Текст книги "The Tombs"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“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, javelins. 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 scutathat 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 youbad, 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 scutahe 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 scutabehind 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 scutaon 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 scutahard 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 scutaover his back. He scrambled forward 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.

Remi moved as close to the right edge of the narrow road as she dared, trying not to lose any speed. The first car seemed to miss her left headlight by two inches. As its headlights went past and became a pair of red taillights fading into the distance, the driver leaned on his horn, a blare of protest into the night. The next three cars shot by in silence, maybe taking advantage of a slightly wider stretch of road or maybe just speechless with shock over her reckless driving.

She kept glancing in the rearview mirror, hoping the shooters hadn’t decided to pursue her. Again, her hopes seemed to conjure what she most feared. On the road behind her, a pair of headlights appeared, accelerating toward her rapidly. When she went around a curve, she looked in the side mirror to get a clearer view of her pursuer. The vehicle was bigger than most, and higher—the Range Rover they had seen parked partway up the rocky shelf on the battlefield. There was a larger vehicle behind it, a truck much like the one she was driving. Of course there would be a truck, she thought. The treasure chamber had been as big as the cargo bay of a truck. When these men had taken out the gold and silver, it must have been too much weight for the SUV to carry.

The Range Rover quickly moved up behind her, and soon the truck was close. She knew the next move would be to come up beside her so somebody could aim a rifle out the window and shoot her.

The car came closer and closer, and she realized that the driver was trying to hold his headlights to illuminate her tires so rifle shots would bring her to a halt. She heard Sam fiddling with the rear doors of the cargo bay. She steadied the truck and watched the side-view mirror. The Range Rover was about as close as it could be when the doors of the truck swung open.

An ancient javelin came flying out of the dark cargo bay. It had a small, narrow, sharp tip at the end of a steel shaft that extended nearly half its length, then about three feet of fragile old wood. Flexible, it seemed to slither in the air, spiraling as it flew.

In Remi’s rearview mirror, she saw the driver’s eyes go wide and mouth gape open as the metal shaft hurtled toward him. The tip struck the windshield with an audible bang, and she saw the white impact mark appear in front of the driver, the tip of the javelin stuck in the safety glass. The wind made the shaft move back and forth wildly, swinging the sharp tip around in front of the faces of the driver and his companion.

The Range Rover weaved crazily for a moment, as the driver fought for control, and then spun sideways. The truck had been following the Rover too closely to avoid it and plowed into the driver’s side near the left front wheel and spun the car around before both vehicles stopped.

Remi kept driving. The truck crossed into Reims about ten minutes later, and she parked it at the rental agency. She and Sam put their Roman weapons and armor into the rental car they had left at the agency and drove to their hotel.

Dressed in black clothes covered with dirt from the field, they carried their heavy armloads of ancient war gear into the lobby. They both had dirt smeared on their faces and hands. When Sam stopped at the front desk, the clerk looked at the ancient helmet and seemed uneasy. “Sir?” he said.

“I’m Samuel Fargo from Room 27.”

“Yes, sir. Is everything satisfactory?” He eyed the javelins and the shields.

“Oh, this? We were just at a costume party that got out of hand.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve found that any party with a Roman theme seems to be trouble.”

“I guess we should have asked before we went. Right now, I’d like to rent a second room. I’d like one on a different floor, different hallway. Is that possible?”

“That we can do.” He looked at a computer screen, produced the papers for Sam’s signature, and then the room key. “Room 315, sir.”

Sam and Remi took the Roman arms to the new room and leaned the shields and javelins against the wall.

Remi shook her head. “Too easy to find. It’s precious.”

Sam picked up the engraved shield again, opened the window, and climbed out of the gable onto the steep roof. He walked to the nearest chimney and stuck the shield between it and the slate shingles at the peak. Climbing back inside, he locked the window.

Sam said, “We’ll have to go out and look around. I think we should find the men who are trying to kill us.”

Remi said, “I’d like you to repeat that to yourself and see if it sounds like a good idea.”

“Not the men, exactly,” he said. “What I’d like to find is where they’re hiding the treasure.”

“And how do you want to do that?” she said.

“Well, let’s think about who they must be. They appear to be a group that isn’t usually involved in stealing ancient artifacts. They didn’t notice the shield with the inscription and they left extremely valuable Roman artifacts in the chamber just because they weren’t made of gold.”

“You’re right,” said Remi. “So who are they?”

“Friends and allies of Arpad Bako—almost certainly business connections. So what business is Bako in?”

“According to Tibor, the main one seems to be diverting prescription drugs he manufactures to illegal channels.”

“I’m guessing these men are local drug dealers.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“So let’s call Tibor.” He took out his cell phone and hit Tibor’s preprogrammed number.

“Yes?” a groggy voice answered.

“Tibor, it’s Sam.”

“I was asleep. What time is it? Where are you?”

“We’re still in France. Bako seems to have called in some French crooks to do the searching, just as we feared, and they’ve beaten us to the treasure, but we found the inscription still in the chamber.”

“Some bad, some good. Is there any way to get the treasure before they move it?”

“We managed to lose the French shooters who came after us. We think they’re related somehow to Bako’s illegal activities, so they’re probably in the drug trade. I’m wondering if we can find the addresses in France where Bako ships his legal pharmaceuticals.”

“I’ve been working on this since we suspected someone else was in France. I called a cousin who works for the shipping company Bako uses. I haven’t found a place in France where he ships medicine. We think any legitimate sales are shipped into France by a Belgian company. But he has a supplier for chemicals called Compagnie Le Clerc. They send him chemical compounds in special containers and when he’s unloaded them he ships them back. There are people who believe that when he ships the containers to France, they’re not empty.”

“Do you have the address of Compagnie Le Clerc?”

“Yes.”

Sam took out a pen and a five-euro bill and wrote down the address. “6107 Voie de la liberté, Troyes.”

They returned to the rental agency, parked the car, and took their truck again. “I was hoping I’d seen the last of this thing,” Remi said. “How much do we owe them for the bullet holes?”

“They’re still adding it up.”

“And don’t forget the broken window.”

“I’ll drive,” Sam said. They drove out of town, and Remi used the map on her cell phone to find the route and distance. The two cities were just about seventy-nine miles apart, so the drive took them a bit over an hour and a half on the E17.

When they found the address in Troyes, their mood began to brighten. There was a small blacktop parking lot, a truck garage, and a medium-sized warehouse. As they approached, Remi said, “Slow down so I can look in the parking lot.”

In the lot, close to the warehouse, were the Range Rover with its broken windshield and, beside it, the truck that had run into it. The truck was missing its front bumper, and the left front wheel of the SUV was out of alignment. Sam pulled over on the highway so they could study the complex carefully. There were no windows in either the warehouse or the garage, but each had skylights on its roof. There were no lights turned on and no men walking around on the grounds.

Sam drove onto the blacktop. They sat there for a few minutes with the motor running, but nobody opened a door or came out to see who they were. “Can they have all gone home?” asked Remi. Sam looked at the side of the warehouse, studied the slope of the roof, then backed in the truck so the cargo box fit neatly under the eaves.

He and Remi got out and exchanged a look. It took no words for them to execute the plan. Remi reached into the truck behind the seat, opened the toolbox, and found a tire iron and a rope. They stepped onto the front bumper, onto the hood, up to the cab’s roof, then to the top of the cargo box, and finally onto the roof of the warehouse. They knelt by the closest skylight and stared down into the building.

There were white plastic containers the size of ten-gallon paint cans stacked nearly up to the skylight. On either side were open aisles on a concrete floor. There were two forklifts, and there was an office.

Sam said, “Look away,” swung the tire iron to break the skylight, then reached in and cleared away all the broken glass stuck to the frame. Then he tied the rope securely around the steel strut in the middle.

“Here goes,” Remi whispered and lowered herself on the rope to the top of a row of plastic containers. She tested them. “They’re full of something,” she said. “Pretty stable.”

Sam followed her down. They made their way to lower and lower stacks of containers until they reached the last stack, which was only three high, and they got to the floor. They split up and began to search the warehouse. They kept at it until they’d checked every bit of open space and the office that occupied the end of the building.

Sam stepped close to Remi. “It was a promising idea, but promising ideas don’t always pan out. I thought they’d hide the treasure where they store their drugs.”

Remi shrugged. “We haven’t found those yet either. These all seem to be chemicals.” She was staring at a stack of plastic containers. She stepped to the nearest container and read the label, then tipped the container an inch, moved to another row and lifted another container, then another row and container.

Sam did the same. They all seemed identical, around forty pounds each. Sam and Remi moved from row to row, sampling the containers randomly within each row. Finally, just as Remi set one back down, she saw Sam using his pocketknife to unscrew the band around the top of another. Remi came close as he lifted the lid and they saw the familiar gleam of gold.

The two went to work, quickly lifting each container and setting aside the ones that weren’t filled with an identical quantity of chemical. Some were heavier, some lighter, and many made noises if they were shaken. Sam pushed a wooden pallet close to the row and started putting the containers of artifacts on it. After about twenty minutes, the pallet was loaded, and he brought another. They were expert at spotting the off-weight containers now, and the pallets were loaded more quickly. When they had found every one they could, and all they checked were full of chemicals, Sam said, “Find the switch that opens the doors.”

While Sam brought a forklift to lift a pallet loaded with containers of antiquities, Remi found the right button. As he approached the door, it rose and he drove out, and Remi ran to bring the truck to the front. Using the pallets and forklift, he and she loaded the rental truck within a few minutes. The load consisted of three pallets, each one four containers high and four wide. When they were done, Sam drove the forklift back inside and then returned. They closed the warehouse door, buttoned up their truck, and drove off.

They arrived at their hotel in Reims at four a.m. Sam said, “I’ll get the weapons and things out of the new room and you get our belongings we left in the old. Then we’ll head for Paris.”

They hurried inside. When Sam reached the door of the second room, he could tell something was wrong. There was a light glowing under the door. It was about three minutes later when Remi arrived, pulling the one suitcase they shared. Sam was climbing in through the room’s window. The armor and arms they’d left all seemed still to be there, but the expression on Sam’s face told her all was not well.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Did they get it?”

Sam held up his empty hands and closed the window. “While we were in Troyes robbing them, they were in Reims robbing us. They’ve got the shield with Attila’s inscription.”

CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT, PARIS

“THE SADDEST TREASURE OF ALL IS THE THIRD. IT LIES in the grave of my brother Bleda, who was the one chosen to die on the River at Apulum.”

“I have no idea where that is,” Remi said to Albrecht and Selma.

“No, but I have no doubt that Bako will know as soon as he reads the shield,” Albrecht said. “Apulum is the Roman name of the city that the Romans made the capital of Dacia, which was a province of the Empire from the time of Hadrian until around 271 C.E. Dacia was the first Roman province to be abandoned in the contraction of the Empire. It would have been a familiar place to the people of Central Europe during Attila’s time, so it would be familiar to anyone obsessed with Attila. And, of course, the River is the same one that runs into the Tisza River in Bako’s hometown of Szeged. Apulum is now called Alba Iulia and it’s in Transylvania, a part of Romania.”

“We’ll have to try to beat him to it anyway,” said Sam. “We’ve got a few more minutes before we board our plane for Bucharest. Now is the time to tell us anything you can about Bleda’s grave.”

“Attila calls it a sad story, and it is,” he said. “In 434, Attila and his older brother Bleda became co-kings of the Huns when the last king, their uncle Ruga, died. Shared monarchies are fairly rare in history, and this one probably reflects the fact that the younger brother, Attila, was also a phenomenon that’s rare in any population—a great fighter, great leader, and charismatic personality. The two brothers ruled for about a decade with immense success. They operated in complete agreement, as though they were a single mind with two pairs of eyes and the ability to be two places at once. Under their rule the Huns grew stronger and more numerous through conquest, richer and more feared by enemies. Then, during the years 444 and 445, there was a period of peace. Attila and Bleda, like other kings between wars, occupied themselves with hunting. In 445 Bleda and Attila rode eastward into the Transylvanian forests, apparently to hunt boar and deer. What happened out in the forest is still the subject of speculation. Some say Attila used this opportunity to set up a hunting accident that killed his older brother so he could be sole king. I’ve always preferred the other version, and the inscription engraved in the shield seems to indicate I’m right.”

“What’s the other version?”

“That the hunting trip was an attempt by the elder Bleda to get Attila out in the wilderness, where only their close henchmen were around, and kill him. The attempt was botched, Attila fought back and killed Bleda.”

“Why that version?”

“A little something about sibling psychology. The older sibling—particularly a male heir—is a little king from birth, doted on by everyone in his world. When a younger male sibling comes along, the firstborn is supplanted at the mother’s breast and feels threatened in every way. It is the older sibling who bears the resentments, who feels wronged and robbed by his own brother, by his family and society. So he’s more likely to be the aggressor. The younger brother is usually the unsuspecting offender who’s easily taken by surprise. What’s different here is that Attila was not unsuspecting or easily defeated. It doesn’t fit anything we know about him. He was a born fighter. He had lived at the Emperor’s court in Rome as a hostage when he was a teenager and could probably smell a conspiracy from a hundred miles off.”

“What evidence is in the inscription?” Remi asked.

“He said Bleda ‘was chosen’ to die. He didn’t just die. Fate or the Creator chose one of the two brothers over the other. That implies that both were at risk, as in a fight. This is also the saddest of all the deaths of Attila’s life up to that time. He had already lost his mother, father, uncle, and two wives that we know of. One thing that would make Bleda’s death worse was if he forced Attila to kill him.”

“It’s horrible,” said Remi, “but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems.”

There was a call for passengers to board the flight to Bucharest. “Thanks, Albrecht. We’ll talk to you when we’re on the ground again.” She quickly dialed Tibor’s number.

“Yes?”

“It’s Remi and Sam,” she said. “The address you gave us in France was correct. It worked out. We’ve turned the treasure over to French authorities for safekeeping. The next spot is in Transylvania, on the River near Alba Iulia, and we’re on the way. But Bako got the inscription too. Could you please—”

“We’ll watch them every minute,” said Tibor. “We’ll know exactly where they go.”

“Thanks, Tibor. They’re already calling our flight. We’ll call you from Bucharest.” She turned off the phone, and they got up to join the line of people entering the collapsible boarding tunnel to their airplane.

The plane rumbled down the runway and rose into the air. When it leveled, Remi lifted the armrest between her and Sam, leaned her head on his shoulder, and promptly fell asleep. The uninterrupted race from one country to the next, the heavy physical labor at night and searching in the daylight, had finally exhausted her. After a short time, Sam slept too.

They awoke when the pilot announced the approach to Bucharest Airport. After clearing Romanian customs, they picked up their rental car. As they drove toward Alba Iulia, Remi read a history about Attila and his brother Bleda that she had downloaded to her phone at the airport in Paris.

“It says here that Bleda had a famous Moorish dwarf named Zerco in his retinue. Bleda was so fond of him that he had a special miniature suit of armor made so he could go on campaigns with him.”

“If I were Zerco, I think I would have passed up the honor,” Sam said. “It must have been like getting into a fight where everyone else is twelve feet tall and weighs a thousand pounds.”

“I suppose having a king’s favor and protection must have seemed worth the risk.”

Sam was silent for a moment. “Is there any mention of what Zerco did after Bleda was killed?”

“No,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean much. This is a travel guide, not a serious history.”

They drove directly to Alba Iulia without stopping until they reached their hotel. After checking in, Sam called Tibor on his cell phone.

“Yes?”

“We’re in Alba Iulia,” said Sam. “Any news?”

“Yes, but it’s all bad,” Tibor said. “Bako is still at home. He’s working in his office at the factory right this minute. But his favorite five security men have all packed up and driven eastward into Romania. I have my brother and two cousins following them and, so far, they’re heading straight for you.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Sam said.

“They’re traveling in two vehicles, both American-made SUVs, both new, both black with tinted windows. They’ve been on the road since early this morning, so they might already be there. If you see them, don’t let them see you.”

“Thank you, Tibor. We’ll look carefully before we do anything.”