Genevieve looked over her shoulder, back at her. “You want to tell me what this is all about, Elise?”
“We need to save this guy’s life.”
“He looks like he’s going to die to me,” Genevieve said.
“He won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Genevieve. It was as though he knew exactly why we’d come to the Sahara. And that he was at the center of everything Sam and Tom were doing in the Sahara.”
“That’s impossible. We’re nowhere near the DRC. Nothing we’ve done or said, would give him the indication that’s why we’re here.”
Elise smiled. “And yet he knew.”
“Even if he didn’t,” Genevieve said. “The coincidence alone is quite creepy.”
“So, where are we taking him?”
“Back to the Maria Helena.”
“Why not a hospital?”
Elise shrugged. “He says he needs our help.”
Genevieve said, “He’ll die without a doctor.”
“He says I can remove the bullet and he will live.”
Genevieve shrugged. “It’s his life. I’m still not very happy about it, though.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really care whether he lives or not. I’m far more interested in finding Sam and Tom.”
“There’s something else. He says he needs to speak to Sam Reilly immediately.”
“So do I. Did you tell him it doesn’t matter what they were talking about before he arrived, right now he’s lost in the Sahara somewhere.”
“I know. I already told him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the three of them are still alive and will find their own way back to the Maria Helena by the time he regains consciousness.”
Veyron looked up from what he was doing in the back of the helicopter for the first time. “Who’s the third person?”
“He didn’t say.”
Genevieve glanced back at the man lying on the helicopter’s stretcher. His breathing was erratic. Veyron had told her his pulse was barely palpable.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Elise. I think you’re trusting heavily in a corpse.”
“He said you wouldn’t believe a word he said.”
“Then what did he think I’d do?”
“He said you’d take him back to the Maria Helena where Sam and Tom would make you into a believer.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Zara opened her eyes. She was surrounded by darkness. The complete oblivion that can send a sane person mad. The sort of pitch black that only the blind may recognize. She breathed in deeply. The air was cool. Possibly even cold. She felt the fine hairs on her arms stand up on their ends. In a dome shaped cavern, a hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the Sahara she sat upright. Her body rigid. Listening to the silence, like a child frightened in the night. Zara turned her head suddenly. She’d heard something. It sounded like the slightest ripple of water lapping on the side of their tiny island. Her eyes focused on the sound, but saw nothing.
She breathed silently.
There was always a possibility her pursuers had found their way inside the dome. It was unlikely. Not impossible. She exhaled slowly as a faint light began to manifest beneath the water. Not quite bright enough to see clearly, it looked like a single dot bouncing around underwater. It was like an after-image in the corner of her eye — there, but not there at the same time.
Her eyes focused in on the light. As it grew, recognition dawned on her. The light was turning blue. It was on the side furthest from where they had entered the dome and was slowly approaching the surface.
Zara grinned as she watched Sam Reilly surface. Along the outer wall of the dome he carefully ran his hands along the ancient brickwork. Ignorant that she was watching, he worked his way around the dome. After shaking his head, he dipped under the water and disappeared from sight for a few moments before surfacing at the other end of the room.
At the opposite end of the dome lake he continued to study the ancient walls. She thought he was about to dive again, when he swung around and faced her. This time he noticed her. Their eyes met and he beamed like a child playing at the beach.
Zara asked, “What are you doing?”
Sam said, “I’m looking for a way out.”
She laughed. “We know the way out. It’s through that trapdoor you discovered and it goes to the surface where about five hundred or so men, eager to find a life of great riches, await to kill us.”
“That’s certainly one of the options,” Sam agreed. “But there’s two problems. One. Like you said, a few hundred soldiers are out there hunting us. And two, the longer we wait down here the more likely we are to starve before we get the chance to cross the desert.”
“You’re a hundred and sixty feet down a well beneath the Saharan desert! Where do you think you might go?” She looked at him like he was a fool. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the land above us was filled with sand for hundreds of miles in all directions. That means there’s no way to the surface for hundreds of miles. Even if you do find the Garamante Fogaaras, there’s no reason the ancient subterranean irrigation tunnels should still be intact, and even less reason to believe there’s any way to reach the surface at the other end of the tunnels.”
Sam nodded, as though he’d already concluded pretty much the same as her. “Even so, I think I’ll have a look around.” Sam shrugged indifferently. He inspected the wall nearest to him. Zara thought he looked like a kid casually collecting sea shells at the beach. He spoke to himself, not to her. “These walls were built a long time ago. It’s hard to build anything that lasts this long.”
“What makes you think there is another way out?”
“The water here is fresh. If you watch the water, it has a not so slow movement in that direction.” He pointed to the wall ahead. “Logic suggests there’s a large subterranean water table moving along here — and that water must come out somewhere.”
“Two faults with your theory,” Zara smiled condescendingly. “First. There aren’t any waterholes around here for at least seventy miles. Second. You’ve already searched all the other waterholes within a hundred mile radius. And thirdly, even if the water did take us somewhere we could get out, we would drown in the process, because — in case you didn’t notice it, the water is moving underground, which means we won’t be able to breath in the process!”
Sam smiled, nonplussed. “Even so, I think I’ll have a swim. Kill the time if nothing else.”
Zara stood up to argue the point, but she felt a gentle hand on her wrist, stopping her. Zara looked down and saw Tom.
“Let him be. This is his sort of thing. Let him get it out of his system.” Without saying anything else, Tom laid backwards and made himself comfortable, quickly drifting toward sleep. “After all that walking, I’m glad to have time to relax. Sleep when you can…”
“Even if you’re right and this ancient water table travels for a hundred miles there’s no place to reach the surface again.”
“No known place, you mean?” Sam corrected her and then dived below the water again.
She watched as he disappeared for a considerably longer time. Thirty seconds stretched to a minute. Followed by two. She looked at Tom who appeared indifferent. Not just unafraid. More like a bored child, waiting to go home.
“Tom, I think your friend might have just drowned.”