The Sahara Legacy

by Ernest Dempsey

  Spooked by the sudden gunfire, the driver whipped the wheel to the right. He almost went up over the lip like the other pickup, but he skillfully corrected and brought the truck under control back on the road.

  “Do that one more time,” Sean said. He guided the SUV to where his front right quarter panel was almost touching the pickup’s back end.

  Adriana fired again, but Sean hit a bump. She jostled in the seat as she fired. The bullet sailed harmlessly into the desert air.

  The other driver repeated his same evasive maneuver as before. This time, however, Sean pulled the SUV back onto the road. When the other driver tried to merge back into the center, Sean was waiting. He flipped the wheel to the right just enough to strike the back end of the pickup. At that speed, it didn’t take much. The other driver felt the truck bed turning out of control. He attempted to correct the motion, but there was nothing he could do. Once the pickup was sideways, it was all over.

  The truck’s tires dug into the dirt and flipped the vehicle in a violent crash. Dirt and sand flew into the air along with chunks of metal, plastic, and glass.

  Sean slowed his ride down and eased it back onto the plateau by the road. A second later they zoomed by the wreckage as the truck came to a sudden stop. It landed on its tires, but there was no sign of the driver, who’d most likely been thrown clear of the crash. Even if he’d survived, the pickup was useless now.

  Sean pulled his SUV in line with Tommy’s, and they kept driving another five minutes.

  “I think they’re gone,” Sean said into the radio. “I don’t see anyone else coming. Over.”

  “Glad to see you’re back to using proper radiospeak again,” Tommy joked. “Over.”

  “Sorry,” Sean said, realizing he’d been speaking so quickly before he didn’t use proper etiquette. “Was just trying to save your neck. Next time I’ll worry about formality. Over.”

  “Thanks for the assist, good buddy.” Tommy used his best trucker impersonation. “Looks like they won’t be bothering anyone again. Over.”

  “Roger that. Let’s stop up here and make sure our rides are okay. Over.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Tommy slowed his SUV to a stop, and Sean eased up behind him. They left the engines running as they hopped out onto the dusty road.

  Sean peered into the distance behind them. He could still see smoke billowing into the sky from the second pickup, although he could only find the top of the vehicle now that they’d put some distance between them and the bad guys’ destroyed ride. He and Adriana walked around the SUV, checking it for any damage that might keep them from continuing.

  Tommy and Hank did the same, and then the four met between the two vehicles.

  “You guys are out of your minds,” Hank said. “And you might be the two luckiest idiots I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Better lucky than good,” Sean said.

  Hank shook his head. “Maybe. But eventually your luck is going to run out. I’d prefer not to be there when that happens.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sean quipped.

  “Speaking of luck,” Adriana said, pointing off to the left. “Looks like we just crossed the border.”

  A hundred feet away, a black-and-white-striped pole stuck out of the ground with a matching triangle sitting atop. The Arabic words for Egypt and Sudan were painted on it in black lettering and divided by a solid black line representing the border.

  “Huh,” Sean said. He looked at Hank and slapped him on the back. “Welcome to Sudan.”

  Chapter 30

  Meroe, Sudan

  Dufort stood with his hands on his hips. He did his best to be patient while one of his men chatted with the translator. The Frenchman could read Arabic better than he could speak or write it, so it helped to have a man in his group that had spent a good amount of time as an interpreter for the military.

  He turned his head and looked over the dirty, weary faces of the men on his team. They’d been well compensated for their work. Some had been lost along the journey—a fact that didn’t sadden Dufort as much as it irritated him. He’d replaced the men who died, at least for the most part. Now he had a squad of eight working for him, not including the local expert who was speaking to his translator.

  It hadn’t been difficult to find the local historian. He was Egyptian but had been working on the site at Meroë for nearly two years and living in a temporary camp close by.

  Dufort couldn’t imagine living in a camp for more than a few days, much less years. There was no questioning the man’s commitment—or his insanity. Dufort had once heard someone say how those two words were often confused with one another.

  The man’s name was Raj. He was older with a chubby, wrinkled face, gray hair, and dark brown eyes set in sockets that were deeper than most.

  “He says the place you’re looking for is just beyond those pyramids over there,” Cody said after talking to the translator.

  Raj smiled and nodded. He was being surprisingly friendly and unafraid for being surrounded by men carrying automatic weapons. Then again, it was Sudan. Being accustomed to that sort of thing was probably a necessity.

  “Tell him to lead the way,” Dufort shouted over to his interpreter.

  The man immediately started talking to Raj again, relaying his employer’s request.

  “Be sure to tell him he will be well paid for his assistance,” Dufort said.

  The translator nodded and continued talking to the guy. When he finished, Raj gave another naive nod and motioned for the others to follow.

  He led the way up a narrow path that wound its way between tall, skinny pyramids, columns with statues, and eventually, a building that looked like it had once been a place of worship for the ancient people who lived in the area.

  Raj turned at the end of a row of pyramids and continued walking until they reached another structure.

  It reminded Dufort of Greek and Roman buildings from antiquity. Its tall pillars propped up a giant stone slab that ran from one end to the other. Some of the walls were still intact, though, unlike many of the ruins from other ancient cultures. This building was constructed against a natural rock formation that rose up another thirty feet over where the roof would have been thousands of years before.

  Raj motioned for them to go ahead through the entrance and spoke to the translator while the others crossed the threshold onto the smooth stone floors.

  “He says this was the palace for the kings of Kush,” the translator said to Dufort.

  “Excellent.”

  “He also said that the throne room we’re looking for is in the back. He claims the people who built this place used a lot of Egyptian influence for their designs and architecture.”

  Dufort didn’t care about the last little fact his interpreter threw in. He wasn’t there to study ancient Kushite architecture. He was there to get the final piece to unlocking the greatest treasure in the history of mankind.

  He turned to one of his men and ordered him and another to stay behind at the entrance to make sure no one else followed them in. The henchman gave a curt nod and grabbed one of the other guys by the sleeve to keep him back. They stood guard, one on each side of the doorway, while the others proceeded deeper into the palace.

  Raj stepped in front of the men and began giving a tour as he would to a group of random tourists visiting from a foreign land. He talked about the different hieroglyphs on the walls and what they meant, along with how they believed the stones for the building came from a faraway land.

  Dufort did his best to be patient. He was tempted to put a gun to the man’s head and tell him to take the group straight away to the throne room when Raj finally turned a corner through a high arched doorway and led them into a massive chamber.

  He pointed at the two thrones with a huge smile as if proud of the stonework.

  Dufort stepped forward, staring at the half-destroyed prince’s sculpture. “Ask him what happened here,” Dufort said to his translator.

  The ass
istant asked Raj the question. After a long-winded answer, the interpreter turned to face Dufort.

  “He says that this prince brought shame upon himself and the family. As a result, his face was removed from everywhere it could be seen and the conspirators also tried to take his name out of the kingdom’s chronicles.”

  “Interesting.”

  Dufort didn’t buy it. He understood that what Raj was saying was probably the truth. That wasn’t the problem. The real issue was that their guide most likely didn’t know the entire story. The Frenchman realized that with the fourth medallion here in this very room, it was highly probable that people had been searching for it. Maybe they weren’t specifically looking for the lost amulet and its stone of power, but it could have been treasure hunters who’d heard rumors about the place.

  Then again, he may have been reading too much into it. One thing Dufort had learned in life was that things were hardly ever what they seemed.

  He gave a nod to Cody, who set his gear bag down on the floor. The other men carrying cases and duffel bags full of equipment did the same, placing their stuff on the ground. They began pulling out tripods, lights, shovels, picks, mattocks, and other tools.

  Raj suddenly looked concerned. He asked the translator a question that was relayed to Dufort.

  “He wants to know what we’re doing. He said this site can only be disturbed with a permit.”

  “Permit?” Dufort asked. “Really? Is this country even capable of such organization?” He turned to Cody and gave a nod.

  Then Dufort turned back to his interpreter. “Tell him I said thank you for his service. I truly appreciate it.”

  The interpreter gave the message to Raj, who forced a smile as he continued to watch Dufort’s men set up their gear. The forced smile disappeared suddenly as Cody stepped up from behind the man, wrapped one forearm around his head and the other around his jaw. Raj didn’t even have a chance to struggle. Cody snapped the man’s head to the side. A sickening pop came from Raj’s neck, and the man dropped to the floor.

  “Drag him into the next room,” Cody said to two other men who’d finished unloading their gear and were standing by their bags waiting for further instructions.

  The men grabbed Raj by the ankles, dragged him carelessly out of the throne room, and disappeared in the next corridor.

  “He wouldn’t have approved of the next part,” Dufort said to Cody.

  “Which is?”

  Dufort stepped closer to the giant figures and ran his fingers along one of the knees. He tilted his head to the side and examined the stonework. He shifted his feet and moved to the sculpture’s back end, scanning the wall and the figure for any sign of a seam.

  There wasn’t anything unusual, so Dufort returned to the front of the thrones and went around to the other side, repeating the same check he’d done beside the first figure.

  Still, he found nothing.

  He put his hands on his hips and stared at the carved stone as if by simply looking at it long enough the answers would come.

  “What can we do to help, sir?” Cody asked.

  Dufort shook his head. “I’m not sure. But it has to be here. I know it.” He looked up at the remains of the ceiling but still saw nothing that would help his cause.

  “If I were hiding that medallion,” he muttered, “where would I put it?”

  His gaze drifted down to the floor and stopped on the stone beneath the royals’ feet.

  He got down on all fours and ran his fingers along the seam between the sculpture and the huge tile. He scooted to the right and lowered his face to the point that his nose almost touched the floor. He examined a thin line between two tiles and noted a few scuff marks on the edge. The blemishes were almost invisible, probably worn down over the ages. Dufort wouldn’t have thought anything about the tiny notches except that as he looked at the other pieces of the floor he saw nothing similar. The other stone flooring was flawless.

  Dufort returned to the tile in question and asked for a magnifying glass from one of his men. Dufort bent over the seam in the floor and peered through the glass. Sure enough, there were scratches along the edge, a dead giveaway that this tile had been moved after the rest were laid.

  “Why would someone move it?” he asked himself, although he felt he already had the answer.

  “What was that, sir?” Cody asked.

  Dufort stood up and returned the magnifying glass to the man who’d given it to him. “Pull that tile up,” he ordered.

  Cody frowned but obeyed. He motioned for the other guys to grab their tools and set to work.

  At first, they attempted to remove the giant slab with crowbars and wedges, but the seam was so narrow they couldn’t get any leverage. Shovel heads fit into the tiny gap, but as soon as the men tried to use them as levers, the metal snapped free from the fiberglass shafts, rendering the tools useless.

  Frustrated, Dufort crossed his arms and watched as one of the men tried to use a pick to get the tile to budge free, but the effort—like all the others—was in vain.

  Finally, Cody spoke up. “Sir, that thing isn’t going to move. We’re gonna need to bust it up.”

  Dufort had been wanting to avoid that option. They’d brought hammers and other tools that could chip away at the stone, but taking such measures would put the medallion at risk. One wrong blow could smash the thing into pieces, potentially rendering it useless.

  Still, it didn’t seem like they could access whatever lay beneath the heavy tile without breaking it up into pieces.

  Dufort gave the go-ahead with a nod, and his men set to work with their sledgehammers and picks.

  The work was slow at first. Initially, they were only able to break off small chunks of stone at a time. Once some larger pieces were broken free, however, the work sped up. The men labored tirelessly, rotating in shifts every few minutes to give each other a rest and keep the job moving forward.

  After a half hour of intense demolition, one of the men swung his sledgehammer into the tile, and the head sank through into the subfloor beneath. He froze for a second and waited, hoping he hadn’t damaged whatever was hidden below.

  Dufort took a step forward and stared into the small opening with wide eyes. The henchman pulled out his hammer and peered into the hole.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t hit anything other than more rock underneath.”

  Dufort released a relieved sigh. “Carefully now,” he said. “Keep chipping away until we find what’s under there.”

  The men did as instructed, swinging their tools with increased caution. The progress sped up with every chunk of tile that was knocked free until they caught sight of something in the hole underneath the floor.

  “Stop,” Dufort said. “I see something.”

  He stepped between the men. They parted as he came through. Dufort took a knee next to the new cavity and got down on his elbows to look inside. The darkness of the recession made it hard to see, but there was still enough residual sunlight that he could make out what it was. He reached in and started to grab the box when Cody stopped him.

  “Sir, remember what happened at the last place.”

  Dufort cocked his head to the side and gave his second in command an annoyed no kidding glare.

  Then he shoved his hand back in and wrapped his fingers around the box. He had to wiggle it back and forth a few times before the object loosened. At last, the thing was freed, and he pulled it out of the hole.

  Dufort set the stone box on the floor next to its hiding place and remained on his knees. He stared down at the box’s top and the symbol carved into the surface. It looked like a sideways figure eight, but Dufort knew what it stood for. It was the universal symbol of infinity. Or as it applied to his current quest, the emblem represented life eternal.

  He slid his fingernails into the seam between the lid and the main part of the container and pried it open. The top came free easier than he expected. He set the lid aside and stared into the open container. The rest of his
men shuffled closer and leaned in to get a better view.

  The golden medallion shimmered in the diffused sunlight. A purple stone was embedded into the center, just as precious gems had occupied space in the middle of the other pieces.

  He reached into the box and retrieved the amulet. For a long moment, he held it in his arms as if the mere act of touching it would break the thing. Then he turned it over and stared at the engraving on the back.

  “Cody,” Dufort said without looking over his shoulder at his man.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bring me the tablets.”

  Cody spun around and rushed over to the case containing the two pieces of stone. He opened it and removed the tablets, then took them back to where his employer was still kneeling on the hard surface.

  After carefully setting the tablets down next to Dufort, Cody stepped back and watched along with the others.

  Dufort placed the amulet’s long stem into the final blank space on the tablet they’d yet to decipher.

  “Immortality awaits the one who brings the stones together.” Dufort frowned. He stared at what was engraved into the golden stem but couldn’t understand it. “This can’t be right.”

  “What’s the problem?” Cody asked.

  Dufort shook his head. “It’s just a series of random numbers.”

  Cody frowned. “What do you mean? It doesn’t give a location?”

  Dufort didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t understand. I did everything right. This medallion should give me the exact location of the lost city.” His frustration was building in his voice. His breathing quickened, and his face flushed.

  “Maybe there’s something we’re not considering, sir.”

  Dufort wasn’t so convinced. “Everything we know about this riddle, the treasures, says that once we find the four stones the location of Zerzura will be revealed. This reveals nothing!”