The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  Jacob watched as the slave took thirty or more steps into the sea of sand. He’d survived the night as Nostradamus had predicted. The monster had let him live. The slave stopped. Turned to face him and grinned. “Well boy, are you coming with me?”

  Jacob looked around at the desolate place in which God had stranded him. He had no idea where he was or where he wanted to get to. He had very little water and no food rations. If he did nothing, he was already dead. Jacob studied the slave’s face. It was hardened by years of violence and hardship. But in the daylight, he no longer saw the slave’s blue eyes as ghoulish – instead they gave him the impression of wisdom.

  “Or would you like to die out here?” The slave asked.

  Jacob smiled and slowly followed in the slave’s footsteps. “I will follow you.”

  “Good.”

  “Where are we heading?” Jacob asked, finding a confidence he’d rarely felt.

  The slave smiled. “To a kingdom far away – where my people have waited a long time for the return of their king.”

  Jacob took a deep breath, wondering what part of history had been changed by the rescue of a king and why Nostradamus had neglected to mention it. He shook the thought from his mind and followed the king in silence. By that afternoon he reached the highest sand dune he’d ever seen. It gave him vantage to see for miles in all directions.

  He paused long enough to take a sip of water from his flask. His vision wandered all the way back to where he’d come from. He looked at the sand dunes, searching for some way to remember the place. There were no landmarks he could recognize. None at all. Only sand. It was impossible for him to ever find this place again, even if he wanted to tomorrow. Everything had been buried. And so it would remain – for all eternity.

  Chapter One

  Idehan Murzuk, Sahara Desert – Libya

  It was a hundred and fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Sand dunes, sixty feet high, reached the horizon in every direction like an ancient ocean, swallowed by the arid sands of time. Not a single piece of vegetation was visible. With the exception of her camp, there was no permanent sign of life. Nothing lived in this hostile land. A few nomadic tribes borrowed the land as they traversed it for trade, taking direct, labored routes using camel trains. She adjusted her green headdress. She was born in the desert, but had spent years away from it. They were painful years, and although important, she had spent a long time feeling lost. Instead of daunting her, the extreme heat made her feel alive. Today the temperature was particularly high – and none of the tribes would risk traveling during daylight.

  She stood up from the desk where she scribbled notes on an old map, covered in recently marked gridlines. The tarpaulin shade cloth did nothing to alleviate the intense heat. She grinned curiously as she watched the strangers travel south. There were three camels. The first two had riders. Both men were covered completely in traditional desert robes worn by the local Tuareg nomads, but she could tell neither were nomads.

  Their faces were mostly concealed with the indigo blue shesh – the traditional headwear worn by the nomadic men who’d roamed the Saharan desert for thousands of years. Their eyes were covered with dark sandglasses, designed for protection from the sand as much as the sun. One was considerably larger than the other, both in height and muscle. The other was of an average height with broad shoulders. The shorter one rode at the head, rigged like he was prepared for battle, while the other appeared relaxed in the saddle, possibly even asleep.

  A third camel trailed behind, tied to the second. It carried a number of dive tanks. On the back of one of the tanks were the words, Deep Sea Projects. She smiled. Deep Sea? There’s no water big enough to swim in for a thousand miles, let alone dive, in the Sahara. She was just about curious enough to stop the two men and ask. But they didn’t stop to talk and she didn’t interrupt their progress. It was a strange land with stranger rules, and if a couple of loners don’t stop to talk to the first humans they see while crossing a desert, you don’t go out of your way to find out why.

  Dr. Zara Delacroix smiled. It was a wonderful smile. Full of wit and intelligence, it teased while at the same time betraying some hidden mischievousness. Her perfectly even, white teeth shined against her dark olive complexion. What could be seen of her black hair was so dark and lustrous it appeared blue beneath her green headdress. Her thick, dark, lashes guarded her hazel green eyes. These were her most powerful, seductive and deceptively pleasing aspect. To all who met her, she was exotic to her core – and for the past two years she’d been the greatest mystery of the Sahara.

  She was an educated woman, an archeologist, with both ancient Persian and French blood in her veins. She freely roamed the massive ergs, the ocean-like sand basins, scattered throughout the Sahara, without fear. In a land rife with corruption, wars, dictatorships, tribal battles, and an environment capable of killing most people within a day, she walked unhindered in search of some great wonder – forever gaining followers.

  She had been given the name of Malikat Alssahra – which, translated from Arabic, meant, Queen of the Sahara. It was a ridiculous name, and she thought as much, but the people who followed her thought it perfectly matched her beauty and ability to command those who followed, with great respect, dignity, and unwavering loyalty.

  Rumors, if they could ever be trusted, said she’d come in search of something extraordinary. A book that not only told the future, but held the power to change it. She was willing to pay a king’s fortune to find it and had hired an army of nomads from several different tribes to help her with her quest. Tribes who had never agreed on anything together, now pledged their allegiance to her. She now commanded over two hundred people, from a multitude of tribes and countries – and still more came to offer their allegiance and services.

  At the sight of the two strangers, Adebowale stood directly in front of her. Like an overly protective guard dog, he was waiting for the opportunity to bite. He had only recently joined her party, but had taken a great interest in their quest and had self-proclaimed to be her bodyguard. He commanded forty warriors and brought a strange aura of unnatural power to her command. Many of the tribal nomads who wandered the region were superstitious, and she saw the benefit of working on this image.

  Adebowale was her most ardent supporter. He followed her with the religious fervour of a zealot. In truth, his zeal frightened her. As though anyone who could believe what he was saying was truly mad. She put up with him, of course, because he brought forty warriors, who, although not quite as powerful as he, were certainly useful for both protection and digging. It was the protection that would be required if she ever found what she sought.

  He played the role of her bodyguard, but in truth he was much more than that. At six foot ten he was a good head above most tall people. He was also somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred pounds of solid muscle. His skin was as dark as they come and his eyes a deep and frightening blue.

  He smiled at her, revealing perfectly even, white teeth. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

  “Hello, Adebowale,” she replied.

  “They found the brass howdah this morning,” Adebowale said. He was the only one within the camp who treated her as his equal and not the savior, or the deliverer of the great prophecy. “It won’t be long now before they find It.”

  She turned to him, her eyes still fixed on the strangers heading south. “Yes, I heard.” Her voice was indifferent, but inside, her heart raced at the thought.

  Adebowale shook his head. It was big and riddled with scars. The bristly hairs on his head were cut short and his eyes piercing with their almost hollow grayish-blue, giving him the appearance of some nightmarish and unreal fiend. Despite that, he was quite attractive, in a warrior kind of way. His English was articulate and expressive, showing his level of education was much higher than she would have guessed. There was the slightest tinge of an American accent. “You still don’t believe It will be here?”

  “No. I believe it will be here,” she repl
ied, finally turning to meet his eyes.

  “Then why are you not down there, reveling in the joy? The new future is now and you and I are to be the bearers of that new knowledge.”

  Zara smiled. She enjoyed his unwavering belief in the prophecy, even though she didn’t believe a word of it. “I just don’t believe a word Nostradamus said, that’s all.”

  “Then why have you spent your life searching for his book?” Adebowale asked. His cheeky smile betrayed his inability to accept what she was saying.

  “Because others do, and because I can find it.” A pert, and sheepish grin formed on her lips. “And like you, because I need the money they will pay me!”

  “But you have spent two years searching this small area alone! Why waste your time searching for something you don’t believe in?”

  “I believe the Book of Nostradamus is buried here. That much is fact. What I don’t believe is that Nostradamus had any idea what was in the future.”

  “How do you explain why so many of his prognostications came true?”

  Zara shrugged. “Yeah, well he got lucky – and he left things pretty open to interpretation. It’s no more impressive than a tarot card reading at a novelty shop.”

  “He got lucky with rare frequency,” Adebowale persisted.

  She smiled. “His prognostications were retrospectively interpreted, meaning someone somewhere was always going to be able to say he’d got it right. So. He got lucky – a lot.”

  Adebowale’s smile turned to a hard stare. “Why are you here, Doctor?”

  She smiled. “For the same reason as you, Adebowale – money.”

  “I came because you asked me, and because it was written in the ancient scrolls of time. Why else would our two families cross paths for almost four centuries?”

  “So you keep telling me…” she replied. “Why is that again? I only met you four weeks ago, and I don’t recall asking for your help – as much as I’m glad to receive it now that you’re here.”

  Adebowale spoke slowly. His deep voice resonating as though he were preaching some verse in the Bible. “Because the prophecy said I would. And because it has been written that the lives of our two great families should be intertwined throughout the ages.”

  “Right,” Zara said. She looked at his face; it was eager for some sort of acknowledgement on her part, which she denied him by ignoring the question. “I don’t know what you think was so great about our two families? Your father was murdered when you were a child, leaving you to beg and work for your subsistence. As for my father, he was an archaeologist who wasted his life searching for something I still don’t believe in, until the poor lifestyle and wages associated with life in the Sahara left him dead of a heart attack at fifty-two. Both of our mothers disappeared before we could remember them. I never had a sibling and yours are still in a country where you were exiled.”

  “Our families have both been great and will one day be again. As for you and me – I met you when you were still very young. You most likely looked upon me as another poor labourer and so you can’t recall my face, but I have never forgotten you. Your father helped me because he believed in the prophecy, and in time so will you.”

  “You think my father organized your American visa because of an ancient family history?”

  He nodded. A large white grin beaming ear to ear. “Spanning since Nostradamus came out here in 1562 – our two families have been interconnected in ways that no human being will ever truly know.”

  She laughed. “You think he did that because of the prophecy?”

  “Yes. Why else would he?”

  “Because he took one look at you and thought to himself he’d never seen anyone as big as you in all his life. You want to know destiny? You were born to play American football! Knowing my father, he probably got some sort of kickback from the coach where you played college football.”

  “I took no pleasure in it.”

  “I googled you, Adebowale. You made it into the NFL and your team played in the Super Bowl!” She shook her head. “And then you left it all behind to follow me for nothing.”

  “No. I got the education I needed if I’m ever to return to my country. Then I waited until it was time and then I came to help you.”

  “You think a degree is what you need to lead a rebellion?”

  He shook his head. “It’s what’s in a man’s heart that will lead his men to overthrow the usurpers. But an American education has taught me what I need to know to gain assistance from other nations to help me regain my birth right.”

  “You’re dreaming again. Your birthright was taken from you when you were three years old. The very day your father was slaughtered. The Americans, the U.N. and the outlying countries have no interest in getting involved in another rebellion in Africa.”

  She had been too harsh, and instantly wished she hadn’t pushed so far. She carefully watched his grayish-blue eyes for a reaction.

  He paused for a moment and smiled. “You’re right, nobody wants to be involved. And why should they? It’s not their fight. There’s nothing of value to the rest of the world from my homeland. It’s entirely worthless. But soon, they will all flock to my country, and then we will see who offers me their assistance.”

  Still regretting her comment about his father’s death and intrigued by his certainty, Zara persisted, “What makes you so certain?”

  “Because I have seen the day with my own eyes.”

  She smiled. It was genuine. “I hope your dream comes true.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Not a word, Adebowale. But, I truly respect your faith and conviction. It must be nice to be so certain about something. As an archaeologist, I’ve spent a lot of my life following my father’s old notes and making educated guesses, sometimes based on fact and other times hunches. I’ve second guessed a lot of things. Unlike you, I don’t believe in what I’ve done with my life.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Because it seemed easy and it was something I could do. The money has been good, too.”

  Adebowale shook his head. “Zara, do you even know who’s funding your dig?”

  “No. But he’s never argued on the exorbitant fees I send him. And he always pays in advance. That’s a pretty good deal for any archeologist.”

  “So you may be giving away your most prized possession?”

  “It’s not mine.” She smiled. “And I don’t plan to give it away, either. For the amount HE’s paying for it, I won’t ever have to work again and you, my friend, can hire enough warriors to place you back on your royal throne.”

  “But if the book of Nostradamus doesn’t do anything, why would HE keep paying you?”

  “What can I say?” She laughed. “A fool and his money will soon be parted.”

  “Yes. Well, I’ve met plenty of white fools in my life.”

  “Talking about fools.” She looked up at the two riders, their camels climbing the next sand dune far in the distance. “What do you make of them?”

  “They’re not Tuaregs or Boudins. That’s for certain. There isn’t a nomad in Africa who would be willing to cross the Sahara on a day like this.”

  “That’s for sure.” She shook her head. She’d met plenty of fools in her lifetime, too. Black and white. It didn’t make a difference. They both shared that common human fault – stupidity. “But did you see the dive tanks?”

  “Ah!” Adebowale lifted his hands up as though that explained it. “More treasure hunters! The Sahara seems to be breeding them currently.”

  “Treasure hunters?” Zara was suddenly interested.

  “They’d be looking for the lost city of the Garamantes.”

  “The ancient people who were said to have learned to master their environment through the use of large aqueducts, moving water hundreds of miles to create their oases?”

  “That’s the one.” Adebowale nodded. “They were desert dwellers who used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded prosper
ous Berber kingdoms or city-states in the Fezzan area of Libya, deep in the Sahara desert. They were a local power between 500 BC and 700 AD.”

  “I thought they never made it this far south into the Sahara?”

  “They didn’t.” Adebowale smiled. It was a pleasant smile, which put people naturally at ease. He smiled frequently, and Zara had never witnessed him to lose his temper. His perfectly white teeth were a rare contrast to the complete darkness of his skin. His face, which was littered with scars, like trophies from the battles fought in his youth. “But legend has it they once had a most prosperous city deep in the Sahara. It drew water from an underground water basin hundreds of miles away, and for nearly a thousand years reigned supreme with an oasis to match Eden, brimming with life. Its name was, The Golden Fortress.”

  “It was made from gold?” she asked.

  “No. If it was, one of these treasure hunters would have found it by now. Instead it was apparently given such a name because of its wealth, ingenuity, and prosperity.”

  “What happened to it?”

  He fixed his grayish-blue eyes with hers and then laughed boisterously. “Perhaps you really are nothing more than a treasure hunter, after all. The water basin dried up and The Golden Fortress, along with its advanced ancient civilization became extinct within a decade.”

  “There’s a lesson in that for humanity, isn’t there?” she said.

  “We can’t keep terraforming the environment to meet our needs indefinitely. Do you think that is what Nostradamus meant by sending you here?”

  “Not even slightly. First of all, Nostradamus didn’t send us here – my father did, while he was still alive. And secondly, the only thing I believe Nostradamus meant for us to find was a massive reward for finding his original book. He wanted us to receive a dozen or more chests filled with so many French Livre that the gold coins would be constantly overflowing. And I think he got it all wrong – we’ll be paid in U.S. dollars.”