The Seventh Scroll (76 page)

"Don't mess around, major. Your life isn't worth a pile of old junk like this. Get moving now."

"Get on with it, Sapper. But don't let Royan hear you call it a pile of old junk. You could be in really serious trouble."

Sapper shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn. you." He turned and started back down the staircase.

"You know where the boats are stashed, Nicholas shouted after him. "If you get there before me, get them inflated and the crates lashed down. We will be right behind you."

The moment Sapper was gone, Nicholas raced back down the arcade to where Royan was still at work in the treasury.

"That's it!" he shouted at her. "No more time. Let's get out."

"Nicky, we can't leave this-'

"Oud' He grabbed her arm. "We are getting out now.

Unless you want to share Tanus's tomb with him on a permanent basis."

"Can't I just-'

"No, you crazy woman! Now! The dam will go at any moment." She'broke away from him, snatched up some handfuls of left-over jewellery from the open chest at her feet, and began stuffing them into her pockets.

"I can't leave these."

He seized her around the waist and swung her over his shoulder. "I told you I meant it," he said grimly, and ran with her down the arcade.

"Nicky! Put me down." She kicked with outrage, but he continued running down into the chamber at the foot of the staircase.

Hansith and his men were carrying the last few packed ammunition crates up the staircase on the far side of the chamber. They balanced the crates easily on their heads and went up the steps with alacrity.

Here Nicholas set Royan down on her own feet again, "Will you promise to behave now? We aren't playing games.

This is deadly serious - I mean deadly, if we get trapped down here."

"I know." She looked contrite. "I just couldn't bear to leave the rest of it."

"Enough of that. Let's go." Nicholas grabbed her hand and dragged her after him. After the first few steps she shook her hand free and started to run in earnest, outstripping him and reaching the top of the staircase a few paces ahead of him.

Even under their burdens the porters were making good time. Caught up in the long hurrying column, Nicholas and Royan wound their way back through the maze, grateful for the signposts at each corner, and made it down the central staircase into the ruined long gallery without taking a wrong turning. Sapper was waiting for them at the ruins of the sealed doorway, and grunted with he porters.

relief when he saw them amongst I thought I told you to go on ahead and get the boats ready,'Nicholas shouted at him.

"Couldn't trust you not to be bloody stupid." Sapper looked miserable.

"Wanted to make sure you didn't hang about in there."

"I am touched, Sapper."Nicholas punched his shoulder, and then they ran down the approach tunnel and clattered over the bridge across the sinkhole.

"Where is MeV Nicholas panted at Sapper's back as he jogged in front of him. "Have you seen Tessayr

"Tessay is back. She had a nasty experience. She was in a terrible mess. Seems she got badly knocked about."

"What has happened to her?" Nicholas was appalled.

"Where is she?"

"It looks like she fell into the hands of von Schiller's gorillas and they beat the hell out of her. Mek's men are taking her down to the monastery. She will wait for us at the boats."

"Thank God for that," Nicholas muttered, and then louder, "What about MeV

"He is trying to hold off Nogo's attack. I have been hearing rifle fire and grenades and mortar shells all morning. He too is going to fall back and wait for us at the boats."

They ran the last few yards down the tunnel ankle, deep in slush and water, and at last crawled over the wall of the coffer dam on to the rocky ledge around Taita's pool. Nicholas looked up to see Hansith's porters scrambling up the bamboo scaffolding ladder towards the top of the cliff, each of them hauling up one of the ammunition crates.

At that moment he caught a sound that he recognized instantly. He cocked his head to listen and then told Royan grimly, "Gunfire! Mek is fighting it out, but it's pretty darned close."

"My bag!" Royan started towards her thatched shelter at the foot of the cliff.

"I must get my kit., "You won't need your make-up or your pyjamas, and I've got your passport." He seized her arm and turned her back towards the foot of the ladder. "In fact the only thing you need now is plenty of space between you and Colonel Nogo. Come along, Royan!'

They swarmed up the bamboo scaffolding and when they reached the cliff top Royan was surprised to discover that, although the earth was wet underfoot from the recent rain squalls, the sun was high and hot. She had lost all sense of time in the cold, gloomy passages of the tomb, and now she held up her face to the sunlight and drank it in gratefully for a moment while Nicholas checked the porters and made certain that they were all out of the chasm.

Sapper set off at the head of the column along the trail through the thorn forest, with the file of porters strung out behind him. Nicholas and Royan waited until all the men were on the pathway before they themselves brought up the rear of the column. The sound of the fighting was frighteningly close now. It seemed to be almost at the brink of the chasm close behind them, less than half a mile away.

The crackle of automatic fire gave a spring and a lift to the feet of the porters, and the entire party raced back through the forest to reach the main trail down to the monastery before they were cut off by Nogo's advance.

Before they reached the junction of the paths, they ran into a party of stretcher-bearers carrying a litter. They too were headed down towards the monastery. Nicholas thought the person they were carrying was one of the wounded guerrillas of Mek's force. But even when he caught up with them it took a moment for him to recognize Tessay's swollen and burned face.

"Tessay!" He stooped over her. "Who did this to you?" She looked up at him with the huge dark eyes of a wounded child, and told him in halting, broken words.

"Helm!" Nicholas blurted. "I' love to get my hands on that bastard." At that moment Royan caught up with them, and she let out a small cry of horror as she saw Tessay's face. Then immediately she took charge of her. tcher'bearers Nicholas spoke quickly to one of the stre from he recognized. wh

"Mezra, what is happening out there?"

"Nogo moved a force in from the east of the gorge.

They outflanked us, and we are pulling out, This is not our kind of fighting."

"I know," Nicholas remarked grimly. "Guerrillas must

"Where is Mek Nimmur?" keep moving. \

"He is retreating down the eastern bank of the chasm." As Mezra replied, they heard a renewed outburst of firing behind them. "That is him!" Mezra nodded. "Nogo is pushing him hard."

"What are your orders?"

"To take Lady Sun to the boats and wait for Mek Nimmur there."

"Good! Nicholas told him. "We will go with you." he jet Ranger was flying low, hugging the contours Of the land, never cresting the high ground. Helm knew that Mek Nimmur's shufta were armed with RPGs, rocket-launchers. In the hands of a trained man, these were deadly weapons against a slow-flying, unarmoured aircraft such as the jet Ranger.

The pilot's defence was to use the terrain as cover, weaving and twisting up the valleys so as to deny the racketeers a clear shot.

Although the rain clouds were slumping down the into the Abbay gorge, the helicopter was escarpmen keeping well below them. However, the sudden squalls of wind rocked the machine dangerously and splatterings; of heavy raindrops rattled against the windshield. The pilot sat forward in the seat, leaning against his shoulder-straps as he concentrated on this dangerous low flying in these unpleasant conditions. Helm sat in the right'hand seat, beside the pilot. Von Schiller and Nahoot Guddabi were together in the rear passenger seat, both of them craning nervously to peer out of the side windows as the heavily wooded slopes of the valley streamed past, seemingly close enough to touch.

Every few minutes the radio crackled into life, and they could hear the terse transmissions of Nogo's men on the ground calling for mortar support or reporting objectives attained. The pilot translated the radio gabble for them, twisting round in his seat to tell von Schiller, "There is a sharp fire-fight going on along the top of the chasm, but the shufta are on the run. Nogo is handling his force well. They have just dislodged a strong force from the hillside to the east of us," he pointed out of the left hand port, "and they are hammering the shufta with mortars as they run."

"Have they reached the spot in the chasm where Quenton-Harper was working?"

"It isn't clear. All a bit confused." The pilot listened to the next burst of Arabic on the radio. "I think that was Nogo himself speaking just then."

"Call him up!" von Schiller ordered Helm, leaning over the back of his seat.

"Ask him if they have secured the tomb site yet."

Helm reached across and lifted the microphone off its hook below the instrument panel. "Rose Petal, this is Bismarck. Do you copy?" There was a pause filled with static, and then Nogo's voice Speaking English. "Go ahead, Bismarck,'

"Have you secured the primary objective? Over."

"Affirmative, Bismarck. All secured. All opposition suppressed. I am sending men down the ladder to clear the workings."

Helm swivelled in his seat to look back at von Schiller.

"Nogo has men in the chasm already. We can go in and land., "Tell him not to let any of his men into the workings before I arrive,' von Schiller ordered sternly, but his expression was triumphant. "I must be the first in there.

Make him understand that."

While Helm relayed his orders to Nogo, von Schiller tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "How long to the objective?"

"About five minutes'flying time, sir."

"Circle the site when you arrive. Don't land until we are sure Nogo has it under his control."

The pilot lifted the collective and the sound of the rotors altered as they changed pitch. The helicopter slowed and then hovered in mid-air, while the pilot pointed down.

"What is it?" von Schiller followed his gesture. "What do you see?"

"The dam," Helm answered. Quenton-Flarper's dam.

He did a load of work down there."

The wide body of trapped water gleamed grey and sullen under the rain clouds, tainted with the run-off from the highlands. The water diverted into the side canal boiled white and angrily down into the long valley.

"Deserted!" Helm commented. "All Harper's men have pulled out."

"What is that yellow object on the bank?" von Schiller wanted to know.

"That's the earth-moving machine. You remember? My informer told us about it."

"Don't waste any more time," von Schiller ordered.

"Nothing more to see here. Let's get on!'

Helm tapped the pilot's shoulder, and gestured downstream.

apper was waiting for them to catch up at the junction of the trail, where the diverted river was roaring down the valley in a torrent and had washed out a long section of the original track. The porters, strung out in a long line down the valley, each with an ammunition crate balanced on his head, were picking their way along the higher ground above the water. Tessay's litter was near the rear of the column, with Royan and Nicholas trotting on each side of it and steadying it over the rough and uneven sections of the path.

"Where is Hansith?" Nicholas shouted at SappeT, shading his eyes to check the men ahead of him, and trying to pick out the big monk's distinctive form from amongst the others in the caravan.

thought he was with you," Sapper shouted back. "I haven) t seen him since we left the chasm., Nicholas turned and stared back the way they had come, along the footpath through the Thorn forest.

"Damn the man," he grunted. "We can't go back to look for him. He will have to make his own way down to the monastery."

At that moment they heard the faint but familiar flutter of rotors in the hot, humid air below the lowering cloud masses.

"The Pegasus chopper! Sounds as though von Schiller is heading directly for Taita's pool. He must have known all along exactly where we were working," said Nicholas bitterly. "Not wasting any time. Like a vulture coming in to a fresh carcass."

Royan was also looking up at the sound, trying to pick out the shape of the aircraft against the dark clouds. Her OEM NOOF AL

, the tendrils of sweat-damp face was flushed from the ru hair dangled down her cheeks. "If those swine are allowed to enter our tomb it will be a dreadful desecration of a sacred place," she said angrily. Nicholas reached-across the litter and took Suddenly determined. "You are her arm. His expression'was stem an right. Go on down to the monastery with Tessay. I will follow you later." Before she could protest or question him, he strode across to Sapper.

"I am putting the two women in your care, Sapper.

Look after them."

"Where are you going, Nicky?" Royan had come up behind him, and overheard his orders to Sapper. "What are you going to do?"

"One little chore. Won't take me long."

"You aren't going back there?" She was horrified. "You will get yourself killed or worse. You saw what Helm did to Tessay-'

"Don't fuss yourself, my love," he laughed, and before she realized what he intended he kissed her full on the lips.

While she was still flustered and confused by this display in front of so many men, he pushed her gently away.

"Take care of Tessay. I will meet you at the boats." Before she could protest further, he turned and struck out up the valley at a long-legged lope which carried him over the rough terrain so swiftly that she had no further chance to prevent him.

"Nicky!" she screamed after him despairingly, but he pretended not to hear and kept going, following the diverted river upstream, back towards the dam.

he jet Ranger followed the convoluted course of the river below the dam. At moments they could look directly down into the narrow gap between the high cliffs, into the shaded depths of the chasm, almost dry now, with only the occasional gleam of the shrunken and still pools.