Agent with a History (16 page)

“Glad you clarified that for me, but I
already knew that. However there was more than enough gold
fragments left to entice the greed of the two men, enough to give
them a couple of million each, according to Phillip. More
interesting to me is that Ahmed said that there were murals
depicting various scenes that had been stunningly preserved in the
dry desert air. He hadn’t gotten to examine them for very long and
he dared not take any pictures for fear of your father finding
them. Your father had both men searched quite extensively. I’m
hoping that I can beat whoever Phillip told about the place to it
and that some of the murals there will show me the next stop.
Either way you can kick back and relax as it will take a couple of
days to get there.”

I leaned back against the seat and turned my
face to the window. A nervous tick started jumping above one eye. I
knew nothing of this surviving caravan stop that still had gold
chunks littering the floor and apparently, neither had the last
Candace. Just what secrets might these murals reveal?

Days passed, and then on the third morning
Flint literally drove right up to the half buried in the sand mud
brick wall of what looked like nothing more than a randomly placed
wall in a sea of sand. With a sinking feeling, I realized that
Flint had found the caravan stop with near pin point accuracy.

No entrance appeared visible in the long mud
brick wall, still left exposed of sand by the relentless desert
winds. No wonder not very many people had found this place; it
would have been easy to miss in the dunes of sand. Flint rooted
around in the back of the Landrover and pulled out a pick.

He walked right up to the brick wall and
started prying a door out of the aged mud brick. Sweat gleamed off
of his bare arms and his shirt was soon drenched and I couldn’t
help but admire the specimen that he was as the wet shirt clung to
him.

His voice shocked me out of my day dreaming,
“Would you like the honors?”

He was gesturing to the hole he had created
in the wall. I glanced at the dark hole and my mind filled with all
the dark things that could be in there and I shook my head no.

“You mean you’re going to make me go down
through the small dark and sinister hole first?” He asked, sounding
exasperated.

With a slight smile I said, “You’re just the
man for the job!”

He smiled like a Cheshire cat and said,
“That’s right! I am.”

Before I could retort he ducked inside and I
was suddenly left alone in the whispering desertscape. Nervously, I
looked around and then, making an effort not to think about it too
much, I ducked inside with a gasp.

“Didn’t take long for you to join the party.”
He said wryly.

“I thought you might hurt yourself in here
all alone so I came in to save you from yourself.”

The beam of Flint’s flashlight shown into my
face briefly and I heard him grunt something, as he blinded me with
the light. The beam of light went back to examining the long
corridor we stood in. It stretched out a long distance to either
side of us.

“This would have been where they chambered
the camels, a lot of camels.” Flint said. His beam found an opening
in the opposing wall down the corridor from us.

“The storage areas must be through there. He
headed for the opening, and not wanting to be left alone in the
dark, I quickly followed. Something on the floor tripped me and
with a half scream of horrored panic I plunged forward, barely
catching myself against Flint’s back.

He turned and finished pulling me upright.
Breathing hard, I watched as he stooped and picked something up
from off the floor. It was a clump of something.

“Thousand year old camel dung. I bet somebody
out there in the world would pay good money to have this perfectly
preserved specimen of camel excrement. Just think what this could
tell us. It could shed new light into what a camel’s life was like
in the not so ancient past.”

I just rolled my eyes in response to his
philosophical ramblings over a clump of manure and he chuckled,
tossing the clump to the side in the process.

The strange thing was that, in a way, he was
right. Someone out there probably would have payed good money for
an old piece of crap. What strange things humans were invariably
placing value in. I followed Flint into the next room. This must
have been where the caravan men stayed. The ceiling was blackened
by the smoke of long ago fires.

Flint corrected my earlier assessment of the
rooms’ purpose. “Slaves and camel drivers were probably housed in
this room. The caravan guides and guards would have something finer
than this.”

I nodded and we continued on through the room
littered with the dusty remnants of artifacts of the once thriving
caravan trade. This room alone would be a treasure trove of
interest to any archeologist. I stepped up beside Flint as he stood
in the portal of yet another doorway and gasped.

The ceiling was a lot higher and filling the
large domed room was a cone tipped mound, the point of which
stretched almost to the ceiling. For a moment I thought it was
gold, but the color was wrong. Flint stepped forward and dipped a
hand into the sand-like substance of the mound.

“Salt! Either the ancient commodities market
was flooded with the stuff and these caravan dudes were stock
piling and waiting for a better price or our ancient savvy camel
traders were preparing for a blow out fire sale during an ancient
bull market.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his comparison
of olden times with the vernacular of the present. Flint was just
fun to be around in general.

“There must have been ramps outside to lead
the camels up onto the roof of the building. Then, they must have
opened portals in the roof and dumped the salt down to have made
such a large conical pile of it.”

Flint was flashing the beam of his flashlight
all over the place taking in the room filled with salt. I caught
glimpses of boyish delight all over his face and I stated, “You
really like doing this don’t you? Discovering the past, whether
it’s a fortune in gold or just a pile of salt.”

I saw him grin big. “In another life I think
I would have liked to have been a Biblical archeologist. This case
has been a bit of a dream come true for me and just for your
information this isn’t just a big pile of salt. Granted a road salt
company in New England might only give you a couple of bucks for a
pile of salt like this today, but back in the day this stuff was
currency!

During Roman times, the officials rarely had
the extra gold needed to pay their legionaries so they paid them
with salt, which is where the common phrase ‘worth your salt’ comes
from. This pile of salt was a veritable fortune back then.”

“I stand corrected then, not just a pile of
salt.”

His face turned sheepish looking, “Sorry I
just love history and this kind of stuff, didn’t mean to fill your
ear with useless information.”

“I don’t mind. I like how knowledgeable and
history savvy you are. I bet you’ll make really smart kids.”

He coughed and gave me a look of, ‘what did
you say’. I just smiled and gestured my head toward a portal
doorway on the other side of the large salt room, “Shall we
continue the expedition Dr. Jones?”

I brushed past him toward the doorway, but he
caught me and I glanced up into his darkened features. I didn’t
fear the tight hold he had on my arms or the impassioned state I
could tell he was in.

It was actually kind of exciting feeling his
power, as well as his barely leashed control over himself. I felt
him reign himself in and again, I marveled at the kind of man that
he was. He had me alone far from any form of help and he could do
anything he wanted to me and yet I’d never felt safer with a
man.

Gruffly, he spoke as he let go, “When this is
over…” he left the rest unsaid and turned to the other open
doorway, but I understood what he meant.

I wanted it too. I followed him into the next
room; it was a match of the salt room, except this room was empty,
that is except for the glittering display of shiny dust lying upon
the floor.

Flint knelt down and scooped up a handful of
the dust and shined the beam of the flashlight onto the contents of
his palm. The dust was literally laced with bright shiny gold
flecks.

“Yeah I’d say several million was a somewhat
fair estimate, still a poor thing to lose your life over.”

He tilted his hand back and let the dust fall
back to the ground. There was another doorway and he walked across
the expanse of the room to it, “Bingo!”

I heard him say and I cringed inwardly.
Stepping up to the door I saw that it wasn’t gold that had grabbed
his interest, but the finely plastered walls that were adorned with
several revealing murals. Very revealing!

I kept a nonchalant face, as he meticulously
photographed everything! I had to destroy that camera! He seemed to
be done. He started pulling small objects out of his pack and began
slapping them to the walls. What was he doing? And then it dawned
on me, they were explosives.

I looked at the beautiful murals and I felt
like protesting, even though for the treasure’s sake it was a good
thing for this place to be destroyed.

He came up to me and he must have read my
face, “Yes, I know it’s terrible, but it’s the best thing all
around and has to be done in this situation.”

“You really are going to destroy the treasure
aren’t you?”

“Yes, Lisa I am.”

He took my hand and led me out the way we had
come in, slapping explosives to the walls as he went. As we
resurfaced back out into the heat and daylight I noticed that the
camera had disappeared to somewhere.

He got into the Landrover, as did I and we
left. He stopped a short distance off and brought out a control
from a pocket, with his face looking decidedly grim he pushed the
red button on it.

The sounds of the explosives going off were
surprisingly muffled. The piled up sands of the encroaching dune
cascaded down into the shattered space of the old caravan stop.
When the dust settled there was nothing left to see, but the
endless sand dunes all around us. Another part of the past was gone
forever.

Flint started driving again and for awhile I
really didn’t care where he was driving me. But after awhile that
wore off, when I realized that we weren’t headed back the way we
had come. We were going deeper into the desert.

I looked over at him curiously, “Why aren’t
we going back? You got what you came for didn’t you?”

“Yeah I think I got what I needed, but I
thought it would be safer to head this way than to take the same
route back, as we might have been followed.”

I glanced back behind us and then did a
double take at the dust cloud being kicked up in the distance, by
at least five spread out vehicles behind us. I turned back to
Flint, as alarm went through me at the knowledge that we were
already being followed!

“We are being followed Flint!”

He glanced in the mirror and wryly grinned,
“Fancy that. Guess it was a good hunch I had, huh?”

“Who are they?”

“My guess, seeing the lack of air support
that they have, is that they’re probably one of the terrorist
groups in search of an unlimited meal plan.”

Oh great, we’re being chased across the
desert by terrorists that probably out number us twenty five to one
or more!

“So what are you going to do when we run out
of gas?”

“I’ve got a plan.”

“Does this plan involve procuring other
transportation? Because if you’re headed for Ethiopia, I wish to
state that I don’t much fancy the idea of walking across the entire
Sahara to get there!”

He just looked over at me with a cheesy grin
and didn’t answer. He had to have something up his sleeve; I just
hoped it was something good.

Five hours later the rover lurched and then
stuttered and I glanced pointedly over at him. It got worse and
then the rover died and we came to a stop in the sand. I glanced
back at the still visible dust trails of our pursuers. That wasn’t
good!

All I had was the 9mm that Tyre had given me.
It was something, but right now I felt like the only peace of mind
to be found in this situation would be the comforting weight of an
assault rifle and several grenades.

Flint got out grabbing up his pack along with
him and started walking up the sand dune directly beside us.
Seriously! This was his plan? Drive into the dessert until you’re
out of gas and then walk? This is the Sahara! What kind of idiot
was he?

He turned briefly and called back ,”You’re
not just going to sit there are you Lisa? Come on!”

I got out, slamming the door hard behind me,
and yelled back, “It makes more sense then what you’re trying to
do!”

He didn’t pay any attention to me, but
instead, just kept climbing up the steep dune. I mentally stabbed
him in the back as he climbed. This was all his fault! Trust him,
he says! Look where trusting a man has gotten me this time! I
started up the dune after him.

I’d been sweating in the rover, but within
minutes I was completely drenched. It was so hot! In an hour I’d be
completely dehydrated and easy pickings for the terrorists behind
us, thanks to the genius up ahead of me. I let my mind go into just
how stupid I thought all of this was.

His voice from higher up interrupted my chain
of turbulent thought, “You know I can hear you?”

Actually, I hadn’t realized that I had been
giving voice to my frustrations, but out of the mixture of
embarrassment and anger that I felt I retorted, “Good!”

“You know if you put as much energy into
climbing this dune, as you are in talking about me, I bet you’d
already be up here.”

Oh that did it! Now he was trying to make it
sound like all this was my fault! He was going to pay for this! I
redoubled my efforts climbing up the mound. Climbing the steep side
of the sand dune could be best described as trying to work out on a
treadmill pointed at the ceiling. The amount of effort needed to do
either was about the same and I was beginning to drag, both
mentally and physically. When I reached the top I bent over with my
hands on my knees breathing hard.