The Tombs (A Fargo Adventure) (4 page)

Remi put her hand on his arm. “The alligators weren’t just a figure of speech, you know.”

“Don’t tell them I’m here.” He moved into the murky water and disappeared. He reappeared at the stern of the black-and-gray boat. He went to the bow, pulled up the anchor, and let the boat begin to drift downstream.

Remi moved quickly along the shallows to where they had left the dive boat, close to the shore among the dead trees. She used the gaff to push off, lifted the anchor, and looked up the watery channel at Sam, drifting slowly toward her in the black-and-gray boat. She could see he was working with a set of wires he had cut and stripped with his dive knife.

As Remi watched, Sam touched the two wires together, the engine started, and he began to steer the boat down the bayou toward her. She started the engine of their boat and moved along the bayou ahead of him at quarter speed, relying on her memory of where sunken logs and muddy bars had been. In a few minutes she was out into Mud Lake, then into Vermilion Lake, and then out into the Gulf. In a moment, Sam was coming up behind in the black-and-gray boat.

When they reached the open water far out from the Caminada Headland, they brought the two boats together and tied them. Remi climbed aboard the black-and-gray boat. “Sneakily done.”

“Thank you,” he said. They began to search the black-and-gray boat, concentrating on the cabin. In a few minutes, Remi held up a blue binder with a hundred pages in it. “They’re a company. Have you ever heard of Consolidated Enterprises?”

“No,” Sam said. “Pretty vague. It doesn’t sound like anything specific.”

“I guess they don’t want to rule anything out,” she said.

“At the moment, they’re treasure hunters.” He pointed to a marine metal detector on the deck, ready to be deployed.

“Why use that thing when you can just follow people who find treasures, wreck their equipment, and take over their spot?”

Sam looked around the cabin again. “There’re six of them.”

“Two women.” She nodded and opened the binder again. “Here we go. They’re a ‘field team,’ complete with pictures and names.”

“Take it with you,” said Sam.

“Isn’t taking things crossing the line?”

“Isn’t stranding six people in a swamp forty miles from home crossing the line?”

“I guess you’re right.” She closed the binder and went on deck. “What should we do with their boat?”

“Where’s their home office?”

“New York.”

“Then we’d better drive it back and dock it in the marina,” Sam said. “It’s probably rented from somebody who can’t afford to lose it.”

Remi swung her legs over the gunwale into their rented boat. Sam handed her his mask and flippers, then took off his wet suit and tossed it into the boat too. Remi cast off the line that connected the two boats. “I’ll race you back to Grand Isle.” She started the engine. “Winner gets the first shower.”

Sam restarted the black-and-gray boat and got off to a fair start. Speeding up and heading for the marina at high speed, the bottoms of the boats rising to crest waves before smacking down into the troughs, they arrived almost an hour later nearly even. When Sam tied the black-and-gray boat to the dock, he climbed out wearing a purloined sweatshirt with the hood up over a baseball cap. He walked off the dock, then up the next one, where Remi was tying up their boat. She looked up. “You’re looking smug in your stolen finery.”

He shook his head. “I just smile a lot. It means I’m guileless and friendly.”

She finished with the lines, then stepped to the cabin and tugged once on the new padlock. “Guileless? Being transparent isn’t the same as being guileless. Take me to a long hot shower, a good restaurant, and then maybe we’ll talk about the friendly part.”

L
A
J
OLLA,
C
ALIFORNIA

S
ELMA
W
ONDRASH SAT AT HER DESK IN THE OFFICE ON
the first floor of the Fargo house on Goldfish Point in La Jolla. It was still early evening in California, and she looked up from the book she was reading to see the sun beginning to set over the smooth expanse of the ocean. She loved the moment when the sun seemed to sit on the horizon like the yolk of a fried egg. The long Pacific swells came in below the house at the foot of the cliffs, and she thought about how they came to her from across the world. She seldom had time to read books for pure pleasure, but the Fargos had been in Louisiana for nearly a month and what they were doing didn’t require much research effort from her.

She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair, closed her eyes for a moment, and thought about the book she was reading—
The Greater Journey
, David McCullough’s book about nineteenth-century Americans who went to Paris. They were like her, people in love with knowledge. For them and her, to learn was to live.

She had, she thought, succeeded in finding the place for her.

As a child, Selma had sometimes imagined a painted portrait of herself, a mousy, uninteresting creature—
The Girl in the Front Row With Her Hand Up
. She had begun as a prodigy, a child who read at two, and kept reading, learning, studying, calculating, and here she was, a master researcher.

Catching sight of her reflection in the big shiny surface of the window overlooking the ocean, there she was, a small—perhaps compact—middle-aged—no fudging about that—woman, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and khaki pants. Well, these were Japanese gardening pants, and stylish.

She had been working for Sam and Remi Fargo for quite some time now. They had hired her right after they had sold their company but before they had built this house. Remi had said, “We need somebody to help us do research.”

“On what?” asked Selma.

Remi answered, “On questions. On anything and everything. History, archaeology, languages, oceanography, meteorology, computer science, biology, medicine, physics, games. We want somebody who will hear a question and devise ways to answer it.”

“I do that,” she’d said. “I’ve studied many of those fields myself, and taught a few. When I worked as a reference librarian, I picked up some sources and know many experts on the others. I’ll take the job.”

Sam said, “You don’t even know the salary yet.”

“You don’t either,” she’d said. “I’ll accept minimum wage for three probationary months and then you can name the figure. I assure you, it will be much higher than you know. You’ll be much more appreciative then than you are now.”

She had never been less than delighted that she’d chosen to work for the Fargos. It was as though she had never looked for a job but instead was to be paid for being a good Selma. She even helped Sam and Remi plan this house. She had researched architecture and architects, materials and sustainable design, and because she had already studied Sam and Remi she could remind them of things they liked and would need space to accommodate. She had also explained what was necessary for a first-rate research facility.

The telephone rang, and she considered letting Pete or Wendy, her junior researchers, pick it up. The idea lasted a half second before she became, as always, the victim of her own intense curiosity. “Hello. This is the Fargo residence. Selma Wondrash speaking.”

“Selma!” came the voice.
“Meine Liebe, wo sind Ihr Chef und seine schöne Frau?”

“Herr Doktor Fischer.
Sie sind tauchen im Golf von Mexiko.
”

“Your German is better every day. I’ve made a fascinating discovery and I’d like to discuss it with Remi and Sam. Is there any way I can reach them right away?”

“Yes. If you’ll give me a number where you can be reached, I’ll ask them to call you as soon as I can get them above the surface.”

“I’m in Berlin. The number here is . . .”

As Selma wrote down the number, she was already thinking she would put the McCullough book aside. Albrecht Fischer was a professor of classical archaeology at Heidelberg. It wouldn’t hurt to spend some time this evening reviewing a few of his recent academic publications just to see what might be next. “Thank you, Albrecht. I’ll get Sam and Remi’s attention as soon as I can.”

Late in the evening, after their romantic dinner of shrimp etouffee, softshell crab, and bread pudding at the Grand Jatte and a moonlit walk home along the Gulf, Sam and Remi had just gotten into bed when his cell phone rang.

As Sam dropped his feet to the floor to get his phone from the top of the dresser, Remi raised her head and leaned on her elbow. “Mine has an off switch.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot it was on.” He flipped his thumb across the screen. “Hello?”

“Sam?”

“Selma.” He looked at Remi. She turned away and pulled the covers up to her chin.

“I hope I’m not calling too late.”

“Of course not.” He smiled at Remi. “What’s up?”

“Albrecht Fisher called. He’s made a discovery he wants to discuss with you and Remi.”

“Is he at his university office in Heidelberg?”

“No, he’s in Berlin. He gave me his number.”

“Yes.”

She read him the number, and he used the pen he’d left on the dresser to write it on a slip of paper in his wallet. “Thanks, Selma. How’s everything at home?”

“Everything proceeds with the utmost serenity at the manor whether the lord and lady are in residence or not.”

“You wouldn’t call a man up in the middle of the night just to make fun of him.”

“Never,” said Selma. “Sleep tight.” She hung up.

Sam went out to the kitchen and began to close the door, but Remi was already out of bed and put her hand on the door to keep it from closing. “I’m already awake. We may as well both be tired tomorrow.”

“What time is it in Berlin?”

“Seven hours ahead of Louisiana.”

“So it’s eight a.m.”

Sam tapped in the number and waited while the connection was established, then switched his phone to speaker. They listened to it ring.

“’Allo, Sam.
Wie geht es Ihnen?
”

“Fine, Albrecht. Selma said you had something to tell us, so we’re both listening.”

“I do,” he said. “It’s a find that I made only a week ago. I brought a few things here for testing and the results have come in.”

“What is it?”

“My friends, I think I’ve found something incredible, and it has to be kept absolutely secret for now. It’s so big, I can’t excavate it alone. I can’t even do a preliminary survey alone. Full summer will begin in a month, and again the need for secrecy in this situation doesn’t even bear describing.”

“We understand the secrecy, but can’t you even tell us what it is?” asked Remi.

“I think . . . I believe that what I’ve found is an ancient battlefield. It seems to be intact, undisturbed.”

Sam wrote on his slip of paper, “What do you think?” Remi took the pen and wrote: “Yes.”

Sam said, “We’ll come to you.”

“Thank you, Sam. I’m in Berlin now, buying some things and borrowing others. Send me your flight information, and I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“Remi and I will be on a plane sometime in the morning, but the flight will probably add a whole day. See you soon.” He hung up and looked at Remi.

“We should have asked what kind of battlefield,” she said.

“All he said was ancient. So I guess we don’t have to worry about unexploded ordnance.”

“If it’s in Europe, we may.”

“He’s in Berlin, but it sounded as though that was where he was doing tests, not where the site is.”

“We’d better get packed.”

In the morning, as they made the fifty-four-mile drive to New Orleans, Sam called Ray Holbert and said, “I’m sorry, but a friend called last night and needs some emergency help on a project, so we’ve got to go. I apologize for leaving in such a hurry.”

Holbert said, “Don’t think anything of it. You gave us a great month’s work and we’ll miss you. We don’t have many volunteers who pay all their own expenses and plenty of ours too. But we’ll keep in touch and let you know what else we discover.”

“Thanks, Ray.”

“Oh, and Sam? If someone were to go look for those people who rented that black-and-gray boat, where would you suggest they start?”

“I can’t say for sure. Somewhere in the bayous inland from Lake Vermilion and Mud Lake, would be my best guess.”

Selma had their itinerary waiting at the airport. Sam and Remi flew Royal Dutch Airlines from Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans to Atlanta and then on to Amsterdam. Sam and Remi slept on the transatlantic flight and then woke in time for arrival in Amsterdam. The final flight into Berlin was much shorter, and when they arrived at Tegel Airport in Berlin at 11:20 the next morning, there was Albrecht Fischer.

Fischer was tall and thin, with blond hair that was slowly lightening to white and once fair skin that had been tanned by the sun so many times that it had stayed that way, making his blue eyes stand out. He wore a gray sport coat that looked weather-beaten, with a dark blue silk scarf hanging loose from his neck. He shook Sam’s hand and kissed Remi on both cheeks. It wasn’t until they were walking toward the exit from the terminal that Albrecht Fischer spoke about his find.

“I’m sorry for telling you so little on the telephone. I think you’ll understand when you see what I’ve brought to Germany.”

“This isn’t where it came from?” asked Remi.

“No,” he said. “At the site, I sensed I was being watched. I needed to do lab work and examinations, but I didn’t dare do them there. So I came back here. There are colleagues at Humboldt and at the Free University who have let me use their labs. I’ve been sleeping in the office of a colleague who is on leave and using the shower in his chemistry lab.”

“Why not just go back to your own lab at Heidelberg?”

“A bit of a ruse to throw off anyone who might be interested in what I’m doing. I had some odd feelings while I was at work, and I’ve found that when you think you’re being watched, you usually are.”

Fischer took them outside the terminal, where he hailed a cab that took them to the Hotel Adlon Kempinski. While Sam checked them in, Remi took in the beauty of the hotel—the ornate carpets, fine furniture, vaulted ceiling—but she also noticed that Albrecht Fischer’s eyes were moving constantly, scanning the steady stream of people coming and going through the lobby. He was agitated, impatient, and, at the same time, there was something else. He seemed to be afraid. Sam sent the bellman up to their room with the luggage, then rejoined Remi and Fischer. “Shall we go up?”

Remi shook her head. “I think we’d better go see what the good professor has been working on.”

Albrecht brightened. “Yes, please do. I know you’re probably tired from all the travel, but I’ve been keeping myself quiet about this until I’m half mad. And the lab isn’t far.”

Sam and Remi exchanged a glance, and Sam said, “Then of course. Let’s go.” They stepped outside, and the doorman signaled a cab and opened the door for them. Albrecht waited until the door was closed to say, “Humboldt University, please.” The cab let them off only a few blocks away at the statue of Frederick the Great in front of the main building of the university on Unter den Linden.

They walked quickly into a building that seemed to be all science laboratories—doors with smoked-glass windows with numbers on them. The ones that were open had young people inside, wearing lab coats and wandering among black boxes with screens, stands that held chemistry apparatus, and counters with centrifuges and spectrometers. As they passed, Sam kept looking into each lab. Remi took Sam’s arm. “I know you’re reliving the high points of your college years.”

“What do you mean?” asked Albrecht. “I thought all American students did was drink beer and go to parties.”

“Sam went to Caltech. They worked in labs, then drank beer and went to parties.”

“I was just thinking about some of the people who went to this university. There was one student who was promising—a kid named Albert Einstein.”