“The cave that Almasy found.”
“It’s real. And they really are swimming. The actual cave is at a place called Wadi Sora in Egypt. Five thousand years ago there was no desert here, just hills and plateaus and rivers and lots of animals. Think about all those lion safari movies you’ve seen and you’ll have it right.”
“Hard to believe.”
“That’s what they used to say about global warming too. Take it back far enough and you’ll find that all that sand started out on the Atlantic beaches in Morocco. When we get back from our little spy mission I’ll show you some infrared satellite images that’ll knock your socks off. You can still see the markers where the old rivers used to flow, enormous ones that used to irrigate the whole of northern Africa.”
“Maybe that has something to do with what Adamson and his pals are after, some kind of site like the Cave of Swimmers?”
“Zerzura, that old fantasy? I doubt it very much. He has aspirations as an archaeologist, not as a paleontologist, and I don’t think Brother Laval, our cheerful monk from Jerusalem, cares much about cave art.” Hilts shook his head. “No, I think it might be something from the war.”
“Which one.”
“World War Two. It would explain Kuhn’s involvement.”
“But why?”
“This whole area was crawling with Germans, Brits, and Italians during the early part of the war. There was also a lot of Italian activity even before that. Pedrazzi, the Italian I told you about, was a well-known archaeologist, but he could have been a spy too. Just about everybody was back then.”
“Things don’t seem to have changed much,” said Finn dryly.
“We’re not really spying, we’re just satisfying our curiosity.”
“That’s what got the cat in trouble, as I recall.”
On the horizon a darker line began to grow, slowly resolving itself into a rough, lifeless plateau of rock, cracked and broken into a thousand narrow valleys and trackless canyons leading nowhere. Hilts had used a smart cable to plug the cell-phone-sized GPS locater into the larger version on the airplane’s instrument panel. As they approached the plateau he scanned the color display, watching the readout and adjusting the plane’s small, doughnut-shaped control wheel, making small adjustments to bring them to the exact coordinates.
“Almost there,” he muttered, veering slightly to the right. “See anything?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m going to take it down.” Hilts dropped the nose and the small plane responded almost instantly, gliding downward so smoothly it seemed to Finn that they were sliding along some invisible wire. Whatever else Hilts was, he certainly knew how to fly, she thought. She stared out through the side window and then she saw it, almost directly under them.
“There!”
“What?”
“Tracks. I can see tire tracks.”
Hilts tilted the plane into a slow turn, staring out his own side window. After a moment he spotted the same broad tracks below them. “Follow the trail of breadcrumbs,” he said and took the plane down again, flying along above the tire tracks at less than a thousand feet now. The twin lines were almost perfectly straight, heading directly for a narrow canyon entrance visible in the distance.
“Where do we land?”
“Just about anywhere. My girl here is the ultimate in short takeoff and landing. The landing gear has underinflated tires and we only need five hundred feet or so to take off in. I’ll take us in as close as possible.”
“How accurate is that GPS thing?”
“Spitting distance. Plus or minus ten, fifteen yards in any direction.”
Finn watched as Hilts concentrated on his flying, his fingers on the control stick as light as a lover’s. His eyes flickered between the rapidly approaching surface of the stony desert and his instruments. It was almost like watching an impresario playing the violin. He started whistling under his breath and Finn recognized the tune; it was the theme music for The Flintstones. She smiled, watching as he made a few final adjustments, compensating for a tugging wind that shuddered through the airplane briefly as they sank to the ground. The wheels touched with a barely noticeable thump and then they were down, tail wheel first, the sturdy mains a moment later.
15
The plane rolled on, slowing quickly as Hilts backed off on the throttle and dropped his flaps. He turned the plane into the wind and brought it to a full stop, letting the engine run for a full two minutes before switching off. The propeller whirled to a stop and then there was nothing but the sound of the wind brushing against the fuselage and lightly rocking the wings. Directly in front of them, half a football field away, was a high cliff face, cracked and broken, the notch of a canyon prominently etched in shadows just to their left.
“You’d never know there was anything there,” said Hilts.
“Maybe there isn’t anything,” Finn cautioned.
“Right,” Hilts said, “they come out here every day with their yoga mats for a bit of meditation and a few updogs.”
“You really are a very cynical man, Mr. Hilts.”
“Cynical is a fool’s word for a realist.” Hilts unlatched the top-hinged, large-windowed door and pushed it up toward the wing. He ducked through the opening and stepped out into the blistering sun. Finn did the same on her side, then walked around and joined Hilts.
“How long do you think we have?”
“They never leave before two in the afternoon, and we’re at least an hour away by Hummer. So we’ve got at least an hour and a half before we should be gone.”
“It would help if we knew what we were looking for.”
“The Hummer tracks lead right into that canyon.”
“What about our tracks? Will they see them?”
“The plane weighs less than a ton. The Hummer weighs four times that much.” He pointed. “Look at the ruts; they’ve broken through the surface crust and left a trail you could probably see from the space shuttle. Not the most environmentally friendly vehicle in the world, and you can see they’ve been out here half a dozen times. Our track is barely noticeable.”
“Cynical and very sure of yourself.”
“Quit worrying; they’ll never know we were here.” He went back under the wing, ducked into the plane and came out again with one of the old Nikons he’d had with him in the City of the Dead and a couple of canteens. “Just in case we do find something,” he explained, rejoining her. He handed one of the canteens to Finn and she slung it across her shoulder. Together they headed down the deep ruts that marked the recent trail of Adamson and his companions into the desert canyon.
“It’s more than just the Hummer,” said Finn, staring down at the hard-packed, rock-strewn grit. “There’s other tracks here, faint ones.”
“Deserts aren’t quite the empty places you imagine,” said Hilts in reply. “Even before the war this whole area was like Grand Central Station. Brits, French, archaeologists, petroleum geologists. The Italians were here even before that… Graziani laying down hundreds of miles of barbed wire to catch the Senussi rebels, Bagnold exploring, and then with the LRDG.”
“LRDG?”
“Long Range Desert Group, aka the Desert Rats. Small commando forces sent out into the desert to harass the Germans and the Italians.”
“I thought that kind of thing only went on in the north.”
Hilts bent down and used his fingers to dig at a small lump of rock. It turned out to be the bottom edge of a small tin. He tugged it up out of the dirt. There was still part of a blue-and-white printed label visible, with a twist of metal and a key-style attached. He handed the tin to Finn.
“Swift’s Plate Corned Beef,” she read.
“Some time before Adamson got here the Brits came through. Either military or even before.”
“Why here specifically?”
“We’re close to three borders, Sudan, Egypt, and what used to be called French Equatorial Africa. Back then there was some strategic importance to a place like this, especially if there was water close by. A wadi in one of the bigger canyons maybe.” He shook his head. “Strange how things change over time. It’s like Normandy: just a bunch of beaches on the coast of France now, but sixty years ago the fate of the world was focused there.”