The Shroud Key (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

An hour later we are driving along a narrow road that borders the perimeter of the Giza Plateau and the Great Pyramids. Sameh is behind the wheel of a white Toyota Land Cruiser that’s been stocked with food, water, weapons, night vision gear, sleeping bags … you name it. Everything you need for survival in the desert which just might include staying alive during a potential shoot out with some nasty radical Muslim bandits bent on stealing the remains of the Christian Messiah.

I ride shotgun while Anya occupies the safer back seat, directly behind Sameh. She has her window down and she seems mesmerized by the pyramids as we pass them by on a gently inclining sand-covered road that leads to nowhere but wide open desert.

On our way around the pyramids we pass by camels and donkeys and the Arab jockeys who ride them and offer the beasts up to the scattering of tourists for rides. Robed beggars walk barefoot in the sand while gawkers try to push what they refer to as traditional Arab head-dresses. They sell mini-pyramids and small colorful square beads said to be magic treasure uncovered in the tombs. But in reality it is all junk intended as cheap souvenirs for the hordes of tourists who flock here annually.

Used to flock here, I should say.

Nowadays only a fraction of the multitudes of tourists make their way to this land of violent change and upheaval. Something that on one hand is tragic for the venders and gawkers, but for our purposes, will be to our benefit, since we will require the Third Pyramid all to ourselves. Once we locate Andre, that is.

We head off-road, on into the desert just as the sun begins to set over the western plain. As darkness approaches an hour later, Sameh brings the Land Cruiser to a stop.

“We will camp here for the night,” he informs. “It is too dangerous to travel at night. The pirates are everywhere. We stand the chance of being ambushed. Better to settle in for the night and continue at sun up. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I say.

“Agreed,” adds Anya. Then, “Sameh, if you build us a fire, I will prepare a feast.”

“Exactly what I want to hear, miss,” he says, hopping out of the truck and immediately going about the work of setting up a camp-site.

I pull out my 9mm, thumb the clip release, check and recheck the nine-round load.

“I’ll make a check on the perimeter,” I say, grabbing the pair of Bausch & Lomb night-vision binoculars set on the dash.

Exiting the four-by-four, I proceed out into the desert on foot.

I trek in a westerly direction, towards the setting sun.

The heat from the desert is quickly fading as the sunlight begins to diminish into what will be a darkness so absolute, the stars in the sky will appear close enough to touch, as if they were white Christmas lights dangling from a black ceiling. Lifting the binoculars to my face, I scan the horizon for anything that might appear to be out of the ordinary. Anything that’s moving.

I see nothing but sand dunes for as far as the lenses can magnify. But then, that’s not entirely true. As the sunlight quickly fades and the green hew-like night vision begins to operate on the binoculars, I start to make out something that looks like ghosts dancing on the horizon. Swirling shapes that swiftly twist and turn their way up, down, and across the dunes. But they are not ghosts. They are tornado-like pillars of loose sand being sucked up by the wind. An ever increasing wind.

I remove the binoculars and contemplate the meaning of the wind.

I know that if it should get any worse, we could easily find ourselves trapped in the middle of a sandstorm. I’ve never actually been caught up in one, but through the years, I’ve met archaeologists and sandhogs who have. Rough, tough types who take crap from no one or anything. Men and women who don’t scare so easily be it a jet plane that blows an engine mid-flight or waking up to a scorpion crawling on their face in the middle of the night. But when they spoke of the desert consuming them in a windstorm powered by hurricane force winds, their faces took on a chalk-white pallor and their eyes a curious deadness, as if they were recounting their bloody experiences in combat.

Those ghosts I just witnessed way out there in the desert distance … I’m hoping they remain just ghosts and that we are in for a peaceful night, or the last thing any of us will have to worry about is finding Manion or the Jesus remains. If a sand-storm blows through, it will be our very lives that will hang in the balance. By this time tomorrow night, we could become a fixture of the desert. A permanent fixture buried in sand like some undiscovered Pharaoh or even Jesus Himself.

About-facing, I follow my footsteps back to camp, knowing that for now anyway, we are all alone in this vast, desolate wilderness and the only visible enemy looming on the periphery, is the wind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

After dinner we slip into our sleeping bags which have been positioned around the deadwood fire. Sameh begins to snore almost immediately, even though the wind is noticeably increasing in velocity.

If he’s not frightened, than why should I be?

Anya and I stare into the fire, sharing occasional sips from a pint of whiskey I stowed away for myself after purchasing it off a back alley contraband vendor in Giza while the Land Cruiser was being tended to—a shop that also sold thick black bricks of Afghan hash.

“How do you think he’ll react when you first see him?” I say.

“How will who react?” Anya says, bits of her thick brown hair blowing in the wind.

“Your husband, Andre. He’s liable to have no idea that you’re looking for him.”

I watch her cock her head while pulling herself tighter into her sleeping bag, her beautifully tanned face aglow in the fire light.

“You’re right, Ren Man,” she says in a half whisper, while staring into the flames. “I’m the last person he’d expect to see out here.”

“You mean you’re the last person he’d expect to see trying to save his skinny ass.”

She turns to me, smiles.

“Bingo,” she says. “We didn’t part on particularly terrific terms.”

“But you have, in fact, parted ways,” I stress.

She nods, the flame from the fire reflected in her eyes.

“But you know that already, Chase. Do you want me to produce divorce papers for you?”

“Do you still love him?”

More nodding.

“You mean, like do I love him in the take-him-back-and-try-again sense of the L word?”

“Yes, that.”

“Not a chance. We tried plenty of times and plenty of times it didn’t work. No matter how good we looked together on paper …The English professor and the archaeology professor together forever, surrounded by adoring students, living in the perfect little picket-fenced house located on the perfect spec of property just outside the college campus … It all sounds nice and romantic, but it just didn’t work. He’s too married to his buried antiquities and the distant past, and I’m too married to loneliness-in-the-present-and-future tenses.”

“But you still love him enough to find him.”

“Yes, I will always care for him and his well being. But I will no longer be
in love
with him. There’s a distinct difference.”

The foreboding wind picks up, fanning the flames. I feel some of the harsh sand against my face.

“Winds beginning to blow,” Anya says, a noticeable hint of fear on her flame lit face.

“So I’m aware. I’ve been paying some attention to it.”

She glances over Sameh’s way.

“He doesn’t seem too worried about anything. He’s sleeping like a baby.”

I too gaze at the sleeping Sameh. He’s lying on his back, snoring, mouth open, catching sand flies.

“That’s a good thing,” I add. Then, as if using Sameh’s loud snores as my cue, I steal another sip of whiskey from the bottle, cap it off, and shuffle out of my sleeping bag, snaking my way over the now compacted sand to Anya.

“Excuse me?” she whispers. “But nuns and priests are forbidden to fornicate with one another.”

“I’ve forever lost the collar. And I’ve heard rumors about you leaving the order, sister. How shocking.”

Whiskey pint in hand, I climb into her bag, feet first, feel myself rubbing up against her soft but somehow hard body, feel the heat from the fire on the back of my head and neck, feel the wind that’s blowing and whispering its way across the endless dunes.

“This isn’t the writer collecting new material for a new Chase Baker mystery novel is it?” Anya begs.

“Promise,” I say, crossing my heart. “I find it sexy that you’ve read my books, teacher.”

Pursing her lips.

“Maybe one or two. Not exactly the stuff I would recommend to college advisory board as required reading for English lit majors.”

“Now that hurts.”

“But not bad. You have a terrific sense of economy of language and you are a pile driving plotter. How’s that for kind critiquing?”

“Keep spreading it,” I say. “If you’ll pardon my pun.”

She kicks me inside the sleeping bag.

“You’re a devil, Ren Man,” she giggles. “But in all seriousness, I can tell you write the way you live, which is not entirely without danger.”

“Our world expands or shrinks in direct proportion to our courage,” I say, stealing another sip from the bottle.

“No truer words. But then, you are not a very domestic character, Mr. Baker. Not the nine-to-five, hearth-and-kettle kind of dad and husband.”

I shake my head.

“Suburbia is a prison. I get cabin fever too easily.”

“But that’s no excuse not to go back to your wife and daughter.”

“It’s far too late for that, Anya…What I mean is, I miss my daughter. Part of why I’m doing this is so I can go back to New York to see her again. But as far as my ex goes, it’s long over.”

“Has she remarried?”

I’m not sure why, but the mere mention of my ex being remarried feels like a punch in the gut.

“She hooked up with an investment banker who owns a townhouse on Gramercy Park in the city. He’s a great provider. A great stepdad to my daughter. Home seven nights a week and always available for PTA meetings.”

“But that’s not your cup of whiskey.”

I stare into the fire for a bit as if it’s possible to see my past and all the mistakes of my past inside the flickering flames. I swallow another drink from the pint knowing that the booze will help me forget.

“I have a confession to make, sister,” I say after a time. “I had always thought that I would marry the love of my life, and together we’d see the world, have a child along the way, share adventures, never staying in the same place for too long.”

She’s already biting down on her lip before I’m done talking.

“Women don’t want that, Chase. Most women anyway. Women want stability. Security.” She steals a moment for the thought to sink in. “You know what? I can bet your ex-wife still loves you very much. Kind of like I still love Andre. Only she knows she can’t be with you.”

“How’s that?”

“A man like you, Chase, you’re never satisfied. You’re never comfortable in one place at one time. You can be sipping coffee outside the Eiffel Tower on a beautiful sunny day in April with not a worry in the world, but you will be consumed with nagging thoughts on where to go next before too much life runs out. Am I right?”

“No comment.”

She giggles.

“You know I’m right. This might hurt, but the best thing for your wife is to have this new man in her life. A man like you, Chase…You’re handsome, full of energy, talented at many things. You’re the true Renaissance man…You see life as this great adventure. But when it comes to being a good husband and a good dad, you are a perfect poison.”

The fire flares up in the wind gusts.

“Is that what I am? Poison?” Raising my head up. “But I love them. With all my heart.”

“And they know that you love them. They can feel it from afar. Perhaps they even prefer to feel your love from afar. It’s like feeling the sun on your face after a long winter, but don’t look directly into it.”

We watch the flickering fire for a while longer. Then, after a time, Anya shifts herself closer to me. Or, as close as she can come without being on top of me.