Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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If it was dry, then it would be just like a thousand other places in

this gorge.

No, I have a feeling that the fact that it was so inaccessible was the

main, if not the only, reason he chose to wo there."

"I suspect that you are correct," he agreed.

"So if the river was running, even at itS lowest level as it is now, how

on earth did he manage to carve those niches below the surface? And what

would be the point in having scaffolding under water?"

"Beats me. I have no idea he admitted.

"All right, let's leave that for the moment. Now lets go over your

description of the sink-hole that almost sucked you in. Did you form any

estimate of the size of the opening?"

He shook his head. "It is almost totally dark down there. I could not

see more than two or three feet in front of me."

"Was the entrance directly between the two tows of niches?"

"No, not directly," he said thoughtfully. "It was slightly to one side.

I hit the bottom of the pool with my feet, and was just about to push

off when it grabbed me."

"So it must be at the very bottom of the pool, and slightly downstream

from the scaffolding. You say that the entrance seemed to have a square

coping?"

"I am not absolutely sure of that – remember that I could see very

little. But that was the impression I received."

"It may have been another man-made structure, then perhaps some type of

adit shaft driven into the side of the pool?"

"It's possible," he agreed reluctantly. "But on the other hand it could

just as easily be a natural fault in the strata that the river is

draining into."

She stood up to leave, and he demanded, "Where are you going?"

"I won't be long. I am going to my hut to fetch my notes, and the

material from the stele. Back in a moment."

When she returned she sat on the floor beside his bed, with her legs

drawn up under her in that double-jointed feminine fashion. As she

spread her papers around her, he pulled up the edge of the mosquito net

and looked down at what she was doing.

"Yesterday, while you were busy building the gantry, I was able to

decipher most of the rest of the "spring" face of the stele." She moved

her notebook so that he was able to overlook the pages she had opened.

"These are my preliminary notes. You will see where I have inserted a

number of question marks – here and here, for instance. That is where I

am uncertain of the translation, or where Taita has used a new and

strange symbol. I will have to give more time and consideration to those

later."

I follow you," he said, and she went on.

"These sections that I have highlighted with green are quotations from

the standard version of the Book of the Dead. Take this one here: "The

universe is drawn in circles, the disc of the sun– god, Ra. The life of

man is a circle that begins in the womb and ends in the tomb. The circle

of the chariot wheel foreshadows the death of the serpent that it

crushes beneath its rim. "Yes, I recognize the quotation," he said.

"On the other hand, these parts of the text that I have highlighted in

yellow are original Taita writings, or at least are not quotations from

the Book of the Dead or any other source that I am aware of This

paragraph here in particular is the one that I wanted to bring to your

attention."

She traced a section with her forefinger as she read it aloud, "'The

daughter of the goddess has conceived. She has been impregnated by the

one who is without seed. She has begotten her own twin sister. The fetus

lies forever -coiled in her own womb. Her twin shall never be born. She

will never see the light of day. She will five for ever in the darkness.

In the womb of the sister her bridegroom claims her in eternal marriage.

The unborn twin becomes the bride of the god, who was a man Their

destinies are intertwined. They shall live for ever. They Sul not

perish."'

She looked up from the notebook. "When I first read it, I was satisfied

that the daughter of the goddess was the Dandera river, as we had

already agreed. I was also pretty sure that the god that was once a man

must be Pharaoh.

Mamose was only deified on his ascension to the throne of Egypt. Before

that he was a man."

Nicholas nodded. !The seedless one is obviously Taita himself. He makes

repeated references to the fact that he was a eunuch. But now,' he

suggested, "if you have some new ideas about the mysterious twin sister,

let's hear them."

The twin of the river would most likely be a branch, or a fork of the

stream, wouldn't it?"

"Ah, I see what you are driving at, You are suggesting that the

sink-hole is the twin. Down there in the gorge it will never see the

Llight of day. Taita, the seedless one, claims paternity, So he is

telling us that he is the architect."

"Exactly, and he has married the twin of the river to Pharaoh Mamose for

all eternity. Putting that all together, I have come to the conclusion

that we will never find the location of Pharaoh Mamose's tomb until we

explore thoroughly that sink-hole that nearly drowned you."

"How do you suggest we do that?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"I am not the engineer, Nicky. I leave that to you to arrange. All I

know is that Taita devised some way of doing it – not only of getting

there but of working down there. If our interpretation of the stele is

correct, then he carried out extensive mining operations at the bottom

of the pool.

If he could do it, then there is no reason why you can't do it also."

"Ah!" he dernurred. "Taita was a genius. He says so repeatedly. I am

just an old plodder."

"I have got all my bets on you, Nicky. You won't let me down, will you?"

There was no call for intensive bushcraft to follow this spoor. His

quarry had taken very few anti-tracking precautions. Quite openly they

were following the main trail down the Abbay gorge, heading directly

westwards towards the Sudanese border.

Mek Nimmur was on his way back to his own stronghold.

Boris estimated that he had between fifteen and twenty men with him. It

was difficult to be certain, for the tracks on the pathway overlapped

each other, and of course he would have scouts on the'point ahead of him

and sweeping his flanks. There would also be a rear guard dragging the

trail behind him.

They were making good time, but such a large party would not be able to

outpace a single pursuer. He was sure he was gaining on them. He

reckoned that he had started four hours behind them, but judging by

recent signs he was now less than two hours adrift.

Without breaking his trot, he stooped to pick thing up from the path. As

he ran on he examined it. It was a twig, the soft tip shoot of a

kusagga-sagga plant that grew beside the track. One of the men ahead of

him had brushed against it as he passed, and snapped it off the main

branch. It gave Boris a fairly accurate gauge of how far he was behind.

Even in the heat of the gorge, the tender shoot had barely begun to

wilt. He was even closer than he had estimated.

He slowed down., a little as he considered his next move. He knew this

part of the valley fairly well. The previous year he had hunted over

much of this terrain with an American client, who had been looking for a

trophy Walia ibex. They had spent almost a month combing these same

gullies and wooded ravines before they had brought down a huge old ram,

black with age and carrying a pair of curled, back-sweeping horns that

ranked as the tenth largest ever in the Rowland Ward record book.

He knew that two or three miles ahead the Nile began another oxbow loop

out to the south, and that it then doubled back upon itself. The main

trail followed the river, because a series of sheer and formidable

cliffs guarded the high groupd in the centre of the loop of the river.

It was, however, possible to cut the corner. Boris had'done it before,

while following the wounded ibex.

The American hunter had not killed cleanly his bullet had struck the ram

too far back, missing the heartlung cavity and piercing the gut. The

stricken wild goat had taken to the high ground, following one of its

secret paths up amongst the crags. Boris and the American had followed

it up and over the mountain. Boris remembered how dangerous and

treacherous the path had been, but when it descended the far side of the

mountain it had cut off nearly ten miles.

If he could find the beginning of the goat path again, there was every

chance that he would be able to get ahead of Mek Nimmur and be lying in

wait for him on the far side. That would give him an enormous advantage.

The guerrilla leader would be expecting pursuit, not ambush.

He would be covering his back trail, and it was highly unlikely that

Boris would be able to slip past the rear guard without alerting his

intended victims. On the other hand, once he was ahead of them he would

be in control. Then he could choose his own killing ground.

As the trail and the main flow of the Nile started to turn away towards

the south, he kept watching the high ground above it, seeking a familiar

landmark. He had not gone another half-mile before he found it. Here

there was a break in the line of dark cliffs, a heavily forested

reentrant, that cut into the wall of basalt.

He stopped and mopped the sweat from his face and neck. "Too much

vodka," he grunted, "you are getting soft." His shirt was as sodden as

though he had plunged in the river.

He changed the slin of the rifle to his other shoulder,  lifted his

binoculars and swept the sides of the wooded gully. They appeared sheer

and unscalable, but then he picked out the stunted shape of a small tree

that grew out of a narrow crack in the face. It looked like a Japanese

bonsai, with a twisted, malformed trunk and tortured branches.

The Walia ibex had been standing on the ledge just above that tree when

the American had fired. In his mind's eye Boris could still see the way

in which the wild goat had hunched its back as the bullet struck, and

then spun around and raced away up the cliff. He panned the glasses

upwards gently, and could just make out the inclination of the narrow

ledge as it angled up the face.

"Da, da. This is the spot." He was thinking in his mother tongue again.

It was a relief after these last days of having to struggle in French

and English.

Before he began the climb, he left the trail and scrambled down the

boulder-strewn slope to the river. He knelt at the edge of the Nile and

splashed double handfuls over himself, soaking his cropped head and

sluicing the sweat from his face and neck. He drained and refilled his

water bottle, then drank until his belly was painfully full.

Then he rinsed out the bottle and refilled it. There was no water on the

mountain. Finally he dipped his bush hat in the river and placed it back

on his head, sodden and streaming water down his neck and face.

He climbed back to the main trail and followed it for another hundred

paces, moving slowly and studying the "ground. At one place there was a

rock boulder almost blocking the path. The men ahead of him had been

forced to step over this obstruction, on to a patch of talcum-fine dust

beyond it. They had left perfect impressions of their footprints for him

to read.

Most of the men were wearing Israeli-style para boots with a

zigzag-patterned sole, and those coming up from behind had overtrodden

the spoor of the leaders. He had to go down on one knee to examine the

signs minutely before he could pick out the imprint of a much smaller

and more delicately formed foot, a lighter, unmistakably feminine tread.

It was partially obliterated by other larger masculine footprints, but

the outline of the toe was clear, and the pattern was that of a smooth

rubber-soled Bata tennis shoe. He would have recognized it from ten

thousand others.

He was relieved to find that Tessay was still with the group, and that

she and her lover had not left and taken another path. Mek Nimmur was a

sly one, and cunning.

He had escaped from Boris's clutches once before. But not this time! The

Russian shook his head vehemently: not this time.

He gave his full attention to the female footprint once again. It gave

him a pang to look at it. His anger returned in full force. He did not

consider his feelings for the woman. Love and desire did not enter into

the equation.

She was his chattel, and she had been stolen from him. It was only the

insult that had significance for him. She had rejected and humiliated

him, and for that she was going to die.

He felt the old thrill run through his blood at the thought of the kill.

Killing had always been his trade and his vocation, but no matter how

often he exercised his craft the thrill was never blunted, the pleasure

never satiated. Perhaps it was the only true pleasure left to him, pure

and unjaded – not even the vodka could weaken and dilute it as it had

the physical act of copulation. He would enjoy killing her even more

than he had once enjoyed coupling with her.

These past few years he had hunted only the lower animals, but he had

never forgotten what it was like to hunt down and to kill a human being,

more especially a woman. He wanted Mek Nimmur, but he wanted the woman

more.

In the days of President Mengistu, when he had been the head of

counter-intelligence, -his men had known his tastes and had picked the

pretty ones for him. He had only one regret now, and that was that this

time he would have to do it swiftly. There could be no question of

drawing it i out and savouring the pleasure. Not like some of the other

experiences, which had lasted for hours, sometimes for days.

"Bitch," he mouthed, and kicked at the dust, stamping on the faint

outline of her footprint, obliterating it just as he would do to her.

"Black fomicating bitch."

He ran now with fresh strength and determination as he left the trail

and climbed up towards the deformed tree and the beginning of the goat

track up, the cliff.

Exactly where he expected it, he found the start of the track and

followed it upwards. The higher he climbed, the steeper it became. Often

he had to use both hands to haul himself up a gradient, or to work his

way along a narrow traverse.

The first time he had climbed this mountain he had been following the

blood spoor of the wounded ibex, but now he did not have those

splattered droplets to guide him, and twice he missed the path and found

himself in a dead end on the cliff face. He was forced to edge back from

the drop and retrace his footsteps until he found the correct urning.

Each time he did so he was aware that he was losing time, and that Mek

Nimmur might pass before he was able to intercept him.

Once he startled a small troop of wild goats which were lying on a ledge

halfway up the cliff. They went bounding away up the rock face, more

like birds than animals bound by the laws of gravity. They were led by a

huge male with a streaming beard and long spiral horns, which in its

flight showed Boris a direct route to the top of the cliff.

He tore the skin off his fingertips dragging himself up the last steep

pitch, but finally he reached the top and wormed his way over the

skyline, never lifting his head. A i human form silhouetted against the

clear, eggshell-blue sky would be visible from miles around. He moved

along behind the crest until he found a small clump of sanseveria to

give him cover, and used the erect, spiny leaves to break up the outline

of his head as he surveyed the valley a thousand feet below through the

binoculars.

From this height the Nile was a broad, glittering serpent uncoiling into

the first bend of the oxbow, its surface ruffled by rapids and rocky

reefs. The high ground on either bank formed standing waves of up-thrust

basalt, turbulent and chopped into confusion like a storm sea in a

tropical typhoon. The whole danced and shimmered in the heat and the sun

beat down with the blows of an executioner's axe, pounding this universe

of red rock into heat exhausted submission.

Though the air danced and trembled with the mirage in the tenses of his

binoculars, Boris traced out the rough trail beside the rier, and

followed it down the valley to the point where it was hidden by the

bend. It was deserted, with no sign of human presence, and he knew that

his quarry had moved on out of sight. He had no way of telling how far

down the trail they had travelled – he knew only that he must hurry on

if he were to cut them off on the far side of the mountain.

For the first time since he had left the'river, he drank sparingly from

the water bottle. He realized how the heat and the exertion of the climb

had dehydrated him. In these conditions a man without water might be

dead in hours. It was not in the least surprising that there was so

little permanent human habitation down here in the gorge.

When he backed off the skyline he felt rejuvenated, and set out to cross

the saddle of the mountain. It was less than a mile across, and without

warning he came out on the top of the cliffs on the far side. One more

unwary pace and he would have stepped off into space and plunged down a

thousand feet. Once again he moved along the crest until he found a

concealed vantage point from which to spy the terrain below.

The river was the same – a wide and confused expanse of white-ruffled

rapids, running back towards him as it turned through the leg of the

oxbow. The trail followed the near bank, except where it was forced to

detour inland by the rugged bluffs and stone needles which rose out of

the Nile waters.

In the great desolation of the gorge he could pick out no movement other

than the run of wild waters and the ceaseless dance of the heat mirage.

He knew it was not possible that Mek Nimmur had moved fast enough to

have passed completely ahead of him; therefore he must still be coming

around the bend of the oxbow.

He drank again, and rested for almost half an hour.

At the end of that time he felt strong and fully recovered.

He debated with himself whether to descend immediately and stake out an

ambush on the' trail, but in the end decided to keep to the high ground

until he had his quarry in sight.

He checked his rifle carefully, making sure that the telescopic sight

had not been bumped out of alignment during the climb, and then emptied

the magazine and examined the five cartridges. The brass case of one of

them was dented and discoloured, so he discarded it and reloaded with

another from his belt. He chambered a round and setthe safety-catch.

He set the weapon aside while he changed his sweat, dampened socks with

a fresh dry pair from his pack and retied his bootlaces with care. Only

a novice would risk blistered feet in these conditions, for within hours

they would be infected and festering.

He drank once more, and then stood up and stung the 30/06 on his

shoulder. Ready now for anything that the goddess of the chase could

send his way, he moved off along the crest to intercept the war party.

From every vantage point along the rim he glassed the valley below, each

time without spying his quarry, and the afternoon passed "swiftly. He

was just beginning to worry that Mek Nimmur had somehow managed to slip

past him unseen, that he had crossed the river at some secret ford or

taken another path through a hidden valley, when there came a plaintive

and querulous cry on the heat-hushed air.

He looked up. A pair of kites were circling over one particular clump of

Thorn scrub on the river bank.

The yellow'billed kite is one of the most ubiquitous scavengers in

Africa. It exists in close symbiotic association with man, feeding off

his rubbish, picking up his leavings, soaring and circling over his

villages or his temporary campsites, watching for his scraps or waiting

patiently for him to squat in the bushes and then dropping down

immediately he has finished his private business, acting as a universal

sewage disposal agent.

Boris studied this pair of birds through his binoculars as they sailed

idly in the heated air, always circling directly over that same patch of

river in bush. They had a distinctive manner of steering with their long

bifurcated tails, twisting them from side to side as they flirted with

the breeze. Their bright yellow beaks showed clearly as they turned

their heads to look down at something in the scrub.

He smiled coldly to himself. "Da! Nimmur has gone into camp early.

Perhaps the heat and the pace are too fierce for his new woman, or

perhaps he has stopped to play with her a little."

He moved on along the rim until he could look down directly into the

patch of bush. He studied it through the binoculars, but without picking

out any signs of human presence. After almost two hours he was becoming

uncertain of his original assumption. The only thing that retained his

attention was the pair of kites, which had settled in a treetop

overlooking the patch of scrub. He had to trust that they were watching

the men hidden in the scrub.

He glanced at the sun anxiously. It was sliding down towards the horizon

at last and losing its furious heat. Then he looked down into the valley

again.

Directly below the patch of bush was an indentation in the river bank

that formed a backwater, almost a small lagoon, When the river was in

flood it would be inundated, but now there was a small strip of gravel

bank exposed. On this bank stood a number of boulders that had tumbled

down from the cliff above. Some of them were lying on the beach, while

others had rolled into the river and were half, submerged. The largest

was the size of a cottage, a great round mass of dark rock.

As he watched, a man emerged unexpectedly from the scrub. Boris's pulse

quickened as he watched him scramble down on to one of the smaller

boulders and jump from there on to the gravel bank. He knelt at the

water's edge and filled a canvas bucket -with water, then climbed back

and disappeared into the bush again.

"Ah! The heat is too much even for them. They must drink, and that gives

them away. If it had not been for the birds I would never have known

that they were there." He clucked softly with reluctant admiration.

"Nimmur is a careful man. No wonder he has survived so long. He keeps

tight control. But even he must have water."

Boris kept watching through the glasses as he tried to guess what Mek

Nimmur would do next. "He has lost much time here by sheltering from the

heat. He will march again as soon as it is cooler. He will make a night

march," he decided, as he looked at the sun again. "Three hours until

dark. I must make my move before then. Once it is dark it will be

difficult to pick my targets."

Before he stood up he wriggled back from the skyline.

He retraced his steps back along the Mountainside until a bluff shielded

him from the eyes of Mek Nimmur's sentries.

Then he started down. There was no goat track here and he had to make

his own going, but after a few false starts he discovered an inclined

rock shelf that afforded him a fairly easy path down the face. When he

reached the bottom of the gorge, he took careful stock of the lie and

run of the . stratum so as to be able to find it again in an emergency.

It was a good escape route, and he knew that he might soon be under

pursuit and duress.

It had taken him over an hour to negotiate the descent, and he knew that

he was running out of time. He reached the trail at the water's edge,

and started back along it towards Mek Nimmur's camp. He was in a hurry

now, but even then he was careful to take anti-tracking precautions. He

walked on the edge of the trail, stepping only on the stony ground,

careful to leave no sign of his passing.

But despite his caution, he nearly walked right into them.

He had not covered the first two hundred metres when in the back of his

mind he registered the low, mournful whistle of a pale-winged starting,

and almost ignored it until alarm bells sounded in his mind. The timing

was all wrong. The starling only gave that particular call at dawn when

it left its nesting site high up in the cliffs. This was late afternoon

down in the heated depths of the gorge. He guessed that it was a signal

from one of the scouts coming up the trail towards him. Mek Nimmur's

party was on the move.

Boris reacted instantly. He slipped off the trail, and ran back the way

he had come until he reathed the beginning of the pathway along which he

had descended the cliff. He climbed just high enough to be able to

overlook the trail. However, he realized that he had lost Much of the

advantage that he had built up by cutting across the mountain. This was

not the ideal ambush position, and his escape route was exposed to enemy

fire from below – he would be lucky to make it to the top. But the .

idea of abandoning his vengeance never occurred to him. As soon as his

targets were in'his sights, he would shoot from this stance.

However, he acknowledged to himself that Mek Nimmur had taken him by

surprise. Boris had not anticipated that he would move before the sun

had set. He had expected to be able to take up a position above the camp

in the thorn patch and to be able to get off two careful, well-aimed

shots before he was forced to run.

It was also part of his calculations that, once he had dropped Mek

Nimmur, his men would not be eager to follow up with too much despatch.

Boris planned to make a running retreat, stopping at every defensible

strong point to fire a few shots, knock down one or two of them, and

keep the pursuit circumspect and cautious until they eventually lost

their taste for the game and let him go.

However, all that had now changed. He would have to take the first

opportunity that presented itself – almost certainly a moving target -

and as soon as he had fired he would be exposed on the path up the cliff

face. His one advantage here was that his hunting rifle was a superbly

accurate piece, whereas Mek Nimmur's men were all armed with AK-47

assault rifles, rapid-firing but notoriously wild at longer range, and

more especially in the hands of these shufta. With proper training, the

fighting tribesmen of Africa made some of the finest troops in the

world. They possessed all the necessary skills, with one exception -

they were notoriously poor marksmen.

He lay flat on the ledge, and the rock under him was so hot from the

direct sunlight that it burned painfully even through his clothin – He

pulled the pack from his 9 back and set it up in front of him, settling

the forestock of the, rifle over it to give himself a dead rest. He

peered through the telescope, wriggling into a comfortable position,

sighting on a small rock beside the main trail and then swinging the

barrel from side to side to make certain that he had a clear arc of

fire.

Satisfied that this was the best stance he could find in the short time

left to him, -he set the rifle aside and picked up a handful of dirt. He

rubbed this gently into his face, and the sweat turned it to mud that

coated his pate skin and dulled the shine that an alert scout might pick

out at long range. His last concern was to check the angle of the sun,

and to satisfy himself that it was not reflecting off the lens of his

scope or off any of the metal parts of the rifle.

He reached over and pulled at the branch of the shrub beside him so that

it cast its shadow over the weapon.

At last he settled down behind the rifle and cuddled the butt into his

shoulder, regulating his breathing to a deep slow rhythm, dropping his

pulse rate and steadying his hands. He did not have long to wait. He

heard the bird-call again, but this time much nearer at hand. It was

answered immediately from the far side of the trail, down closer to the

river bank.

"The flankers will be having difficulty maintaining station over this

terrain." He grinned without hurriour, a death's-head grimace. They will

be bunching and straggling." As he thought it, a man came into view

around the bend of the trail, about five hundred metres, dead ahead.

Boris picked him up in the magni   of ens.

He was a typical African guerrilla, a shufta dressed in a tattered and

faded motley of camouflage and civilian clothing, festooned with pack

and water bottle, ammunition and grenades, carrying his AK at high port.

He hatted the moment he came through the turn, and crouched into cover

behind a boulder at the side of the trail.

For a long minute he surveyed the lie of the land ahead of him, his head

turning slowly from side to side. At one point he seemed to be staring

directly at Boris, who held his breath and lay as still as the rock

beside him. But finally the shufta straightened up and gave a hand

signal to those out of sight behind him. Then he came on down the trail

at a trot. When he had covered fifty metres the rest of the party began

to appear, keeping their intervals as precisely as beads on a string. It

would not be possible to enfilade this line even with an RPD from a

prepared position.

"Good!" Boris approved. "These are crack troops. Mek must have

hand-picked them." He watched them through the lens, examining the

features of each man as he came into view, searching for Mek Nimmur.

There were seven of them spread out down the trail now, but still no

sign of their leader. The man on the point drew level with Boris's

position and then went on past him. A pair of flankers passed directly

beneath where he lay, rustling softly by in the scrub not more than a

dozen paces from him. He lay like a stone and let them go. The rest of

them passed his position, well spaced and moving swiftly. For some

minutes after the last of them had gone, the gorge seemed deserted and

devoid of all human presence. Then there was another stealthy movement

out there.

"The rear guard," Boris grunted softly. "Mek is keeping the woman at the

rear. His new plaything."He is taking great care of her."

He slipped the safety-catch on the rifle gently, making certain that no

alien metallic sound fell on the heated and hushed air.

"Now let them come," he breathed. "I will take Mek first. Nothing fancy,

no head shots. Squarely in the centre of the chest. The woman will

freeze when he goes down.

She does not have the reflexes of a warrior. She will give me a second

unhurried shot. At this range there will be no question of a miss. Right

between those pretty little black tits of hers." He became sexually