A piece of piss, the colonel had said. It tasted more like shite.
The first half an hour saw them slowly descend down off the escarpment to reach the start of the flat plain. Banks called a halt, not from any tiredness but mainly to see if the professor was ready to be more compliant; he didn’t plan on keeping the man tied and gagged the whole way.
Not unless I have to.
The man’s first words when the gag was removed weren’t encouraging.
“I’ll have your jobs for this. Do you know who I am?”
“Fuck me,” Wiggins said from below where he was getting a pot of water boiling for coffee on a camp stove. “He’s both an arsehole and an amnesiac. That’s a damn shame.”
All of them, including Reid, laughing at that didn’t improve Gillings’ mood any but untying his hands and getting some coffee into him at least lowered his rage level down from intolerable.
“We asked for help, not bloody kidnap,” he said.
“Maybe if you’d asked more nicely…” Wiggins said until Banks shut him up with a look. The corporal went back to sucking down smoke and brewing coffee while Banks made what he hoped would be the last attempt to get the professor to see sense.
“Look, Gillings, you called for our help, your truck was wasted, and the hills ‘round here are hoaching with either Chinese military or rebels… what did you expect to happen?”
“I didn’t expect to have to leave years of work lying in boxes for anybody to pick them up.”
“I doubt a random Chinese soldier or rebel is going to know one end of a fossil from another,” Banks replied. “And I give you my word we’ll get your specimens picked up one way or another, but my job here is to get you home to your wife. Are you going to play along with me on that or do I have to tie you to yon fucking camel and gag you again?”
For the first time since they met the professor smiled, a rueful grin.
“I was a bit of an arsehole, wasn’t I?” he said and Banks smiled back.
“Aye, and that’s probably not going to change any time soon, but at least you’ve got your memory back.”
While pouring a coffee for himself, Banks noticed that Wilkins was rubbing the lower part of his leg. The private had only recently recovered from broken bones received in a previous mission. Before setting out, in Lossiemouth Banks had given him the option of staying behind.
“You can sit this one out if you like, lad. It looks like it’s going to be a long walk and nobody will think any the less of you for giving it a body-swerve.”
Wilkins had smiled broadly in reply.
“And miss all the fun? Not bloody likely, Cap.”
But now he saw pain in the lad’s face and they hadn’t even started the walk proper yet.
“We can swap you around on the camel if you need to, lad,” Banks said, keeping his voice low and between the two of them. “Just ask. Don’t go crippling yourself for pride.”
Wilkins managed a grin.
“I’ll be fine, Cap,” he said. “It was just scrambling around on the rocks aggravated it a bit. Now that we’re on flat ground, there’ll be no problem and the smell’s better down here on the ground anyway. I’d rather walk.”
Gillings didn’t look to be giving them any more trouble, although the professor had a lingering look back up the escarpment as they were preparing to move out again. Banks put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“As I said earlier, you have my word; we’ll get your specimens out of here. With luck, they’ll be back in Scotland before you are.”
He helped the man up onto the camel. As he turned to look north, he saw that the blue sky was now marked with a black line of clouds running across the horizon from east to west, the first sign of weather they’d seen.
It didn’t look promising.
- 2 -
They traveled across the plain for two hours. The black line of clouds crept closer but as of yet was still confined to an area above the distant horizon. Donnie Reid sat high between the humps of the camel, eyes on the horizon but not really seeing. What he was doing was wondering how everything had gone bad so quickly.
Just two days ago, they’d both been as giddy as schoolboys, excited by the find of a whole tail section of an Avimimid that the professor was certain was new to science. It was going to make the months of toil in the heat more than worthwhile—and the professor thought there might still be more of its kind in the current dig area. At the very least they’d get a paper out of it. Being cited alongside the professor in the journals was going to go a long way to kick start Donnie’s own scientific career.
Just forty-eight hours ago—it was hard to believe he’d been in such a good mood. He had helped pack the slab of rock containing the Avimimid carefully in a long box and then got into the truck to take the long drive to the nearest town for supplies. It was eighty miles and over four hours each way on a dusty, rutted track, but he’d done the journey every other week all summer and even looked forward to the wind in his face and the sights along the way. Some time away from the professor was also something to look forward to; the older man wasn’t great company, being too tightly focussed on the finds and his work, his tunnel vision not allowing him to stretch to anything that might approximate to fun.
Donnie had thought that he might even get to have a beer and a chat with some of the locals in town if he made good enough time—and if the truck held out. It had been reliable enough all summer but every trip had brought more tired groans and squeals from the suspension and engine. The professor assured him it would last the summer but this time when he popped the clutch, the old beast let out a roar, then a groan, then it had slumped alarmingly nose down toward the ground, refusing to budge from its parking spot.
Both he and the professor had applied what little mechanical knowledge they had to the problem but the beast wasn’t for moving. Donnie had suggested that the pair of them head for town on the camels but Gillings wouldn’t consider abandoning the finds—especially the latest one. They’d spent several hours arguing about it then finally the professor had got on the satellite phone and called in for help. After that, all Gillings could talk of was how they’d soon—finds and all—be on their way home.
Then the army guys had dropped out of the sky with no vehicular support and their leader had told the old man point blank to get ready to walk away.
I can’t really blame the professor for losing the place.
Without the Avimimid, Donnie’s own future would be in some doubt; research grants were hard enough to come by at the best of times. Returning from a long trip like this with nothing to show for it wouldn’t maintain his place in the pecking order that ruled the allocation of money in academia.
He put it from his mind as something to worry about when they got back.
On his last visit to town, the locals had seemed nervy and anxious. Donnie had put it down to the rumor of rebels or Chinese forces in the area; he’d heard the stories but they’d seen nothing of either, although what little traffic there had been on the desert roads, slight at the best of times, had diminished to almost zero. The soldiers were the first other people they’d seen for two weeks.
Donnie had to admit he felt a whole lot safer now that the guys with the guns were here.
“So how did you come by the camels?”
They’d stopped in the shade of a rocky outcrop to avoid the midday sunshine, have a rest and, what looked to be a habit with these guys, brew up some coffee and have a smoke.