Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

73

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

Thursday, July 20. 6:39 a.m.

For the first time since they had reached Claw Canyon eight days earlier, dawn found most of the members of the expedition asleep. Five of them, under six feet of sand and rocks, would never wake again.

Others were shuddering in the early-morning cold beneath a camouflage blanket. They looked at the place where the horizon was supposed to be and waited for the sun to burst into day, turning the cold air into the hell of what would become the hottest day of the Jordanian summer in over forty-five years. From time to time they gave a worried nod, and that in itself frightened them. For every soldier the night watch is the hardest; and for the one who has blood on his hands it’s the time when the ghosts of those he has killed might come to whisper in his ear.

Halfway between the five resting underground and the three doing guard duty up on the cliff, fifteen people turned over in their sleeping bags; perhaps they missed the blasts from the air horn that Professor Forrester had used to get them out of bed before dawn. The sun came up at 5:33 a.m., and was greeted by silence.

Towards 6:15 a.m., roughly the same time that Orville Watson and Father Albert were entering the lobby of Kayn Tower, the first member of the expedition to rouse himself was Nuri Zayit the cook. He prodded his assistant Rani with his foot and stepped outside. As soon as he got to the mess tent he began to prepare instant coffee using evaporated milk instead of water. There weren’t many cartons of milk or juice left, since people were drinking them to compensate for the lack of water, and there was no fruit, so the only thing the chef could do was make omelettes and scrambled eggs. The old mute threw all his energy and a handful of the remaining parsley into the meal, communicating, as he had always done, through his culinary skills.

In the infirmary tent, Harel untangled herself from Andrea’s embrace and went to check on Professor Forester. The old man was connected to an oxygen tank, but his condition had only worsened. The doctor doubted that he would last beyond that night. Shaking her head to dispel the thought, she returned to wake Andrea with a kiss. As they caressed and made small talk, both of them began to realise that they were falling in love. Finally they got dressed and headed for the mess tent to have breakfast.

Fowler, who now shared a tent with just Pappas, started his day by going against his better judgement and made a mistake. Thinking that everyone in the soldiers’ tent was asleep, he slid outside and made a call to Albert on his satellite phone. The young priest answered and impatiently told him to call back in twenty minutes. Fowler hung up, relieved that the call had been so brief but worried about having to try his luck again so soon.

As for David Pappas, he woke up a little before six thirty and went to see Professor Forrester, hoping that he would be better but also hoping to rid himself of the guilt he felt following last night’s dream, in which he was the only archaeologist left alive when the Ark finally saw the light of day.

In the soldiers’ tent, Marla Jackson was watching the back of her commander and lover from her mattress – they never slept together when they were on a mission but would sneak off together once in a while on ‘reconnaissance’. She wondered what the South African was thinking.

Dekker was one of those for whom dawn brought the breath of the dead, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In a brief moment of wakefulness between two successive nightmares, he thought he had seen the frequency scanner screen display a signal, but it was too quick to fix a position. Suddenly he leapt up and started giving orders.

In Raymond Kayn’s tent, Russell was laying out his boss’s clothes and urging him at least to take his red pill. Reluctantly Kayn agreed then spat it out when Russell wasn’t looking. He felt strangely calm. At last, the whole purpose of his sixty-eight years would be fulfilled.

In a more modest tent, Tommy Eichberg discreetly stuck his finger in his nose, scratched his behind, and walked to the bathroom looking for Brian Hanley. He needed his help to fix a piece they needed for the drill. They had to get through eight feet of wall but if they drilled from the top they could reduce some of the vertical pressure and then remove the stones by hand. If they worked quickly, they could be finished in six hours. Of course, it didn’t help that Hanley was nowhere to be found.

As for Huqan, he checked his watch. Over the past week he had worked out the best place from which to get a good view over the whole site. Now he waited for the soldiers to change shift. Waiting suited him fine. He had waited a lifetime.