“What happened to it?”
He fixed his grayish-blue eyes with hers and then laughed boisterously. “Perhaps you really are nothing more than a treasure hunter, after all. The water basin dried up and The Golden Fortress, along with its advanced ancient civilization became extinct within a decade.”
“There’s a lesson in that for humanity, isn’t there?” she said.
“We can’t keep terraforming the environment to meet our needs indefinitely. Do you think that is what Nostradamus meant by sending you here?”
“Not even slightly. First of all, Nostradamus didn’t send us here — my father did, while he was still alive. And secondly, the only thing I believe Nostradamus meant for us to find was a massive reward for finding his original book. He wanted us to receive a dozen or more chests filled with so many French Livre that the gold coins would be constantly overflowing. And I think he got it all wrong — we’ll be paid in U.S. dollars.”
“In that respect, Doctor — I believe you and I share the same beliefs.” Adebowale grinned. “Oh, and by the way, I wouldn’t worry about the two treasure hunters — they’ll be dead before the end of the day.”
Zara was about to reply, when her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hysteria down the pit. Several miners were coming out of it. One caught her eyes, and ran towards her. “Come quick, Malikat Alssahra! We’ve struck something hard in the sand!”
Chapter Two
Sam Reilly hated traveling by camel. Unlike the measured gait of a horse, a camel's walk seemed odd, irregular, and kind of jerky. Likened to a small ship on the ocean, a camel had the tendency to provoke seasickness in a rider who was used to being in control. Sam decided this experience was as close as he was ever going to get to feeling seasick. He never liked relying on animals. They were unpredictable and unable to be trusted not to run off at the worst possible time. He’d suggested an endurance motor cycle, like a KLR 650 or a BMW HP2 for the assignment, but the notion was quickly disregarded — the U.S. couldn’t be seen to be picking sides in the local rebellion. Any assistance had to be from a distance, even when the stakes were so high.
If he and Tom were successful, people would guess at the U.S. government’s involvement. But at least they would have maintained some semblance of plausible deniability. Worse still, if they weren’t successful and were captured instead, they needed to be able to maintain the pretense of two American treasure hunters in search of gold in the ancient fabled city of the Garamantes. Sam gritted his teeth, as his beast dropped off another sand dune, jarring his back. He wished they’d come here on endurance bikes in search of the fabled city.
Instead of fighting it, Tom had worked out how to let himself sway with the beast, giving him the appearance of a sleeping man.
“Would it have really killed you to stop for a drink at the last camp?” Tom asked.
“You know the rules,” Sam replied.
“Yeah, we were never here, which means as little contact with the locals as possible. Don’t you think they already knew we were foreigners?”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“Because you ride a camel like you ride a horse.” Tom shuffled gently in his seat as his camel dropped off the sand dune into a steep descent. “And for the record, you look just as uncoordinated on horseback. Besides, it’s too hot to travel in the heat of the day — no real nomad would do that.”
Sam laughed. “You don’t like the Temperature Suit on loan from DARPA?”
“The Temperature Suit’s great. I just doubt anyone would believe they were purchased locally.”
“No. You might be right there. When Ike set up DARPA in '58, I doubt he was looking at setting up a clothing shop in Libya.”
Tom laughed. President Dwight Eisenhower had established the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union launching of Sputnik. “All the same, I think these suits would be very popular here.”
“Sure. But who can afford the hundred plus thousand dollar price tag?”
Sam thought about the remarkable Temperature Suits. They were constructed using thousands of carbon fiber micro-tubes, which circulated cold or warm air in order to maintain a safe range of core temperatures by the wearer. Sam adjusted his position. There was no way they could have made such a quick journey through the heat of the day without it and time was vital if they would have any effect on the outcome of the war. And this time they needed to get it done right.
“How much time do we have?” Tom asked, as though he’d read Sam’s thoughts.
“Not much. Perhaps a week at best. After that, we either commit or forget we knew anything about it.”
“You know what happened the last time we provided weapons for the regime we wanted to win?” Tom asked.
“Yeah,we supported Saddam Hussein — and the rest of the world hasn’t let us forget about it!”
“So, let’s make sure we’ve got the right man this time.”
“We do. I think he can make a real difference to the stability of the region. Besides, from what I’ve seen, Gabe Ngige makes Saddam Hussein look like one of the good guys. Ngige has outside funding giving his regime the real opportunity to expand throughout central Africa. We don’t know where he’s getting his backing from, but there are reports he’s been hiring elite mercenaries to train his army, which is rapidly growing in size. He’s purchasing modern weapons, and military vehicles, including armored cars and tanks.”
“So, where do we think he’s getting the funding?”
“We don’t have a clue. The money’s being fed through a series of proxy accounts. There’s no way to see where the money originated, but one thing’s for certain. This is the best financed Rebel Group the DRC has ever seen. That’s what has everyone in Washington frightened — this guy isn’t going to stop once he controls the DRC. His rebellion is going to spread into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the south, and the Sudan in the north.”
Tom asked, “You think if he gets that far he’ll stop?”
Sam said, “Hell no. Did Hitler stop when he was winning?”
“No. He kept advancing further.”
“Exactly. The intelligence coming from Washington suggests this might be the most significant war to ever come out of Africa, with far reaching global repercussions.”
“Do you think he’s found a new diamond mine?”
“We don’t know. It’s not diamonds, that’s for sure. We would have heard if anyone was moving that amount of stones out of the country. If Ngige was sending that many blood diamonds onto the market required to fund his rebellion, we would have known about it. The artificially set price of diamonds would have suddenly crashed. De Beers would have stopped the market.”
“Okay, what about oil?”
“No. We could have traced that. Whatever it is, Washington is frightened, and it’s going to drive a lot more governments into the region. There are fears Europe is going to be dragged into this war. That’s why it’s so important to make the change now, and add some stability into the region. We can’t rule out the possibility that Ngige is gaining funding from the private sector outside of the DRC.”
“You think they’ve discovered a new mineral mine that might be needed in manufacturing?”
“Possibly,” Sam said. “Or even uranium and we don’t want to think who would be financially backing them in exchange for the rights to uranium. The fact of the matter is somehow Ngige is being funded well enough to form an army capable of taking over much of Africa. If Ngige is allowed to continue his tirade of violence, crime will ravage an already war torn, poverty stricken continent. But if someone from the inside were to rise up — good conquering evil — all projections show this will create a follow-on effect, which will have the chance of making the greatest change for good on the continent in four centuries.”