“This is the property of the city of Szeged,” said Dr. Voss.

“My client, Mr. Arpad Bako, has submitted a very high offer to the city of Szeged, which has been accepted.” He held out some more papers.

Dr. Voss looked at the papers, then took out a pen and wrote something on one of them. She said, “The National Office of Cultural Heritage hereby voids this sale.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just did.”

“No, you can’t! We put cash money into this!”

“Get it back. Any land containing cultural treasures is under control of the Office of Cultural Heritage. Act number 64 on the protection of cultural heritage says so.”

“Who says that what’s on this land is cultural treasures?”

“The definition of a cultural treasure is in the law too—all goods of more than fifty years of age, including archaeological findings from excavation. I’ve identified some here, and no local government officials can overrule my determination.”

“I’ll go to court.”

“Others have. They lost and so will you.”

Two of the younger lawyers moved in close to Donat Toth and whispered to him with great concern. He waved them away. “What’s to stop me from tearing up this permit?”

One of his legal advisers said apologetically, “Three years in prison, sir.”

Toth threw the permit in the general direction of the professors, but it simply floated peacefully to the ground. One of the students picked it up, blew the dust off it, and handed it to Albrecht Fischer. The men in dark suits returned to their cars, turned around, and drove off. Just as they did, Sam, Remi, Tibor, and János arrived in Tibor’s taxi.

When the boat crew had heard the story, Tibor said to Sam and Remi, “Defeating Arpad Bako’s lawyers isn’t the same as defeating Bako.”

Sam said, “We need to buy the archaeologists more time.”

“How much more?”

“Albrecht thinks they can finish here in another week,” said Remi. “They’ve got the locations of the bodies mapped and most of them photographed and removed. In one more week, he thinks they’ll have everything removed from the site.”

Sam stared out at the excavation site for a moment and then said, “Here’s what we do. Tomorrow we’ll pick a spot. We’ll stop going up and down the river, anchor, and then start diving. The next day, we’ll go to the same place. We’ll let them see us going down with markers.”

“Then what?” asked Remi.

“Then we double down. We do everything we would do if we were bringing up something big and valuable. We want to rent a dredger mounted on a barge. We’ll bring in bulldozers and dump trucks to build our own road to the riverbank right where we’re diving.”

Tibor said, “Are you sure you want Bako to think you’ve found the treasure?”

“I want him to think we know where it is, but that there’s a lot of heavy work to do to recover it.”

“All right,” said Tibor. “I’ll start with my uncle Géza. He has a construction company, and there are always equipment operators who need work.”