“Well, it could be worse,” she said. “It’s not a cathedral or a nuclear power plant. It’s the Grape Research Institute, in Kiskunhalas. The halas part means ‘fish.’ In medieval times the town was surrounded by lakes, presumably fed by the river. They’re long gone, but the memory lingers on, as does the sandy soil, which is terrific for growing wine grapes.”

“How does a modern person get there?”

“From Szeged, you take Route 55 until you reach Route 53, then switch.”

“We’ll let you know when we’ve figured out how to do this,” Sam said. “We’ve got a whole lot of activity going on at the Tisza River to make Bako’s men think we’ve already found the tomb underwater.”

“If I were you, I’d keep that up,” she said. “Arpad Bako has been investigated for three murders besides Tibor Lazar’s son. And I wish you good hunting. If anything comes to mind that I can do, give me a call.”

“We will.”

The next morning, Sam and Remi went down to the Tisza River as usual and spent most of the day diving to keep up the pretense that they’d found something. It wasn’t until after dark that Sam, Remi, and Albrecht saw Tibor arrive in an eight-year-old Mercedes sedan. “Is this your car?” Sam asked.

“My personal car?” said Tibor. “No. I own it, but we use it as a cab. We have a number of regular customers who don’t want a taxi with a sign on it. We take them to restaurants and parties. In Hungary, the legal amount of alcohol you can drink and drive is zero, so they need to be driven. Me, I walk. I don’t need a car.”

Sam loaded the metal detector, three short-handled spades, and night vision goggles into the trunk and climbed into the sedan with the others. Tibor drove them north along the river, staring intently into the rearview mirror at times.

“Are we being followed?” asked Remi.

“I don’t think so,” Tibor said. “It’s hard to tell on these country roads, though. If somebody is behind you when you leave one town, he’ll stay behind you all the way to the next town. And it’s dark, so all you can see is his headlights.”

“But you don’t think anyone is following us?”

“No. The one who’s been behind us all this time drives like my grandmother. Anybody we have to worry about would be bold and crazy.”

Sam and Remi caught each other looking out the back window and smiled. Sam said, “At the next town, let’s double back and see if he does too.”