truck. Grinning at Boris's antics, he leaned out of his own cab to
return the clenched fist salute, adding a nice little touch by jerking a
raised forefinger upwards.
"Dungeater!" Boris roared with outrage at being bested in the exchange,
but he did not stop. "No use even talking to them. What do they know?
Black chimps!'
For the rest of the wearisome journey Royan remained silent and
withdrawn, shaken and troubled by the conviction that she had seen the
trademark of the winged red horse before, with, set above it in a
pennant, the name of the company: "PEGASUS EXPLORATION'.
As they approached the end of the day's journey at last they passed a
signpost beside the track. The supporting legs of the sign were solidly
set in concrete, and the artwork was of such high quality that it could
only have been that of a professional signwriter.
Across the top of the board an arrow indicated a newly bulldozed road
that headed off to the right, and the directions read:
PEGASUS EXPLORATION
BASE CAMP - ONE KILOMETRE
PRIVATE ROAD
NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORIZED TRAFFIC
The scarlet horse reared in the centre of the board with its wings
spread wide, on the point of flight.
Now she gasped aloud as the elusive memory came upon her with stunning
clarity. She remembered where she had last seen the flying red horse. In
an instant she was transported back into the icy waters of an English
salmon river, flung from the rolling body of the Land Rover, the huge
MAN truck roaring over the bridge above her, and, for a subliminal pulse
of time, the prancing red horse upon its side.
she almost shouted aloud, but controlled herself. The terror of the
moment returned to her with full force, and she found herself breathing
hard and her heart racing as though she had run a long way.
"It cannot be a coincidence," she assured herself silently, "and I am
not mistaken. It is the same company.
Pegasus Exploration."
She was withdrawn and distracted for the last few miles of the journey,
until the track they were following ended abruptly on the brink of the
sheer cliffs of the escarpment, Here Boris pulled on to the grassy verge
and stopped the engine.
"This is as far as we ride. We camp here tonight. My big truck is not
far behind. They will make camp as so on as they arrive. Tomorrow we
will go down into the gorge on foot."
As they dismounted, Royan tugged at Nicholas's arm, "I must speak to
you," she whispered urgently, and she followed him as he led her along
the bank of the river.
He found a place for them to sit side by side, with their legs dangling
over the drop. Beside them the swollen yellow river seemed to sense what
lay ahead of it. The cold mountain waters speeded up, swirled amongst
the rocks, and gathered themselves for that dizzying leap out into empty
space. The cliff below them was a sheer wall of rock almost a thousand
feet deep. It was so high that in the evening light the abyss far below
was a dark, mysterious place, its bottom hidden from them by shadow and
spray from the falls. As Royan looked down into it her sense of balance
swirled with vertigo. She cringed back from the edge and found herself
instinctively leaning against Nicholas's shoulder to steady herself.
Only when they touched did she realize what she was doing, and she
pulled away from him self-consciously.
The muddied waters of the Dandera. river leaped from the brink, and were
miraculously transformed into curtains of ethereal lacework as they
fell. Like the skirts of waltzing bride they shimmered and swirled, and
rainbows of light played through them as though from an embroidery of
seed pearls. Still falling, the columns of white spray twisted and
changed into lovely but ephemeral shapes, until they struck the lower
ledges of glistening black rock and exploded outwards into fresh clouds
of white that at last screened the dark depths of the abyss with " an
opalescent veil.
It was with a conscious effort that Royan pulled her mind away from the
awe-inspiring scene and back to the troubled present.
"Nicky, do you remember I told you about the truck that forced my mother
and me over the bridge in the Land Rover?"
"Of course." His expression was mystified as he studied her face. "You
are upset. "What is it, Royan?"
"The truck had signwriting down the sides of the trailers that it was
towing."
"You told me, yes. Green and red. You told me that you didn't get a good
enough look to read the sign."
"It was the same as the truck we passed this afternoon.
I saw the sign at the same angle as before and it came back to me. The
red Pegasus, the flying horse."
He studied her face for a while, "Are you absolutely certain?"
"Absolutely!" She nodded vehemently.
Nicholas stared out over the magnificent panorama of the gorge spread
below them. It was forty miles to the far wall of the canyon, but in the
brilliant rain-washed air it seemed so close that he could reach across
and touch it.
"A coincidence?"he wondered at last.
"Do you think so? A very strange and wonderful coincidence, then.
Pegasus in both Yorkshire and Gojam?
Do you accept that?"
"It doesn't make sense. The truck that hit you was stolen-'
"Was it?" she demanded. "Are we sure of that?"
"If it wasn't, then let's hear your ideas."
"If you were planning an assassination, would you rely on stealing a
truck conveniently left at a Little Chef for you?"
He shook his head, "Go on."
"Suppose you arranged for your own truck to be placed there for you, and
for your driver to report it stolen only after you had a good head start
on the police."
"It's possible," he agreed without enthusiasm.
"Whoever murdered Duraid, and made two further attempts to kill me,
obviously has considerable resources at his disposal. He is able to make
arrangements in Egypt and England. On top of that, he has the seventh
scroll in his possession. He has our notes and all our workings and
translations which point him clearly to this spot on the Abbay river.
Just suppose that he has control of a company like Pegasus - is there
any reason why he can't be here in Ethiopia, just as we are, right at
this moment?"
Nicholas was silent for a while. He picked up a stone from the ledge
beside him and tossed it out over the cliff.
They both watched it drop away, dwindling in size until it vanished in
the veils of spray far below where they sat.
Abruptly Nicholas stood up and reached for her hand to pull her to her
feet beside him. "Come on," he said.
"Where are we going?"
"Pegasus base camp. Let's go and have a chat to the site foreman."
Boris protested angrily and hurried to intervene when Nicholas climbed
into the Toyota and started the engine, "Where the hell do you think you
are going?, "Sight-seeing." Nicholas let in the clutch. "Back in an
hour."
"Hey, English, my truck!" He ran to catch up with them, but Nicholas
accelerated away.
"Charge me for the hire." fie grinned back at Boris in the rear-view
mirror. -off and followed the They reached the signposted turn side
track over the ridge. The Pegasus camp lay on the far side. Nicholas
braked to a halt on the crest of the rise and they studied it in
silence.
An area of about ten acres had been cleared and levelled. It was
surrounded by a barbed-wire security fence, with a single closed gate.
Three of the massive diesel trucks in their green and red livery were
parked in a rank inside the fence. There were also several smaller