“Something like that.” Nordhausen had a grin on his face in spite of Paul’s rising temper. “We’ll be over Wadi Safra in a minute and then we make our turn to bypass Amman. To answer your earlier question, yes. We are sight seeing—that is if we get caught for any reason. But I don’t expect much trouble. It’s just a nice little jaunt through Wadi Rumm. The place gets all sort of tourist traffic like this and, once we’re in the gorge, it’s almost impossible to track us on radar.”
“Oh, crap!” Paul was really angry now. “This isn’t the U.S., Robert. We have no civil rights in this country. If we get caught, we’ll end up in a jail cell for twenty years! How could you do this?”
“With three interns and a helicopter, that’s how.” The professor was not phased by Paul’s argument. “And a ship, of course.”
“A ship?”
“Certainly. We disappear at Wadi Rumm and stay as low to the ground as we can after that while we make the run out to the Arabesque on the Red Sea.”
“The Arabesque?”
“Wonderful name, isn’t it? I had it registered that way, but it’s officially a freighter out of Yemen.”
“And you plan on landing this thing on the deck?”
“No, I’ve got a heavy duty net all set up in the main hold. All we have to do is get over the bay and ease this baby in. Then we scramble down a rope and it’s off to Port Sudan. The Crew will get the thing in a good packing crate on the way. We’ll just tuck it away in the hold and nobody will be the wiser.”
Paul was dumbfounded. He just stared at his friend with a blank expression on his face. “Just scramble down a rope? Damnit, Robert! Do you realize the war on terror is still going on, even if we did manage to prevent the disaster on Palma. There’s a US Navy task force in the Red Sea and here we go trying to smuggle Jordanian national property onto a ship bound for Sudan! You are crazy. Certifiably insane. I think that last time jaunt was enough to scramble your brain. Maeve was absolutely right about you.”
“Oh, please. This hasn’t got anything to do with the Time Meridian. OK, I’ll admit that my trip to London was a bit out of the ordinary—”
“That’s quite an understatement. It was risky! Very dangerous—just like this little scheme. Only this time you have implicated me.”
“Serves you right. Payback’s a bitch, eh Paul?”
“Payback? What are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you the one who dragged me off to the late Cretaceous in the first place?”
“You still harping on that? Blame Kelly, not me. I had no idea we were going to end up brewing coffee on the KT boundary.”
“Yes? Well I’m holding you accountable in any case. You were in on the discovery of this thing sixty-five million years ago, and so you’re in on this now.” He folded his arms, holding his ground even if he was beginning to feel a little guilty. “Don’t worry, Paul,” he began again. “I’ve got this whole thing planned. You’ll see.”
Paul was going to say something else, but he lapsed into a sullen silence, resting his chin on his fist and turning away to look out the window. Nordhausen went on for a while, offering more assurances and revealing a few more details of his plan: they were going to slip off the freighter in Port Sudan and catch a plane that was waiting on a small airstrip north of the city. The ship would make its innocent way to Houston, and they would reclaim their prize a month later at a warehouse on the wharf.
Paul wouldn’t say a word. He kept a stony silence for some time, and that, more than anything, began to wear down the professor’s arguments. Eventually Nordhausen lapsed into silence as well, until he finally spied the tawny cathedral spikes of Wadi Rumm in the distance. Tall pillars of ochre rock thrust up from the gorge in a setting that rivaled the Four Corners region of the US, or the Grand Canyon, for its natural beauty.
“Awesome, isn’t it?” Nordhausen tried to get Paul’s mind off the situation and interest him in the towering rock formations as the chopper lowered its altitude to slip into the gorge.
Paul said nothing. He remained frozen, as flinty as the wind sculpted canyons about them until Nordhausen swallowed his pride and apologized.
“OK, I’m sorry, Paul. I realize this wasn’t fair. And I wasn’t serious with that bit about payback earlier. Kelly botched the numbers on that first mission and it wasn’t your fault. At least we found the Ammonite! Now we’ve got the damn thing, and we’ll be over the Red Sea in half an hour. That puts us in international waters and safely out of the country. With any luck we’ll be in Port Sudan tomorrow night and I’ll treat you to a wonderful dinner at this little dive near the harbor. They’ve got some of the best seafood that I’ve ever—”
“Look there!” Paul had noticed something in the distance.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” The professor was gaping at the rock formations in the gorge, pleased that he had managed to get Paul to say something after more than an hour of silent treatment, but Paul was pointing at something else.
“See that aircraft over there?” He reached down under his seat to retrieve a small pair of binoculars. He was focusing in on the sighting while Nordhausen began explaining things away again.
“Probably just a tourist flight.”
“I don’t think so…” Paul was turning the knob to get a better focus. “Looks like another helo. That’s the RJAF. Lord! Now we’re in for it!”
“What do you mean?” The professor was reaching for the binoculars. “What’s the RJAF?”
“The Royal Jordanian Air Force,” said Paul with a deflated look on his face. “I knew something like this was going to happen. I just knew it.”
2
Paul squinted through his binoculars again. “Yup, that’s a Super-Puma, if I’m not mistaken. They fly search and rescue ops for the RJAF, and probably make border patrol runs as well, particularly in an area like this where the radar signatures are blocked. Now, what do you think they’ll do with us when they catch up?”
“What makes you think they’re interested in us?”
The professor was distracted by the squawk of the gain control on the radio. The pilot was adjusting his reception and speaking in Arabic, and the modulation of his voice spoke clearly across the cultural barriers—he was nervous. A moment later he leaned back and motioned to the two men in the cabin.
“Bad news,” he said with a thick Middle Eastern accent. “Very bad. Maybe we land soon.”
“What? Land?” Nordhausen was aghast. “No we can’t land. We’ve got a precious artifact hanging from the damn undercarriage.” He shook his head and gestured to the west where they could just make out the dim haze of Red Sea. “Go that way!”
“No, No…” The Arab pilot was clearly upset. He pointed at the distant aircraft. “Air Force. We land for inspection. Very sorry. Too bad, yes?”
“Too bad, NO!” Nordhausen was adamant. He kept shaking his head. “Ship waiting!” Then he realized that it was pointless to bandy half-grown English phrases with this man. He reached forward, his fingers twitching as he gestured for the pilot to hand him the radio microphone. “Let me have that thing and I’ll sort this business out.”