The Heretics Treasure

Chapter Fifty-One

It was a long, sweltering walk. As Ben strode quickly along with the heavy holdall over his shoulder and Kirby stumbled sullenly in his wake, the sand underfoot became soil and the wispy tufts of yellowed grass became green and lush. Finally, as they topped a rise, they looked down and saw the roofs and winding streets of a small village below them. Beyond that, clusters of palm trees and the glittering blue waters of the Nile, dotted with boats and barges.

Ben was quietly thankful for Kirby’s subdued mood as they headed down a grassy slope towards the first of the buildings. The task ahead of him now was a serious undertaking, and required careful planning. Driving hundreds of miles through the desert was no joke, even under favourable conditions. He’d been counting on picking up supplies at Aswan, and only hoped this village would be able to provide what he needed.

The dusty streets wound between traditional houses and buildings, some of them obviously dating back to medieval times at least. Ben and Kirby were the only Westerners in the place, and drew a few curious glances from the garbed natives. Wandering into the centre of the settlement, they came across a wide open square filled with people and livestock and market stalls. Men in white, brown and lilac robes, swathed in desert headgear, standing alongside their camels and goats tethered up for sale. A small herd of mules stood placidly chomping on a pile of silage that was being forked down from an old trailer. The hazy air was filled with the animated chatter of traders and punters as they negotiated and bartered, the rasping croak of camels, the braying of donkeys. If it hadn’t been for the occasional truck rumbling by, and the couple of dusty old motorbikes parked at the edge of the marketplace, the scene could have belonged to any century stretching back to Biblical times and beyond.

Ben and Kirby wandered through the throng, eagerly followed by a stream of children all with something to sell and jubilant at finding strangers in their village. Kirby was staring around him in fascination, as though he’d landed on another planet. Walking up to a tethered camel and stroking its bony flank, he collected a generous jet of spit in the eye from the animal and a stream of abuse from its owner.

Ben grabbed his arm. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’ Kirby pouted and wiped his face with his sleeve as Ben led him away to search for supplies. At a provisions stall, Ben bought a large jar of honey, some tea, a big bag of dried goat meat in strips, nuts and desiccated fruit. ‘Fresh food spoils fast in the desert,’ he explained to Kirby.

The historian frowned in puzzlement at the jar of honey and was about to ask what it was for, but Ben was already deep in discussion with the stall’s owner. The trader smiled and pointed as he replied in quick-fire Arabic.

‘What was that all about?’ Kirby asked as Ben led him towards the edge of the market.

‘I asked him if he knew where I could buy a vehicle good for the desert, and he told me that his cousin, Mohammed, runs a garage at the far side of the village.’

‘Where the hell are we, anyway?’

‘About three days’ drive from where we need to be. So walk a little faster.’

An hour later, Ben was sitting in a shady back office over a tall glass of lime juice with his new friend, Mohammed, and shelling out Egyptian currency for what he hoped was their ideal ticket to the wilderness of the Sudan. Mohammed had three off-road vehicles for sale, and the one Ben had picked out was an ex-Libyan military Toyota. It was ancient and primitive, and large areas of its matt-green bodywork had been badly dented and restraightened with a hammer more than once; but it was all set up for desert driving with high-level suspension, new sand tyres, a spare wheel on the back and another on the bonnet, a full toolkit including a military folding shovel, and eight large metal jerrycans. You could never carry enough spare fuel in the desert, and Ben had Mohammed fill them to capacity as well as the tank.

It took another hour to gather together as many supplies as Ben could find-plastic litre bottles of Baraka mineral water and two belt canteens, compass, firelighting kit, a compact solid fuel stove, two small aluminium pots and two tin mugs, and goatskins for the cold desert nights. A spice merchant sold him some small vials of geranium and lavender oils to deter mosquitoes and other insects-an old trick Ben had learned in the army, just as effective as any chemical repellent. Lastly he bought a pair of loose-fitting cotton tunics and two Bedouin headscarves for them to wear.

‘I’ll look like a tit in that,’ Kirby complained.

‘You already do. And you don’t want to be in the desert sun with your head exposed.’ Ben loaded the last of the stuff into the back of the truck and slammed the tailgate shut.

‘I’d kill for a cold pint of beer,’ Kirby said mournfully.

‘This is a Muslim village. Try finding a bar. Also, you don’t want to be drinking alcohol in the heat. You’ll dehydrate in seconds. And watch your piss. If it starts to turn deep yellow, you’re not drinking enough water. Remember, if you get sick, I’m not carting you back to civilisation. I’ll leave you where you drop, and the sand spiders will have you.’

‘Thanks a million, friend.’

‘It was your decision to come along.’ Ben climbed into the Toyota, slammed the door and fired up the engine. Kirby hauled himself up into the passenger seat.

It was midday-the worst time for setting off into the desert. In an ideal situation, Ben would have waited another four hours-but this wasn’t an ideal situation. Kamal already had a long head start on them and there was no time to waste.

Ben pointed the Toyota southwest and they set off. It wasn’t long before they left the verdant Nile corridor behind and were heading into the wilderness. They drove along with the windows wide open, but the air blasting in was impossibly hot. Kirby constantly fanned himself with the laminated map, slumped in his seat, his hair plastered and dripping with sweat. After a while he fell asleep, and Ben focused on driving.

For the first few hours, the road was metalled and quite busy in places with huge trucks that flew along, with scant regard for other traffic. Ben cautiously passed a couple of military patrols, but nobody stopped him.

Hours passed, Kirby slept on and Ben kept pushing the Toyota hard and fast. Later in the day, the road had thinned out to a track. An hour after that, Ben was driving on sand and forced to keep his speed down to reduce fuel consumption. Kirby drifted in and out of his doze, and they barely spoke. Only once every few hours did they see another vehicle passing the other way. The terrain was as flat as the sea, stretching out to infinity all around. It was more like navigating a ship than driving a car. With no visual references it was all too easy to drift off course, and Ben had to keep checking the compass to maintain their southwesterly bearing.

A tiny dot on the horizon. He watched as it grew larger, until the shape of the armed Land Rover was shimmering close in the heat haze. The vehicle flashed at them to halt. Soldiers climbed down, guns slung low.

‘Who are they?’ Kirby asked anxiously.

‘Egyptian army.’

‘What is this, a shakedown?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What’ll we do?’

Ben said nothing to that.

The officer in charge swaggered casually up to them and leaned on the door sill. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator sunglasses. ‘Salaam Alaykum.’

‘Alaykum Salaam,’ Ben replied with a respectful bow of the head.

The officer smiled. ‘Where are you from?’

‘British nationals,’ Ben said. ‘Just touring.’

‘There has been terrorist activity to the north. It is dangerous for foreigners to travel alone in the desert. Do you require an escort to the nearest town?’

Ben replied politely that they didn’t. The officer shrugged, signalled to his men and they climbed back in their Land Rover and drove off. Ben let out a breath as he watched them go.

‘That was close,’ Kirby said, glancing behind him at the holdall full of weapons and ammunition.

‘It’ll get closer,’ Ben replied.

They travelled on, always southwest. The sun bore murderously down, a stark white ball of molten steel in the sky. Its glare played endless tricks with depth perception. As they entered a zone of huge, undulating sand dunes, Ben almost drove straight into a near-vertical slope thinking it was flat. A few minutes later, Kirby was convinced he could see a village in the distance. It turned out to be a discarded jerrycan just eighty yards away.

The dunes became a miniature mountain range of soft, crumbly sand. Cresting a dune at any kind of speed was dangerous, as the weight of the vehicle could cause a slipaway that would risk their overturning. If that happened and they were lucky, they might be able to dig out a trench to roll the Toyota upright. If they were unlucky, it meant they would cook out here.

Slowly, the landscape began to grow rockier, until Ben found himself lurching over sandstone ridges and tracks so rutted that the suspension bottomed out with a jarring thump every few yards. He drove in silence while beside him Kirby gripped his seat, letting out a loud groan every time they hit a bad bump or crashed down into a ditch. But it was the kind of rough work that the Toyota was made for. Ben forced it on mercilessly, knowing it would take more than a few bumps to test the military vehicle to its limits.

With the cruelly slow passing of time, the sun faded from white to gold and sank back down in the sky as the temperature dwindled from that of a blistering furnace to merely insanely hot. Evening fell. Ben finally let the Toyota roll to a halt and got out, stretching his stiff limbs. He took a long, long drink of water from the canteen on his belt, feeling it soothe his parched mouth. ‘We’ll stop here tonight,’ he said. He would have liked to keep going, but night driving in the desert wasn’t advisable and he badly needed to rest.

‘It gets cold so suddenly here,’ Kirby said. ‘It’s like someone turned off the heater.’

They unpacked some of the dry meat and fruit, and sat on the sand a few yards from the car to eat, listening to the silence. Ben kept the FN rifle nearby. When night descended fully and the temperature plummeted further, he lit the solid fuel stove and brewed up some tea in their tin mugs. Kirby had little to say for himself, rocking slowly back and forth, huddling under his goatskin and sipping his drink.

Ben allowed himself a few hours’ sleep. The first red and gold streaks of sunrise were in the sky when he awoke, long shadows cast over the dunes. It was cold, and he was shivering as he washed sparingly with their precious water supply. He nudged Kirby awake with a kick.

The historian stirred, grunted and squinted up at him.

‘I want to show you something,’ Ben said.

‘What?’

Ben tossed the little.38 revolver down on Kirby’s goatskin next to him. ‘I’m going to teach you to use it.’

Kirby jumped up, scowling. ‘I told you back in Cairo. I want nothing to do with it.’

‘I need you to be armed, Kirby. We’re not playing games here. So learn to shoot it, or I’ll shoot you with it.’

Kirby hesitated, narrowing his eyes. ‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Ben picked up an empty plastic water bottle and tossed it a few yards away across the sand. He pointed at it. ‘Now shoot that.’

‘I protest at this,’ Kirby muttered as he picked up the little revolver. ‘I really do.’ He screwed up one eye as he raised the gun.

‘The other eye,’ Ben said.

Kirby corrected his aim. ‘How do I know it’s loaded?’ he asked.

‘See the edges of the brass cartridge rims there between the cylinder and the frame? That’s how you know. Then just squeeze the trigger. There’s no hammer, no safety. Just pull. Like I said, an idiot could use it. Which makes it perfect for you.’

Kirby glanced hotly at him, but kept his mouth shut. He aimed the revolver at the water bottle, his tongue protruding in concentration. Then he fired.

The snap of the low-powered.38 was lost in the flat air. The bottle spun as the bullet caught its neck. Kirby jumped back, the gun dangling loose in his hand as though it had stung him. ‘Jesus.’

‘Come on, Kirby. There’s hardly any recoil from that. Four rounds left. Keep going.’

Kirby squeezed the trigger four more times with his finger in his ear. His second and third shots missed the bottle completely. The fourth one clipped it again, and the last one punched a hole right through the middle.

‘Not bad,’ Ben said. ‘At least if Kamal is standing right in front of you and keeps still for long enough, you might get him worried.’

‘I don’t want to hear that,’ Kirby said.

Ben took the revolver from him, flipped out the cylinder and ejected the five empty brass cases. He dropped them in his pocket and loaded five fresh cartridges, snapped it shut and handed it back to him. ‘Keep it with you at all times.’ He patted his right hip, where he had the Jericho hidden in his belt. ‘I’m doing the same.’

‘Kamal could be close, couldn’t he?’ Kirby asked nervously.

‘He could be anywhere.’ Ben turned and headed back towards the vehicle. ‘Go and pick up the bottle,’ he told Kirby. ‘We’re moving on again.’