The chopper set down and the small group disembarked, taking their bags from the flight crew. The hold contained several drums of water, as well as various other duffel bags and containers. Ten minutes after arriving, the helicopter was empty, and the crew waved to them as they lifted off. Once the aircraft had departed, the silence was deafening — there was literally no sound but the burbling of the meager river beyond. After only a small amount of exertion everyone was already bathed in sweat — the temperature in the canyon was into the triple digits due to lack of any breeze.
Steven had brought a handheld outdoor thermometer; when he pulled it out of his pack, it read a hundred and seven Fahrenheit. At eleven-thirty a.m.. Anyone with doubts as to whether this was going to be easy duty quickly lost them, and it was with a certain sluggish determination that they unpacked. Several of the unidentified cases contained their camping gear, and they doggedly pitched tents and built a ready-made enclosure for the two latrines. Moody handled the creation of the area for the food and water, and once they were well on their way, he made another call on his satellite phone.
Forty minutes later, the quiet in the canyon was again fractured by the thumping of rotor blades as their chopper approached, loaded with the remainder of their supplies. They were fortunate there was still no wind to speak of, and the landing occurred without drama. The three man flight crew hopped out of the cabin and hurriedly unloaded yet more boxes and crates, which Moody and the two Templars moved to the little camp area.
Ten minutes after it had set down, the helicopter lifted off again, not to return for three days, at the earliest. The muggy air settled on the group like a blanket as they watched it crest the hill towards Amman, their last link to civilization severed. After a few minutes of rest, they returned to setting up the camp for the night before it started to get dark. There were still a few hours of light, and they needed to get the kitchen area up to speed. The helicopter had brought them a small gas-powered generator with several five gallon tanks of fuel, so they could have limited refrigeration in the oversized ice chests using several deep-cycle batteries they could then charge with the generator.
It wasn’t Club Med, but it would do.
Steven took bearings with the rangefinder, then retrieved the handheld GPS he’d brought to calculate positions. He powered it on, but nothing happened. Checking the batteries, he tried again, but with no success. After a half hour of fiddling with the device, it was obvious that something had malfunctioned. The adventure wasn’t starting off well. Without the GPS, they’d be down to dead reckoning from approximate points on their campsite. That wouldn’t work very well, Steven knew, but he would make the best of it for now.
The afternoon wore on as they put the finishing touches on the camp. Just before dark, Luca approached him as he stood near the bottom of the slope, studying the north face of the canyon through his binoculars.
“It’s a huge area, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is. That’s what I was trying to explain on the plane. It’s one thing to read the Scroll’s directions, but quite another to be on the ground. The place is vast,” Steven agreed.
“Do you see anything promising? It all looks the same to me,” Luca said, his face red from exertion and sun.
“No. But we have no idea what we’re looking for. Whatever it is has been exposed to the elements for many hundreds, or even thousands, of years. So this isn’t going to be a matter of seeing two columns from an old temple sticking out of the cliff. If it hasn’t been discovered by now, it’s because it doesn’t look like anything special. Countless generations of nomads have been down this creek, and they’d have noticed.” Steven lifted a thermal canteen to his lips and drank some water. “It’s not going to be easy. It will be luck, more than skill, that gets us results, I’m afraid. And hard work. A lot of digging. Starting at first light tomorrow.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Oh well. Goodnight, Dr. Cross.”
“Goodnight. And it’s Steven.”
“Ah. Right then. Goodnight, Steven. Say goodnight to Natalie for me. And it’s Diego,” Luca said and moved off in the direction of his tent, walking stiffly, in the wake of the day’s demands.
CHAPTER 35
“There.”
Steven released the button of the small two-way radio and watched as Arturo, high up on the canyon face, set an orange pole into the steep slope. Steven adjusted the laser rangefinder and shook his head at the futility of it as he waved approval. The absence of a GPS was worse than he’d thought. With the coordinates programmed in, it was far easier to get a bearing on the starting position. This was using a hammer to thread a needle.
He walked over to Moody and took him aside.
“You need to get the chopper back here with another GPS. I have the coordinates in my laptop, but we need the device. Otherwise we’re just spinning our wheels for the next three days, exhausting ourselves for no reason,” he said.
“Let me see what I can do.” Moody moved to his tent to get the Sat-phone.
Their first night had been hot, and the largest, most unexpected problem had been the noise. Or rather, the lack of it. Other than random animals, there was no sound other than their camp, and Steven had realized within a few hours that three of his companions snored. Loudly. Natalie and he had spent the night tossing and turning, listening to the nocturnal symphony of labored breathing, and had gotten too little sleep. Two weeks or more of this would be a kind of hell.
Moody had unpacked the weapons the prior evening and passed them out — several M-4 assault rifles, and six Colt .45 semi-automatic pistols, fully loaded. He’d watched as Natalie had efficiently checked her weapon and then thumbed the safety on and off before putting it by her pillow, doing the same with one of the rifles as she set it next to the bed. It had been a long time since he’d fired one — over twenty years, but the rifle still felt like second nature when he picked it up. Some things were like riding a bicycle, he supposed.
Moody squinted at the sun as he moved to the kitchen area to get a drink, listening intently to a voice on the other end of the phone. He grabbed a water bottle out of the cooler and held it against his forehead.
“All right. See if you can get one here today — we’re dead in the water without it. And check to ensure it’s operational before you come out. Call me when you know something.” Moody approached Steven with the phone in his hand. “They’re going to try to find one and fly it out. Hopefully, before dark.”
They exchanged glances. It was eight a.m. and already sweltering.
Steven nodded thanks and returned to studying the canyon face for any anomalies.
It wasn’t his lucky day.
Arturo and Francois were covered in sweat, taking a break near the section they’d been digging up for hours. The soil was a combination of rock and dirt, sedimentary, with layers of sand, so it wasn’t hugely difficult work on the whole — if it hadn’t been a hundred and ten degrees. But the heat made it very slow going. They could reasonably keep at it for ten to fifteen minute intervals, and then had to rest for at least that long to rehydrate and replenish the salt they were losing from sweating. They’d created shade with a tarp and several poles, which provided scant relief from the worst of the sun’s blaze.