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“Everything proceeds with the utmost serenity at the manor whether the lord and lady are in residence or not.”
“You wouldn’t call a man up in the middle of the night just to make fun of him.”
“Never,” said Selma. “Sleep tight.” She hung up.
Sam went out to the kitchen and began to close the door, but Remi was already out of bed and put her hand on the door to keep it from closing. “I’m already awake. We may as well both be tired tomorrow.”
“What time is it in Berlin?”
“Seven hours ahead of Louisiana.”
“So it’s eight a.m.”
Sam tapped in the number and waited while the connection was established, then switched his phone to speaker. They listened to it ring.
“’Allo, Sam. Wie geht es Ihnen?”
“Fine, Albrecht. Selma said you had something to tell us, so we’re both listening.”
“I do,” he said. “It’s a find that I made only a week ago. I brought a few things here for testing and the results have come in.”
“What is it?”
“My friends, I think I’ve found something incredible, and it has to be kept absolutely secret for now. It’s so big, I can’t excavate it alone. I can’t even do a preliminary survey alone. Full summer will begin in a month, and again the need for secrecy in this situation doesn’t even bear describing.”
“We understand the secrecy, but can’t you even tell us what it is?” asked Remi.
“I think . . . I believe that what I’ve found is an ancient battlefield. It seems to be intact, undisturbed.”
Sam wrote on his slip of paper, “What do you think?” Remi took the pen and wrote: “Yes.”
Sam said, “We’ll come to you.”
“Thank you, Sam. I’m in Berlin now, buying some things and borrowing others. Send me your flight information, and I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“Remi and I will be on a plane sometime in the morning, but the flight will probably add a whole day. See you soon.” He hung up and looked at Remi.
“We should have asked what kind of battlefield,” she said.
“All he said was ancient. So I guess we don’t have to worry about unexploded ordnance.”
“If it’s in Europe, we may.”
“He’s in Berlin, but it sounded as though that was where he was doing tests, not where the site is.”
“We’d better get packed.”
In the morning, as they made the fifty-four-mile drive to New Orleans, Sam called Ray Holbert and said, “I’m sorry, but a friend called last night and needs some emergency help on a project, so we’ve got to go. I apologize for leaving in such a hurry.”
Holbert said, “Don’t think anything of it. You gave us a great month’s work and we’ll miss you. We don’t have many volunteers who pay all their own expenses and plenty of ours too. But we’ll keep in touch and let you know what else we discover.”
“Thanks, Ray.”
“Oh, and Sam? If someone were to go look for those people who rented that black-and-gray boat, where would you suggest they start?”
“I can’t say for sure. Somewhere in the bayous inland from Lake Vermilion and Mud Lake, would be my best guess.”
Selma had their itinerary waiting at the airport. Sam and Remi flew Royal Dutch Airlines from Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans to Atlanta and then on to Amsterdam. Sam and Remi slept on the transatlantic flight and then woke in time for arrival in Amsterdam. The final flight into Berlin was much shorter, and when they arrived at Tegel Airport in Berlin at 11:20 the next morning, there was Albrecht Fischer.
