“You want me to straighten this out for them?”

“Let’s put it this way. If they were to remain in jail for, say, thirty days, I would not be unhappy. If they were to be convicted of eight murders, I’d feel awful, and Remi would make sure I felt worse.”

“You bet I would,” she said.

“Hear that?” he said.

“I did,” said Selma. “From what I’ve learned about Consolidated, they’re awful people, but they don’t deserve capital punishment just yet. I’ll call Captain Klein in Berlin and get what I need to spring them, but I won’t pass it on to Consolidated’s New York office unless things get really ugly. How does that sound?”

“Great. Thanks, Selma.” He hung up and looked at Remi. “I hope we haven’t just made ourselves the only suspects.”

“Us? I don’t think we’ve got much to worry about,” Remi said. “Remember? There was an order for the local police to keep us under surveillance. If they arrested us, they’d have lots of explaining to do.”

“She’s right,” said Tibor.

“Get used to that,” said Sam.

The excavation of the field grew much larger as the students and their professors worked. It was the next week that the lawyers arrived. Tibor’s guards saw them first and called Tibor on the boat.

There were a half dozen of them in two big black cars. They pulled up along the road next to the excavation and got out. They all wore immaculate white shirts, dark suits, and striped neckties. When they walked, they were careful to step just on the pavement so no dust would dull the shine of their Italian shoes.

One of them, a shorter, thicker, older man than the others, came forward. He approached a blond female student who was running dirt through a screen with a wooden frame to find small objects. He said, “Go get your bosses.”

“The professors?”

“Are they professors?” he said. “Then tell them class is in session and don’t be late.”

The student ran off along one of the narrow paths that had been left among the grids and stopped at a spot where Albrecht Fischer, Enikö Harsányi, and Imre Polgár were conferring with some other colleagues in khaki clothes. The girl delivered her message, and they all came back up the path.

Enikö Harsányi arrived first. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Dr. Harsányi. Can I help you?”

The older man in the suit said, “My name is Donat Toth and I’m an attorney. I have an injunction here to make you stop digging on this land.” He held out the paper.

A second woman stepped from the group and took the paper. She glanced at it and said, “I’m Dr. Monika Voss. I’m the regional director of the National Office of Cultural Heritage. My office has granted this group a permit to carry out this excavation.”

Albrecht Fischer held out an official-looking document. Donat Toth took it, glanced at it, and handed it to one of the other suits, who examined it and passed it on. When it came back, he said, “This is out of date. My client now owns the land and will be taking possession today.”