The Lost Army of Cambyses (55 page)

left or right to find a route that was navigable by

car. Sometimes the diversions were short, only a

few hundred metres, sometimes three or four kilo-

metres. All the while he was being shunted off line,

as though pulled by a strong current. After two

hours of steady driving, by which point he had, by

his reckoning, covered seventy kilometres, he

checked the unit's display to find the pyramid rock

was only forty kilometres nearer. He began to

wonder if he'd ever get there.

Slowly the morning passed. At one point he

stopped to relieve himself, shutting off the engine

and walking a few yards from the four-by-four.

The silence was extraordinary, more intense than

any silence he had ever known. He realized how

intrusive the vehicle's engine must sound in this

all-enveloping stillness. If Sayf al-Tha'r had

patrols out, which he almost certainly had, they'd

be able to hear him from miles off.

'I might as well radio in and say I'm on my way,'

he muttered, walking back to the vehicle and start-

ing it up again. He felt suddenly very exposed.

The landscape continued pretty much the same

for another couple of hours. Then, around midday,

he noticed what looked like a ridge of hills looming

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across the horizon ahead. It was impossible to make

it out clearly at that distance, for the heat distorted

its shape, making it swell and recede and shimmer,

as if it was made of water. As it came nearer it

gradually stabilized and he realized it wasn't hills at

all, but rather a vast dune – a towering wall of sand

stretching right across his line of sight in a single, un-

broken curve, with other, higher dunes ranged

behind it, like waves freeze-framed in the act of

crashing down onto a beach. The outlying ranges

of the Great Sand Sea.

'Allah u akbar!'
was all he could think of say-

ing. 'God almighty.'

He drove on until he came to the foot of the

dune, which seemed to be holding the ones behind

it in check, like a vast dyke. He got out and

trudged to its summit. The sand was soft under-

foot so that by the time he reached the top he was

panting and his forehead was damp with sweat.

Before him an endless vista of dunes stretched

off to the horizon, line after line of them rippling

away into the far distance, silent and smooth and

neat, completely different from the disordered

landscape through which he had so far been

travelling. He remembered a story his father had

told him once about how the desert was actually a

lion that had fallen asleep at the dawn of time and

would one day wake again and devour the entire

world. Looking out over the dune sea now he

could almost believe it, for the orange-yellow sand

had a velvety, fur-like quality to it, while the reced-

ing ridges looked like wrinkles on the back of

some impossibly aged beast. He felt an irrational

pang of guilt about stubbing his cigarette out on

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the ground, as if he was burning the flesh of a liv-

ing creature.

He stood taking in the scene for some while and

then scrambled back down to the car, his feet sink-

ing into the sand almost to the level of his knees.

He'd heard there were stretches of quicksand out

here, especially at the bottom of dune slopes, and

shuddered at the thought of being sucked down

into one. However else this adventure ended, he

told himself, it wasn't going to be like that.

Back at the car he let a little more air out of the

tyres and, heaving three of the jerrycans down

from the roof-rack, filled the tank, which was by

now over half empty. He started the engine,

selected first gear and powered slowly upwards

into the dune ranges. According to the GPS unit he

still had almost a hundred kilometres to go.

He drove through the afternoon, the tiny white

blob of the Toyota dwarfed by the towering walls

of sand, like a boat bobbing on an immense ocean.

He kept the speed low, mounting each dune as it

came, slowing at the top to check there wasn't a

slip-face on the far side, then descending. In some

places the dunes were close together. In others they

were set further apart, with broad flat valleys

between them hundreds of metres across. Behind

him his tyre tracks stretched back into the distance

like a line of stitches.

Initially he was able to steer a reasonably

straight course. Gradually, however, the dunes

grew higher, and their slopes steeper, so that at

times he would come to the top of one and find

himself gazing down at a near-vertical cliff of sand

dropping away beneath him. He would then have

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to creep along the ridge until he found an easier

place to descend, or else reverse back down and

try to find a way around it, which could take him

a dozen kilometres out of his path. Even with the

windows closed and the air-conditioning full on he

could still sense the merciless heat outside.

The further he progressed, the more it seemed to

him that the landscape around him was possessed

of some sort of rudimentary consciousness. The

hues of the sand seemed to change as if the dunes

had moods, and these were reflected in the shifting

oranges and yellows of the desert surface. At one

point he stopped to drink some water and a gentle

breeze came up, causing the sand to hiss and sigh,

as if the dunes were breathing. He felt an urge to

shout out, to tell the desert he meant it no harm,

that he was only a temporary intruder into its

secret heart and as soon as his business was

finished he would leave immediately and not come

back. He had never in his life felt so small, nor so

alone. He tried playing the Kazim al-Saher

cassette, but it seemed inappropriate. So awed was

he by his surroundings he even forgot to smoke.

At about five o'clock, the sun by now well down

in the western sky, he came to the summit of a

really massive dune and slowed to check the slope

on the far side. As he did so, hunching forward

over the wheel and peering through the wind-

screen, something caught his eye, ahead and to the

left. He cut the engine and got out.

It was difficult to see it clearly, for the air was

still unsteady with the afternoon heat. It looked

like a hazy triangle floating above the dunes just

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this side of the horizon. He leaned back into the

car and got the binoculars, putting them to his

eyes and revolving the drums to bring the object

into focus. For a while everything was blurred.

Then, suddenly, it leaped into view: a dark,

pyramid-shaped outcrop rising high above the

sands like a huge black iceberg. About twenty-five

kilometres away, he guessed. Twenty-eight accord-

ing to the GPS unit. He swung the binoculars

across the dune-tops around the rock, but could

see nothing to indicate any human activity in the

area, except a couple of vague black blobs that

might or might not have been lookouts. He

lowered the glasses and closed his eyes, listening.

He didn't really expect to hear anything. To his

surprise, however, he caught the vague whine of a

motor, distant but unmistakable. The sound

seemed to come and go, disappearing for a while

and then returning again, each time stronger than

before. The desert seemed to warp and stretch it so

that it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

Only when he'd been listening for almost a minute

did he realize with a shock that it wasn't from the

direction of the pyramid rock, but from behind

him, back the way he had come. He swung round

and focused the binoculars along the line of his

tyre tracks. As he did so, a pair of motorbikes flew

over the summit of the fourth dune back from

where he was standing, no more than two

kilometres away, following his trail.

Cursing, he looked swiftly over the edge of the

dune. It dropped almost vertically down, far too

steep to negotiate in the four-by-four. Leaping

back into the driver's seat he started the engine

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and tugged the gearstick into reverse, flying back

down the dune's leeward slope, the wheels skew-

ing and swerving beneath him. At the bottom he

spun the steering wheel and drove the gearstick

into first, slamming his foot down on the acceler-

ator. The car's rear end skidded round and he flew

forward. After just a few metres it jerked to a halt,

an angry hissing sound coming from beneath as

the tyres struggled for grip on the desert floor, dig-

ging themselves deeper and deeper into the sand.

'Dammit!' he shouted, desperate.

He shunted the car into reverse, staring up at

the summit of the dune opposite, expecting the

two bikes to fly over it at any instant. The vehicle

rolled back and up and for a moment it looked as

if he had freed himself. Then the wheels spun

again, embedding themselves even deeper than

they had before, almost to the level of the axle.

He leaped out and looked. The tyres had all but

disappeared. There was no way he was going to

dig them out in time. Scrambling back into the car

he threw the GPS unit into his bag, hefted one of

the water containers off the back seat and began

running back up the slope he'd just descended, feet

sinking deep into the sand.

About halfway up the dune started to slip

beneath him and he stopped making any headway.

He drove himself forward, but couldn't seem to

get any closer to the summit, as though he was on

a giant treadmill. The water container wasn't help-

ing, and eventually, reluctantly, he threw it aside,

using his free hand to steady himself while his feet

dug into the sliding sand, fighting for leverage. He

could hear the bikes powering up the far side of

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the dune behind. If they got to the top and saw

him he was dead.

'Come on!' he hissed. 'Come on!'

For a moment he still didn't get anywhere.

Then, just when it seemed certain he would be

seen, he managed to get a foothold and was

moving upwards again, eyes popping with

exertion. He came to the top and dived over just

as behind him the bikes crested their dune and

raced down towards his abandoned car.

He lay still for a moment trying to get his breath

back and then, pulling out his gun, rolled onto his

front and eased himself back up to the dune's

summit, peering cautiously down at the valley

beneath.

The bikes had by now almost reached the four-

by-four. Skidding to a halt, the riders dismounted,

swinging machine-guns from their shoulders. One

of them opened the door and peered inside,

removing Khalifa's jacket, which he'd left behind

in his hurry to get away. The other started up the

side of the dune, following the twin trails of

Khalifa's footprints and the tyre tracks. The man

stopped for a moment beside the discarded water

container, pointing his gun down at it and blowing

a hole in the plastic, then continued upwards.

The sound of the gunshot echoed away across the

desolate landscape.

Khalifa rolled away from the summit. There

was no point trying to run. The man would

see him and pick him off like a rabbit. He could

shoot him as he came up from the other side, but

that would still leave the one down below.

He looked around swiftly. The upper part of the

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dune was, at this point, slightly undercut, leaving a

long hollow running just below its summit with a

heavy lip of sand curling over it, like the crest of a

wave turning back in on itself. Someone crouching

beneath this overhang would be invisible to a person

standing on the dune-top above, even though they

were almost directly beneath their feet. It wasn't

much of a hiding place, but it was the best the desert

had to offer and, grabbing his holdall, the detective

slipped down and rolled into it, lying on his back

with his gun held ready on his chest, gazing up at the

canopy of sand above.

For a moment nothing happened. Then he

heard the crunch of feet. He could picture the man

coming out onto the top of the dune, looking

around, walking forward a few paces, stopping

above him. A trickle of dislodged sand wept down

over the edge of the overhang, confirming that the

man was indeed almost directly overhead. Curling

a finger around the trigger of his Helwan, Khalifa

tried not to breathe.

There was an agonizing silence. He could

almost feel the man thinking, trying to work out

where he had gone. The trickle of sand grew

heavier, turning into a small landslide, and it

looked for a moment as if the man was coming

down. Khalifa shrank back into his hollow.

Seconds passed and nothing happened. Gradually