The Secret of Excalibur_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  Chase stood and kissed her cheek, then did the same to Brigitte. “We’ll be back in a couple of days, no problem. See you then.” He waited as Nina and Mitchell shook hands with the two women, then swept an arm theatrically toward the horizon beyond the lake. “Okay. Jordan, here we come!”

  NINE

  Jordan

  Where Zurich had been clean, neat and above all orderly, the Jordanian capital of Amman was by contrast a living monument to organized chaos. It was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and each new stage of civilization had been built around—or sometimes on top of—that which went before. The result was a gloriously jumbled mix of ancient and modern, centuries-old structures separated from brand new apartment blocks by no more than the span of a man’s arms. The metropolis rippled under the baking sun of the Arabian peninsula, tinted a soft orange by sunlight, sand and smog.

  Nina would have loved to explore the city, but she had work to do. Mitchell had arranged for her to meet the curator of the University of Jordan’s Center for Documents and Manuscripts, the bureaucratic name only hinting at its true purpose: to act as a vast archive, cataloging the history of a large part of the Middle East. She wanted to delve into the wealth of ancient texts even more than the city, but for now she forced herself to concentrate on one very specific slice of the past.

  “Muhammad Yawar,” said their host thoughtfully. Adeeb al-Jafri was a middle-aged man with oversize glasses and a neat black mustache; although he was Jordanian, his clipped accent was still very much that of the English university where he had studied. “Yes, I remember the name.”

  “You remember him?” Nina asked. “Why, has someone else been asking about him?”

  “Yes, about six months ago, by phone. I think he was German. He asked if we had any material in the archives concerning him, and we told him that we did, but matters never progressed any further than that.”

  “It must have been Bernd,” Nina said, with a glance at Chase and Mitchell. “But nobody else?” Al-Jafri shook his head.

  “At least they haven’t figured out his notes yet,” said Mitchell.

  Al-Jafri’s eyebrows rose quizzically over the thick frames of his glasses. “They?”

  “The man who contacted you was murdered,” Nina told him. “To stop him from telling the IHA how to find what he was searching for.”

  “Really?” He sounded more intrigued than shocked, as if hearing about a plot twist in a detective novel. “And for what was he searching?”

  “That’s classified, I’m afraid,” Mitchell said. “But it’s for safety reasons, trust me. The people who killed him won’t hesitate to kill again.”

  Curiosity was replaced by concern on al-Jafri’s face. “Ah. I see.”

  “That’s why we need to find what he was looking for first, so nobody else gets hurt,” said Nina. “And to do that, we need to find out everything we can about Muhammad Yawar.”

  “He’s not really a terribly important figure, historically speaking. Are you sure he is the right person?”

  “He’s all we’ve got to go on,” she admitted. “He supposedly killed a crusader called Peter of Koroneou in 1260. What we want to know is where that happened.”

  “Peter of Koroneou …” said al-Jafri, brow knitting as he consulted his memory. “Ah, yes. He occupied an area of land close to what is now the Jordanian-Syrian border.”

  “Which side of the border?” Chase asked.

  “The Syrian side.”

  “I bloody knew it!”

  “Will your archives have the exact location?” asked Nina.

  “Perhaps,” said al-Jafri, “but as I said, Muhammad Yawar is a very minor figure—I doubt he rated much more than a footnote.”

  “Anything that you have will help us enormously,” she assured him.

  Al-Jafri nodded. “In that case, if you’ll follow me to the archives, I’ll show you what I can.”

  “Tell you what,” said Chase to Nina, “while you’re doing your reading, I’ll go and sort out everything we need.”

  “The U.S. embassy can take care of all that,” Mitchell told him.

  Chase was unimpressed. “They’ve got a local guide who can get us across the border, have they?” He turned back to Nina. “Give me a call when you’re done. I’ll come and meet you.” To Nina’s surprise, he pulled her close and gave her a rather intense kiss before releasing her. “See you later.”

  “Uh, bye,” she said as he left. Al-Jafri looked bemused, while Mitchell veiled a smile. She felt her cheeks flush as she turned back to the curator. “Okay, well, so …”

  “The archives?”

  “Please!”

  • • •

  “Here we are,” said al-Jafri. Wearing a pair of white cotton gloves to protect the ancient pages, he pointed at a particular piece of Arabic text within the book he had taken from one of the center’s climate-controlled underground vaults. Although the tome itself dated from the fifteenth century, it described events from two centuries earlier, collated from other accounts of the many wars that raged across the Holy Land during that period. “This is the first mention of Muhammad Yawar.”

  Nina’s knowledge of Arabic was limited. “What does it say?”

  “Not much,” said Mitchell, peering over her shoulder.

  “You know Arabic?”

  “Enough to get by.” He grinned. “But Dr. al-Jafri’s right—Yawar wasn’t important enough to rate more than a few lines.”

  “Those few lines may have what you’re looking for, though,” said al-Jafri, carefully running the tip of his finger across the time-browned page. “It says, ‘The barbarian leader himself came forth to challenge Muhammad, his sword shining bright. But like the Prophet whose name he bore, Muhammad was brave and righteous and a true servant of Allah, and with a blow broke his sword into pieces. With the longest of these, he slew the infidel. Their leader dead, the other invaders retreated in fear.’”

  “Barbarians?” said Mitchell, puzzled. “Is this the wrong battle? Sounds like they’re talking about the Mongols.”

  Al-Jafri suppressed a mocking chuckle. “No, it’s the right one,” Nina explained. “The Muslim perspective on the Crusades is … well, kinda different from the Christian one. They saw the Christians as brutal invaders, there to murder the followers of Islam and plunder their lands.”

  “Plus ça change …” al-Jafri said quietly. Mitchell shot him a cutting look. “But there is one more line about Yawar here. ‘Muhammad returned home to Kafashta and gave the blade to the imam of the town, to show that the servants of Allah will always be triumphant.’”

  “Kafashta?” asked Nina.

  “It’s a small town in southern Syria. Well, it was considered a town in Yawar’s time—it probably barely qualifies as a village now. I can find it on a map for you, if you’d like.”

  “That’s okay, thanks,” Mitchell told him, straightening. “That’s what we needed to know. We’ve got to go to Kafashta.”

  “In Syria,” Nina reminded him. “What was it you said? Something about them not exactly being big fans of Americans …”

  • • •

  Chase met Nina and Mitchell outside the U.S. embassy a couple of hours later, accompanied by his local contact, a Jordanian woman named Karima Farran. As Nina had come to expect, she was extremely attractive, her long dark hair wafting in the breeze.

  Karima’s Land Rover looked almost as ancient as Amman itself, the military green paint so sand-scoured that it looked like patches of mold on the bare aluminum. After greeting the new arrivals and helping them load the gear Mitchell had requisitioned into the rear of the 4×4, she tied her hair back and wrapped it in a dark headscarf before handing another one to Nina. “You’ll need this.”

  Nina took it reluctantly. “I, er … I thought hijabs weren’t compulsory for women in Jordan.”

  “They’re not,” Karima replied, sharing a look of amusement with Chase. “I just don’t like getting sand in my hair.” She gestured at
the Land Rover’s decidedly tattered canvas roof. Nina got her point and quickly followed suit.

  They headed northeast along a highway, quickly leaving the city behind and entering a parched landscape of pale sand and rocks. “So, Eddie,” said Karima to Chase, who was beside her in the front passenger seat, “when is the wedding?”

  Chase half laughed. “You know, so many people keep asking us that, I think we might actually have to come up with an answer sometime.”

  “Are you married, Karima?” Nina asked. The Arab woman was wearing several ornate rings, but Nina wasn’t sure whether they had any significance or were simply jewelry.

  “No, I’m not,” she replied, glancing back, “but there is someone. The problem is getting him to make a commitment.”

  “I know that feeling,” said Nina. Chase snorted.

  They drove for over two hours, Nina using the time to continue her crash course in Arthurian mythology, finishing the books she had begun during the flights. Karima eventually turned off the highway and guided them along a succession of increasingly bumpy back roads. Finally, they bounced to a stop in a village so tiny that Nina suspected the handful of tumbledown houses wouldn’t even rate a dot on a map. Around it, the desert stretched off forebodingly in all directions. The sun was a bloated red ball shimmering above the western horizon.

  “This is as far as we drive,” said Karima, climbing out. The others followed, stretching and working the kinks out of their rattled spines. “The border is about eight kilometers north of here.”

  Nina stared into the distance, seeing nothing but rocks and the occasional scrubby bush poking above the sand. “We’re walking?”

  “No, no! But the Syrians watch out for vehicles that cross the border away from the official checkpoints. So we need another kind of transport.” She led them around one of the buildings.

  “What kind of transport …” Nina began to ask, trailing off as she saw the answer. “Oh.”

  Waiting for them were four camels.

  An Arab man in dusty robes stood with them, beaming when he saw Karima. They exchanged greetings, then she turned back to the group. “This is Attayak—he’s from one of the local Bedouin tribes.” Nina noticed that in addition to a gun and a knife, he had a walkie-talkie and a GPS handset on his belt: clearly the Bedouin had no problem with incorporating modern technology into their traditional lifestyle. “There aren’t many nomad tribes left, but the ones that are cross the border all the time—they have lived here for thousands of years, and don’t care about lines on a map. Most of the time, the Syrians ignore them. Which is very useful if you want to enter the country undetected. As Eddie knows.”

  Chase looked innocent. “Can’t comment on military operations I may or may not have carried out in a hostile sovereign state … but, yeah, I do know how to ride a camel.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Funnily enough, so do I.”

  “Er, hello, hi,” Nina said. “I don’t.”

  “It’s a doddle,” Chase assured her. “Just as easy as riding a horse.”

  “Which I don’t know how to do either!”

  Chase went to the nearest kneeling camel and stroked its forehead. It eyed him, then shook its head lazily and made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a yawn. “Good lad,” said Chase, moving back and swinging a leg over the broad padded saddle behind the camel’s single hump. He gathered the leather reins, then gently tugged on them, calling, “Heya, heya!” The camel shook its head again, then obediently unfolded its legs and rose to its full height.

  Nina had seen camels in zoos, but only now realized just how large they were. Standing, the animal was considerably taller than she, and Chase’s head was at least eleven feet off the ground. “Okay, that’s … that’s quite big.”

  Under Chase’s guidance, the camel trotted toward her, bowing its head for a closer look. She leaned back nervously. “Does Attayak speak English?” she asked Karima, who replied in the negative. “Oh, good. Because this really, really smells. It smells bad.”

  “Oh, you’ll hardly notice it after a few hours,” Chase said cheerfully. He backed the camel away, then with another command and flick of the reins prompted it to kneel so he could dismount. He and Mitchell retrieved the group’s belongings from the back of the Land Rover and loaded them into the animals’ saddle bags.

  “Here,” said Mitchell, handing Chase a pistol. “Thought you’d find this useful.”

  Chase nodded approvingly. “Ruger P95,” he said, quickly and expertly checking the weapon before loading it. Mitchell did the same with his own Ruger. “Not bad. I still miss my Wildey, though.”

  “You had a Wildey?”

  “Yeah, a .45 Winchester Magnum. Until some bastard used it to assassinate a government minister and put the blame on me. It’s probably still in an evidence locker in Botswana somewhere. Good gun. You ever used one?”

  “God, no,” said Mitchell, shaking his head vehemently. “Bulky, heavy, limited ammo capacity, insane amounts of recoil? I’ll stick with something that’s actually practical. And you know,” he went on, a glint in his eye, “I’m sure you could draw some psychological inference from a man using a gun with an eight-inch-long barrel.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t expect a navy man to know anything about proper guns,” Chase replied with a scowl. “The recoil’s no problem if you’re not limp-wristed …”

  “Now, now, boys,” said Nina, stepping between them. “Enough with the interservice rivalry.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Chase said grudgingly. He looked at Mitchell. “At least you weren’t in the air force!” Both men laughed at that.

  “We should get moving,” said Karima, tipping her head toward the setting sun. “We’ll cross the border before nightfall, and then we’ll set up camp.”

  The camels loaded, Karima said her farewells to Attayak before mounting one. Nina regarded her own slobbering beast with trepidation. Though the smallest of the four, it was still almost eye to eye with her even while kneeling. “Y’know, maybe I’ll just jog alongside it.”

  “Ah, get on there,” said Chase. “You’ll be fine. All you’ve got to do is not fall off.”

  “Don’t worry, Nina,” Mitchell assured her. “Camels really are very easy to ride. You’ll get the hang of it in fifteen minutes.”

  “And how many times will I fall off in those fifteen minutes?” she asked.

  “You won’t fall off. Here, let me help you get on.”

  He held out a hand, but Chase hurriedly interposed himself. “Nah, I’ve got her. Just get your leg over.” He cackled at the double entendre. Nina tsked and warily hoisted herself over the saddle, gripping it tightly as the animal shifted position beneath her. “You sorted?”

  “If I say no, can I get off?” The saddle was actually more padded than Nina had expected, but its width forced her legs uncomfortably wide. Chase gave her the reins; she took them in one hand while keeping the other firmly clenched around the raised front of the saddle. “So what do I do now—aaah!” she cried as Chase barked a command and slapped the camel’s rump, and she found herself being pitched back and forth as it clambered to its feet. “Whoa, I’m slipping!”

  “Squeeze your legs tighter,” Mitchell suggested.

  “I can’t, they’re open so wide it feels like I’m being split in half—and don’t you even think about coming out with some horrible innuendo!” she warned Chase.

  “Would I?” said Chase, clapping a hand to his chest in feigned offense as he walked back to his own waiting camel. “She says that every night,” he added in a stage whisper as he hopped onto the saddle.

  “Eddie, I am so going to kill you!”

  “You’ll have to catch me first! Heya!” He tugged the reins, and his camel set off at a trot. Nina’s animal followed suit, bouncing her on the saddle with every step.

  “Eddie-ee-ee-ee-ee!”

  • • •

  The last faint red glow on the western skyline had faded, the diamond shimmering of starlight taking its place overhe
ad. The four camels were kneeling again, lined up near the small campfire opposite a pair of collapsible tents, grunting and mumbling to each other in contented camelese as Karima fed them.

  Mitchell, sitting beside Nina at the fire, glanced over at Karima. “So, Eddie, just how many women do you have stashed away around the world ready to help you out? First Mitzi, now Karima …”

  Chase, on Nina’s other side, shrugged. “A few.”

  “More than a few,” said Nina. She began counting on her fingers. “Let’s see, there’s Shala, Maria, TD, Mitzi, Karima … and those are just the ones I’ve met!”

  Chase shrugged again, smirking. “What can I say? Women can’t resist me.” He put an arm around Nina’s shoulders and pulled her to him. “And that’s before they experience the thrill of the Chase. If you know what I mean.” He leered at her.

  “Everyone knows what you mean, Eddie,” Nina chided, pushing him away. “All the time.”

  “Tchah!”

  “Yeah, subtlety and the army never really mix, whatever country you’re from. No offense,” Mitchell added with a grin as Chase glowered at him. He turned to Nina. “So what about you? You got dozens of hunks all over the world waiting for your call?”

  She shook her head. “Afraid not.”

  “Good,” Mitchell said quietly, smiling again. “But you’re not jealous of Eddie’s lady friends, I take it.”

  “No, I’m used to it by now. I know that Eddie’s got a past—even if he never tells me about any of it,” she said pointedly. Chase grunted. “But after everything we’ve been through, I know I can trust him.”

  “You’ve been through quite a lot, from what I’ve heard. Saving New York, finding the Tomb of Hercules, discovering Atlantis …”

  “I know! I’m sometimes amazed we’re both still alive. But it’s how we met.”

  “Ah,” said Mitchell, nodding knowingly.

  Chase regarded him suspiciously. “‘Ah’? ‘Ah’ what?”

  “Just that, well, considering how different you are, I wondered how you’d gotten together. But I guess that sharing a really intense experience is one way to break the ice, huh?”