F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 Read Free Page B

brother looked up and stumbled, but caught
himself before he fell.
                  "What is it?" he said between his teeth.
                  "Up on the cliff . . ." Achmed
turned to look and saw that the upper edge of the cliff was now empty. The
sentinel figure had vanished.
                  "What?" Nabil said, the irritation
mounting in his tone. "Finish what you begin!"
                  "Nothing."
                  "Then why are you standing there like a
blind camel? Move! We'll take these back to the donkey then search the cave for
more."
                  They had just reached the donkey and were
laying their treasures in the sand when Achmed heard something. He lifted his
head and listened. A low hum. No. . . a pulsating thrum.
                  "Tayya'ra!" he cried.
                  Nabil leapt into motion.
                  "Quickly! The scrolls! Bundle them
up!"
                  They pulled the blankets they had brought,
wrapped the urns in them, then slung them over the donkey's back.
                  "Let's go!"
                  "What about the metal?" Achmed
cried.
                  "Forget the metal! We have a far greater
treasure! But if the Israelis find us, they'll steal it! Hurry!"
                  With Nabil pulling from the front and Achmed
again switching from behind, they drove the donkey down the bank and across the
wadi. As they slipped around the leading edge of the outcrop, the sound of the
helicopter grew louder.
                  "It could be anywhere down there,"
the copilot said.
                  Kesev stared below, watching the bright beam
of the searchlight lance the darkness and dance along the peaks, plateaus, and
crevasses that dominated this area of the Wilderness. They had been running a
crisscrossing search pattern for thirty minutes now.
                  "Keep going," he said.
                  "I think we can be pretty sure no one was
hurt by this thing," the pilot said after a few more minutes of searching.
"Maybe we'd better put this off, come back when it's light and—"
                  "Keep going," Kesev said. He was
getting the lay of the land now. "Follow this canyon south."
                  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pilot
and copilot exchange glances and discreet shrugs, but neither challenged his
authority.
                  The canyon widened below them, and then the
search beam picked up white wisps trailing through the air.
                  "Smoke!" the copilot cried.
                  "Turn off the search beam," Kesev
said.
                  As soon as the beam died, tiny flickers of
light became visible on the canyon floor.
                  "Down there," Kesev said. "It exploded
on the canyon floor."
                  He released a soft sigh of relief. A glance to
his left at the top of the east wall of the canyon reassured him that the Resting Place was untouched.
                  Close, he thought. Too close.
                  And then he remembered that the canyon floor
had its own secrets.
                  "Let's have the light again," he
said. "See if we can find the point of impact."
                  It took less than a minute.
                  "There!" the copilot said. "At two o'clock . Looks like it took out part of the cliff
wall too."
                  Kesev went rigid in the seat. The SCUD crater
was right where the cave had been—-still was. Had the explosion—?
                  "Take us down."
                  "Sir, we've accomplished our
objective," the pilot said. "We've found the impact sight and
determined that there's been no personal injury or property damage, so—"
                  "Land this thing now,"