A Hundred Thousand Dragons

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘And you deliberately sent Vaughan down there.’

  ‘Of course I did!’ Von Erlangen’s temper flared again. He turned on Amir and Kazim, who had shrunk back, talking in a stream of Arabic. ‘Silence, you fools!’

  ‘It’s ghosts, boss, ghosts!’

  ‘It’s no such thing. I killed him, d’you hear? You knew I was going to. I said I’d take care of it.’ The two men continued to talk, darting quick, frightened glances at Vaughan. ‘Silence!’ roared Von Erlangen, real fury in his voice. Amir and Kazim reluctantly subsided, looking uneasily at the skull.

  Von Erlangen turned back to Jack. ‘Now, Mr Haldean, I have shown considerable patience. You were telling me that the RAF are on their way, I believe?’

  ‘They are.’ Jack forced himself to smile. ‘You can’t escape, you know. Even if you get away, they’ll pick you up in the desert.’ He gestured to the sky. ‘You can see for miles up there.’

  Von Erlangen looked up and Jack could see him become thoughtful. ‘How much weight can that plane of yours carry?’

  Jack remained silent.

  ‘Amir,’ said Von Erlangen without heat. ‘Hit the girl. Make sure you hurt her.’

  ‘No, wait!’ said Jack quickly. ‘Don’t do that.’ He spoke reluctantly. ‘The plane can carry about four thousand pounds.’ He knew he was overestimating wildly.

  ‘Four thousand, eh?’

  ‘That’s about two thousand kilograms.’

  ‘I know, Mr Haldean, I know. It should be enough.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Jack. ‘If you’re thinking of collaring my plane, I’d like to point out aircraft don’t fly themselves. Unless those two boneheads of yours are pilots, you’re stuck.’

  ‘Amir,’ called Von Erlangen, without taking his gaze from Jack, ‘we have some leather straps with us, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’

  Von Erlangen turned to Jack, his teeth showing in a humourless smile. ‘I remember you being open to persuasion, Mr Haldean. As I mentioned before, these gentlemen can be very enthusiastic. They have worked for me before.’

  ‘Shall we beat him up, boss?’ called Kazim, grinning. ‘We’ve got a camel-whip on the truck.

  Von Erlangen’s smile grew wider. ‘A camel-whip? Just the thing. Camels are obdurate animals, and require a yard-long cane to urge them into action. Used on human flesh, the results are fascinating. And should that not prove enough . . . Well, surely you haven’t forgotten how I managed to influence your decision last time.’

  Jack folded his arms and laughed. Von Erlangen’s words had shaken him but he was damned if he was going to show how the sick taste of fear filled his mouth. ‘Come off it. What sort of state would I be in to fly anything after you’d finished with me? It took me months to recover last time. You’ll have to do better than that.’

  ‘There are other ways,’ said Von Erlangen, softly. His gaze slid towards Isabelle. ‘You would not, I believe, care to see the girl treated as you were. Such a disagreeable way to die.’

  Arthur jerked his head up. ‘You wouldn’t do that!’

  ‘Captain Stanton, I would.’

  Arthur said nothing, but held Isabelle closer.

  Von Erlangen watched them for a moment, shrugged and turned to Jack. ‘Mr Haldean? The ball, as you say, is in your court.’

  Jack reached for his breast pocket, smiling as Von Erlangen started forward. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? Thank you.’ He took a cigarette and held it thoughtfully for a while before striking the match. ‘You see, you’ve given me a bit of a problem. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did to me, I don’t like what you did to Vaughan and for what you did to Freya you deserve to die.’ For a moment his eyes were like black fire. He gave a short laugh. ‘However, she’s gone and I’m no martyr. I don’t want to be hurt and I don’t want to see my friends hurt either. Having said that, I didn’t ask them to come. They insisted.’

  ‘In that case . . .’

  ‘In that case, Von Erlangen, old fruit, why don’t you talk sense? The trouble is, you keep on gloating away about doing nasty things to people, which is, I s’pose, the first thing that occurs to you, but you won’t actually offer me what I want.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Money.’ He stood up straight and put his hands wide. ‘For God’s sake man, what the blazes d’you think I want?’

  For the first time Von Erlangen looked discomfited. ‘Revenge?’

  ‘As if! Do me a favour. I’d sooner see you dead than alive but I’m damned if I’d fly halfway round the world for the privilege. I came for the money. There’s a hundred thousand in gold salted away here and, by God, I wanted it.’

  ‘And yet you informed the RAF?’

  ‘I didn’t tell them about the gold. Good God, no. What d’you take me for? I told them in case I met you. If things had gone to plan, I’d have been out of here with the money before you were any the wiser.’ He jerked his thumb at Arthur and Isabelle. ‘They’ve got an expensive way of life. They like money as well.’

  Arthur shifted uneasily. Isabelle put her hand on his arm and squeezed it. She didn’t know what Jack had in mind, but she didn’t want to spoil it.

  Jack flicked the ash off his cigarette. ‘You want my plane. The least you can do is offer me a decent slice of the cake and I’ll fly you wherever you want to go.’

  Von Erlangen walked over to Jack and, taking his chin between very firm fingers, searched his face. Then he stepped back and nodded. ‘You have changed, I think, from the young man I met in Q’asr Dh’an.’

  Jack laughed. ‘Absolutely. I’m older. Much older. I aged after meeting you. Do you know what happened to me after my heroic last stand? I was severely censured, stripped of my privileges and, as a huge favour, allowed to sweat my guts out in the service of my beloved country. With enough money I can start to get my own back. I’ve got some scores to settle and, by God, I’m looking forward to doing it.’

  ‘Your friends cannot come with us,’ said Von Erlangen with a sudden change of tone.

  Jack shrugged indifferently. ‘All right.’

  ‘Jack!’ said Isabelle, appalled. She couldn’t help herself.

  He turned to her apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Isabelle. You’ll be all right.’ He drew Von Erlangen a little distance away. ‘We’ll have to be careful,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The woman isn’t just anyone, you know. Her father is Sir Philip Rivers. If she comes off worse, I’m for it. There are very few places British justice can’t reach. Bloody uncomfortable places for the most part and I don’t want to live in them.’

  ‘I shall bear it in mind, Mr Haldean. What shall we do with them now? I cannot spare a man to guard them.’

  ‘I’d tie ’em up,’ said Jack with another shrug. ‘But you’re the boss.’

  On instructions from Von Erlangen, Isabelle and Arthur were securely tied up. After Amir and Kazim had finished, Jack leant over to check the rope. Von Erlangen was very close at hand.

  ‘Jack,’ hissed Arthur. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘I’m not playing, I’m afraid. You’ll be all right. You’ll be a bit uncomfortable until the RAF arrive, but I can’t help that. Keep quiet and when you get back to England, we’ll share the money.’

  A few yards away, Von Erlangen nodded in satisfaction. He despatched Kazim to fetch the lorry and, sitting with a machine-gun across his knees, ordered Jack and Amir to bring the gold up from the tomb. There were eighty canvas bags, each weighing about twenty pounds. In the relentless sun it was back-breaking work and it was over an hour before the gold was out of the tomb and loaded on to the back of the lorry. During that time Jack had not looked at Isabelle and Arthur.

  When the last bag was on the truck, Jack opened his water bottle, took a long drink and, wetting his handkerchief, mopped his face in relief.

  ‘Thank God that’s over. Now we’ve got to get it loaded on the plane.’ He caught a pleading glance from Isabelle that would have melted a heart of ice and, taki
ng his water bottle, uncapped it and walked over to them. ‘Drink?’ he asked, kneeling beside them.

  Isabelle nodded. Her throat was nearly completely dry and she couldn’t speak until Jack held the leather-covered bottle to her lips. ‘Jack,’ she said unhappily, as he helped Arthur to drink, supporting his shoulders with his hand. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  His face softened and for a moment it looked as if he were about to speak, then he turned as Von Erlangen approached. ‘I’m leaving them some water. It’ll be a bit awkward for them with their hands tied, but they should be able to manage. I don’t want them to die of thirst before they’re rescued.’

  Von Erlangen seemed highly amused. ‘I can promise you they won’t die of thirst, Mr Haldean.’ He leaned forward and caressed Isabelle’s face. ‘That would be most unpleasant.’

  Arthur stirred menacingly but said nothing.

  ‘Shall we go?’ asked Jack abruptly.

  He sat on the back of the lorry beside Amir while Von Erlangen and Kazim sat in the cab. The engine started, the lorry pulled away and the echoes of the engine gradually rumbled away into silence.

  ‘I wish I knew what Jack was up to,’ said Isabelle, her voice flat with despair.

  ‘I do,’ said Arthur. ‘Have those bruisers gone?’ He wriggled himself into a different position. ‘When Jack gave me a drink, he put his arm down beside me. He had a knife hidden up his shirt sleeve. I’m sitting on it now. As he knelt down he whispered, “As soon as we’ve gone, cut the ropes and follow us, but for God’s sake don’t be seen.’’ He eased himself up. ‘Why, Isabelle, you’re crying.’

  ‘I know,’ she choked. ‘I thought we were going to die.’

  ‘If we don’t look sharpish, we might. We’re not out of danger yet, not by a long chalk.’ He wriggled the knife into position. ‘I want a long and happy life with you and that swine isn’t going to stop me.’ With a feeling of relief, he felt the rope go. Rising stiffly, he cut Isabelle free. Clumsily, they got to their feet, feeling the circulation return slowly to their arms and legs. ‘Let’s go,’ said Arthur, slipping the knife into his boot.

  They were only a short way up the gorge when Isabelle stopped. ‘I can hear someone coming,’ she said quietly, her mouth close to Arthur’s ear.

  ‘Back to the Tombs,’ whispered Arthur. ‘Quickly.’ He’d thought the chances of Von Erlangen letting them live were slight. He cursed inwardly. All the rifles were gone and the Arabs had machine guns. One knife wasn’t much use against a tommy gun. Perhaps he could lie in wait? Perhaps.

  Kazim came into the arena, his machine gun cradled in his arms. He hated this place with its brooding temple and the black open mouths of the doorways. He hated how his soft footfalls echoed like a march of bandaged feet and how his breathing whispered back at him in ghostly mockery. Kazim knew there were ghosts here.

  He swallowed hard and felt the knife in its sheath at his belt, reassured by the familiar feel of the corded handle. The boss wanted him to use the knife and not bullets. He’d rather use bullets. The most intense pleasure Kazim had ever known came from playing a raking burst of fire over human flesh, seeing how the body lifted, twitched, danced and splattered.

  That was real power. That was modern, that was progress, that was American, that was good. Maybe the boss would let him kill the pilot. He wanted to kill the pilot. But as for now . . . He had to use the knife.

  He grinned in anticipation. The knife was nearly as good as a gun, if the victims were tied. Not as intense but a more thoughtful, inventive pleasure. The moment could be made to last. The man first. He could be carved up, then left to watch as the woman writhed in helpless submission. Kazim licked his dry lips. He wanted the woman with her soft white skin. He wanted to feel her shrink under his hands. And, afterwards, he’d kill her. The thought of that pleasure made his blood pound. She would live a long time, dying bit by delicious bit.

  He rounded the spur of cliff where his victims should have been trussed up like chickens. He swore as he saw the cut ropes lying on the ground. The cliffs took his words and gave them back to him in fragments. He froze. Mixed in with the obscenities was another sound, a harsh rumbling laugh. It was as if the rocks themselves were laughing.

  He gripped the tommy gun and turned very slowly. In the middle of the arena was the altar. The dead man, Vaughan, whom Kazim despised, should have been lying beside it. But he wasn’t lying down, he was standing up. He leaned over the altar, his eyes wide open, staring into Kazim’s soul. Between his hands was the skull.

  Kazim gave a little moan of fright. With a rasping noise as the bone scraped on stone, the dead man moved the skull. Kazim cried out, a jerky whimper of terror.

  Then the skull spoke. ‘Go. Go. Go.’

  It was the one word, first whispered and then rising to a shout and echoed, echoed in a terrifying wave of sound.

  Kazim whimpered once more and that ghastly noise, the bone scraping on the stone, rasped out again as the dead man moved the skull.

  Kazim brought up the tommy-gun. His fingers, slippery with sweat, closed over the trigger, sending bullet after bullet thudding and ricocheting into the stones, the dust, the altar, in a jerky arc of destruction. The dust billowed up in a blinding sandstorm and through the clouds of grit and sand, his eardrums punched with sound, Kazim saw the dead man fling his arms outwards and fall, the skull rising high in the air, shattering to a million flying chips of bone. Kazim kept the trigger pulled hard back until every bullet had gone. The gun clicked uselessly. Then he heard the scream.

  It started as on a high pitch and got higher. The cliffs screamed back. Kazim felt himself scream, heard his own voice, thin against the scream of the violated skull and malevolent cliffs.

  Through the billowing clouds of dust, a man loomed towards him.

  For a few hundredths of a second, Kazim saw the jerky movements, the outstretched hands, the shambling walk, then, with a scream louder than even the scream of the skull, he ran.

  Jack leaned on the cabin door of the aeroplane and unscrewed the cap of his water bottle. He had taxied the D.H.9 out of the cave, close to the lorry. He and the Arab had heaved nearly fifty of the heavy canvas bags into the cabin. Von Erlangen, sitting in the shade, his back to the cliff, watched them, his rifle beside him and his revolver in his hand. Jack didn’t know where Kazim was but all he could hope was that Arthur and Isabelle had managed to get free and somehow get to safety. He paused with the cap of the canteen in his hand. Faintly, like a distant rumble of thunder, came a booming, repeated noise.

  Von Erlangen jerked his head up, listening intently. His lips thinned as the noise rolled on. ‘Fool,’ he snarled. He looked to where Jack and Amir had stopped, listening. ‘Get on with it,’ he said, in icy anger.

  Jack, his stomach leaden, picked up another bag. That had been machine-gun fire. He hefted the bag in his hands, feeling fury course through him. He could hurl the bag at Amir, try and get to Von Erlangen . . . The revolver was aimed steadily at him and, stupefied with despair, he put it in the cabin with the rest.

  They heard Kazim before they saw him, his feet thudding on the ground. Amir jumped down from the lorry, yelling out a string of Arabic. Kazim ran towards him, his face a ghastly pallor. He stumbled against Amir, tried to speak and managed a few jumbled words. Amir shrank back from the terrified man, then, with a sudden movement, they both leapt into the cab of the lorry.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Von Erlangen. He shouted a volley of orders but his words were lost in the growl of the engine. The lorry accelerated away, bumping wildly over the uneven ground, sending up vast clouds of dust. Von Erlangen brought the rifle up to his shoulder and fired. The bullet pinged off the cab of the lorry. Von Erlangen fired three more bullets, but the wild progress of the lorry and the billowing dust made it impossible to aim.

  He whirled as Jack approached. ‘Keep your distance!’

  Jack tried to keep the joy out of his voice. He didn’t know what Arthur and Isabelle had done, but they had done something. They w
ere alive! Or, at least, he thought, sobering, they had been before that burst of machine-gun fire. ‘I just wondered what all the fuss was about.’

  ‘Stupidity,’ said Von Erlangen between clenched teeth.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw a little movement where a camel-thorn bush clung to an outcrop of rock by the base of the cliff. He walked away from the bush, keeping Von Erlangen’s attention away from that flicker of movement. ‘Well, there goes the rest of the gold,’ he said, watching the cloud of dust.

  ‘Thank you for stating the obvious, Mr Haldean,’ Von Erlangen said sharply. He flexed his fingers. ‘I shall look forward to meeting those two again. In the meantime, we might as well go. Is the aeroplane ready?’

  ‘As ready as she can be,’ said Jack. ‘Where are we flying to, by the way?’

  ‘Turkey. Scutari. I have useful friends there.’

  Jack nodded. ‘The Black Sea, eh? I’ll have to plot a course. We don’t want to fly over Cyprus if we can help it.’ Taking maps and compasses from the cockpit, he sauntered back to the cliff, and settled down, apparently working out distances.

  A whisper sounded from the rocks behind him. ‘Jack, we’re here.’ It was Isabelle.

  Jack took out a cigarette and lit it with what he hoped was idle unconcern. With the hand holding the match shielding his mouth, he risked a whisper back.

  ‘How did you scare off Kazim?’

  ‘Arthur propped up Vaughan’s body against the altar and put the skull in his hands. He picked it up with his jacket. He didn’t touch it. We had some rope underneath it. We hid behind the altar, pulled on the rope and made the skull move. Kazim was frightened rigid.’

  ‘He blasted away on his tommy gun. He used all his ammo,’ whispered Arthur. ‘Then Isabelle screamed and he thought it was the skull.’

  ‘There was no end of dust and Arthur lurched towards him, walking like something that had risen from the tomb.’

  Jack smothered a grin behind his hand. ‘Good work. They’ve run off, so that’s two down.’ He glanced up at Von Erlangen and risked another whisper. ‘You’ll be safe. If I’ve got to go the distance, best of luck. Thanks for being here.’