Sandstorm

by Asher, Michael

  There was silence now except for the scrape of the shovels in the sand. The men dug without enthusiasm, and after a moment both Churchill and Von Neumann grabbed shovels and joined in. The sand piled up quickly. Five minutes passed, then ten. Von Neumann paused for breath. His face became paler and he glanced at his watch, then he threw himself into the work even more feverishly. After another five minutes the hole in the sand was a yard deep, but there was still no sign of the packages. Von Neumann halted and ordered the other Delim to start digging. ‘It has to be here somewhere!’ he shouted. ‘This place is only ten yards across. There were five hundred packages!’ The tribesmen grunted and complained, but Amir urged them on and they began digging furiously.

  Suddenly one of the men let out an exclamation. Von Neumann sucked in his breath and rushed over to him. The tribesman was laughing, holding up a torn piece of hessian with a broken rope dangling from it. The German snatched it out of his hand. The other Delim had downed tools and now they were laughing uproariously, letting go of the tension that had built up since they’d entered the Kidja.

  Von Neumann wasn’t laughing, though. His face was deathly white. He pulled out his Luger from beneath his dara’a and pointed it at Taha. His hand shook slightly. ‘You lying little swine!’ he said slowly. ‘It was here! It was here! It was here and you and your stinking Arabs moved it! I ought to put a bullet through your head right now.’

  The laughing stopped. Shovels crashed into the sand as the Delim unslung their rifles. Sterling stood petrified, tensing himself to make a spring, determined to protect Taha whatever happened.

  For an instant Von Neumann pointed the pistol at Taha’s head. Then he let out a long breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why kill you? It takes ten minutes to get back to the wireless truck, and it is now twelve minutes exactly till my rendezvous time with Wohrmann. That means you have exactly two minutes to tell me where the treasure is. If I am even one minute late for the RV, Wohrmann will start killing your family.’

  He let the Luger fall but kept his watch-hand raised. Taha eyed him defiantly. Sterling’s senses raced. He itched to do something — anything, but Von Neumann had anticipated them. Any attack on him would result in Taha’s people dying.

  He bit his lips.

  ‘Thirty seconds!’ Von Neumann snapped.

  Even Churchill had turned pale now, Sterling noticed. He stared at the big man bitterly. For a second their eyes met, then Churchill looked away.

  ‘One minute!’ Von Neumann announced.

  Taha glanced at Sterling then at Churchill, then back to Von Neumann.

  ‘One minute thirty seconds!’ Von Neumann said. ‘If we do not return to the wireless truck in thirty seconds, your family are dead. Now, for the last time. Where did you move the treasure?’

  Taha’s chin dropped to his chest. ‘We didn’t move it anywhere,’ he said. ‘Craven did.’

  *

  Back at the entrance to the Kidja, the rest of the Delim were sprawled out in the shade of rocks near their couched camels. They sat up expectantly as the vehicles rolled slowly out of the gorge. It was mid-afternoon and the heat was beginning to drop. A caravan of puffball clouds broke the monotonous perfection of the desert sky.

  Von Neumann retired into the shade of a giant upturned boulder and sucked water from a military style canteen. Churchill, lounging under the Jeep’s awning, passed his water-bottle to Taha and Sterling, who drank circumspectly.

  Von Neumann called them over, and spread Craven’s map out in the oval patch of shade. ‘All right,’ he said to Taha, ‘where is it?’

  Taha pointed a grizzled index finger to the elaborately drawn north—south arrow on the map, standing east of the shaded area of the Kidja. ‘Nobody noticed,’ he said. ‘Not even me, not until much later.’

  Sterling, Churchill and Von Neumann stared at the device. Suddenly Churchill gasped. ‘It’s upside down!’ he said. ‘North is where south should be!’

  ‘Right,’ Sterling said, seeing it at once.

  Von Neumann glanced at the compass. ‘Then it’s not meant to be a north—south indicator at all.’

  ‘No, and there’s something else,’ Taha said. ‘Look at the centre, where the north—south and west—east lines cross.’

  Sterling looked, and could just make out the shape of what might have been a tree, thick and upright. ‘X marks the spot!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there’s the faint outline of a tree or something at the place where the lines meet!’

  ‘A tree!’ Churchill gasped. ‘A tamarisk!’

  Von Neumann watched Taha suspiciously. ‘There are a million trees like that out here.’

  ‘Look again,’ Taha said. ‘The tree drawn in the cross is large and straight. There are no straight tamarisks in the desert. All are twisted. That tree is a tadout, an ancient cedar, and it is very rare. It is a tree left over from the Time Before Time, when the desert was green and streams gushed through the Plateau of Rivers. There are no more than a dozen in the whole of the Sahara. There is one due east of the Kidjat an-Nuhur.’

  He stood up and pointed with two fists due east. Sterling could just make out what looked like a column on the horizon. Distorted by the heat-haze, it might equally have been a tree or pinnacle of rock.

  ‘That is where your treasure is buried,’ Taha said.

  ‘If this is a trick ...’ Von Neumann growled.

  Taha shook his head. ‘The treasure was in the Kidja originally,’ he said, ‘but Craven moved it. I knew that because we dug for it in the same place years ago and found just torn sacks.’

  Von Neumann looked startled. ‘Why would Craven want to go to so much trouble,’ he said, ‘when he was the only one who knew where it was?’

  Churchill gave an amused grunt. ‘That’s obvious, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Because he wasn’t the only one who knew where it was.’

  *

  They spent the night at the entrance to the Kidja and at first light Von Neumann was woken by a wireless message from Wohrmann in the Guelb, reporting that Steppenwolf was in the area with a column of five heavy trucks. Von Neumann was excited when he read Reuth’s decrypt. At last he would be meeting his wartime hero Otto Skorzeny again, and just at the moment of his final triumph. Von Neumann didn’t care much about the gold, nor did he really believe any more in the renaissance of the Reich. The only real ambition left to him had been to vindicate himself from the stigma of Sonnenblume, and reinstate his reputation in the eyes of Skorzeny.

  He passed Wohrmann the details of the new site and ordered him to relay them to Steppenwolf, saying that they would be at the tadout within two hours. The morning was still and crisply cold. Amir and his Delim were already crouching round fires making tea. They had been up since before dawn, moving the camels to graze in the saltwort a few hundred paces away. Von Neumann squatted next to Amir, accepted a glass of tea, and explained the day’s plan. Then he woke Churchill and his own driver, Franz, and had them warm the Jeeps’ engines.

  It actually took less than an hour to reach the tadout, and close up the site looked very different. The tree itself might have been 500 years old — a fluted, columnlike trunk thick enough for ten men to stand around it shoulder to shoulder, and short stumps of boughs. There was no sign of leaves, but the tree was evidently alive — it stood in a saucer-shaped dip that had once held water, with sandstone outcrops weathered into shapes as fluent as sculptures. To Sterling, the tadout looked like an ancient shrine, a totem pole from a lost age.

  Almost as soon as they had halted, Von Neumann had everyone digging, apart from Taha, his wireless operator, Reuth, and a few Delim guards. He stood watching by the ancient tree with Taha next to him. ‘Now,’ he told the youth, ‘if this turns out to be another waste of time, I assure you—’

  He was interrupted by a yell from one of the men, and turned to see two of the Delim manhandling a bundle from the sand. It was roughly cylindrical — a thick hessian sack that had been padded inside and tightly bound with rope. The Arabs dumped the package at Von N
eumann’s feet.

  Von Neumann’s eyes were shining now. He felt for the commando knife he had brought from the Kidja the previous day and squatted down. The knife was blunt and Von Neumann was wheezing with anticipation by the time he’d cut through the rope. He threw the commando knife aside with disgust, and asked Amir for his dagger. It was razor-sharp, and he sliced through the hessian and the cotton rags underneath in a couple of slashes. Yellow metal gleamed in the sun. With trembling hands, Von Neumann pulled out a gold ingot. It was oblong, not much more than a thumb and forefinger span in length, with a large swastika stamped on top. Churchill and Sterling gasped. Taha, Amir, and the gathered tribesmen made the sign against the evil eye.

  Von Neumann pulled another ingot out, then another, shredding the sackcloth with Amir’s knife. He stood up, his eyes brilliant, clutching two of the bars in his hands, holding them up like trophies. ‘At last!’ he croaked. ‘At last!’

  He knelt and started wrapping the ingots up in the sack. ‘Dig!’ he shouted. ‘Dig! Let’s get it all!’

  The men worked with more enthusiasm now, and within minutes another bundle was unearthed, then another and another. Quickly the packs of gold were built up into neat stacks of twenty. Sterling, sweating with his shovel, was astonished how fast the stacks went up, and how small the area required to conceal 10,000 kilos of gold was.

  Sterling had just paused from the work to take a swig of water that Churchill offered him, when one of the Delim guards bawled out a warning. Churchill jumped out of the trench to join Von Neumann, who was already scanning the horizon with field glasses in the direction the tribesman was pointing. Sterling and Taha both stepped out of the diggings to watch. By now five vehicles were clearly visible — tiny darkling beetles, appearing motionless in the haze shimmering on the edge of the landscape. ‘Finally,’ Von Neumann said, ‘Steppenwolf.’

  Sterling watched the vehicles with dread, knowing that the final act was fast approaching. Von Neumann glared at him. ‘Get digging!’ he ordered.

  Sterling threw his shovel down. ‘Dig it yourself,’ he said.

  Von Neumann ignored him and began counting the sacks of gold, pausing every few moments to monitor the approach of the convoy. It seemed forever before the lorries arrived, but they seemed to burst into life suddenly, racing out of the landscape. Everyone stopped to watch.

  They were Mercedes-Benz four-tonners painted desert pink. The roar of their engines came only distantly, with the scent of diesel exhaust fumes. They had dark-tinted windscreens, so that the faces of their drivers were not visible, and they travelled in Indian file. The Mercs grated forwards until the first was within no more than a hundred yards of the tadout, then they fanned out in line abreast as if on manoeuvres. Once they were in line, the engines cut abruptly. There were a few seconds of silence, then a hatch on the cab of the left-hand truck opened with a dull thud, and a man with a beard and unkempt hair popped up, grinning. He did not speak or wave, but set up what was evidently a machine gun on a bracket in front of the hatch.

  A moment later the door of the same truck opened and a figure dropped out, paused, then began to walk towards them.

  Von Neumann watched him come with anticipation. The man was dressed in Afrika Korps fatigue trousers, desert boots, and a British Special Forces smock with the hood up, shadowing his features. He carried a Thompson sub-machine-gun at waist height, supported by a sling across one shoulder. Von Neumann was surprised that Skorzeny should carry a Thompson. Otto had always said they were too heavy, and insisted that the Schmeisser was the best sub-machine-gun ever made. Then Von Neumann noticed that, though the man was powerfully built, he was relatively short. Otto was as tall as himself. And, unlike Skorzeny, this man walked with a pronounced limp. The heat of excitement began to chill in Von Neumann’s blood. He put his hand on the Luger under his dara’a, but the figure had halted before them now, only ten paces away, and the muzzle of the Tommy gun was pointing in his direction. The man pulled the hood down with one hand, revealing a massive leonine head, features chiselled from rock, swept-back hair, cold blue eyes, and a Kitchener moustache.

  Arnold Hobart stood before them.

  *

  It was Von Neumann who seemed the most shocked. For a second his mouth worked like a mechanical toy, but no words emerged. His head reeled and spun, the image of that night eight years ago crashing into it like a comet: the noise and smell of the sandstorm, the roar of the Jeeps, the clatter of the Brownings, the brilliant flash of verey lights, red and green, and the sudden knowledge that the enemy had found them; switching on the headlights of the nearest truck in panic, seeing the Jeep flying out of the storm like a vulture, and the face of this man behind the wheel, illuminated for an eternal moment, before the machine gun shot his lights out and forced him to jump out and run. The commando’s face — wild, predatory, exultant — was etched on his memory forever, and it was that face, in front of him now, where Otto Skorzeny’s face should be.

  ‘You ...’ he stuttered. ‘But how ...?’

  Hobart turned the ice-blue eyes slowly in his direction. ‘Craven got clever,’ he said. ‘We buried the gold in the Kidja together, but he came back and moved it.’

  Von Neumann shook his head, as if denying that he was really seeing what he was seeing. ‘But you’re dead,’ he protested. ‘Craven was the only one left alive.’

  Hobart guffawed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not unless I’m a ghost and didn’t know it. I survived, as you see. The story of Craven being the only survivor was given out by Steppenwolf, when he took charge of the Sonnenblume salvage operation. Since I’m Steppenwolf, it wasn’t so difficult to convince people — especially you, Friedrich.’

  Von Neumann put his hands over his ears, as if trying to block out the voice. ‘Skorzeny ...’ he moaned.

  Hobart chuckled again. ‘Poor Otto,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t quite the same man when he walked out of the de-Nazification camp in forty-seven. Oh, he wasn’t broken or anything, but he had certainly got himself de-Nazified. He’d already realized the truth: that there would be no renaissance from exile, no revival of the Third Reich. It was finished. The dream was over. All that remained was to feather one’s own nest. He was happy for me to play the part of Steppenwolf, and he’ll receive his whack of the gold in due course.’

  This was too much for Von Neumann. With a Neanderthal cry in his throat, he leapt at Hobart, drawing his Luger in one hand and the British commando knife in the other.

  The machine gunner on the lorry cocked the weapon but, before he could fire, Hobart’s Tommy gun blazed out, thump-thumpa-thump. The Delim scattered at the sound of the weapon, but didn’t fire. Sterling and Churchill threw themselves flat. Von Neumann was hit in the throat and keeled into the sand, coughing and spitting blood. He tried to rise up on his hands and knees, and Hobart shot him again, the heavy rounds flaying flesh from his ribs like a whiplash. Von Neumann coughed once and lay still, blood soaking into the sand.

  Franz and Reuth sat motionless in their Jeep. Neither of them was armed. Churchill cocked his Garand and pointed it at them and they raised their hands. ‘I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,’ Churchill beamed at them. ‘I would just see which way the wind blows.’

  Suddenly, Taha let out a howl like an injured wolf and rushed towards Hobart, who swivelled and turned the Tommy gun on him. ‘Stop it, Billy!’ he snapped, in Arabic. ‘I don’t want to shoot you. Your people are all right. Wohrmann’s dead. My own boys are there.’

  Taha skidded to a halt as the words sunk into his consciousness. He blinked at Hobart incredulously. ‘Grandfather!’ he whispered.

  Hobart smiled but made no move towards him. ‘You’re a good boy, Billy,’ he said in Arabic. ‘You’re a tough one and no mistake. Not like your father ...’ He glowered at Sterling, who was picking himself up and gaping at Von Neumann’s shattered corpse. ‘You never knew how much I despised you, George,’ he said, switching to English. ‘I had to put up with you and your crap all those years because of Margaret
— she was always loopy, but I had a soft spot for her. And I admit you were a pretty bright chap in your own way, and I thought you might make a bit of dosh and help me out in my old age. I don’t need it now, do I?’

  Sterling was already as white as a sheet. He began to shake his head as Von Neumann had done, as if trying to deny what he was hearing.

  Hobart snorted. ‘Pathetic,’ he said. He nodded to Churchill. ‘Good man, Eric,’ he said. ‘You played a blinder with the wireless reports. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  Sterling let out a cry and sank to his knees. Taha stood very still, knowing that all the tracks of all the years were suddenly joining into one — that the spirits had guided their footsteps here for a purpose. He had recognized his grandfather almost at once, and the whole thing came into bright focus in his mind. His grandfather was a murderer and a thief. His grandfather had killed his own men and thrown their bodies into the Umm al-Khof. His grandfather had unleashed the Delim into Reguibat territory and given them the new rifles. His grandfather and Craven had been in it together — and all for this yellow stuff buried in the sand. Bits of metal that he and Belhaan had known about for years, and which weren’t worth the life of one nomad child. Taha had understood enough of what Hobart had said to know that his clan were no longer under immediate threat, and they were his first priority. He would do nothing until they were completely safe.

  Hobart and Amir were shaking hands cordially now, and the Delim had relaxed. They didn’t seem perturbed by Von Neumann’s death. Hobart was speaking to them in Arabic, explaining that Von Neumann was a traitor, assuring them that the original bargain would be kept. Hobart would have the gold; the Delim would be supplied with weapons and ammunition and would take over the Reguibat land that they believed was rightly theirs.

  There was a slamming of doors and Taha saw that a dozen men had jumped out of the trucks, and were smoking and making tea on little oil-stoves in their shade. The men were all Christians and most were armed. Taha saw that the machine gunner on the last lorry remained at his post.