Rafi had discovered another tin.
"Vacuum Oil Company." Like the soup tin, this one was blackened with oxidation.
"The original name of Socony Mobil," said Holliday. "This must have been a Long Range Desert Group camp back in the war."
"So what do we call this place?" pondered Rafi. "A garbage pit or an archaeological site?"
"That would depend on your point of view, I suppose," said Tidyman, coming down from the rock. "On my father's maps it is referred to as the Mushroom, I suppose because of its shape."
Rafi turned away without comment. Tidyman shrugged and smiled thinly at Holliday.
"As I said, your friend does not like me."
"He doesn't have to," answered Holliday, a little curtly. "Did you see anything up there?"
"A great deal of nothing," said Tidyman. He nodded politely to Holliday, then went to the truck. He squatted down and took a screwdriver out of his knapsack, then removed the blue-and-white Egyptian license plate and replaced it with an oblong Libyan plate, black on reflective green. That done, he put on a rear plate and then a magnetic stick-on symbol on the door, much like the one Felix Valador used on his truck in Cannes.
"The license plate I understand," commented Holliday. "But what exactly is that?" The stick-on symbol showed four lengths of open pipeline in forced perspective with a line of cursive Arabic below it.
"It's the insignia of the Great Man-Made River Authority, Qaddafi's big irrigation project. Jaghbub Oasis is the wellhead for the pipeline that goes to Tobruk." He stood back and examined his handiwork. "Luckily they use a Chinese knockoff of the Goat called a BJ-212 to get around in." He shrugged. "It won't stand close inspection but it would pass a quick surveillance from the air."
"Is that likely to happen?"
"It's happened to me before. But Colonel Qaddafi is rather stingy with fuel for those Mil-24 Hind helicopters of his and they have to come all the way from the air base at Kufra; that's almost four hundred miles south."
"How far is Jaghbub from here?"
"About twenty miles. But we'll wait here until it's dark. The actual border is only about two miles west of us."
They waited for nightfall, Tidyman dozing, his back against the Mushroom, Rafi pacing, listening for sounds that weren't there and worrying, Holliday looking idly at the debris left behind by the Long Range Desert Group more than half a century before. Not for the first time in his life Holliday found himself thinking about the borders between countries and why men fought over such artificial boundaries. Once a holocaust had been birthed for one man's need for Lebensraum, but Hitler was by no means the first to fight for more territory, nor would he likely be the last.
When night came it came quickly, the sun burning down among the windswept dunes and flat-topped sandstone buttes, leaving nothing behind but a dark pink curtain against the darkness. Tidyman roused himself and they climbed back into the Goat. There was a chill in the air and Holliday shivered as Tidyman started the engine and went around the base of the tall mushroom-shaped rock.
"Ten minutes to the border now. If there is any trouble I will handle it," the Egyptian said quietly. They drove on, the desert more rough stones and gravel now rather than sifting sand. The darkness was almost absolute and Tidyman piloted the truck along the trail more by instinct than sight. When they crossed the border there was no indication other than a brief pinging sound from the GPS unit in Holliday's hand.
"That's it," he said. "We're in Libya now."
12
Tidyman drove the old vehicle carefully, guiding it slowly, picking his way forward.
"At this rate we'll never get there," said Rafi.
"Speed is not of the essence," said Tidyman, keeping his eyes rigidly facing ahead. "Care is. This part of the journey can be very treacherous. Drive off the track and we could easily get mired in the sand. And then we really won't get there." The Egyptian said something briefly in Arabic. "Dying of thirst is not just an expression in this country-it is something to seriously be avoided."
They drove on through the night, the only sense of the terrain around them coming from looming areas of blackness where the stars were blotted out. They seemed to be hugging the base of a large uneven mound on their left. On the right another mound rose about a hundred yards away. The ground below them was rough, the suspension rattling, jarring Holliday and his companions.
Suddenly it was bright as day. A bright white flare rose above them and lit up the Goat. In the sudden burst of illumination Holliday could see another vehicle less than a hundred feet away, directly in front of them, blocking the track ahead. Tidyman jammed on the brakes. The other vehicle was almost identical to theirs in configuration, but with the back half of the cab removed and a long-barreled Russian-made KPV heavy machine gun mounted. A uniformed soldier stood behind the gun. If Holliday remembered correctly the weapon fired about five hundred rounds a minute and was capable of shooting down airplanes, or in this case turning the Goat into scrap metal along with its passengers. The flare faded out and the other vehicle's headlights flashed on, pinning the Goat down.
"Now what?" Rafi said.
"Don't move," ordered Tidyman.
"Wouldn't think of it," said Holliday.
"When I lower my arms switch on the headlights," instructed the Egyptian quietly, pointing to a black knob on the dashboard.
"Roger that," said Holliday.
Tidyman cracked open his door and climbed out of the truck, raising his hands in the air.
"Do you think he knows what he's doing?" Rafi asked as Tidyman walked forward into the light.
"He'd better," said Holliday. "If he doesn't we're dead."
Tidyman walked forward, keeping himself in the center of the twin pools of light thrown by the other vehicle, his silhouette casting long twisting shadows behind him.
"What the hell is he doing?" Rafi said urgently, his voice tense.
Holliday didn't bother responding. His hand hovered over the knob. He panicked for a moment, wondering if the knob pulled out or pressed in. He finally decided it pulled out and prayed that he was right. A wrong decision and he and Rafi would be blown to kingdom come.
Tidyman reached the other truck. Above the sound of the idling engine Holliday could hear the Egyptian's voice speaking in deliberately loud Arabic, his hands still high above his head. Someone in the truck responded. Tidyman did a slow pirouette.
"Checking him for weapons," said Holliday.
Tidyman completed his turn, then stopped, hands still high. There was a curt order from inside the other truck. Tidyman walked over to the driver's side and bent down slightly, talking with whoever was inside.
Holliday tensed, sensing something in Tidyman's movement.
The Egyptian's hands dropped abruptly, something glinting as it slid out of the sleeve of his jacket.
Holliday hit the lights.
The blinding beams lit up the other truck and Holliday had a brief impression of Tidyman's hand sweeping in the side window of the vehicle. A split second later a gun appeared in his other hand and there was the barking sound of a single shot being fired. The man at the machine gun didn't even have an instant to respond; he simply crumpled into the bed of the truck as Tidyman's other hand withdrew through the driver's-side window, the dripping blood on the long blade of the knife he held black in the headlights. The whole thing was over in the blink of an eye.
"Dear God!" Rafi whispered, horrified.
Tidyman walked away from the truck, wiping the blade on the leg of his pants. He came back to the Goat and leaned through Rafi's open window. The young archaeologist recoiled in horror.
"You killed them!"
"Of course I killed them," snapped Tidyman, sounding angry for the first time since they'd met. "As they would have killed you. This is the real world, my friend, not some theoretical position argued in a debate. There is no morality in this business. They were the enemy." He looked across at Holliday. "I'm going to drive their vehicle off the track and behind that group of rocks on the left. I'll need some help with the bodies. If they're not buried the birds will come and lead anyone to them. If we are lucky the search parties won't find them for a while."