The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER SIX

The 1921 butternut-colored Cadillac touring car with the over-sized tires churned up a dusty rooster tail as it raced across the desert at more than sixty-five miles per hour. Amir Khan had an expression of child-like joy on his face as he looked over the steering wheel down the length of the long louvered hood that covered the powerful 5.1 liter V-8 engine.

Sitting next to Amir in the seven-passenger vehicle was a ghost-like figure whose hair and face were shrouded under a light blue keffiyah. In the back seats were four men wearing traditional tribal garb: round Pakol caps, long shirts, vests and baggy pants. Cartridge belts encircled their waists and they clutched AK-47s with the barrels angled in the air.

The car swerved off the dirt track, bumped over the rough terrain, and came to a skidding stop near the edge of a large lake. The armed men jumped from the car and shouldered their guns. Each man grabbed a wooden pole from the trunk.

Amir got out next, followed by the shrouded figure who partially removed the keffiyeh, keeping the hair covered but exposing the face of Cait Everson. Cait unfolded a sheet of paper and glanced at a drawing that looked like a camel’s hump. She compared it with the hill set back a mile or so from the lake. The mound was flatter than in the sketch, but it may have been higher in the past. She and Amir walked to the edge of a cliff that overhung the blue surface of the lake around thirty feet below. The guards stretched out in a line, roughly three feet apart, and walked slowly, striking the ground with the pole tips. Cait and Amir followed. After advancing several yards, one of the men stopped and pointed to his feet.

Amir stepped ahead and struck the ground near the guard with his cane. A hollow noise echoed up from the earth. The guards used knives to scrape away the top soil, uncovering a square metal plate around four feet across. They lifted the plate off to reveal a rectangle of darkness.

Cait produced a flashlight from under her smock and dropped to her knees. Ignoring Amir’s warning to watch out for the crumbling edges, she leaned over the opening. The flashlight beam was absorbed by the darkness.

“The Kurtz mine shaft,” Cait murmured. She stood up and dusted off her hands. “I’m going in.”

“The mine is very old. You may be putting yourself in danger.”

“The supporting timbers along the walls look okay,” Cait said. “I’ll be all right. You can pull me out if I get into trouble. Don’t forget, I’m an experienced archaeological field worker.”

Amir had mentioned the shaft to Cait over dinner the previous day. He had assumed it was the work of Russian geologists who surveyed the area years before, but Cait had become excited and insisted on seeing it. Amir had come to regard Cait almost like a daughter. And as with the pleading of his own daughters, he found it difficult to say no.

He gave an order and a man drove the car close to the shaft. Cait retrieved her duffle bag from the trunk and dug out a yellow hard hat equipped with a headlamp, and a pair of fingerless gloves, goggles and knee pads. She kept the head covering in place, but slipped out of the smock she had been wearing and shed her pajama-like pants. Underneath she wore a tan long-sleeve shirt and cargo slacks. She tucked a walkie-talkie into her shirt pocket and gave another one to Amir.

She dug into the duffle again and pulled out a nylon harness attached to a two-hundred-foot-long length of half inch manila rope. Cait’s explorations of old ruins sometimes brought her into tunnels and shafts where she might need help getting out. While she buckled into the harness, Amir’s men tied the other end of the rope onto the front bumper of the car. Cait put on the goggles, knee-pads and gloves and sat down at the edge of the shaft with her legs dangling. Four guards picked up the rope. She slipped over the edge and was lowered several feet until she ordered a halt to look around. As she dangled there, she reflected on the events that had brought her to this dark hole in the desert.

She had visited Afghanistan three years before to do research into the vast transcontinental network of paths that had extended more than four thousand miles between China and western Asia and Europe and northern Africa.

The routes were collectively called the Silk Road, but they had been used to transport other goods, including amber, slaves, incense and precious stones. The roads were also conduits of culture, technology, disease, such as the Black Death, and they had laid the foundation for the global economy,

Cait had been researching the southern silk route which still existed in part as the Karakoram Highway, a paved road connecting Pakistan and China. Using a technique known as desert road archeology, she had followed old traffic routes looking for commercial settlements around caravan stops that were often rich archaeological troves. One route in particular piqued her interest. On an old map she acquired, this route branched off from the main road for no apparent reason, eventually coming to a dead end near a lake. She suspected that the area around the lake may have been the site of commercial activity.

Returning to Kabul, she showed some Afghan colleagues her findings and said she wanted to see the site firsthand. They told her the territory was dangerous, controlled by warlords who made their living in the drug trade.

The lake was under the control of a warlord named Amir Khan. Cait expressed interest in learning more about Amir. A friend at the American embassy arranged a meeting with a cultural attaché, a title Cait knew was often a cover for CIA personnel. Frank Brady was a trim man in his fifties who had a thoughtful professorial manner that suggested he was probably an analyst rather than a field agent.

“Amir was on the American payroll during the war against the Soviets,” he said. “Got wounded in action. He suffered some nerve damage and almost didn’t walk again. He was brought to the United States and treated at Walter Reed hospital. Spent months in therapy. While he was recuperating, he studied at Georgetown University. From what I hear of the efficient way he runs things as a warlord, he must have majored in business administration.”

Without hesitating, Cait said, “Can you get a message from me to the Amir?”

“What sort of message?” Brady said warily.

“Tell him that a Georgetown history professor is interested in doing research in his neighborhood and see what he says.”

Brady chuckled. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“It never hurts to ask.”

“I’ll see if I can make a connection. Where are you staying?”

“At the Serena Hotel. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

That night Cait got a call from Brady. “You Georgetown alum must be pretty tight, Dr. Everson. The Amir would be pleased to have you as his guest.”

Cait was stunned. The alumni ploy had been a gamble.

“I’d be pleased to accept his invitation,” she said. “Any idea how I get there?”

“Be at the airport at seven tomorrow morning.”

Cait thanked Brady, and as an afterthought, asked if he had any advice on how to deal with a warlord.

“Keep your blinders on and you’ll be fine,” Brady said.

Cait packed a bag with her field clothes and equipment. She spent a restless night and was awake when the sun came up over the mountains. It was only a twenty-minute taxi ride to Khawaja Rawash airport and she arrived well ahead of time.

What followed was like something out of a spy movie. She was met by a man who said he was the Amir’s assistant in Kabul, led to a private two-engine plane, and ushered on without a word. After a two-hour flight, the plane angled down for its descent. On the approach, Cait glimpsed the figure-eight lake she had seen in the satellite photos. Minutes later, they bumped down onto a crude unpaved landing strip near a large metal hangar.

After the door was unlatched, Cait climbed down the gang way, blinking her eyes in the bright sunlight. An antique touring car was parked at the edge of the runway. Leaning against a front fender of the convertible was a tall man dressed in a traditional Afghan outfit. He waved and then walked over with the aid of a cane, and extended his hand.

“Welcome, Dr. Everson. I am Amir Khan.”

His voice was deep and resonant, and he spoke in American English with a trace of an Afghan accent. He had a raffish handlebar mustache that looked bleach-white against his dark skin. He wore a flat mushroom-shaped cap over gray hair.

He opened the door on the passenger side for her, and then got behind the wheel. The car passed acres of agricultural fields and a number of large sheds. Cait heeded Brady’s advice and kept her blinders on. Eventually, the car arrived at a walled cluster of buff-colored, flat-roofed buildings, passed through an unmanned gatehouse, and made its way along an unpaved street toward the largest building in the village.

The stone-and-mud house was surrounded by well-landscaped greenery. Amir pulled the car up in front of the high arched wooden door. A man appeared seemingly from nowhere and carried Cait’s bag to the doorstep.

An attractive woman in her thirties opened the door. Her head was covered with an orchard silk scarf and she wore a traditional black smock. A little girl with huge brown eyes hung on her dress.

“This is my daughter Nagia and one of my granddaughters, little Yasmeen,” Amir said.

Nagia bowed slightly and picked up the bag. “Please follow me,” she said in English.

She led Cait along a wide marbled hallway to a room furnished with an art deco bed and a dresser that could have come from Paris. French doors looked out on a garden area. Nagia said that her father would be waiting in the garden. Cait bathed her face in cooling rose water and checked to make sure her hair wasn’t a mess.

In the center of the garden was a small gazebo that shaded a carved wooden table and chairs. Cait sat in a chair and waited a minute or so before Amir appeared, trailing an elderly female servant who carried a tray with a pitcher and two glasses and a plate of pastry. The sheik had changed from his traditional outfit into tan slacks and a white shirt. The servant filled the glasses and went back into the house. They both took a sip of the amber liquid.

“Iced jasmine tea. Hope you like it.”

Cait let the cooling liquid roll down her throat.

“It’s delicious,” she said. She glanced around the garden.

“You seem ill at ease, Dr. Everson. Is there anything wrong?”

“Not at all.” She smiled. “It’s just not what I imagined. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect—”

“Of a warlord?” he said, completing her sentence. “The term is a misnomer. Most of us are not at war. Nor are we lords. In the U.S. you would call us agri-businessmen.”

They both smiled. The inside joke broke the ice, and soon they were talking about their Georgetown link. That led to a discussion of Cait’s work, which in turn brought up the purpose of her visit.

“I’m looking for evidence of settlements along an ancient road that branched off from the Silk Road only to end suddenly at the lake I saw flying in,” she said.

“It was called The Valley of the Dead before it filled with water, supposedly released from heavy bombing during the second Anglo-Afghan war,” Amir said. “Local lore has it that my ancestors would lure caravans into the valley to be trapped and looted of their riches. I don’t mean to discourage you, but your trip here may have been for nothing. There’s no trace of the old road.”

Cait sensed that her host had satisfied his curiosity and was about to blow her off. She was pondering her next move when fate intervened. Yasmeen had crept up behind her grandfather. She had a mischievous expression on her face as she reached around him, snatched a small cake and stuffed it into her mouth. The dry cake caught in her throat, and the look of sweet-tooth bliss in her eyes turned to one of tearful terror as her round face began to turn purple.

Amir saw what was happening. He grabbed the little girl, lifted her in the air, and gave her body a shake. Cait sprang to her feet.

“No!” she shouted.

She snatched Yasmeen from her grandfather’s arms and applied the Heimlich method from behind, taking care not to break the girl’s ribs. The greasy crumbs were expelled after a few tries. Yasmeen let out the cry that had been stuck in her throat. It was the sweetest sound Cait had ever heard.

The girl’s mother came running from the house and scooped the bawling girl from Cait’s arms. She and her father had a rapid conversation, then she turned to Cait, smiled, and said, “Thank you.” She disappeared back into the house with the girl.

“Sorry to grab her away,” Cait said. “I took a basic CPR course once.”

Amir took her hand, bowed slightly and pressed it to his forehead.

“Please. No apology. I am in your debt. I would consider anything you wish to be my command.”

Cait spent three nights as Amir’s guest. He gave her a tour of the lake, showing her where the track once entered the valley, but there was no evidence of ruins. The bandits who had swarmed the area were nomads and left no clue behind. He said that an expedition had explored the area years before, supposedly led by a rich American named Kurtz, but it left suddenly, abandoning the touring car, which Amir had found being used as a chicken coop and restored.

He drove Cait to the air strip on the third day. Before she climbed into the plane, Amir told her that she would always be welcome. She never dreamed that three years later she would take him up on his offer.

Cait took a deep breath, exhaled, and jerked on the rope.

“Lower away,” she shouted.

She began her plunge into the blackness. At one point in her descent she looked up. The opening was a rectangle of blue sky that seemed no bigger than a postage stamp and getting smaller. The dank air triggered coughing fits.

Amir’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes, fine.”

She wasn’t quite telling the truth. The support timbers were deteriorated and many were missing. She snapped off photos with her digital camera to divert her precarious state of mind. She was engrossed in her task when a shocking cold wetness enveloped her feet and ankles.

Water!

Then something grabbed at her legs. Her headlamp revealed what looked like the writhing coils of a thick black snake. She pointed the camera down and punched the shutter with a vague notion in her mind that the flash would scare it away.

She tried to dig out her radio, but in her haste it slipped from her hand. She jerked on the line. Instead of being pulled up, she continued her plunge until the water and coils were around her waist. She was almost frozen in panic. Her heart hammered in her chest. She wanted to scream, but the sound caught in her throat.

The water was nearly up to her chin when the descent stopped. The rope tenders had detected a change in tension and began to reel her up. She popped out of the water, feeling one last horrifying brush of the coils along her legs. Her elbows and knees scraped the sides of the shaft, but she was no longer worried about a cave-in. She wanted out! She was shivering like a leaf when Amir’s men pulled her into the sunlight.

Seeing Cait’s muddied clothes and pale features, Amir said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fi-fine, thanks,” she said.

He escorted her back to the car and ordered his men to get a blanket from the car’s trunk. She sat in the passenger seat, with the blanket wrapped around her body, and sipped strong tea.

Once her shivering was under control, she looked at the photo she had taken in the shaft then showed to image to Amir.

“It looks like a section of rubber hose,” he said.

Cait nodded. “Kurtz dug that shaft to try to get down to the treasure cave, but the hose suggests that his diver died in a wall collapse,” she said. “After that happened he wrapped up his expedition and headed home. Which is probably what I should do. I don’t want to end up the same way. Sorry to waste your time, Amir.”

He slid in behind the steering wheel, started the car and put it into gear. “You must not be discouraged. Remember that a river is made drop by drop.”

The Kahn had sprung his enigmatic proverbs before, but she was in no mood for homespun Afghan philosophy. She had spent too many years and traveled too many miles. Her patience was exhausted.

As they drove off, she glanced at the lake with yearning eyes and made a reluctant admission to herself.

For all intents and purposes, her Prester John theory was as dead as the diver buried in the mine shaft.