The telephone gave an abbreviated ring on the other end, then some mysterious clicks and disconnection sounds, like doors opening and closing. Finally a female voice with a singer’s lilt to it said in Hungarian, “The offices of the Poliakoff Company are closed for the day. If you would like to leave a message, wait for the tone.” Bako knew that the machine was simply programmed to speak Hungarian to a Hungarian phone number.

He said, “This is Arpad Bako. Please call me back.” He ended the call, then set the cell phone down on his large, highly polished rosewood desk and looked at it expectantly. The telephone rang almost immediately and he picked it up. “Hello, Sergei.”

“I was surprised to hear your voice, Arpad. You’re a fat, lazy plutocrat to call me at night.”

“Ideas come to me like birds flying in my window. When I see a good one, I snatch it out of the air regardless of the hour.”

“I like ideas. You can tell me yours. This is a scrambled line.”

“All right,” Bako said. “I have found a treasure hidden by Attila the Hun.”

“A treasure,” said Poliakoff. “Are we using metaphors now?”

“I say the word treasure the way Attila would have. A collection of coins and jewels, works of art, and ornaments made of gold and precious stones. They will be in a burial chamber.”

“Attila’s?”

“Attila’s father’s. You will get a third if you help me.”

“A third of what?”

“A third of whatever we find,” said Bako. “I can tell you we’ve found some of the treasures already. There was one in Italy. There was one in France with so much gold it took a truck to carry it out. There was a smaller one in the Transylvanian forest, and one on the north bank of the Danube that was ten shipping crates of gold and gems.”

“You have all of this gold and jewelry? Send me pictures of yourself standing with it and send me a small sample in your next shipment of pain pills. A ring, a necklace, anything in your next shipment of pills. I’m expecting one by air tomorrow.”

“I can send you a sample. Not much more. While my resources were devoted to searching in France, some competitors went and found the one in Italy. That treasure I never saw. I only read about it in the newspapers. The one in France was dug up by our friend Étienne Le Clerc. He took pictures, but those competitors stole it from his shipping warehouse. The one along the Danube, my men dug up today, and they took pictures. The actual treasure is now in the hands of the Hungarian government.”

Poliakoff said, “So you know these treasures exist, but you don’t have them. Who are these competitors who took these treasures from you?”

“It’s an American couple named Samuel and Remi Fargo. They’re rich treasure hunters, and they’ve found some magnificent riches in other parts of the world, but never anything like this. There can’t be many treasures like these. Attila swept out of Asia across the Ural and the Volga all the way to France, robbing cities. And I found out where he hid most of those riches.”

Poliakoff said, “This is just two people—and one of them a woman—robbing you and Le Clerc of a treasure worth millions and millions?”

“Billions. But it’s not just two people. When Fargo needs men, he hires them. When he doesn’t, they vanish like smoke. He also has the help of Albrecht Fischer, one of the world’s leading scholars on the late Roman Empire. And when Fargo believes he’s about to be outmaneuvered, he calls in the national police to take charge of the treasure.”

Poliakoff said, “Arpad, you must never again tell this story to anyone. If any of the people we both deal with heard it, they’d think you were weak. They’d turn on you like wolves and eat you up.”

“Are you interested in my offer or not?”

“Oh, I’ll do it for you,” said Poliakoff. “Where is your wonderful treasure now?”

“It’s buried in a chamber in the city of Taraz in Kazakhstan. I’ll send you a map.”

“And where are the Fargos? Do they know where it is?”

“They were here in Szeged this afternoon, but they’ve had several hours to learn the next location and I’m sure they’ll be leaving as soon as possible.”

“Find out how they’re planning to get to Kazakhstan from Hungary and let me know immediately. Do you have photographs of them?”

“I have men watching the airports and train stations and men watching the Fargos. I’m sending you the photos right now.”

“Call me the minute you know their flight number and destination. Minutes and seconds will matter.” He hung up.

*  *  *

FROM THE TOP TOWERS of Sergei Poliakoff’s estate outside Nizhny Novgorod, he could see the Volga, and along its banks the lights of the city of more than a million people were like a galaxy of stars miles away. The city was huge and modern and had long been a center of aerospace research, but here in the calm and quiet of his estate it could easily have been the 1850s. When he sat in the gardens, he could listen to the winds and hear no interruption but for the calls of birds that had come to eat from his currant bushes.

Outside, an American-made Hummer with armored door panels waited with two of Poliakoff’s bodyguards inside. Next came the family’s big black Mercedes with tinted windows and then the follow-up, a white Cadillac Escalade. His wife, Irena, and the children went past the Mercedes and entered the Escalade. If any of Poliakoff’s detractors were to attempt to cause trouble, they would attack the armored Hummer with its guards or the elegant Mercedes that looked as though it held the family. The men in the front seat of the Escalade would drive on through.

Sergei watched them leave, and then the front door closed with a resonant thud and the steel bolts snapped into place. Poliakoff was a good match for Irena. Her parents had been important intellectuals during the Communist era, and, unlike most of the others, they had never gone out of favor.

He picked up his cell phone and clicked his way through the pictures Bako had sent him of golden bangles and trinkets. Then he came to the pictures of the Fargos. The wife was not merely attractive, she was a genuine beauty, he thought. He knew, from his experience with Irena, that living with such a prize was a wonderful thing in daily life. In a fight, it wasn’t such a good thing at all. It gave a man something precious, but also made him fragile and vulnerable, making him love his wife so much he didn’t want to risk her in a fight.

Bako was essentially a merchant—greedy as a tick, but he didn’t love a fight. He thought of enemies as competitors. And Le Clerc, at the bottom of his soul, was the same. Like Bako, he was capable of hiring a few ruthless men and keeping them around, but what he watched were the reports his accountants brought him. They were just dishonest business types, not tough men after real success. Poliakoff had lived in a harder world than the others. Only he seemed to see this situation clearly at a glance. The woman was the treasure.

FERIHEGY AIRPORT, BUDAPEST

SAM AND REMI WERE AT BUDAPEST AIRPORT, WALKING toward the boarding tunnel for their flight to Moscow.

“Astana is supposed to be all shiny and new,” said Remi. “That should be interesting. The whole place was rebuilt in the past fifteen years.”

“We’ll probably have to spend some time in the capital seeing the people who have authority over antiquities,” said Sam. “This time, I’d like to get them in on everything before we start digging.”

“Do you think Bako will beat us there?”

“I can’t predict,” said Sam. “At times, he seems to begin ahead of us. He’s already thinking about every site where Attila ever was and he picks the one he thinks fits. Other times, he seems to turn things over to people who don’t know what they’re doing.”