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Now Albrecht and Sam began to examine the back wall of the man’s narrow berth carved into the rock. Sam took out his pocketknife. “Can I test it?”
“By all means,” Albrecht said. “I think it should be a false wall made of plaster.”
Sam prodded and scraped at the wall for a few seconds and then brought out a chunk about an inch thick. “It’s a layer of plaster that hides a second stone.”
“Let’s photograph it before we remove it.” Sam and Albrecht stepped back while Remi photographed the plaster. Then they carefully removed pieces, examining them for paint or scratches.
Albrecht leaned into the opening and stared at the piece of tufa fitted into the back beyond the plaster. “It’s a second seal stone. Oh, yes. This is it!” he said. “‘Sepulcrum Summi Regis.’ The Tomb of the High King. ‘Magnus Oceanus.’ The Great Ocean. ‘Rex Hunnorum.’ Ruler of the Huns.”
The others applauded, probably the loudest sound heard in this spot in over a thousand years. As it died down and stopped, Sam leaned close to Captain Boiardi. “Was that an echo?”
Boiardi listened for a few seconds, then nodded. “Let’s go see.” He turned off his headlamp.
The two stepped away from the side of the tomb and went back the way they had come, their flashlights turned off. As they quietly walked back, from time to time one of them would stop and they would wait and listen for a few seconds, then continue. As they came to the second turning, there was a larger opening that had been dug for a family crypt. Sam and Boiardi made the turn, Boiardi flicking on his light to see where they were.
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.