Alhazred finished his cigarette, then turned and stepped out of the tent for a second, grinding out the butt into the sand at his feet. He stepped back inside the tent.
“So my companions in the Brotherhood decided that we would make money out of it all at least, which is how things started. I was toiling as a field-worker at the Zinchechra site, stealing small artifacts and selling them to smugglers. That’s how I met the estimable Mr. Tidyman. We had much in common. He was an expatriate and so was I; we had a shared, partial Canadian heritage. Blood brothers if you will. That led to a whole chain of connections up the smugglers’ network, to Cairo, Alexandria, Tripoli, Tobruk, Tunis, Marseille, a lot of places.”
“Valador and his fishing boat. The tugboat in Alexandria,” said Holliday.
“That’s right, the Khamsin.” The handsome Lebanese man smiled. “Then I found the tomb and everything changed.”
“Imhotep?” Rafi asked.
“Himself,” confirmed Alhazred. “I was looking for a place to cache artifacts I’d taken from the main dig when I stumbled on it. The site at Zinchechra is enormous. As well as the old town ruins and the Garamathes’ fortress there are also hundreds of beehive tombs from the earlier group who occupied the oasis. I shouldn’t have been surprised; the tombs look like miniature truncated pyramids, much like the step pyramid at Saqqara built by Imhotep for King Djoser in 2600 B.C. It’s clear now that’s where the design came from; Imhotep simply enlarged the scale.”
“He was buried in one?” Rafi asked.
“Hidden would be a better description. Like Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter.’ I believe the term is ‘hidden in plain sight,’ ” said Alhazred. “In most of the tombs the occupant was buried upright; that’s what I expected to find in the one I opened. A tiny space but big enough for what I had in mind. Instead there was a shaft and a passage leading to quite a large underground chamber.”
“The tomb,” offered Holliday.
“Yes,” said Alhazred.
“Sealed?” Rafi said.
“Sealed and with Imhotep’s cartouche pressed into the plaster when it was still wet.”
“What did you see when you opened it?” Rafi’s eyes were like saucers. Alhazred was describing every archaeologist’s fondest dream; their heart’s desire, in fact.
“Wonderful things,” said Alhazred wistfully, remembering. “Not the tomb of a king, like Tutankhamen, but the tomb of a thinking man, an architect, an engineer, an inventor, a doctor and a mathematician. Architectural models, intact clay and wax tablets, wall paintings, small sculptures, a great deal of jewelry. All authentic Third Dynasty. Worth millions.”
“If you’d gone public with the find it would have made your reputation,” said Rafi.
“Who discovered King Tut’s tomb?” Alhazred sneered.
“Howard Carter,” said Rafi promptly.
“Not so,” said Alhazred. “It was his foreman, Ahmed Rais, an illiterate Egyptian. Carter could have kept digging for the rest of his life and never found it.”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t have gotten credit for the find?” Holliday said.
“Not in a million years. I got my doctorate at the American University in Beirut. The head of the Germa dig was a postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford. Do you know anything about the politics of academia in the archaeology field, Colonel Holliday?”
“Nothing,” admitted Holliday.
“I do,” said Rafi.
“What luck would I have had getting credit for an enormous find like that?”
“Not a chance in hell,” agreed Rafi with a sigh.
“Exactly.” Alhazred nodded and lit another cigarette. “So I kept it quiet.”
“You and your friends started smuggling artifacts from the tomb,” said Holliday. Rafi winced, knowing the historical loss that came from that kind of destructive, unscientific looting. Movies like Clive Cussler’s Sahara, the modern Mummy series, and worst of all the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films extolled the worst kind of archaeology. At least Indiana Jones wasn’t in it for the money.
“That’s precisely what we did, and we were getting rich doing it, Emil and I. Then Emil tripped over Your Heart’s Desire while he was taking a load of booty from the tomb back to Siwa. We knew we were in trouble right from the start.”
“I’d hardly call finding a billion dollars in bullion trouble,” said Rafi.
“Really?” Alhazred gave a mocking laugh. “A billion dollars that isn’t yours in a country ruled by a lunatic dictator crazier than Saddam Hussein? It was trouble, believe me. As soon as we started trickling the gold out a few bars at a time the people at the far end of the smugglers’ chain of command started asking questions. Bad people. So we invented the Brotherhood of Isis and became political. It made us more dangerous to the big-time criminals we had to deal with. It also got us friends and a few accommodations about traveling in the revolutionary zones in Niger and Chad. My Tuaregs loved it. Calling themselves the Brotherhood reminded them of their warrior past and gave them status among the other tribes. Problems still exist. We are well hidden here, and remote, but far too many people know about the gold now. Eventually the trouble will come to a head. I would like to act before that happens.”
“How did you find out we were coming for Peggy?” Rafi asked.
“She said you would,” explained Alhazred. “Both of you. I thought it was bluff and bluster, but then Fusani’s body floated up and I knew you were coming.” He smiled. “I guess neither of you was a Boy Scout; your knots weren’t tight enough.”
“Fusani?” Rafi frowned.
“The engineer on the Khamsin,” suggested Holliday.
“Quite so,” said Alhazred.
“At which point you set us up with Tidyman,” Holliday said.
Again Alhazred nodded.
“Yes. It was logical that without papers to cross the border at Sollum you would find your way to Siwa. After that it was easy.”
“It’s a great story,” said Holliday. “But it doesn’t get us any closer to Peggy.”
“Nor will it, not for the moment.”
“Not for the moment?” Holliday said.
“How do we know she’s even alive?” Rafi asked bluntly.
“You don’t,” said Alhazred. “But I can assure you that she is.”
“What do you want from us?” Holliday asked.
“I’d like your opinion about something,” said Alhazred. “Yours from a military perspective, Colonel Holliday, and yours from an archaeologist’s point of view, Dr. Wanounou. Do that for me tomorrow and I’ll be happy to tell you where Peggy is.” He gave a curt little nod. “We’ll head for the tomb tomorrow evening, less chance of being seen. Until then feel free to wander about the camp. Try to escape and Miss Blackstock will be killed within the hour. Understand?”
“Yes,” said Holliday. Rafi was silent.
“Good,” said Alhazred. He turned on his heel and threw back the tent flap, then disappeared outside.
“Illuminating,” said Holliday, leaning back on the pillows, staring thoughtfully at the entrance to the tent.
“How much of that do you believe?” Rafi asked.
“All of it. None of it. Who knows?” Holliday shrugged. “All I do know is that guy talks too much and there’s something creepy about him. Something missing.”
“Is Peggy alive?” Rafi asked, his voice cracking.
“If she’s not I guarantee you sayyed Alhazred is a dead man,” vowed Holliday grimly.
15
They awakened with the rest of the camp at dawn the following day. Holliday knew there was a guard outside the tent throughout the night because he heard him singing softly to himself. The songs were all quiet dirges, like memories of the enormous desert they had just crossed. Sleep didn’t come easily and his thoughts inevitably turned to Peggy and her whereabouts. He’d told Rafi that Alhazred would die if he’d harmed her in any way, but privately on his own restless voyage through the night, Holliday also promised himself that the man
’s death would not come either quickly or easily.
Breakfast was strong black coffee and taguella, a thick crepelike bread made from millet flour and goat’s milk but without sugar. A Tuareg brought them the overnight bags they’d brought with them from Siwa and they changed into fresh clothes. After that, just as Alhazred had promised, they were given the run of the camp. Holliday was the first to decipher the site’s design.
“It’s a Roman castra,” he said after a few minutes of walking through the camp. “A square inside a sand rampart and a dry ditch. About three hundred by three hundred and all the tents laid out in rows. That big tent in the middle is probably Alhazred’s. It’s a military formation. The first real attempt at urban planning.” They climbed up the sandy hill at the south side of the camp. A Tuareg guard patrolling the top of the rampart with a rifle slung across his back eyed them speculatively. Like targets. Or prey.
“New weapon from the looks of it,” said Rafi as they reached the summit of the sandy wall. “Alhazred equips his people well.”
“It’s a C7 assault rifle,” said Holliday. “Knockoff of the U.S. Army M-18. Canadian again.”
“Tidyman was raised in Canada and Alhazred’s mother was Canadian as well; they must have lots of connections there. I know they have a big Lebanese immigrant population; it’s been that way for a long time.”
“Canada, the terrorist’s Switzerland,” replied Holliday, looking down at the camp. “Easy to get into on a visitor’s visa and the border is a four-thousand-mile sieve. You can walk through a wheat field in Saskatchewan and not even know you’d crossed into Montana.” He shook his head wearily. Holliday knew a few Homeland Security types who’d told him that between terrorists and high-grade marijuana, the Canadian border needed a fence even more than Mexico. “During the Vietnam War they said more Russian spies crossed into New York State at Niagara Falls than anywhere else. Couldn’t go on a tour bus without running into some guy in a Hawaiian shirt named Vladimir.”
“Funny place,” said Rafi, a slightly wistful tone in his voice. “There was a beautiful girl in one of my classes at university named Joy Schlesinger. She had the greatest . . . Anyway, she came from some place called Medicine Hat. What is a medicine hat?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” said Holliday, distracted. He turned around and looked out across the open stretch of sand between them and the ragged promontory of rock that separated the camp from the main desert beyond. The camp had been situated about two miles from the foot of the dark, stony crags. Far enough away so that the steep cliffs offered no strategic high ground. An enemy could be seen coming from miles away. He turned again and looked at the Tuareg guard. As well as the rifle he had a pair of Leupold 10×50 binoculars. Holliday turned toward the distant hills. He squinted and shaded his eyes.
“What are you looking at?” Rafi asked.
“Look out here,” Holliday instructed. “What do you see about five hundred yards out?”
“Sand,” Rafi answered. “Blindingly white sand.”
“Look closer.”
Rafi thought he could make out a slightly darker strip in the bright hot sunlight.
“A road?”
“Except it doesn’t go anywhere,” murmured Holliday. “Look.”
Rafi stared. The “road” looked like a line of hard-packed sand about half a mile long, parallel to the camp.
“What kind of road doesn’t go anywhere?” The archaeologist frowned.
In the distance, overhead, there was a faint mosquito whine that grew louder with every passing second.
“A runway,” said Holliday, glancing up. “These guys have got a plane.”
A minute or so later, coming from the west and dropping down from the high plateau to the south, the aircraft appeared, an old design with two booms creating twin tailplane assemblies. As it began its approach to the runway the guard on the parapet grew very agitated, unlimbering the rifle from his back and rushing toward them, brandishing the weapon.
“Edh’hab! Edh’hab!” the man screamed.
“I think we’re supposed to get off the rampart,” said Rafi.
The plane’s wheels touched down and the propeller sounds deepened as the pilot backed the engines. The guard stopped, lowering the weapon and aiming it at them.
“I think you’re right,” agreed Holliday. They scrambled down the sandy hill. Above them the guard seemed to relax. Holliday and Rafi made their way between two rows of igloo-shaped tents and walked toward the big camel enclosure close to the center of the camp.
“What was that all about?” Rafi asked. He turned his head and looked up at the guard. The Tuareg had gone back to patrolling the rampart.
“I don’t think we were supposed to see the plane,” said Holliday.
“Why not?” Rafi said. “It’s not like either one of us can fly.”
“I flew in planes like that all the time in Vietnam,” said Holliday. “It was a Cessna Skymaster. They called them O2s in-country. They bird-dogged downed pilots and worked as forward artillery spotters. They used to take me and my men into Cambodia and Laos. They even made a movie with one in it. Bat 21, I think it was called. Danny Glover and Gene Hackman, our French cop’s favorite actor.
“Popeye-goddamn-bloody-Doyle,” said Holliday, doing a fair imitation of Louis Japrisot, the police captain in Marseille. “Gene ’ackman this, Gene ’ackman that!”
“Could it get us out of here?” Rafi said.
“I think it had a range of about twelve hundred miles. It would get us across the border back into Egypt, probably Tunisia. If either one of us could fly, that is.”
“We can’t,” said Rafi thoughtfully. “But Peggy could; she’s got her pilot’s license, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know if she’s rated for twins though; the Skymaster’s a push-pull.”
“Better a single-engine pilot than none at all.”
“We’d have to find her first,” said Holliday.
“Isn’t that why we’re here?” Rafi said, the words a challenge.
By four thirty in the afternoon they were no farther along in their search for the elusive Peggy. The only thing they’d accomplished was a slightly more accurate count of the number of people in the camp—220—and the fact that a mixed herd of goats and sheep smelled even worse than an equal number of camels. It amazed Holliday that goats and camels both gave sweet milk but smelled so nauseatingly foul, like a combination of raw sewage and a kid’s wet wool mittens roasting on an old-fashioned radiator.
Rafik Alhazred caught up with them just as they were heading back to their assigned tent. Wearing an outfit much like the one he’d had on the day before, he was at the wheel of a brand- new dusty white 200 Series Toyota Land Cruiser without a nick or a ding on it. The big truck looked as though it belonged in a suburban driveway. The sign on the door read: Fezzan Project—Libyan Dep’t of Antiquities
British Academy
King’s College, London
Society for Libyan Studies
There was Arabic text below that was presumably a translation of the English above.
“The truck is mine but the sign’s authentic enough,” said Alhazred. “Change into the robes you arrived in, a little protective coloration. Hurry, please,” he added. “I’ll wait here.”
Holliday and Rafi did as they were told and piled into the truck, robed from head to toe, including the muslin veil across the bottom part of their faces. A real Tuareg crouched in the rear cargo compartment. He wasn’t visibly armed but Holliday was sure there was some kind of weapon hidden in the indigo folds of his native costume.
“If we get stopped you say nothing. Speak, and my friend Elhadji back there will slit your throats, quick as a wink. Don’t worry—my site identification is perfect. The dig has been in operation for more than a decade; field-workers come and go all the time; no one knows anyone anymore, which is to our benefit.”
Alhazred drove out of an opening in the north rampart that boxed the camp, then immediately tur
ned east, heading toward the neck of the fifteen-mile-long valley, the dark, ominous basalt crags quickly closing in.
“So, Colonel, what do you think of my little pied-à-terre back there?”
“It bears a strong resemblance to a Roman military camp,” said Holliday. “I’m sure it was no accident.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said Alhazred, clearly pleased. “I spent a great deal of time at Baalbeck, in the Bekaa Valley, as a student. Very impressive to a young man.”
“Very impressive to the Emperor Vespasian as well,” commented Holliday. Rafi threw him a sudden perplexed glance then looked away. Holliday kept talking. “Although I doubt his son Trajan appreciated the oracle’s prophecy of his death in the Parthian Wars.”
“No, indeed not,” said Alhazred. They drove on. At the head of the valley Alhazred turned the Land Cruiser north and suddenly they thumped onto a paved road. Abruptly and jarringly they were confronted with reality in the form of an old faded billboard offering Koka Kola in Russian.
“The good old days,” Alhazred said and laughed.
Gee, we’re just the best of pals, aren’t we? Holliday thought. First you threaten to slit our throats. Then you crack jokes. Alhazred was definitely a few nuts short of his bolts.
They continued eastward along the modern highway for ten or twelve miles, passing huge transport trucks, rattletrap old Lada vans and a few donkey carts heading to market, loaded down with produce. The buildings on either side of the road were mostly mud brick, but there were a couple of quite modern Tamoil gas stations with big blue and white plastic signs over the pumps. The few people they saw were dressed in the ubiquitous indigo robes. No one paid the slightest bit of attention as they passed; the sign on the side of the truck was obviously an open sesame for them.
Without warning Alhazred engaged the four-wheel drive and swung the big Toyota due north again, off the road and onto the crusted desert sand. They headed across the plains, the gigantic dunes of the Erg Murzuq rearing up like wind-scooped mountains on the far side of the wide valley, the sun lowering toward them, casting long shadows trailing behind the truck.
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