She stared at him. There was little she could recognize. There wasn’t even a hint of him being someone she once knew, even for a passing moment. He wore something over his face, but his eyes were visible.
They were the most intense blue she’d ever seen.
Chapter Eighteen
Zara tentatively took another slow breath in. I’m breathing from a dive regulator? She could feel the bubbles run across her face as she exhaled. Her eyes, now accustomed to the water, made out the shape of the man who’d saved her life. He wore a dive mask, regulator and board shorts. It gave him the appearance of a SCUBA diver at a coral reef on a paradise island. Far from the treasure hunter in one of the few waterholes deep enough to dip your head under within the Saharan desert. It didn’t matter, the man would be executed once he surfaced.
Her mind raced to where she’d seen him and his companion yesterday. But where was the companion? The diver had cut her free and it felt good to be able to move her arms and legs again. He’d saved her life – for now. But how long would her reprieve last? When they came up for air, the men would kill all three of them. That’s supposing the second diver hadn’t been killed already.
Her thoughts were interrupted by something in her hand. It was cold and she hadn’t placed it there. It took her a moment to realize the man next to her had put it in her hands. He motioned her to look at it. It was a rectangular piece of dark stone. Words were written on it in chalk.
YOU OKAY?
Sure, if you count discovering that all that you thought was a lie turned out to be truth, and that a man who you’ve never met before has just hunted you across the desert to kill you… then sure, I’m fine.
Her mind slowly caught up with her and she wrote a reply.
FINE.
FOUR MEN ABOVE WILL KILL US WHEN WE SURFACE.
MUST STAY HERE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
The diver nodded his head. She felt the dive slate pull away as he wrote a new message.
WAIT HERE 10 MINUTES.
He removed his dive tank, weight belt and buoyancy control device, placing all three in her hand. They had been sharing his primary and secondary regulator which ran from the same tank. She instantly found it easier to remain on the sandy floor of the waterhole. She watched as the diver took his regulator out of his mouth and smiled at her. It was a confident smile. The sort you’d expect from someone used to succeeding.
The diver then began swimming to the surface.
Zara quickly reached up and grabbed him by his ankle. The man returned to her. She wrote quickly on the dive slate he’d given her.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
The diver casually reached for the secondary regulator mouthpiece and took in a single breath of air as though it was something he might want to think about doing while he was on the bottom of the oasis. He picked up the dive slate, wiped off her question and wrote a reply. A moment later he handed the slate back to her and swam towards the surface.
Zara looked at the dive slate.
TO NEGOTIATE
Chapter Nineteen
Sam climbed the sand dune at the edge of the oasis. He wore board shorts, a wristwatch and held his snorkel in his hand. The soldiers, whoever they were, talked loudly in French, which narrowed their origin down to any of the north-western countries of Africa. Sam listened intently for a few minutes, thankful he’d spent three years in France as a kid.
One of the men, who wore crowns on his shoulder epaulets kept yelling about a book. Sam couldn’t quite make out the name of the book or why it was so important. He watched as the men ripped apart his riding bags, and the small amount of equipment he’d brought into the desert. They found the two Uzi’s stored in the camel bags and immediately emptied all thirty-two rounds from each weapon with excitement.
“Leave them!” The leader yelled. “Where’s the book?”
“It’s not here, sir!” one of the men said.
“It must be! Where else would she have left it?”
Sam spotted the small backpack in the sand. He also saw the footprints leading to the oasis and back around to where the woman he’d helped had most likely searched his camels. He quickly opened the bag, hoping she’d kept a weapon inside. A gun would be optimal, but even a knife would help. Instead he found a large book, bound by a leather and brass codex. It wasn’t much of a step to presume this was the book the soldiers were after. There was nothing else of value to him inside.
“I don’t even know if these are her camels,” said one of the men wearing military camouflage clothing.
The man with the epaulets yelled a response. “Of course they’re her camels.”
“No. She stole the Range Rover. We picked up a single set of foot prints in the sand. She was definitely on foot.”
“Which means – someone else was here, helping her? Spread out. Find them!”
Sam quickly buried the book in the sand. Whoever they were and for whatever reason they wanted the book, Sam was confident he didn’t want to let them have it.
Unable to avoid the confrontation, he stepped over the sand dune, holding his dive snorkel in his hands.
Two of the soldiers spotted him immediately. They pointed their AK-47s at him and Sam prayed to hell the two had the discipline to wait for their commander to search him before they killed him.
Sam smiled. It was practiced, and meant – I’ve done something really stupid, but it’s okay I’ll get out of it. He spoke in his most boisterous, and confident American accent. “Hi there!”
The leader turned to face him directly.
Sam shook his head, holding the snorkel in his hand. “Boy, you guys are never going to believe how far lost I am!”
Chapter Twenty
The man with the epaulettes looked up at him. “Who the hell are you?” The man was confident as he spoke; his brown eyes scrutinizing, and his face set to the hardened image of a man familiar with interrogations. “And what are you doing here?”
“Sam Reilly,” he replied, studying the stranger. Definitely the most senior of the three men he’d seen. He spoke English without an accent. His face showed several scars. At least three obviously missing teeth and those that were still in place were rotten. Unlike the other two mercenaries with him, who carried AK-47s, this one wore a sidearm. Confident in his men, the weapon had remained in its holster. Sam uncrossed his arms. “I’m searching for the hidden treasures of the ancient Garamantes.”
The commander laughed. It was loud and boisterous and stopped as suddenly as it had commenced. “I am General Gabe Ngige. Did you have any luck?”
Sam took a gentle breath in as he heard the name. The coincidence was staggering. But what was he doing in the Sahara, searching for an old book? “I beg your pardon, what did you want to know?”
“Did you find the ancient city of gold?” General Ngige asked. “The Garamante civilization lost to centuries of greed, myth and legends.”
Sam grinned. “You don’t believe it exists, do you?”
“No. And I don’t believe you were searching for it, Mr. Reilly.” Ngige looked at the two Uzis next to the camels. “So, do you always go armed when you’re looking for treasure?”
“Yeah, well you never know what sort of people you might run into in a big desert like this. Not all of them are likely to be as friendly as you.”
“You know what I think?” The general crossed his arms.
“What?” Sam asked, feigning indifference while the other two men in camouflaged desert uniforms searched him for any weapons.
Ngige stared at him. His face hard and intense. “I think you’re here with the girl. I think you were searching for the book of Nostradamus.”
“That’s what this is about?” Sam asked. “You’re after an old book of lies by Michel Nostradamus? What the hell do you expect to find?”
“Answers! I expect to find answers!”
“To what?”
“To the future, of course!” General Ngige smiled cruelly. “I think it has already cleared up your fut
ure. You will give me the book now or I will do things to you that will make you wish your death could come sooner. So, tell me, where did you hide the book of Nostradamus.”
Sam took stock of his situation. There were four guys. He knew who one of them was. General Ngige was probably the most dangerous person in the world right now. His recently successful coup to overthrow the democratically elected President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, lead to an unheard of rise to power. Not since Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959 to become the new dictator of Cuba, had one man wielded so much power in such a short space of time. Whoever was backing him, must have known something the rest of the world hadn’t, because one thing was certain – General Ngige was being well funded.
He gritted his teeth. That just left the other two men. Mercenaries, he guessed. Unlikely to be vigilantes, bandits or rebels – otherwise he’d already be dead. Instead, they were disciplined. Each of them had waited for an order from their commander before moving. And the commander had waited to interrogate him – find out who he was and why he was there. Two of the men were armed with AK-47s.
Only the general wore a sidearm. A Berretta M9, semiautomatic. Sam knew the weapon well. He’d been issued one as an Officer in the Corps. It took a casing containing 9×19mm Parabellum, the most common military handgun cartridge in the world. The weapon was also known for its reliability. It boasted the ability to fire 35000 rounds before having a misfire. If he lived long enough to get the chance to fire the weapon, Sam was pleased to know that the odds were it would work.
Sam smiled. “All right. I’ll show you where she hid it. But I’d like a smoke first.”
“No cigarette. Haven’t you heard they are bad for your health?” The general laughed at his own joke.
“I guess I won’t be alive long enough to worry about emphysema!” Sam joined in the laughter at his expense. “Seriously, you’re going to kill me and you won’t give me a smoke?”
The mercenary next to Sam looked at the general.
Ngige nodded. “Give it to him.”
The soldier handed Sam a cigarette. Sam took it. “Thanks.” He placed it in his mouth and smiled. “Can I trouble you for a light?”
Sam watched the soldier look at his commander for approval. The general nodded and the soldier lit the cigarette. Sam breathed in deeply. His father had offered him a fine Cuban cigar when he was just fifteen years old, after winning his first sailing regatta. The thing tasted like shit then and he never developed a liking to the stuff. He managed to finish it at the time, through several bouts of heavy coughing, but he felt good none the less. Not the taste, not the sensation, but what it represented – his father, who was always the best at every single thing he tried, had given him the cigar in acknowledgement that he’d achieved something.
Standing next to General Ngige, Sam took another puff and flicked a couple pieces of ash into the water. He looked at Ngige. “Why do you want the book so much? I was told you sent a small army to fetch it.”
The general looked around, as though he were trying to make an important decision about whether or not to talk. The better sense failed and his arrogant side won. “You see, a great man came to me as a child. He said he’d seen the future. I figured the guy’s some sort of loony, so I let him go.”
“Go on. What did he tell you?”
Ngige smiled. It was genuine and displayed his affection for the memory. “He said I had risen to great power throughout Africa. He told me he was a builder. A kind of master architect, planning the construction of a new future – and that in it, he had seen a tremendous change. He provided me a long list of predictions for my life. Each one more staggering than the first. In a few years I was to receive an inheritance from a wealthy relative I’d never heard of. His will and last living testament would stipulate that the money be spent on an education at the University of Cape Town. There I would meet a man with somewhat severe views of the politics within the Middle East and I would find myself offering my services to a rebel force, fighting for a cause I then knew nothing about. What it teaches me is that I love to fight. And for no other reason than that, I fought in eleven other conflicts throughout Africa and the Middle East as a mercenary, until I have a reputation as one of the great fighters in the world.”
“So as a kid, you were told you were going to spend your life fighting other people’s wars?”
“Yeah. Which was strange because at the time I had little stomach for the conflicts in my own country. It was at this point I asked the stranger how any of this had anything to do with getting rich and starting a revolution in my own country. Do you know what he said?”
“No,” Sam said.
“He said he would meet me when the country needed me the most and give me the money to fund a war. Said he’d give me all the money I needed to take over the world. One day I was going to lead a revolution that would conquer all of Africa and send ripples of fear, despair and bloody war throughout the world – and when it was all over, Africa would stand united as one nation. The greatest nation on earth!”
“What did you say?”
The general laughed. “I was ten years old living in Zaire during the seventies. I’d never been to school and the only thing I knew how to do was look after the sugarcane fields my parents owned before they were brutally murdered. I survived eight of those years living through rebellion wars. That was my future. That’s what I knew. If I was lucky I might have become some child soldier to a rebel force who’d take me under their wing and protect me. I was never going to lead a revolution. Besides, I had no interest in doing so!”
“So, how much of his prophecies came true?”
“Every damned one of them. My great uncle, twice removed, died and left a fortune to education. I became involved with a man who preached that real change required violence, and for a reason I’ll never know, decided I wanted to watch this violent change take place in a faraway land so that I could decide for myself if it was required. It turned out, I agreed with the violence and it agreed with me.”
“Did you ever see the man again?” Sam persisted.
“The builder?” The general nodded. “Three months ago. I had heard things were getting pretty bad back home in what is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. The President was weak, and had let the country fall into ruin. When I got there the same stranger who’d predicted all the changes in my life turned up again. Would you believe it, I swear the man hadn’t aged a day! Sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t the hand of God, telling me what I needed to do?”
“And what did he tell you to do?”
“He gave me a fortune in gold. Not in bullion but weird religious artifacts and things. One of the things he gave me was this solid golden skull. The thing looked hideous, but also beautiful somehow at the same time. I asked him what the hell I was supposed to do with it all… and you know what he told me?”
Sam shook his head. “What?”
“Save the world. He then told me to raise an army and overthrow the current government. Once I had done that, he said I would unite all of Africa. He was so confident and everything else he’d told me had come true, I was certain that I had been given some higher purpose by God himself. And then when I felt so powerful, you know what he tells me?” The General paused for effect. “He tells me there’s a book, written by Nostradamus. He tells me he’s paid a woman to find the book and that I must destroy it.”
“What’s inside the book?”
The General squinted at him, and answered the question obliquely. “I asked the strange builder of the future…”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he had no idea what was written inside. Only that if it was ever read the world would be sent down a tangent. A path it was never meant to follow. It may surprise you, with your western mindset, but the alternative path of the future could be a much worse one. And so I’m destroying the book, mobilizing the largest army since World War II and uniting Africa.”
Sam looked at
the general and thought quick and hard to answer two questions.
How did Ngige, or his mysterious benefactor know of a future that so closely resembled the worst case scenario predicted by the greatest minds of the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and abroad?
And, what was inside the book of Nostradamus that prevented that future from coming true?
Chapter Twenty-One
“Now, I’m afraid it’s time you finish that cigarette and give me the book,” the General said. “The sun is coming up and it’s time I get a move on.”
Sam nodded and took two long, deep drags in from his cigarette. He watched as the smallest of air bubbles surfaced on the otherwise still water at the edge of the oasis. His lungs stung as he inhaled the smoke, and he had to consciously make the effort not to cough. The butt of the cigarette, fueled by the oxygen rich air, glowed, burning at an unimaginably hot temperature. He withdrew the cigarette long enough to speak.
“It’s in the sand.” Sam said as he watched the tiny air bubbles reach the surface of the otherwise still water at the edge of the oasis.
“Where?” General Ngige asked.
More bubbles surfaced, three feet behind the general. “I buried it about twenty yards over there,” Sam said, pointing away from the oasis. About halfway up the sand dune. “You should still see the recently overturned sand where I buried it.”
“Deng,” Ngige said. “See if he’s telling the truth.”
“Yes, sir,” the mercenary replied.
General Ngige looked at Sam. His mouth was set hard, but his voice soft, almost betraying a sense of loss for what he was about to do. “Where do you want it?”
Sam shrugged. “If you’re giving me a choice, I’ll have it on a deserted island in the Caribbean in about fifty years from now.”
“Very funny, Mr. Reilly.” The General shaped his fingers to make a pistol and said, “Between the eyes or the back of the head?”
“Well if you’re going to be impatient, I’ll take it between my eyes. You can look at me while you do it.”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2 Page 58