The Sahara Legacy
A SEAN WYATT THRILLER
Ernest Dempsey
ENCLAVE PUBLISHING
Contents
JOIN THE ADVENTURE
Prologue
1. Rub’ al Khali (the Empty Quarter), United Arab Emirates
2. The Empty Quarter
3. Dubai
4. Dubai
5. Dubai
6. Dubai
7. Dubai
8. Dubai
9. The Persian Gulf
10. Dubai
11. Doha, Qatar
12. Giza, Egypt
13. Giza
14. Giza
15. Giza
16. Cairo, Egypt
17. Cairo
18. Libyan Coast
19. Leptis Magna
20. Leptis Magna
21. Dar Falim Prison, Libya
22. Sahara Desert, Libya
23. Bardaï, Chad
24. Bardaï
25. Bardaï
26. Aswan, Egypt
27. Aswan
28. Border of Sudan and Egypt
29. Border of Sudan and Egypt
30. Meroe, Sudan
31. Meroe
32. Sahara Desert, Egypt
33. Sahara Desert, Egypt
34. Sahara Desert, Egypt
35. Sahara Desert, Egypt
36. Chattanooga
Thank You
Other Books By Ernest Dempsey
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgments
JOIN THE ADVENTURE
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Prologue
Chattanooga, Tennessee
1985
The young boy stared at the charts, images, maps, and books littering the wooden table that ran along the length of the room. The wall was covered with dozens more pictures and maps. Notes were attached from one item to another with red strings, kept in place by pushpins of varying colors.
It wasn’t the kind of stuff a typical boy of nine years would be interested in, but he was no typical boy.
His parents loved history. More than that, they loved uncovering things that time forgot—artifacts lost long ago. They spent every waking hour entrenched in their study where the boy now stood. Now and then, his father would take a break to go outside and play catch or kick a ball around the yard. They may have loved their work, but they also knew what was important. The attention they gave their son helped plant the seed for his own interest in history. Even at a young age, he had a deep fascination with the past.
The study was more like a small library. The opposite wall ran all the way to the ceiling with shelves overflowing with books. Though he was too young to understand most of the contents, the boy knew they were books about history. Only a few works of fiction occupied space in the study, and if they did, it was likely because they contained some kind of historical importance.
Something creaked just outside the room, and the boy twitched, snapping his head around to make sure no one was coming. The doorway was empty. He sighed a breath of relief and returned his gaze to the incredible array before him.
His parents didn’t want him going into the study without their supervision. They’d told him on numerous occasions to stay out unless one of them was in there. The boy couldn’t help but feel like they were keeping something from him. He didn’t know what it was, just a sense in his gut. At the moment, his mother and father were toiling away in the kitchen, making dinner as they almost always did together in the evenings. They were under the impression that their young son was up in his room, working on homework. As a third grader, he didn’t have much to do in the way of homework, and so when he finished, he’d quietly made his way down the stairs and into the study for a little clandestine operation.
He moved closer to the table, one of three in the room and the longest of all. Worried his parents would notice if anything was even slightly out of place, he cautiously leafed through the overlapping papers and books.
He didn’t have anything specific in mind with his search. Instead, he simply let curiosity be his guide.
One of the books on the table was open to a sketched drawing of some ruins. It featured tall columns and a triangular façade above them. Nearby were some notes under the heading Socrates. The boy didn’t know what that meant, but he thought he’d heard that name before.
His feet shuffled unconsciously to the right, and he raised his eyes to the wall, following some of the red strings to a point in the middle of the wall amid a cluster of faces both in photographs and drawings. Some of the people in the pictures looked very old. One was bald with a long white beard. Another had a mustache and was in cowboy clothing from the 1800s. Placed intermittently between some of the faces were pictures of grand cathedrals, mosques, and temples.
In the center of it all was what caught the boy’s attention. Seven strings came to a stop on an old piece of paper with a strange symbol drawn in the middle. It was nothing more than a circle with a four-sided cross in the center.
The boy’s eyes narrowed as he followed one of the strings back to its origin—another symbol. It appeared to be nothing more than a sideways figure eight. He traced another string to a different sign, one with a square in the middle connected to four circles. One of the symbols linked to the center was something he’d seen before—a six-pointed star that was prominent on the flag of Israel. Another looked like a crucifix with a loop on top. One was similar to the four-sided cross but was done in graded lines. There was one that looked like an X with a circle around it. The last two he examined were more unusual, appearing to be something from Asian culture.
The boy eased a little closer to the table and leaned in toward the wall, staring at the symbol at the epicenter of everything.
“I thought I told you not to come in here without one of us,” a familiar man’s voice said from the doorway.
The boy spun around, nearly knocking some papers and books off the table in the process. His face flushed red, and his eyes were wide with panic.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Dad. I…I just wanted to see what you and Mom were working on.” The boy stammered through his explanation. He didn’t feel like it was good enough to keep him out of some form of punishment.
His father stepped into the room with a casual gait. At first, the man’s arms were crossed, and he wore a stern look on his face. Once inside the room, though, his expression eased. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled.
“It’s okay, Son. I want you to be interested in what your mother and I do.”
The boy’s face curled in confusion. “Why did you tell me to stay out of here, then?”
The father took his hand from his son’s shoulder and slid it into his pocket. “Because we have a very specific way of doing things. You see all this?” He motioned with his free hand.
The boy nodded.
“This is all a giant puzzle.”
“A puzzle?” the boy asked as he scanned the room of mysteries.
“Yep. Unraveling most of the mysteries of the world is just like solving a puzzle. You have to figure out where the pieces fit and where they don’t. It can take a long time with some puzzles, and often you have to start without some of the pieces.”
“How do you solve a puzzle without all the pieces?”
The father laughed. “Well, you have to go out and find them.”
“Find them?”
“That’s right. You start with a clue. Sometimes it’s a small one, something that everyone else has missed. That clue leads you to a puzzle piece. Or it may lead to another clue. Eve
ntually, when you find the piece, you have to organize it with the other pieces to figure out where they all go.”
The boy turned around slowly and gazed at the walls. His eyes shifted to the table full of what appeared to be random stuff.
“This doesn’t look very organized, Dad.”
The father snorted. “Well, everyone has their own way of doing things. This system works for your mother and me.”
“System?”
“Yep. And all these maps, books, charts, and pictures are pieces to the puzzle. When we figure out how they all go together, we’ll be able to see what we’re looking for.”
The boy frowned. “What are you looking for?”
“Well, that’s part of the fun. We don’t know exactly.”
The father could see his son didn’t fully understand what he was saying, so he went on. “Let me explain. You see that image over there, the one that’s commonly called the Star of David? Although, that isn’t what it’s officially called.” He lined up his finger with the six-pointed star.
The boy nodded, understanding. Even at age nine, he had a firm grasp on the difference between common cultural mistakes and historical facts.
“Well, we think there’s a connection between that symbol and the one in the center here.”
“And there’s a connection between the other symbols and that one, too?”
“Yep. We think so.”
“What does that mean?”
“Funny you should ask. Many of these symbols represent immortality.”
“Immortality?”
The father’s head bobbed up and down. “That’s right. The ability to live forever. Since the dawn of time, mankind has been obsessed with immortality. No one wants to think that their life will come to an end, that their existence will blink out. So, throughout history, people have tried to find a way to keep on living.”
“Did any succeed?” the boy asked.
His father chuckled again and rubbed the boy’s head. “Not that I know of, Son. One of the more famous of the legends was the story of the fountain of youth. A famous explorer named Ponce de León tried to find it. He believed it was located somewhere here in America. He had a particular interest in Florida.”
The boy fell silent for a moment as he gazed upon all the symbols, papers, and maps. “So, you have all this because you’re trying to figure out a way to live forever?”
“Maybe. Our job is to find things that have been missing for some time. In the case of these symbols and their connection to one another, we’re not sure what we’ll find.”
“The fountain of youth?”
“I suppose anything is possible, Son. But in this case, that isn’t what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a lost city.”
“A lost city?”
The father nodded. “That’s right. You see, a long time ago, in the sands of the Sahara Desert, there was a thriving oasis city. You know what an oasis is, right?”
The boy gave his father a derisive glare. “Of course I know what an oasis is, Dad. It’s a place where things flourish in the desert.”
The father smirked. His son was growing up so quickly. And what kind of nine-year-old uses words like flourish?
“Right. Anyway, this city, called Zerzura, was supposedly the location of a vast, ancient treasure.”
The boy’s eyes brightened. “Treasure?”
“I thought you’d like that. Yes, a treasure.”
“What kind of treasure?”
“We don’t know. That’s part of the legend. There might not be any treasure at all.”
The boy frowned. “Then why spend so much time looking for it?”
“Because, Son,” a woman’s voice interrupted from the doorway, “the true value of things isn’t always measured in terms of money.”
The boy cocked his head to the side. He was clearly trying to understand what she meant.
“What your mother is saying, Son, is that there are things in this world that are more valuable than money. For example, there isn’t enough money in the entire universe worth more than you are to me and your mom.”
The boy blushed. “I think I understand what you mean.”
“I thought you would.”
“Dinner’s ready, boys. Time to eat. And you, young man, need to get to bed right after.”
His mother turned around and flitted back toward the kitchen. The young man continued to stare at the webwork of information.
The father came close and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ve been working on this for a long time, your mother and I. If we can ever figure out this puzzle, it will be our family’s legacy.”
“Legacy?”
The father grinned at the boy. “You’ll understand when you get older.” He shook his son to jar him from the information overload. “Come on, Tommy. Let’s get something to eat. The Schultz family legacy can wait.”
Chapter 1
Rub’ al Khali (the Empty Quarter), United Arab Emirates
Sean felt the heat on his skin before any of his other senses kicked in. His eyes itched and burned, dry from a lack of moisture. Opening them was a painful chore. He blinked rapidly to wet them, but his tear ducts did little to ease the irritation. It took a minute before he was able to fully pry them open. When he did, he realized the source of the searing warmth.
He stared up into a perfectly clear blue sky. The white-hot sun blazed just over his left shoulder.
His body ached, like he’d lost a prize fight to someone twice his size. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was parched like the sands of a desert. Another epiphany struck him. He was lying on the slope of a sand dune. He looked over one shoulder and then the other, taking in the sea of rolling dunes around him. He was in a desert.
He tried to move, but his muscles screamed in pain. Aside from the soreness, his wrists and ankles were bound to metal stakes in the ground, the skin rubbed raw from the ropes—a result of wiggling around while unconscious.
“I must have really ticked someone off this time,” he muttered to himself.
“I’m just so thankful you got me into your predicament, too,” a familiar voice said from just above Sean’s head.
“Tommy?” he asked through dry, cracked lips.
Sean strained to tilt his head back to see his friend, but the angle was awkward and his neck wouldn’t bend far enough.
“Who else would follow your rear end into a scenario like this?”
Sean let out a sigh. “How did we end up here?”
“They must have hit your head pretty hard. We were in the market in Dubai, remember?”
Dubai? That doesn’t sound right. Why was I in Dubai? Oh, right. Something about a river or a symbol or something.
“Kind of. Be a lamb, and fill me in on the details while my brain catches up.”
“Really? You don’t remember anything?”
“Do you really think this is the time to be critical? We’re tied to metal stakes in what looks to be the middle of the desert. Wait, are you tied down, too?”
“Of course I’m tied down, you moron. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know, maybe you were angry at me and thought you’d teach me a lesson. Where are we, anyway?”
Sean couldn’t see his friend roll his eyes. “Still not coming back to you, huh?”
“I already told you it wasn’t.”
“We’re in the Empty Quarter, Sean. It’s pretty much the most desolate place on earth.”
“I know what the Empty Quarter is.”
“Sorry, you weren’t exactly clear about what you remember and what you don’t.”
A hot wind rolled over the hill, kicking sand onto the two men.
Sean got a little in his mouth, which only made his thirst even worse. He spat out the sand but couldn’t get rid of the gritty feeling between his teeth.
“Start with the immediate problem,” Sean said after a few seconds of struggling with the sand. “How long have we been here?”
“You
think I started a timer or something?”
“Tommy!”
“Fine. Best I can figure, a couple of hours.”
That explained the dry lips and the burning feeling on his skin.
“You said we were in Dubai? What happened?”
“We were working on a case. We went there to follow a lead. While we were talking to our contact, someone ambushed us. We tried to fight them off, but they hit you over the head, put a bag over my head, and drove us out here, where they staked us to the ground. I assume they want us to suffer a long, slow death.”
“You think?”
Tommy ignored the barb.
“Any idea who brought us out here?”
“You have as much info as I do about that. I didn’t get a good look at them. Even if I did, they’re probably working for someone else.”
“Faceless goons.”
“Always.”
The two fell silent for a moment as another wall of sand blew over them from a gust of wind. They winced, squinting their eyes shut as tight as they could. Last thing either of them needed was sand in their eyes with no way to rub them or flush them out.
“Your parents’ legacy project,” Sean said after the wind subsided again.
“What?”
“That project your parents were working on when we were kids. That’s what we were doing in Dubai. It’s all coming back to me now.”
The Sahara Legacy Page 1
