Dig site
The Eye of the Sahara
Dmitry Romanov sat behind his desk, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. Someone had penetrated their camp, and he wanted answers. Standing in front of him were Teplov and Chang. The mood in the tent was tense as Chang and Teplov glared at one another accusingly after the previous night’s fiasco.
Colonel Chang turned to face Romanov. “Sir, I regret to report that the intruders got away. My deputy was killed, along with a half-dozen other men. We also lost one of the Mauritanian Army’s MI-8 helicopters.”
Anger boiled deep inside Romanov. He didn’t care about the men or material he had just lost. He wasn’t the kind of person to allow someone to mess with him or his family. People who had dared to stand up to him in the past had quickly learned to bend to his will, or had simply vanished without a trace.
Teplov waited for Chang to finish before speaking. He told Chang and Romanov about seeing Mitchell and another man leaving the site. He had no doubt in his mind that they had come for Miss March. Why they hadn’t left with her was a mystery to him. To be safe, Teplov had doubled the guards around her tent and had told the Mauritanian security forces to arrest or kill Mitchell on sight. A search of the desert by a company of soldiers was underway. He was confident that it was only a matter of time before they found Mitchell.
Romanov shook his head. He didn’t know whom to blame for this fiasco, he just knew that he wanted someone to pay. Mitchell had dared once again to interfere with his plans. The man was proving to be quite the irritant. Romanov could feel a tension headache building in the back of his head. Before too long, the pain would be indescribable. He vowed to see the man and his accomplices flayed alive and then fed to the sharks once he caught them.
With the site compromised, Romanov ordered that all work other than the excavation of the jewels to halt immediately. He wanted the crown jewels found now; anything else dug up was of no value to him. Only the jewels mattered. Having them would solidify his hold on the fanatics and guarantee their unwavering loyalty, before he took pleasure in double-crossing them. The rest of the sizeable treasure still waiting to be found at the dig would go to Mauritania’s president for his support and unquestioned use of his military.
Outside, the burning heat from the noonday sun turned the desert into a shimmering sea. Nika Romanov stood at the lip of the depression. Her uncaring eyes focused on an exposed portion of the Goliath’s frame. Nika watched as the tired, dusty, and sweat-covered soldiers at last uncovered the airship’s freight storage compartment, just where Jen had said it would be. She knew that this was where the valuables of the passengers would have been stored for the long voyage. She refused to admit it, but her father’s faith in the American woman had saved them days, if not weeks, of back-breaking labor to find the resting place of the crown jewels.
An enthusiastic cry went out, as several mangled wooden boxes and blackened pieces of luggage were uncovered.
Nika threw her schematic aside and leaped into the hole, sliding down on the loose sand until she came to a stop at the bottom. With her heart racing away, Nika walked over to the find. The boxes and storage trunks were covered with burn marks from the fire that had doomed them all over eighty years ago.
“Roberts! Find anything belonging to Lord Roberts!” yelled Nika at the soldiers in French.
Like men possessed, the soldiers dug and pulled out the battered remains of the freight compartment. Debris soon covered the sand. After five minutes of digging, two men uncovered a large black trunk, their muscles straining as they pulled it out and laid it on the sandy ground at Nika’s feet.
Etched onto the lid of the trunk in large gold lettering was Lord Frederick Roberts.
Nika almost leaped for joy. She ordered the heavy trunk to be hauled up to her father’s tent without delay. Nika spun about, climbed as fast as she could out of the hole, and sprinted to tell her father the good news. She could have screamed when she saw Jen and her mother sitting at a table with her father, drinking lemonade and eating some sandwiches, as if they were enjoying a pleasant picnic together. She despised the two women, and could not wait to deal with them herself.
Two sweat-covered soldiers placed the trunk beside the table, turned and left.
Romanov stood; his heart began to race in his chest. He almost could not believe that they had actually done it, that he was actually going to lay his hands on the Romanov crown jewels.
Nika, seeing the look on her father’s face, bent down and flipped open the trunk.
Anticipation filled the air. Even Jen and her mother stood and stared inside the blackened trunk.
Carefully, almost reverently, Nika emptied the contents of the trunk onto the table. She started with several items of clothing and smaller jewelry boxes, and then stood, holding a small crown encrusted with sparkling diamonds that looked as new as the day it had been presented to the Russian royal family.
“The consort’s crown,” said Romanov, as he took the crown from his daughter’s hands and held it aloft, the sun glittering through the diamonds that covered its surface.
“My God, the stories are true,” said Jen, shaking her head as she watched Romanov stare at the glistening crown on his hands. She was surprised to see a tear well up in his eye and then fall slowly down his face.
Nika reached down into the trunk and then placed a massive crown carefully upon the table, closely followed by an imperial scepter and orb.
Romanov delicately put the consort’s crown down, reached over, and picked up the sovereign’s crown last worn by Czar Nicholas II. His hands were shaking as he held it. He felt something race through his body; it was unlike anything he had ever experienced throughout his life. He thought about it for a moment and realized that it felt like absolute power.
Jen saw the look in Romanov’s eyes, and her stomach turned. He had what he wanted, and now their lives were his to take. She turned to look over at her mother, feeling sad that she was going to die because of her. She had not told her mother about talking to Mitchell last night, in case some of Romanov’s guards had decided to interrogate them. The shooting had gone on for some time, and Jen feared that Mitchell had been hurt, but after seeing how pissed Teplov had become, she knew that he had gotten away.
Romanov took a deep breath, and then respectfully placed the crown back onto the table. He looked over at Nika and gave orders for them all to leave within the hour. The camp quickly turned into a beehive of activity as equipment was stowed away and preparations were made for their departure. The site was going to be abandoned to the Mauritanian Army, as it was of no further use to Dmitry Romanov. He had in his possession the instruments that he needed to bring his family to the throne, and there was nothing and no one to stop him now.
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