The Amulet of Power (13 page)

16

They rode slowly across the desert, inland from the Nile. The leader, who informed them that his name was Rahman, rode alongside Lara.

“You could save yourself a great deal of pain if you would simply tell me where the Amulet is,” he said.

“If I had it, do you think you could have captured us?” she shot back.

“I did not say you had it,” he replied. “But you are Lara Croft, whose fame has reached even the Sudan. If you do not have it, you at least know where it is.”

“I know you’re not going to believe this,” said Lara, “but I not only don’t know where it is, I don’t even know what it looks like.”

“If you keep lying, it will go hard with you,” he said seriously. “Very hard indeed.”

“You’ve already told me you’re going to kill me if I don’t tell you what you want to know,” she said. “How much harder can it go?”

“Harder than I hope you can imagine, Lara Croft,” answered Rahman.

“I must say that you are certainly encouraging me to find it.”

“Just tell me where it is and I will retrieve it.”

“I have no idea where it is, but once I find it, you in particular are going to wish I hadn’t.”

He laughed humorlessly. “After we kill you and these three false believers who have accompanied you, we will force Kevin Mason to deliver the Amulet to us, so you see that you cannot keep it from us. Why do you persist in defying me?”

“I don’t like your beard,” said Lara.

“My beard?” he repeated, surprised.

“Or your face, or your breath, or your manners, or your threats.”

He laughed again, this time in genuine amusement. “I admire your spirit, Lara Croft. I say this in all sincerity. It is almost a shame that it will so soon be separated from your broken, shattered body.”

“You talk too much.”

“And you do not talk enough,” replied Rahman. “I will ask you one last time: Where is the Amulet?”

“Good,” said Lara.

He looked confused. “What is good?”

“The fact that you have asked me for the last time.”

“Perhaps you have
too
much spirit,” said Rahman. “Why are you so uncooperative? We have your weapons. You know that you cannot escape. We can kill you whenever we want.”

“No you can’t,” answered Lara. “Whoever’s giving you your orders wants us alive.”

“He wants
you
alive,” responded Rahman. “He has no interest in your companions, living or dead.” He paused thoughtfully. “Possibly you would feel more talkative if I began killing each one in turn.”

“They mean nothing to me,” she said with an unconcerned shrug. “They’re just hired guides.”

“Where are they taking you?”

“It’s no secret that I’m going to Khartoum.”

“So the Amulet is in Khartoum?”

“You’re welcome to think so.”

“Why else would you go there?” demanded Rahman.

“To outfit an expedition.”

“To where?”

She smiled. “To find the Amulet, of course.”

He cursed at her and then fell silent.

Well, I took your mind off killing my friends. But I’d better think of something more, before we get to wherever it is you’re taking us.

They’d gone another mile as Lara considered various possibilities, each more suicidal than the last. Then, finally, she remembered Omar’s warning about the dangers of drinking directly from the Nile.

“Are we getting close?” she asked.

“You will know when we get there,” said Rahman.

“Is it soon?” she asked desperately.

He frowned. “Why?”

“I swallowed a bunch of water when I was swimming,” she said, hunching her body over. “I feel . . . I don’t know . . .”

“That is what happens when Europeans drink from the Nile,” laughed Rahman.

“It’s not funny!” snapped Lara weakly. “I’m sick!”

“If the Nile can do this to you, I am afraid you are not going to provide us very much amusement when we extract the secret of the Amulet’s location from you.”

Don’t do this too fast
,
Lara,
she told herself.
You’re only going to get one shot at it.

“Go to hell!” she snapped, and acted as if she had decided to stoicly bear her pain. She rode in silence for the next quarter mile, grimacing as if in agony, but not uttering a word, which added to the reality of her performance.

Finally she began groaning aloud.

“What is it now?” demanded Rahman in bored tones.

“Stomach cramps,” she muttered, doubling over—and as she did so, her right hand snaked down, withdrew the Leopard’s Tooth from her boot, and tucked it in the sleeve of her robe.

“English!” he muttered contemptuously.

“I think . . .” began Lara, rolling her eyes.

“You think what?”

“I think I’m going to . . .” She went limp and fell onto the ground.

“Lara!” cried Omar, jumping off his own camel and running up to her. “Are you all right?”

“Get back, son of a pig!” said Rahman harshly. “
I
will tend to the prisoner.”

She heard the rustling of his robe as he approached. Then he was turning her over roughly. Suddenly she reached out, spun him around, and in an instant she was behind him, the sharp edge of the Leopard’s Tooth pressed against his neck.

His men instantly had their guns out, but Lara had Rahman positioned between them and herself. She backed up until she and Rahman were next to her camel.

“Drop your weapons or he’s a dead man!” she demanded.

“He is nothing!” said one of Rahman’s companions, taking aim. “The Amulet is everything!”

A shot rang out and thudded into Rahman’s body. Lara felt him go limp, but she continued to prop him up as a shield with one hand while she reached into her saddle bag with the other and pulled out a Black Demon. She fired off ten quick rounds and suddenly three of Rahman’s men lay dead on the ground. The fourth fired off a quick shot that struck Rahman’s body with such force that the dead man and Lara fell to the ground. A second hurried shot, aimed at Lara where she fell, hit the Leopard’s Tooth instead, destroying the blade.

The horseman realized that all four of his companions were dead, panicked, and began racing off across the sand. Hassam ran to one of the corpses, picked up a rifle, and took careful aim. It seemed to Lara that he would never pull the trigger, that soon the rider would be out of range, but finally he fired a single shot. An instant later the horse collapsed, and the rider went flying through the air, landing heavily about forty feet away. The horse tried futilely to rise, but it was obvious that the shot had shattered one of its legs.

Hassam, tears streaming down his face, ran up to the horse, placed the muzzle of the rifle in its ear, and fired again. The animal died without a sound.

“You!” bellowed Hassam, walking over to the writhing man. “You made me kill a horse, Allah’s most perfect creature! Know that after I kill you I will bury you facing away from Mecca!”

The man began crying and begging, but Hassam was deaf to his entreaties. He fired his rifle again, and a moment later he was scraping out a shallow grave.

“That was very quick thinking,” said Omar, retrieving his weapons and walking up to Lara.

“It was my own fault we were in this mess,” she replied, examining the Leopard’s Tooth and finally tossing the ruined weapon onto the sand. “From now on, the only name for any camel I ride will be Camel.”

“Don’t blame yourself. How could you have known?”

“Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “But we’ve
all
got to be more careful.”

“We can start by riding back to the Nile and turning south,” said Omar. “The longer we take to reach Khartoum, the greater the likelihood that we’ll run into more Mahdists, and the more frequently we meet them, the more chance that we’ll say or do something that will give away your identity.”

She walked to her camel, had it kneel, and climbed into the saddle. Gaafar had dismounted long enough to pick up his rifle, and he and Omar were soon astride their own camels.

“I’d rather ride the horses,” he said, “but they’re too easily identified.”

“I agree,” said Lara. “Reluctantly.”

“Shall we proceed?” asked Omar.

“What about Hassam?” asked Lara.

“He is burying the horse.”

“He’s digging a grave for the horse?” she said incredulously.

“No,” said Gaafar. “But he has moved the horse and now he is covering it with sand.”

“Moved it?” she repeated, frowning. “It’s right where it fell.”

“He has turned it so that it faces Mecca,” explained Gaafar. “Hassam believes that horses as well as men have souls. All righteous Moslems wish to be buried facing Mecca. Hassam is punishing this one’s soul by facing the body away from Mecca, but he sees no reason to punish the horse as well, or to leave it out for the vultures.”

“Isn’t that carrying his love of horses a little bit too far?” asked Lara.

“Did the man try to kill you?” asked Gaafar.

“Yes.”

“Did the horse?”

“All right,” replied Lara. “You have a point.”

“He will bury the other four men and then catch up with us,” said Omar.

“Facing away from Mecca?” she asked.

“They were not honorable men,” said Omar disapprovingly. “But Hassam is a good Moslem, and he will not cause their souls to wander for eternity. He will point them toward Mecca.”

“So obviously he thinks causing him to kill a horse is a worse sin than making him kill a man?”

“The men were enemies, and they meant to kill us. The horse was not to blame.” Omar sighed. “Horses are born innocent. Only men are capable of blame.”

Hassam trudged back through the sand. Her last sight of him as they headed back to the Nile was of his facing each corpse toward Mecca before scraping out shallow graves for them with his bare hands.

“Will he be able to find us?” she asked.

“I know it seems like only our enemies can find us,” said Omar. “But Hassam will join us at nightfall.”

“It shouldn’t take him that long to dig the graves,” said Lara. “Why don’t we help him, or at least wait for him?”

“He will join us at nightfall,” repeated Omar.

“Why not now?”

“Because he is a proud man, and he does not want you to see him cry.”

“He had no choice,” said Lara. “Otherwise the man would have escaped and brought back reinforcements.”

“I know that,” said Omar. “And so does Hassam.”

“Then if it wasn’t his fault, why . . . ?”

“Because the horse is just as dead.”

She was silent for a long moment.

“What are you thinking, Lara Croft?” asked Omar at last.

“That I could have fallen in with worse companions,” she replied.

17

They reached Dongola in two more days, gave it a wide berth, then did the same when they came to Ed Debba three days after that. There was never a lack of food for the camels; everything within a mile or two of each side of the Nile was green and growing, and the river supplied all the water they needed.

“I am surprised that you haven’t become sick yet,” remarked Omar as they put Ed Debba well behind them.

“I was sick when you met me,” answered Lara. “I’m my old self now.”

“I mean because of the water.”

She laughed. “I have been in so many filthy places and drunk such foul water during my life that my stomach probably thinks the Nile is the finest, purest distilled water I’ve ever given it.”

“I keep forgetting,” said Omar. “You are not just some ordinary Englishwoman. You are Lara Croft.”

“Don’t underestimate my fellow Englishwomen,” she said. “The first Elizabeth was a pretty tough old bird, Victoria ruled the world, and Maggie Thatcher could have reconquered it if she’d felt like it.”

“I meant no offense,” said Omar quickly.

“None taken.”

“Have you given any thought to the Amulet?”

“Of course I have. Frankly, between you and me, I wish I’d never heard of it.”

“That was not precisely the kind of thought I was referring to,” said Omar.

“I know,” said Lara. “I don’t know enough yet to have any serious thoughts on where to look. I’ve been to Khartoum a couple of times, but it’s a very large, very old city. Chinese Gordon could have hidden it anywhere.”

“Chinese?” repeated Omar. “You are mistaken. General Gordon was British.”

“It was a nickname,” she explained. “The press gave it to him after he’d conducted a successful series of campaigns in China. Anyway, he’s the key to it. Obviously Colonel Stewart was in Edfu for some other reason, so the Amulet stayed with Gordon. I have to learn more about him, see where he lived and where he worked, read his writings, walk the city where he walked it. In short, I have to
become
Gordon. I have to learn to think as he did—and once I do that, I’ll know where I would hide the Amulet, which means I’ll know where
he
hid it.”

“And you will bring all your training and experience to bear,” said Omar.

“I’m not sure how useful my experience is going to be.”

“I do not understand. You have found many lost treasures. Everyone knows this.”

“It’s not the same,” she said. “You find ancient artifacts by studying ancient peoples—but much of the time, the reason the artifacts are lost is not because anyone hid them, but because the society no longer exists. You study their history, their culture, so that you can figure out where to dig, where they kept their most valuable treasures.” She sighed deeply. “But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a man who lived little more than a century ago, who was a serving officer in the British army, who knew that hundreds, perhaps thousands of men would be searching for the Amulet the instant Khartoum fell—and he didn’t want them to find it.” She looked at Omar. “Do you see the difference? No one set out to hide an artifact like the Rosetta Stone. It became lost in the mists of time. That’s not the case with the Amulet. Gordon actively hid it, and I have to figure out where, which is why I have to learn exactly how his mind worked. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got. If I were laying bets, I’d put my money on Kevin finding it, not me. He’s the Gordon student.”

“If I had put my money on Kevin Mason instead of you, all four of us would have died five days ago,” said Omar, referring to the incident with the five riflemen. “We have more faith in you than you have in yourself.”

“I’ve never been plagued by self-doubt,” said Lara. “But you have to understand that you’re asking me to find a century-old needle that’s hidden in a haystack a third the size of Europe. That’s quite a daunting challenge.”

“If it was easy, we wouldn’t need your expertise,” responded Omar. “So I ask again: What are your thoughts concerning the Amulet?”

“Just that it’s very well hidden.”

“Come now,” said Omar. “You knew General Gordon’s nickname. You are not totally ignorant of him. Doubtless you have read of his campaigns, perhaps even read biographies of him. Surely you can hazard a guess.”

“People have been hazarding guesses since 1885,” answered Lara, “and the Amulet is still missing.” She paused. “You know,” she suggested, “there is always the possibility that he destroyed it.”

“He could not destroy it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“It is a magical amulet. It can only be destroyed by magic,” said Omar with absolute certainty.

“That spell you mentioned, the one Abdul said was a fairy tale?”

Omar nodded. “General Gordon did not possess the spell.”

“Then maybe he threw it in the Nile.”

“No,” said Omar firmly. “The course of the Nile has changed many times. Drought, earthquake, build-up of silt—any of these things could alter its course and expose the Amulet on the river bed.”

“But would Gordon have known that?” asked Lara.

“If not, and if he planned to throw the Amulet into the Nile, he would certainly have asked,” said Omar. “Not in so many words, of course. He would not walk up to an aide and ask if it was safe to hide the Amulet in the river. But he would have asked if the Nile always stayed within its boundaries. Remember, he was diverting some of the flow to turn Khartoum into a defensible island, so it would have been a natural question from a commander who had to know all the conditions he might be called upon to deal with.”

“All right,” conceded Lara. “That makes sense. So he didn’t throw it in the Nile. But that doesn’t give us any better idea of where he
did
hide it.”

They rode until twilight, then dismounted and prepared to sleep in the shade of a large boulder that seemed to rise up out of the sand for no logical reason. Lara took a long drink from her canteen, then pulled out her pistols and began cleaning and oiling them. The three men did the same with their rifles.

“I have been thinking,” said Omar after a few minutes. “By now they know we’re going to Khartoum and approaching it on camels, and they know we’ve traveled by
felluca
, so they’ll be watching the river as well. What if we release the camels when we are about thirty miles out of the city, and take public transportation the rest of the way? They would never think to look for us on a crowded bus.”

“Won’t your rifles give you away?” asked Lara.

All three men laughed. “It is more likely that your
lack
of a rifle will give us away,” said Hassam.

“I assume I’ll be wearing robes and being a boy again?” she said glumly.

“Only until we get to the Bortai Hotel, and get word to our people,” answered Omar. “Then you can become Lara Croft once more.”

“The robes worked when observers were a few hundred feet away,” said Lara. “Can I pass for a boy in a crowded bus?”

Omar studied her. “Your face is too smooth,” he said at last. “Even Circassian women do not have skin texture like that, not after years in the desert. I suppose the easiest remedy is to slap some mud and dirt on it.”

“And don’t speak,” added Gaafar.

“I know. My voice is too high.”

“Some boys have high voices,” he said. “But you have a thick accent, and it is easily identified as English.”

“All right, I won’t speak.”

“And bury your chin in your robes,” said Gaafar.

“It won’t be for long,” Omar assured her. “The bus will cover the distance in no more than an hour, and we will get off it within a short walk of the Bortai.”

“We’re still ahead of the
Amenhotep
unless it passed one night while we were sleeping,” said Lara. “And its engine is so noisy I doubt that that could happen. How will we get word to Kevin?”

“We have allies in Khartoum,” replied Omar. “Someone will come on board—a new deckhand, a cargo inspector, someone—and give Dr. Mason the information he needs. We will rent a room for him at the Bortai, under a false name of course, so that he will be able to move right in.” He paused. “Then the two of you will find the Amulet.”

Always assuming it wants me to find it,
thought Lara.

The next two days were uneventful, and finally they came to the rarely used railroad tracks and the highway, in serious need of repair, that paralleled them. When they came to a landmark that Omar knew—it was just a trio of rocks at the roadside, meaningless to Lara but as clear as a street sign to him—they dismounted, took the bridles and saddles off their camels and hid them behind some thick bushes, then chased the camels off.

After waiting two hours for a bus, Lara turned to Omar.

“You’re sure the bus drives on this road?” she said. “So far all we’ve seen are two cars and a mule-cart.”

“This is its regular route,” he assured her.

“Then where is it?”

Omar shrugged. “It breaks down a lot.”

They waited another twenty minutes, and finally a rusted, dilapidated minivan pulled up.

“That’s the bus?” asked Lara.

“That’s the bus.”

“The four of us will fill it up.”

“I have seen it carry as many as fifteen grown men,” said Gaafar.

“On the inside?”

Gaafar laughed. “Remember to hide your face,” he said, and the four of them climbed into the minivan. Sure enough, it stopped twice more to pick up three more men, and Lara decided she was in more danger of being crushed to death than identified.

When the minivan was about ten miles out of Khartoum it hit a pothole and blew its left front tire. The driver had everyone climb out while he went around to the back and removed the spare, only to find that it was flat as well.

Lara was about to ask Omar what they should do next, then remembered not to speak aloud, and simply looked at him questioningly. He gestured her to follow him, Gaafar and Hassam fell into step, and the four of them began walking toward Khartoum.

“There will be another bus along soon, perhaps a real one,” said Omar when they were out of earshot.

“That was some bus,” said Lara. “I felt safer when people were shooting at us back in the desert.”

“We are still in the desert,” said Hassam. “
Khartoum
is in the desert.”

“Quiet!” whispered Omar sharply before Lara could reply. She turned and saw that the other three passengers were approaching them. Omar began walking again, and soon all seven of them—the six men and the false boy—were trudging along the pothole-filled tarmac toward Khartoum.

Finally a large bus, every bit as filthy and rusty as the minivan, honked once and pulled up to a stop, and all seven got on. Omar paid for his party, and they walked past a few seated passengers to the back.

The leather had been ripped off the seats, and Lara elected to stand, holding onto a strap that hung down from the ceiling. One of the passengers from the van walked back and was soon standing next to her.

They lurched over the terrible road for a mile, then another, and suddenly the passenger had a knife in his hand and was plunging it into Lara’s robe. The only thing that saved her was the bulkiness of the robe, which concealed the precise location of her body. The knife missed her ribs by inches, and she wasn’t about to give her attacker a second chance. She grabbed his wrist and twisted sharply. There was an audible
crack
and the man’s mouth opened in a moan, giving Lara a glimpse of the stub of a mutilated tongue. He dropped to one knee, just in time for his face to come into contact with Lara’s swiftly rising knee. As his head shot back, she caught him on the throat with the edge of her hand, and he collapsed.

“Turn away!” whispered Omar so softly that only Lara could hear him. “You’re humiliated and can’t meet anyone’s eyes!”

All the passengers turned to stare at her. She was fully prepared to pull her guns and hold them at bay until the bus reached Khartoum, but then Omar stepped forward.

“This scum actually had the nerve to try to kiss my baby brother!” he announced in outraged tones.

Then, as one, the passengers applauded.

“Serves you right, you son of a pig!” said Omar, landing a heavy kick to the unconscious assassin’s rib cage.

Fifteen minutes later the bus came to a stop, the driver announced that they had reached the end of his route, and Lara, after many days and narrow escapes, climbed down the shaky stairs and finally set foot in Khartoum.

She looked around, trying to get her bearings based on her one previous trip to the city.

At least we should be all through with riflemen on horseback and slashers in buses,
she thought.

“Welcome to Khartoum,” said Omar. “I hope you enjoyed the journey, because now is when things start getting dangerous.”