The Sphinx

CHAPTER 12

Six hundred pounds of Semtex, a Czech-made plastic explosive, welded to the body of a water tanker truck, had formed the bomb that destroyed the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam in 1998. Colonel Nakibsu Balele, an officer in the Tanzanian army, had overseen the import of the explosive from a source in the Middle East and personally wired the fuses into the plastique once it was in place on the truck.

That the blast killed only eleven he saw as something of a failure, but whether the goal of the person who had hired him was achieved was not important. The key thing was that he had been paid quite well.

While still a junior major he had been given a cellular phone by a strange man along with a bundle of money. How the man had selected him, Balele never knew. The money was to carry the phone with him at all times, the man had explained. There would be more money, much more, if he followed the instructions relayed by whoever was on the other end when it rang. Balele had not asked what would happen if he didn’t answer the phone or follow the orders… he was not that naive.

The man had scared him more than anyone else he had ever met. Balele had heard whispers of the man, a figure revered in the terrorist world of the Middle East who went by the name Al-Iblis.

The phone had rung only once in the four years since he was given it, with instructions to pick up the Semtex, wire it, and arrange for the driver to take the bomb to the embassy.

The Americans had blamed Bin Laden, an Afghani, for the embassy attack in Dar es Salaam and Kenya, which was fine with Balele as it kept him in the clear.

Now, as he sat in his office, reviewing training records, the cell phone rang for the second time.

Professor Mualama and Lago stared in fascination as the disk silently flew into the crater. It was thirty feet wide at the base, sloping up to a small rounded top. The skin of the bouncer was silver and perfectly smooth, without a single seam to be seen. The only thing that marred the perfection of the alien craft were the bright red cargo straps that were wrapped over the rim of the disk.

The craft came to a halt near their position, then came straight down, lightly touching the ground. A hatch opened in the top side and a woman climbed out. “Good day!” Mualama greeted her.

“Good day, Professor Mualama. I’m Dr. Lisa Duncan from UNAOC.” She looked toward the pit and the objects on the ground next to the hole. “Is that what you called us about?”

“Yes.”

Mualama and Lago led her over to the coffin and tomb marker. The top was closed, and the long black tube appeared unmarked by time.

“What is it?” Duncan asked.

Mualama answered that by opening the top, revealing the skeleton inside. “An Airlia!” Duncan knelt down next to the coffin and examined the corpse before turning to the red stone. “What about the marker? Can you read it?”

“Some of it,” Mualama said. “I was hoping that with your access to Professor Nabinger’s notes, we could decipher the entire message.”

“We have accumulated a limited high rune symbolic vocabulary at UNAOC,” Duncan said. “But critical parts of Professor Nabinger’s notes were lost when he was killed in China. Nabinger was onto something, some way of understanding it beyond the symbols, but whatever that was died with him and he never had the time to tell anyone. He also had the largest high rune database on the face of the planet, and that went down in that helicopter in China with him.”

“He made no copies?” Mualama was surprised.

“None that we’ve found.” Duncan stood up. “We’re backtracking, looking where he looked, and we’ve gathered a large amount of information.” She pointed down. “This will help.”

“With what you do have,” Mualama said, “can you make anything of this?”

“That will take some time,” Duncan said. “We’ll have to take all this back with us.”

“This is an archaeological site, protected by the laws of Tanzania,” Mualama said.

Duncan arched an eyebrow. “Have you heard what happened in South America with the Black Death?”

“Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with this,” Mualama said.

“It’s war,” Duncan said. “And any piece of information is important. We don’t know much about these Airlia, and this”… she pointed at the skeleton in the coffin… “is the first true Airlia body we’ve gotten our hands on. Examining it could help us greatly in our struggle.”

Mualama nodded. “I am willing to give you what I have found if you give me access to whatever notes of Nabinger’s you have.”

“What we really need,” Duncan said, “is a key.”

“A key?” Mualama repeated.

“The key to the lowest level of the tomb of Qian-Ling.”

“Qian-Ling is in China,” Mualama noted. “Why would there be a key for that here?”

“Because it’s Airlia!” Duncan was frustrated, her hope crushed. “Who knows where all their artifacts are now.”

“I think that…” Mualama paused and cocked his head.

“What is it?” Duncan asked.

Mualama held up a hand, hushing her as he slowly turned in a circle. He stopped, facing southeast. “Someone is coming.”

Colonel Balele saw the bouncer on the floor of Ngorongoro Crater first. He had seen pictures of the alien craft on TV, but to see one here, now, gave him a moment’s pause as the Hind-D helicopter he was on swooped over the rim of the crater toward the craft. The voice on the other end of the phone had told him to interdict removal of an artifact from the crater and to kill all involved.

The voice had also promised one million dollars U.S. if he achieved this goal… more than enough for him to leave Tanzania and retire in style. Also in the message he had read the implicit threat: fail and be killed.

“Sir?” The pilot of the Hind was looking over his shoulder at the colonel. Balele was standing in the small opening that led to the rear of the chopper, where six armed infantrymen from Balele’s command sat.

“Destroy the craft and the people.”

The pilot nodded.

Mualama shaded his eyes. “It’s a helicopter with army markings.”

“I think we’d better get out of here,” Duncan suggested.

“If we leave this”… Mualama pointed at the stone and coffin… “they will impound it or, worse, destroy it.”

“We have no weapons,” Duncan said. “The bouncer is unarmed.”

The decision was made for them as the 12.7 mm machine gun in the nose of the helicopter cut loose. The burst hit Lago, the large-caliber bullets knocking his body to the ground and then, in a grotesque dance, pushing it along the dirt, shredding flesh and bone.

“Nephew!” Mualama headed toward the body, when Duncan grabbed his arm. “He’s dead! With me!” She pulled him toward the coffin.

Mualama rolled into the coffin, Duncan on top of him. She pulled shut the lid… just in time, as the metal reverberated with the impact of the bullets.

The copilot of the Hind armed both outer Spiral antitank missiles. He received a lock-on confirmation from his sight on the grounded bouncer.

“Firing one,” he announced. Immediately he hit the missile fire lever again. “Firing two.”

As both missiles streaked toward their target, the pilot fired another burst from the nose-mounted machine gun at the long black pod.

Hanging on to the door frame between the pilots, Balele watched both missiles impact on the alien craft. A cloud of dirt and debris obscured the target area.

“Land us next to that black thing,” Balele ordered. “We will…” He paused as something blinded him. He blinked, and in that time period the unscathed bouncer had halved the distance between the two craft.

“Evade!” was all Balele had time to scream before the forward edge of the saucer-shaped craft sliced into the front windshield of the Hind. The chopper’s blades splintered off as they hit the alien metal, and in less than a second the helicopter was cut in half, both parts falling like so much deadweight the three hundred feet to the ground.

Duncan heard the explosions, then seconds later the sound of something heavy hitting the ground nearby and secondary explosions. She felt Mualama below her, the top of the coffin pressing against her back, her eyes seeing nothing but absolute darkness.

“Is there a way to open this from the inside?” she asked.

“I’ve never been inside before,” Mualama replied in a subdued voice, “so I regret to inform you that I do not know.”

Duncan reached around Mualama, feeling the bottom of the coffin. She arched her back, pressing against the top, but the metal was unyielding. “This is not good.”

“It is better than what happened to my nephew,” Mualama said sharply.

The sudden release of pressure on her back was not as surprising as the sunlight that momentarily blinded Duncan. She rolled on her side and blinked.

“Ma’am, I think we’d better get the heck out of here.” Major Lewis held the lid up and offered her a hand.

Duncan climbed out of the coffin, noting the burning wreckage of the helicopter and the unmarked bouncer.

She stepped aside as Mualama pulled himself out. The tall African straightened and then gave a slight hiss of pain and doubled over.

“What’s wrong?” Duncan asked.

Mualama pointed toward his back.

“Oh, God,” Duncan muttered as she saw the piece of white bone sticking out of his back.

“It’s not mine,” Mualama said. He nodded his head toward the now-crushed skeleton in the coffin. “I felt it go in when we jumped in.”

“And you didn’t say anything?” Duncan felt around the edges of the six-inch sliver that protruded. She couldn’t tell how deep the bone went in.

“Pull it out,” Mualama said.

“We can get you… ”

“Ma’am.” Major Lewis was scanning the crater walls. “Those guys in the choppers might have friends who are coming this way.”

Duncan wrapped her hands around the bone and gave one quick, firm pull. The bone slid out, and the only indication of pain Mualama gave was a sharp inhale of breath. She tossed the bone into the coffin and pushed the lid down. When she turned back, Mualama was kneeling over Lago’s body.

“Get this and the stone rigged with the cargo netting,” Duncan ordered Lewis. “Use the straps he already has around both.”

Lewis nodded and turned to the bouncer. Using hand and arm signals, he got his copilot to lift and come to a hover over the objects.

While Lewis was doing that, Duncan walked over to Mualama. She could see the blood still oozing from his wound, but she knelt next to him. She could hear him speaking in a low voice, the words rhythmic and in a language she had to listen to for a few seconds before recognizing it as Arabic.

Mualama pulled a cloth over the dead man’s face and slowly stood. “Why is it always the young who die?”

Duncan felt the pressure of time. If someone knew she had come here and tried to ambush them, there was no time to be wasted here. Mualama didn’t appear ready to talk, and the coffin wasn’t what she had hoped for when coming here. “We’re ready to go,” Lewis informed them.

“Come on.” Duncan took Mualama’s arm.

Mualama pulled his arm out of her grip. “How did they know we were here? No one knew Lago and I were, of that I am certain.”

“There are spies everywhere,” Duncan said. “We’ll sort this out elsewhere.”

“Why should I trust you?” Mualama argued.

Duncan spread her hands helplessly. “I can’t tell you to trust me. But to be blunt, I don’t think you have much choice.” She nodded her head toward the burning wreckage of the helicopter. “There will be more like that coming. I don’t think you can outrun them in your Rover. And we do have some of Nabinger’s notes.” She turned for the bouncer and looked over her shoulder. “Your choice.” Mualama reluctantly followed.