Paul Christopher - The Templar Cross

"Popeye-goddamn-bloody-Doyle," said Holliday, doing a fair imitation of Louis Japrisot, the police captain in Marseille. "Gene 'ackman this, Gene 'ackman that!"

"Could it get us out of here?" Rafi said.

"I think it had a range of about twelve hundred miles. It would get us across the border back into Egypt, probably Tunisia. If either one of us could fly, that is."

"We can't," said Rafi thoughtfully. "But Peggy could; she's got her pilot's license, doesn't she?"

"I don't know if she's rated for twins though; the Skymaster's a push-pull."

"Better a single-engine pilot than none at all."

"We'd have to find her first," said Holliday.

"Isn't that why we're here?" Rafi said, the words a challenge.

By four thirty in the afternoon they were no farther along in their search for the elusive Peggy. The only thing they'd accomplished was a slightly more accurate count of the number of people in the camp-220-and the fact that a mixed herd of goats and sheep smelled even worse than an equal number of camels. It amazed Holliday that goats and camels both gave sweet milk but smelled so nauseatingly foul, like a combination of raw sewage and a kid's wet wool mittens roasting on an old-fashioned radiator.

Rafik Alhazred caught up with them just as they were heading back to their assigned tent. Wearing an outfit much like the one he'd had on the day before, he was at the wheel of a brand- new dusty white 200 Series Toyota Land Cruiser without a nick or a ding on it. The big truck looked as though it belonged in a suburban driveway. The sign on the door read: Fezzan Project-Libyan Dep't of Antiquities British Academy King's College, London Society for Libyan Studies

There was Arabic text below that was presumably a translation of the English above.

"The truck is mine but the sign's authentic enough," said Alhazred. "Change into the robes you arrived in, a little protective coloration. Hurry, please," he added. "I'll wait here."

Holliday and Rafi did as they were told and piled into the truck, robed from head to toe, including the muslin veil across the bottom part of their faces. A real Tuareg crouched in the rear cargo compartment. He wasn't visibly armed but Holliday was sure there was some kind of weapon hidden in the indigo folds of his native costume.

"If we get stopped you say nothing. Speak, and my friend Elhadji back there will slit your throats, quick as a wink. Don't worry-my site identification is perfect. The dig has been in operation for more than a decade; field-workers come and go all the time; no one knows anyone anymore, which is to our benefit."

Alhazred drove out of an opening in the north rampart that boxed the camp, then immediately turned east, heading toward the neck of the fifteen-mile-long valley, the dark, ominous basalt crags quickly closing in.

"So, Colonel, what do you think of my little pied-a-terre back there?"

"It bears a strong resemblance to a Roman military camp," said Holliday. "I'm sure it was no accident."

"Quite right, quite right," said Alhazred, clearly pleased. "I spent a great deal of time at Baalbeck, in the Bekaa Valley, as a student. Very impressive to a young man."

"Very impressive to the Emperor Vespasian as well," commented Holliday. Rafi threw him a sudden perplexed glance then looked away. Holliday kept talking. "Although I doubt his son Trajan appreciated the oracle's prophecy of his death in the Parthian Wars."

"No, indeed not," said Alhazred. They drove on. At the head of the valley Alhazred turned the Land Cruiser north and suddenly they thumped onto a paved road. Abruptly and jarringly they were confronted with reality in the form of an old faded billboard offering Koka Kola in Russian.

"The good old days," Alhazred said and laughed.

Gee, we're just the best of pals, aren't we? Holliday thought. First you threaten to slit our throats. Then you crack jokes. Alhazred was definitely a few nuts short of his bolts.

They continued eastward along the modern highway for ten or twelve miles, passing huge transport trucks, rattletrap old Lada vans and a few donkey carts heading to market, loaded down with produce. The buildings on either side of the road were mostly mud brick, but there were a couple of quite modern Tamoil gas stations with big blue and white plastic signs over the pumps. The few people they saw were dressed in the ubiquitous indigo robes. No one paid the slightest bit of attention as they passed; the sign on the side of the truck was obviously an open sesame for them.

Without warning Alhazred engaged the four-wheel drive and swung the big Toyota due north again, off the road and onto the crusted desert sand. They headed across the plains, the gigantic dunes of the Erg Murzuq rearing up like wind-scooped mountains on the far side of the wide valley, the sun lowering toward them, casting long shadows trailing behind the truck.

"We're coming in the back door," commented Alhazred. "Discretion being the better part of valor and all that."

Holliday and Rafi were mute, staring out the windows. They saw a few isolated stands of palms and a narrow lake that wouldn't have rated much beyond a pond back in the United States.

In the distance, ruins began to appear, the roofless mud-brick walls of what must have once been a good-sized town. The ruins were so densely packed together they looked like a rat's maze.

"This is the town from the Roman era, first and second century A.D."

"This isn't where we're going?" Rafi asked.

"No. The beehive tombs are much older than that." They drove past the old ruins, veering steadily to the right. They hadn't seen a soul since leaving the highway. Suddenly a Russian Gaz Tiger appeared from behind a flat outcropping of rock. It was the Eastern Bloc version of an armored Hummer. There was a soldier in brown Libyan army fatigues who stood poking his upper body through the angular vehicle's top hatch, his hands gripping the firing handles of a big.50-caliber machine gun.

"Trouble?" Holliday asked, tensing as the big truck rumbled toward them.

"Doubtful," said Alhazred without turning his head. "They're lazy. Stop us and they'll have to fill out an incident report; they're like soldiers everywhere, they hate paperwork."

"Is there a military base around here?" Holliday asked, surprised that they'd never stumbled on Alhazred's band of terrorist Tuaregs.

"Just a small squad for constabulary duties," said Alhazred. "They must have come out here to drink wine or smoke, or just for something to do. They won't be a bother, I assure you."

He was right. The armored vehicle roared to within a dozen yards of the Toyota and then the driver saw the sign on the door and waved at Alhazred. He waved back, smiling, and the Tiger sheered away. Within a few seconds it had disappeared behind them. Holliday exhaled.

"You see?" Alhazred said pleasantly. "Not a problem."

Good thing, too, thought Holliday. After two weeks in the desert he was burned as much as he was tanned. He looked a bit like an overcooked lobster. Perhaps Rafi could pass as a Tuareg, but even in his indigo robes Holliday knew perfectly well he stood out like a stop sign.

Ten minutes later they reached the field of tombs and Alhazred slowed, weaving his way through the maze of salt-brick structures. Each one was made of rough brick a shade or two darker than the desert around it. They looked like sawed-off pyramids about twelve or fourteen feet high, some pierced with square windows on one or two sides, some solid.

Each of the squared pyramids was separated from its neighbor by what appeared to be a measured fifty feet on every side. The older tombs, the ones farthest to the north, were worn by the wind, blurred and almost shapeless mounds like the beehives that gave the tombs their name.

"One mummy per tomb, usually buried upright," said Alhazred, pulling to a stop in front of one of the older structures. They'd put the mummy and his or her possessions in the tomb then fill it up with sand.