Nexus Point (Meridian Series) (5 page)

       “Radio bad…” he shouted at the
mike. “Landing soon…. Have a nice day. Over and out.”

       “Landing
soon?” The pilot understood what he wanted to hear in any case, and began to
lower his altitude.

       “See here,” Nordhausen
complained. “You pay no attention to that other helo and just get us out over
the Red Sea.”

       “No, no, no…” The pilot was
shaking his head, sweat dampening his Arabic headdress.

       “Yes, yes, yes. Go that way!”
Nordhausen pointed. “Fast!” He rolled his hand over and over to illustrate his
point, but the pilot wanted nothing more to do with him. Robert could see the
man needed other persuasion, and the professor knew just what to do. He reached
into a small haversack in the side compartment and, to Paul’s amazement,
produced a Glock pistol!

      
“Allah u akbar...”
There
was obvious fear in the pilot’s eyes now as Nordhausen brandished the weapon.
“You go to the sea!” he pointed the way. “Hurry! Go fast! What the hell’s a
Super-Puma, Paul?”

       Paul was aghast. “You
are
crazy. What
are you doing with a gun?”

       “What does it look like I’m
doing, for God’s sake? I’m hijacking this man’s helicopter! Now what’s a
Super-Puma, and how do you make our odds of reaching the coast before that
thing catches up?”

       Paul clasped both hands on the
sides of his head, unwilling to believe this was happening. “What’s a
Super-Puma? It’s a Eurocopter—One of the Big Cats, at least that’s what they
call the military version. It’s big, but relatively fast, and has a mean bite.
What’s a Super-Puma? How about forward mounted search radar, torpedoes, Exocet
missiles on side mounted pylons—but don’t worry about those. They’re for
killing ships like the
Arabesque
. They’ll probably just blast the hell
out of us with those two nasty rocket pods…or perhaps they’ll just fly along
side and riddle us with fifty-caliber machine gun rounds from the gun mount.
That’s
what a
Super-Puma is, Robert! Now, what are you going to do with that sidearm? You
going to take pot shots at the damn thing when it realizes we aren’t responding
to military orders? We’re in some deep shit, my friend. This is crazy!”

       Nordhausen had a desperate look
on his face. He ran his forearm over his brow as he worked the situation
through. “Now what…” he breathed.

       “Now what?” Paul was still
firing his salvo. “Let’s see: grand theft, piracy, smuggling, hijacking, armed
assault, failure to yield, and navigating without a valid flight plan. This
thing started off with an infraction and has mushroomed into a life sentence
for the both of us. Congratulations, professor. You’ve got your Ammonite.” He
folded his arms again, sullen and angry at the fate that had overtaken them. It
appeared that the other aircraft had exactly that in mind. It was getting
closer, gaining on them with each passing moment.

       Nordhausen was finally forced to
admit his defeat.
“Alright, alright. Then
land the damn thing.” He looked out the window, secreting the Glock back
into his satchel. To his surprise, he caught sight of a small group of men on
camels in the wadi below. “There!” He shouted, grasping at this one last straw
before they sank. “Land there—near that little caravan! But be careful. You
have to hover and then move off to one side so we don’t hit the cargo.”

       “Yes, yes…” The pilot saw where
he was pointing and was only too glad to comply.

       As they descended, the Jordanian
Air Force unit closed on their position, still high overhead. Nordhausen tried
one last trick, hoping to persuade them that their delivery run was innocuous.
He spoke into the radio mike again. “All’s well, RJAF. We see our dig team
below… making our delivery now… Thanks for the escort. Over.” He crossed his fingers
as the pilot maneuvered to land, deftly sidestepping as he set the precious
cargo down first and then jogged off to the left in a powered hover.

       The wild plume of dust and haze threw a mask over
the whole scene below, but Nordhausen knew he had to play his ruse out to the
hilt. “OK, Paul. I’m going out to talk to those buggers. You stay here and keep
this pilot company.” Then to the pilot he said: “And you wait here, yes? One
thousand dollars!” he reminded him of the hefty investment he had in this
excursion.

       The pilot gave him a nervous
grin, nodding his head in the affirmative. Nordhausen opened his door and was
out of the helo, bending low as he ran toward the small string of camels. There
were three men, and their animals were fitted with light packs. Two wore
traditional Arab robes and headdress, but the third had a pith helmet on, and
the professor thought the man looked Western in appearance. They were staring
at Nordhausen with blank expressions as he approached.

       Paul watched the scene unfold,
amazed at the mess they had gotten themselves into. He saw how Robert played to
the chopper overhead. First he strode boldly up to the man with the pith helmet
and extended his hand in greeting. Then he looked up at the Jordanian Air Force
chopper, waving warmly as if wishing them a fond farewell. The Puma hovered for
a time, and, to Paul’s great surprise, it turned slowly away and started back
up the gorge.

       “Well I’ll be…”

       At that moment he heard the helo
engines revving up again and saw the Arab pilot pull hard on the line release
handle. The primary mooring cable snaked loose with a dry metallic rattle and
Paul felt the small bird begin to lift off. It was immediately clear to him
that this pilot had every intention of abandoning Nordhausen and his illegal
cargo, and making off while he could.

       “Wait!” Paul shouted over the
rising din, but the Arab pilot paid him no heed. Paul had the barest moment to
decide what to do. Should he fish out the professor’s Glock pistol and become a
party to the hijacking? The chopper began to move gently upward.

       “Damn it, Nordhausen!” Paul
swore. “I should leave you here with your Ammonite and –“ he moved on reflex,
doing exactly the opposite of what his words expressed. He lunged to grab their
supply satchels and  squirmed out of his seat harness.

       “Hold on, will you? I’m getting
off too!”

       The pilot was more worried about
the other helicopter, looking warily over his shoulder as he began to apply
more power to the engine. Paul had his door open in a second and leapt to the
hot sand in a whirlwind of blowing dust. Then the small blue helo lifted up,
with a final burst of power, and began to edge away from the landing site. The
thrumming of its engine increased, and the craft angled quickly north. Paul
hunched on the ground until the downdraft subsided. He coughed, rubbing the
soot from his face and eyes as he started to struggle up onto his feet.
Nordhausen was at his side in an instant.

       “You idiot!” he was yelling at
Paul as he pulled hard to get him on his feet. “I told you to keep an eye on
that bastard!”

       “No,
you’re
the idiot
here,” Paul shot back angrily. “Did you expect me to threaten him with your
pistol? The man is scared shitless. He’s lucky that Puma crew is lazy today.
Maybe they were low on fuel. I just can’t imagine them leaving us without an
inspection. Why, your little ruse could have just as easily been interpreted as
a drug delivery or something. We should all be heading for a jail cell in Amman
by now.”

       “Well we aren’t. My ploy worked.
They thought we were telling the truth!”

       “You better hope your pilot
keeps his mouth shut or the RJAF will be back here in a heartbeat. Now, what
are we going to do, drag your Ammonite fossil another twenty miles to the
coast, build a raft with palm fronds and float the damn thing out to your tramp
steamer?”

       Nordhausen
was still caught between his anger and the elation he felt at escaping the
scrutiny of the authorities. “That no good scorpion! I should have known
better.”

       “Well, it serves you right,”
said Paul. “Stick a pistol in someone’s face and you generally get a bad
reaction.”

       Nordhausen noticed the satchels.
“Good, at least you had the presence of mind to grab the supplies.” The
professor was quickly transitioning in his thinking and wondering how to
proceed.  He had to secure the fossil first. They could easily cover it with
sand to keep it from prying eyes. Then they could hitch a ride with these
camelmen and—

       When he turned to look for the
small caravan it was gone. While the professor hurried over to Paul to drag him
up from the swirling dust of the downdraft, the wayfarers had spurred their
camels and loped off around the rim of a tumbled rock formation. They were
gone. Nordhausen’s jaw dropped with the discovery, and he immediately shouted
at the top of his lungs. The only sound that returned was the haranguing echo
of his own voice resounding from the canyon walls. It was worse than anything
Paul could have said. He had blown the mission completely now, and he threw his
canvas hat down in disgust, settling to rest on the bundled shape of the
Ammonite fossil.

       The echo receded and there was
nothing but the dry, hot wind to comfort them now. They were alone in Wadi
Rumm, over twenty miles from the coast and obviously unwelcome guests, from the
reaction of the camelmen. The irony of the moment finally struck Paul and he
burst out laughing.

       “What’s so damn funny?”
Nordhausen was in no mood for jest.

       “Well it’s just that you look
exactly like you did the first time we were in this desert—sitting there on the
Ammonite with a bewildered, angry expression on your face. And you’re probably
wondering the same thing: how the hell are we going to get back now? Am I
right?”

       Nordhausen glared at him and
Paul relented. “OK, we got ourselves into quite a mess here. I’ll let you off
the hook. We had better do something about concealing the
fossil. Then we can find shelter from this
damnable sun. Thank god we have at least three days food and plenty of water in
the satchels. I’d run after those camels, but I don’t think they have any
intention of helping us. What a scene!” He laughed again, until Nordhausen’s
sullen demeanor began to melt and a wry smile played over his features. The
professor rubbed the stubble on his chin and put his hat on to shield his bald
head from the searing sun.

       “Let’s get started,” he said
halfheartedly. There’s a couple of dig shovels on the pallet. Damn that Arab
pilot! I should have stuck that pistol right up his snout!”

3

They were some time
, laboring to
scrape the sand away from the sides of the bundled fossil until it slowly
subsided into a depression in the dunes.  By the time they had heaped enough
sand to conceal it, they were both tired and drenched with sweat. The heat was
merciless, and they were already drawing heavily on the supply of water from
the satchels.

       “Thank God!” said Paul as he
threw down his shovel and collapsed on the sand. “I’m exhausted.”

       “No shit!” Nordhausen was
breathing heavily, his shirt and canvas hat well soaked with the effort of
their labors. “I think we’ve covered the damn thing well enough. Give me some
water, I’m dying in this heat!”

       “Take it easy,” Paul cautioned.
“We only brought a few liters with us and who knows how long we’re going to be
out here.”

       “Don’t worry,” said Nordhausen,
intent on swilling the water down. He ran a forearm over his brow and took a
last swallow of water from the canteen, his eyes clearly betraying the fatigue
and anxiety that had taken hold of them. The water was going to be a problem,
unless they found a spring or well soon, and they had exhausted themselves with
the digging. Now they had to find shelter and get out of the sun, or they would
soon join their ammonite fossil for eternity, just another  pair of bleached
skeletons swallowed by the desert. The Professor immediately expressed his
concern.

       “This sun is killing me,” he
breathed.

       “We better head for the canyon wall,” Paul
concurred. “With any luck we might find a cave or some other protected area.
Then we can decide just how four or five liters of water is going to sustain us
here.”

       “God!” Nordhausen was finally
realizing the depth of their dilemma. “I know there was a Camel Corps station
built around an old fort somewhere in the area, and there are occasional
Bedouins leading small tour groups. Someone will come along…but, on second
thought, I don’t think we should count on help from the locals. The police ride
about on camels here too, and we don’t want to attract any undue attention.”

       “Right, so we’ll just wait until
we’re desperate, I suppose.”

       “Oh, don’t worry about the
water. There are natural springs running from the rim of the canyon, and we
should be able to find something soon enough. Remember? This was Lawrence’s
hiding place. In fact, there was a well watered spring with a little punch bowl
out on Jabal Rumm where Lawrence used to soak himself during their layovers
here.” He rubbed his hands together at the thought. “Just what I need right
now. Come on. Let’s find shelter and rest up until sunset. If we decide to move
then we’ll have to trek it by night and sleep by day, just like Lawrence did in
the movie.”