Serghei was not satisfied. He remembered the Englishwoman only too well. Once she stopped putting up a fight and lay back and opened her legs, she’d proved sweeter than any woman he’d ever had. He’d had her several times, she’d teased him with her little moans and cries, and he’d known she’d wanted him, and that when she squirmed, she wasn’t fighting to get away, but giving way to ecstasy, for all her pretence to the contrary.
‘Listen to me,’ he said, addressing Aehrenthal, but not reading him, not noticing the little twitch beneath his right eye, the stillness with which his leader received him.
‘You bring us out here to a fucking wilderness, you half starve us, you almost get us lost, you nearly get us drowned, and now you tell us we can’t get a little physical relief to take our mind off things. Maybe you’re above a sweet little fuck, maybe you’re feeling tender for the little lady’s feelings. But you’re not God, you’re not Jesus Christ, and you’re not even Adolf Hitler. I’m not putting up with your bossing us around for another minute. The woman is mine until I finish with her, then the rest of you can have her.’
Aehrenthal had his pistol in his hand and a bullet in the chamber before Serghei even noticed.
‘I’m in charge of this expedition,’ Aehrenthal said. ‘And I’m the commander of the Legion of Longinus. You are an insubordinate piece of shit. Kneel down.’
He raised his arm and gestured with the gun. Serghei refused to move.
‘I said kneel.’
There was a stubborn streak in Serghei that overrode his obedience to his order, his unit, and his leader. His mouth was dry and there was little enough spit, but what there was he spat onto the sand, where it was swallowed up.
Aehrenthal lifted the gun and shot Serghei low in the belly. For a moment, the man stood still, assessing where he’d been shot and evaluating how he felt. There was a lot of pain, but he didn’t feel dead or on his way to death. Then the pain mounted and he slumped forward, landing on his knees.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Aehrenthal, pulling Sarah by the arm again and pushing her into his jeep.
No one questioned the shooting. No one suggested taking Serghei with them or leaving him food or water. No one hazarded a guess as to how long he would last. The engines roared into life. Within moments, Serghei was lying alone on the desert floor, watching blood flow from his abdomen in a long stream that worked its way into the sand.
30
Maryam
At fourteen, Maryam ult Hana was the youngest of Masud Tegehe-n-Efis’s four wives, the prettiest, the one with breasts that did not sag and private parts that held him tight. He had come to favour her over his other wives the way a young man comes to favour a Mehara camel over its peers, or an older man, grown weary of camels, finds one date tree, one half in shade, the other in sunshine, that has the sweetest fruit, or the most plentiful crop, or the darkest shade.
She had already borne him one child, a male child, and when she slept with him, her womb leapt for the next child, and the one to follow him. Her body was still young and firm, her little breasts grew day by day. Masud liked to undress her in the light of oil lamps and to look at her before he entered her. He was not the young man she had hoped for when she was a girl, but he had camels and grown-up sons.
Taking her baby in her arms, she started to make her way down to the holy city. The other wives would have gone there before her, and most of the other women. Her age did not permit her to seek precedence, even if she was her husband’s favourite wife and had borne him a healthy child. She wore her head-wrap tight against her hair, and on her chest she carried a talisman against the tugarehet, the ever-present evil eye. A camel started braying, its raucous voice trumpeting as though to announce a coming. That was when she first heard it, a sound so faint it might have been the buzzing of a mosquito. She listened for a while, but could make no sense of it. When she looked round, the taklit, her female slave, was there, waiting to walk with her to the city.
The great doorway was open, and lamps had been lit all the way through the interior. It was a festival for women today, to prepare for the wedding of Aisha ult Hamid to her cousin Agwilal. From inside, she could hear the sound of ululation. The bride-to-be would be in the holiest place.
The slave made a way for her through the press of women and children. Her husband was an important man in the oasis, and other women deferred to her. When she walked among them, she feared the evil eye. She had gone only a few yards inside when the ululation came to an end. In the silence, she heard the sound again, like the buzzing of flies, somewhere in the desert. Was something evil on its way? she wondered.
It was about an hour before sunset when Aehrenthal and his gang finally arrived at Ain Suleiman. All was quiet, but somewhere beyond the trees a woman was singing. She sang a lilting song, then more women joined in.
‘They’re preparing for a wedding,’ said Mohamed. ‘In a moment the drums will begin. For now, this is for the women.’
The light changed from pearl to pink to red. In the sky the first stars quivered. The moon had not yet risen, and as the sun sank lower it carried the world with it into darkness. In the oasis oil lamps flickered like stars of a different universe.
The singing continued for a little while, then one by one the voices stopped until the women had all stopped singing, and all their silences came down and filled the chambers of Wardabaha.
Outside, the moon had risen, shedding a white light across the blue water of the great pool. It tipped the leaves of the palms with silver.
As the soldiers of the Legion of Longinus walked down the slope that would bring them to the edge of Ain Suleiman, they saw dark shapes gather ahead of them. The men of the oasis had heard the jeeps arrive, and one old man, who had been a child on that wartime day, had told his son, ‘They’ve come back.’
The men of the Kel Ajjer waited in a line, watching the newcomers. Mohamed ag Ewangaye walked ahead, all but his eyes wrapped in blue and black cloth. When he reached the tribesmen, he stepped up to a man in a high headdress, whom he knew to be the chief Imashaghen.
‘Al-salam ‘alaykum,’ he said in greeting. ‘Oy ik.’
The chief mumbled a reply.
‘Alkher ghas.’
‘Mani eghiwan?’
The same reply.
‘Mani echeghel?’
The same reply. Mohamed turned to Aehrenthal.
‘I have enquired about himself and his family, and I have asked about his work. All are well.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Now, tell him we’ve come to see the holy city.’
The chief, a man called Idris agg Yusuf agg Yaqub Iskakkghan, looked at Mohamed, then at Aehrenthal. The moonlight etched Aehrenthal’s face. One glance at it and Idris knew all he needed to know.
‘Are you British?’ he asked. ‘English?’
Aehrenthal hesitated. What did this man of the desert know of England? He was much too young to have met any of the Usherwood expedition.
‘If you are British, you are very welcome. It was British soldiers who came here when my grandfather Yaqub was still a little child. He was dying of the jaw sickness and they saved him. There was a doctor. Do you know if he is still alive?’
Aehrenthal nodded and, speaking through Mohamed, answered that his father had known the doctor.
The moonlight reflected off Idris’s smile. Then he spoke again.
‘You cannot go into the city tonight. There is a wedding tomorrow. The women are there tonight.’
Aehrenthal said nothing. He knew Usherwood and his friends were behind him somewhere, and he knew he needed time to go through the chambers with Sarah Usherwood, if she would cooperate. But, then, he thought he had the perfect means of persuading her to do that.
Instead, he asked for food, and an hour later he and his men had sat down to a meal cooked by the servant girls. They ate while the singing recommenced. The Tuareg watched them with sharp eyes, intrigued by the little implements they called ‘spoons’, which had come from th
eir vehicles. They did not join their guests. The Anislem, a descendant of the priest who had harboured murderous thoughts towards Gerald Usherwood and his men, busied himself by writing talismans made up of six-pointed stars inscribed with fine Tifinagh letters as old as the rocks.
They ate outside, squatting on the ground around a fire. The fire had been lit out of respect for the visitors. It would not last long: wood was a scarce commodity in the desert. Above them, the stars formed a net of light.
Aehrenthal put his spoon down. The goat had been stringy, the stew thin, the wine just water from Solomon’s spring. His men had started to complain about the repast, some volubly. There was a sense of violence in the air. He was growing impatient. He knew someone had followed him here, and Sarah Usherwood’s presence told him who it was. He wanted out of Ain Suleiman before Usherwood got here with reinforcements. It was dark, and it would be darker still inside the city, but his expedition had come well equipped with torches and lamps that could be powered from the engine of a jeep.
He stood up and went to where Idris agg Yusuf and his fellows were seated. The chief had dropped the lower half of his veil to eat, revealing a narrow chin and straggly moustache. He looked old, but Aehrenthal guessed he might be no more than thirty. Life in the desert was incredibly hard, Mohamed had told him, and no one lived very long except the Anislem, who led a more sheltered life than the rest.
Aehrenthal spoke to Mohamed.
‘Tell him we are grateful for his food. But our time here is short. We came here to see the city of Wardabaha, and my men are growing impatient. We want him to take us there tonight.’
A brief exchange followed. Mohamed turned to Aehrenthal.
‘He says that, with respect, he cannot tell the women to stop their celebrations. He asks you to have patience. Nothing will leave, nothing will change. Wait till morning. The women will leave in the morning.’
Something snapped in Aehrenthal. He had waited so many years for this, for something to come to the point of revelation, of contact. He had at last set foot in a place he had long thought legend or a mirage. He was come like a wise man from the east, a barbarian in awe of a dead king. But the only gifts he bore were death and fear.
He got to his feet and stalked across the circle of diners until he was in front of the chief.
‘I asked you to take us to the city. I didn’t expect you to fuck me around like this.’
Idris looked at him in puzzlement.
‘Tell him!’ bellowed Aehrenthal. All around him, the Tuareg were growing agitated. No one was eating. The slave girls scampered away, sensing trouble in the offing.
Mohamed told the chief in polite language, but he knew he was already on unsteady ground, that the insult had already been mouthed. He noticed that Idris was already surrounded by a bodyguard of Imashaghen and that they had raised the agedellehouf, the lower half of their veils, over their noses and mouths to signify both the end of the meal and the end of hospitality. To break off hospitality was a signal for guests to depart, since it might be understood as a token of war. The last time someone had insulted one of the Kel Ajjer had been in Ghadames fifty years earlier. No sooner had the offending words been uttered than the Kel Ajjer had used his sword to cut the other man’s windpipe. He had drawn aside so swiftly, not a drop of blood touched his clothes.
Some of the younger men let slip their swords. There was a glimmer of hardened steel, a quivering of light. Their elders told them to put the swords back in their sheaths, but the young men, who felt they had the impetuousness of youth on their side, would not comply. They stood firm against the insult that had been offered their leader and, through him, the Imashaghen altogether.
Lord Idris staggered to his feet. Not once in his life had he been spoken to like this. He decided it would be best if the strangers left. Turning to Mohamed, he called out loud.
‘Tell them I order them to leave. Take them into the deep sands and lose them. See they never come here again. When it is done, come back here and make your apologies to me.’
Mohamed stood frozen to the spot. He had formed a clear idea of the nature of Aehrenthal and his friends, and he knew they would not back off. He opened his mouth to explain all this, but Lord Idris was already walking away.
One of Aehrenthal’s bodyguard lost his temper at this snub. He ran up behind Idris and made to put a hand on his shoulder, to pull him round. But before he could get within several inches, two of the Imashaghen had their swords in their hands. One slit his belly from crotch to breastbone, the other came behind and sliced his throat from side to side, and the man fell to the ground like a slaughtered animal.
Two shots rang out, and Lord Idris’s defenders dropped lifeless next to their victim. Then the killing started in earnest. The neo-Nazis were all armed with sub-machine guns, Russian-made Bizons carrying 9 x 19mm Luger/Parabellum rounds. Watching their companion killed brought to the fore all their atavistic terrors of dark-skinned races.
An Austrian named Helmut Kiesl had good night vision. He lifted his Bizon, clicked off the safety catch, and started firing. He was followed within seconds by his companions, and in just as many seconds the men of Ain Suleiman lay bloody and scattered across the cold ground. Lord Idris, spangled with bullets, lay among them. The guns fell silent, and the little massacre passed without notice. Above, the moon moved and the stars twinkled, but no comet fell.
They left their victims lying where they had fallen. Aehrenthal appointed six men to keep an eye out, in case there were other Tuareg in the oasis, who had not been at the dinner. They followed the sounds of singing. These were faint at first, but grew in intensity as they stumbled through the dunes, out into the desert surrounding the oasis. In the end, the music brought them to their heart’s desire or, since it was much the same thing, to Egon Aehrenthal’s obsession. He had long ago persuaded them that what he wanted was what they wanted, and that glory for him would bring glory for them. They walked in silence, well-built men without pity, in black clothes carrying black guns.
Some of the women had heard the brief stutter of the guns and were now hurrying along the track between the old city and the encampment. None of them had heard a gun fired before, let alone an automatic weapon. They feared the jinn and the shayatin, not human beings. There were children with them, and they walked quickly. Behind them, the city was silent. At first they thought the men coming towards them were their husbands and brothers, then they saw their outlines against the sky and knew they were not.
Aehrenthal ordered their hands tied behind their backs and told two of his men to take them somewhere safe, where they wouldn’t see their dead relations and panic.
‘These savages can get agitated,’ he said. ‘If they see their men lying dead, they’ll go hysterical. I can do without all that squawking. Now, you can all do what you want with them later, but it’s time we got ourselves over to the tombs.’
He knew their supplies were running out. They could replenish their water cans here, and a certain amount of food, but there would be no petrol or oil, no fresh fruit except dates, no wheat flour, no eggs. They might survive, but the floods had held them back. He wanted to get as much on board as possible, bury the bodies well out of sight, and get moving again.
By now, the women had begun to guess that something was not right with their menfolk. Their crying grew in volume and meaning.
‘If they give you any trouble,’ said Aehrenthal, ‘shoot them.’
31
Sarah
Sarah sat rigid, watching the sky. She was cold, hungry, and scared to death. She had no way of knowing where Ethan had got to, and had abandoned hope that he would arrive at Ain Suleiman in time to do anything. Or, if he and the others did turn up, there would be a shoot-out and another bloodbath.
Tired of stars, she tried to sit up straight. They had tied her hands in front of her, so she had to rock back and forwards on her buttocks to come more or less upright. As she moved into position, she noticed that one of the Tuareg men had fa
llen inches away from her. He was lying on his back. His headdress had been dislodged and had rolled several feet away, exposing his naked head. In his right hand, he held his sword, and this lay well within Sarah’s reach.
She looked for the guard and saw he was sitting with his back to her, watching in the direction Aehrenthal had gone with his men. Making as little noise as possible, she bent sideways to get the sword, then held it fast between her legs while she used it to saw through the ropes around her wrists. Cutting her legs free was the work of seconds. Thinking quickly, she tiptoed to one side and picked up the Tuareg’s headdress. It unrolled in a long blue strip. She took some of the ropes along with it.
Still clutching the sword by its leather handle, she inched towards the guard. He hadn’t heard her approach and sat, a little bored, wondering what was happening with his comrades. Sarah put the sword on the ground. Taking the strip of blue cloth, she braced herself then slung it over the guard’s head, pulling it tight over his eyes, blinding him. He cried out, but she tightened the cloth behind him and pushed him face down onto the ground. She got her knee in his back and took a hank of rope with which she started to tie his wrists. He struggled, but he couldn’t see. She took the sword from its scabbard and held the point to the back of his neck, drawing blood. Taking a second rope, she tied his ankles together, then stretched the cord up to his neck and round, making a noose. If he tried to struggle, he would choke himself. It was less than he deserved. His sub-machine gun was lying beside him. She took it and slung it over her shoulder.
She had already heard the women’s voices, though she could not be sure what had happened to them. She decided the best thing she could do was to follow the voices until she found the women and whatever men were with them. It would not have surprised her to find they were being raped.
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