The Lost Army of Cambyses (64 page)

over each other, lost in a blur of sand and sky and

flailing limbs.

At the bottom Tara somersaulted away from the

dune and slammed onto the sand. For a moment

she lay still, dizzy and disorientated, then

staggered to her feet. Dravic had tumbled away

from her on the lower part of the slope, and was

now ten metres away. He too was coming to

his feet, the sharpened trowel still clenched in his

hand. Blood was dripping from his nose.

'You bitch.' He coughed. 'You fucking bitch.'

He started towards her, his feet sinking deep

into the sand. Surprisingly deep, given that they

were now back on level ground. Tara backed

away, ready to turn and run. The giant heaved his

leg out and took another step, but went in even

deeper, above the knees. Suddenly he wasn't look-

ing at her any more. He leaned back and tugged at

the leg, but something seemed to be holding it

from below and it wouldn't come.

'Oh no!' There was fear in his voice. 'Oh no,

not that!' He looked up at Tara, face suddenly

weak with terror. 'Please, not that!'

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For a moment he was still, something almost

childlike in his pleading eyes, and then he began to

fight, face contorted in a rictus of strain and

horror. He bucked up and down, trying to yank

his legs free, but all he did was drive himself

deeper into the quicksand, sinking to the level of

his thighs, then his groin and then his waist. He

leaned back, placed a hand to either side of him

and pushed, but his arms just sank in too. He

dragged them out, still clutching his trowel, and

tried again, but with the same result. The sand was

now lapping against his ribs. He began to weep.

'Help me!' he screamed at Tara. 'For God's

sake, help me!' He was holding a hand out

towards her, desperate. 'Please! Oh please! Help

me!'

Tears were streaming down his face, his arms

windmilling. He started screaming, a high bestial

wail of despair, his fists beating on the sand, his

upper body heaving and writhing as though he

was being electrocuted. But the desert refused to

ease its grip, slowly pulling him down, taking him

up to the level of his armpits, then his shoulders

and then all that was left of him was his huge

head and the upper part of one arm, the trowel

still clasped in his hand. Unable to watch any

more, Tara turned away.

'Oh no!' he screamed at her back. 'No! Don't

leave me alone! Please don't leave me alone! Help

me! Get me out!'

She began to walk back up the dune.

'Please!' he wailed. 'I'm sorry for what I did! I'm

sorry! Please don't leave me like this! Not on my

own! Come back! Come back, you bloody whore!

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I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you! Oh God, help me!

Help me!'

His screams continued until she was about

halfway up the dune, then ceased abruptly. Near

the top she turned and looked back down. She

could just make out the topmost part of his head

still protruding above the sand and, beside it, his

trowel. She shuddered and carried on to the

summit.

The battle was all but over by the time Tara

reached the dune-top. Fires were raging every-

where and the air was heavy with smoke and

fumes, but the gunfire had dropped off and the

three hovering helicopters had landed. Khaki-clad

figures, obviously soldiers, were picking their way

methodically through the wreckage, stopping

every now and then to pump bursts of bullets into

the black-robed bodies lying strewn across the

ground. Camels wandered aimlessly to and fro.

She couldn't see any of Sayf al-Tha'r's men still

standing.

She surveyed the scene for a while, then noticed

two small figures set apart from the rest, close to

the base of the great black rock. They were some

distance away, but one was wearing a white shirt

and she was sure it was Daniel. She started down

the side of the dune. At the bottom she pulled her

shirt over her face against the fumes and began

moving through the carnage. Soldiers were every-

where. She tried to stop one to ask what was going

on, but he simply walked right past her as though

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she didn't exist. She tried again, with the same

result, so she just continued onwards towards the

pyramid rock, skirting the edge of the excavation

trench and eventually coming to the two figures

she'd seen from above. Daniel was nearer, sitting

on the sand gazing down into the trench, a

machine-gun slung across his shoulder. Khalifa

was beyond him, leaning against the outcrop, a

cigarette in his mouth, face swollen and bruised,

shirt stained with blood. They looked up as she

approached, but neither said anything.

She went to Daniel, squatted beside him and

took his hand, squeezing. He squeezed back, but

still said nothing. Khalifa inclined his head

towards her.

'You are OK?' he asked.

'Yes. Thank you. You?'

He nodded and drew deeply on his cigarette.

She wanted to ask what was going on, who the

soldiers were, what it all meant, but sensed he

didn't want to talk and so said nothing.

Nearby a camel was chewing at a bale of straw,

the crate on its back peppered with bullet holes.

The sun was up and the air was growing hotter.

Five minutes passed, ten, and then they heard

the distant pulse of an approaching helicopter. It

grew louder and louder and then swung in over

the top of the dune opposite, hovering above the

valley for a moment before coming down fifty

metres from where they were sitting. Sand sprayed

towards them and they turned their heads. The

camel loped away along the side of the crater.

As soon as it was on the ground the pilot killed

the engine and the rotors slowed. Several soldiers

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hurried towards it and there was the clatter of a

door being slid back on its far side. They heard an

indistinct babble of voices, and then four figures

appeared from around the front of the helicopter.

Three of them Tara recognized – Squires, Jemal

and Crispin Oates. The fourth, a fat balding man

dabbing at his head with a handkerchief, was a

stranger. They trudged across the sand, in-

congruous in their suits and ties, and stopped a

few metres away.

Tara and Daniel came to their feet.

'Good morning to you all,' cried Squires

jovially. 'Well, this has been an adventure, hasn't

it!'

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42

THE WESTERN DESERT

For several seconds no-one said anything. Then

the fat man spoke.

'I'll leave this to you, Squires. I've got other stuff

to deal with.'

'At least introduce yourself, old boy.'

'For Christ's sake, this isn't a goddam picnic.'

He spat and, turning, waddled away, wiping at

his neck with his handkerchief. Squires watched

him go.

'You must forgive our American friend. A

sterling fellow in his own way, but somewhat

underschooled in the arts of common politeness.'

He smiled apologetically and, reaching into his

pocket, produced a boiled sweet which he pro-

ceeded to unwrap, his long white fingers tugging

at the cellophane like the legs of a large spider.

There was an extended silence, broken eventually

by Khalifa.

'It was a set-up, wasn't it?' he said quietly, flick-

ing his cigarette down into the trench. 'The tomb,

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the text, all this . . .' He waved his arm around

him. 'All a set-up. To lure Sayf al-Tha'r back to

Egypt. Back to where you could get him.'

Squires raised his eyebrows slightly but said

nothing, just finished unwrapping his sweet and

popped it in his mouth.

Despite the heat Tara felt something cold creep-

ing across her skin. 'You mean . . .' She couldn't

get her thoughts clear.

'The tomb was fake,' said Khalifa. 'Not the

objects. They were genuine. But the wall decor-

ation, the text: all modern. Bait to attract Sayf

al-Tha'r. Brilliant, when you think about it.'

Tara stared at Squires, a look of mingled shock

and incomprehension on her face. Daniel's face

was pale, his body tense, as though he was wait-

ing for someone to hit him.

'So who exactly are you?' asked Khalifa.

'Military? Secret service?'

Squires sucked thoughtfully on his sweet.

'Elements of both really. Best not to get too

specific. Suffice it to say each of us represents our

respective governments in what might loosely be

termed an intelligence capacity.' He brushed some

fluff from his sleeve. 'So what gave it away?' he

asked Khalifa.

'That the tomb wasn't real?' The detective

shrugged. 'The
shabtis
from Iqbar's shop initially.

They were genuine, certainly, but of a later date

than the tomb they'd been taken from. Everything

else was First Persian Period. They were Second. If

they'd been earlier I could have understood. It

would simply have meant they'd been stolen from

an older tomb and reused. Later, however, just

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didn't make sense. How could an object from the

fourth century BC end up in a tomb that had been

sealed a hundred and fifty years earlier? There

were possible explanations, but it got me thinking

there was something not right about the whole

thing. It was only when I saw the tomb itself that

I was certain.'

'You clearly have an acute eye,' said Squires.

'We thought we'd got it just right.'

'You had,' said Khalifa. 'It was perfect. That's

what gave it away. Something my old professor

told me. No piece of ancient Egyptian art is ever

entirely precise. There's always at least one flaw,

however tiny. I went over every inch of that tomb

and there wasn't a single mistake. No drips of ink,

no misaligned hieroglyphs, no correctional marks.

It was faultless. Too faultless. The Egyptians were

never that exact. It had to be a fake.'

Daniel's hand slipped out of Tara's and he

moved a couple of paces away from her, shaking

his head, a barely perceptible smile pulling at his

mouth. She wanted to go over to him, hold him,

tell him he couldn't have known, but she sensed he

didn't want her near.

'Even then I still wasn't sure what was going

on,' continued Khalifa. 'Someone had clearly

gone to a lot of trouble faking a tomb. And the

purpose of that tomb seemed to be to lead

whoever found it out here into the desert. I

guessed one of the security services was involved.

It was them who were following me in Luxor. And

the British embassy too.' He glanced at Oates. 'I

couldn't see how it all fitted together, though. Still

couldn't until about half an hour ago, when

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the helicopters arrived. Then it all fell into place.'

There was a brief burst of gunfire from some-

where on the other side of the camp. A gust of hot

wind blew across them.

'Ironic, really,' sighed Khalifa. 'The amount of

money you must have spent setting this whole

thing up would have been enough to solve most of

the problems that create people like Sayf al-Tha'r

in the first place. How much did it cost you to

bury this lot out here? Millions? Tens of millions?

God, you must have emptied every museum store-

room in Egypt.'

Squires said nothing, sucking meditatively on

his sweet. Then, suddenly, he began to chuckle.

'Oh dear, oh dear, Inspector, you do seem to

have got the wrong end of the stick. The tomb was

indeed a fake, as you so cleverly deduced. And, as

you also realized, its purpose was to lead whoever

found it out here into the desert. We didn't have to

bury anything, however. It was already here.'

He noted the look on Khalifa's face and his

laughter redoubled.

'Oh yes, this is the lost army of Cambyses. The

real thing. Just as it was buried two and a half

thousand years ago. All we did was to frame a