“The original position he took didn’t give me much of a shot—just the right rear quadrant of his head.” Gordon gestured with his hand tapping the right rear of his own head. “The hit would have been disabling, for sure, but knocking off a corner of his head along with a bit of brain tissue with a shattertip would have been quite painful for the fellow before I could finish off his companions, reload, and get back to him. Eight or nine seconds can be a hellishly long time when you’re dribbling brains—”
“Please,” protested the captain as he winced and held out his hands, palms facing Gordon. “Please.”
“Sorry, Captain. Thought you wanted to talk shop.”
Mansouri waved a disgusted hand at him. “Let’s get on with the report,” he continued in Arabic as he pressed the record key on his belt recorder and punched the auto time and date marker. “Gordon Redcliff, Dr. Hussein’s personal bodyguard. When did you first see those who were preparing to attack the expedition?”
“Five days ago following the convoy from Site Safar,” Gordon answered, also in Arabic.
“And you said nothing to me?”
“They hadn’t done anything, Captain. It could have been tourists heading down to Wadi Hamra.”
Mansouri raised a skeptical eyebrow. “When did you know they weren’t tourists?”
“I knew for certain last night. I watched a truck leave them off down in the wadi then go back the way it came. They were using night vision instrumentation.”
“You were here waiting for them?”
“Yes.”
“So, how did you know they’d try an ambush here?”
Gordon thought a moment. “Arguably it’s the best spot on the route. They needed a choke point where they could stop the convoy and attack, no one able to get away. In my opinion this is the best place on the route. They apparently agreed.”
Mansouri held up a hand and pointed around. “From where were you firing?”
Gordon raised an arm and pointed down to the ledge beneath which the scorpion was now most likely feasting upon its beetle.
“The attackers. Where are they?”
Gordon pointed down into the wadi. “Down by the narrows.”
“Narrows? What narrows?” Mansouri squinted and shielded his eyes from the rising sun, most of the wadi still in shadows.
“Captain, do you see the second butte coming down to the road on the left?”
“Ah ... I see it.”
“There, down at the bottom.”
“That far?” Captain Mansouri squinted, frowned, took a range-finding monocular from his belt, held it to his left eye, and looked through it. “There they are.” He muttered a curse and said, “According to this, that’s over one and a half kilometers from here.”
“That’s what I made it,” Gordon agreed.
“And, for the record, you said nine of them.”
“Yes.”
“All dead?” The captain raised one eyebrow and looked at Gordon who didn’t answer. “Silly question,” remarked the captain. “What about the truck that brought them? Should we expect it to return?”
“Probably not. They were wired. The party with the truck would have a clear-code they’d need to receive before returning. The truck is probably tucked away in another wadi. When they don’t get the clear-sign by a certain time, they’ll probably dump anything incriminating and take off. Perhaps you can locate them through satellite.”
“Humph! By the time I could get clearance and access, that truck driver and his friends will be across the border making love to their camels.” He looked through his monocular again, his lips moving. “I count seven.”
“Look just above the bend on the slope,” said Gordon, “behind that reddish outcrop.”
“And two make nine.” Mansouri lowered the monocular, lifted his hat by the front of its crown, wiped nonexistent perspiration from his forehead with the back of his right forearm, and replaced the hat. Depositing the monocular in its holster, he took his handset from his belt and called in the preliminary action report to his Egyptian headquarters at Mut and to his Libyan headquarters at Al Kufrah. A chopper would be coming in from Mut to haul off the deceased. Once Mansouri was finished, he turned off the recorder and said, “I’d best have a look.” He glanced at the sky, a single hand held out. “May Allah let them be Egyptian.”
“Have something against your own countrymen, Captain?” asked Gordon.
Mansouri snorted out a laugh. “If they are Libyan, it will take weeks to sort through the red tape. If they are bloody Iranian, Palestinian, or Saudi my grandchildren will have to file the final report.” He cocked his head toward the Land Rover with its driver. “Want to ride down and have a look?”
“I already looked,” said Gordon as he began walking the trail toward camp.
“Were they bandits?” called Captain Mansouri to his back. “Or was it tribal, political, or religious?”
“Probably,” Gordon called over his shoulder.
Early that afternoon, after an uneventful run from Gilf Kebir, Dr. Hussein’s expedition pulled into Site Safar deep in the sand sea north of the Kebira Crater and three hundred meters lower in elevation. After packing a few things, Dr. Hussein and his wife bid good-bye to Gordon and to a few colleagues, climbed on a waiting helicopter, and flew east. Afterward, Gordon secured his weapons in the ordinance truck, his leather pack and other gear in his own tent, and headed toward site headquarters.
As he passed the red sandstone escarpment that served as the site’s visual centerpiece, the unusual color of it reminded him of cliffs in the Jemez Mountains, a lifetime and another world away. He watched them digging at the base of the escarpment for a moment, thinking of the pueblo and Iron Eyes. The old man had spent his life within two hundred kilometers of Jemez Pueblo, yet he had carried the wisdom of the universe. If there had been more time. If he had opened himself to the old man sooner. If Nascha hadn’t been so crazy-sick. If: a Bilagana head-game word.
Men laughing interrupted Gordon’s thoughts. A few of the diggers were taking a break with tea and conversation. When Gordon had been on site and not needed he would sometimes join the midday majlis as the workmen gathered to eat lunch and offer their biting critiques of the archeological effort.
“Salaam ‘aleikum, he would say to them all and they would stand and wish him ‘aleikum asslaam. Once the new faces were introduced and everyone settled, conversation would turn to the wondrous things they had seen at the dig that day. Stone-faced, they would sip their tea and talk gravely of fantastically important finds. “Pieces of pottery and glassware in great abundance,” they would say, citing important period names such as Bakelite, Marmite, and Smuckers, rivaling even the great Corning find of the previous week. “Fine jelly glass, chicken bones, and Coca-Cola bottles—the ancient glass ones!” And they would all ooh and aah at the wonder of it all—then laugh.
Said one, “It was obviously an ancient nest of the rare hundred-winged buffalo chickens of the Kentucky period.”
Added another, “They look as though they had been attacked by a tribe of the equally rare hundred-legged extra crispies.” More laughter, and they would spin archeological send-ups about the Paleo-chicken-cola Culture and the fine museum they would build one day in Cairo to house their valuable finds.
The big discovery one day was a worn-out tire from a WWII German truck. One of Rommel’s Afrika Korps Fritzies had really taken a wrong turn back in WWII. The big fear had been that they would also find Fritz, which would have shut down operations and cost the expedition more precious time and resources to repatriate the deceased veteran’s remains. Fortunately the Afrika Korps driver managed to change his flat, drive off, and die elsewhere.