Anyway, it was time for a sit-rep, and I used my sat-phone to call Brenner.
He answered and I asked, “Anything happening there?”
“Negative.” He asked, “Am I missing something good?”
“I see dead people.”
“Get a picture.”
“Roger.”
So we continued to wander around, and Buck was all over the place, looking for bits and pieces of broken stone with this weird writing carved in it, which to me looked Martian. He took lots of pictures, and I was starting to believe we
Buck asked us, “Do you want to go into one of the houses?”
“No.”
“We can climb up to the mafraj and get a wonderful view.”
“Buck,” I said sternly, “these towers are on the verge of collapse. I don’t even want to be in the
“Well… all right. But if we see real kidnappers-or Al Qaeda-we’ll have to duck into a tower house.”
“I’d rather shoot it out on the street.”
We continued on, and Buck, ever the instructor, informed us, “Islam has an ambivalent attitude toward pre- Islamic culture and artifacts. Some Muslims see these ancient pagan cultures as visible evidence that the early Arabs were civilized and very advanced. But the fundamentalists reject anything that is pre-Islamic and pagan, and they often destroy these artifacts-the same as the early Christians destroyed and defaced the statues and temples of pagan Rome.”
“Right. They knocked the dicks off the statues.”
“Correct. The fundamentalists here do the same.”
Can we leave now?
But he continued, “The Bedouin feel some affinity for these ruins. The Sabaeans are their direct ancestors. But people like Bulus ibn al-Darwish want to erase all evidence that a civilization existed anywhere in the Middle East before Islam.” He added, “And that is why the Western archaeologists have been threatened here, and why so many attacks on Westerners have occurred in and around pagan archaeological sites here and elsewhere in the Middle East.”
I thought that Westerners were attacked at archaeological sites because that’s where Westerners went. And also because these places were isolated. That’s what happened to the Belgians. They should have stayed in Sana’a. Actually, they should have gone to Paris.
But I got Buck’s point. Westerners coming here was like people going to an African game preserve; the visitors want to see the wild animals, and the wild animals see the visitors as a lunch that walked into their dining room.
In any case, we were in the right place. Or the wrong place.
Buck reminded us, “The Romans besieged this city, and Marib has been besieged dozens of times and survived until the Egyptian Air Force destroyed it in 1967.”
Jet fighters with two-thousand-pound bombs are a bitch.
Buck looked around and said sadly, “War is senseless.”
I think the old Cold Warrior was going soft. I mean, this was nothing compared to thermonuclear Armageddon.
We came into an open area that Buck said was once a souk. There were goats wandering around the square and also a few kids-meaning young children, not baby goats. Anyway, the kids-the children-spotted us and stared at us like they’d seen ghosts. I guess they don’t get many tourists here.
Finally, they got their courage up and about ten of them ran toward us, yelling, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!”
I said to Buck, “Tell them to walk with us and we’ll pay them.”
Buck nodded and said something in Arabic, and the children left their kids behind and surrounded us as we doubled back to our vehicles.
I mean, I hate to use children as shields, but they were getting paid.
About half an hour after we’d entered Old Marib, we came back to where we’d started.
Buck asked us, “Did you enjoy that?”
Kate said, “It was fascinating. Incredible.”
Sucked.
We walked out of the ruins and I was happy to see Zamo and Brenner, who had not been kidnapped or murdered.
We paid off the urchins, and I advised them, “When you grow up, relocate.” But stay away from Perth Amboy.
Brenner wanted to ride with Zamo awhile, so we switched and Buck got behind the wheel with me still riding shotgun and Kate in the back. Buck took the lead again and we drove down the hill, toward the next dead ruin, the throne of the Queen of Sheba.
I pictured the headline in the
Hey, it’s all make-believe. Part of a clever CIA plan.
So how about this?
I like that.
But first, a friendly kidnapping.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
We headed south from Old Marib and crossed a narrow bridge over a flowing stream, the first running water I’d seen in Yemen that didn’t come out of a tap.
In fact, Kate said, “Nice to see a river.”
Buck informed her, “There are no rivers in Yemen. That is a seasonal wadi, usually dry at this time of year, but the gates of the new Marib dam must be open upstream.”
Right. Gotta water that spring khat.
Buck also informed us, “The old Marib dam was built about two thousand years ago, which made the Sabaean civilization possible. The dam collapsed in 570 A.D., the year Mohammed was born, which Muslims take as an omen.” He explained, “The end of paganism, and the beginning of a new world.”
That’s how I felt after the collapse of my first marriage.
Buck also told us, “The new dam was built in the 1980s-fourteen hundred years after the old dam collapsed.”
“Union problems?”
Buck also let us know, “A bridge limits your ability to go off-road.”
Right. That’s where I’d set up a kidnapping.
Anyway, within ten minutes we were approaching the archaeological site of Bar’an. I saw a white minibus parked on the dirt road, and a blue military truck, probably belonging to the National Security police.
Buck parked behind the truck, and Brenner and Zamo parked behind us.
We all got out and looked around. There were patches of scrawny trees here and there and date palms and also a few irrigated fields, but mostly it was brown dirt and dust.
Buck, too, was looking at the arid landscape and said, “The desert, when it decides to come, is relentless. The dam and the irrigation pumps are fighting a losing battle.”
So are we. And ironically, so are the jihadists. There will be no winners here. Except the desert.
We weren’t out of the vehicles two minutes before we were attacked by kids yelling for baksheesh, then souvenir vendors, then two young men who said they were guides for hire. And finally, an NSB officer butted in and offered protection for twenty dollars. He must be related to Captain Dammaj.
