The Lost Army of Cambyses (50 page)

Dravic pulled open his trousers and, reaching

beneath her belly, started to undo her jeans.

I'm going to be raped, she thought to herself in

a detached sort of way. Dravic is going to rape me

and there's nothing I can do about it.

She could see the trowel lying on the floor ten

feet away and reached towards it, even though she

knew she could never reach it.

I wonder how much it'll hurt, she thought.

He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back

while at the same time tugging down her jeans and

knickers. She closed her eyes and clenched her

teeth, waiting for the assault.

It didn't come. She could feel the weight of

Dravic on top of her, his fist on her buttocks, but

he seemed to have stopped still, as though frozen.

'Come on,' she said impatiently. 'Just get it over

with.'

Still he didn't move. She opened her eyes again

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and twisted round. He was looking towards the

door, head cocked, listening. She listened too.

Initially it was all just a confused buzz. Then,

gradually, like a radio being tuned in, the sound

grew clearer. Shouting. Dozens of voices shouting.

Dravic remained where he was for a moment and

then, muttering, came to his feet and rebuckled his

trousers. The shouting was growing louder

and more urgent, although she couldn't make out

what was being said. Dravic retrieved his trowel,

looked back at her and then, throwing aside the

tent flap, stepped out into the night. She was

alone.

For some moments she lay where she was, her

face thick and heavy, the burns on her skin aching

viciously. Then, rolling onto her back, she pulled

up her jeans and struggled to her feet.

Several minutes passed and then a guard

stepped into the tent. He looked at her and there

was a momentary flicker of apology in his eyes, as

if he disapproved of what Dravic had done and

wanted her to know that. Then, with a twist of his

head, he motioned her outside.

Dravic was nowhere to be seen. The whole

camp, indeed, was empty, like a ghost town. The

guard pointed with his gun, up towards the

mound they'd stood on earlier in the day. As she

came to the top she saw that Daniel was already

there, flanked by two guards. He turned.

'Oh Jesus,' he said, choking at the sight of her

ripped shirt and bruised skin. 'Oh Jesus, what's

the bastard done to you?' He pushed past his

guards and ran to her, wrapping his arms around

her. 'I'll kill him. I'll kill the animal!'

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'I'm OK,' she said. 'I'm fine.'

'Did he . . . ? '

She shook her head.

'I heard you screaming. I wanted to do some-

thing, but they had a gun on me. I'm so sorry,

Tara.'

'It's not your fault, Daniel.'

'I'll kill him! I'll kill all of them!'

The intensity of his embrace was hurting her

and she pushed him away.

'I'm fine,' she said. 'Honestly. What's going on?

There was shouting.'

He was staring at the burn marks on her skin,

eyes filled with disgust and guilt.

'I think they've found something,' he mumbled.

'Dravic is down in the excavation trench.'

She grasped his hand and together they went

forward to the front of the mound.

Since they'd been there that afternoon a vast

round crater had been sucked out of the valley

floor, exposing the base of the pyramid rock like

the root of an enormous tooth. Dravic was at the

bottom, side on to them, kneeling, poking at

the ground with his trowel. The rest of the men

were above, gazing down, expectant. The cold

white light of the arc lamps lent the scene an

unearthly, dreamlike quality.

'What have they found?' she asked.

'I don't know,' said Daniel. 'We're too far

away.'

Dravic shouted and one of the men threw a

brush down to him. He took it and began flicking

at the area in front of his knees, stopping every

now and then and leaning forward, staring intently

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at the ground. After a minute he laid the brush

aside and resumed scraping with his trowel, alter-

nating between the two as he slowly cleared back

the gravelly sand before him, revealing something,

although Tara couldn't make out what it was.

Several minutes passed. More of the object was

exposed now and she could see that it was semi-

circular in shape, like the upper part of a wheel.

Dravic continued clearing around it before

eventually laying aside his tools, gripping the thing

with both hands and pulling. His shoulders

bunched with the effort, but the object wouldn't

come and he was forced to take up the brush and

trowel again and clear away more sand. Despite

what he'd just done to her, Tara nonetheless found

herself absorbed in his actions. Daniel was leaning

forward, hand tight in hers, his anger suddenly

forgotten.

Again Dravic laid aside his tools, and again

grasped and pulled at the object. Still it wouldn't

come. He shuffled backwards slightly to give him-

self more leverage, adjusted his grip and, throwing

back his head, heaved with all his might, veins

bulging in his neck. For a moment the world

seemed to stop dead, as if the scene in front of

Tara was a photograph rather than an event

happening in real time. Then, slowly, inch by inch,

the object started to rise. Daniel took a step for-

ward. Up it came, resisting all the way, the desert

reluctant to release its treasure, up and up, until

suddenly the ground's jaws broke and, in a spray

of sand and small pebbles, the object came free. A

shield, huge, round, heavy, its convex face gleam-

ing in the glare of the lamps. Dravic held it aloft

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and the men began cheering wildly, yelling, clap-

ping, stamping their feet.

'I've found you, you bastard!' bellowed Dravic.

'The army of Cambyses. I've found you!'

For a moment he stood with the shield held

triumphantly above his head and then began

screaming orders. Men swarmed down into

the trench. The shield was carried away and the

vacuums taken up again, their mouths swinging

furiously across the sand.

'Clear it!' roared Dravic. 'Clear all of it. Work!'

Initially there was nothing, just sand and more

sand, a bottomless well of yellow, so that it began

to look as if the shield might have been a one-off,

something thrown up by the desert to taunt and

tantalize them.

Then, slowly, other shapes started to appear.

Formless at first, just vague hummocks and ridges,

unsightly distortions in the smooth continuum of

the desert. As more sand was gasped away, how-

ever, they gradually took on recognizable forms.

Bodies, dozens of bodies, hundreds of them, their

flesh dried and hardened by two and a half

millennia of submersion, giving them the look not

of corpses, but rather of old men. An army of old

men. Ancient beyond reckoning, but alive none-

theless, rising wearily from the sands, blinking in

the angry light, disorientated, their weapons still

clutched firmly in their skeletal hands. There was

hair on their heads, and armour clamped around

their torsos, and, most extraordinary, expressions

on their faces – terror and pain and horror and

fury. One man appeared to be screaming, another

weeping, another laughing insanely, his mouth

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levered wide open to the sky, his throat filled with

sand.

'Jesus Christ,' whispered Tara. 'It's . . .'

'. . . fabulous,' said Daniel, breath heavy with

excitement.

'Horrible.'

Most of the figures were lying flat, steam-

rollered by the monstrous weight of the storm that

had buried them. A few, however, were on their

knees, and some were still standing upright, arms

raised protectively in front of their faces, over-

whelmed so swiftly they hadn't even had time to

fall.

As each body emerged, a host of black-robed

workers descended upon it like vultures, pulling

away its armour and equipment and passing them

up to the top of the trench, where packing crates

were being laid out ready to receive them.

Occasionally an arm or leg would snap off as the

body to which it belonged was roughly

manhandled.

'Strip them!' yelled Dravic. 'Strip them clean! I

want everything. Everything!'

An hour passed and the excavation spread out

in all directions, revealing more and more of the

army. Dravic strode back and forth barking

orders, examining objects, directing the sand-

vacuums, before eventually clambering out of the

hole and looking up at Tara and Daniel.

'I told you I'd find it, Lacage,' he shouted glee-

fully. 'I told you!'

Daniel said nothing. His eyes burned with

hatred. And also, it seemed to Tara, a hint of

envy.

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'I couldn't kill you without at least giving you

the chance to see it. I'm not that cruel!'

The German laughed and indicated to the

guards that they should take them back to their

tent.

'And Ms Mullray,' he called after them, 'our

little soiree hasn't been cancelled, merely post-

poned. I'll be sending for you again. After all this

work I'll be needing to slip into something warm

and tight.'

NORTHERN SUDAN

The boy found him standing on a dune top, alone,

gazing eastwards into the night. He climbed up to

him.

'They've found it, Master,' he said. 'The army.

Dr Dravic has just radioed in.'

The man continued staring out into the wilder-

ness, the dunes glowing silver in the moonlight,

like a sea of mercury. When he eventually spoke

his voice was subdued.

'This is the end and the beginning, Mehmet.

From today so much will be different. Sometimes

it frightens me.'

'Frightens, Master?'

'Yes, Mehmet. Even I, God's warrior, can be

scared. Scared of the responsibility I have been

given. There is so much to do. At times I think I

would just like to sleep. It's been so long since

I slept, Mehmet. Years. Not since I was a child.'

He clasped his hands behind his back. A soft

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wind started to blow. The boy was growing cold.

'We cross the border tomorrow. Mid-morning.

Inform Dr Dravic.'

'Yes, Master.'

The boy turned and started to descend. Halfway

down he stopped and looked back.

'Sayf al-Tha'r,' he called. 'You are like a father

to me.'

The man continued gazing out across the desert.

'And you are like a son to me,' he said.

His voice was quiet, no more than a whisper,

and the words dissolved into the night so that the

boy did not hear them.

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35

CAIRO

Cairo was the only practical starting point for the

journey Khalifa intended to make. The alternative

would have been to drive from Luxor to 'Ezba el

Gaga and then follow the huge loop of the desert

highway through the oases of al-Kharga and

Dakhla before cutting cross-country from al-Farafra

– a vast journey over badly maintained, heavily

policed roads that were frequently made impassable

by the drifting sands. No, it had to be Cairo. And

anyway, that was where Fat Abdul was.

His train drew into Ramesses Central just after

eight a.m. He jumped off before it had come to a

stop and, hurrying through the cavernous marble

concourse, hopped a service taxi down to Midan

Tahrir. He'd had ten hours to think about what he

was doing and more than once the doubts had

begun to creep in again. He'd pushed them

from his mind, however, and instead focused on

the journey ahead. He just hoped Abdul still

organized those desert tours.

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He crossed the square, dodging the barrage of

morning traffic, and turned down Sharia Talaat

Harb, coming to a halt in front of a glass-fronted

shop with 'Abdul Wassami Tours – Better Than

None in Egypt' stencilled above the window.