Dirk immediately ducked behind the side of his tent, then scurried to a low retaining wall a short distance to the rear. He silently slipped over the wall and followed its cover away from the tents. To the rear of the camp were the crumbled remnants of several buildings that had once served the ancient port city. He threaded his way through the mounds of weathered debris, following a slight rise to a small corner partition. The darkened stone barrier provided a tight point of concealment by which he could observe the entire camp.
While his quick reaction had allowed for his escape, his fellow camp mates were not so fortunate. Sophie had been the next to react, bursting out of her tent near the trail with gun in hand. But one of the gunmen stood just a few feet away and quickly trained his assault rifle on her before she could shake the cobwebs from her eyes. Staring down the gun barrel, she had no choice but to reluctantly drop her weapon to the ground. The gunman responded by viciously jabbing the rifle into her shoulder, knocking her hard to her knees.
“What’s going on here?” Professor Haasis shouted, emerging from his tent half dressed.
“Shut up,” the other gunman ordered, swinging his rifle stock into the professor’s ribs. Haasis sprawled forward, emitting a pained gasp as his body struck the ground. Sophie crawled over and helped him to his feet, both swaying weakly under the overhead lights. Another thug appeared on the trail and took over guarding Sophie and Haasis, while the other gunmen herded the archaeology students from their tents. Sophie gazed toward Dirk’s tent, reacting with muted surprise when one of the gunmen found it empty.
Up the trail, there was a noisy commotion before several figures came into view. One of the antiquities agents, his right arm a bloody mess, staggered down the trail while struggling to support Sam. Sophie’s deputy had a nasty gash across his forehead and shuffled his feet in a dazed state. Two more gunmen marched from behind, prodding the wounded men into camp.
“Sam, are you all right?” Sophie cried, moving cautiously toward the two agents. She grabbed hold of Sam and helped him sink to the ground beside the other seated captives. One of the female students assisted the agent named Raban, wrapping a torn shirt around his wounded arm, while Sophie held a palm to Sam’s bleeding forehead.
“Where’s Holder?” she whispered to Raban.
The agent gave her a grim look and shook his head.
Recovering from his blow, Haasis stood and shouted at his captors.
“What do you want? There’s nothing here worth killing for.”
Sophie studied the group of armed assailants for the first time. They appeared to be Arabs, each wearing a black headdress that covered his lower face. Yet they weren’t the typical dirt-digging grave robbers looking for a few shekels from an old pot or two. They wore dark military-style fatigues and black boots that appeared nearly new. And they carried modern AK-74 assault rifles, updated versions of the venerable Kalashnikov AK-47. Sophie wondered for a moment if they might be a militant commando group that had stumbled onto their camp by mistake. But then one of them replied to Haasis’s query.
“The scroll. Where is it?” barked the gang’s obvious leader, a heavy-browed man who bore a deep scar along his right jawline.
“What scroll?” Haasis replied.
The man reached beneath his jacket and retrieved a small holstered SIG Sauer pistol. Casually aiming it at Haasis’s thigh, he squeezed the trigger once.
The gun’s report elicited a scream from one of the students as Haasis collapsed to the ground, grabbing his leg above the bloody wound. Sophie quickly spoke up.
“They’re in the large tent,” she said, pointing the way. “There is no need for further shooting.”
One of the gunmen ran into the tent and rummaged around a few minutes before emerging with a ceramic box in one hand and a papyrus scroll in the other.
“There are many scrolls. Secured in plastic bins, more than a dozen of them,” he reported.
“Do not leave any behind,” the leader barked. Then he nodded toward the captives.
“Take them down to the amphitheater,” he ordered two of his other men.
The pair of gunmen motioned with their weapons for the captives to stand and move. Sophie helped Sam to his feet while a pair of students helped up Dr. Haasis. With prods and shoves, the captives were herded along the path that led down to the beach. The scar-faced leader walked over to the artifact tent and grabbed the scroll from his subordinate’s fingers. He studied it under one of the hanging lights for several minutes, then grabbed the ceramic box and ordered the man to retrieve a truck parked outside the grounds.
Dirk watched from his hiding spot until Sophie and the others had been marched out of the camp. He then quietly crept through the ruins, making his way toward the beach on a parallel track to the captives. His mind raced to try to develop a rescue plan or find something to use as a weapon, but his options were few against men armed with automatic assault rifles.
There was little ambient lighting once he moved from the camp, and he struggled to keep his footing over the rocky ground. He kept his eyes on the beam of a flashlight that danced to his right, carried by the guard leading the group. The hillside leveled briefly as Dirk crossed what had once been a stone-paved road. The flashlight beam disappeared behind a wall less than fifty feet to his side, but he could still track the shuffling steps of the captives making their way down the path. Wary of the sound of his own footsteps, he stopped and crouched low for a minute or two until the procession moved well ahead, then he made his way to the back side of the wall. Loose gravel crunched underfoot as he approached the barrier. Feeling along its sides, he moved to the end, then peered around the edge to find the meandering beam of light.
A cold ring of steel suddenly jabbed into the side of his throat, nearly blocking his windpipe. Dirk jerked his head to see one of the scarf-clad Arabs materialize from the other side of the wall, pressing an assault rifle farther into his neck. Even under the dim light, Dirk could detect the malicious hostility in the man’s dark eyes.
“Do not move or you are dead,” he whispered.
15
T
HE RIFLE’S MUZZLE NEVER LEFT THE BACK OF DIRK’S neck as he was marched up the trail into camp. He was forced into the artifact tent, where one of the Arabs was busy stacking up the plastic bins for removal. The man had let his scarf slip, allowing Dirk to observe his small, ferretlike facial features. A second later, the terrorist leader entered the tent.
“Cover your face,” he barked to the man in Arabic. The subordinate immediately retied his scarf with a quiet look of indignation. The leader then turned toward Dirk and the other guard.
“Why did you bring this man here?” he demanded.
“I counted the occupied tents, and we were a body short. I spotted him trailing his friends down to the beach.” He held up a pair of night vision goggles that had proved Dirk’s undoing.
The leader nodded in acknowledgment as he looked Dirk over.
“Shall I kill him here or put him with the others?” the guard asked.
The leader shook his head. “Tie him up and put him in the truck. A hostage might be useful until we are clear of here.” He pulled out his pistol and leveled it at Dirk, allowing the other man to follow his directive.
Cutting some rope from the tent awning, the guard tightly bound Dirk’s wrists and arms behind his back. Jabbing again with his rifle, he prodded Dirk out the tent and up the hillside. A hundred yards along the trail, they passed the body of the antiquities agent named Holder, lying facedown in a pool of blood. Parked nearby was a dilapidated utility truck that had been backed from the parking lot to the side of the path.
The guard led Dirk to the back of the truck and gave him a hard shove, propelling him facedown onto the truck bed. Before Dirk could roll over, the guard climbed up and quickly tied his ankles together with a spare piece of rope.
“Do not try to leave the truck, my tall friend, or I shall kill you,” the guard said. He then gave Dirk a swift kick to the ribs before jumping off the back of the truck.
Dirk shook off the sting as he watched the guard turn and walk back to the camp. He struggled with his wrist bindings, but they were tied too tightly to try to work free. Sliding around the back of the truck, he felt around for a loose tool or object but only bumped into a short stack of artifact bins. He then slithered around until he faced the open back of the truck.
The vehicle had folding double doors, leaving a straight drop to the ground. Dirk looked over the lip of the truck bed and eyed the rear bumper, a rusty plate of curved steel covered in flaking white paint. The inner edge of the bumper was thin and corroded but could serve as a cutting edge.
Reaching the bumper with his hands behind his back required a delicate balancing act, and he almost rolled out of the truck at first. But straining against one end of the bumper, he was able to press the rope against the ragged edge and work it back and forth. He’d barely begun to fray the rope when he heard steps along the path and he quickly slid back onto the truck bed with his hands beneath him.
The earlier guard, along with the ferret-faced man, appeared, carrying plastic artifact bins, which they placed on the back of the truck. Ferret-face then hopped in and stowed the bins near the cab, taking the opportunity to do his cohort one better by kicking Dirk in the back of the head as he passed by.
Dirk exaggerated the pain from the blow, groaning loudly and writhing as if in severe pain. The Arab chuckled at the result, jabbering to his comrade as they returned to camp. Dirk immediately resumed his position against the bumper, grating against the wrist ties. After one frenzied stroke, the rope frayed, and he felt the serrated edge scratch his wrist. He quickly worked the rope free, unraveling it from his wrists and arms. Rolling to an upright position, he attacked the rope around his ankles with his freed hands. But he hesitated when a crunching sound of footsteps on gravel sounded down the path. A stubborn knot was holding the line tight. He quickly relaxed the tension in his legs and worked the knot free. As the rope fell slack, he slid back into the truck, loosely wrapping the line around his ankle, then lying down with his arms behind him.
There was only one Arab on the trail, which Dirk recognized as Ferret-face. Dirk smiled to himself when he saw that the man was carrying an armload of artifact bins and no weapon. Like before, he placed the bins on the truck bed, then climbed inside to position them near the cab. Dirk resumed his artificial moans while writhing about to better position himself. He waited until the bins were stacked and the Arab turned to give him the obligatory kick. But the second Ferret-face’s foot was raised, Dirk sprang forward, rolling his body forcefully into the man’s other ankle.
Standing on one foot, the man was immediately thrown off balance by the impact. As he was falling down, Dirk jumped up, grabbed the foot that had been thrust at his chest, and shoved it skyward. The startled assailant crashed to the truck bed, landing on his head and shoulders while sending a trio of artifact bins flying. One of the bins turned over at Dirk’s feet, releasing the ceramic box inside. Dirk reached down and grabbed the box, then lunged at Ferret-face. The Arab was struggling to his knees as Dirk smashed the box against the man’s temple. The box shattered, sending him sprawling on the bed unconscious.
“Sorry about that, Dr. Haasis,” Dirk muttered as he collected a mangled roll of papyrus in his hand and stuffed it in a bin. He then quickly tied Ferret-face into the same configuration as he himself had been bound, then jumped off the truck.
The trail was still quiet as Dirk moved to the front of the truck, checking but failing to find the vehicle’s ignition keys. He continued across the parking lot, moving quietly and methodically, before slipping down into an adjacent field at a run. Leery now of the gunmen’s night vision goggles, he figured his best chance at avoiding detection was to just get quickly out of sight.
He started down the hillside toward the beach, sticking to low-lying gullies and washes that offered the most concealment. He contemplated running out of Caesarea Park and trying to obtain outside help but knew that by the time any police would respond, the thieves would be long gone. And so might Sophie, Haasis, and the others.
He staggered across the stony remnants of a two-thousand-year-old residence and then past an ancient garden until he reached a bluff that overlooked the beach. Below and to his left rose the shadow of a Roman amphitheater. It was one of the best-preserved structures at Caesarea, a towering semicircle of stone seats that stood mostly intact and was still utilized for outdoor concerts and theater performances. With dramatic flair, the Romans had positioned the open end along the beach, offering theatergoers a spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea as a stage backdrop.
Dirk worked his way along the bluff until he could see over the high stands of the amphitheater. A crossed pair of flashlight beams on the ground illuminated the group of captives, huddled in a mass on the beach behind the stage. Dirk could make out the two armed gunmen striding back and forth in the light, jabbering to each other over the crash of the nearby waves. He could also see that they were positioned in a difficult spot to approach undetected, with wide beachfront on either side and the flat expanse of open stage in front.
He watched as a silver-tipped breaker crashed onto the beach, rolling to within twenty yards of the group before dissipating away. It was nearly high tide, he observed. Watching another wave roll high onto the beach, he made up his mind. Guarding the captives, the gunmen had their backs to the sea and wouldn’t expect an attack from that direction. A seaward approach was his only chance.
He gazed up the beach, barely making out the spit of land angling into the sea where he had discovered the ancient scrolls. Mentally searching for a tactic, he cursed that most of his dive equipment was back in his tent. But there was the pit excavation, which was still incomplete. There was a good chance that some digging tools were still nearby. And there was also his generator and water jet.