“I heard what you told him in the Hercules, love,” Sam replied. “We’re doing this because it is necessary.” He looked at her. “You did mean what you told him, aye? Or did you just want to make him feel less shitty?”
Nina was reluctant to answer, using her chewing as a stalling method.
“I just know one thing,” Sam shared, “and that is that Purdue was tortured by the Black Sun and left for dead… and that alone begs for all systems go for a bloodbath.”
After Nina swallowed down her candy she looked at the stars being born one by one over the unknown horizon they were heading into, wondering how many of those were potentially diabolical. “The nursery rhyme makes more sense now, you know? Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. How I wonder what you are.”
“Never thought about it that way, actually, but there is some mystery to it. You’re right. Also, wishing upon a falling star,” he added, looking at the beautiful Nina sucking at her fingertips to savor the chocolate. “It makes you think why a falling star would have the power to make your wishes come true, like a genie.”
“And you know how evil those fuckers really are, right? If you base your desires on the supernatural, you are bound to get your ass kicked, I reckon. You’re not supposed to use the fallen angels, or demons, whatever the hell people sum them up as, to feed your greed. That is why anyone using…” She went quiet. “Sam, is that the rule you and Purdue are applying to Prof. Imru or to Karsten?”
“What rule? There is no rule,” he defended blandly, his eyes fixed on the difficult road in the growing darkness.
“That Karsten’s greed would be his downfall, perhaps, using the Magician and King Solomon’s diamonds to rid the world of him?” she guessed, sounding awfully certain of herself. It was time for Sam to come clean. The feisty historian was no fool, and above that, she was part of their team, so she deserved to know what was going on between Purdue and Sam and let in on what they were hoping to achieve.
Nina napped for about three hours straight. Sam did not complain, even though he was totally knackered and fighting to stay awake on the monotonous road that looked like a crater with bad acne, at best. By eleven o’clock, the stars stood out in pristine glamour against the untainted skies, but Sam was too busy admiring the wetlands flanking the dirt road they were driving toward the lake.
“Nina?” he said, rousing her as gently as possible.
“We th—, we there yet?” she murmured in a daze.
“Almost,” he replied, “but I need you to see something.”
“Sam, I am in no mood for your juvenile sexual advances right now,” she frowned, still croaking like an animated mummy.
“No, I’m serious,” he persisted. “Look. Just have a look out your window and tell me if you see what I see.”
Laboriously she obliged. “I see darkness. It’s the middle of the night.”
“The moon is full, so it is not completely dark. Tell me what you notice about the landscape,” he pressed urgently. Sam sounded confused and upset at the same time, something quite uncharacteristic about him, so Nina knew it had to be important. She looked more keenly, trying to see what he was referring to. It was not until she remembered that Ethiopia was mainly an arid and desert landscape that she realized what he meant.
“We are driving through water?” she asked carefully. Then the full punch of the oddity hit her and she exclaimed, “Sam, why are we driving through water?”
The Jeep’s tires were wet, although the road was not flooded. On both sides of the gravel road, the moon illuminated the creeping shallows that rippled in the mild wind. Since the road was slightly elevated above the surrounding harsh ground, it had not yet been immersed as much as the rest of the vicinity.
“We’re not supposed to be,” Sam replied, shrugging. “As far as I know, this country is known for drought and the landscape is supposed to be bone dry.”
“Wait,” she said, flicking on the roof light to check the map Adjo gave them. “Let me see, where are we now?”
“Just passed Gondar about fifteen minutes ago,” he answered. “We should be close to Addis Zemen now, which is another fifteen minutes or so to Wereta, our destination before we boat on the lake.”
“Sam, this road is about seventeen kilometers away from the lake!” she gasped after measuring the distance between the road and the nearest water body. “There is no way that this could be the lake’s water. Could it?”
“Nope,” Sam agreed. “But what gets me is that, according to Adjo and Purdue’s preliminary research for this two-day scavenge, this region has not had any rain in over two months! So I would like to know, where the hell the lake got the extra water to floor this fucking road.”
“This is,” she shook her head, unable to figure it out, “un… natural.”
“You do know what this means, right?” Sam sighed. “We’ll have to get to the monastery entirely by water.”
Nina did not seem too unhappy about the new developments “I think it’s a good thing. Moving entirely in the water has its perks — it will be less conspicuous than doing the tourist thing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I propose we procure a canoe in Wereta and make a whole trip of it from there,” she suggested. “No changing of transport. No meeting with locals to do so either, see? We get a canoe, slap on some robes and bring the Word to our diamond-hoarding brothers.”
Sam smiled in the pale roof light.
“What?” she asked, equally amused.
“Oh, nothing. I just like your new found criminal integrity, Dr. Gould. We must be wary not to lose you to the Dark Side completely.” He chuckled.
“Oh, fuck off,” she said, smiling. “I’m here to get the job done. Besides, you know how I detest religion. Anyway, what the fuck are these monks harboring diamonds for anyway?”
“Good point,” Sam conceded. “Can’t wait to raid a bunch of humble, gentle people of the last wealth their world has.” As he feared, Nina did not care for his sarcasm and she answered with an even toned, “Aye.”
“By the way, who is going to give us a canoe at one in the morning, Dr. Gould?” Sam asked.
“Nobody, I suppose. We’ll just have to borrow one. It will be a good five hours before they rise to notice that it’s gone. By that time we will be picking off the monks, right?” she ventured.
“Godless,” he smiled, bringing the Jeep down a gear to navigate the tricky potholes obscured by the strange tide of water. “Absolutely godless, you are.”
28
Grave Robbing 101
By the time they reached Wereta, the Jeep was threatening to sink under three feet of water. The road had disappeared a few miles back, but they soldiered on towards the edge of the lake. Cover of night was imperative to their success of sneaking onto Tana Qirkos before too many people frequented their path.
“We’ll have to stop, Nina,” Sam sighed hopelessly. “What worries me is how we’ll get back to the rendezvous point if the Jeep drowns.”
“Worries for another time,” she replied, resting her hand against Sam’s cheek. “For now we must get the job done. Just take it one feat at a time, otherwise we will, excuse the pun, drown in concern and fuck up the mission.”
Sam couldn’t argue with that. She was right, and her suggestion not to get overwhelmed before a solution could present itself made perfect sense. He halted the vehicle at the entrance of the town in the early morning hours. From there they’d need to find a boat of sorts to reach the island as soon as possible. It was a long way to go to even reach the lake banks, let alone paddling to the island.
In town there was chaos. Houses were disappearing under rising water, and most cried ‘witchcraft’ because there’d been no rain to cause the flooding. Sam asked one of the locals sitting on the steps of the town hall where to get a canoe. The man refused to speak to the tourists until Sam whipped out a roll of Ethiopian birr to pay with.