A half hour passes.
The van sways and bucks as the driver picks up speed, tapping the brakes occasionally to avoid rear-ending a slower vehicle, before passing it outright. But then something unexpected happens.
The driver slams on the brakes.
Giovani and Alberto are thrust against the metal wall separating the van bay from the driver/passenger compartment.
“Merdes,” Giovanni barks, the wrist that’s locked to the aluminum attaché stinging now that it's bearing the full weight of the lance inside it.
“What the hell was that all about?” Alberto cries, thumbing the safety off on his semi-automatic. “Why are we stopped?” Then, his eyes on his partner. “You’re weapon, Giovanni. You might need it.”
Sitting back up, Giovani draws his Beretta with his free hand. The two are about to exit the van via the back cargo bay doors when suddenly they are thrust open. Two figures jump into the back with all the speed and agility of skilled gymnasts. They don black riot gear and black helmets with dark visors. Gripped in their hands, ultra-short, Heckler & Koch G36C 5.56mm assault rifles. The red luminescent laser beam sites poised on their targets inside the unlit space, the rifles explode with full automatic gunfire. Giovanni and Alberto drop on the spot, their souls leaving their bodies before their flesh slaps down lifeless and hard on the metal bed.
The first of the two uniformed men turn toward the open van doors.
“The package is attached to his wrist,” he says, in his native German.
Two more uniformed men stand outside the open doors. One of them is tall and thickly built.
“Cut his hand off,” he says, also in German.
Without hesitation, the first man pulls a seven and a quarter inch blade from the sheath attached to his combat boot. Grabbing hold of the hand that attaches Giovani’s wrist to the aluminum attaché, he sets it firmly onto the van bench. Situating the razor-sharp business end of the knife against the wrist, he presses down while slicing to and fro as though cutting through a pig’s leg. The severed hand drops to the van floor directly beside the dead body to which it belongs. Pulling the cuff off the wrist, the first man frees the attaché. Lifting it from off the van floor, he tosses it to the tall man.
Tall Man sets it on the van floor, and reaching into his shirt pocket, pulls out two tabs that have the look and feel of two separate sticks of gum. He presses both tabs onto the attaché’s combination locks. Running two separate wires from the tabs to a mobile, palm-sized detonator, he looks up at the two men inside the van, and whispers, “Fire in the hole.”
The men turn while Tall Man detonates the charges.
Two small blasts cause the attaché to jump and drop back down onto the van floor. When Tall Man re-approaches the case, he can plainly see that the locks have been blown away. Reaching out with his hands, he goes to open the lid.
“Wait,” interjects the voice of a man. An old man. “Please, allow me to do the honors.” Like the riot gear uniformed men, this man also speaks fluent German. Unlike the other men, he is ninety years old, if he is a day. Still, he enjoys all the use of his faculties, despite his years. Like his men, the uniform he wears is black. But his uniform is much older than theirs. The stiff collar sports the letters SS while his trousers balloon at the thighs like the jodhpurs worn by members of the cavalry. On his feet, he wears polished black jackboots.
He steps up to the case and setting his hands on the cover, slowly opens it. His blue eyes grow wet with tears, his breath is shallow and labored. The cheeks on his face, which bear the thick scars of a deep knife wound, grow tight. He can feel himself smiling because this is the day he has been anxiously anticipating for more than seventy years. The day he became reunited with Longinus' lance. The Spear of Destiny. The spear that would have led The Third Reich to ultimate world victory if only Hitler had not killed himself hours before.
Reaching into the case, the man pulls out the sword with his black leather glove-covered hands. He holds it over his head, not to honor the God it belongs to, but instead, the spirit of the Fuhrer who never had the opportunity to touch or gaze upon his prize.
“The spear will once more lead us to victory,” the man says, his voice strong and confident. Not the voice of an old man at all. “It is our destiny.”
The men surrounding him raise their right hands high.
“Heil Hitler!” they bellow.
“Heil Hitler!” the man proudly responds.
Chapter 1
The Sahara Desert
Morocco
Present Day
Water.
Dear God, almighty, if you exist, I need water.
It’s the prayer I’ve been reciting in my head now for more hours than I care to count. I’ve been reciting aloud, so that not only God might hear me, but maybe some random passerby. A Berber nomad maybe, or perhaps some tour group doing a little camel riding. But hours and hours have passed, and all I’ve managed to see is dune upon dune of hot, bright, sunbaked sand and the heat that rises from it like a transparent wave dancing on the horizon.
Here’s the deal: my hands are tied behind my back with rope while both my feet and ankles are tied together in such a way that the rope extends ankle to ankle under the camel’s big belly. The rope is tied so tightly, it’s impossible for me to move my feet. I’m planted in this saddle and, now that I’ve lost my Chase Baker baseball cap, entirely exposed to the mid-day sun.
This is the last time I listen to my gut.
Correction, the last time I drink more than my allotted share of Moroccan beer inside a corner bar in downtown Casablanca, my ears intently tuned to an old British Army captain who swore up and down about a Rommel Afrika-Corp half-track that’s perfectly preserved in the Sahara sand to the north east not far from the Algiers border.
And me, being the type to never pass up a sand-hogging opportunity, was quick to pull back my final beer of the evening while I paid a fly boy—who by the way had been bellied up to the bar in his grandfather’s worn leather bomber and officer’s cap—an ungodly amount of dirhams to fly me out to the closest runway just in time for the dawn.
We boarded his sixty-plus-year-old four seater Cessna less than an hour later, and it took only about forty-five minutes of flight time before he deposited me on a landing strip that had been carved out of tan desert rock. The only sign of humanity to be seen was an airplane hangar on one side of the runway and a general store-slash-tourist gift shop on the other. By all appearances, the shop also doubled as a saloon and eatery boasting a big wood sign shaped like a camel’s head, the words “Fresh Camel Burgers” stenciled on it in big white lettering.
“You be careful of the clientele in that joint,” Fly Boy warned. “They’ll smile and make nice, and then when you’re not looking, they’ll rob you blind and leave you out in the desert for the vultures.”
I smiled at him while I grabbed hold of my shoulder bag and double checked the presence of the Colt .45 I store in a shoulder holster beneath my worn bush jacket by patting it two or three times.
“Thanks for the advice, mate,” I said. “But I’ve been around the block a few times. The gray hairs on my head and face are proof.”
The fly boy smiled at me, cocked his head.
“You have my number you need me,” he said. “Just send a text and your GPS coordinates.”
“Much obliged,” I said, slipping out of the plane. But then, turning back to him. “Oh, what did you say your name was again?”
“Stirling,” he said. “David Stirling.”
“Well, Mr. Stirling,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said, patting his chest pocket. “You paid for the privilege. Thanks for flying Air Pirates and don’t forget to submit your frequent flyer miles, you hear?”
Reaching out, he grabbed hold of the door and closed it. I stepped away from the aircraft, and he gave it the gas, the propeller kicking up the dust and sand while the airplane turned one hundred eighty degrees and once more sp
ed down the runway until it took flight.
Once Fly Boy, or should I say Air Pirate Stirling, was airborne, the runway became eerily silent. But the silence wasn’t entirely silent since I could make out the sound of music coming from a jukebox in the saloon. I had two choices here. I could either trust my GPS to take me out to the somewhat inexact location of the buried half-track. Or, I could head into the saloon and make a few inquiries about it. At the very least, I could perhaps enlist the services of a digger or two, since I wasn’t about to dig up a half-track using my bare hands.
Pulling the .45 from the holster, I released the magazine, double-checked the eight-round load, then slapped the mag back home. Thumbing the safety back on, I re-holstered the weapon and began making my way across the flat, lifeless landscape in the direction of the music.
The tin roofed wood clapboard building looked like something left over from the era of the British Special Air Services, the rogue North African desert military crew that gave Rommel fits with their machine-gun outfitted Jeeps and their night-time raids. Stepping inside the place, I was immediately struck by the sound of laughter coming from a big bearded middle-aged man wearing worn husky jeans and a t-shirt. He was seated at the long bar beside a blonde woman who sported a halter and not much else. Beside her, sat a far smaller man dressed in tan slacks, a matching jacket, and a straw fedora. A ceiling fan was spinning full bore over a scattering of tables that, at this late hour, were empty. Shoved against the wall was the jukebox that I’d been listening to since I landed.
The black man behind the bar was dressed in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt. He locked eyes on me as soon as I stepped inside.
“We’re closed,” he said, tossing a dirty bar rag over his shoulder.
I glanced at my watch.
“It’s only five o’clock in the morning,” I said. “The night’s young.”
Chase the wise ass.
The big one with the beard stared at me, his eyes glaring and dark. The little guy smiled and downed a shot.
“Top of the morning,” he said, slamming the empty glass back down and wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand.
“Oh, come on, Marcus,” the blonde spoke up. “Give the gentlemen a drink. He just flew in on the red eye.”
Marcus bit down on his bottom lip.
“You barely got time for one,” he groused. “Then I’m closing up shop. Bar owners need to sleep too.”
“Beer will be fine,” I said, approaching the bar.
Marcus popped the cap on a bottle of Moroccan beer, put it front of me.
“So, what brings you to the middle of nowhere?” Big Beard spoke up after a time.
“I’m looking for something in the sand.”
“Maybe buried treasure,” Big Beard said with a hearty belly laugh. “What about you, Flo,” he said to the blonde. “You interested in going after some buried treasure in the middle of the Sahara?”
“The desert is too hot for me, Tommy,” she said. “And too cold at night. But this bar stool is just right. Now, take me home and make a woman out of me before the tourists show up and ruin my day.”
“You should get out more, Flo,” the little one said. “There’s more to the good earth than your general store, those filthy camels, and the tour groups that fly in every other day.”
“Hey, Mick,” she said, holding up her half full bottle of beer, “it’s a living.”
The place fell quiet for a minute while the juke box played Back in the USSR by the Beatles.
“So, what exactly is buried in the sand out in the desert?” Big Tom asked after a long beat.
I told him.
“One of Rommel’s half-tracks,” he responded, nodding like he was intrigued. “And in primo condition. You don’t say.”
His accent was Irish, but not heavy. Like he left the land of four green fields when he was a boy and never went back.
“That’s what I’m told by a fairly reliable source.”
“You got transport into the desert?” Tom said. “And a crew? Seems to me you can’t go digging around on your own.”
I drank down some beer while Sir Paul belted out, “the Ukraine girls really knock me out . . . ” By then, I’d had enough beer to last me a couple of weeks. But what the hell. When in Rome. Or, in this case, the desert outback territory between Algeria and Morocco.
“Know of anyone who wants a job?” I said. “I can’t pay right away. But if we find the half-track, there will be a percentage of the sale profits in it for them.”
“Whaddya think, Flo?” Tommy said. “I ain’t got nothin’ better goin’ on today other than teaching fat tourists how to ride camels.” Then, reaching around Flo and slapping the small man on the back. “You in, little Mick?”
The little guy nearly fell over from Tommy’s love tap.
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever you say, Tommy.”
The Beatles sang “Take me to your daddy’s farm . . . ”
“I can rent you three camels for a very good price,” Flo said. “You’re gonna need transport, and Jeeps get stuck in the thick stuff so you can’t always trust them.”
“That settles it then,” Tommy said. “We’re your team. So, when do we start?”
Chapter 2
We spent the next hour collecting supplies and loading up the camels. We brought along enough food and water for three days and nights, plus digging equipment. It was full sun-up by the time we set out across the desert plain into the heart of the Sahara where we encountered one dune after the other on our way toward a specific set of coordinates that would, in theory at least, mark the resting place of one of Rommel’s half-tracks. Chase the trustworthy? Or just maybe Chase the gullible and hungover.
For six hours, the trek was uneventful until they appeared to us like an apparition on the horizon. At the top of a tall dune, six riders on camelback. Since they had the sun at their backs, only their silhouettes were visible. But I didn’t need to see much more of them to know they were not friendlies. They all carried rifles, but the one in the center of the group carried a flag. Even from a distance of maybe five hundred yards, I could make out the black on white writing on the flag. It was Arabic writing. It looked an awful lot like the mark of ISIS.
“Gentlemen,” I said, heart shifting from my ribcage to my throat. “Slowly draw your weapons. You’re gonna need them.”
“I knew this was a fool’s errand,” Tommy said, yanking down on his baseball cap before pulling a revolver from the holster on his hip.
“Everything we do is a fool’s errand,” Mick said, drawing an identical revolver, his fedora perched precariously on his head.
I pulled out my .45, thumbed the safety off. A second later, the bandits let out a yell that pierced my flesh and bone. They entered an immediate charge down the dune, kicking up a cloud of sand.
“What do we do?” Tommy said, real fear painting his big, round, bearded face.
“We do what any warm-blooded man with a backbone would do,” I said. “We run like hell.”
Turning the camels around, we kicked them into an all-out gallop while we tried our best to put as much distance between the ISIS bandits and us.
Up ahead was another big dune. It gave me an idea.
Shouting over my shoulder. “Head for the dune! Go behind it! It’s our only chance!”
The dune was so big it appeared to be only a few hundred yards away. But, it must have been a mile. Then, the crack of automatic gun fire, bullets whizzing past our heads like hornets kicked out of their nests.
“Jesus, the bastards are shooting at us!” Tommy shouted, his camel thrusting him up and down while its long legs moved as fast as an animal of its size possibly could manage.
“Whaddya expect, Tommy!?” Mick shouted. “Those bastards are killers. They get ahold of us, they’ll chop our heads off.”
“Just keep moving!” I barked.
It took what seemed forever, but when we came to the dune, we hooked a right and rode hard until we made it to the o
pposite side. When we came to a stop, Tommy said, “What now, Baker? Is this where we start praying for a merciful death?”
“They’re liable to come at us from both sides. You two take the western end, and I’ll cover the east. Don’t hesitate. Shoot to kill. You understand?”
“Why’d we take on this mission again, Mick?” Tommy begged.
“Because we’re broke and we can’t sit on that barstool in the middle of nowhere for the rest of our lives,” he said. ‘That’s why.”
“Maybe this is the rest of our lives right here, right now,” Tommy said.
Profound, if I don’t say so myself . . .
Then, the pounding of camel hoofs on the sandy ground.
“Get ready,” I said. “Hold your ground and make every shot count.”
I was wiping sweat from eyes, trying to swallow my heart, the bead on my .45 planted on the exact place where I expected the bandits to come around the corner of the dune when I heard a commotion coming from overhead. The bandits weren’t coming at us from around the side of the dune. They were coming down on us from up on top.
The shots rained down on us, kicked up the sand. The noise of automatic gunfire reverberated across the desert valley. Tommy and Mick immediately threw down their weapons, raised their hands in surrender. I aimed for the one with the flag, fired, dropped him as he was galloping down the dune, his camel rolling ass over head in a sand exploding summersault.
The two men on his right fired at me, and the bullets zipped past my head. I shifted my aim and triggered off four more rounds, dropping one of them, and missing the other. By then the other three bandits were riding circles around Tommy and Mick. They’d slung their automatic rifles around their shoulders and backs, and they were holding machetes. They were taking swipes at Tommy and Mick with the machetes, landing a slice here and a slice there.
Chase Baker and the Spear of Destiny Page 2
