Sean pulled the wire coating back an inch or two and then opened the cutters once more. He set them on the ground next to his waist and set to work on the next part of his plan. He tugged his shirt up with both hands, exposing the makeshift device, and then pulled on the tape keeping it to his skin.
He grimaced as the adhesive tugged on his chest hairs. He had to bite his lip to keep from making a noise. The process seemed to take forever, probably because of the agonizing pain each tug put into his skin. Finally, he held the transponder up to a crossbeam on the chassis and wrapped the excess tape around the metal several times until it was used up.
Then he took another glance out to his left and noted the first guard would be coming back around again soon. Sean knew he was running out of time. Not only that, but the longer he stuck around, the greater his chances were of being caught.
Sean grabbed the wire he’d prepped on the transponder the night before and wrapped the bare copper around the newly exposed section running to the headlights. Then he used his fingers to pull the insulation back as close as possible to where he’d cut it.
Next, he tore a piece of tape off the device and used it to wrap where he’d attached the two wires. He reached up and grabbed the homing beacon and gave it as hard a shake as he could without making the entire truck gyrate.
Satisfied the device was as secure as he could make it, Sean rolled out from under the truck and made his way to the rear. He stopped, looked around the back, and then sidestepped to the back-right taillight.
He removed the weapon from his belt and held it down at his side, just in case. He leaned around the back corner of the truck and saw the first guard step behind the tent. Now was his chance.
Sean took off at a dead sprint toward the rock formation about twenty-five yards away. It would be close, and acceleration had never been Sean’s strong point. He reached the edge of the rock wall just as the guard stepped out from the other side of the tent. Sean skidded around the corner and disappeared from sight before the guy could turn and see him.
Sean’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he gasped for breath. He wiped his forearm across his head and took a second to let his breathing calm down. Then he had a terrible epiphany. He checked one pocket and then the other. It wasn’t there.
He twisted his body enough to be able to see back to the truck he’d been under and caught a glimpse of what he was missing.
The wire cutters were lying on the ground underneath the chassis.
Idiot, he thought. How could you be so careless?
Sean ducked back behind the rock to avoid being spotted. If he left the tool there under the truck, one of Dufort’s men could find it. If he ran back to retrieve the thing, he could be spotted, and he’d already pushed the envelope with that.
He snorted angrily and peeked around the rock once more. The guard strolled aimlessly along his path like he’d done at least a dozen times already. Then, inexplicably, he stopped right in front of the truck with the transponder. For a second Sean wondered if the guy had seen the tool. If so, Sean would have no choice. He’d have to rush the guard and take him out. Doing so would mean Dufort would notice one of his men missing or dead.
A plan formed in Sean’s mind. He’d make it look like an accident. His eyes flashed around, desperate for a device that would make the plan work.
Then he saw the guard reach into a shirt pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. Sean sighed. The guy was just stopping for a smoke.
The guard put the cigarette to his lips and reached into his pocket, fishing out a lighter. He cupped his hands and started to light it when the cigarette suddenly slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground.
Irritated, the guard bent down and grabbed the cigarette. Sean’s heart stopped. The guy was almost at eye level with the tool. All he had to do was turn his head to the side and he’d see it. Then things would hit the fan.
Sean gripped his gun and readied himself to charge. He started regretting the complicated plan of tracking Dufort’s movement. Maybe they should have just rushed in with guns blazing. Perhaps a night mission several hours before would have been a better option.
Just as he pushed aside his regrets and second guessing, he heard some shouting from beyond the other side of the camp. A moment later several men ran into the area, waving their hands around in a circle. Sean ducked back behind the rock and listened closely.
The shouting voices were saying something about packing up and leaving. Sean risked one last look around the big rock and saw the guard he’d been watching trotting away from the truck.
He hadn’t seen Sean’s handiwork.
Sean let out a relieved sigh and let the back of his head rest against the stone for a second. Then he perked up and sprinted toward the plateau where the helicopter waited.
The game was on.
Chapter 26
Aswan, Egypt
Dufort took a long sip of water. The cool liquid washed over his tongue and soothed his parched throat.
He hated the desert. He came from a region in France that was much cooler, much greener, and much more humid than the hot, sandy climate the Sahara offered. Fortunately, Aswan was an oasis town, a place where wasteland was temporarily interrupted by a thin patch of trees, grass, and life. And it all came from the Nile River—the lifeblood of a nation for thousands of years.
He set the clean glass down and stared at his computer screen.
Dufort and his men had driven all afternoon and into the night to reach Aswan. As soon as the caravan arrived, he’d dismissed his men to their own rooms in a resort he doubted many of them could afford with their usual salaries.
While he was the only one with a room to himself, he made sure the men were comfortable. After all, they were going to be in for a long day tomorrow.
He knew one of the men would be outside his door all night. They’d go in rotations of two hours each to stand guard, and so his mind was at ease.
He was even more relaxed because there’d been no sign of Sean Wyatt since leaving Libya. Dare he hope the American had met his demise at the hands of Libyan nationalists or perhaps a group of zealous rebels?
It was certainly possible.
Wherever Wyatt might be, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the troublemaker wouldn’t be bothering Dufort any longer. Worst-case scenario: Wyatt’s friends were dead in the prison outside of Tripoli, which tilted the odds more in Dufort’s favor.
That caused another fanciful thought to pop into Dufort’s mind. Maybe Wyatt risked a daring prison break to save his friends and was killed in the process. Would he be so bold, so foolhardy? It was certainly in the American’s MO.
Dufort’s lips parted slightly at the thought. He imagined Wyatt rushing into the prison with guns blazing, being cut down by dozens of bullets before he even reached the front steps.
Maybe he didn’t need the insurance policy in the other room after all. If Wyatt and his friends were dead, it would make sense to cut the dead weight.
Finding the woman was easy enough. Dufort’s team in the United States knew exactly where to look. Getting her, on the other hand, was considerably more difficult. It was nothing his men couldn’t handle. After all, they were some of the best in the world. The woman, though, was also well trained.
His team leader had received a broken nose as a result of underestimating the target. Once that happened, the rest of his team took her down in a less-than-gentle manner. At least that’s what Dufort was told. The girl had a few nicks and bruises to corroborate the story.
He snapped his head around to rid his mind of the wandering thoughts. He needed to focus.
He stared down at the tablets laid out on the desk to his left. He’d separated the medallions from the sacred stones, keeping them in different rooms to eliminate the odd vibrations and noises the things were emanating.
Dufort had to admit he’d never seen anything quite like it in his life. And he’d seen some strange stuff.
The way the amulets inte
racted, however, was like looking into the face of the supernatural, a higher level of science that only the divine could understand. He snorted a short laugh.
Science, he thought. Humanity knows nothing about the real power of the universe.
His eyes scanned the page on the screen, but he didn’t find what he was looking for, not even a scrap of useful information.
He clicked the back button and then clicked on another link in the search query he’d performed almost forty-five minutes ago. He read through paragraphs, zoomed in on images, and made a few mental notes. Still, nothing that related to his search.
Dufort leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling on it at the end to force his weary eyes to remain open. He glanced over at the clock and noted the time. It was almost 1:30 in the morning. He’d have to sleep soon, although he knew that if he didn’t solve the riddle of the tablets, they’d be stuck in Aswan for another day—or longer, depending on how much time it took him to figure it out.
He shook his head and clicked the back button again. This time, he did it twice, returning to the search engine.
“What is the secret?” he asked himself. “What am I missing?”
He glanced down at his notepad. Few people could read his scribbling, but he knew exactly what it said. It was the riddle from the third amulet.
“To the east where kings meet gods,” he muttered. “Fine, we’re east.”
That much was true. Aswan was far to the east of Bardaï, Chad. The problem was that the riddle didn’t tell him how far east he was to go in order to find the next part of the clue.
“In the shadow of the pharaoh, the fallen prince sits on his empty throne.”
Dufort frowned. His eyebrows knitted together and wrinkled his forehead as he rested his temple in his right palm. “What does it all mean?”
He reached over and took another drink of water. Then he put his fingers back on the keyboard and started typing again.
Fallen prince of Egypt.
He hit the return key and waited for the search results to populate on the screen. Aswan didn’t exactly have the fastest internet in the world, but at least they had it. He half expected to hear the nerve-crushing sounds of a dial-up modem echoing through the room.
Ten seconds after entering his search, he had a new page full of links. He scrolled through them and shook his head. All the results were focused on movies, books, and other forms of entertainment. None were what he was looking for.
He sighed and hit the back button again, nearly ready to give up. He’d been at it for hours now and with no success.
His thoughts wandered back to Wyatt and his friends. “How do those two idiots manage to figure this stuff out so easily?” The thought only furthered his anger.
“To the east where kings meet gods in the shadow of the pharaoh, the fallen prince sits on his empty throne.”
He said the riddle out loud again to see if it would spark something in his mind—a connection he’d not yet made that would reveal the secret.
“Empty throne?” he whispered. Then he shook his head. He’d already searched for that. It brought up several results in Germany from the fabled Neuschwanstein Schloss, the castle that had inspired fairy tales, movies, and cartoons. He’d been there once in the mountains of Bavaria. Pretty place, epic location, and some of the most inspiring vistas he’d ever seen.
None of that helped him with his current dilemma.
“Shadow of the pharaoh,” Dufort said.
When he first read the passage, his immediate thought was that he and his men needed to return to Egypt. That seemed to make the most sense. After all, Egypt was home to the pharaohs.
Another thought occurred to Dufort, and he raised his head from his hand. What if the riddle wasn’t referring to Egypt? What if the shadow of the pharaoh had a different meaning altogether?
To get a clearer answer, he had to erase any preconceived ideas about his original idea. He stood up and paced around the room with his hands on his hips. It still wasn’t coming. Then he walked over to the balcony door and swung it open. The warm night air washed over him, and he took a deep breath. He looked out over the town.
There were a few streetlights lining the sidewalks, a night-light on in an occasional apartment or house. A dog barked in the distance, probably at a cat or another small animal. To the southwest, the desert sprang up from the river and rolled to the horizon where the stars met sand dunes.
Dufort sighed, and he rested his hands on the guardrail. Out beyond the limits of his vision was the nation of Sudan. It was a wretched place, full of crime, disease, murder, and filth. As much as Dufort craved power, he couldn’t understand the mindset of the warlords who decimated that poor nation. What were they trying to prove? He assumed it was about proving something since Sudan didn’t possess a litany of resources. The land was mostly useless wilderness.
Sudan had been in the news more and more over the years as Hollywood actors and celebrities from the music business did their best to bring awareness to the refugee crisis centering around the African nation.
No government would intervene. Why would they? There was no profit in it for them.
Dufort had seen nations like the United States rally its allies to go in and rescue people of countries with vast oil reserves. Sure, they’d assist other countries if they didn’t have oil, but it was always for some other reason—something under the table that none of the mainstream media knew about.
Then it hit him like a brick to the face.
“Sudan,” Dufort said with renewed energy. He could feel his pulse quicken as he was hit with a sudden rush of excitement.
He turned around and hurried back to his laptop. His fingers flew across the keyboard until he’d entered the search query. Once more, he waited a long ten seconds until the internet connected him to a page of results. This time, he found several new things he’d not seen before. All of them contained information he thought might be useful.
Dufort ran his finger down the screen, keeping it a centimeter away so he didn’t smudge the surface. On the fourth result, he noted something of interest and clicked the link.
Another lengthy ten seconds later, a new page displayed on the monitor. He read through the first few paragraphs and then hit the back button. Then he clicked the images tab and waited until the screen brought up dozens and dozens of pictures. Most of them were of ancient ruins. There were sharply angled pyramids like he’d never seen before. The odd-looking structures were narrow and featured steep sides. They were also much smaller than the pyramids in Giza. These pyramids almost appeared to be scale models of their larger cousins in north Egypt.
Dufort clicked one of the images to enlarge it. “Fascinating,” he said.
He returned to the previous page and read further.
Sudan was home to ancient ruins that Dufort had never heard of before. The Kingdom of Kush had apparently been a thriving nation right about the same time as Egypt was also growing.
According to historians, the ancient Sudanese people emulated the Egyptians in many ways, including with their construction of pyramids similar to the ones found in Giza. While the structures in the nation to the south were much smaller, they did possess some unique qualities aside from the steeper design. The Kushites created elaborate entryways into their pyramids—perhaps as an artistic differentiator or possibly because of religious reasons.
He shook his head to refocus.
The area that kept popping up in the images and text was an ancient city called Meroë . According to the website, Meroë was the capital of ancient Kush. Their proximity to the Nile made irrigation possible as well as trade and travel with the larger kingdom to the north.
Dufort’s eyes widened as he continued reading. He clicked on another image and zoomed in on it—a picture of what was believed to be the ruins of a palace dating back to the time of the first Egyptian kingdom.
“Fascinating,” he said again.
He continued scrolling
through the images, occasionally stopping on one that looked interesting before moving on to the next. He had no idea the Kushites built so many pyramids, temples, and other advanced structures. Outside of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Persia, and Rome, he wasn’t aware of older civilizations in that period of time that constructed such things.
Some of the Kushite buildings were better preserved than the ones in Egypt.
Dufort moved his fingers along the mouse pad until he saw an image unlike the others on the page. He leaned in closer to the computer monitor to get a better look. The picture was of a giant statue sitting on a throne. The figure was dressed much like a pharaoh, with a few minor differences. Clearly, the smaller culture mirrored the larger in many ways. There was a second sculpture on the right, but it was different than the one on the left.
It featured a massive stone seat with a crumbled statue sitting in it.
“Who are you?” Dufort asked as he clicked on the image.
The link took him to another website that featured information on the ancient Sudanese civilizations close to the border of Egypt.
The picture was displayed prominently at the top of the page, which allowed Dufort to get a better view of all the details. After reading the caption, Dufort’s eyes widened.
He read the paragraph just below the image. His heart raced.
The two giant stone figures were Kushite royalty—brothers whose rivalry resulted in the shame of one and the elevation of the other.
Dufort read more. He learned that the man on the left was the older of the two. By birthright, the throne was to be his and he would be made the king of the empire. The one on the right—what was left of him—was the younger brother who had ambitions to be king.
The Sahara Legacy Page 21