The Shroud Key (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

After an hour, Sameh takes us by surprise when he once more pulls off the road, begins heading across another seemingly forever stretch of wide open desert. The forever stretch is interrupted by a mountain range way off in the distance and in between it, a valley. I know these mountains to be constructed entirely of sandstone and Swiss-cheesed with thousands of caves, some long and large, others small and barely wide enough to fit a man should he crawl inside one of them on his belly.

The mountain range is deceiving.

What appears to be so close you can just about reach around and touch it, is really about fifty kilometers away. But that fifty klicks won’t take us long to traverse with Sameh flooring it, pushing the Land Cruiser as hard as he can without risking a boil over in the ever elevating desert heat.

Another hour passes before he brings the truck to a stop at the base of a series of foothills that lead to the mountains, and kills the engine.

“We do the rest on foot in order to avoid a visible dust cloud from our tires,” he says, turning to me. “If your information is correct, Chase, the dig will be one kilometer from here, on the other side of those hills.”

I shoot Anya a look over my left shoulder.

“You good with this, boss? A klick is a little more than a half-mile.”

“So long as you’re good with it,” she says. “And I’m not your boss, Ren Man.”

“You’re the bank. The bank is always the boss.” I smile when I say it. But she doesn’t.

We file out of the truck, gather weapons, ammunition, and other essentials including flares, rope, tape, binoculars, water, granola bars, first aid kit, keffiyehs, duct tape, sunglasses, two-way radios, pistols, grenades, two Ak47s with six extra banana clips, and a good old fashioned, Soviet made RPG with three warheads.

Sameh, guide of guides, comes prepared. But then, I’m certain that Checco had something to do with assisting in our supply of weaponry and survival gear.

Before we begin the trek, Sameh turns to us while pointing at the sun-baked hill directly before us.

“There is a trail that leads up through that hill,” he says. “Once at the top we should have excellent cover with an even more excellent view of the valley beyond and the dig. Hopefully, we will spot Dr. Manion alive and well.”

“Hopefully,” I repeat, adjusting the strap on my satchel bag so that it doesn’t interfere with the AK47 and the RPG rounds I’ve elected to heft while Sameh straps the launcher to his back.

“He’s okay,” Anya says, her beautiful brown eyes now hidden behind a pair of Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses. “I can feel it.” She too has been armed with an AK. Lucky girl.

“Let’s move, Sameh,” I insist, feeling the need to get moving while our employer’s optimism lasts. “I want this to be a quick in-and-out job.”

“Your wish is my command, good sir,” he says, leading the way.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” I say to Anya.

“Your ears need no adjusting, Ren Man,” she giggles.

I walk.

Like I’ve said before, distance in the desert is deceiving. So is the rate of vertical climb on what Sameh describes as a “hill.” There’s not a tree to be seen in this seemingly lifeless arid country, so the trail is really just a footpath that over the many centuries has been cut and carved into the sandstone with the sandaled or even bare feet of the many nomads that at one time or another throughout history, have called this inhospitable territory their home.

An hour of climbing passes before we’re at the top of the hill. Almost immediately we make our way to the opposite site of the hilltop and look down upon the dig.

“Get down,” I order, as all three of us collapse to our bellies. Bringing my binoculars to my eyes I make out a good-sized excavation which is going on outside the mouth of a cave. Behind it is a large tent that’s been set up as a bivouac area. There’s a 22 gauge rail-bed that’s been set up at the mouth of the tent and that runs into the interior of the cave and no doubt goes for quite a distance inside the mountain. Parked beside the tent is a pair of 1990’s era Toyota pickup trucks, one of which contains a tripod-mounted 30 cal. machinegun set in the bed.

God knows archaeologists require the use of 30 cals…

Parked maybe fifty feet beyond the trucks is a helicopter. An old retrofitted Huey that must date back to the mid-1970s. The entire perimeter is surrounded by armed guards wearing the traditional headdress and light-weight, ankle-length kanduras or tunics of the Muslim Brotherhood. The white converse and Keds sneakers they choose for footwear make them look almost clownish. But I know these men to be steadfast in their beliefs and extremely lethal in their courage. The Japanese Kamikazes of World War Two have nothing on these would-be martyrs.

“You see him?” Sameh begs.

“Give me a sec,” I say. “There’s some people moving in and out of the cave. He could be one of them.” Now handing the binocs to Anya. “You see him?”

She takes the binoculars in hand, sights in on the mouth of the cave for a few moments.

“That’s him,” she says. “In the green shirt and the khaki hat … That’s him … That’s Andre.”

“Allow me,” I say, stealing the binoculars from her. Eyeing the cave, I see the green-shirted man. Dr. Andre Manion. He’s a little bit thinner and grayer than the man I remember from eight years ago, but he is most definitely the same man. From my vantage point up on the hill, he appears to be arguing with someone who has not quite come into view since he is still hidden under the tent.

“What are you seeing?” Sameh poses.

“Hold onto your panties, Fixer,” I say. That’s when I see who Manion is arguing with. It’s the suited man from the King’s Hotel bar and the stocky leather jacketed goon who took a shot at me inside Amun’s antique store. If the information Cip fed me back in Florence is correct, the suited man is an oil tycoon, and a very rich member of Cairo Muslim Brotherhood. He alone would possess the resources to sponsor a dig for the Jesus remains in the desert. He would also know of some interested buyers on the archaeological black market once the bones are found. The suited man and his buddies must be choppering themselves in and out of the dig on a daily basis.

I roll over onto my side, face Sameh, hand him the binocs. I begin to explain about the suited man and the beefy leather-jacketed one. How they went after me at Amun’s less than twenty-four hours ago.

Binoculars pressed against his eye sockets, he gazes at the two men in question, and exhales a long deep sigh.

“They are very bad people. Very wealthy and very powerful. If they get to us, they will kill us … Behead us, more than likely. Do it on the internet for all the world to see. They will pretend to give credit to the Muslim Brotherhood or perhaps even Al Qaeda, and thus wash their hands of it.”

“The only reason they haven’t killed Manion is they need him,” I suggest.

“How are we going to get him out of that hornet’s nest without getting stung to death?” Anya inquires.

“How about we go all Bruce Willis on them,” I offer. “Crash the joint, guns ablazin’.”

I roll onto my side, face a nonresponsive Sameh and Anya.

“In all seriousness,” I go on, “we’ve got two choices. We can try and bust up the camp now, starting with taking out those guards in broad daylight. Or, we can take the slow and methodical approach and hit them under the cover of darkness. It’s your money Anya, and Sameh, it’s your ass.”

“Awfully dark in this desert at night,” Sameh instructs. “We have night vision, but it’s no guarantee that it will be effective should the wind decide to pick up again.” He pauses for a minute to think. Then, “I’m sorry to say it, but we need to take him now. During the daylight.” He smiles the smile of the optimist. “But I believe we can do it, Chase.”

“Okay,” I say. “We know what we’re working with. It’s too far for me to perform a flanking maneuver, so we’ll have to go with the next best option.”

“Which is?” Anya says.

“I’m going to politely walk right into their camp, and kindly ask them to release your husband.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Minutes later I have a 9mm strapped to my waist, another shoulder-holstered under my leather jacket. I have three grenades mounted to my leather belt and a fighting knife secured to my ankle with duct tape. Just for good measure, a pair of brass knuckles are resting at the ready inside my jacket pocket.

“You all know what to do,” I say. “In exactly thirty minutes, we meet right back at this spot. All goes well, I will have Manion with me. If by some slim chance, I don’t make it back here within one hour, don’t wait any longer. Just go and live to rescue Andre another day. Understood?”

Anya nods like she’s totally down with my plan. If you want to call it that. But I can smell the fear oozing off her body. Or perhaps the fear is my own. Doesn’t matter. We just have to live with the fear, the same as we must live with the hot sun above our heads and the dry sand beneath out feet. Sameh raises up his right hand, rests it on my shoulder.

“Salem assalamu alaikum,” he says. “You are my friend. Now, yallah. Go … Yallah … Go.”

Turning back to Anya, I take hold of her arm, pull her into me, kiss her hard on the mouth. Pulling away, I say, “Wish me luck, baby.”

“Don’t get yourself killed, Ren Man,” she says. “Heaven would bore you to death.”

“And hell would never take me in.”

With that, I begin descending the hill on its easterly slope so that I can maintain cover for as long as possible. I won’t enjoy that cover for very long, but it’s all I’ve got to work with. I also know that by the time I’ve reached the valley and begin making an all-out sprint towards the dig, Sameh and Anya will be keeping the armed bandits busy on the opposite side of the camp. That should leave me with only the suited man and his burly goon to deal with. In theory at least.

At the bottom of the hill, in the mouth of the valley, I pull out my hip-holstered, 9mm, cock a round into the chamber, thumb the safety off. What I wouldn’t give right now for a horse. Or a camel. Maybe a motorcycle. But all I’ve got to rely upon are my legs. Legs that have seen better days.

Oh well, time to go to work…

Time to steal back my old boss, Dr. Andre Manion, and finally find the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, grab my ticket back to New York and my daughter. Sounds simple, right?

I run.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Small arms fire erupts from out on my left flank. One of the RPGs is triggered. I don’t need to see it to recognize the sound I came to know so well during the first Gulf War. Its lethal warhead swooshes and sings a high-pitched song across the flat expanse of desert valley, takes out the interior of the chopper cockpit like a vengeful God on a bad day. A really, really bad day.

Good old, Sameh. Looks like he knows how to throw one hell of a party…

I sprint past the burning chopper feeling the heat from the flame while a half a dozen Muslim bandits shouting out Arabic curses focus their fire into the open valley in the opposite direction.

Ducking down before the first Toyota pickup, I see the suited man run out of the tent, followed by his leather-jacketed goon. Almost at the same time, I see a man with a green shirt and a khaki hat emerge from the cave.

It’s Manion.

“What in the Lord’s name is happening?” Manion demands.

The suited, mustached man raises up his right arm, points an extended index finger at Manion.