“I think you’ve figured him out,” said Albrecht. “From Châlons, he went to northern Italy and found new plunder on his way to invading Rome. He was probably already preparing to turn south into Italy the day of the battle. Rome was the biggest prize and probably always was his goal. Everyone knows Attila’s enemies fought him to a standstill at Châlons. What they all forget is that he fought them to a standstill too.”

Sam said, “The sources say Attila delayed his attack until it was nearly night. Maybe he was delaying until his chamber was dug and the stones brought from somewhere—probably the Marne River, which was right near the battlefield.”

“I think you’re right,” said Albrecht. “If you can ascertain where Attila’s tent was erected, you’ll find the treasure chamber under it.”

Their flight from Verona reached Paris in two hours and they picked up their rental car and drove out of the traffic and congestion of the city. Even with Sam’s excessive speed, the one hundred ninety kilometers on the N44 took three hours.

Sam and Remi found their way to Châlons-en-Champagne, then the road to Cuperly, and drove the five additional miles to the tiny hamlet. Late in the afternoon they were among farmers’ fields, various trapezoid shapes so closely interlaced that the land looked as though every inch belonged to someone and was under full cultivation.

“Let’s keep searching from the road until we find the rocky outcropping or we run out of daylight,” Sam said.

“Everything depends on finding that outcropping,” Remi said. “There’s no other feature mentioned in the old story we can use to orient ourselves.”

They drove for miles on D994, La route de Reims, then went north on D977, then north on D931, La voie de la Liberté. They were just northeast of the Marne when they saw the outcropping. From a flat field, it rose abruptly at a tilt, jutting higher as the eye moved from west to east. Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road and Remi took pictures with her cell phone and sent them to Selma.

“There,” she said. “If this isn’t it, then maybe Selma, Pete, and Wendy will be able to match the contours to some geographic source—satellite photos or something—and they’ll be able to set us straight.”

“I’m pretty sure this is it,” said Sam. “If they could have done that, they would have. And we haven’t seen a lot of candidates for the right spot before now.”

Remi climbed up to stand on the seat of the convertible and then put one foot on the top of the door to raise herself a little more. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“What is it?”

“I wish we had binoculars with us. I think somebody has been digging out there in the flat part of the field.”

“Is it east of the outcropping?”