‘It’s a price we’ll have to pay.’ He signalled to the other Mossad agents.
‘It won’t work,’ Eddie told him urgently. ‘We’re too far off, and there’s too many trees in the way. You won’t even get half of them before they regroup.’
‘We can still take out the leaders, though.’ Weapon ready, Zane started to move out from his hiding place.
Eddie pulled him back. ‘Jared,’ he said, fixing the angry young man with a firm stare, ‘trust me. It won’t work.’
Zane glared at him, the other operatives watching intently. Then he muttered a curse. ‘So what do we do?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing we can do; not yet, anyway. We need to get a better position, for a start.’
‘But we’ve got the higher ground here — and surprise.’
‘Which means sod-all if you don’t have decent line of sight.’
Zane clenched his jaw in frustration, but finally nodded. ‘Okay. We’ll wait.’ Another signal, telling his men to hold. ‘But we can’t let them get away with the water. If they start to pull out, then we attack — whether we’re in a good position or not.’
‘We might not need to,’ said Nina as furious shouting arose from below. ‘I don’t think they’ve found what they expected…’
Kroll eagerly led the way through the entrance. Schneider, Leitz and Rasche followed, the latter bringing Banna with him. The Nazi leader shone his torch around the underground space, the beam finding…
Very little. The short passage from the surface opened into a small chamber, the walls lined with murals and Greek text. A stone basin was set into a side wall. Kroll’s eye was instantly caught by the glint of silver. He hurried to it, finding the elongated oval bowl lined with the precious metal. It was filled with water — but only a small amount, the shallow receptacle not much larger than the size of two cupped hands. A thin silver spout projected from the wall just above it. Glistening at the tip of the metal pipe was a water droplet. He watched it intently, but it showed no signs of growing larger.
‘Is that it?’ asked Leitz.
‘Is that it?’ echoed Rasche, with scathing disappointment instead of curiosity. ‘I could spit more than that! That much water wouldn’t even last us a month!’
‘Shut up,’ Kroll snapped, dipping a fingertip into the liquid. He felt the same electric tingle as he had over seventy years earlier, the very first time he touched the water hidden beneath the farmhouse.
‘Have we found it?’ said Schneider. ‘Is it the spring?’
‘It is,’ Kroll replied, feeling relief… and a rising anger. Rasche was right: the amount of water in the brimming basin was only a tiny fraction of what they needed. ‘But—’
Rasche completed his thought. ‘But not enough. There isn’t enough!’ he erupted. ‘We would have been better off if we’d stayed in the Enklave and never even gone to Egypt!’
The Nazi leader turned upon him. ‘Are you questioning me?’
‘You’re damn right I am! We’ve lost our base, we’ve lost over half our men, we’ve lost what little water we had left — and you’ve taken money from a lot of very powerful people with the promise of a share of — of this piss-puddle!’ He stabbed a finger at the basin.
Schneider glanced towards the soldiers staring through the entrance. ‘Not in front of the men. We can’t afford to seem divided.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, you degenerate little shit!’ Rasche shouted, before glaring at the white-clad man. ‘And I doubt even if we refund them that Leitz will return his percentage.’
The Luxembourger raised his hands in feigned apology. ‘All transactions are final. That has always been our deal.’
‘There won’t be any refunds,’ growled Kroll. ‘This is an all-or-nothing mission. And I’m not willing to accept nothing.’
Rasche made a disgusted sound, then stalked out. ‘We’ve thrown it all away!’ he fired back over his shoulder.
Kroll scowled after him before rounding on Banna, who had been watching with fearful incomprehension. ‘Dr Banna!’ he barked, reverting to English. ‘We followed your instructions to this place. But this is not a spring; it is not even a trickle.’ The droplet of water on the spout’s tip had still not swelled enough to drip into the basin. ‘Where is the spring? Tell me!’
‘I–I do not know!’ Banna cried. ‘This is what Andreas described — we came through the Gate of Alexander, just as the text said.’
‘And what else did it say? If you’re hiding something—’
‘You still have pictures of the relic!’ Banna interrupted, finding some small cinder of defiance. ‘You read the Greek text yourself — and you did what it said to do! It brought us here.’ He gestured at the bowl. ‘That is the spring, where Andreas said it was hidden. I am sorry it is not all you hoped for, but there it is.’
Kroll’s hand moved as if to draw his holstered Luger, but then withdrew. ‘I will bring the photographs. Read the text again, and make sure you have not missed anything.’ He glowered at the young archaeologist. ‘If you cannot find the spring, you are of no use to me — just like the American girl. Remember that. Schneider, watch him,’ he ordered as he left the chamber. Leitz followed, leaving Schneider to hold his prisoner at gunpoint.
The soldiers looked on uncertainly as he emerged. ‘Well?’ demanded Rasche. ‘Now what do we do?’
‘We wait for the Arab to read the Greek text again,’ Kroll replied. He ordered an underling to give a folder of photos to Banna, then mopped his damp brow. ‘We’ll make camp in the meantime. On the flat ground, down there. I’ve had enough of hills.’
‘And what if the Arab doesn’t come up with anything?’
‘Then I’ll tear this mountain apart until we find the spring.’ The obese SS officer stared at his subordinate, daring him to make a challenge; when none was forthcoming, he began to waddle down the slope.
‘Are they leaving?’ Nina asked, partly in hope and partly disbelief, as the Nazis filed away after Kroll. From the team’s position above the dig site she had been unable to see what was inside, but even at a distance it was clear from Rasche’s body language alone that it had not lived up to expectations.
‘No, Kroll said something about making camp,’ Zane told her.
‘Must be going back to that flat bit to do it,’ Eddie said. He had taken a rough headcount; there were between twenty-five and thirty Nazis, and nearly all were now on the move. ‘Fat bastard can’t handle steep ground.’
Nina thought back to their circuitous ascent. ‘That’s, what? A hundred yards down the hill?’
‘At least. Why, what’re you thinking?’
‘If they leave the site unguarded, we can walk right down to it!’
Zane surveyed the scene below. ‘I see four men standing watch — and Schneider went into whatever’s down there and hasn’t come out.’
‘Five against ten,’ said Eddie. ‘I like those odds a lot better.’
‘We still have to save Ubayy, though,’ Nina reminded him. ‘They might kill him rather than give him up.’
‘They won’t get the chance,’ said Zane, with understated menace. ‘Okay, once the rest of them are clear, we’ll move closer. We won’t do anything until we’re sure we can secure Banna,’ he assured Nina.
They waited for some time. The main group of soldiers was now out of sight farther down the hill, though occasional sounds of activity as they set up camp reached the observers. The four men guarding the entrance were initially alert, but quickly settled into what Eddie knew from experience was an occupational hazard for any soldier: boredom. They were not expecting trouble… so neither were they prepared for it.