John Schettler - Nexus Point

The Sami’s mind seemed to soar with it, spiraling into the darkness overhead. Thoughts came to him on the wind, plans, strategies, strong measures that seemed more imperative to him now than ever. He knew what he must do, but the Kadi would not heed him. The Kadi would not see the danger. He would sweeten this stranger with apricots and dates and honeyed mead. He would soften him with the touch of the chambermaids and hope to loosen his tongue with the likes of Jabr Ali S’ad. He did not perceive the danger. The man has already found the Well, what more might he learn? This stranger was yet another wolf in the fold, but the Kadi thought only to milk him like a goat.

Plans came to him; dark ideas gathered shape and form in his mind. He knew what he must do. For the stranger, he would now take measures into his own hands. He could not expose the Sheikh to this man’s ire and evil eye! He would use the chambermaid for she could bring his wrath to the stranger’s very bedchamber. That would be his simplest task. But the Kadi presented yet another problem. He sought to shame and berate. He was weak, and soft, wavering in his thought. He was no longer rightly guided. For the Kadi’s death, he would have to first prepare the way and sway the minds and hearts of the initiates. There were still too many men in the castle who would bend their knee at the Kadi’s hem. They would need strong argument—persuasion.

He was decided.

He looked at the swatch of cloth in his clenched palm, and then set it lightly upon the high table. Without a moment’s hesitation he drew out the dagger from his sash and pricked the tip of his thumb. He waited until the blood welled there, and deftly used the point of his dagger to dab two small drops on the unstained cloth. He smiled, for this was now the very message he expected! What else could he do but obey?

Yet others would not be so easily persuaded. There was a room at the base of the high tower that would serve his need well. He had dug there a deep pit, just wide enough for a man to stand upright so that his head would protrude from the cavity in the hard stone floor. Now he knew what he should do.

First the woman!

Without another thought he rushed to the arched doorway of the keep and opened the bolt with a dry scrape. Two guards would be waiting for him at the base of the winding stair. They were two of his most loyal servants, sworn to fealty, even unto death, his faithful Fedayeen. He rushed down the stair, his robes rustling over the smooth steps as he went.

“Bring me the harlot!” he ordered. “You will find her in the chamber of greeting. The one called Samirah. Then go to the initiates where they sleep and seek a man yea high. His head will just reach your shoulder. Go quickly! Time flees, and danger has come upon us all.”

Nordhausen was more shockedthan hurt by the blow. The leader of the Arab band still fixed him with a darkly threatening stare, his eyes searching, as though trying to decide what to do with him now that he had trespassed upon this secret lair in Wadi Rumm. What was so important about this place? There were a hundred caves like this scoring the striated flanks of the canyon walls. What was so special about this one? Perhaps these men had secreted away a cache of weapons. Before the professor could react the man strode forward and snatched up the flashlight.

“Move,” he said curtly. “Inside!”

Now what, thought Nordhausen? Does he mean to get us neatly out of sight so he can do us in? Given the circumstances, however, it seemed wise to comply. He needed to ascertain Paul’s whereabouts and status. The unaccountable silence in the cave was disturbing, and he wondered what could have happened to his friend. No doubt the Arabs were wondering the same. The first guard had returned with a shrug, so it was clear that Paul had not been found. Perhaps he had sized up the situation and was hiding in some darkened nook of the cave, waiting for an opportunity to do something.

They worked their way back into the throat of the cave, with the leader close behind the professor and the two guards hugging the walls. “If you value your life, and that of your friend,” he said “then you will convince him to show himself—and quickly!” His voice seemed very edgy, almost rattled. Why should he be so upset about this, Nordhausen wondered?

He called out for Paul again, but to no avail. Either he was stubbornly hiding, or something had happened to him. Could he have wandered off into another series of caverns? Nordhausen turned to his captor with a look on his face that was half apologetic and half bemused.

“He was just through that cleft,” he pointed. “We heard water and I went back for my canteen.”

The revelation did little to ease the tension. The Arab seemed even more disconcerted when he saw where the professor was pointing. He shouted orders to the two guards, and they came up to Nordhausen, seizing him roughly while the leader edged his way to the cleft Paul had found. The man spoke to the gap in the rock now, his voice slipping through in a hollow echo, carefully controlled, yet laden with emotion.

“Look here,” he said. “We have your friend. If you wish him well you will show yourself.”

The echo rebounded to silence.

The faint sound of water washing over stone was all they could hear, a distant, forlorn resonance in the shadowy cave, bereft of the promise of relief that Nordhausen had first heard in it. The leader set the flashlight down and approached the cleft cautiously. He slipped through and it seemed an interminable lapse before he returned, muttering angry words in Arabic as he came.

“You followed the water?” The man came up to Nordhausen, eyes wide, his face a livid mask of shadow in the subdued light of the cave. “You are certain this was the way you came?”

“Yes, he was just there,” said the professor. “Look, what is so important about all this?”

“You fool!” the man went to strike Robert again, but he held his hand at bay, his lips pressed tight, anger flaring in his eyes. “You saw the water?” He asked the question with an unaccountable urgency.

“Yes, but it didn’t look drinkable, so we probed a bit deeper into the passage and—“

“Not drinkable? What do you mean?” Again, the urgency, as if the man was pulling an answer from the professor that he already knew, but did not wish to hear.

“Why, it had this odd greenish glow about it, and a touch of—“ A sudden thought occurred to Nordhausen. The radiation! Paul had been going on and on about that Oklo reaction the French had discovered in Africa, but now Nordhausen began to suspect something else. Suppose these men were members of some terrorist cell. What if they were secreting away a nuke in this cave? That could account for the low level readings that activated Paul’s dosimeter. But that strange glow in the water, and the eerie milky phosphorescence in the stream just didn’t make sense.

“You say it was green,” the Arab leader seized on the remark and pulled hard. “With such a glow that you could make your way in the dark, yes?”

“Well… yes.”

The man spoke harshly to the guards, and they quickly produced a length of twine and roughly bound Nordhausen’s hands behind his back. When they had finished they ran off, each taking a separate passage as though intent on searching the whole network of caves to be certain Paul was not hiding.

Nordhausen’s assumption piled up in his head and began to finally generate some real anxiety for him. If these were terrorists, then the situation took a very dark turn. “Look,” he tried to reason with the leader now. “We mean no harm here, and we haven’t seen a thing. There’s bad water here. So what’s the harm in that? Hopefully your men will find my friend and we’ll be happily on our way to Akaba and leave you all in peace.”