She gave the car gas gradually, pulling against the weight with the doubled ropes, while Sam pried the stone upward, helping to free it from the mortar. There was a pop and then a scrape as the car pulled the stone free. The space that had been uncovered was roughly two feet wide and four feet long.
Sam set aside his elongated crowbar and knelt above the opening as Remi returned to kneel beside him. Sam went to his belly and shone his flashlight into the hole. There was a deep, burnished glow about six feet down, the soft shine of untarnished gold. “Eureka! We did it.”
Remi kissed his cheek. “Fargos one, Bako zip.”
Sam took out his telephone. He pressed a programmed number, then heard the slightly accented “Yes?”
“We’ve found it, Tibor. Bring the boat to the mouth of the Mincio, where it meets the Po. Go a few yards up the Mincio and then pull into the western shore. I’ll be there to meet you. Don’t show any lights.”
“We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thanks.” Sam ended the call.
“Well?” said Remi. “While you’re playing Treasure Island with the boys, what do you want me to do?”
“Call Selma and Albrecht and let them know. Tell Albrecht to get in touch with his Italian colleagues so we’ll have a safe place to store the treasure.”
“Want me to move the car?”
“Not yet. I’ll be back.”
Sam walked to the river and waited on the high bank until he saw the big shadowy shape of the boat appear in the moonlight on the Po River. In a moment, he could hear the steady throbbing of the engine running at low speed. As the boat came abreast of his position he called out, “Beach it and throw me a line.”
The boat glided into the sand and stopped. A silhouette appeared on the deck at the bow, threw a rope to Sam, and then watched him tie it to a tree. One by one, the four men jumped down to the sand and climbed up the bank. The last was Tibor. He patted Sam’s back. “It’s good to see you again. Is it real this time?”
“I’ll show you.” He set off into the field and the others walked with him.
Tibor said, “You remember my cousin Albert and my cousin Caspar from the Tisza diving boat.”
“Of course.” Sam shook hands with them. “Thank you for coming.”
“And this is my cousin Paul. He speaks Italian.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Sam said. To Tibor he said, “If I had a family like yours, I could take over the world.”
“In our part of the world we’ve had too many people try to do that already. The Lazars stay home, eat, drink, and make love. That’s why there are so many of us.”
They reached the spot where Remi waited, and Tibor repeated the introductions. The men all bowed to her in turn. Tibor said, “I reminded them she was a beautiful woman ahead of time so they wouldn’t act like hermits who never saw a girl before.”
“Thank you, Tibor,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”
Sam, Tibor, and Paul used the climbing rope to let themselves down into the chamber. It was larger than the one in Hungary, and, as they stepped down, Sam could see that this was an even bigger treasure than he had expected. Most of the plunder that was taken from northern Italy in 452 must be here.
There were thousands of gold and silver coins, gold chains and armlets, gold chalices and crosses, the plunder of a hundred churches and monasteries. There were swords and daggers with hilts studded with rubies, sapphire rings, necklaces and torques in great profusion. There was finely wrought armor and chain mail, detailed carved cameos, ornaments of every kind, oil lamps and sconces, mirrors of polished silver with gold fittings. The sheer number and variety of objects was intimidating. Gold brooches, bracelets, buckles and studs, and a great number of objects Sam hadn’t time to examine and identify, were strewn about randomly.
They used wooden crates to hold the treasure that Tibor brought from the boat. They filled the car’s trunk, then the backseat and the passenger seat and the floor. Then Remi drove the car to the river with Caspar and Albert and they unloaded it onto the boat.
When Remi drove the car back to the treasure chamber, she had eight wooden boxes with rope handles. They usually were used for bringing fish to home port, so they had a slight fragrance, but with them the loading went quickly. Sam, Tibor, and Paul could fill the car, and while Remi drove to the riverside to load the boat, they were busy filling the boxes for her next trip.
It took three hours to empty the chamber and load the boat. When the treasure had been completely removed, Sam said to Tibor, “Take the boat up the Mincio and anchor it on Lake Garda. It’s twenty-five miles, so we’ll probably be there in time to see you arrive.”
“All right,” said Tibor. “But what happens if the police stop us and the boat is inspected?”
“Then tell Paul to forget he speaks Italian and call me.”
With Attila’s plunder aboard, the boat was heavier and lower in the water. It took Sam, Tibor, and the three cousins to push the bow off the sandy beach into the calm water of the Mincio. Tibor said, “I hope every ounce of gold is a tear for Arpad Bako.”
“That reminds me,” said Sam. “Who’s watching him while you’re here?”
“My brother is in charge. He has eyes on Bako and his five closest men day and night.”
“Better than I could have wished,” Sam said. “Have a pleasant voyage.”
The engine started, and the boat turned slightly so Tibor could climb aboard. It straightened and began to chug up the quiet river toward the lake.
Sam and Remi drove to the open chamber one last time. They used the climbing rope to lower themselves into the dark stone room, and then Sam turned on his flashlight and shone it on each of the plain stone walls. This time, there was no engraved iron plate. But on the floor, visible only now that the treasure had been removed, was a stone block with engraved letters. They stood over it, and Remi took several photographs with her cell phone, then reviewed them to be sure the letters were clear. Sam was busily copying the message on a piece of paper. When he saw Remi looking at him, he shrugged. “If we lose the phone, I’m not coming back to read this. Are you?”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” she said.
“What were you thinking?”
“That this isn’t like the huge iron slab we found in Hungary. I’ll bet that, using the car, we could lift this thing out.”
Sam knelt and tried to jiggle it but couldn’t. Then he used his pocketknife to scrape at the mortar a bit. “I’ll be right back,” he said and climbed up the rope and out. He returned a few minutes later with the other rope, both crowbars, and the hammer. They went to work on the mortar, and in a short time they had freed the stone. They pried it up, and Sam tied the rope around it, first the short side, then the long side. He climbed up, and Remi heard him start the car. The stone was thinner and slightly smaller than the blocklike stones that made up the bulk of the room. It rose easily and then stopped. Remi climbed up the rope and joined Sam at the surface and then went to the car and used it to pull while Sam used the crowbar to help it over the edge and to the ground. The two of them used their crowbars to lift the stone up so they could slide it onto the backseat floor.
“You were right,” he said. “This time we don’t have to leave the message for Bako to see.”
They used the car to drag the larger stone back over the opening to seal the chamber. Then they shoveled and pushed the mound of dirt over it. Once the ground was even, the chamber entrance was four feet under.
Remi turned and looked back at the plowed field. “Wow. Look.”
It was just beginning to get light, so they could see their deep tire tracks running from the chamber to the riverbank and back. “I wish we could get rid of those tracks.”
“We don’t have a way,” Sam said. “All we can do is try to make the damage look like a drunken joyride.” They got into the car, and Sam picked up the empty wine bottle from their picnic lunch, wiped off the fingerprints, and tossed it on the ground. Then he drove up and down the field, turning and looping, backing up, making a random set of shapes that were not concentrated in one part of the field. Then he bumped up onto the highway that ran parallel to the river.