Destination

by David Wood

“We’re treasure hunters, Bones. People don’t find treasure in Vegas. They lose it. I’m saving you from a lot of heartache and disappointment. Besides. I would have thought you’d be sick of casinos by now.” Bones’ uncle, Crazy Charlie, operated a casino on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. Bones had even briefly worked there as a bouncer after leaving the military.

  “It’s not about the gambling, dude. It’s the chicks!” Bones looked around and wrinkled his nose distastefully. “Next time you get the urge to save me from anything... don’t. And if you think there’s any treasure left to be found here, you’re fooling yourself. This place was picked clean thousands of years ago. Now it’s just another tourist trap in the desert, only with more flies and dysentery.”

  “You seem to have forgotten what we discovered the last time we were here.”

  “We almost got killed and we didn’t find any treasure.”

  Although it was hard to argue with any of what Bones had just said, Maddock knew that there were still serious archaeological discoveries being made in the desert surrounding Luxor. There was far too much history in Egypt for everything of value to have been uncovered. It was just such a discovery that had brought the two of them here.

  Maddock might have called them “treasure hunters” but he was motivated more by his passion for history and exploration, not to mention a craving for adventure, than by mere lust for gold. While he needed to make a living like anyone, it was the looking not the finding that satisfied the yearning in his soul. He also knew that Bones, despite his rough edges, felt the same way, which was why their partnership had flourished, despite getting off to a rocky start.

  They had met in the Navy, during the first phase of SEAL training. Maddock, had been an uptight young officer looking to advance his career, and Bones had been a hard-drinking, hard-partying enlisted seaman with a chip on his shoulder as big as the Cherokee Nation. Against all odds, the two men had become friends, and then after leaving the service, had gone into business together as marine salvage and recovery experts. In the years that had followed, the two men had made astonishing discoveries in every far-flung corner of the globe, and saved the world once or twice along the way. Recently, they had started doing contract work for the Global Heritage Commission, a small agency working under the auspices of the United Nations, dedicated to protecting World Heritage sites. Most of their jobs involved underwater surveys, helping marine archaeologists document wrecks and submerged ruins. There was very little treasure involved, and even less glory, but it was satisfying work and it kept the lights on. Even more important to Maddock, it was an excuse to spend time underwater.

  This particular job, which had brought them to the Egyptian desert, would probably not afford him a chance to get wet. An Egyptian archaeologist named Dr. Majdy, working in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile River, had discovered an unfinished royal tomb containing what had initially appeared to be a deep cistern, still partially filled with water. Subsequent tests however indicated that the water in the cistern was fresh, and chemically identical to that found in the Nile River, nearly three miles away. Since it was not being replenished by rainwater, or any other external source, the only logical assumption was that it was not a cistern, but rather a well, probably fed by an uncharted subterranean tributary of the Nile. A dye test would likely confirm the existence of a passage connecting the well to the river, but Majdy wanted to conduct a survey to see if it might be part of an ancient water supply system, connecting to other undiscovered chambers, and to that end had contacted the Global Heritage Commission for technical assistance in conducting an underwater survey, which was how Maddock and Bones had gotten involved.

  The actual survey would be done using a small ROV—remotely-operated-vehicle—which Bones carried in the Pelican case. Not quite a meter long, and no bigger around than a gallon milk jug, the ROV—nicknamed Uma—could go places a person couldn’t, which was advantageous since the water level in the cistern was more than a hundred feet down, and there was no telling what lay below the surface. Even if subterranean passages did lead back to the river, it was extremely unlikely that the channels would be large enough to accommodate a diver, but just in case, they had also brought along SCUBA gear.

  They were hit up several more times as they made their way off the platform to pass through the station. There were offers of taxi service, camel safaris, and hot air balloon tours. One young man slyly inquired if they were interested in purchasing “authentic” ancient Egyptian artifacts. Maddock had to maintain a fierce grip on the strap of his gear bag to prevent some of the men from simply grabbing it off his shoulder. He didn’t know if their intent was merely to bear his luggage to his taxi or hotel and then extort a large gratuity from him, or to simply abscond with it. It seemed prudent to leave that particular mystery unsolved.

  The train station was decorated to resemble an ancient Egyptian temple, with white alabaster columns and false balconies inside, and an exterior sandstone beige façade adorned with an enormous stylized Egyptian vulture with outstretched golden wings above the entrance. A short flight of steps led down to the pavement where a line of taxis were waiting to bear the arriving passengers to their next destination. Maddock paused on the steps, letting the herd thin out a bit as he got his first good look at the city of Luxor.

  First occupied more than five thousand years before the present, the city had been known to the ancient Egyptians as Wo'se—City of the Sceptre, signifying its status as the administrative center of Upper Egypt—and later as Niwt-'Imn—City of Amun, the chief deity of southern Egypt. Situated on the banks of the Nile River, about four hundred miles upriver from Cairo—or Memphis, as it was known in ancient times—the city had for a time, served as the capital of the unified Egyptian Kingdom. Many of the best-known names in ancient Egyptian history had lived, died and been buried there. The Greeks called it Thebes of the Hundred Gates, but by the time of Alexander the Great, the city’s importance had already begun to wane, and by the First Century, it had become little more than a memory. The rediscovery of the ancient ruins by Napoleon’s savants—scientific scholars who accompanied his invasion force in 1798—had not only resulted in the creation of the new science of Egyptology, but had also brought renewed interest in the Arab settlement known as al-ʾUqṣur—the Palaces—later simplified to Luxor. Cairo had the pyramids and the Sphinx, but the real treasures of ancient Egypt were hidden in the sands outside Luxor, and despite more than two centuries of archaeological exploration—and five millennia of looting by tomb robbers, not all of them had been uncovered.

  Modern Luxor looked to Maddock like an eclectic hodge-podge of weathered old Colonial-era architecture and newer utilitarian structures of brick and concrete. To his left, he could see the minaret of a mosque reaching up like an exclamation point from behind another building, while a few hundred yards in the opposite direction rose the white dome and bell towers of a Coptic Orthodox Church. The one-way two-lane street fronting the railway station was shared by cars and buses, as well as old motorcycles, donkey carts and even ornate horse-drawn four-wheeled carriages—called caleches. The air was hot and dry, despite the close proximity of the river, but while there were no clouds in the azure sky, there were strange bulbous shapes visible in the west, just above the horizon—hot air balloons, drifting on the wind.

  He was still gazing up at them when he heard Bones calling to him. “Dude, I think that’s our ride.”

  Maddock returned his attention to the pick-up lane and saw that an older-model red Peugeot sedan had slipped into the queue of blue-and-white liveried cabs. The passenger side window had been lowered and the driver was leaning across to wave a hand at them. They had been told to expect a car, but there was no way of knowing if this was actually it, or just one more local entrepreneur looking to score some tourist cash.

  “I hope you’re right,” Maddock replied, starting forward.

  As he drew closer, he was surprised to see that the driver was a woman. She appear
ed to be young—late twenties, perhaps—with olive complexion and fine features, but that was about all he could tell about her. The rest of her head was covered by a black hijab scarf.

  A woman?

  The revelation stopped him in his tracks.

  He had seen quite a few women since arriving in Egypt the previous day, but had not actually interacted with any of them. Everybody he had dealt with—from the customs officials at the airport to the endless stream of touts at the station—had been male. The distribution of the sexes among his fellow travelers—both Egyptian and non-Egyptian—had been pretty even, so the disparity hadn’t really registered with him

  Although predominately Muslim, Egypt was not as strict about enforcing gender segregation as some neighboring countries, at least where visitors were concerned, but it was a different story for the locals, particularly in Upper Egypt, far from the more relaxed atmosphere of metropolitan centers like Cairo and Alexandria. Despite some progressive reforms during the Twentieth Century, the more recent rise in religious fundamentalism coupled with a flagging economy, had severely limited opportunities for women in a country that had once been ruled by the likes of Nefertiti and Cleopatra. The situation for Egyptian women was, by some accounts, the worst in the Arab world, with the highest rates of sexual harassment, honor killings and female genital mutilation.

  Maddock knew from experience that interacting with a local female under such conditions might very well make her the subject of such abuse. Maybe a case of mistaken identity?

  The woman locked eyes with him. Hers were almond-shaped and a deep chocolate brown. Then she smiled. No lipstick, but her teeth were dazzling. “Mr. Maddox?”

  So much for that idea. “Uh... It’s Maddock, actually,” he said, stressing the last syllable.

  She blinked, her sculpted eyebrows coming together in a look of confusion. “What’s the difference?”

  Maddock glanced around, checking to see if the exchange had attracted any undue attention, and discovered that at least one person had taken an interest.

  “Here’s how I remember it,” Bones said, leaning down to get a better look at her. “Daffy is one mad duck. Singular. Donald and Daffy together would be mad ducks. Plural.” He jerked a thumb in Maddock’s direction. “He’s just daffy.”

  Bones had clearly put a lot of thought into this explanation.

  The woman blinked again, but her smile broadened, revealing dimples in her cheeks. “So just ‘mad duck,’” she said. Her English was impeccable, with just a hint of a British accent. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Bones went on. “He’s so desperate, he’ll answer to anything. I’m Bones, but you can call me anytime.”

  “You are a very strange man, Anytime.”

  Maddock felt a mild surge of panic at his friend’s typically forward behavior. What might get him a slap or a drink thrown in his face anywhere else could get him—or the woman—in serious trouble here. He stepped forward, intent on putting himself between Bones and the woman, but a flash of movement from the rear end of the car distracted him. As he turned to look, he saw a group of Egyptian men—a dozen, maybe more—closing with them, the nearest just a few steps away. All wore jellabiyas with turbans wrapped around heads and necks, but unlike the touts and scam artists who had been assailing them from the moment they stepped off the train, these men were strangely silent.

  Maddock felt a tingle of apprehension. “Bones, I think—”

  Before he could complete the thought, one of the men shouted something, and then, as if possessed of a single consciousness, they all charged.

  TWO

  The men crashed into them like linebackers converging on the quarterback, bowling both Maddock and Bones over. What the men individually lacked in size and weight, they more than made up for with strength of numbers. Maddock instinctively rounded his shoulders tucking into a protective ball as he fell back to land on his backside. The impact would probably leave bruises, but the rush of adrenaline through his bloodstream masked any pain. He felt tension on the strap of his bag as someone tried to wrench it free, and immediately tightened his grip on it, then rolled over onto it. It was a common tactic for purse snatchers to carry razor blades with which to cut purse straps as a way of quickly overcoming resistance. By covering the bag with his body, he was pre-empting such a measure; he just hoped the thieves didn’t slash his exposed back instead.

  If the bag had merely contained clothing, he probably wouldn’t have risked it, but since it held a couple thousand dollars’ worth of diving equipment, which could not be replaced on short notice and without which the entire trip to Egypt would be a complete waste of time and money, he decided to put up a bit more of a fight than was perhaps prudent. The men had not been displaying weapons, and he felt certain their plan had been to hit-and-run. If he was wrong....

  He wasn’t. His assailant immediately let go, and when Maddock looked up, he saw the Egyptians already fleeing the scene, the last of them cutting around the front end of the parked Peugeot and heading for the street beyond.

  Maddock rolled off the bag, pushing up on hands and knees. He found his friend, a few feet away, likewise in the process of recovering from the blindside attack. “Bones, you okay?”

  “No, damn it,” came the growled reply. “They got Uma!”

  Even as he said it, Maddock realized that the Pelican case Bones had carried halfway around the world was now conspicuously absent. He bounded up and threw himself onto the hood of the Peugeot, sliding across it to land on his feet, ready to charge after the fleeing thieves.

  He caught a glimpse of the man lugging the Pelican case, just as the latter ducked between two of the dozen or so horse drawn caleche carriages standing idle between the taxi queue and the main thoroughfare. Maddock sprinted for the same gap, but before he could reach it, the entire line of carriages began moving, peeling away to enter the flow of traffic.

  He veered to the right, running faster in a futile attempt to get in front of the horse that now blocked his path. The animal was moving at a trot, not fast, but fast enough to keep Maddock from getting past. After a few seconds, he gave up, skidding to a stop and reversing direction, trying instead to cut behind the carriage.

  Bones had regained his feet and was likewise looking for an opening to get through the jumble. “Do you see him?” he shouted.

  Maddock didn’t waste his breath answering in the negative. He had to get around the carriage, had to get a visual fix on the thief. If he couldn’t, the odds of them ever seeing the little submersible drone again were virtually nil, and unlike the SCUBA equipment, replacing the ROV wasn’t as simple as just submitting an insurance claim or writing a check. Uma was one-of-a-kind, built from scratch and custom programmed for a very specific range of operations. Without it, he and Bones wouldn’t just be stymied for the duration of this job—they would be sidelined for weeks, maybe even months. He slapped a hand against the rear of the carriage, pushing it—or pushing himself away from it—as he ran around behind it, only to nearly crash into another.

  Suddenly, the carriages were everywhere he wanted to go, weaving back and forth randomly... No, there was nothing random about it. The caleche drivers were intentionally running interference for the thieves. A glance up into the sneering face of the closest driver was enough to confirm this suspicion.

  Maddock gave up trying to get through the tangle, and instead pulled himself up onto the running board of the carriage now blocking his path. From this elevated perch, he had a mostly unobstructed view of the street, but saw no sign of the stolen Pelican case, nor any of the men who had blitzed them.

  Where did they go?

  Movement in the corner of his eye arrested his attention, and he turned to see the carriage driver swinging a long-handled horse whip at his face. Maddock easily blocked the clumsy attack, swatting the whip away with one hand, and reaching out to grab the front of the man’s robes with the other, but as he did, he realized that there w
as a passenger in the coach seat, someone he recognized. He had actually seen the man twice before; first on the platform, offering camel rides, and then again as part of the gang that had waylaid them.

  Realization dawned. The drivers weren’t merely running interference for the thieves; they were providing getaway transportation. He yanked the driver off his feet, pulling him over the back of the coachman’s seat, and hurled him into his accomplice. The two men offered no further resistance, but merely covered their heads and started wailing, as if Maddock was the criminal and they were the aggrieved party. Maddock turned away, searching the nearby caleches for the missing bag, but most of the carriages had already pulled away and were now trundling down the street, their occupants eclipsed from view by raised sun canopies.

  “Bones. Check the carriages!” Maddock shouted, and then, without looking back to see if the other man had heard him, dropped down to the pavement and charged after the retreating caleches. He first heard and then glimpsed Bones sprinting to catch up to him.

  Ahead, the carriages had regrouped into a single line occupying the right lane, while cars and motorcycles whizzed by in the left. The coach drivers maintained tight spacing, allowing no gaps through which Maddock and Bones might reach the relative safety of the sidewalk, which left the men with a choice: risk injury or death by running down the middle of the traffic lanes, or abandon the pursuit.

  Maddock knew the latter choice wasn’t really an option; they couldn’t lose Uma. Before he could commit however, a cacophony of honking horns erupted behind him. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, expecting to see a taxi bearing down on him, and was instead pleasantly surprised to see the red Peugeot, moving slowly up the inside lane behind them. The increasingly irate honking was coming from the long stream of vehicles behind it.

  “She’s blocking for us,” Bones shouted.

  Maddock just nodded. Bolstered by the unexpected assistance, he poured on a burst of speed to catch the next caleche in line. As he got alongside it, he reached out a hand to seize the black canopy, ripping it back to expose the interior of the passenger area.