The Lost Army of Cambyses (62 page)

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Initially he took them due east, about a kilometre,

putting two huge dunes between them and the

valley where the army was buried. Only then did

they turn south again, opening the throttle and fly-

ing back towards the huge rock, now lost

somewhere ahead and to their right.

'We'll run parallel to the valley till we're level

with the camp,' he explained. 'At least that way

we've got a chance of getting close to it. If we'd

gone back the way we'd come they'd have spotted

us a mile off. Nothing wrong with staying alive as

long as we can.'

They kept their eyes open for any sign of move-

ment on the dunes to either side and, once, Daniel

stopped and cut the engine, closing his eyes and

listening for anything that might indicate they'd

been seen. There was nothing. Just sand and

silence and stillness.

'It's like the whole thing was just a dream,' said

Tara.

'If only.'

They roared on for another five minutes until

Daniel judged they were about level with the

camp, whereupon he angled the bike up towards

the summit of the right-hand dune. The slope was

steep, and they only just made it to the top, the

engine whining in protest. The pyramid-shaped

outcrop reared in front of them and slightly to

their left, two dunes away, with below it, hidden,

the camp and excavations. There was no sign of

any guards.

'Where are they?' asked Tara.

'No idea. They must have all gone down into

the camp.'

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He eased back the throttle and took them down,

across and up the side of the next dune. There was

now only one dune between them and the army.

They could hear vague sounds, shouts and

hammering. The landscape, however, remained

resolutely empty.

'It's eerie,' she said. 'Like the desert's full of

invisible people.'

Daniel cut the engine and again surveyed the

land in front of them. Then, slowly, he eased his

hand off the brake and freewheeled silently down

the side of the dune, their velocity carrying them

fifty metres across the flat before they finally came

to a halt. They dismounted and he laid the bike on

the sand.

'We'll go on foot from here. I don't want to risk

starting the engine. Too much noise. If anyone sees

us . . . Well, there's not much we can do. Run for

it, I guess.'

They walked to the foot of the dune and started

upwards, eyes fixed on the summit above, dread-

ing the moment when someone would appear and

spot them. No-one did, however, and, hearts

thudding with exertion, they reached the top and

threw themselves onto their bellies, crawling

slowly forward over the cool sand until they could

gaze down into the valley below.

They were directly above the excavation crater,

the vast rock in front of them, the camp away to

their left. Droves of men were scurrying frantically

to and fro, packing away artefacts – swords, shields,

spears, armour – and loading crates onto camels.

'Looks like they're getting ready to leave,' said

Daniel, grimacing at the way the objects were

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being treated. 'Look, they're not even bothering to

use straw to pack them. They're just dumping

them in the boxes.'

They lay still, surveying the scene. A huge figure

was striding among the workmen, shouting and

gesticulating. Dravic. Tara felt a spasm of disgust

and turned her eyes away.

'What's that?'

She indicated a man down by the edge of the

crater, close to the base of the pyramid rock,

fiddling with what looked like a small grey box, a

confusion of cables tangled around his feet.

Daniel's eyes narrowed.

'Oh God!' he gasped.

'What?'

'Detonator.'

A brief pause.

'You mean . . .'

'They're going to blow it up,' he said, his face

pale with horror. 'That's what Sayf al-Tha'r meant

the other night. It's the only way they can

guarantee the value of what they've got. The

greatest find in the history of archaeology and

they're going to destroy it. Oh Jesus.' He grimaced

as though in physical pain.

'So what do we do?' she said.

'I don't know, Tara.' He shook his head. 'I just

don't know. If we try to go down here they'll see

us immediately.'

He tore his eyes away from the detonator and,

raising himself, looked away to his left.

'We might be able to get down further along,

beside the camp, but it's dangerous. Someone just

has to look up and that's it.'

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'We've come this far. If there's a chance of

getting down we should try it.'

'But what then? The detective guy could be

anywhere. There are a hundred tents down

there.'

'Let's just get down, eh?'

He smiled, despite himself. 'That's what I love

about you, Tara. Never answer a question today

that you can put off till tomorrow.'

He glanced down at the camp again and then,

easing himself back from the summit, came to his

feet and started along the flank of the dune. Tara

followed. They had gone only a few metres when

they heard something behind them: a distant thud

as of drums being beaten. They stopped, turned,

listened. The noise grew louder.

'What is it?' she asked.

'I don't know. It sounds like . . .'

He cocked his head, concentrating.

'Shit!'

He dragged her down onto the sand.

'Helicopters!'

They lay still, faces pressed into the dune as the

sound grew steadily louder. Soon it was all around

them, filling their ears. Sand started to blow off

the top of the dune, sheets of it, swirling over

them, the wind punching down from above. The

first helicopter roared past, no more than ten

metres overhead. Another went over, and another,

and another, more and more of them, like a swarm

of giant locusts, turning the sky dark, on and on,

until eventually they had all passed and the down-

draught subsided again.

For a moment the two of them lay still, then

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crawled back up to the ridge and took in the scene

below.

Three helicopters were hovering over the valley.

The others were coming in to land, half to the

south of the camp, the others to the north. As soon

as their wheels touched the ground, workers

pressed in all around, ready to start loading crates.

There was a brief pause and then, as one, the

cargo doors slid open. The black-robed men bent

to lift their loads. As they did so, suddenly, shock-

ingly, a vicious pulse of smoke and flame erupted

from the sides of the helicopters and there was a

furious crackle of gunfire.

'What the . . .'

Sayf al-Tha'r's men flew backwards, the crates

and their contents shredding under the hail of

bullets. The gunfire intensified, now coming from

the airborne helicopters too. Black-robed figures

were scattering in all directions, bullets sweeping

after and over them, cutting them down as they

ran. Some tried to return fire, but were picked off

almost immediately by the helicopters hovering

overhead. Camels thundered madly to and fro,

trampling anyone who got in their way.

'It's a massacre,' Tara whispered. 'God

almighty, it's a massacre.'

There were shouts and screams, and the whoosh

and boom of exploding oil drums. Figures began to

leap out of the helicopters, a surge of khaki, crouch-

ing low, fanning out, shooting. Black-robed bodies

lay strewn across the ground like spatters of ink.

Daniel came to his feet. 'I'm going down!'

She began to stand too, but he clamped his hand

to her shoulder.

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'Stay here! I'll try to find the detective and get

him out. Watch for us!'

Before she could say anything he was gone,

sprinting along the ridge and then down towards

the camp. At the bottom one of Sayf al-Tha'r's

men came running from between the tents. He saw

Daniel and raised his gun, but was thumped to the

ground by a storm of bullets from above, the sand

around him staining red with blood. Barely break-

ing his stride Daniel stooped, seized the man's gun

and ran on into the camp, disappearing behind a

veil of smoke. Tara leaned forward, trying to see

where he'd gone. Suddenly her head was yanked

back and she was looking up at the sky.

'I believe we have some unfinished business,

Miss Mullray. I do hope you don't enjoy it.'

'You love him, don't you?' said Khalifa gently.

'Sayf al-Tha'r.'

He was sitting cross-legged on the ground. A

few paces away, just inside the tent entrance, sat

Mehmet, a gun balanced on his thigh, eyes fixed

on Khalifa's face.

'I loved him too once, you know. More than

anyone in the world. Anyone.'

The boy was silent.

'I was like you. I would have died for him.

Happily. But now . . .' He dropped his head. 'Now

there's nothing but pain. I hope you never have to

feel that. Because to love someone and then hate

them is a terrible thing.'

They sat motionless, Khalifa staring at his

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hands, the boy staring at Khalifa. A faint thudding

came drifting into the tent, growing gradually

more insistent. The boy stood and, keeping his

gun trained on his prisoner, pushed back the flap.

'Looks like you'll be leaving soon,' said Khalifa.

Outside men were hurrying past. The thud of

rotors grew louder, the air vibrating with the

sound until eventually it was all around. The boy

leaned out and looked up, smiling, enjoying the

warmth of the sun and the buffeting of the wind.

His prisoner was right. Soon they would be leav-

ing. He and Sayf al-Tha'r. And soon, too, all bad

things in the world were going to end. That was

why they'd come out here. To make paradise on

earth. To do God's bidding. He felt a surge of hope

and happiness.

'I'll never hate him,' he said, turning back

towards Khalifa, knowing he wasn't supposed to

talk but unable to stop himself. 'Never. Whatever

you say. He's a good man. No-one ever cared for

me except him.' His smile widened. 'I do love him.

I will always be at his side. I will never fail him.'

He stared down, eyes bright with love and

innocence, and then, suddenly, there was a deaf-

ening roar and something ripped through the

canvas above. It slammed the boy onto his knees,

slicing the side of his head away, spilling blood

and brain across his shoulder. For a second he

remained like that, teetering, the smile still fixed

on his bloodied mouth, and then he pitched face

forward on top of Khalifa, knocking him back-

wards onto the floor. More bullets spat down

from above, slamming into the boy's limbs and

torso, causing his body to jerk like a marionette,

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before the helicopters trained their weapons else-

where and the body was still, fingers bent into

claws as though clinging to the edge of a precipice.

For a moment Khalifa was too shocked to

move. Then slowly, gingerly, he rolled the corpse

away and stood. The roof of the tent was a tangle

of shredded canvas, the sandy floor pitted with

craters. If the boy hadn't fallen on top of him he'd

have been killed, no doubt about it. He bent and

felt for a pulse, knowing it was futile, and then ran

his fingertips over the boy's eyes, closing the eye-

lids.

'He didn't deserve you,' he whispered.

Flames had started licking up the back of the

tent, filling the interior with smoke. Coughing,

Khalifa heaved off his blood-sodden robes and

snatched up the boy's gun. He took a final look

down at the punctured corpse and then threw

back the flap and ducked outside.

The camp had become an inferno. Everywhere

there were flames and smoke. Shadowy figures

loomed through the haze, some running, others

sprawled lifeless on the ground. High above three