She raised an eyebrow. “You never cease to impress, Hawkins. Was geology part of your SEAL training?”
“Survival was. If you plan to stay alive in unfriendly country it helps to know the territory above and below the surface, especially if you’re chasing the bad guys in tunnels and caves.” He turned away from the panorama and looked into her face. “Sorry about the translation wisecrack, Abby.”
“Don’t be. I’m a big girl and shouldn’t be whining because my hair gets all mussed up.”
“Your hair looks fine. Just to set the record straight, and for what it’s worth, I’m glad you came along.”
“Coming from you, it’s worth a lot.” She glanced down the hill at Rashid. “Can’t say the same for Ali Babba down there. Guy’s creepy smile gives me the shivers.”
Hawkins too had taken an instinctive dislike of Rashid. The guide’s sly expression and fawning manner made Hawkins uneasy, but he had said nothing because as the leader of the mission he had to support unit cohesion.
“So he’s not exactly Mr. Personality, but he was right about the old river bed,” he said with a sweep of his arm. “If we had tried to go cross-country we’d have fallen into a deep hole.”
“This isn’t much better,” Abby grumbled.
“In my experience, there’s no beating first-hand knowledge.”
He started to make his way down the hill with Abby following. Back on level ground, they went over to where Calvin was leaning against the desert vehicle.
“How far have we gone, Cal?”
“Around eight miles from the LZ. Pitiful.”
“Two and a half miles an hour isn’t going to get us far,” Hawkins said. “Let’s light a fire under our rent-a-guide.” He walked around the vehicle. “Looks like you were right about the river bed being the only way to go, Rashid.”
The Afghan spread his lips in an I-told-you-so smile and went to light another cigarette, but Hawkins took the pack from his hand and tucked it back into Rashid’s vest pocket. The guide’s surprised expression turned to a glower when Hawkins ordered him to give up his seat to Abby and sit on the back.
“I can direct the way better from the front.”
Hawkins pointed out that since the river bed was the only navigable route, there was no need to sit up front. “I’ll keep you company,” he offered.
Rashid made no further protest, but Hawkins noticed the fleeting expression of hatred in the man’s eyes. All the more reason to keep close watch on him.
They started off again. Miraculously, the road improved after a mile or so. Fewer boulders blocked their path, and those they did encounter were smaller. Sand had washed down from the cliffs and covered most of the obstacles.
Calvin cautiously picked up speed. The DPV flew along at around forty miles per hour, but that ended when Calvin shouted a warning.
“Everybody hold on!”
He touched the brakes to avoid throwing the vehicle into a spin and brought them to a skidding stop. Hawkins slid off the back of the vehicle. He came around to the front and saw that a massive section of cliff had fallen into the riverbed forming a twenty-foot landslide of earth and rocks that blocked their way as effectively as a castle wall.
Hawkins turned to Rashid who had also dismounted to see why they were stopped.
“Our super highway could use some maintenance work,” Hawkins said.
“This is new since I was here,” Rashid said. He sounded genuinely nonplussed.
“How long ago was that, Rash?” Calvin said in his slow, Louisiana drawl.
“Maybe ten years,” Rashid said.
“You know another way out of here?” Hawkins said.
Rashid answered with a vigorous shake of his bald head. “We have to turn around.”
Abby batted Hawkins’ earlier words back at him, “Like they say, there’s nothing like local know-how.”
Hawkins shrugged. “Actually, sometimes there is something better.”
He removed the GPS unit from its dashboard holder and retrieved the topographical map that had been tucked in between the front seats. The GPS had been developed for the U.S. military. Unlike the commercial sets available in any electronics store, the GPS did not display a map, nor did it have a woman’s voice telling the driver when to turn. It was used to plot how to get to grid locations on a separate paper map.
Hawkins unrolled the map and spread it out on the engine compartment. The combination map and satellite photo showed the meandering river bed had once been fed by a number of tributaries.
“This is a dendritic river drainage system,” Hawkins said. “It’s fed by all these tributaries that look like the branches of a tree. We’re on one of these feeders now. If we get off this riverbed, and connect with another branch we can follow it to the trunk of the tree, which is the main river and leads into the flood plain where the lake is located.”
Abby swept her arm around in an arc. “Too bad we can’t fly out of here.”
“You were in the regular navy too long, Abby. We SEALs don’t see problems. We see challenges. Isn’t that right, Cal?”
“Bigger the better, Hawk.” He wrinkled his brow. “So what are we going to do, man?”
Hawkins shook his head. “Damned if I know.”
Seeing she was being taken for a ride, Abby said, “This is great. Stuck out here in the wilds of Afghanistan with an all-boy act from Comedy Central.” She spun on her heel. “I’m going to have breakfast. You two geniuses can let me know when you figure it out. Hopefully, before it gets dark.”
She brushed by Rashid, got back into the dune buggy and started munching on a power bar.
“Lady’s got a point,” Calvin said.
“She doesn’t understand that our boyish bantering has a purpose.”
“Yeah. Gives us some stall time while we figure things out.”
“Exactly.”
Hawkins reached for the nylon line on the back of the desert vehicle. He started to wind it into a butterfly coil that could be carried hands-free. Calvin guessed what Hawkins had in mind. The two men had worked as a team so many times that they knew instinctively what the other was thinking and had an iron-bound trust in each other’s judgment. They could joke about their situation because he knew, from past experience, that they would always come up with a solution. The scheme might be shaky, hastily improvised, risky and heavily dependent on good fortune, but at least it would be a plan.
Hawkins pointed to the hill. “I’d appreciate it if you could do the honors, Cal. We gimps don’t do well on near vertical surfaces.”
Cal took the coiled rope and tied the free ends around his body like the straps of a backpack. He scaled the hillside and disappeared over the top of the ridge, then popped out again. He waved down and called Hawkins on the hand radio,
“Looks like a go.”
Hawkins got in the desert vehicle and drove it to face the slope. He got out and Calvin tossed the rope down. He tied the line to a loop in the Kevlar cable wound around a motorized drum on the front of the dune buggy, and then worked the winch controls. As the drum turned, Calvin pulled the cable up by the rope and vanished over the ridge a second time. He reappeared and called down on the radio.
“Ready, Hawk.”
Hawkins turned to Abby, who was still in the passenger seat. “You may want to get out of the buggy.”
She stared at Hawkins. “You’re not really going to try this.”
“We have no choice, Abby. It will be dark in a few hours. Our mission is to find the treasure. Going back is not an option.”
Abby had often seen the stubborn set of Hawkins’ jaw when they were still man and wife. Any attempt to dissuade him would be like waving a feather at a charging bull.