SEPTEMBER 22. KHARGA OASIS, NORTH OF ASWAN DAM, EGYPT.
Shallow canyons cut the landscape, extending like rocky veins through the endless sand dunes. Martin finessed the throttle as he guided the motorcycle down the wadi—a dry stream channel—that wound along at the foot of the towering buff-colored cliff. As evening fell, the shadows cooled his body. The day had been hot as Hades, which made him long for the cool tree-lined streets of Virginia.
From her seat on the back of the motorcycle, Anna called, “Take the left fork of the wadi. There’s a good place to camp about a quarter mile down that side canyon.”
Martin turned his head to glance at her. “How do you know that? Have you been here before?”
“Yes, a few years ago.”
Traveling with her had proved fascinating. During the day, she was the iron woman, cold, calculating, every detail of the plan worked out. At night, in her sleep, she transformed into a twisting, whimpering wreck. Every time he asked her about the dreams, she gave him an icy stare and looked away. Clearly her private hell was … private.
Twenty minutes later, they made camp in a bend in the drainage where an overhanging stone hid their small fire from above. Some long-gone flash flood had deposited a bench of poorly sorted sandy gravel against the back of the overhang: a perfect place for their bedrolls, barring the presence of scorpions, asps, and other desert pests.
Martin plucked another of the splintered boards from the old shipping pallet they’d found a hundred yards down the side canyon and tossed it onto the flames. As the fire licked up, it illuminated their transportation: a decrepit Bultaco motorcycle. The cracked leather seat was covered with tape and the large square panniers showed dents and scratches where previous owners had dropped the bike on its side atop rocks. But the old relic was the perfect vehicle for humping across the desert.
Anna had purchased it with cash. He’d wanted a newer model, but she refused to allow them any modern device. If it had a magnetic strip, or a computer chip, it was forbidden. She’d forced him to leave all of his credit cards, wristwatches, IDs, and phones in Virginia. Martin had no internet connections for the first time in his life, and it was like flying blind through a thick fog, especially with all the unholy chaos that had apparently been unleashed in France. At a small village in Egypt, they’d watched a TV report about the new plague. The EU was saying everything was under control, the quarantine was working, but the reporter claimed it was all lies. He said cases were springing up outside of the French quarantine zone, and that’s why Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain had all dispatched troops to their borders, blocking anyone from France from entering the rest of the Europe.
Martin glanced at Anna where she sat across the fire. He’d discovered some things about her in the last few days, but not enough to get even a faint hold on who she was. She’d told him that she’d recently left the air force where she’d spent sixteen hours a day for years plugged in to the Surveillance Net. Her specialty was historical cryptography, or deciphering modern codes based on historical information.
Firelight danced over Anna’s tanned face. She sat unnaturally still, staring at the flames. He called these her “gone” periods. He didn’t know where she was in her mind, but she wasn’t here with him.
“You all right?” he asked. “Anna?”
She didn’t hear him. Her eyes possessed an odd and piercing luminosity. She usually wore her shoulder-length auburn hair in a French braid, as she did tonight, but wisps had come loose and clung in sweat-damp curls to her forehead and cheeks. When she’d first appeared in his university office, he’d thought she was just another religious crackpot. Now … now, he didn’t know what to think. Her knowledge of the Marham-i-Isa and biblical history rivaled his own. And the fact that she’d seduced him, rather than the reverse, confused him. He wasn’t even sure Anna liked him. For her, sex just seemed to be a momentary relief from the extreme anxiety that possessed her. Anxiety she would not discuss. All he knew was that the stakes of this game were higher than he thought.
Martin prodded the flames with a stick, and then watched the cascade of sparks rising into the star-strewn heavens. He’d asked about the scars that wormed across her chest, back, and legs, but she’d brushed off his question with a curt, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.”
He didn’t know much about battlefield wounds, or any other kind of wounds, but they looked like knife scars to him. Who would have cut her up like that?
Her quest for the Marham-i-Isa, she said, began four years ago on an archaeological excavation of the megalithic tombs in Malta. He’d never figured out what a military cryptographer had been doing excavating in Malta, but Martin understood her obsession. He’d spent eleven years searching for the rarest documents in the world, trying to find the Marham-i-Isa. He was proficient in ancient Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Latin, Aramaic, and Coptic, plus a smattering of modern languages. All of which they would need if they were going to find the legendary magical ointment created by Jesus.
It was probably all nonsense, of course, but he’d been telling himself that for years to no avail. His own uncertainty was the adventure. If it turned out to be true, well, it would change the world.
Anna blinked suddenly and sucked in a breath. After she’d composed herself, she said, “Martin, talk to me. What are you thinking?”
“About you.”
“Any specifics?”
“If you told me anything meaningful about yourself, it would be a good start.”
“What do you want to know? I was born in Florida, near the—”
“I don’t think so. I’m a specialist in languages, remember? I think you grew up somewhere in the Rocky Mountain West.”
Anna turned to give him an incredulous look. “Miami is swimming with different languages. Don’t you think that might have had an influence?”
“If you’d grown up in Miami’s linguistic stew, you be clipping your Es and swallowing Rs. I don’t hear it.”
High overheard, the building roar of a jet split the night. As quickly, it passed and began to fade.
Anna tilted her head back, eyes hardening as she scanned the contrail that gleamed in the starlight.
Martin followed her gaze. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s an A-10 Thunderbolt. The situation is deteriorating.”
“It’s just a plane, Anna.”
She subtly shook her head. “The Thunderbolt was built to attack tanks, Martin.”
“What makes you think it wasn’t just innocently flying over, heading back to U.S. bases in Germany or Italy?”
She said nothing for several moments. “I hope you’re right, but I want you to listen to me. If something goes really wrong, like war breaks out, we’re totally on our own. There’s no help coming.”
He paused to digest that interesting tidbit. “What makes you think war is going to break out? Aren’t Egypt and America allies?”
Given the quirk to her lips, he’d amused her. “We were. Before LucentB. But now? All bets are off.”
He tossed another chunk of wood on the flames. “The plague is in Europe, not here. There’s no reason for a war with Egypt. Though it would be just my luck. We’re close to completing the quest of a lifetime.”
“Well, hopefully, we’ll be gone before it breaks out. If my source is correct, the village that’s supposed to be near the cave is less than one day’s ride. We should be there tomorrow night. If we can find the cave, we’ll be back in America three days later.”
“Who is this source, Anna? How do you know him?”
Anna ran her long-fingered hands up and down her lower legs, forming her khaki pants to her shapely shins. Her eyes turned wistful, as if recalling painful memories. “He’s an old friend, a classmate. He works for Israeli intelligence now, but he used to be a heck of a great mountain climber.”
“Mountain climber?” He rubbed the back of his neck, aware of the pungent tang that rose from his unwashed armpit. Their water supply was too limited for even sponge baths. Smart people didn’t get extravagant with water in the Sahara. “What does he do in Israeli intelligence?”
“He’s a … a scholar of ancient documents.”
He had the feeling she was lying, but he said, “See, I don’t get why intelligence agencies need scholars of ancient documents. Wouldn’t they be more concerned—”
“Well, think about it. The last thing the Israelis need is some imam wandering out of the desert waving a long-forgotten prophetic scroll that will upset the entire balance of power in the Middle East. Our allies are already having enough problems with new caliphates springing up by the day.”
“How do you know this guy? Where did you meet him?”
“We went to college together.”
“Which college?”
“I told you. California State University in Bakersfield.”
Martin wondered if any of this was true. Like her birthplace, he doubted she’d attended college in California. He knew something about university cultures. Depending upon where a student was educated, he or she picked up regional mannerisms, ways of speaking, attitudes toward the world. Anna didn’t have that West Coast university “flare.” Instead, her serious demeanor suggested Ivy League training. “How would a girl from Montana get to California?”
“Florida,” she corrected with a knowing smile. “I wanted to get as far from home as possible. Across the country seemed about right.”
“Bakersfield, huh? San Joaquin Valley. I’ve been there.”
“Good for you.” Anna used a piece of wood to prod the fire, sending wreaths of sparks into the desert darkness.
“Why were you so eager to get away from your family? Mother-daughter issues?”
“No. I had an overprotective older brother named Jonathan. He met every boy who ever asked me for a date at the front door and threatened him.”
“Jeez. You didn’t have many dates, did you?”
“Very few. If I hadn’t fled to California I’m sure I would have never had sex.”
Martin laughed. “Thank God you escaped.”
Anna leaned back on the sand, propping herself on her elbows so she could glance into her pack, then up at the sky. Then she sat forward again and stared at the flames. What’s in her pack that she had to look at?
“What about you, Martin? Older brothers? Sisters?”
“Nope. I’m the only child of a single mother. It was just Mom and me growing up.”
“Really?” Anna’s delicate brows slanted down over her pointed nose. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. You don’t seem…”
“What? Like a mama’s boy?” Martin smiled. “Well, it wasn’t easy for either of us. My father died when I was three. God, that was 2009. The country was in the midst of a financial meltdown. My mother lost her job. We had a hard time for a while. Fortunately, I had two great-uncles who took turns being my father. Both Vietnam vets, by the way. Great guys.” He would be eternally grateful for having them in his life. Especially in his teen years, when he’d gotten a little out of hand and they’d dragged him aside to explain the way the world worked. Tough love, it was called.
“Can I ask how your father died?”
“He was a runner. He was running down the side of road one day when a car swerved and hit him. Killed him instantly. The driver was a sixteen-year-old kid who happened to be texting his girlfriend and didn’t notice he was about to run off the road.”
Anna blinked and looked away. “What a tragedy. Your poor mother. Did she ever remarry?”
“Yes, but not until I turned twenty-one and graduated from college. He’s a nice guy. I like him.”
Something about the softness of her expression touched him. But it also worried him. He was fairly certain that everything she’d told him about herself was a lie. Which meant she had much to hide. Much she feared. Did he dare let himself get close to her?
“Okay,” Martin said. “Enough personal stuff. Time for business. Let’s talk about tomorrow. Where are we going? What’s the name of the modern village? It’s time you told me.”
Anna scanned the wadi, as though she expected to see pursuers at any instant. “The ancient village that was once called Batatab was renamed about one thousand years ago. It’s now called Bir Bashan, and it sits on a rim of Black Canyon at the edge of this dune field. When I was here four years ago, I didn’t know that Bir Bashan was built on the ruins of Batatab.” Her gaze grew distant. “But he must have. The name meant something to him.”
Martin tilted his head skeptically. “Who is ‘he’?”
She glanced at her pack again. “Let’s roll out our sleeping bags. We have a busy day tomorrow.”
“I don’t know how you can sleep after the things we heard on the news today. Doesn’t it bother you that the plague may have escaped quarantine in France? And what about the huge explosion in northern China? The reporter said it could have been—”
“That’s speculation. No one knows the details of the Chinese event yet. It was probably a big munitions factory going up in flames. I was far more bothered by the graph that showed ammunition sales in America going through the roof.”
“Yeah, that disturbed me, too. But what if the plague really has escaped quarantine—”
“There’s nothing you or I can do about it.” She rolled out her sleeping bag beneath the overhang. “So we may as well get a good night’s rest.”
Firelight illuminated her stony eyes as she stretched out across the bag to watch him.
“I’m just going to think about what’s happening in Europe for a while.”
“Okay, but don’t be long. Tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”
Long after she’d fallen asleep, Martin found himself staring out at the starlit dunes, wondering what was happening in Europe, and wondering if she’d told him the truth about anything.