‘The project just got sabotaged by a local religious sect. Claim it on insurance and move on,’ I suggested, going after Andre to prevent him from picking a fight he would never win without starting a war.
‘I am not going to allow months of work to go to waste!’ Andre quickened his pace and waved forth Conally and Miss Resi. ‘I am taking our cocky Arab friend up on his challenge,’ Andre said. ‘I planted a tracking device on him.’
‘That is not really standard excavation equipment,’ I chided, concerned at the development, as I had seen Molier’s high-tech office.
‘Molier was not your standard archaeologist. He had ways and means.’ Andre did remember that much about his recently deceased employer. ‘I also planted the micro-camera from the headset that Molier gave me earlier.’
‘Good for you.’ Conally was inspired into action. ‘I’ll chase up Marty and we’ll follow the thieving bastards in the chopper.’
‘Here we go again.’ I threw up my hands, exasperated. ‘Do you people never learn?’ My colleagues ignored me as they shifted into hunting mode. I looked back to Albray, to find him having a quiet chuckle.
‘How do you expect them to learn from an experience they cannot remember?’
‘There is that,’ I granted, as my knight caught me up.
‘Not to worry, they shall realise their folly presently.’ Albray took up my hand and kissed it. ‘Shall we retire to your tent and leave them to their wild goose chase?’
I wished that I were as confident that Akbar could not be tracked. ‘It is not that I don’t trust you, or that your proposal is not far more inviting—’
‘I know, you just worry that I am a little old-fashioned and naive,’ Albray said, not insulted, but aware.
‘I need closure.’ I backed up to follow Andre and Miss Resi into Molier’s abode.
‘Suit yourself.’ Albray changed course from my tent to follow me.
‘Let me handle Andre.’ I urged my knight against accompanying me. ‘Your presence will probably just aggravate the situation.’
‘Whatever you think is best.’ Albray kissed me, and reluctantly dragged himself away to resume his course to my tent. ‘I shall find some clothes then, shall I?’
‘No, don’t.’ I grinned, wanting desperately to accompany him back to my tent. But I owed it to Ashlee, Lillet and all my foremothers to see those keys delivered beyond the reach of treasure seekers like Tusca, Conally and Andre.
In Molier’s mobile office, Andre had Miss Resi in the computer hot seat and was shooting orders at her in French.
‘I do know what I’m doing,’ she barked back at him, whilst typing at triple the speed of a normal human being. ‘We should have a visual.’ She hit a final key and a window opened on the desktop screen of the overhead monitor —this featured a bouncing view of the desert, as seen from the right-hand saddlebag of Akbar’s horse.
‘What about the transmitter?’ Andre wanted confirmation that they could track the signal hidden on our target.
Tusca resumed typing nineteen to the dozen, whereupon a second window opened on the overhead monitor. This window contained a radar screen that was reading one solitary flashing dot, slightly left of centre. ‘The target is about half a kilometre from us on a westerly bearing.’
‘Even if you do discover where they take the keys, how do you plan on reclaiming them?’ I attempted to reason with my colleagues. ‘Only Allah knows how many of these warriors there are.’
I had never seen Andre truly annoyed at me before, but the dark look on his face told me I was not in favour at present. ‘Well, if you had not given an assassin the keys to our find, I would not have to go looking for them.’
I placed my hands on my hips. After the day I had endured I was not going to become the scapegoat for the failure of this project. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t assume to place blame for this affair on
Andre’s eyes fell upon the bloodied holes in my shirt. ‘Oh, my goddess, Mia. You’ve been shot!’ Of course the Frenchman did not hesitate to seize the opportunity to rip open my shirt, and gasped when he found nothing but smeared bloodstains on my bare belly. ‘What the…?’
I was at a complete loss for words. The thought of recounting my tale was completely exhausting to me.
‘What happened to us…to Molier?’ Tusca humbly appealed. She was as beat up as Andre, and like him could not remember how she had sustained her injuries. I think she sensed that she’d done something horrible that, like a nightmare she couldn’t remember, had left her with a deep sense of foreboding.
‘You do not want to know.’ I began to shake as the recollection of the day’s events sent shockwaves pulsing through my being. ‘Molier is dead…but as he was ultimately responsible for the murder of Akbar’s two young companions—’
Tusca gasped. Maybe she had a recollection of something.
‘—I’d say that Christian Molier’s demise was karma, and long overdue. I gave the keys to Akbar because the treasures of the gods are dangerous in the hands of ordinary men. Trust me when I warn you that no good will come from pursuing those keys at this time.’
‘Andre, are you there?’ Conally’s voice sounded from the walkie-talkie and startled us all.
Andre fetched up the communicator.
‘There is a sirocco headed our way. Our Arab friends are heading straight into a towering cloud of dirt! We cannot take the chopper in there…we’ll have to turn back. Are you tracking them?’
