by Thomas Perry
Bako’s cell phone buzzed. A couple of the men jumped and then turned to look at the others with wry expressions, hoping some rival had been caught being rude and foolish in the meeting, but when they saw Bako taking his phone from his pocket they looked away. He read the number on the display and said, “Please excuse me, gentlemen. I need to take this call.”
All of the dozen men stood up instantly, gathered items like laptops and tablets, pens and coffee cups, and filed out of the room. The last man out was the sales manager, who looked relieved. When the soundproof door was shut, Bako flipped his thumb to receive the call.
“Hello, Étienne,” said Bako. “I’ve been wondering when you would call. Good news?”
Étienne Le Clerc chuckled. “It’s such good news that you might think it’s bad. We found the treasure chamber right where we expected it, in the middle of the old battlefield. It’s big. Attila must have left Germany and France without two coins to rub together. You could have left me out of this, done it yourself, and made an extra hundred million euros.”
“There’s that much, eh? And you could be calling now to lie and tell me that there was no treasure—that someone beat us to it.”
Le Clerc laughed. “I suppose this means we’re both almost honest.”
“Nearly so,” said Bako. “Or maybe we choose our victims wisely. The treasure is wonderful news. Can you send me a photograph of the inscription?”
“Inscription?”
“The Latin message. Somewhere in each treasure chamber there is a message from Attila. Didn’t you find it?”
“I suppose we must have taken it. I haven’t seen it yet.”
“It’s hard to miss.”
In Le Clerc’s voice was a faint warning, just a small cloud forming on the horizon. He said, slowly and distinctly, “You haven’t seen the contents of the chamber. It is literally tons of gold and silver, much of it ancient, even pre-Roman. If you want Latin writing, I’ve got plenty of that. There are whole books of it, with gold bindings studded with gemstones.”
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Bako said. “It must be different this time. The first one was deeply engraved into an iron slab the size of a door.”
“We didn’t find anything like that,” said Le Clerc. “I’ll look into it. Oh, and that reminds me. You said we should watch for the man and woman who would try to get there first. They were actually what prompted me to call. They’re here. My men saw them drive up to the battlefield in a convertible and survey the field.”
“Then things are better than I thought. If you can kill them, then we have all the time in the world to find that inscription.”
“Don’t worry,” said Le Clerc. “I’ve still got men out at the site tonight removing the last bits before they cover everything up. We’ll find the inscription. And, in the meantime, those people can be made to disappear.”
* * *
AS SOON AS they were in the city, Sam inquired about renting a truck. He found an agency and rented one that had a bed eight feet wide and nearly twenty long, with a closed cargo bay. Remi took a photograph of a sign from a feed store and went to a printer to have it blown up and reproduced as magnetic signs and then stuck two to the truck’s sides.
Sam and Remi went to their hotel, which was like a gated château, and slept for a few hours before they woke to get ready. Sam assembled a metal detector and a magnetometer. They packed up their shovels and crowbars, night vision gear, and backpacks, and ate a dinner in the hotel consisting of duck l’orange with Rosé des Riceys, a local wine that was reputed to be one of Louis XIV’s favorites. They ended it with crêpes suzette.
At midnight they got into their rental truck. Sam drove and Remi sat beside him, trying to navigate. They drove along the curving rustic highway to the hamlet of Cuperly and then headed north. It was only a short time before they reached the field they had found in the late afternoon. Sam pulled the truck to the side of the road.
“Well, let’s go see what they were digging out there,” said Remi as she put on her backpack.
Sam replied, “Let’s hope they just have big gophers in France.”
They climbed a stone fence and walked into the field. Remi consulted the photos she’d taken that afternoon to guide them to the first hole they’d seen from the road. As they approached the hole, they put on their night vision goggles and knelt beside it. The sight was confusing, so they used their shovels to clear away some of the dirt.
“What is that?” Remi said. She reached down and touched it. “Steel. It looks like a cannon.”
“You’re right.” Sam dug around it a bit with his hand, then stopped at the muzzle. “I think it’s a French 75.”
“That’s a cocktail,” she said. “Gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar, I think.”
“Well, this is the cannon they named it after,” he said. “Something about the hangover, I imagine. This is also why we have to be careful when we dig in France. The Marne is just to the south and east beyond that field. In the summer of 1918, General Ludendorff planned a big offensive to take the Champagne region. The allies got a copy of his plan, moved a lot of artillery around, and, an hour before the German attack, opened fire with over three thousand cannons. I’m guessing from the position and condition of this cannon that it probably got damaged in the return fire—or just got too hot.”
“Whoever got here before us probably picked up a big spike on their magnetometer, dug down, and found it,” said Remi.
“Let’s go look at the next hole.”
They moved toward the next one in the field, stopped, and looked in. At the bottom of the hole was what seemed to be the remains of a couple of wooden crates, both age-darkened and rotted-away. There was also the metal rim of a wagon wheel and the hub. Sam cautiously poked at the crates, which were as soft as wet cardboard. He saw the row of five cannon rounds, shaped like giant bullets, the brass casings green with patina from being buried for so long and the projectiles a uniform gray. “There’s a find,” he said. “Unexploded ordnance. It looks like a buried caisson. Let’s move on.”
“We should call somebody,” Remi said.
“We will. There are so many bombs and mines and artillery shells from both world wars that France still keeps teams on the payroll to dispose of them when they turn up.”
“This must have been quite a surprise to Bako’s French friends when they dug their test holes,” Remi said.
“Well, there’s just one more hole dug in the field and it looks bigger than the first two,” Sam said. “Whatever they found must be something that doesn’t blow up.” They walked toward the third hole.
They stepped up to the mound of earth that had been thrown aside in the digging.
“Look at the entrance,” Remi said. “It’s like the other—made of mortared stones.”
“Let’s see what’s left in there,” Sam said. Sam took a nylon climbing rope out of his backpack, tied a loop, put it over the shaft of his spade, then propped the spade in the corner of the hole’s entrance to hold it. They adjusted their night vision goggles, and he lowered Remi into the chamber. After a few seconds, the rope went slack. There were a few seconds of silence.
“What do you see?”
“It’s not empty, but I think it’s been looted. There aren’t any piles of gold down here. Come look.”
Sam rappelled down the inner wall of the chamber. His feet touched a surface and he knelt. “It’s cement,” he said.
“The Romans had cement. Why not Attila?” Remi said.
“I know. If he wanted a mason, I’m sure he could have captured a thousand of them. It looks as though they made this chamber of timbers and then plastered the whole thing with cement, probably on both sides.”
“Look,” said Remi. She was standing a dozen feet away, beside a pile of metal that still had a dull gleam in the amplified green light of the night vision goggles.
Sam joined her. “I don’t see any gold, but this is amazing—Roman shields, helmets and breastplates, swords, javelin
s. This must have been part of the spoils of the campaign.”
“They’re historically valuable,” Remi said. “But still, it doesn’t make me happy to know that Bako’s French friends beat us here.”
“Let’s find the inscription, unless they took that too.”
They searched the walls, looking for any faint scratches. Then, at the bottom of the pile of Roman equipment, they found a shield that was not like the four-foot-high rectangular Roman scuta that curves back at the sides. This was a round one with a steel boss at the center that stuck out like a spike. On the inner side, engraved around the rim, was an inscription in Latin.
Remi took a picture of it with her cell phone’s camera, then had Sam hold the shield and took several pictures from different angles to bring out the carved letters in sharp relief. “There,” she said. “That should do it. Wait a second. It shouldn’t be here. Bako’s friends should know that this shield was important—maybe more important than anything else in the chamber. Why would they leave it?”
Sam shrugged. “They must have dropped in, seen lots of gold and silver and stones, taken them, and left. It’s incredible luck for us.”
“Let’s get moving, then,” Remi said. “You climb up and pull these things out with the rope and I’ll tie the next load.”
Sam ran the rope through the hand straps of the first two Roman scuta, then made a bundle of javelins and a bundle of Roman gladius swords, the standard-issue Roman short sword. He climbed to the surface, set the artifacts in piles, then threw the rope down to Remi.
After a couple of minutes, she called, “Haul away!”
When he pulled up the rope this time, there were five undecorated helmets belonging to common soldiers, two scuta, and four breastplates. He leaned down into the entrance, wearing a helmet as he stuck his head in the chamber. “Is that everything?”
“My heart goes pit-a-pat for a man in uniform,” said Remi. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“There was a light, like a beam, that went past in the air behind you.”
He pulled back and looked across the field in each direction. “I don’t see anything now. Probably just an airplane’s landing lights as it came in toward Reims. It’s not the year 451 anymore.”
“Then you should update your wardrobe.”
“Grab the rope and I’ll pull you up.”
OUTSIDE CUPERLY, FRANCE
WHEN THEY HAD REACHED THE SURFACE AND WERE IN the night air again, they sat on top of the chamber surrounded by the high pile of dirt from the excavation. Remi said, “We should probably take a couple rails off the fence and drive the truck here to load up, as we did in Italy.”
“Not a bad plan,” said Sam. “I’m not eager to walk back and forth to get it all.”
“I love it when you have the sense to agree with me,” she said.
“Really? I’ll try to remember that.”
“As long as you’re not trying to flatter and manipulate me into doing nice things for you at some later time,” she added.
“Oh?” he said. “Would that be bad?”
“Sort of bad. Not I’m furious at you bad, but certainly not your best behavior.”
“Certainly not,” he said. “But my best behavior? That’s a very high standard.”
“Of course,” she answered. “Shall we do this?”
“Okay,” he said. “Since it was such a good idea.”
“Thank you.”
She picked up a bundle of javelins he had tied together, strapped a gladius in its sheath around his waist, and picked up the shield with the message on it. They both climbed out of the excavation. There was a loud snap as a bullet passed overhead and they jumped back into the hole. A second later, there was the sound of another shot.
Remi raised her head over the edge of the trench and put her night vision goggles on.
“Get down,” said Sam.
“Did you hear the shot? He’s about three hundred yards out. He couldn’t even hit a big target like you.”
“Not on his first shot, but I’ll bet he’s zeroed in now.”
A third shot plowed into the pile of dirt behind them, and Remi ducked down. “Do you have any ideas?”
“He may be able to find the range quickly, but hitting a running figure is a bit harder.”
“I didn’t ask for random musings. I wanted a plan.”
There were three more shots in rapid succession, one of them very high, one to the side, and one in the dirt behind them. Sam peered over the rim of the hole toward the distant rocks. “There’s a car—looks like a Range Rover—up by the rock shelf. There are three or four of them with rifles, aiming at us.”
Remi said, “Has it occurred to you that they’re using the same strategy as the Romans and Visigoths: arriving first at the high ground and then holding us down with fire from a distance?”
“If only they were shooting arrows,” said Sam. “Here. Take this.” He put another Roman helmet on her head, picked up a Roman scuta, rapped it with his knuckles, then set it aside and chose another. “This one’s better. It’s got a layer of metal on the outside.” He picked up a third scuta.
“This won’t stop a bullet,” she said.
“No, but they’ll make us harder to kill.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Hold it over your back like this.”
“You look like a turtle.”
“Success. That’s the idea. It’s hard enough to hit someone who’s running in the dark at this distance. If you have this between you and them, it will be hard for them to pick out what’s you and what isn’t. Now, let’s go before it occurs to them that they can advance.” He picked up his bundle of javelins, the round shield with the message, and the scuta he had selected.
Sam climbed out of the trench, ran away from the road as though he had a miraculous new plan, then made a quick jog to the side just as the shooters fired again. Remi saw he was drawing fire, climbed up and held her scuta behind her as she sprinted straight for the parked truck.
Sam reversed his direction and ran after her. Not noticing Remi at first, the snipers fired at him again.
Remi was still dashing for the truck, her body low and the four-foot scuta on her right shoulder to keep it toward the snipers. She ran past the nearest of the test holes, the one filled with artillery shells. As she had feared, the snipers fired round after round at the hole, trying to set off an explosion. But, as she had hoped, from where they were, they couldn’t do anything but hit the dirt piled up around it. Even after she was past the danger zone, she could hear them wasting rounds on the explosives, thinking Sam’s approach was a second chance to hit the old shells.
After that, each of the shooters seemed to share his shots evenly between Sam and Remi, which showed her that none of them had any training. The sniper’s stock-in-trade was to select a target and ignore everything else in the world until that target was dead. The American sniper’s standard, “One shot, one kill,” was far out of reach of most other services, but all of them were much better than this.
As she dashed past the next test hole that had uncovered the French cannon, a rifle shot hit the right edge of her Roman shield. It punched the scuta hard to the side, and she felt splinters bouncing off her helmet, but she was able to hold on to it and keep running. The shield’s curvature had served its purpose and diverted much of the force of the bullet. Running even harder, she made it to the shelter of the big truck. She crouched on the street side, away from the snipers, climbed into the passenger seat, slid to the driver’s side, and started the engine. The shooters fired at the cab, blowing one of the side windows inward. They hit the cargo box, then the frame of the truck. Remi kept her body curled in a low-profile crouch.
Then, just as she was beginning to feel hope, one of the shooters managed to ricochet a round off something at the edge of the ammunition pit, and there was a loud, fiery explosion in the field. She looked, saw Sam dive to the ground with his scuta over his back. He scrambled fo
rward as three more rounds went off, then a volley of six.
A moment later, Sam, still carrying the two shields and the bundle of javelins, appeared on the safe side of the truck. To her surprise, he climbed into the cargo bay, slammed the door shut, ran to the small window that separated the bay from the cab, and yelled, “Get us out of here.”
Remi sat up, released the hand brake, depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear, then let the clutch out too tentatively, the truck making a jerky start. It didn’t stall, so she poured on more gas until the transmission whined that it was time to shift again. She worked her way up to fourth gear and kept her foot on the gas. Urging the big truck up to fifty along the dark country road with no headlights on, she just aimed for the center of the pavement. She took off the ancient helmet, threw it on the seat, and moved her head to keep catching the reflection of the moonlight on the dark, smooth surface of the road.
As soon as she could look in her rearview mirror and not see the rocky outcropping, she switched on the headlights and went faster. She kept adjusting in her lane to straighten the curves. She got up to sixty, then seventy, still climbing. She hoped there would be no cars coming from the other direction, but hoping seemed to make them appear. There was a glow in the sky above the hill ahead, and then a pair of headlights popped over the crest and came down toward her.
