The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  Sam sighed. “I suppose now’s as good a time as any to inform you that we didn’t kill General Ngige. Although I doubt he will survive through the day, let alone long enough to catch us.”

  “What do you mean? He never would have let us escape if you hadn’t killed him!”

  “Tom stole his handgun, and I burned a cigarette butt into his right eye. He ran off into the desert while we were fighting his mercenaries. By the time Tom went after him, Ngige had too much of a head start. We figured the desert would have finished him off well before sunset. He had no water with him.”

  “I think you underestimate General Ngige. The man could survive out here for weeks without food, water, a compass or clothing. He wasn’t just given the position of leader. He was born into it. He was made the perfect soldier. He’ll be alive, and he’s going to be pissed as all hell. So now I’ll be dead by tomorrow, and you will too.”

  Sam thought back to Ngige’s own description of how he’d been given the position of rebel leader by a strange man who could see the future. He doubted very much the man was anything but mortal. He would die, quick as any other mortal, if a bullet was placed in his head. He figured now was the wrong time to mention that’s exactly how General Ngige had been given the job of the leader of the Rebellion.

  “What’s so important about the book?” Sam continued.

  “They think it will make them rich. It holds the key to what has happened before and what will happen in the future. Most importantly, they want it because of the prophecy.”

  “What prophecy?”

  “In the fifteen-fifties, before Nostradamus fell into ill health, he made a journey into the Saharan desert. With a small group of chosen followers, he entered the Coast of Barbary in what now lies the coast of Libya and Egypt. The group walked into the burning desert without protection, without any knowledge of what they would find, and all because Nostradamus assured them that they were going to save the world.”

  “From what?”

  “A warrior who would go on to conquer the world.”

  Sam smiled, condescendingly. “Genergal Ngige believes if he gets the book, he will be the one to conquer!”

  “I guess so.”

  “So, did Nostradamus and his group of followers save the world?” Sam stared at her. His piercing blue eyes examining her response.

  “Well, if the prophecy is true, which I’m starting to believe it may be, they made it deep into the Sahara in what is now Southern Libya. There, a large sand storm developed without warning, killing almost everyone within the group, and burying the book written by Nostradamus.”

  “A book of prophecies?” Sam asked. “This is all about some fabled prophecies?”

  “Yes. But there’s a little more to it than that. You see, there was one survivor other than Nostradamus himself. That survivor was said to one day have a son, who in turn had a son, and this process continued, until one day a daughter would be born. The birth of that daughter would signify the time was near to complete the prophecy. The daughter would discover the place where the book had been buried in the sand for nearly four hundred years, and in doing so, she would save humanity.”

  “And the girl was born?” Sam asked.

  “I was the girl.”

  “This is about some stupid book written by Nostradamus?” Sam continued again.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why not leave it for them to find and we’ll get on with our lives?”

  She shook her head, and made her descent down the steep gradient of a large sand dune. “I can’t do that.”

  Sam struggled to keep his footing as she skipped lithely down the next sand dune. He lost balance and slid down to the bottom of the dune. Sam watched Tom follow his example, sliding more carefully.

  Sam sped up to catch up with Zara again and continued where the conversation had left off. “Why? You need the money that badly?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?” Sam asked.

  “What I do with the book now is very important. It will affect the future.”

  “In what way?” Sam persisted.

  “Don’t ask. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. I didn’t believe it even when my own father told me and I was just five years old. Instead I had to see it with my own eyes.”

  Sam grinned. He’d seen some pretty amazing phenomena in his time. “Try me.”

  “Okay, what I do with the book now will determine if humanity gets to continue to exist – or whether it becomes extinct.”

  Sam humored her. “So what are you supposed to do with the book to save humanity?”

  “That’s just it. I have no idea, whatsoever – and neither did Nostradamus.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Zara stopped for a moment and took a drink of water from the flask she’d taken off the dead mercenary who’d nearly killed her at the oasis. It was midday. The sky was a pale blue and so hot it looked almost white. The sun a diffuse glare, blurring the lines of the sand dunes and the sky into one mangled wreck of heat, as though it was located everywhere. She squinted as she forced herself to look back at the horizon where they had come.

  A plume of sand rose ungainly into the sky like a giant smoke stack from an old steamship. They were getting closer. She glanced at her new companion. He’d noticed it too and said nothing. His mouth was set hard with determination; his blue eyes were pensive and he looked like he’d surmised precisely what she had – their pursuers were approaching rapidly, gaining on them significantly every hour, and driven by greed.

  Zara attached the lid to the flask, looked at him and said, “They’re half a day’s ride away, at best.” She started walking again without waiting for his response.

  “We’ll never outrun them on foot,” Sam said, putting his flask away and trying to match her pace.

  “No. I’m hoping we won’t have to.”

  “You think we’re close to the camels?”

  “No. I’m hoping we’re getting further away.”

  Sam looked around at the sand in front of them. “Further away?”

  “Have you seen tracks recently?” she asked.

  “No. I lost sight of them coming down that deep sand dune. I assumed you were still tracking them.”

  “I was until I realized we’d never catch up to the camels in time. Even if we did, they looked in a poor condition, certainly unlikely to be able to carry us out.”

  “So you decided to make the conscious decision to change direction, hoping your pursuers would follow the heavier camel prints in the sand, instead of slowing down and noticing ours?”

  She nodded and said nothing.

  “Won’t they see us on the horizon?”

  “Might do, if we aren’t quick enough.”

  “And are we?”

  She nodded again. “They’re going to need to stop and water their beasts before they continue. They’ll wait in the worst heat of the day in the expectation they’ll easily catch us afterwards. As for us, we’ll have to keep walking through the worst of the heat. Can you do that, Mr. Reilly?” She said the last bit as a challenge.

  “It looks as though we don’t have much of a choice, do we Dr. Delacroix –”

  “Just, Zara,” she corrected him. “I think we’re well beyond surnames whether we like it or not.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Zara.” Sam smiled at her, revealing a kind face and handsome blue eyes.

  “You won’t be once they catch up with us, which they almost certainly will.”

  “Wow, aren’t you full of optimism. Look, Tom and I have been in a few close scrapes over the years – we’re not easily killed. We’ll find a way out of this.”

  “This is not the ocean, Mr. Reilly. I think you’ll find the Sahara is far less forgiving than any sea you’ve ever visited.”

  “How did you know who I am?” Sam asked.

  “I’m an archeologist. I read your dissertation on the Mahogany Ship.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thin
k the Sahara is a much larger desert than anything found in Australia, and far more dangerous than you grant it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sam stopped at the crest of the next highest sand dune. He checked his compass and looked out. At least six other dunes were easily visible in the distance. A small town, barely anything more than a trading post blended with the horizon like a mirage. “How long do you think it will take to reach?”

  He watched as Zara made a mental note of their location. Zara had no navigational equipment, no compass, sextant or GPS, but she spoke with the authority of someone who’d traveled the regions for so many years and intrinsically knew her precise location. “I could do it in three days. With you, it might take four. We’ll have to continue at this pace. It will be a hard walk before we reach Mao. That’s considering you and your friend survive the journey at all.”

  “Mao?” Sam looked at her face to see if he’d misunderstood her. He vaguely recalled looking at the place on a map earlier, but he and Tom had ruled Mao out as being too far south for the American agent to make the diamond transition, so they had left it. “Are you talking about the desert outcrop deep into Chad and bordering Niger?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled at him. “Where did you think I was heading?”

  “I don’t know about you, but Tom and I are heading to the township of Bilma. It’s less than fifteen miles to the west of us. Once there, we should be able to pay someone to get us out.”

  She laughed. “Who do you think you’re dealing with? Someone inside General Ngige’s rebel army will have a satellite phone. By now, Nigige would have phoned his contacts in Bilma. We go there, we’ll get captured for sure.” She shook her head. “Much better to risk dying out here than getting captured by one of Ngige’s men.”

  “Okay, so even if you can make the trek on foot – what is it, two hundred miles?”

  “Two-fifty,” she said without pausing to calculate.

  “Then what?”

  “Then we get the hell out of the Sahara and the whole damned African continent for that matter. I work out what the hell Nostradamus wanted me to do with his damned book or sell it and make my fortune. And you can go back to searching for whatever it really was you were looking for here. Because I’m pretty certain you know better than to go looking for the Golden City of the Garamantes this far south.”

  Sam said nothing and watched as Tom caught up with them. He appeared completely unfazed by the exertion of nearly six hours hard walking through the desert. As Sam expected, Tom’s slow and steady method was going to allow him to win the race.

  Tom looked at the two of them. “Where do you want to head?”

  “We’re working that out now,” Sam said looking at Zara. “She wants to skip Bilma and head further south on to Mao. What do you think?”

  “I think crossing a desert on foot with only a few flasks of water is insane.”

  “So, you think we head to Bilma?” Sam asked.

  Tom shook his head. “No. Crossing the desert on foot is insane, but heading towards Bilma is suicide. There must be close to a thousand men following our trail. Anyone with that much of an army in the area must have people capable of resupplying them. With Bilma being by far the closest, I doubt we’d last the hour, before someone handed us over to the General.” He grinned. “And after you burned out one of his eyes, I can’t image him being very understanding when he gets you.”

  Sam looked back at Zara again. “Okay, Mao it is. What direction is it?”

  Zara pointed and both Sam and Tom took a compass bearing with their wristwatches.

  “All right, I’ll meet you there,” Tom said and continued his slow and steady pace down the next sand dune.

  Zara followed, next to Tom, making sure no one followed in each other’s footsteps, so that the trail was hard to follow if Ngige’s men ever pick it up. Sam trailed last, taking one last glance over his shoulder at the sand plume, the only sign of the army gaining on them. It had moved towards the west, and for the first time since they’d left the outlying Bilma oasis, the size had shrunk – which meant their pursuers had taken the bait, and were following the camel’s tracks and not theirs.

  Sam grinned and caught up with Zara. “What’s the population of Mao?”

  “About nineteen thousand,” Zara replied.

  “Won’t Ngige have contacts there, too?”

  “Of course he does, but I doubt he’d believe we’d be stupid enough to try and cross the desert on foot.”

  “Without anywhere to fill up on water we’ll never make it, will we?”

  “I grew up in these deserts.” Her hazel eyes appeared a dark green in the sunlight. They were wide and full of mystery. There was something hardened about her face that Sam couldn’t quite place. It seemed at odds with her natural beauty. There was the sort of resounding confidence, and hardened resolve, of a person who’d experienced some incredible pain for so much of her life, that it had simply become a part of her. She had accepted it as a fact. It was neither good nor bad. Yet, despite that, she was still quite capable of seeing the beauty of some of the most unique experiences of life. Her hardened face was broken by a grin. He’d seen that sort of grin before in the mirror. It meant, whatever happened, she was going to beat it. “This place is full of water if you know where to look.”

  “And you know where to look?”

  She nodded and said nothing.

  “So, if we make it, and Ngige’s men don’t capture us in Mao – how do you propose we get out without being caught?”

  “I have a friend. A good friend. He comes and goes from time to time. He owns a small plane. A Beechcraft Bonanza 36. Runs a private charter and supply service throughout the region. He’ll get us out. That’s if we survive long enough to reach Mao.”

  Chapter Thirty

  They walked through the day and most of the night, pausing infrequently to drink and rest. Zara took the slightest sigh of relief when she noticed the plume of sand completely absent from the horizon when the first light of the predawn sun finally broke the next morning.

  By midday it sweltered to 121 degrees Fahrenheit. She stopped to drink and stared at her two companions. They both looked tired, but nowhere near as much as they should have been. She remembered reading somewhere that Sam Reilly spent time in some sort of military specialist forces unit before turning to a unique career in both marine biology and maritime archeology. She knew very little about his friend, Tom.

  Were they both still members of an elite armed force?

  Or were they here as mercenaries?

  She doubted it. Sam Reilly was much too rich to offer his services as a mercenary. Besides, she’d never heard of a Tuareg nomad crossing a desert on foot with such ease, which meant they were using some sort of mechanical device to assist. But how, she couldn’t imagine.

  She watched both men from a distance. They appeared to be chatting amongst themselves as though they were old friends out for a stroll without a care in the world. Part of Sam’s desert robe had loosened and opened at the back. She saw he wore a shirt underneath. It was silver and shimmered remarkably. For a moment she wondered if it was the intense heat playing tricks on her eyes, like a mirage – before she grinned with understanding.

  Got you, you bastards!

  She carefully replaced the lid to her water flask and swung it’s strap over her shoulder, before hurrying to catch up with both men who were now walking side by side, chatting. “All right, one of you want to tell me why you were really here?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  Tom shrugged as though the conversation wasn’t for him, and picked up his pace to distance himself. She watched as he continued following the same bearing they’d been on for the past twenty-four hours.

  “At first I thought you and Tom were hardened, ex-soldiers, capable of super human stamina. I’ve never seen a westerner walk through the Sahara during the hottest times of the day, almost unaffected by the sweltering heat. Then I realized you’
re wearing some sort of temperature suit. I’ve read about them. Real expensive. Mainly used in the military. Kind of experimental, although, if you two are anything to go by, I guess they’re no longer experimental.”

  She stared at Sam’s face for a reaction, but he gave none and remained silent.

  “So, what’s your story?”

  “What story?”

  “What were you really doing in the Sahara with those dive tanks?” Her eyes fixed on his with mesmerizing scrutiny.

  Sam met her gaze and to his own surprise, offered her the truth, or a very near version of it. “We were looking for about five million dollars of raw diamonds.”

  She asked, “Why?”

  “Does anyone ever need an excuse to want to find five million dollars?”

  “I mean, why do you care?” Zara asked. “I may have read a little more than the one dissertation about the Mahogany Ship. I know a little about you. Your father owns Global Shipping and you manage a strange offshoot called Deep See Projects. Until recently, most people assumed you were the typical third generation in a wealthy family.”

  Sam stared at her blankly, betraying little recognition.

  She smiled. “The third in a wealthy generation often spends the fortune the earlier two had spent their lives accumulating. Interestingly, in recent years, you’ve created some wealth in your own right, made significant archeological findings, assisted several governments in complex ocean problems, and made quite a name for yourself as a bit of a trouble shooter.”

  Zara stared at him, waiting for a sign of acknowledgement. Either agreement that she was right, or an attempt to clear up her version of his life’s history. When she didn’t receive one she said, “So, you’re looking for diamonds?”