Usama proved invaluable there, pointing out firm passages over and around the dunes. He seemed to have a sixth sense for exactly how fast the Cruiser should go to make its destination without overshooting the mark. And he loved listening to Hank the Cowdog audiobooks.
“This Drover, he dishonors himself by blaming his cowardice on his wounded leg instead of overcoming his fears!” Usama slapped his knee without a hint of irony. “Ha, what a thing for a dog to do!”
“Yeah, he’s a caution.” Scanning the horizon, Nevada caught a glimpse of something dark among the light-colored sand. She pulled the Cruiser to a halt at the top of a dune and stopped the tape. “That it?”
“ In Shaa Allah ,” Usama said, taking a collapsible telescope from his vest and extending it before putting it to his eye. “No. It’s a Libyan T-55.”
“A tank ?” Nevada asked. She took the telescope from Usama. Through it, she could see a half-buried tank surrounded by speckles of disintegrated metal, its cannon jutting upward like Ozymandias’s shin. “Fucking tank,” she confirmed.
“Men will fight, even over deserts,” Usama said.
Nevada reached to play the tape again, but Usama stopped her.
“You could wake her,” he warned, and Nevada looked back to see that Candice was slumped over where she sat, lulled to sleep against the cool glass of the window.
Nevada worked the gearshift and they took off again. When next she spoke, it was in a politely hushed tone.
“So. Nomad. Kind of an ironic gig out here, isn’t it?”
“How is this so?”
“You don’t have any home, you’re not tied down, you can go wherever you want...” Nevada shifted gears, giving them an extra burst of power to get over the dune in front of them. “But it’s all kinda sorta desert, right?”
Usama braced himself against the dashboard as the engine rumbled its way up the steep incline. “That is not misspoken. But wherever you go, you are not the same person. Even if the destination does not change you, the journey does.”
“Use the oh-shit handle,” Nevada advised, and pulled down her own to show him how. Usama gratefully pulled down the one on his side, clinging to it. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to when you’re still in a desert at the end of the day.”
“Then do you not change in all your travels?”
“I’m pretty great to begin with.”
“Yes, you seem very pleased with being as you are—like an American movie woman, the ones who are always either kissing someone or shooting someone.”
Nevada took the description in stride. “Hope for kissing, plan for shooting.”
Usama told her to take a turn that would loop around a mountainous dune and she curved them too hard, the Cruiser fishtailing, tires spewing sand like they were as sick of it as Nevada was. Finally, the wheels caught and they rambled forward again, cruising over the desert’s looping dunes like a sailboat cresting the waves. Only a sailboat wouldn’t feel so heavy, so leaden—a fact Nevada relished. She felt like she was digging through the sand, just as she would for any treasure, only horizontally instead of vertically, the entire four-wheel drive her implacable will punching forward. It could be diverted or delayed, but it couldn’t be stopped. It would keep coming until it hit home.
Then, among a fortune of golden sands, she saw her treasure—a splotch of green, rising up into a wide-brimmed cloud on top of a faded trunk.
Nevada stopped the Cruiser. “Telescope,” she said to Usama.
“Tell a… what?”
Nevada rolled her eyes. Like she didn’t have enough language problems with Candice. This is why geniuses are never understood in their own time. “The looking glass, dude.”
Usama handed it to her. She focused on the tree. The two trees. Above the wide canopy of the cedar tree, an acacia shot straight up with only a few fronds to mar its vertical ascent. Between the two trunks, the acacia tree’s leaves looked a bit like an olive stuck on a toothpick.
Nevada could’ve gone for a martini right about then.
She tossed the telescope back into Candice’s lap, waking her. “Put your shoes on, honey, we’re at Grandma’s.”
They parked several yards away. While Candice and her grandfather marveled over the sight, Nevada opened the rear door and brought out her toy. It was the size of a fire extinguisher, with wheels on the bottom that she folded out and a handle that she telescoped out. Candice gave it a sidelong glance when she saw Nevada pulling it toward the tree.
“What’s that?”
“You ever play video games?” Nevada asked.
Candice waved a hand dismally. “I have Candy Crush on my phone.”
“Yes, but I asked if you played video games?”
“No,” Candice said firmly.
“Well, I do. And you know what I really love about them?” At the base of the tree trunk, Nevada powered the device on. “Cheat codes.”
Candice looked skyward, realizing. “Ground-penetrating radar.”
Usama snapped his fingers in recognition. “Like at the beginning of Jurassic Park !”
Nevada pointed a finger-gun at him. “See? Usama gets it!”
She lugged the radar device around the tree in a spiral, like she was dragging around a Radio Flyer. With her free hand she checked her phone, watching an app in real-time scan what was going on in the underlying geology.
“You know,” Candice said, “before we do that, we really should set up a grid system.”
“Oh, should we?” Nevada asked sarcastically. “ Nerd. ”
Candice planted her hands on her hips. “That’s the way every archaeologist in the business does it.”
Nevada circled the tree again. “Yeah, well, they’re nerds and I’m cool, so…”
“Yeah, well,” Candice replied in an imitation of Nevada’s American accent, “they work out of colleges and you work out of a biplane, so—”
“Found it!” Nevada cried cheerily.
Candice simmered.
“I do not know what a nerd is,” Usama said, “but I think I would not like to be one.”
Candice simmered more.
Nevada dragged the radar past them on her way back to the Cruiser. “Six feet down. Cheery. Looks like we’re in for some digging. My big muscles are going to get so sore and sweaty…”
“Did you at least mark the site?”
“Did I mark the site?” Nevada repeated dubiously. “I don’t need to, babe, I remember where to dig. It’s right…”
She gestured to the double tree. Tamarisk shrubs grew in the shade of the canopy, their bright pink flowers catching the light that filtered through the leaves.
“You know what?” Nevada said. “I think I’m gonna need to do another sweep with the radar, just to be sure it’s not a false positive.”
“I’ll bring the shovels.”
They crossed the shovels over the spot where they’d dig, but before they started, Usama insisted on everyone having a hearty meal. Grandparents would grandparent, Candice figured. In the shade of the acacia tree, they ate lunch: dried dates, mushy durra , and salted goat meat. While they ate, Nevada tried to catch Usama up on Jurassic Park ’s sequels. Usama was increasingly dubious that people would keep going back to the one island in the world with dinosaurs on it.
Then they worked. By unspoken consent, Usama was relegated to standing watch, the old-timer leaning against the tree and holding a Lee–Enfield rifle while Nevada and Candice dug. Thankfully, the dig was underneath the acacia’s shade, though all that meant was that it was microwave-hot instead of oven-hot. Candice was careful to call for a water break every half-hour.
It was on their third such break that she remembered something: “Hey, Easy, you never gave me back my change.”
“Huh?” Nevada asked, drinking from one of Usama’s leathery gerba .
“My change from buying the Land Cruiser.”
“Oh, right. Usama, could you hand me my pack?”
By now they were waist-deep in the plot they wer
e digging, making it simpler for Usama to pick Nevada’s backpack up and bring it to her than for Nevada to climb out. He set it down at the edge of the dig and Nevada reached into it.
“Tell me, Candice: would you rather have your change or …?”
She displayed a small toy monkey with a pair of cymbals. Nevada wound the monkey up and it bashed the cymbals together while she displayed it delightedly.
“You spent all the change on that?” Candice demanded.
“No, I spent like five bucks on it.” Nevada reached back into her pack and brought out a money clip, which she handed to Candice. “There. And you can have custody of the monkey whenever you want. Little something to remind you of home when you go back to London.”
Candice pointed at the monkey. “Those are made in Japan and they cannot be worth more than a dollar.”
“You could probably get ten of them for a dollar on the eBay,” Usama said.
Disgruntled, Nevada picked up her shovel and drove it into the ground. “Not if it’s haunted,” she protested, levering another spade’s worth of sand up and out of the pit. “Then you can get a hundred for it easy. And this thing is definitely a little haunted.”
“Please, the death-traps were enough,” Candice demurred. “Don’t start on curses now.”
“I’m not saying I believe in curses, but I don’t go around breaking mirrors either.”
“Of course not. Mirrors are expensive.”
Usama nodded sagely. “Pray to Allah, but tie your camel first,” he quoted.
“Not really the same—” Candice started, breaking off when Nevada’s shovel made a sharp cracking noise. “Oh, God, I knew we should’ve had a grid system.”
“Relax,” Nevada told her. Dropping onto her knees, she cleared the sand away by hand. “Just chipped it a little—I suppose it was too much to hope for a giant garage door opener…”
Even working by hand, with Candice urging caution every second, it only took a few moments to clear off the artifact. It was a tablet, a slab of petrified wood with black wax in the center. Candice had seen the type before. After the wax solidified, it was marked with a metal stylus, much like a blackboard would be written on with chalk. She blew the last layer of sand off the wax and saw writing pristinely etched into it, the thoughts and feelings of someone dead for two thousand years—
“Candice?” Nevada prodded, interrupting her astonishment. “I know you like to have a moment with these kinds of things, but—what’s it say?”
Candice cleared her throat. “It says… Hey, do you think we should take it with us? We do get shot at a lot? But if we leave it here and then get shot ourselves, no one’s going to find it—”
“Candice,” Nevada pressed.
“Maybe we could make a quick round-trip to Faya, put it in a safety deposit box, then fill out a will—”
“ Candice! ” Nevada took a deep, fuming breath. “C’mon. It’s really hot out here.”
Candice coughed. “I’ll just… yeah. It says… well, it’s the directions from before, and now it says they went north.”
“North,” Nevada repeated.
“North. About a hundred and fifty miles.”
Nevada sagged against the side of the pit they’d dug. “I swear, I hope the Egyptians got it right with all their afterlife crap, because when I kick off, I really wanna find everyone who planned this little field trip and—I mean, it doesn’t even make sense! Why go a thousand miles west, then turn north all of a sudden? Shortest distance, two points, straight line. Even I know that. You’d think the pyramid boys could’ve figured it out…”
“Maybe not…” Candice noticed Usama offering his hand to help her out of the pit. She took it, the tablet cradled under her other arm, and let herself be pulled up. “In fact, it makes perfect sense. Thousands of years ago, Lake Chad was over a hundred and fifty thousand square miles in size. It was actually a paleolake called Lake Mega-Chad.”
“Okay, hilarious.” Nevada got a running start and pulled herself out of the pit. “What’s that have to do with the price of tea in China? Wait, what’s the price of tea in China have to do with anything ?”
Candice ignored her. “Mega-Chad shrank, the Sahara grew, but before it got to where it is today, some academics believe there was a river network linking Chad, the Sudan, Nigeria, maybe even the Nile. The Egyptians could’ve been moving your treasure by boat, and this was the only point where the river turned north. That would actually explain these checkpoints. They could’ve left them at forks in the river to mark which path they took, either for when they made a return voyage or for someone following after them.”
“So what we seek is a boat in the middle of the desert?” Usama asked.
“Possibly. Going north takes us straight to the Tibesti Mountains, and water doesn’t flow uphill. Could be they ditched the boat to finish the journey on foot.”
“Please tell me we’re not going to have to climb a mountain,” Nevada moaned.
“I doubt it. The Tibesti is a mountain range about nine, ten thousand feet tall, guarded by Toubou warriors. At that height, to desert dwellers like the Egyptians, it’d be like swimming in liquid nitrogen. No, I think they’d stop there, in the foothills.”
Nevada wore a half-grin. “Is that a hunch, college girl?”
Candice bit her lip to keep from smiling back. “Call it an educated guess.”
Nevada took out her satphone. “Well, if it’s a hunch from you, I’ll take it. And I still have a signal, so this seems like a good time to call the home office and let them know to get their checkbook ready. I’m not finding this damned thing and getting told that all their assets are tied up in craft beer. Not that that’s ever happened to me…”
John Gore watched as two of the Khamsin held down a camel, its legs tied as they sewed pieces of wet leather to its wounded soles. The camel being operated on, the other camels and horses in the herd, and the Khamsin themselves all seemed equally disinterested in the process. Gore was interested enough in the act, but through his mediatory calm, it was hard to tell. He only moved from his lizard-like stillness when he felt a burning on his left hand.
He was sweating there, the black oils that came from his defective glands staining his palm and absorbing the light as any dark color would. Ironic, he thought, that a biological process meant to cool him down could instead roast him alive. Gore brought a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his hand clean.
When he turned his attention back to the tablet, its electronics had finally gotten on the same page as the satellite uplink. He was getting an image: a massive pool formed into a slice of simulated beach, waves curving from the little end to the big end. Rows of colored lights underneath the water shone up into the waves, blurring and distorting inside their pregnant heft as they curved onto the artificial shore. Despite it being nighttime over there, the lights allowed surfers to ride the water, bodies and boards darkly glistening as they slashed the waves into white foam.
After a few moments, the camera turned to face Akbar Akkad Singh, who smiled like he’d tasted something sweet. “It’s something, isn’t it? Artificial waves so you can surf at night without all that sun, finally . As soon as I buy the place, we’re adding in jet skis…”
“Can they see us?” came a voice behind Gore.
He turned his head slightly, more to acknowledge the voice than to see who was behind him. He knew what Nazir al-Jabbar looked like. “No. We’re tapped into their signal. We can see what they’re sending, hear what they’re saying, but to them it’s a private conversation.”
He’d talked over Nevada and Singh exchanging pleasantries. Now he turned his attention back to the tablet, sensing they were getting down to business. Nevada talked about trees in the desert and river systems and boats. Gore heard it, absorbed it, but his attention was on the reflection in the glass screen—Nazir was listening intently, but the light from the sun had caught his glasses, turning them into blank, shining discs. It gave him an eyeless effect that made even Gore
shudder.
These are the people in your neighborhood , he thought, sing-song, a mental process as absurd as someone laughing when they were afraid. They’re the people that you meet each day.
The only one who didn’t seem to be paying attention was Singh, who nodded along like an undermedicated schoolchild, the gesture almost becoming a tic as he waited for his turn to speak. “So you know where it is?” he asked at last, straining to keep a level tone. “You just have to go there and get it—”
“And you have to pay me my money,” Nevada interrupted.
“Yes, yes, I’ll have all the paperwork filled out. But you just gotta have the skull. Otherwise—I don’t know, I’ve been feeling very anxious lately, I have night sweats. Don’t kick me when I’m down, Easy. Just get me my skull.”
“It’s a boat in the middle of the desert, boss. Not exactly a needle in a haystack.”
Nevada signed off there, leaving the screen black. In the sudden darkness, Nazir’s glowing glasses could’ve been two flames.
“Then that is where your treasure is,” Nazir said.
“Yeah.” Gore felt his palm burning again. He reached down, picked up a handful of sand, and ground it inside his fist. The sand trickled out as black as pitch.
“It seems to me,” Nazir continued, “that the women are now—what’s the American expression—surplus to requirement. You’ve kept them alive to lead you to the treasure; now you know I have it. Give them to me. I want justice for my son.”
Gore threw what was left of the sand away. “My employer will want to come here personally to take possession. It will take time for the travel arrangements to be worked out.”
“It will take time for my men to hunt down the infidels. Give me their location. As a show of good faith.”
Gore chuckled. “ Good faith . And they say Muslims don’t have a sense of humor.” He dusted his hands clean. “You’ll get it. But if I were you, well…”
“Well?” Nazir prompted.
“What’s the American expression?” Gore asked sarcastically. “Don’t hunt what you can’t kill.”
Candice Cushing and the Lost Tomb of Cleopatra Page 13