“Before we start throwing around theories about what happened all those years ago, let’s at least see if this is our plane,” suggested Sam.
“Pretty lady is correct,” said Yuri. “This could be a completely different plane.”
Cardinal and Yuri dug the remainder of the dirt and rocks away from the strut, and hauled it up so they could examine it. Sam took the handkerchief she had wrapped around her neck and rubbed the sand off a plate on the strut. “I think I’ve found a serial number.”
“Read it out,” said Cardinal.
“It’s hard to read, but I think it’s HJ439632AW1.”
Cardinal read the serial number back to Sam to make sure he had recorded it on the satphone correctly. After she gave him a thumbs-up, Cardinal dialed Fahimah.
“Hey there, it’s good you called when you did. I was about to leave for the day,” said Fahimah.
“Sorry to keep you at work, but could you look into something for us?”
“Sure, what is it?”
Cardinal passed on the serial number.
“I’ll send it off to one of my contacts in the UK,” said Fahimah. “I should have something for you by the time you go to bed tonight.”
“Thanks, and Sam says hi.”
“Not a problem, and say hi back to everyone.”
Cardinal ended the call and slipped the phone back into a pouch on his belt. “Fahimah says hi, and we should know one way or the other later tonight of this is our plane.”
“So, now what do we do?” asked Yuri.
“First, I suggest we bury the landing strut, so we don’t run the risk of being arrested by the Omani police for digging without a permit,” said Sam. “After that, let’s go with the assumption that this is our plane. We can drive out to the last recorded spot where we detected a substantial debris field and take it from there.”
“We’ve got tons of daylight left, so why not,” replied Cardinal.
After burying the strut and making it look like no one had been there, they loaded up in the Rover and drove forward until they came to the last patch of debris. Everyone got out and stood at the front of the vehicle, looking around. Aside from millions of rocks, the desert was empty.
Sam shook her head. “If it came to rest around here, it’s long gone.”
“It sure looks that way,” said Yuri.
Cardinal climbed up onto the hood of the Rover and looked back at where they had found the landing strut. The plane hadn’t come in at a straight line so much as one angled to the left. He followed the debris path, and then looked in the direction the aircraft would have kept going. There was a dry riverbed leading toward a steep, jagged hill, but there was no sign of the plane.
“Anything?” asked Sam.
Cardinal shook his head. “No, just more rocks.” He jumped down. “I don’t think we’re going to learn anything else out here today. Why don’t we head back to the hotel and go over the data from the LIDAR one more time, in case we missed something, while we wait for word from Fahimah?”
Yuri nodded his concurrence.
Sam placed her hands on her hips and squinted her eyes, staring at the landscape before them. “Where are you?” she murmured softly.
“Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day.” said Cardinal.
“Yeah, maybe,” said Sam.
Sam sat up in bed, waiting for the call from Fahimah. It was approaching midnight, and Sam was getting tired. She’d expected Fahimah to have called by now. Cardinal had dozed off an hour ago, and was fast asleep. All of a sudden, he began to toss and turn from side to side. His arms thrashed in the air, as if he was having a bad dream.
Suddenly, Cardinal sat straight up, his eyes wide open. “The riverbed. It’s the riverbed.”
“Are you okay?” asked Sam.
“Yeah, I’m better than okay. I know what happened to the plane.”
“How do you know what happened to the plane?”
“I had a dream, and it all made sense. The riverbed isn’t a riverbed, it’s the groove the plane’s undercarriage dug into the earth as it slid across the desert. We need to check out that hill.”
“Why wasn’t there a noticeable groove in the desert before the third debris field?”
“Because it was going so fast, it skipped three times before finally coming down and cutting that channel in the ground.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. It had to be the answer. “You may be right.”
Cardinal took Sam in his arms. “I know I am.”
The satphone buzzed. Sam picked it up. “Hello?”
It was Fahimah. “Sam, the ID you gave me comes from the landing gear of an RAF DH-95 Flamingo that was reported missing in 1942.”
“Bingo.”
“Your inquiry has not gone unnoticed by the Brits. My friend tried to keep it between us, but it got out of hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if their embassy staff pay you a visit in the next day or two. You may have just kicked open a hornet’s nest.”
“Got it. Do you have anything else for us?”
“Ryan and Nate are on their way to check out a possible lead in the South Sudan. Apart from that, all is quiet. Be careful out there.”
“We will.” Sam placed the phone down.
“What’s up?” asked Cardinal, seeing the worried look in her eyes.
“Whatever artifact is buried with that plane has suddenly generated a lot of attention,” said explained. “We may only have tomorrow morning before we’re shut down.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“If it’s there, I want to find it before anyone else does. Call Yuri and tell him to be here at precisely 0300 hours. Hopefully, we’ll be in and out before anyone knows what we’ve found.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Cardinal, getting out of bed to make the call.
Sam walked over to the window and looked outside. The city below was all lit up. She glanced up at the sky and shivered. Clouds blanketed the sky. A storm was coming.
25
Juba, South Sudan
Mitchell opened his bloodshot eyes and saw it was nearly twelve-thirty in the morning. He nudged Jackson and sat up in his seat. The last leg from Ethiopia to Juba had thankfully been short, but after all the traveling he had done in the past two days, he was exhausted. Mitchell raised his arms above his head to stretch and let out a deep yawn. All over the plane, people got out of their seats to grab their luggage from the overhead bins.
“Where are we?” muttered Jackson, rubbing his tired eyes.
“Juba,” replied Mitchell.
“If I have to get on one more flight today, I quit.”
“No more planes for a few days.” Mitchell lowered his voice. “Dawn said her contact is waiting for us in the terminal.”
Jackson looked around. “Where is she?”
“Unlike ourselves, Dawn flew first class.”
“I have to pay more attention to staff meetings. I should have flown up there.”
Both men grabbed their meager possessions, and walked down the stairs and out onto the tarmac. A refreshingly cool breeze blew in their faces. Aside from a few buildings, most of the airport lay in darkness. A couple of military Jeeps packed with soldiers sat on the airfield, looking into the night. The two Rangers followed everyone else inside the terminal. After the usual questions at the customs counter, they proceeded to the baggage area to wait for their bags to be brought from the plane.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mitchell spotted Dawn chatting with a tall, Sudanese woman dressed in a flowing, multicolored robe. They talked for a few seconds before parting ways. Dawn walked over to Mitchell’s side.
“That was Rahma. Her brother, Artan, is waiting outside for us in his van.”
“Can you trust her?” asked Mitchell.
“I can.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“How long are we stopping here for?” asked Jackson. “I’d like a shower, shave, and change of clothes. As well as a bite to eat.”
“You can both forget
about shaving. When we get to Artan’s workshop, you can both have your first and last shower in South Sudan.”
“What’s up with the grubbiness?” asked Mitchell.
“If we’re going to play the part of ivory poachers, we need to look the part,” explained Dawn. “The dirtier, the better.”
“Whatever. Right about now, I don’t care,” said Jackson. “Just as long as your friends feed us before we hit the road.”
“Do you like bread and stews?” asked Dawn.
“Silly question,” said Mitchell picking up his bag. “He’ll eat just about anything.”
Mitchell changed out of his clothes into more comfortable ones. Instead of shoes, he now wore a pair of well-worn boots. His pants were tan colored, as was his vest, and his shirt was dark brown. “Here, take these,” said Rahma, handing around some new passports.
“Canadian?” said Mitchell, looking at the document.
“If you were to use your real passports, you’d be spotted as a fake, and probably shot on the spot,” explained Rahma. “Everyone involved in the ivory trade who comes from the west uses Canadian passports. It’s become somewhat of a joke that if you’re not carrying one you’re working for Interpol.”
“Whatever works,” said Jackson, stowing his away in a shirt pocket. “Has your brother started cooking yet?”
“Can’t you smell it?” asked Dawn.
Jackson inhaled through his nose. “Now I can. What’s he making?”
“Lamb stew,” said Rahma.
“So, what do you have planned for us?” Mitchell asked.
“As soon as you’ve eaten, Artan will bring his Land Rover around, and you’ll load your gear in it,” said Rahma. “It will still be dark when you leave, so you should be able to get out of the capital without being noticed by the police or the army. Once you hit the open road, it should be smooth sailing to Kafia Kingi. If you’re stopped at a checkpoint, don’t do anything rash. My brother knows the drill, and has more than enough bribe money to get you there in one piece.”
“What’s our cover?” asked Jackson.
“Documentary film crew,” replied Rahma.
“Our standby,” said Jackson. “It never gets old.”
“You’ll have enough equipment with you to make it look convincing. Also, most of your weapons, comms gear, and ammunition is hidden in the boxes marked ‘camera gear’.”
“What happens when we get to Kafia Kingi?” asked Mitchell.
“You can drop all pretense of being filmmakers and act like you’re interested in buying ivory from the local warlord. You, Mister Mitchell, will be the buyer. Mister Jackson is the muscle and Ms. Dawn, the money. Lastly, Artan will be the driver. I’ve stashed several articles on the ivory trade in the glove box for you to all familiarize yourselves with. My brother is very loyal, and would rather take his own life than betray the people he works for. Still, the less you say around him, the less he could be forced to say if he’s captured and tortured for information.”
“Got it,” said Mitchell. He looked over at the crates of gear waiting to be loaded into the Rover. “This is quite the slick operation. How did you manage to get your hands on so much kit in such a short time?”
Rahma smiled. “Ms. Maxwell is my employer. That should tell you all you need to know.”
“Enough chit-chat,” said Jackson, rubbing his belly. “It’s got to be time to eat.”
An hour later, the doors to Artan’s workshop opened. He switched on the Rover’s lights, and drove off into the night.
26
Oman
Yuri turned off the main road and flipped his vehicle’s high beams on. He drove slowly, following the tracks they’d made the day before. When they came to the dry riverbed, Cardinal got out, switched on his flashlight, and lit up the groove in the ground. While he walked in the depression, Yuri and Sam followed him with the Rover. As they approached the rocky hills, Cardinal picked up his pace and started to run.
“My God, he may be right,” said Sam, as a jagged cavern entrance came into view.
Yuri parked the Rover, but left the lights on. He and Sam got out of the vehicle and joined Cardinal at the opening.
“What do you want to bet that inside there are the mangled remains of the plane’s fuselage?” said Cardinal, shining his light inside the pitch-black cave.
Sam looked around. “If it did go in there, where is the rest of the plane?”
“Like Yuri said yesterday, scavengers must have picked clean whatever was left out here,” said Cardinal.
“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s no way a plane managed to smash its way inside that cavern,” said Yuri.
“Why not?” asked Sam
“For starters, the opening is not big enough. The aircraft we are looking for is much larger than my Cessna. Secondly, the plane by this point would have lost most of its velocity and would have most likely come to a sudden, jarring halt against the side of the hill. Some debris may have flown inside the cave, but not the entire fuselage of a DH-95 Flamingo.”
“I’m willing to bet some of it went in there,” persisted Cardinal.
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” said Yuri. “But I’m positive the plane was ripped apart years ago.”
Cardinal walked back to the Rover and hauled out the two metal detectors. “I still want to take a look inside.”
“Be my guest,” said Yuri with a bow. “I’ll wait out here.” A drop of rain fell from the darkened sky and landed on Yuri’s face. He looked up and shook his head. “The tropical cyclone threatening this region must have sped up. I thought it wasn’t going to make landfall for another day or so.”
“Well then, there’s no time to waste,” said Sam, sliding her headlamp on.
“Yuri, we shouldn’t be too long,” said Cardinal.
“Da, I think I’ll turn off the Rover’s lights,” said Yuri. “No need to advertise our whereabouts.”
Cardinal switched on his detector and stepped inside the darkened cave. Less than ten meters inside, Cardinal’s headset squealed. He bent down and pushed the dirt aside with his hand. A brass button appeared. Cardinal picked it up and examined the button. “I think this is from an RAF uniform.”
“How can you tell?” asked Sam.
“There’s a crown and an eagle, I think, on the button,” explained Cardinal. He handed the button to Sam and sifted away some more dirt. A frayed piece of gray-colored clothing came into sight. “Someone from the plane was definitely in here.”
Sam shone her light into the tunnel’s depth. “How far do you suppose this cave goes?”
“Who knows? It could go on all the way to the other side of the mountains.”
Sam moved her metal detector from side to side in front of her as she slowly proceeded deeper into the cavern. It didn’t take long for her to find something. She used her boot to push some rocks away and found a pair of mangled glasses. “Gordon, I’ve got a set of glasses here.”
“I’ve found some empty casings near the uniform fragments,” said Cardinal. “I think there was a fight here.”
Sam stepped back and looked at the casings. “Those are .455 cartridges. They must have been fired by a Webley Revolver, which was the standard pistol carried by the British forces during the war.”
“So, let’s think about this for a moment. The plane crashes, and there are survivors. For some reason, they fire on or are fired upon by some of the locals who came to scavenge what they could from the plane. They withdrew into the cave and fought it out to the last.”
“Depending who survived the crash, the artifact could still be hidden in this cave.”
Cardinal nodded. “Let’s spread out and keep looking.”
Outside of the cave, the rain began to fall. Within minutes, it was a torrential downpour that echoed menacingly inside the tunnel.
As Sam and Cardinal progressed, they found more signs of a fight. They followed a trail of empty casings and the occasional discarded weapon back to a long,
rocky outcropping. Cardinal shone his light over the rock and nearly leaped out of his skin. Lying on the ground were two skeletons, still inside their tattered uniforms. By their sides were the pistols they had used to defend themselves.
“I guess this was the last stand for these poor souls,” said Sam.
“Wait, there’s two more,” pointed out Cardinal, shining his flashlight on another couple of skeletons. Unlike the other two, ratty civilian clothing draped their remains.
“It looks like the two RAF personnel gave their lives so these two could get away. Unfortunately, they didn’t get very far.”
Sam and Cardinal carefully stepped past the skeletons of the RAF personnel and walked over to the civilians.
Cardinal knelt by the remains. “If Mister Wright and the man he was to accompany to London were on this flight, I doubt they’d be in uniform. If this is them, let’s look around this spot and see if they managed to stash the artifact away before they met their end.”
Sam moved off to the left and moved slowly and methodically, checking out every nook and cranny of the cave. She could hear Cardinal cursing up a storm after jamming his foot under a rock, but she ignored him and kept her focus. She reached a crevice and peered down inside. Sam began to think that their luck had run out, when her light moved over the end of a slender wooden box.
“Gordon, come quick!” hollered Sam. “I think I’ve found it.”
Cardinal limped over and looked over Sam’s shoulder. “Damn, you may be right.” He got on his knees and tried reaching the box. His fingers brushed the end, but it was just out of reach.
“Step aside, babe,” said Sam. “Hold my feet.”
Cardinal grabbed hold of her ankles, as Sam wormed her way into the crevice. She squirmed from side to side as she reached out for the artifact.
A distant rumbling sound, like a train running down a track, caught Cardinal’s attention. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound friendly. He looked down. “Sam, have you got it yet?”
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