by Wilbur Smith
shrill and he slapped his hand down on the tabletop. "They are now our
best chance of finding the tomb of Mamose. The very last thing that I
want to happen is that any harm should come to them." He glared at
Nahoot. "I am sending you back to Ethiopia immediately.
Perhaps you will be of some use to me there. You are certainly no use
here."
Nahoot looked disgruntled, but he had better sense than to argue again.
He sat sullenly as von Schiller went on, "You will go to the base camp
and place yourself under the command of Helm. You will take your orders
from him.
Treat them as if they come directly from me. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Herr von Schiller," Nahoot muttered sulkily.
"Do not interfere in any way with Harper and the woman. They must not
even know that you are at the base camp. The Pegasus geological team
will carry on its normal duties." He paused and smiled bleakly, then
went on, "It is most fortunate that Helm has actually discovered very
promising evidence of large deposits of galena, which as you may know is
the ore from which lead is obtained. He will continue the exploratory
work on-these deposits, and if they bear out their promise they will
make the entire operation highly profitable."
"What exactly will be my duties?" Nahoot wanted to know.
"You will be playing the waiting game. I want you there ready to take
advantage of any progress- that Harper makes. However, you are to give
him plenty of elbow room.
You will not alert him by any overflights with the helicopter, or by
approaching his camp. No more midnight raids.
Every move that you make must be cleared with me before, I repeat
before, you take any action."
"If I am to operate under these restrictions, how will I know if Harper
and the woman have made any progress?"
"Colonel Nogo already has a reliable man, a spy, in the monastery. He
will inform us of every move that Harper makes."
"But what about me? What will be my work?"
"You will evaluate the intelligence that Nogo collects.
You are familiar with archaeological methods. You will be able to judge
what Harper is trying to achieve, and you will be able to tell what
success he is enjoying."
"I see,'Nahoot muttered.
"If it were possible I would have gone back to the Abbay gorge myself.
-However, this is not possible. It may take time, months perhaps, before
Harper makes any important progress. You know as well as anybody that
these things take time."
"Howard Carter worked for ten years at Thebes before he found the tomb
of Tutankhamen," Nahoot pointed out maliciously.
"I hope that it will not take that long," said von Schiller coldly. "If
it does, it is very unlikely that you will still be involved with the
search. As for myself, I have a series of very important negotiations
coming up here in Germany, as well as the annual general meeting of the
company. These I cannot miss."
"You will not be coming back to Ethiopia at all, then?" Nahoot perked up
at the prospect of escaping from von Schiller's malignant influence.
"I will come as soon as there is something for me there.
I will be relying on you to decide when my presence is needed."
"What about the stele! I should-'
"You will continue to work on the translation." Von Schiller forestalled
his objections. "You will take a full set of photographs with you to
Ethiopia, and you will continue your work while you are there. I shall
expect you to report to me by satellite, at least once a week, on your
progress."
"When do you want me to leave?"
ly, "Immediately. Today if that is possible. Speak to Frulein Kemper.
She will make your travel arrangements." For the first time during the
interview Nahoot looked happy.
Dolly droned on steadily southeastwards, ig and there was very little to
relieve the boredom of the flight. The dawn was just breaking when they
crossed the African coast at a remote and lonely desert beach that
Jannie had chosen for just this reason.
Once they were over the land there was as little of interest to see as
there had been over the sea. The desert stretched away, bleak and brown
and featureless in every direction.
At irregular intervals they heard Jannie in the cockpit speaking to air
traffic control, but as they were able to hear only half the
conversation they had no idea as to- the identity or the nationality of
the station. Occasionally Jannie dropped the heavily accented English he
was affecting and broke into Arabic. Royan was surprised by Jannie's
fluency in the language, but then as an Afrikaner the guttural sounds
came naturally to him. He was even able to mimic the different accents
and dialects of Libyan and Egyptian convincingly as he tied his way
across the desert.
For the first few hours Sapper pored over his dam drawings; then, unable
to proceed further until he had the exact measurements of the site, he
curled up on his bunk with a paperback novel. The unfortunate author was
unable to hold his attention for long. The open book sagged down over
his face, and the pages fluttered every time he emitted a long grinding
snore.
Nicholas and Royan huddled on her bunk with the chessboard between them,
until hunger overtook them and they moved to the makeshift galley. Here
Royan took the subservient role of bread'sticer and coffee-maker, while
Nicholas demonstrated his artistry in creating a range of Dagwood
sandwiches. They shared the food with Jannie and Fred, perched up behind
the pilots' seats in the cockpit.
"Are we still over Egyptian territory?" Royan asked.
With his mouth full, Jannie pointed out over the port wingtip of Big
Dolly. "Fifty nautical miles out there is Wadi Halfia. My father was
killed there in 1943. He was with the Sixth South African Division. They
called it Wadi Hellfire." He took another monstrous bite of sandwich. "I
never knew the old man. Fred and I landed there once.
Tried to find his grave." He shrugged eloquently. "It's a hell of a big
piece of country. Lots of graves. Very few of- them marked."
Nobody spoke for a while. They chewed their sandwiches, thinking their
own thoughts. Nicholas's father had also fought in the desert against
Rommel. He had been more fortunate than Jannie's father.
Nicholas glanced across at Royan. She was staring out of the window at
her homeland, and there was something so passionate and fraught in her
gaze that Nicholas was startled. The temptation to think of her as an
English girl, like her mother, was at most times irresistible. It was
only in odd moments such as these that he became intensely aware of the
other facets of her being.
She seemed unaware of his scrutiny. Her occupation was total. He
wondered what she was thinking what dark and mysterious thoughts were
smouldering there.
He remembered how she had seized the very first opportunity on their
return from Ethiopia to hurry back to Cairo, and once again a feeling of
disquiet came over him. He won
dered if other emotional ties of which he
was unaware might not transcend those loyalties which he had taken for
granted. He realized with something of a shock that they had been
together for only a few short weeks, and despite the strong attraction
that she exerted over him he knew very little about her.
processor' Alost POPU
At that moment she started and looked round at him quickly. Crowded as
they were at the portside window, they stared into each other's eyes
from a distance of only a foot or so. It was only for a few seconds but
what he saw in her eyes, the dark shadows of guilt or some other
emotion, did nothing to allay his misgivings.
She turned back to Jannie, leaning over his shoulder to ask, "When will
we cross the Nile?"
"On the other side of the border. The Sudanese government concentrate
all their attentions on the rebels in the far south. There are some
stretches of the river here in the north that are completely deserted.
Pretty soon now we will be going down right on the deck, to get under
the radar pings from the Sudanese stations around Khartoum.
We will slip through one of the gaps."
jannie lifted the aeronautical map on its clipboard from his lap, and
held it so she could see it. With one thick, stubby finger he showed
Royan their intended route.
it was drawn in with blue wax pencil, "Big Dolly has taken this route so
often that she could fly it without my hands on the stick, couldn't you,
old girl?" He patted the instrument panel affectionately.
Two hours later, when Nicholas and Royan were back at the chess board in
the main cabin, Janrfie called them on the PA, "Okay, folks. No need to
panic. We are going to lose some altitude now. Come up front and watch
the show."
Strapped into fold-down seats in the back of the flight deck, they were
treated to a superb exhibition of low flying by Fred. The descent was so
rapid that Royan felt they were about to fall out of the sky, and that
she had left her stomach back there somewhere at thirty thousand feet.
Fred levelled Big Dolly out only feet above the desert floor, so low
that it was like riding in a high-speed bus rather than flying. Fred
lifted her delicately over each undulation of the tawny, sun'scorched
terrain, skimming the black rock ridges and standing on a wingtip to
swerve around the occasional wind-blasted hill.
"Nile crossing in seven and a half minutes." jannie punched, the
stopwatch fixed to the control wheel in front of him. "And unless my
navigation has gone all to hell there should be an island shaped like a
shark directly under us as we cross."
As the needle of the stopwatch came up to the mark, the broad,
glittering expanse of the river flashed beneath them. Royan caught a
brief glimpse of a green island with a few thatched huts on the tip, and
a dozen dugout canoes lying on the narrow beach.
"Well, the old man hasn't lost his touch yet," Fred remarked. "Still
good for a few thousand miles before we trade him in."
"Not so much of the old man stuff, you little squirt. I have some tricks
up my sleeve that I haven't even used yet."
"Ask Mara." Fred grinned affectionately at his father as he banked on to
a new southwesterly heading, and with his wingtip so close to the ground
that he scattered a herd of camels feeding in the sparse thorn scrub.
They lumbered away across the plain, each trailing a wisp of white dust
like a wedding train.
"Another three hours' flying time to the rendezvous." Jannie looked up
from the map. "Spot on! We should land forty minutes before sunset.
Couldn't be better,'
"I' better go back and change into my hiking gear, then." Royan went
back into the main cabin, pulled her bag from under the bunk and
disappeared into the lavatory. When' she emerged twenty minutes later
she wore khaki culottes and a cotton top.
"These boots were made for walking." She stamped them on the deck.
"That's fine." Nicholas watched her from the bunk.
"But how about that knee?"
t vopuiuj ProcesV
"It will get me there," she said, defensively.
"You mean I am to be deprived of the pleasure of back acking you again?"
The Ethiopian mountains came up so subtly on the eastern horizon that
Royan was not aware of them until Nicholas pointed out to her the faint
blue outline against the brighter blue of the African sky.
"Almost there." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Let's go up to the
flight deck."
Looking forward through the windshield there was no landmark ahead of
them - just the vast brown savannah, speckled with the black dots of
acacia trees.
"Ten minutes to go," Jannie intoned. "Anyone see anything?" There was no
reply, and they all stared ahead.
"Five minutes."
"Over there!" Nicholas pointed over his shoulder.
4 "That's the course of the Blue Nile." A denser grove of thorn trees
formed a dark line far ahead. "And there is the smokestack of the
derelict sugar'mill on the river bank.
Mek Nimmur says that the airstrip is about three miles from the mill."
"Well, if it is, it's not shown, on the chart," Jannie grumbled. "One
minute before we are on the coordinates."
The minute ticked off slowly on the stopwatch.
"Still nothing-' Fred broke off as a red flare shot up from the earth
directly ahead and flashed past Big Dolly's JI nose. Everyone in the
cockpit smiled and relaxed with relief.
"Right on the nose." Nicholas patted Jannie's shoulder in
congratulations. "Couldn't have done better myself."
Fred climbed a few hundred feet and came round in a one-eighty turn. Now
there were two signa I fires burning out there on the plain - one with
black smoke,, the other sending a column of white straight up into the
still evening sky. It was only when they were a kilometer out that they
were able to make out the faint outline of the overgrown and
long'disused landing strip. Roseires airstrip had been built twenty
years before by a company that tried to grow sugar cane under irrigation
from the Blue Nile. But Africa had won again and the company had passed
into oblivion, leaving this feeble scrape mark on the plain as its
epitaph.
Mek Nimmur had chosen this remote and deserted place for the rendezvous.
"No sign of a reception committee," Jannie grunted.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Continue your approach," Nicholas told him. "There should be another
flare - ah, there it is!" The ball of fire shot up from a clump of thorn
trees at the far end -of the runway, and for the first time they were
able to make out human figures in the bleak landscape. They had stayed
hidden until the very last moment.
"That's Mek, all right! Go ahead and land."
As Big Dolly finished her roll-out and the end of the rough and pitted
runway came up ahead, a figure in camouflage fatigues popped up ahead of
them. With a pair of paddles it signalled them to taxi into the space
between two of the tallest thorn trees.
Jannie cut the engines and grinned
at them over his shoulder. "Well,
boys and girls, looks like we pulled off another lucky one!'
Then from the height of Big Dolly's-cockpit there was no mistaking the
commanding figure of Mek Nimmur as he emerged from the cover of the
clump of acacia trees. Only now did they realize that the trees had been
shrouded with camouflage netting; this was why they had not been able to
spot any sign of human presence from the air. As soon as the loading
ramp was lowered, Mek Nimmur came striding up it.
"Nicholas! They embraced and, after Mek had kissed him noisily on each
cheek, he held Nicholas at arm's was proce Wolrlc, length and studied
his face, delighted to see him again. "So I was right! You are up to
your old tricks. Not simply a dikdik shoot, was it?"
"How can I lie to an old friend?"Nicholas shrugged.
Hell' "It always came easy to you," Mek laughed, "but I am lad we are
going to have some fun together. Life has been very boring recently."
"I bet!'Nicholas punched his shoulder affectionately.
A slim, graceful figure followed Mek up the ramp. In the olive-green
fatigues Nicholas hardly recognized Tessay until she spoke. She wore
canvas para boots and a cloth cap that made her look like a boy.
"Nicholas! Royan! Welcome back!" Tessay cried. The two women embraced as
enthusiastically as the men had done.
"Come on, you Ous!" Jannie protested. "This isn't Woodstock. I have to
get back to Malta tonight. I want to take off before dark."
Swiftly Mek took charge of the offloading. His men swarmed aboard and
manhandled the pallets forward on the rollers, while Sapper started up
his beloved front-end loader and used it to run the cargo down the ramp
and stack it in the acacia grove under the camouflage netting.
With so many hands to help it went swiftly, and Big Dolly's hold was
emptied just as the sun settled wearily on to the horizon, and the short
African twilight bled all colour from the landscape.
Jannie and Nicholas had one last hurried discussion in the cockpit while
Fred completed his flight checks. They went over the plans and radio
procedures one last time.
Four days from today," Jannie agreed, as they shook hands briefly.
"Let the man go, Nicholas," Mek bellowed from below.
"We must get across the border before dawn."
They watched Big Dolly taxi down to the end of the strip and swing
