The Sacred Spoils

by The Sacred Spoils (retail) (epub)

  He thrashed and struggled as best he could, but only succeeded in lacerating his skin on the limestone and burning through the small reservoir of air already in his system. The need to breathe quickly grew urgent, but his face was still underwater and now there were knees pressed into his shoulders, into his legs and stomach, and his brain was throbbing madly with the need for air, throbbing with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer; and then it happened, he couldn’t fight it any more, he opened his mouth and drew the waters of the Bussento river deep into his lungs.

  III

  ‘Shut it,’ said Tomas Gentile.

  ‘I never said a word,’ grumbled Guido.

  ‘You were thinking it.’

  ‘Come on. How many times are we gonna drive around this fucking town? They’re not here.’

  ‘They are here. I can sniff the bastards.’

  They passed once more the cottage Rossi and Nero had left hours earlier on their motorbike. Its lights were still off, its driveway empty, but their headlights picked out his two men lurking in the bushes. Some ambush that would be! He wanted to give them shit, except that there was no signal for his phone. And stopping to shout at them would only make it worse. Then they were past them anyway, taking hairpins down to the valley floor.

  ‘A nice, soft mattress,’ murmured Guido. ‘A good breakfast. Some daylight to search in.’

  ‘I said shut it,’ said Tomas. He had a sudden hankering to listen to the night. The slope was steep enough here to freewheel so he gestured to Guido to cut the engine while he buzzed down his window. Silence fell, save for the whisper of their tyres on the tarmac and the distant yapping of a dog. The road flattened out as they reached the valley floor. They began to lose speed. Guido made to turn the engine back on but Tomas held up his finger. They reached the bridge, came almost to a complete halt on its hump, but still had just enough momentum to crest it and roll down the far side where they came finally to a halt. The dog fell quiet. So too their tyres. And now the silence was complete.

  Too complete.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Tomas. He took his torch, got out, scrambled down the bank to the river itself. It was as he’d thought. The river that had been flowing so briskly on their arrival had now run almost dry. He dipped a fingertip into a puddle, held it up to the faint breeze. How could a river simply stop like this? What, if anything, did it mean? He was still brooding on these questions while he trudged back up to the car. That was when he saw the sign. He hadn’t seen it earlier, because it was on this side of the river only, and they’d always approached it from the other direction.

  Fiume Bussento, it read. The Bussento river.

  Tomas had been just thirteen years old when he had moved with his family to Amsterdam. But he’d spent his childhood in Cosenza, enchanted like every other kid there by stories of Alaric and his fabulous tomb. The very same people who’d been searching Cosenza’s Busento for it had now relocated here to this second Bussento. There was no way that could be coincidence. Nor surely could it be coincidence that it had stopped running tonight, so soon after Rossi and Nero had vanished into the woods just a short hike from it.

  He couldn’t yet see the detail of it, but the overview suddenly became crystal clear. Nero and her friends had found Alaric’s tomb. They’d somehow stopped the river in order to loot it. Which put a completely different complexion on those two white vans he’d seen in that small parking area above that tourist grotto. He’d ignored them before, too focused on the scarlet Renault and the motorbike. But how much loot could one cart away in a Renault, after all? How much on a bike? A pair of rental vans was another matter altogether.

  He felt euphoric as he climbed back in the car. ‘We’ve got the bastards,’ he told his brother.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Tomas grinned. ‘And maybe a billion in Roman gold too.’

  IV

  Gunfire cracked out even as Avram hurried up the steps to the tomb mouth. Two shots, the noise of them echoing in the chamber. He could only think that one of Dov’s men had somehow gone crazy. Then he arrived at the top to see, in the crazily dancing torchlight, Dov at the sinkhole aiming down a gun, and some poor wretch struggling as he was held underwater by Yonatan and Ezra.

  He jumped down into the water and waded over to them. ‘Let him up!’ he yelled, hauling them off. ‘Let him up.’

  Almost reluctantly, they lifted the man’s head above the surface then turned him onto his side. Water gushed out of his mouth. He coughed and choked then gasped for air. They dragged him to the bank and threw him down even as Dov shepherded a second intruder – a woman – back up the ladder to the top. She raised her hands above her head and threw anguished looks at her companion.

  Avram turned in bewilderment to Dov. ‘What the hell?’ he demanded. ‘Do you know these people?’

  ‘She’s Carmen Nero,’ said Dov. ‘The American woman we hooked up with. But the man, no idea.’

  ‘He’s Cesco Rossi,’ said Zara, from the tomb steps. ‘Her friend from Cosenza.’

  Avram frowned. ‘I thought you said he was a conman.’

  ‘Yes. But it’s still him. She posted his photograph on my discussion board.’

  Avram grunted. ‘What the hell are they doing here?’

  Dov glared at Zara. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ retorted Zara.

  ‘We were supposed to be lovers. She treated me like I was a disease. Of course Nero got suspicious. Of course she realised our Amalfi trip was bullshit. Her professor wasn’t going to be here in time, so she asked this guy for help. They spotted the river had stopped and came to explore.’

  Avram nodded. It explained their presence but didn’t help him decide what to do. Release them, they’d go straight to the police. The whole story would spill out. Bringing the temple treasures back to Israel would be a triumph. But raiding an empty tomb would only make him look ridiculous. His so-called allies in the Knesset would line up behind him, the better to stab him in the back. There’d be inquiries into his life. The bribes would be discovered. The oil companies, the arms sales, the prison contracts. The investigation into that journalist’s death would be reopened, his cover-up exposed. His career would end in disgrace, imprisonment. That couldn’t be allowed. Yet the alternative dismayed him. It was one thing to order people killed from a distance; another when you were staring at their faces.

  Dov gave his gun to Yani, along with instructions to watch Carmen and Cesco, then beckoned Avram out of earshot. ‘We always knew it might end this way,’ he said. ‘That’s why you sent me here, remember?’

  ‘For Zara,’ said Avram. ‘Not these other two.’

  ‘One. Three. What’s the difference?’

  Avram hesitated. To men like Dov, scruples were weakness. ‘We had a narrative before,’ he said. ‘A lonely woman throwing herself from a hotel balcony. It made sense. As did an ’Ndrangheta hit on the prosecution’s key witness and her companion. But how would that explain this Rossi guy? Especially half drowned and torn up by the limestone. And what if they told people where they were going? What if their phones could be traced? What if they were seen?’

  Dov nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘An ’Ndrangheta hit won’t cut it any more. But look at what we have here. Three archaeologists hot on the trail of Alaric. They shut off the river then come exploring. They find his tomb. They open it and go inside. Unfortunately, the dam engineers reopen the sluice gates sooner than expected. The river starts flowing again. It catches all three of them still down there. They try to get out, but too late.’

  ‘Will they repair the dam in time?’

  Dov nodded. ‘Noah thinks so.’

  ‘I didn’t hear him say that.’

  ‘He didn’t say it. I just know how to read the little shit. Think about it. Why have their team work through the night unless they believe they can get it done quickly? So I say we do this then get out of here. I’ll have Noah drive Zara’s Renault over. We’
ll leave it in the parking area for the investigators to find. They’ll put two and two together. They’ll shut the dam back down then come exploring. They’ll find the tomb with the bodies still inside. Everything will speak for itself. Then you give it a month to settle down before announcing the discovery of your replica Menorah beneath your prison, and you ride it to your triumph.’

  Avram digested this in silence. He looked around at Zara and the other two. ‘We drown them, then? We drown all three of them then leave their bodies below?’

  ‘If you want to be prime minister.’

  He could taste the disgust in his mouth, like biting into an apple only to find it rotten. ‘Very well,’ he said, as though it were his own idea. ‘Call your man at the dam. Make sure they’re still working on the repairs. Have him come meet us here. Then do it.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I

  Zara watched numbly as Avram conferred with Dov. She didn’t know the specifics of their discussion, but she was certain of its import. They were discussing whether to kill her, Carmen and Cesco, or to let them live. The realisation prompted her to wade across to where the two of them were sitting, naked save for their underwear, shivering with cold, hugging each other for warmth and comfort.

  Carmen had thrown her clothes down on a ledge. Zara fetched them now, draped her shirt over her shoulders. There was no shirt for Cesco, but she handed him Carmen’s jeans for him to wipe himself dry with, which was something. She looked back across at Avram and Dov, still deep in conversation. Then they turned as one to look at her, identical expressions on their faces.

  Just like that, she knew.

  They didn’t come straight over, but rather went first to the sinkhole where they talked on the radio to Noah at the dam. Whatever he told them seemed to satisfy them. They turned again with those same dead gazes then waded across. Zara’s strength left her at the sight. Her limbs went weak. She backed away, losing balance and stumbling onto her backside. Her helmet slipped as she fell, its beam running across the gemstone ceiling like a searchlight above a city, making it twinkle like a night sky. She had a momentary yet transcendent glimpse of the smallness of her life set against the vastness of time and space; the smallness of this whole world and all that was in it too. But she saw something else as well. Something more urgent and infinitely more practical. ‘Look!’ she cried, pointing upwards. ‘Look!’

  Avram stopped to stare. ‘At what?’

  ‘Those stones,’ she said. ‘All those precious stones!’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Think about it,’ she said, speaking English for Carmen and Cesco’s benefit, for they were all in this together now, and needed each other’s help to survive. ‘Alaric’s tomb was robbed, yes? That’s what we all believe, yes? But what kind of tomb robber would leave all these stones behind, when they’re just begging to be taken?’

  Avram frowned. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that it’s not Alaric’s tomb we’ve found. It can’t be.’

  ‘There must have been sixty bodies down there,’ said Dov irritably. ‘Who’d kill that many over a fake tomb?’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s fake,’ replied Zara. ‘But think about what building it here would have involved. Your first job would be damming the Bussento at Caselle, creating an artificial lake and making the river run dry. Everyone along this whole coast would have known what was going on. They’d hardly have needed slaves to tell them. And Athaulf was anxious to get moving. Maybe he left a detachment here to guard the place for a while. But they’d eventually have left too, leaving it wide open. Not easy to get back in, I grant you. Not without a slave army. But possible. Then they’d have come up here and found it, just as you did, from the gemstone ceiling and the marble tomb. So why then kill all those slaves? Athaulf wasn’t a monster.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Avram. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘In order to keep a different secret. A secret known only to a very select few. A secret designed to keep Alaric safe from robbers even if robbers did eventually make their way in. The secret of a third chamber.’

  Avram squinted at her. ‘You’re saying the one downstairs is a decoy? That that lid was left off that sarcophagus to fool anyone who made it in?’

  ‘Except not only a decoy,’ said Zara. ‘A genuine antechamber that honours Alaric as a great king, but with his real tomb somewhere else. That’s why Athaulf put the slaves to death – so that they couldn’t reveal the true secret of this place: that they’d dug another burial chamber for Alaric somewhere beyond the two we’ve already found.’

  ‘Then where the fuck is it?’ demanded Dov.

  ‘Let us look,’ she pleaded. ‘We’ll find it for you.’

  ‘We?’

  She gestured across at Carmen and Cesco. ‘They know archaeology,’ she said. ‘They know the Goths. They can help me read the walls.’

  Avram’s eyes bored into her. ‘You’d better be right about this,’ he said.

  Or what? she thought. You’ll kill us anyway. But all she said was: ‘Watch.’

  II

  Tomas had little idea what to expect at the parking area. But he had to assume at least four antagonists: Nero, Rossi and the two from the scarlet Renault. He further had to assume that they had the gun that man had wrested from him back in Cosenza. And that was the very minimum. The two rental vans suggested there could well be more. If they’d truly found Alaric’s tomb and were looting it, they’d likely be in Sicilì a while. Yet he could easily imagine them using the cottage as their base – to store their booty, say, or to grab some shut-eye. He therefore decided to leave his two men watching it and instead collected Orsino and Taddeo from their posts monitoring the roads out of town. Then they drove to the parking area.

  The white vans were still there. They got out to inspect them. Their doors were locked and their bonnets cold. They each bore Napoli plates and stickers from the same Sorrento car-hire agency. One of them had rear windows. Tomas shone in his torch. Bench seating down either side and mounds of discarded packaging. He revised upwards their likely numbers. They got back in the Range Rover then drove up the road until he found a signal for his mobile. He gestured for Guido to pull in while he made the call.

  ‘The fuck?’ groaned Massimo, when finally he answered.

  ‘I’ve found them,’ Tomas told him.

  Strange noises at the other end. Massimo sitting up in bed then slapping himself awake. ‘The sweetest fucking dream,’ he said.

  ‘Not half as sweet as this,’ Tomas assured him. ‘You know that parking area with the two white rental vans? Meet us there as soon as you can.’

  ‘All of us?’

  ‘All of you. And tooled. We’re going to war.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Half an hour.’

  They sat in the darkness waiting. Twenty minutes passed. The road from Sicilì finally began to glow with headlights. They heard an engine. Tomas was about to get out to wave them down when suddenly a scarlet fucking Renault turned a corner and came into view. ‘Down,’ he said. They all ducked. Tomas risked a glance as it drove by. Only one person in it – a man he hadn’t seen before, trying to hide his weak chin behind a wispy goatee. He drove by to the parking area, then stopped.

  Tomas and the others got out quietly. They made their way after it on foot. The man was standing by the Renault, setting a miniature satellite dish up on its roof. He was so intent on his task that he had no idea they were there until Guido clamped a hand over his mouth. At once he began thrashing like a speared fish. But Guido pressed his knife into his throat and he fell still.

  Tomas went to stand in front of him. His eyes were wet with panic and self-pity. This was going to be easy. ‘Calm yourself, oh my good friend,’ he said. ‘We mean you no harm, I swear this on the grave of my poor dear mother. We live here, that is all. We worry for our children. All these strange vehicles. All this suspicious activity! We want to know what’s going on. You can understand that, I’m sure. So answer a few questions
for me and you’ll be free. Do you understand?’ He waited for the man to nod, then continued. ‘And you won’t call out if we let you speak?’ A shake of his head this time, enough to send the tears spilling down his cheeks. ‘Very good, my friend,’ said Tomas. ‘You see how painless this is going to be.’ He gestured for Guido to loosen his grip over his mouth a little. ‘Now, let’s start with your name.’

  ‘Noah,’ sobbed the man. ‘Noah Zuckman.’

  ‘And where are you from, Noah Zuckman?’

  ‘Israel.’

  Tomas arched his eyebrows. Would tonight never stop delivering surprises? ‘Israel?’

  ‘I shouldn’t even be here,’ snivelled Zuckman, almost choking over the words. ‘I don’t do overseas jobs.’

  ‘Is it just you from Israel, or your friends too?’

  ‘All of us.’

  ‘And you’re here for Alaric, yes?’

  ‘Yes. But they haven’t found him. At least, they’ve found his tomb. But there’s nothing inside. It’s already been robbed.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tomas. A disappointment, but it didn’t affect his main purpose. ‘Are they on their way back out, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many?’

  His eyes slid to the side to make the count. ‘Eight.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘No.’ But there was a quaver in his voice.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tomas. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

  ‘Then I can go?’

  ‘I gave you my word, didn’t I? Though I need your word in return, not to contact your companions or go to our good friends in blue uniforms.’

  ‘I swear it! I swear it on my life.’

  ‘Good.’ More headlights now, and engine noise. Massimo and the others had arrived. Zuckman stared in bewilderment as they pulled up in a row and his men got out, tucking handguns into their waistbands. He gave a low moan and his legs gave way beneath him. Tomas glanced at Guido. ‘Not the knife,’ he said. ‘Too messy.’