There was wild confusion among the tents now. German soldiers had run to the airstrip and, in disarray, were returning. Another group of armed men, their faces darkened from the smoke of the ruin, had begun to load a canvas-covered truck with the Ark: Dietrich supervised them, shouting orders, his voice raised to a nervous pitch. He would be relieved and happy when this wretched crate was finally safe in Berlin, but meantime he didn't trust Belloq-he'd noticed some fierce light of purpose, a devious propose, in the Frenchman's eyes. And behind this purpose something that looked manic, distant, as if the archaeologist had gone deeper into communing with himself. It was a look of madness, he thought, somewhat alarmed to realize he'd seen a similar look on the Fuhrer's face when he'd been in Bavaria with Belloq. Maybe they were alike, this Frenchman and Adolf Hitler. Maybe their strength, as well as their madness, was what separated them from ordinary men. Dietrich could only guess. He stared at the crate going inside the truck now and he wondered about Jones-but Jones had to be dead, he had to be entombed in that dreadful chamber, surely. Even so, the Frenchman seemed convinced that the American had been behind the sabotage. Maybe this animosity, this rivalry, that existed between those two was yet another aspect of Belloq's lunacy.
Maybe.
There was no time to ruminate on the Frenchman's state of mind now. There was the Ark and the road to Cairo and the dread prospect of further sabotage along the way. Sweating, hating this dreary desert, this heat, he shouted once more at the men loading the truck-feeling somewhat sorry for them. Like himself, they were a long way from the Fatherland.
Marion and Indy had found their way behind some barrels, watching the Arabs run back and forth in confusion, watching the Germans load the truck. Their faces were blackened from the convulsions of the explosion and Marion, visibly pale even beneath the soot, had an appearance of extreme fatigue.
"You took your damn time," she complained.
"I got you out, didn't I?"
"At the last possible moment," she said. "How come you always leave things till then?"
He glanced at her, rubbed his fingertips in her face, stared at the soot imbedded in the whorls of his fingerprints, then he turned back to peer at the truck. "They're taking the Ark somewhere-which is what I'm more interested in right now."
A bunch of Arabs were running past now. Among them, to his pleasure and surprise, Indy saw Sallah. He stuck out his foot, tripping the Egyptian, who tumbled over and got up again with a look of delight on his face.
"Indy! Marion! I thought I'd lost you."
"Likewise," Indy said. "What happened?"
"They barely pay the Arabs any attention, my friend. They assume we are fools, ignorant fools- besides, they can hardly tell one of us from the other. I slipped away and they weren't paying close attention in any case."
He slid behind the barrels, breathing hard.
"I assume you caused the explosion?"
"You got it."
"You don't know they are now planning to take the Ark in the truck to Cairo?"
"Cairo?"
"Presumably Berlin afterward."
"I doubt Berlin," Indy said. "I can't imagine Belloq allowing the Ark to reach Germany before he's dabbled with it."
An open staff car drew up alongside the truck. Belloq and Dietrich got inside with a driver and an armed guard. There was the sound of feet scuffling across the sand; ten or so armed soldiers climbed up into the rear of the truck with the Ark.
"It's hopeless," Marion said.
Indy didn't answer. Watch, he told himself. Watch and concentrate. Think. Now there was a second staff car, top open, with a machine-gun mounted in the back; a gunner sat restlessly behind it. In the front of this car Gobler was positioned behind the wheel. Alongside Gobler was Arnold Toht.
Marion drew her breath in sharply when she saw Toht. "He's a monster."
"They are all monsters," Sallah said.
"Monsters or not," she answered, "it looks more and more hopeless by the moment."
Machine gun, armed soldiers, Indy thought. Maybe something was possible. Maybe he didn't have to accept hopelessness as the only answer. He watched this convoy begin to pull out, swaying over the sands.
"I'm going to follow them," he said.
"How?" Marion asked. "You can run that fast?"
"I have a better idea." Indy got up. "You two get back to Cairo as fast as you can and arrange some kind of transportation to England-anything, a ship, a plane, I don't care."
"Why England?" Marion said.
"There are no language barriers and no Nazis," Indy said. He looked at Sallah. "Where can we meet in Cairo?"
Sallah looked thoughtful for a moment. "There is Omar's garage, where he keeps his truck. Do you know the Square of Snakes?"
"Gruesome," Indy said. "But I couldn't forget that address, could I?"
"In the Old City," Sallah said.
"I'll be there."
Marion stood up. "How do I know you'll get there in one piece?"
"Trust me."
He kissed her as she caught his arm. She said, "I wonder if a time will come when you'll stop leaving me?"
He skipped away, weaving between the barrels.
"We can use my truck," Sallah said to Marion after he'd gone. "Slow but safe."
Marion stared into space. What was it about Indy that so affected her, anyhow? He wasn't exactly a tender lover, if he could be called a lover of any kind. And he leaped in and out of her life in the manner of a jumping-bean. So what the devil was it? Some mysteries you just can't get to the bottom of, she thought. Some you don't even want to.
Indy had seen the stallions tethered to poles in a place between the abandoned airstrip and the excavations: two of them, a white Arabian and a black one, shaded from the sun by a strip of green canvas. Now, having left Marion and Sallah, he ran toward the stallions, hoping they'd still be there. They were. My lucky day, he thought.
He approached them cautiously. He hadn't ridden for years and he wondered if it was true that horseback riding, like bicycle riding, was something you never forgot once you'd learned it. He hoped so. The black stallion, snorting, pounding the sand with its hooves, reared up as he came near; the white horse, on the other hand, regarded him in a docile way. He heaved himself up on its white back, tugged at its mane, and felt it buck mildly, then move in the direction of his tugging. Go, he thought, and he rode the animal out of the canvas shelter, digging its sides with his heels. He galloped the animal, forcing it across the dunes, down gulleys, over ridges. It moved beautifully, responding to his gestures without complaint. He had to cut the convoy off somewhere along the mountainous roads between here and Cairo. After that-what the hell?
There was much to be said for spontaneity.
And the thrill of the chase.
The convoy struggled along a narrow mountain road that rose higher and higher, moving through hairpin turns that overlooked passes whose depths caused vertigo. Indy, astride the stallion, watched it go; it labored, grinding upward, some distance below him. And the guys in the trucks, uniformed zombies that they might be, still had rifles, and you had to respect, with great caution, any armed man. Especially when they were component parts of a small army and you-with more reckless courage than reason-were alone on an Arabian horse.
He urged the steed down a slope now, a slope of scrub and shale and soft soil, and its hooves created tiny avalanches. Then he hit the strip of road behind the rear staff car, once again hoping he wouldn't be seen. Fat chance, he thought.
He made the animal weave just as the gunner in the rear car opened fire, spraying the soft surface of the road with bullets that made the horse dance. The bullets echoed against the sides of the mountain. He drove the horse harder now, almost breaking the animal, and then he was passing the staff car, seeing the surprised faces of the Germans inside. The gunner swung his machine gun and it spluttered, kicked, running out of ammunition as he blasted futilely away at the man on the horse. Toht, seated beside the driver, pulled a pistol, but Indy was already obscured from the staff car by the truck, riding alongside the cab now. The German fired the pistol anyway. His shots ripped through the canvas of the truck.