The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 107

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wire mesh for the construction of the abions and human tabour for the

filling of the mesh 9 nets with stone and aggregate."

"Wire mesh?" Royan demanded. "Where do you hope to find that in the

Abbay valley?"

Sapper began to reply, but Nicholas forestalled him."

will come to that in a moment. Let Sapper finish his lecture. Don't

spoil his fun. Tell Royan about the stone from the quarry. She will

enjoy that."

"Although I have designed the dam as a temporary Structure, we have to

make certain that it is capable of holding back the river long enough to

enable the members of our team to enter the underwater tunnel in the

downstream pool Safely-'

"We call it Taita's pool,'Nicholas told him, and Sapper nodded.

"We have to make sure that the dam does not burst while people are in

there. You can imagine the consequences, should that happen."

He was silent for a moment while he let them dwell upon the possibility.

Royan shuddered slightly and hugged her own arms.

"Not very pleasant," Nicholas agreed. "So you plan to use the blocks?"

he prompted Sapper.

"That's right. I have studied the photographs taken in the quarry. I

have picked out over a hundred and fifty granite blocks lying there

completed or almost completed, and I calculate that if we use these in

combination with the steel mesh gabions and the timber coffer walls,

this would give us a firm foundation for the main dam wall."

"Those blocks must weigh many tons each," Royan pointed out. "How will

you move them?" Then, as Sapper opened his mouth to explain, she changed

her mind. "No!

don't tell me. If you say it's possible, I will take your word for it."

"It's possible," Sapper assured her.

"Taita did it," Nicholas said. "We will be doing it all his way. That

should please you. After all, he is a relative of yours."

"You know, you are right. In a strange sort of way, it does give me

pleasure." She smiled at him. I think it's a good omen. When does all

this happen?".

"It's happening already," Nicholas told her. "Sapper and I have already

ordered all the stores and equipment that we will be taking with us.

Even the mesh for the gabions has been precut to size by a small

engineering firm near here. Thanks to the recession, they had machines

standing idle."

"I have been down there at their workshop every day, supervising the

cutting and packing," Sapper butted in.

"Half the shipment is already on its way. The rest of it will follow

before the weekend."

Sapper is leaving this afternoon to take charge and get it all loaded.

You and I have some last-minute arrangements to see to, and then we will

follow him at the end of the week. You must remember I was not expecting

you back from Cairo so soon,'Nicholas said. "If I had known, I could

have arranged for us all to fly down to Valletta together."

"Valletta?" Royan looked mystified. "As in Malta? I thought we were

going to Ethiopia."

"Malta is where Jannie Badenhorst has his base."

"Jannie who?"

"Badenhorst. Africair."

"Now you have really lost me."

"Africair is an air transport company that owns one old ex-RAF Hercules,

flown by Jannie and his son Fred. They use Malta as their base. It's a

stable and pragmatic little no country African politics, no corruption -

and yet it is the door to most of the destinations in the Middle East

and in the northern half of Africa where Jannie and Fred do most of

their work. His main employment is smuggling booze into the Islamic

countries, where of course it is prohibited. He's the Al Capone of the

Mediterranean.

Bootlegging is big business in that part of the world, but he does take

on other work. Duraid and I flew into Libya from there with Jannie on

our little jaunt to the Tibesti Massif.

Jannie will be taking us down to the Abbay."

"Nicky, I don't want to be a killjoy, but you and I are now undesirable

immigrants to Ethiopia. Had you over looked that little fact? How do you

propose to get back in there?"

"Through the back door," Nicholas grinned, "and my old pal Mek Nimmur is

the gatekeeper."

"You have been in contact with Mek?"

"With Tessay. It seems that she is now his go'between.

I imagine it's very convenient for Mek to have her on board. She has all

the right connections, and she can slip in and out of Khartoum or Addis

or places where it might be awkward or even dangerous for him to be

seen."

"Well, well!" Royan looked impressed. "You have been busy."

"Not all of us can afford a holiday in Cairo whenever the fancy takes

us," he told her tartly.

"One more little question." She ignored the jibe, although she realized

that despite his easy smile her absence must have irked him. "Does Mek

know about Taita's game?"

"Not in detail." Nicholas shook his head. "But he has some suspicions,

and anyway I know I can rely on him." He hesitated, and then went on.

"Tessay was very cagey when I spoke to her on the phone, but it seems

that there has been some sort of attack on St. Frumentius monastery. Jah

Hora. and thirty or forty of his monks were massacred, and most of the

sacred relics from the church were stolen."

"Oh, dear God, no!" Royan looked stricken. "Who would do a thing like

that?"

"The same people who murdered Duraid, and made three attempts to wipe

you out."

"Pegasus."

"Von Schiller," he agreed.

"Then we are directly responsible," Royan whispered.

"We led them to the monastery. The Polaroids they captured from us when

they raided our camp would have shown them the stele and the tomb of

Tanus. Von Schiller wouldn't have to be a clairvoyant to guess where we

had taken them. Now there is more blood on our hands."

"Hell, Royan, how can you take responsibility for von Schiller's

madness? I am not going to let you punish yourself for that." Nicholas's

tone was sharp and angry.

"We started this whole thing."

"I don't agree with that, but I admit that von, Schiller is the one who

must have cleaned out the maqdas of St. Frumentius and that the stele

and the coffin are now almost certainly part of his collection."

"Oh, Nicky, I feel so guilty. I never realized what a danger we were to

those simple devout Christians."

"Do you want to call off the whole thing?" he asked cruelly.

She thought about it seriously for a while, then shook her head.

"No. Perhaps when we go back we will be able to compensate the monks for

their losses with what we find in the bottom of Taita's pool."

"I hope so," he agreed fervently. "I do hope so."

The giant Hercules -Mkl four-engined turbo, prop aircraft was painted a

dusty nondescript brown, and the identification lettering on the

fuselage was faded and indistinct. There was no Afticair legend

displayed anywhere on the machine, and it had a tired and scruffy

appearance that spoke eloquently of the fact that it was almost forty

years old and had flown well over half a million hours even before it

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