He swam along the keel to the stern and looked up at the propeller protruding on its shaft from the lower part of the stern.