Paul Christopher - The Templar Cross

The surroundings included scrub bushes, thornbushes, the occasional desert beetle, and a great deal of hard, crusted white sand. Then they began to see small herds of goats being herded by Tuareg men in their traditional turban, and some children playing. Eventually they saw what appeared to be a permanent camp of some kind in the distance.

The closer they got, the larger the encampment became. The goat-and-camel-skin tents were much larger than the pup-sized ones they and their captors used and there were thornbush enclosures of goats and picket lines of camels everywhere. Taking a quick count as they passed, Holliday estimated that there were at least five hundred men in the camp. Interestingly the location of the tents and corrals was such that except at high noon it would be perpetually in the shadow of either the escarpment or its extension, making it next to invisible from the air. Up-to-date tactics for an ancient people against a modern enemy: the airplane and the satellite.

At the far side of the camp the group stopped in front of a moderate-sized tent and gestured for Holliday and Rafi to dismount. One of the armed men gave a harsh command and rapped the camels on the nose with a little stick. The animals obediently dropped down on the knees of their front legs and Rafi and Holliday climbed down. The guard gestured to the tent opening and they went into the stifling interior.

It was luxurious in comparison to what they'd seen in the last two weeks. The walls were set out with heavy pillows and the floors were covered with woven rugs in a dozen different vivid patterns. A small cast iron grill stood in the middle of the tent and there was a ventilation hole in the ceiling to let out the smoke. Their guard turned and spoke.

"Sa arje'o halan," he said.

Holliday nodded even though he didn't know what had been said. So did Rafi. The man in the turban and robe turned on his sandaled heel and walked out of the tent. Outside they heard an exchange and then the sound of the camels moving off. Both Holliday and Rafi dropped down onto the pillows.

"He said he'd be right back, I think," muttered Rafi. Holliday nodded, exhausted.

"Two weeks on a camel. My fanny's turned to stone," he grunted.

"I'd hate to tell you what mine feels like," said Rafi, sighing, then leaning back and closing his eyes. "What did our blue friend tell you when we were up on the plateau?"

"Something like: Wadi el Agial, sadiqi. Zinchechra. Germa," answered Holliday, trying to remember. "Any idea what it means?"

"I know exactly what it means," said Rafi, opening his eyes and sitting up. There was excitement in his voice. "Wadi el Agial means Valley of Life, sadiqi means my friend, Zinchechra is the name of an ancient mythical castle and Germa is the capital of an almost forgotten kingdom. I know precisely where we are: this is Virgil's Garamanthia, the warrior kingdom of the Garamathes. This is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world."

"It feels like the ends of the earth," said Holliday.

"You don't get it, do you?" Rafi said, almost laughing.

"'Fraid not," said Holliday, unmoving on his pillows. His voice was filled with sleep.

"This explains a lot," said the young archaeologist. "Draw a straight line a thousand miles east of here and you reach the Nile River at Karnak, where the historical Imhotep appears, 'Out of the setting sun,' as the ancient texts say. That's usually taken to mean he came from the land of death, from Anubis, god of the underworld. Some other stories have him as one of the sons of Ra, the sun itself. It's a variation on all the religious mumbojumbo about the birth of Christ. On top of that, Imhotep's mythological mother is said to have been Hathor, the Warrior Queen.

"The point is there was no desert in those days, at least not here. Imhotep, or certainly his real father, could have made the trip easily. It fits! Imhotep, the real one, isn't buried somewhere in Egypt. He came home to die. He came here. This is the location of Imhotep's tomb, or at least someone thinks so!"

There was the slow sound of applause from the entrance to the tent. Startled, both Holliday and Rafi looked up. A man stood beside the tent flap, clapping. He was in his early forties, good-looking, fit and tanned with thick, black, very curly hair. He was clean shaven. He wore slightly tinted glasses and was dressed in a white Archaeologists Like It Dirty T-shirt, faded blue jeans and a pair of black Nike Air Hiking Boots.

"An excellent theory, Dr. Wanounou, and you're quite right; someone does think that this is the location of Imhotep's tomb. Me. Not only do I think it-I know it for a fact. You and Colonel Holliday arrived at an exciting time." The man's accent in English was vaguely British, maybe an affectation.

"You seem to know quite a bit about us," said Holliday coldly. There was something not quite right about the man in the T-shirt.

"Of course." The man smiled pleasantly. "For instance, I know you teach history at West Point Military Academy, lost your eye in a freak accident in Afghanistan and have recently rather annoyed the intelligence arm of the Holy See. I know that Dr. Wanounou's Ph.D. thesis was entitled The Development, Significance and Function of Tool-Making and the Evolution of the Blacksmith's Craft in the Land of Israel during the Iron Age I Period, because I both read and enjoyed it. I also know that he was involved with your last contretemps in Jerusalem and suffered a terrible beating because of it."

He hadn't got all that from a quick conversation with Emil Abdul Tidyman, thought Holliday.

"Who the hell are you?" Rafi asked.

"Forgive me," said the man in the T-shirt. "Where are my manners? The press knows me as Mustafa Ahmed Ben Halim. My real name is Dr. Rafik Alhazred. I am an archaeologist like yourself, among other things." Alhazred smiled. "I am also the leader of the Brotherhood of Isis and the man responsible for kidnapping the delightful Miss Peggy Blackstock."

"Why did you take Peggy?" Rafi demanded. "She's no part of your agenda."

"She was there, her bad luck. She could have been killed," answered Rafik Alhazred. "And what do you know about my agenda?"

"You're a terrorist. What's there to know?" Holliday shrugged.

"Most terrorists are lunatics of one stripe or another," said Alhazred. "They generally have issues about the size of their genitalia. Scratch a terrorist and you'll find a small penis. Any graduate student in psychology can tell you that. Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden; why do you think he blew up the World Trade Center, America's phallic symbol? He had weenie issues. Even George Bush was in a pissing contest with his father."

"George Bush wasn't a terrorist. He was the president of the United States," answered Holliday.

"Your patriotism is exemplary, Colonel, but Bush the younger terrorized his own people and used Homeland Security to do it, much like Hitler used the Gestapo. The Fuhrer had Himmler. Bush Jr. had Dick Cheney.

"A little simplistic, don't you think?" Holliday asked. Come on now; a philosophical argument about what constitutes a terrorist while sitting in a camel-skin tent in the middle of the Sahara Desert? It was insane.

"We could go on with this argument forever," said Rafi. "But it's got nothing to do with Peggy."

"Miss Blackstock went on at length about her relationship with you and yours with her. It was touching. I'm sorry to have caused undue anxiety."

"What have you done with her?" Holliday asked.

"She's quite safe, at least for the moment," said Alhazred. "Unlike her companions, all of whom have gone to meet their maker, I'm afraid."

"You murdered a bunch of priests?" Holliday said.

"I defended myself," answered Alhazred. "And they were no more priests than I am a colonel."