Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

28

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

Wednesday, 12 July 2006. 7:33 p.m.

The next hours were a frenetic coming and going. Professor Forrester had decided to establish the camp at the entrance to the canyon. The site would be protected from the wind by the two walls of rock that first narrowed then widened out and finally joined once again 800 feet beyond, in what Forrester called the index finger. Two branches of the canyon to the east and south-east made up the middle and ring fingers of the claw.

The group would live in special tents designed by an Israeli company to withstand the desert heat, and it took a good part of the afternoon to erect them. The work of unloading the trucks fell to Robert Frick and Tommy Eichberg, who used the hydraulic winches on the Kamaz trucks to unload the large numbered metal boxes containing the equipment for the expedition.

‘Four thousand five hundred pounds of food, two hundred and fifty pounds of medicine, four thousand pounds of archaeological equipment and electrical gear, two thousand pounds of steel rails, a drill and a mini-excavator. What do you think of that?’

Andrea was amazed and made a mental note for her article as she checked off the items on the list Tommy had given her. Because of her limited experience in pitching tents, she had volunteered to help with the unloading and Eichberg had put her in charge of directing where each box should go. She had done so not out of a desire to help, but because she supposed that the sooner she was finished the sooner she would be able to talk to Fowler and Harel alone. The doctor was busy helping to set up the tent for the infirmary.

‘There goes number thirty-four, Tommy,’ yelled Frick from the back of the second truck. The chain on the winch was attached to two metal hooks on either side of the box; it made a loud clanking sound as it lowered its cargo towards the sandy soil.

‘Be careful, this one weighs a ton.’

The young reporter looked anxiously at the list, fearing she had missed something.

‘This list is wrong, Tommy. It only has thirty-three boxes.’

‘Don’t worry. This particular box is special… and here come the people in charge of it,’ Eichberg said, unhooking the chains.

Andrea looked up from her list to see Marla Jackson and Tewi Waaka, two of Dekker’s soldiers. They both knelt next to the box and released the locks. The top came off with a slight hiss, as if it had been vacuum-sealed. Andrea glanced discreetly at its contents. The two mercenaries didn’t appear to mind.

It’s almost as if they were expecting me to look.

The contents of the case couldn’t have been more mundane: packets of rice, coffee and beans, arranged in rows of twenty. Andrea didn’t understand; especially when Marla Jackson grabbed a packet with each hand and suddenly tossed them at Andrea’s chest, the muscles of her arms rippling under her black skin.

‘There you go, Snow White.’

Andrea had to drop the clipboard in order to catch the packages. Waaka fought back a snigger while Jackson, ignoring the surprised reporter, stuck her hand into the space left and pulled hard. The layer of packages shifted to reveal a much less prosaic cargo.

Rifles, machine guns, and small firearms rested on layer after layer of trays. While Jackson and Waaka removed the trays – six in total – and placed them carefully on top of the other boxes, Dekker’s remaining soldiers as well as the South African himself came over and began to arm themselves.

‘Excellent, gentlemen’ said Dekker. ‘As a wise man once said, great men are like eagles… they build their nests on lonely heights. The first watch belongs to Jackson and the Gottliebs. Find cover positions there, there and there.’ He pointed to three places at the top of the canyon walls, the second of which wasn’t too far from the spot where Andrea thought she had seen the mysterious figure a few hours before. ‘Only break radio silence to report in every ten minutes. That goes for you, too, Torres. If you trade cooking recipes with Maloney like you did in Laos, you’ll have me to deal with. March.’

The Gottlieb twins and Marla Jackson took off in three separate directions, looking for accessible climbs to the sentry positions from which Dekker’s soldiers would continuously guard the expedition during its time at the site. Once they had determined their posts, they secured rope and aluminium ladders to the rock every ten feet to make the vertical ascent easier.

Andrea, in the meantime, was marvelling at the ingenuity of modern technology. Not even in her wildest dreams had she imagined that her body would find itself in the vicinity of a shower over the next week. But to her surprise, among the last items to be lowered from the Kamaz trucks were two pre-fabricated showers and two portable toilets, made from plastic and fibreglass.

‘What’s the matter, beautiful? Aren’t you happy you won’t have to crap in the sand?’ said Robert Frick.

The bony young man was all elbows and knees, and he moved about nervously. Andrea took in his vulgar remark with a loud burst of laughter and began to help him secure the toilets.

‘That’s for sure, Robert. And from what I can see, we’ll even have His and Hers bathrooms…’

‘That’s a little unfair, seeing as there’s only four of you and twenty of us. Well, at least you’ll have to dig out your own latrine,’ Frick said.

Andrea went pale. Tired as she was, even the thought of lifting a shovel made her hands feel blistered. Frick was creasing up.

‘I don’t see what’s so funny.’

‘You’ve gone whiter than my Aunt Bonnie’s butt. That’s what’s so funny.’

‘Don’t pay any attention to him, honey,’ Tommy broke in. ‘We’ll use the mini-excavator. It’ll take us ten minutes.’

‘You always spoil the fun, Tommy. You should have let her sweat a little more.’ Frick shook his head as he went off to find someone else to bother.