“They sound like police,” said Sam. “Maybe they suspected you were doing something illegal—like shipping Friedrich out of the country. If they knew you were an archaeologist, they’d want to know about any artifacts you’d found.”

Albrecht looked at his feet. “I’m guilty of smuggling Friedrich out. But if I had stayed in Hungary to do the lab work, the word of my discovery would have been out in a day. Keeping a find secret is standard procedure. Everyone who has gone public prematurely has come back to a site that’s been looted and trampled and all scientific and historical value destroyed. And this site is more vulnerable than most. The bodies I’ve found still had whatever weapons and armor they’d died with. There are textile fragments, bits of leather and fur. All that would be lost.”

“Of course we’ll respect your secrecy,” Sam said. “And we’re here to help you any way we can.”

“We’re good at secrets,” Remi said. “But wouldn’t it be a good idea to get Selma thinking about this? We may be able to use her help, and she has a way of anticipating what we might like to know.”

“Do we have your permission?” asked Sam. “It would mean alerting the rest of our staff, but that’s all.”

“Of course,” said Fischer. “The more good minds working on our side, the better. For now, I’m going to put Friedrich away.”

“After we’ve had a chance to unpack and recover a bit, we hope you’ll come to the hotel and have dinner with us,” Remi said.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be alone?”

“We’d love to have a chance to talk some more tonight about your discovery,” she said.

“I’d be delighted,” Albrecht said. “What time?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Good. I’ll just stay and lock up here, then get ready. I’ll be there just before eight.”

After they all shook hands, Sam and Remi walked out of the building, went past the huge statue of Frederick the Great on his horse, then turned right to walk onto Unter den Linden. At the distant west end they could see the Brandenburg Gate, and the Hotel Adlon Kempinski almost beside it. As they walked along the pedestrian mall under the linden trees away from the university, they passed famous streets one by one—Friedrichstrasse, Charlottenstrasse. They passed the Russian Embassy, and near their hotel was the Hungarian Embassy.

It was beautiful in the late afternoon, and Remi held her head high and looked at every sight.

“What are you thinking?” Sam asked.

“I was just wondering why we’re being followed.”

BERLIN

“WHERE ARE THEY?” ASKED SAM.

“Give yourself a few seconds,” said Remi. “After that, take a look behind us at about the seven o’clock position. There’s a young blond woman, and she’s with a tall man with a shaved head.”

Remi touched her shiny auburn hair as she walked. “A young blond woman in Berlin, eh? What could be more surprising than that?” Her body language said she hadn’t been satisfied when she’d touched her hair. She took a small compact from her purse and appeared to look at herself, and brush a fine strand back into place with her hand. “It’s one of the women from the team in Louisiana. And the man . . . Yep, him too. Their pictures were in that notebook we stole from their boat. How could they even get a flight to Berlin that quickly? We just got here a few hours ago and we knew where we were going.”