The Hidden Oasis (65 page)

His voice was lost within the roar and crack of grinding rock as the cliffs inched steadily towards each other, clouds of dust starting to rise to either side of the gorge as though the oasis was burning.

Vernon Meadows –
Dr
Vernon Meadows BSc, MSc, Ph.D., CPhys, FAAAS, FInstP, SMIEEE – had worked on what he liked to refer to as the ‘esoteric front line’ of US defence research for the best part of forty years, everything from quantum teleportation to weather disruption programmes, invisibility shields to anti-matter-propelled isomer warheads. And during that time, whatever project he had been engaged on, wherever in the world he had been engaged on it – and there weren’t many corners of the globe he hadn’t visited on his mission to push the outer boundaries of weapons technology – two basic rules had always stood him in good stead: stay calm and in control, however outlandish the situation; and when you can’t stay calm and in control, get the hell out quick.

It was the second of these rules that came into play now as the Benben started pulsing again – no bursts of light this time, which was interesting – and, from outside, there came a heavy rumbling sound which, one of his colleagues informed him, after rushing out to look, was being caused by the walls of the gorge slowly drawing together. Meadows had witnessed a lot of weird shit over the years, but nothing that even came close to this. He went outside himself to assess the situation, then returned to the chamber and called time out, ordering everyone to drop whatever they
were doing, abandon the project and run for their lives.

No one argued. Even Girgis allowed himself to be hustled through the doorway by his colleagues, albeit with yells of ‘What about the money! I’ve kept my end of the deal and I want my money! Now, you hear! Now!’

Only Molly Kiernan refused to leave. She remained rooted where she was in front of the glass isolation zone, oblivious to the frantic exodus behind her, gazing at the stone as it pulsed and boomed and once again filled with spiralling curlicues of colour. The hues if anything were even richer and deeper than they had been before – the most vibrant, exotic, mesmerizing colours she had ever seen, as though the rock were merely a window onto some higher and more perfect order of reality.

‘Ms Kiernan, we have to go!’ cried Meadows, furiously waving at her from the chamber entrance, his legs pulling him backwards through the doorway as if they were working independently of the rest of his body. ‘Please! We have to go. It’s out of control.’

She gave a scornful flick of the hand, not even bothering to turn round.

‘Go on, get out! Run away home to Mommy! Mice! Every one of you! Mice and worms! There’s no place for you here!’

‘Ms Kiernan …’

‘This is the time of the strong. Of the faithful. Of the true believers! Our time! God’s time! Go on, get out! We’ll take it from here! We’ll take the world from here!’

Eyes blazing, she gave another contemptuous hand-flick, as though dismissing someone who was trying to sell her an unwanted trinket. Meadows shook his head helplessly,
turned on his heel and ran from the chamber. Kiernan’s voice echoed behind him, audible even through the booming of the Benben and the grinding of the gorge walls, shrill, euphoric, triumphant:

‘Look at it, Charlie! Oh will you just look at it, my darling! See its power! We’ll crush them! The evildoers, the wicked ones! We’ll grind them into dust! Oh will you just look at it!’

‘You knew, didn’t you? All the time. You knew where the oasis was. You’ve been here before.’

Flin was struggling to keep pace with Zahir as the Egyptian led them back up the processional way towards the top end of the gorge. Freya and Said were following close behind, the ground heaving and buckling, the cliffs to either side looming ever larger, creeping inexorably inwards like a closing vice. Dust filled the air; statues and masonry were starting to shudder and topple. The noise was deafening.

‘When?’ cried Flin, fighting both for breath and to make his voice heard above the chaos around them. ‘When did you find it?’

‘No me,’ shouted Zahir over his shoulder. ‘My
in-sis-teer.
Mohammed Wald Yusuf Ibrahim Sabri al-Rashaayda. He know all desert, every dune, every grain sand. He find oasis. Before six hundred year.’

‘Your family have known about the
wehat
for six hundred years!’

‘We pass one generation al-Rashaayda to next, father son, father son. No tell anyone.’

‘But why, for God’s sake? Why keep it secret?’

Zahir skidded to a halt and turned to face Flin. Freya and Said were coming up behind.

‘We Bedouin.’ Zahir slapped a hand to his chest. ‘We understand oasis, we respect. We come, we drink water, we spend night, nothing more. We no touch anything, we no take anything, we no hurt anything. Other people … they no understand. Oasis powerful.’

The Egyptian waved an arm around.

‘Dangerous if you no respect. Like all desert. No safe other people come here. Bad thing happen. Oasis punish. Now come. We no have much time!’

He started running again, Flin, Freya and Said pounding along in his wake. They reached the first of the flights of steps that climbed up towards the temple complex above. Rather than continuing straight on, Zahir swerved right, taking them off the main avenue and onto a path that looped around the base of the rock platform on which the temple sat. It was narrower than the causeway, clogged with roots and fallen masonry, and their progress slowed.

‘What about the plane?’ Flin shouted, warding off a branch as it switched back into his face. ‘You knew about the plane?’

‘Of course know about plane,’ said Zahir. ‘We find four, five week after crash. We know one man live because he dig grave, we search him, but we no find. After this we come many time. We watch. We guard.’

‘But you were part of Sandfire! You were helping Alex look for the oasis!’

Zahir threw Flin a glance, his meaning perfectly clear
even without words: I might have helped her
look,
but certainly not to find.

‘You were trying to protect us, weren’t you?’ called Freya, pushing along beside Flin. ‘When we came to your house yesterday, asked you about the rock. That’s why you didn’t want to tell us. You wanted to protect us.’

‘I try warn you is dangerous,’ said Zahir, slowing to a walk as ahead of them a huge fallen column came into view. Three metres in diameter, as long as a railway carriage and wrapped in dense webs of creeper, it completely blocked the path. ‘Oasis dangerous, bad people dangerous, everything dangerous. You my good friend. I no want you be hurt.’

He reached the column, seized one of the creepers and was starting to heave himself up when Flin reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

‘It’s us who owe you an apology, Zahir. More than an apology. We mistrusted you, insulted you in your own home. I am sorry,
sahebee.
Truly sorry.’

The Egyptian gave another of those barely discernible half-smiles, and brushed Flin’s hand away.

‘Is OK, I kill you later,’ he said. ‘Now we keep moving. Climb out oasis. Please, quick.’

He clapped the Englishman on the shoulder and, swinging around, clambered up onto the pillar, kneeling and holding out his hand for Freya. She scrambled up as well, the movement of the cliffs causing the column to rock and judder as though it were some giant inflatable toy rather than forty tons of solid stone. She took a moment to get her balance, then turned to help the others up. As she did she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, above and to her right.

‘Look!’ She pointed.

They were now almost parallel with the front of the temple, although much lower down. A wide gap in the intervening trees offered them an unimpeded view of the first pylon with its creeper-draped towers and open gates. As they followed the line of Freya’s arm, they saw figures stampeding out into the open area in front of the temple: men in flak jackets and sunglasses, the lab-coated scientists, Girgis and his colleagues, Meadows and, bringing up the rear, the red-haired twins in their Armani suits. No sign of Molly Kiernan.

‘They go wrong way,’ said Zahir matter-of-factly. ‘They die. We live. Come.’

He reached down to help his brother onto the pillar, Freya doing the same for Flin. Said scrambled up but Flin remained where he was.

‘Molly didn’t come out,’ he shouted. ‘She’s still in there.’

‘Who gives a shit about Molly!’ yelled Freya. ‘Come on.’

‘I can’t just leave her there!’

‘What do you mean you can’t just leave her there? After everything she’s done to us? Screw her, let her fry!’

Flin was clenching and unclenching his fists.

‘Come on!’ screamed Freya again, glancing frantically left and right at the converging cliffs.

‘I can’t just leave her,’ Flin repeated. ‘She helped me, despite it all. Introduced me to Alex, gave my life some meaning, however screwed up the motives. I can’t just leave her to die.’

‘You’re mad. You’re fucking mad!’

He ignored her, backing away towards a secondary flight
of rock steps that snaked up to the temple gateway from the side rather than the front.

‘Go,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

‘No!’

Freya swivelled round and clasped a thick tendril of creeper, ready to clamber down off the column and go after him. Zahir grabbed her arm.

‘We wait at top,’ he said. ‘Is better that way.’

She shook the arm off and stood, screaming after Flin.

‘What are you doing? She killed Alex! She was part of it. How can you want to save her? She killed my sister.’

But he was already powering up the steps away from her, taking them two at a time, and her voice was swallowed by the booming of the Benben and the thunderous roar of pulverizing rock.

‘I pray that one day the ground will open up and swallow you, oh shame of my womb.’

These were the last words Romani Girgis’s mother had ever spoken to him and now, as he charged down through the oasis, the cliffs closing in around him like some monstrous pair of pliers, the entire world seeming to fold and collapse in on itself, he had a nasty feeling her dying wish was about to be granted.

He should have known it was a bad deal. Right from the very outset, from the day twenty-three years ago when that mad bitch Kiernan had told him to forget about the plane, that it was the Benben her people were interested in. Whores, drugs, guns, uranium – these were things he could
understand, things he could rely on and control. But exploding stones, ancient curses? He should have known, if not twenty-three years ago then certainly earlier that morning, when they had flown over and over the Gilf and found absolutely nothing, and yet the moment they had traipsed through that disgusting tunnel there was the oasis in front of them, as if it had been there all the time. There were forces at work here that he couldn’t comprehend, factors he couldn’t predict, powers he couldn’t bend to his own will. All of which added up to the mother of all bad business decisions.

‘I want my money,’ he screamed, scratching furiously at his hands and neck as he ran, the obelisks lining the processional way crashing down around him like tumbling skittles. ‘You hear? I want my money! Give it to me! Give it to me now!’