Sweating, Finn and Hilts stooped in front of the hole in the rock and peered in.
“Can’t see much,” said Hilts.
“Let’s go in,” Finn answered eagerly.
Hilts put a hand on her arm, stopping her.
“Hang on,” he said. “Caves in the desert can be occupied.”
“By what?”
Gripping the overhang with one hand and putting the other hand on Finn’s shoulder to balance himself, Hilts lifted his left leg and hammered his foot into the ancient masonry wall that blocked the entrance. He did it a second time and a large chunk of the wall crumbled inward, raising a sudden cloud of dust. There was a quick, scurrying sound like leaves rustling and then a hundred pale, crablike shapes streamed out of the cave, clicking and scraping over Finn’s hiking boots. She yelped, rearing back, and almost fell off the ledge as the six-inch-long creatures raced away and disappeared.
“L. quinquestriatus,” said Hilts. “The Death Stalker Scorpion. One of the world’s most lethal. They like cool, dark places during the daytime. They come out to hunt at night.”
Finn nodded silently, gritting her teeth. Even the memory of the sound they’d made was terrifying. She stayed well back from the opening.
“Now what?”
“We go in,” he said. “The wall collapsing will have scared them off.”
“What if there’s still some in there?”
“Step on them.”
Grinning, Hilts ducked his head and entered the cave. Swallowing hard, Finn went in after him.
Kicking in the old masonry had flooded the chamber with light. Originally it had obviously been no more than a small concave depression beneath the overhang, offering a respite from the beating rays of the sun. In some indeterminate past ancient tools had been used to deepen the declivity into an oven-shaped depression in the rocks. Once a secret repository for an ancient library, like the caves at Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, the chamber here had become a crypt in more modern times. Five mummified corpses, all still wearing the tattered remnants of their Long Range Desert Group uniforms, were huddled in one corner. Two were curled into whimpering fetal positions. One looked as though it had been frozen on hands and knees, half draped over an altarlike stone. Another was seated with its back against one wall, and the fifth was lying facedown, half covered by the rubble Hilts had kicked over it, one spindly, ropy arm gripping what appeared to be a verdigris-covered copper cylinder. The top of the cylinder was gone and the vase was empty. The back of the cave was a sloping pile of sand remaining after a collapse sometime in the distant past.
“The missing soldiers,” murmured Hilts. He bent down and began to carefully go through what was left of the uniform of the dried-out corpse clutching the copper vase. “Careful of the ordnance, some of it could still be live.” There were weapons scattered all around the cave, old Enfield rifles, a huge Lewis machine gun, a Thompson, and half a dozen or more Mills grenades.
“I wonder how they died,” said Finn. “It looks like it was sudden.”
Hilts shifted the leg of the dried-out corpse he was searching, revealing the desiccated shells of half a dozen creatures like the ones that had scuttled over Finn’s boots.
“Disturbed a nest of scorpions; maybe hundreds. It only takes one sting to kill you; they must have been hit dozens of times. Not a pleasant way to go.” He shrugged. “They wouldn’t have had much time except to die.”
Hilts pulled an old billfold out of an inner pocket of the man’s blouse and eased it open. The papery remains of the man’s organs lay like dust in the bony hollow of his rib cage.
“Anything interesting?” Finn asked.
“Bar chit from Shepherd’s Hotel, membership card to the Victory Club. Library pass for the Haddon Library, Cambridge.” He dug deeper into the wallet. “Here’s his ID card. Professor George Pocock, Strategic Operations Executive, Grey Pillars, Cairo. That was HQ, if I remember right.”
“The Haddon is the Cambridge Archaeology Faculty Library. That’s where my dad met my mom.”
“The Strategic Operations Executive were spies,” he said. “This guy wasn’t Long Range Desert Group at all.”
“An archaeologist and a spy, sent out to find Pedrazzi?”
“Looks that way.”
Hilts dropped the man’s wallet into the pocket of his fatigue jacket, paused long enough to take several pictures, and then stood up and went to the rear of the cave. Finn, suddenly feeling almost desperately claustrophobic, went to the entrance of the narrow cave and looked down into the little valley. Nothing had moved and nothing had changed in the warlike diorama laid out below except for the whirling sand billowed up by the freshening wind that was beginning to moan through the canyon. The sky overhead had gone from harsh metallic blue to an ugly saffron color, like an old bruise. The weather was changing. She turned to tell Hilts and saw that he had uncovered something. Faintly uneasy, she turned away and went to the rear of the cave, her eyes scanning the floor for any sign of movement. Reaching Hilts she saw that he had uncovered the top and side of a large stone box. It was rectangular, four feet high, three wide, and appeared to be about six feet long, its front end angled toward the entrance. Carved into the stone was something that looked like the head of Medusa, the hair a mass of writhing snakes. Around the head, like the letters on a coin, was a faint inscription, almost worn away.
“I can’t read it,” Hilts said.
Finn uncapped her canteen, poured water into her palm and swept her hand around the inscription with a quick wiping motion. The letters darkened, instantly readable.
“Neat,” said Hilts, admiringly. He read the words aloud: “Hic Latito Lux Excito—Vox Luciferus.” He shook his head. “Too bad I never took Latin in school.”
“I did,” said Finn. “My parents insisted. According to them nothing beat a classical education. Good for reading the inscriptions on important old buildings.”
“So what does it say?”
“Here Lies Hidden the Bringer of Light: The Words of Lucifer.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Hilts.
“Non ioco est,” she answered. “No joke.”
“Lucifer, as in the Lucifer?”
“Lucifer was a fairly common name in ancient Rome. It didn’t have the same negative connotation a few thousand years ago.”
“So some Roman named Lucifer is buried inside this thing?”
“His words, anyway.”
“Let’s see.”
Hilts used both hands to scoop the fall of sand away from the top of the box.
“We’re going to open it?”
“It looks to me like a lot of people went to a lot of trouble to find this thing, whatever it is. The least we can do is have a look.”
“What about Adamson and his pals?” Finn asked, frowning.
Hilts checked his watch.
“At least another half hour. We can be out of here long before that.”
It took another five minutes to clear all the sand away from the top of the stone box. When that was done Hilts took a ten-inch “pig sticker” spike bayonet from one of the abandoned Enfield rifles and hammered it with the palm of his hand into the faint crack between the box and its heavy top. He twisted slowly and the top slid fractionally to one side, releasing a puff of stale, dusty air. Together Hilts and Finn manhandled the top of the ossuary to one side and then let it slide down to the floor of the cave, leaning against the side of the stone box. Both of them peered inside.
Stuffed into the heavy stone coffin was the bent figure of a man. He was wearing pale green trousers, a long buttoned jacket the same color, and heavy boots. The face was a leathery brown, but except for a missing ear the general structure of the face was relatively intact. Perched askew on the hawklike nose was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The ear was missing because there was a ragged hole in the right temple big enough to put a fist inside. Part of the jaw was missing as well, showing off a mouthful of yellow teeth. The tongue had shrunken to a bla
ck lump. Lying between the legs of the naturally mummified corpse was a copper urn like the one being gripped by the dead man near the cave entrance. Finn reached into the box and took out the small vase. Like the one in the dead archaeologist’s hands, this one was empty. Hilts began going through the pockets of the brass-buttoned fatigue jacket the corpse was wearing.
“Looks like a uniform,” said Finn.
“It is,” Hilts answered. “Italian Desert Forces. No insignia or anything. No rank.”
“There’s a ring,” said Finn. Gingerly she lifted the right hand. A gold band still shone on the leathery hook of the index finger. It fell off into her palm. “There’s a crest engraved into it.”
“Five will get you ten it’s Pedrazzi. Hold on.”
“Find something?”
“He was a smoker.” Hilts grunted. “Lung cancer would have gotten him if somebody hadn’t blown his head off.” He tossed her a small faded cigarette tin. She could still see the enameled illustration of a reclining woman and the name Fatima.
Faintly, more a sense of vibration than a sound, Finn heard something in the distance, rising over the moaning of the wind.
“What’s that?” she asked nervously.
Hilts paused in his examination and listened, frowning in concentration.
“Shit!” It was the first time Finn had heard him swear.
“What?”
“Chopper.”
“Adamson?”
“It’s some kind of gunship.” He ran to the cave entrance and peered out. Finn joined him. She couldn’t see anything except the blowing sand and the old vehicles on the floor of the valley. The sound was getting louder, a deep throbbing tone now. Hilts nodded grimly. “Russian. A Mil-24. It’s the creep in the beret.”
“Colonel Nasif.”
“Must be.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I doubt if we’re going to be given the opportunity to ask.”
“What do we do?”
“Run.”
16
They made it to the ruined Italian Sahariane before the insect-like Russian-built helicopter gunship appeared. The Mil-24 slipped suddenly over the canyon wall like some mechanical horror from a science-fiction film, a hovering steel mantis, twisting beneath its main rotor, searching for its prey, bland in its pale camouflage. It moved into the valley with agonizing slowness, tilted slightly, nose down, swinging left to right.
“They haven’t seen us,” said Hilts.
“They must know we’re here; they would have seen the plane,” said Finn. They were crouched together behind the huge fender of the old truck.
“They know we’re in the valley, but that’s all,” the pilot said, shouting into her ear over the thundering roar of the Mil’s jet engine. “We’ve still got a chance.”
As the helicopter cruised slowly along above the valley, they moved behind the Sahariane, keeping the bulk of the vehicle between them as a shield. Reaching the rear of the blasted desert vehicle, Finn looked over her shoulder. The entrance to the canyon was at least a hundred feet away; too much exposure.
“We need a distraction,” she shouted.
Hilts nodded. He reached into the deep pocket of his fatigue jacket and pulled out one of the old Mills grenades from the cave.
“Think it’ll work?!”
“Only one way to find out!” He pulled the pin and waited, keeping the spring lever tightly enclosed in his fist. He waited until the Mil had settled onto the ground, facing away from them, then hurled the baseball-sized grenade. The scored steel fragmentation bomb sailed up and out, the lever spinning away, glinting in the sun as it popped off the side of the grenade.
“Count to four, then head for the canyon,” Hilts instructed. “I’ll be right behind you!” He pulled a second grenade from his pocket and threw that one as well, aiming for the other side of the valley.
Finn, crouching, did a quick four count then leapt up and ran, keeping her eyes on the dark shadow that marked the canyon entrance. She reached the canyon just as the first grenade exploded. She tried to look back over her shoulder but felt Hilts’s palm in her back, pushing her forward into the entrance. She stumbled and his hand was on her arm, pulling her up. The second grenade went off with a sharp bang and then she was in darkness.
“Go! Go! Go!” Hilts yelled, and she went. Behind her there was a harsh coughing sound as the engine of the Mil hesitated, then caught, then hesitated again. “I think I hit the rotor!” said Hilts.
Finn nodded blindly and kept on running, finally coming out of the narrow canyon entranceway and into the open desert. The little airplane stood waiting a few hundred feet away. There was no sign of the helicopter.
She stopped, horrified, staring to the left, into the desert. Rising like a brutal wave was a dark curtain a thousand feet high, blotting out the sun.
“Look!”
“Sandstorm!” Hilts yelled. “Get to the plane!”
Finn ran harder, lungs bursting, heart hammering in her chest. Her breath came in harsh, hot gasps. She reached the shadow of the wing, ducked under it and wrenched open the door of the little airplane. The wind blowing against her back was fiercely hot and filled with grains of sand that burned, stinging into her exposed skin, even tearing at her hands. The sound of it against the wings and fuselage was like the frantic tapping of a million bony fingers foretelling her choking, blast-furnace end in the immense dark thing that loomed behind her like a gargantuan, living creature, the desert’s own spawn or demon.
She threw herself into the plane and scrambled to shut the door as Hilts climbed in beside her. He immediately began going through his preflight routine, reaching up to hit the button on the flap selector switch, then punching the air bottle valve between the seats and the fuel primer simultaneously. The radial engine started with a roar. He released the brake and pushed the throttle forward hard with his left hand, his right holding on to the steering column. The oversize propeller windmilled, seeming almost to suck them forward, the wall of the cliff directly in front of them.
“Aren’t you going to turn?!” Finn yelled, staring at the cliff less than two hundred yards away.
“Too slow! She turns like she’s sleepwalking!” he answered, pushing the throttle forward even harder. They raced across the hard-packed sand, the steamroller of the sandstorm coming up on Finn’s right, filling her entire field of vision.
“Are we going to make it?!”
“Think elevating thoughts!”
The helicopter came over the top of the cliff and swooped down directly in front of them. Finn could see a spurt of flame from the twin-barreled turret gun slung under the nose and suddenly the ground immediately in front of their little plane was torn to ribbons.
Hilts jerked the steering column hard to the right, slammed his foot down on the right rudder pedal and pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go. The plane swung to the right and leapt into the air, the Mil-24 sliding away to the left, heading directly into the oncoming wall of the howling storm. There was a sudden clattering sound from behind them and Finn felt as though a giant hand had grabbed the plane and shaken it. Then the sandstorm hit and they vanished into its hungry jaws.
They flew within the storm, blind, desperately climbing until they rose above the dark, roiling horror and came out into the sunlight. Below them the storm was like the surface of some black, awful sea, shot through with streaks of lightning.
“It really is a storm,” said Finn, staring down.
“Crazy things,” Hilts said and nodded, checking his instruments. “The friction of the sand causes the lightning. All sorts of magnetic disturbances as well.”
“Down there, you flew right at that helicopter. You didn’t turn.”
“This thing flies like stink, but it takes a lot to turn, and anyway, the Mil-24 was probably the least maneuverable chopper the Russians ever made. Fly at it and it has to swing around in a big circle. I knew we had the throttle to get up and over.”
“Knew?”
“Hoped.” Hilts grinned.
“Think elevating thoughts? That was the best you could come up with?”
“Better than kiss your ass good-bye,” said Hilts. “Which was the only other alternative.”
“What about the helicopter? Will they come after us?”
The Lucifer Gospel Page 9
