The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  shrill and he slapped his hand down on the tabletop. "They are now our

  best chance of finding the tomb of Mamose. The very last thing that I

  want to happen is that any harm should come to them." He glared at

  Nahoot. "I am sending you back to Ethiopia immediately.

  Perhaps you will be of some use to me there. You are certainly no use

  here."

  Nahoot looked disgruntled, but he had better sense than to argue again.

  He sat sullenly as von Schiller went on, "You will go to the base camp

  and place yourself under the command of Helm. You will take your orders

  from him.

  Treat them as if they come directly from me. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Herr von Schiller," Nahoot muttered sulkily.

  "Do not interfere in any way with Harper and the woman. They must not

  even know that you are at the base camp. The Pegasus geological team

  will carry on its normal duties." He paused and smiled bleakly, then

  went on, "It is most fortunate that Helm has actually discovered very

  promising evidence of large deposits of galena, which as you may know is

  the ore from which lead is obtained. He will continue the exploratory

  work on-these deposits, and if they bear out their promise they will

  make the entire operation highly profitable."

  "What exactly will be my duties?" Nahoot wanted to know.

  "You will be playing the waiting game. I want you there ready to take

  advantage of any progress- that Harper makes. However, you are to give

  him plenty of elbow room.

  You will not alert him by any overflights with the helicopter, or by

  approaching his camp. No more midnight raids.

  Every move that you make must be cleared with me before, I repeat

  before, you take any action."

  "If I am to operate under these restrictions, how will I know if Harper

  and the woman have made any progress?"

  "Colonel Nogo already has a reliable man, a spy, in the monastery. He

  will inform us of every move that Harper makes."

  "But what about me? What will be my work?"

  "You will evaluate the intelligence that Nogo collects.

  You are familiar with archaeological methods. You will be able to judge

  what Harper is trying to achieve, and you will be able to tell what

  success he is enjoying."

  "I see,'Nahoot muttered.

  "If it were possible I would have gone back to the Abbay gorge myself.

  -However, this is not possible. It may take time, months perhaps, before

  Harper makes any important progress. You know as well as anybody that

  these things take time."

  "Howard Carter worked for ten years at Thebes before he found the tomb

  of Tutankhamen," Nahoot pointed out maliciously.

  "I hope that it will not take that long," said von Schiller coldly. "If

  it does, it is very unlikely that you will still be involved with the

  search. As for myself, I have a series of very important negotiations

  coming up here in Germany, as well as the annual general meeting of the

  company. These I cannot miss."

  "You will not be coming back to Ethiopia at all, then?" Nahoot perked up

  at the prospect of escaping from von Schiller's malignant influence.

  "I will come as soon as there is something for me there.

  I will be relying on you to decide when my presence is needed."

  "What about the stele! I should-'

  "You will continue to work on the translation." Von Schiller forestalled

  his objections. "You will take a full set of photographs with you to

  Ethiopia, and you will continue your work while you are there. I shall

  expect you to report to me by satellite, at least once a week, on your

  progress."

  "When do you want me to leave?"

  ly, "Immediately. Today if that is possible. Speak to Frulein Kemper.

  She will make your travel arrangements." For the first time during the

  interview Nahoot looked happy.

  Dolly droned on steadily southeastwards, ig and there was very little to

  relieve the boredom of the flight. The dawn was just breaking when they

  crossed the African coast at a remote and lonely desert beach that

  Jannie had chosen for just this reason.

  Once they were over the land there was as little of interest to see as

  there had been over the sea. The desert stretched away, bleak and brown

  and featureless in every direction.

  At irregular intervals they heard Jannie in the cockpit speaking to air

  traffic control, but as they were able to hear only half the

  conversation they had no idea as to- the identity or the nationality of

  the station. Occasionally Jannie dropped the heavily accented English he

  was affecting and broke into Arabic. Royan was surprised by Jannie's

  fluency in the language, but then as an Afrikaner the guttural sounds

  came naturally to him. He was even able to mimic the different accents

  and dialects of Libyan and Egyptian convincingly as he tied his way

  across the desert.

  For the first few hours Sapper pored over his dam drawings; then, unable

  to proceed further until he had the exact measurements of the site, he

  curled up on his bunk with a paperback novel. The unfortunate author was

  unable to hold his attention for long. The open book sagged down over

  his face, and the pages fluttered every time he emitted a long grinding

  snore.

  Nicholas and Royan huddled on her bunk with the chessboard between them,

  until hunger overtook them and they moved to the makeshift galley. Here

  Royan took the subservient role of bread'sticer and coffee-maker, while

  Nicholas demonstrated his artistry in creating a range of Dagwood

  sandwiches. They shared the food with Jannie and Fred, perched up behind

  the pilots' seats in the cockpit.

  "Are we still over Egyptian territory?" Royan asked.

  With his mouth full, Jannie pointed out over the port wingtip of Big

  Dolly. "Fifty nautical miles out there is Wadi Halfia. My father was

  killed there in 1943. He was with the Sixth South African Division. They

  called it Wadi Hellfire." He took another monstrous bite of sandwich. "I

  never knew the old man. Fred and I landed there once.

  Tried to find his grave." He shrugged eloquently. "It's a hell of a big

  piece of country. Lots of graves. Very few of- them marked."

  Nobody spoke for a while. They chewed their sandwiches, thinking their

  own thoughts. Nicholas's father had also fought in the desert against

  Rommel. He had been more fortunate than Jannie's father.

  Nicholas glanced across at Royan. She was staring out of the window at

  her homeland, and there was something so passionate and fraught in her

  gaze that Nicholas was startled. The temptation to think of her as an

  English girl, like her mother, was at most times irresistible. It was

  only in odd moments such as these that he became intensely aware of the

  other facets of her being.

  She seemed unaware of his scrutiny. Her occupation was total. He

  wondered what she was thinking what dark and mysterious thoughts were

  smouldering there.

  He remembered how she had seized the very first opportunity on their

  return from Ethiopia to hurry back to Cairo, and once again a feeling of

  disquiet came over him. He won
dered if other emotional ties of which he

  was unaware might not transcend those loyalties which he had taken for

  granted. He realized with something of a shock that they had been

  together for only a few short weeks, and despite the strong attraction

  that she exerted over him he knew very little about her.

  processor' Alost POPU

  At that moment she started and looked round at him quickly. Crowded as

  they were at the portside window, they stared into each other's eyes

  from a distance of only a foot or so. It was only for a few seconds but

  what he saw in her eyes, the dark shadows of guilt or some other

  emotion, did nothing to allay his misgivings.

  She turned back to Jannie, leaning over his shoulder to ask, "When will

  we cross the Nile?"

  "On the other side of the border. The Sudanese government concentrate

  all their attentions on the rebels in the far south. There are some

  stretches of the river here in the north that are completely deserted.

  Pretty soon now we will be going down right on the deck, to get under

  the radar pings from the Sudanese stations around Khartoum.

  We will slip through one of the gaps."

  jannie lifted the aeronautical map on its clipboard from his lap, and

  held it so she could see it. With one thick, stubby finger he showed

  Royan their intended route.

  it was drawn in with blue wax pencil, "Big Dolly has taken this route so

  often that she could fly it without my hands on the stick, couldn't you,

  old girl?" He patted the instrument panel affectionately.

  Two hours later, when Nicholas and Royan were back at the chess board in

  the main cabin, Janrfie called them on the PA, "Okay, folks. No need to

  panic. We are going to lose some altitude now. Come up front and watch

  the show."

  Strapped into fold-down seats in the back of the flight deck, they were

  treated to a superb exhibition of low flying by Fred. The descent was so

  rapid that Royan felt they were about to fall out of the sky, and that

  she had left her stomach back there somewhere at thirty thousand feet.

  Fred levelled Big Dolly out only feet above the desert floor, so low

  that it was like riding in a high-speed bus rather than flying. Fred

  lifted her delicately over each undulation of the tawny, sun'scorched

  terrain, skimming the black rock ridges and standing on a wingtip to

  swerve around the occasional wind-blasted hill.

  "Nile crossing in seven and a half minutes." jannie punched, the

  stopwatch fixed to the control wheel in front of him. "And unless my

  navigation has gone all to hell there should be an island shaped like a

  shark directly under us as we cross."

  As the needle of the stopwatch came up to the mark, the broad,

  glittering expanse of the river flashed beneath them. Royan caught a

  brief glimpse of a green island with a few thatched huts on the tip, and

  a dozen dugout canoes lying on the narrow beach.

  "Well, the old man hasn't lost his touch yet," Fred remarked. "Still

  good for a few thousand miles before we trade him in."

  "Not so much of the old man stuff, you little squirt. I have some tricks

  up my sleeve that I haven't even used yet."

  "Ask Mara." Fred grinned affectionately at his father as he banked on to

  a new southwesterly heading, and with his wingtip so close to the ground

  that he scattered a herd of camels feeding in the sparse thorn scrub.

  They lumbered away across the plain, each trailing a wisp of white dust

  like a wedding train.

  "Another three hours' flying time to the rendezvous." Jannie looked up

  from the map. "Spot on! We should land forty minutes before sunset.

  Couldn't be better,'

  "I' better go back and change into my hiking gear, then." Royan went

  back into the main cabin, pulled her bag from under the bunk and

  disappeared into the lavatory. When' she emerged twenty minutes later

  she wore khaki culottes and a cotton top.

  "These boots were made for walking." She stamped them on the deck.

  "That's fine." Nicholas watched her from the bunk.

  "But how about that knee?"

  t vopuiuj ProcesV

  "It will get me there," she said, defensively.

  "You mean I am to be deprived of the pleasure of back acking you again?"

  The Ethiopian mountains came up so subtly on the eastern horizon that

  Royan was not aware of them until Nicholas pointed out to her the faint

  blue outline against the brighter blue of the African sky.

  "Almost there." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Let's go up to the

  flight deck."

  Looking forward through the windshield there was no landmark ahead of

  them - just the vast brown savannah, speckled with the black dots of

  acacia trees.

  "Ten minutes to go," Jannie intoned. "Anyone see anything?" There was no

  reply, and they all stared ahead.

  "Five minutes."

  "Over there!" Nicholas pointed over his shoulder.

  4 "That's the course of the Blue Nile." A denser grove of thorn trees

  formed a dark line far ahead. "And there is the smokestack of the

  derelict sugar'mill on the river bank.

  Mek Nimmur says that the airstrip is about three miles from the mill."

  "Well, if it is, it's not shown, on the chart," Jannie grumbled. "One

  minute before we are on the coordinates."

  The minute ticked off slowly on the stopwatch.

  "Still nothing-' Fred broke off as a red flare shot up from the earth

  directly ahead and flashed past Big Dolly's JI nose. Everyone in the

  cockpit smiled and relaxed with relief.

  "Right on the nose." Nicholas patted Jannie's shoulder in

  congratulations. "Couldn't have done better myself."

  Fred climbed a few hundred feet and came round in a one-eighty turn. Now

  there were two signa I fires burning out there on the plain - one with

  black smoke,, the other sending a column of white straight up into the

  still evening sky. It was only when they were a kilometer out that they

  were able to make out the faint outline of the overgrown and

  long'disused landing strip. Roseires airstrip had been built twenty

  years before by a company that tried to grow sugar cane under irrigation

  from the Blue Nile. But Africa had won again and the company had passed

  into oblivion, leaving this feeble scrape mark on the plain as its

  epitaph.

  Mek Nimmur had chosen this remote and deserted place for the rendezvous.

  "No sign of a reception committee," Jannie grunted.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Continue your approach," Nicholas told him. "There should be another

  flare - ah, there it is!" The ball of fire shot up from a clump of thorn

  trees at the far end -of the runway, and for the first time they were

  able to make out human figures in the bleak landscape. They had stayed

  hidden until the very last moment.

  "That's Mek, all right! Go ahead and land."

  As Big Dolly finished her roll-out and the end of the rough and pitted

  runway came up ahead, a figure in camouflage fatigues popped up ahead of

  them. With a pair of paddles it signalled them to taxi into the space

  between two of the tallest thorn trees.

  Jannie cut the engines and grinned
at them over his shoulder. "Well,

  boys and girls, looks like we pulled off another lucky one!'

  Then from the height of Big Dolly's-cockpit there was no mistaking the

  commanding figure of Mek Nimmur as he emerged from the cover of the

  clump of acacia trees. Only now did they realize that the trees had been

  shrouded with camouflage netting; this was why they had not been able to

  spot any sign of human presence from the air. As soon as the loading

  ramp was lowered, Mek Nimmur came striding up it.

  "Nicholas! They embraced and, after Mek had kissed him noisily on each

  cheek, he held Nicholas at arm's was proce Wolrlc, length and studied

  his face, delighted to see him again. "So I was right! You are up to

  your old tricks. Not simply a dikdik shoot, was it?"

  "How can I lie to an old friend?"Nicholas shrugged.

  Hell' "It always came easy to you," Mek laughed, "but I am lad we are

  going to have some fun together. Life has been very boring recently."

  "I bet!'Nicholas punched his shoulder affectionately.

  A slim, graceful figure followed Mek up the ramp. In the olive-green

  fatigues Nicholas hardly recognized Tessay until she spoke. She wore

  canvas para boots and a cloth cap that made her look like a boy.

  "Nicholas! Royan! Welcome back!" Tessay cried. The two women embraced as

  enthusiastically as the men had done.

  "Come on, you Ous!" Jannie protested. "This isn't Woodstock. I have to

  get back to Malta tonight. I want to take off before dark."

  Swiftly Mek took charge of the offloading. His men swarmed aboard and

  manhandled the pallets forward on the rollers, while Sapper started up

  his beloved front-end loader and used it to run the cargo down the ramp

  and stack it in the acacia grove under the camouflage netting.

  With so many hands to help it went swiftly, and Big Dolly's hold was

  emptied just as the sun settled wearily on to the horizon, and the short

  African twilight bled all colour from the landscape.

  Jannie and Nicholas had one last hurried discussion in the cockpit while

  Fred completed his flight checks. They went over the plans and radio

  procedures one last time.

  Four days from today," Jannie agreed, as they shook hands briefly.

  "Let the man go, Nicholas," Mek bellowed from below.

  "We must get across the border before dawn."

  They watched Big Dolly taxi down to the end of the strip and swing