by Wilbur Smith
Tessay's neck opened.- She drew in a wheezing, strangled breath and
twisted out of his grip. Boris tried to turn and swing the rifle around,
but Mek was on him again, seizing the rifle and trying to wrest it from
Boris's hands.
The Russian's finger was still on the trigger, and a shot went off white
the muzzle was level with Mek's face. The detonation stunned him for an
instant, and he released the rifle and staggered backwards with his ears
ringing.
Boris backed away from him, struggling with the weapon, trying to open
the bolt and crank another cartridge into the chamber, but his crippled
right arm'made his movements clumsy and awkward. Mek gathered himself
and charged head down across the gravel beach. He drove into Boris with
all his weight, and the rifle flew out of the Russian's hands. Locked
chest to chest the two of them spun around in a macabre waltz, trying to
throw each other, wrestling for the advantage, until they tripped and
went over backwards into the river.
They came to the surface still grappling and rolling over each other,
first one on top and then the other, a fearful parody of the lovemaking
which Boris had watched a few minutes earlier. Punching and straining
and tripping each other, they struggled in the shallows. But every time
they fell back into the water the slope of the bank beneath their feet
forced them further out, until, when they were waist-deep, the main
current of the Nile suddenly picked them up and swept them away
downstream. They were still locked together, their heads bobbing in the
tumble of waters, their arms thrashing the water white around them,
bellowing at each other in primeval rage.
Tessay heard the men that Mek had called coming down through the scrub
at the run. She snatched up her shamnw and pulled it over her head as
she ran to meet them. As the first of them burst on to the gravel bar
with his AK cocked, she shouted to him in Amharic.
"There! Mek is in the water. He is fighting the Russian.
Help him!" She ran with them along the bank. As they drew level with the
two men in midstream one of the men stopped and levelled his AK, but
Tessay rushed at him and struck up the barrel.
"You fool!" she shouted angrily. "You will hit Mek." Jumping to the top
of one of the riverside boulders, she shaded her eyes against the
dazzling reflection of the low sun off the water. With a sick feeling in
the pit of her stomach she saw that Boris had managed to get behind Mek
and had a half nelson hold around his throat. He was forcing Mek's head
under the surface. Mek was struggling like a hooked salmon in his grip
as they were swept into a long chute of white water.
Tessay jumped down from the rock and ran on down the bank to the next
point, from which she could only watch helplessly.
Boris was still holding Mek's head under water as they were home
together into the head of the chute. Fangs of black rock flashed by them
on each side as they gathered speed. Mek was a powerful man and Boris
had to exert every last ounce of his own strength to hold him, and he
knew he could not do so much longer. Suddenly Mek reared back, and for a
moment his head came out. He sucked a quick breath of air before Boris
could force him under again, but that breath seemed to have renewed his
strength.
Desperately Boris looked ahead to the tail of the chute as they sped
towards it. There were more rocks there. Boris picked out one great
black slab over which the waters poured in a standing wave three feet
high. He steered for it, kicking and hauling Mek's body around with the
last of his strength.
They flew down the slope of racing water with the rock slab waiting for
them at the end like a lurking seamonster. Boris continued to wrestle
with Mek, until he had turned him into a position ahead of him. He
planned to steer him into a head-on collision with the rock and use
Mek's body to cushion his own impact.
At the very last moment before they struck Mek dragged his head out from
the surface, and as he grabbed a precious lungful of air he saw the rock
and realized the danger. With a single violent effort he ducked forward
below the surface again and rolle over head-first. It was so powerful
and unexpected that Boris was unable to resist.
Instinctively he maintained his lock around Mek's neck and was carried
forward over his back until their positions were reversed. Now Mek had
managed to interpose Boris between himself and the rock, so that when
they slammed into it it was the Russian who bore the full brunt of the
impact.
Boris's right shoulder crunched like a walnut in the jaws of a steel
cracker. Although his head was still under water he screamed at the
brutal agony of it, and his lungs filled with water. He relinquished his
grip and was flung clear of Mek. When he came to the surface he was
floundering like a drowned insect, his tight arm shattered in two
places, his good arm flailing weakly, and his sodden lungs wheezing and
pumping.
Mek exploded through the surface only a few yards behind him. Looking
around quickly as he strained for air, he spotted Boris's bobbing head
almost immediately and with a few powerful overarm strokes came up
behind him.
Boris was so far gone that he was not aware of Mek's intentions until he
seized his shirt collar from behind and twisted it like a strangler's
garotte. With his other hand, below the surface, Mek secured a grip on
the back of Boris's wide leather belt and used it like the helm of a
rudder to steer him towards the next reef of rocks that was boiling the
water ahead of them.
Through his waterlogged lungs Boris was trying to shout invective at
him. "Bastard! Black swine! Filthy-' But his voice was barely audible
above the rush of the waters and the growl of the rocky spur that lay
across their path. Mek rode him head-first into the rock and he felt the
impact transferred through Boris's skull to jolt the straining muscles
of his forearms. Instantly Boris went slack in his grip, his head lolled
and his limbs became as limp and soft as strands of kelp washing in the
surf.
As they tumbled into the next run of open water, Mek used his grip on
the back of Boris's collar to lift the Russian's face above the surface.
For a moment even he was struck with horror at the injury that he had
inflicted.
Boris's forehead was staved in. The skin was unbroken, but there was a
deep indentation in his skull into which Mek could have thrust his
thumb. And Boris's eyes bulged, pushed out of their sockets like those
of a battered doll.
Mek swung the inert carcass around in the water, and stared at the
broken head from a distance of only a few inches. He reached up and
touched the depressed area of the skull with his fingertips, and felt
the shards of splintered , bone grate and give beneath the skin.
Once again he thrust the shattered head below the surface and held it
there, while he crabbed sideways across the current towards the bank.
the rest of that long tortuous swim across the Nile.
"How do you kill a monster?" he thought grimly. "I should bury him at a
crossroads with a stake through his heart." But instead he drowned him
fifty times over, and at the next bend of the river they were washed
into the bank.
Mek's men were waiting for him there. They supported him when his legs
sagged under him, and they helped him up the bank. When they started to
drag Boris's corpse out of the river, Mek stopped them abruptly.
him for the crocodiles. After what he has done
"Leave to our country and our people, he deserves nothing better." But
even in his anger and his hatred he did not want Tessay to have to look
at that mutilated head. She had been unable to keep pace with the men,
but she was coming along the bank towards him now.
One of his men pushed Boris's corpse back into the current, and as it
floated away he unstung his AK rifle from his shoulder and let off a
burst of automatic fire. The bullets chopped up the surface around
Boris's head, and socked heavily into his back. They tore holes in his
wet shirt and kicked out lumps of raw flesh. The other men on the bank
shouted with laughter and joined in the fusillade, emptying their
magazines into the lifeless body. Mek did them. Some of their close
relatives not attempt to prevent had died most horribly under the
Russian's care. The corpse rolled over in a pink cloud of its own blood,
and for a moment Boris's pate bulging eyes stared at the sky. Then he
sank away beneath the surface.
Mek stood up slowly and went to meet Tessay. He took her in his arms,
and as he held her to his chest he whispered to her softly.
"It's all right. He won't ever hurt you again. It's all over. You are my
woman now - for ever!'
Since -Boris and Tessay had left the camp there was no longer any reason
to maintain security, and Nicholas -and Royan were no longer obliged to
skulk in Royan's hut when they discussed their search for the tomb.
Nicholas transferred their headquarters into the dining hut, and had the
camp staff build another large table on which they could spread the
satellite photographs and all the other maps and material that they had
accumulated.
The chef sent a steady supply of coffee from the kitchen, while they
pored over the papers and discussed their discoveries in Taita's pool
and every theory that either of them dreamed up, no matter how
far-fetched.
"We will never be certain if that shaft was made by Taita, or whether it
was a natural sink-hole, until we can get back in there with the right
equipment."
"What type of equipment are you talking about?" she wanted to know.
"Scuba, not oxygen rebreathers. Although the navy rebreathing outfits
are much lighter and more compact, you cannot use them below a'depth of
thirty-three feet, the equivalent of one atmosphere of water. After that
pure oxygen becomes lethal. Have you ever used an aqualung?"
She nodded. "When Dutaid and I were on honeymoon at a resort on the Red
Sea. I had a few lessons and made three or four open-water dives, but
let me hasten to add that I am no expert."
"I promise not to send you down there," he smiled, "but I think we can
safely say that we have found enough evidence both in Tanus's tomb and
Taita's pool to make it imperative that we mount the second phase of
this operation."
She nodded agreement. "We will have to return with a much more extensive
range of equipment, and some expert help. But you are not going to be
able to pose as a- tourist Sportsman next time around. What possible
excuse are we going to find for returning that will not set off all the
alarm bells in the minds of Ethiopian bureaucracy?"
"You are speaking to the man who has paid unofficial and uninvited
visits to both those charming lads Gadaffi and Saddam. Ethiopia should
be a Sunday-school picnic in comparison."
"When do the big rains start up in the mountains?" she asked suddenly.
"Yes!" His expression became serious. That is the jackpot question. You
only have to look at the high-water mark on the walls of Taita's pool to
have some idea what it must be like in there when the river is in full
flood." He flipped over the pages of his pocket diary. "Luckily, we
still have a bit of time - not a great deal, but'enough. We will need to
move pretty smartly. We have to get back home before I can start work on
planning phase two."
"We should pack up right away, then."
"Yes, we should. But it seems a damned shame not to take full advantage
of every moment we are here, having come all this way. I think we can
spare just a few more days to sound out some ideas that I have about
Taita's pool and the sink-hole, to try to arrive at some sort of
informed guess about what we will need when we return."
"You are the boss."
"My word, how pleasant to hear a lady say that." She smiled sweetly.
"Enjoy the moment," she counselled him, "it may never happen again." And
then she became serious again. "What are these ideas that you have?
"What goes up must come down, what goes in must come out," he said
mysteriously. "The water going into the sink'hole under such pressure
must be going somewhere.
Unless it joins a subterranean water system and makes its way into the
Nile that way, then it should come to the surface where we can find it."
"Go on," she invited.
40the thing is certain. Nobody is going to get into the sink-hole from
the pool. The pressure is lethal. But if we can find the outlet, we may
be able to explore it from the other end."
"That's a fascinating possibility." She looked impressed, and turned to
the satellite photograph. Nicholas had identified the monastery and
ringed it on the photograph.
He had marked in the approximate course of the river through the chasm,
although the gorge itself was too narrow and covered with bush to show
up on the smallscale picture, even under the high-powered magnifying
lens.
"Here is the point where the river enters the chasm." She pointed it out
to him. "And here is the side valley down which the trail detours.
Okay?"
"Okay," he nodded. "What are you driving at?"
"On our approach march, we remarked that this valley might at one time
have been the original course of the Dandera river, and that it seemed
to have cut a new bed for itself through the chasm."
"That's right,'Nicholas agreed. "I am still listening."
"The fall of the land towards the Nile is very steep at this point,
isn't it? Well, do you recall we crossed another smaller, but still
pretty substantial, stream on our way down the dry valley? That stream
seemed to emerge from somewhere on the eastern side of the valley."
All right, I am with you now. You are suggesting that this may be the
overflow from the sinkholes Clever little devil, aren't you?"
"Just capitalizing on your genius." She cast down her eyes modestly, and
looked up a
t him from under her lashes.
She was clowning, but her lashes were long and dense and curling, and
her eyes were the colour of burnt honey with tiny golden highlights in
their depths. At this close range he found them disturbing.
He stood up and suggested, "Why don't we go and take a look?"
Nicholas went to fetch his camera bag and the light day'pack from his
hut, and when he returned he found Royan ready to go. But she was not
alone.
I see that you are bringing your chaperon with you," he remarked with
resignation.
"Unless you are tough enough to send him away." Royan smiled
encouragement at Tamre who stood at her side, grinning and bobbing and
hugging his shoulders in the ecstasy of being in the presence of his
idol.
"Oh, very well." Nicholas gave in without a struggle.
"Let the little devil come along."
Tamre lolloped away up the path ahead of them, his grubby shamma
flapping around his long skinny legs, chanting the repetitive chorus of
an Amharic psalm, and every few minutes looking back to make certain
that Royan was still following him. It was a hard pull up the valley,
and the noonday heat was debilitating. Although Tamre seemed totally
unaffected, the other two were both sweating in dark patches through
their shirts by the time they reached the point where the stream
debauched into the valley. Gratefully, they sought the shade of a patch
of acacia trees, and while they rested Nicholas glassed the side of the
valley through his binoculars.
"How are they after the dunking I gave them?" she asked.
"Waterproof," he grunted, "full marks to Herr Zeiss."
"What do you see up there?"
"Not much. The bush is too thick. We will have to foot'slog up the side.
Sorry."
They left the shade and made their way up the side of the valley in the
direct burning sunlight. The stream tumbled down a series of cascades,
each with a pool at its foot. The bush crowded the banks, lush and green
where the roots had been able to reach the water. Clouds of black and
yellow butterflies danced over the Pools, and a black and white wagtail
patrolled the moss-green rocks along the edge, its long tail gyrating
back and forth like the needle of a metronome.
Halfway up the slope they paused beside one of the pools to rest, and
Nicholas used his hat like a fly-swatter to stun a brown and yellow