The Secret of Excalibur

it happens. And we didn’t have a huge amount in common. You and Eddie aren’t the only ones with very different backgrounds. So . . .’ A shrug. ‘There weren’t really any bad feelings, it just didn’t work out. We’ve both moved on.’

‘Still, I’m sorry,’ Nina said again. She turned to Chase, to see that he was already looking at her. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment.

‘Things turned out okay in the end,’ Mitchell said, noting the exchange but not remarking on it. ‘She went into law, and I got my doctorate.’

‘You’re a PhD?’ Nina asked, surprised and impressed. ‘What field?’

‘High-energy physics. Thought I might as well put my experience on a nuke boat to good use. And it eventually brought me into DARPA’s earth energy experiments.’

Nina was still highly dubious about the entire concept, but decided not to voice her doubts again. ‘I gotta admit, Doctor Mitchell,’ she said instead, ‘you’re a lot more dashing than the average physicist.’

Mitchell beamed, a megawatt movie-star smile. ‘Dashing, huh? I like that. And I have to say, Doctor Wilde, you’re definitely in my top three favourite archaeologists.’

‘And who are the other two?’

‘Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, of course!’

‘And am I above or below Lara?’

He smiled again. ‘Definitely above.’

‘A-hem!’ Chase fake-coughed loudly enough to attract even the attention of the camels. ‘So, Jack, get us the map, will you? I want to check where we’re going tomorrow.’ With a playful look at Nina, Mitchell stood and went to one of the tents. The moment he was out of earshot, Chase poked Nina in the side. ‘Oi!’

‘What?’

‘Pack that in!’

‘Pack what in?’

‘Bloody flirting!’

Nina couldn’t really deny it. Instead, she grinned. ‘What’s the matter, Eddie? Jealous?’

Chase didn’t return the smile. ‘What, of him? Don’t be daft. It’s just that he’s a bit of a pretty boy.’

‘Oh, you think so too? I’ll tell him you said that.’

‘No you bloody won’t!’

Mitchell returned with the map. ‘We’re about here,’ he said, indicating a point on the southern Syrian border. ‘Kafashta is . . . here.’

Chase looked more closely. ‘Maybe eighteen or nineteen miles north. If we set off at dawn, it should only take us about three hours to get there.’ He studied the map for a little longer, then sat up. ‘In that case, we should grab a bite and then get some kip.’ He faced Nina, eyeing her suggestively. ‘See if you can do anything new now that camel’s stretched your legs.’

Nina wasn’t impressed. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘Like what?’

‘There are only two tents.’

‘Two tents, four people, two to a tent. Seems fine to me.’ The others regarded him silently, waiting for the penny to drop. ‘What?’

‘Two men, two women, only one couple,’ Nina reminded him. ‘I’ll be sharing with Karima.’

‘Wait, you mean I’ve got to share with ’im?’ cried Chase, pointing at Mitchell.

‘I’m also thrilled,’ Mitchell sighed.

‘Buggeration and fuckery!’ Chase paused, realising what he’d just said. ‘And no, that’s not a suggestion!’

10

Syria

Though the desert landscape was indistinguishable from that of Jordan, it somehow seemed indefinably more hostile, menacing, now they had crossed into Syria. Nina surveyed the horizons as best she could from her rocking mount as the group headed northwards, fearing the appearance of a patrol.

But nobody approached over the stony dunes. They were truly in the wastelands, the nearest town of any size many miles away. The camels padded on through the sands for an hour, two, nothing breaking the monotony of their surroundings, until . . .

‘That’s it,’ Mitchell announced, pointing at the unassuming blocky structures rising from the shimmering haze ahead. ‘Kafashta.’

‘Doesn’t look like much,’ Nina observed. If not for the presence of a mosque, easily identifiable by its single minaret standing tall above everything around it, she could easily have imagined it as something from a Western, missing only a nameless gunslinger in a poncho.

‘So what’s the plan?’ said Chase. The village was barely more than a couple of streets intersecting at a square, rundown houses hunched around it. The mosque was by far the largest and best-maintained building, but even it was fighting a losing battle against time and weather, sporting a rickety platform of scaffolding round the top of the minaret where a wall was being repaired.

‘I’ll speak to the imam,’ said Karima. ‘You’ll need his permission to go into the mosque, but there are over two hours before the next call to prayer, so hopefully he’ll allow it.’

They dismounted and tethered the camels, then walked along the short street to the mosque. Karima went through the gates. Nina looked round. The village was so quiet it almost felt abandoned. Remove the telephone poles, she thought, and Kafashta would look little different from how it had in the time of the Crusades.

The sound of raised voices within the mosque caught her attention. ‘Ay up,’ said Chase, opening his leather jacket wider for quicker access to his gun. ‘Trouble.’

Karima reappeared, looking angry, followed by a young man with a rather feeble attempt at a beard. He yelled at her in Arabic, robes flapping as he gesticulated. His outrage grew when he saw the three Westerners.

‘A slight problem,’ Karima informed them thinly. ‘The imam doesn’t want anyone from “the Great Satan” - his exact words - in his mosque.’

‘This is the imam?’ said Nina, surprised. The young man, still ranting, seemed to be barely twenty.

‘No, he is not the imam,’ said a new voice. A much older man, probably sixty but with the sun-hardened wrinkles of his face adding a good decade more to his appearance, padded towards them across the mosque’s inner courtyard. He drew heavily on the stub of a cigarette before flicking it out on to the street. The younger man glared at him in disgust. ‘He would like to be, he thinks he is, but he is not. Not yet. I am the imam of this magnificent place of worship,’ he said, sarcasm clear in his voice. ‘My name is Mahmoud al-Sabban, and this boy,’ he jerked a dismissive thumb, ‘is Rami Hanif, recently arrived from Damascus to drive me to an early grave with his maddening book-learned piety so he can have my job!’

‘Your English is very good, sir,’ Nina said politely.

Al-Sabban smiled crookedly. ‘Thank you. I taught myself, Berlitz tapes. I have been here for over thirty years, and I already know every word of the holy Koran - I needed new ways to fill the time.’ He regarded his visitors with amusement. ‘So, you are from the Great Satan?’

‘I’m not from the Great Satan,’ Chase objected. ‘I’m from the Little Satan.’

Al-Sabban examined him more closely. ‘You do not look Israeli.’

‘Israeli? No, I’m British.’

‘Israel is the Little Satan, my friend,’ al-Sabban told him with a mocking laugh. ‘Britain is, hah, an imp at most.’ Ignoring Chase’s peeved expression, he waved them inside. ‘But that does not