The Forgotten Templars Vol.1 The Manuscript

Ch 12 Jordan 'part'

Taken from Chapter 12

Ibrahim shouted ‘Drew, quickly stop what you are doing!  I’ve just received some alarming news concerning you and this excavation.  It appears that some unidentified people want you disposed of, and all you have found taken and destroyed.’

‘Aye, right.’ Drew responded.

‘Honestly Drew, I’m not joking.  My phone caller said that he is certain that at least two squads of armed mercenaries are due to arrive here just after dusk.  I know him and believe what he says.  For us to have any chance of a successful escape, we have to leave right now.  Don’t waste time.  Take only what clothes you need, but don’t leave anything to do with the dig.  Grab all your research in your notepads, in your laptop, and all your spare drives and cameras.  Get Gabriella, tell her to do the same and meet me by the motor park as soon as you can.  We must hurry.’

Drew gathered his computer, flash drives, camera and a pilot’s case stuffed with papers.

Gabriella shouted from the next tent ‘What’s going on Drew?  I caught some of it, why have we got to leave right away?’

‘Ibrahim got a phone call and now he is telling us to leave, something to do with a few pretty cold-blooded people who are coming and will be here probably by dusk.  We are going with the old Bedouin elder Sallim’s son.  The rest of the workers are going back to Shaoubak’.

Twenty-five minutes later Gabriella, Drew, and Ibrahim piled into an old Toyota four wheel drive, surrounded by their gear, Sallim’s son at the wheel.  Sallim told us that he and his men would wait at camp and defend against any intruders.

‘And how do you propose to hold anyone off with just four men Sallim?’ shouted Ibrahim.

‘Look again.’  As we looked back toward the camp, some fifteen Bedouin had appeared and jogged towards the Toyota, four Swiss AMSD OM50 Nemesis sniper rifles slung over shoulders, along with Heckler and Koch machine pistols, M16s, some AKs and assorted hand guns.

Two old AK47s, a couple of Heckler and Koch 416 machine pistols and two Berretta pistols were put in their FWD and Ibrahim shouted ‘Allāhu Akbar’ and we were set to go.

Just as they were about to drive off, Sallim trotted towards the 4x4 carrying two long thin cases.  ‘My son, take these just in case things go badly here.  Now go!  You have little enough time, Allah go with you all.’

Drew had taken the cases from Sallim, ‘What’s in here?’ he asked Sallim junior, who was now revving the engine to pull away from camp.

‘My father has entrusted me with our best weapons so they do not fall into any others hands.  They are AS-50sr1 semi-automatic sniper rifles, the latest variant with a new silencer that keeps the accuracy up to eighteen hundred metres.  They are a joy to shoot with; almost no recoil and they have a magazine of five rounds.’

‘You sound proud of them Sallim.’

‘I am, I have only fired them a few times but even I can hit a target almost one thousand metres away.’  Sallim smiled focusing on the way ahead.

‘We are going to Al Jafr; it is to the east and should be far enough away to offer some safety.  There is an airport and we can try to escape from there,’ Ibrahim started ‘and I have some friends I can contact.’

Gabriella, who had always joked that she was only a couple of generations away from Sicilian bandits, demanded the phone.

‘I think I have some better contacts that should be able to get us out of Jordan, and offer protection along the way’.  Gabriella spoke on the phone for ten minutes.  Her Italian changed to an almost incomprehensible language, a distinct Sicilian dialect, used as a kind of code.

Sallim drove south, then east, then overland keeping clear of any main roads.  Al Jafr would take them at least fourteen hours to reach by going cross country, as long as everything went well.

Gabriella closed the phone and told us that we had to stay safe and out of sight until dawn tomorrow.  Then a plane would arrive at Al Jafr to take us all back to Cyprus and onwards to Italy.

‘How did you ...?  Who the hell do you know that can organise something like this so quickly?’ Drew asked, quite taken aback.  He thought he knew her after working together on digs since they met, and became short term lovers, and now long time friends, during Guilliamo Vertignio’s excavations back near Wadi Musa in 1995.

Both had been at Università degli Studi di Firenze in Tuscany, He as Associate Professor, she as post-graduate student.  Even then she had joked never to cross her, or her family would not look kindly on him.

‘I told you I’m nearly a Sicilian bandit and my family have friends who owe us some big favours.’  Gabriella laughed, not the kind of laugh that comforted or reassured Drew.

Ibrahim interrupted his thoughts by retelling his phone call.  At least two, possibly three, Black Hawk helicopters were reported to be preparing to fly from a warship on the Red Sea.   It was understood that their take off would be timed so they would arrive at the site just after dusk, when most workers had left for the day.  Remaining on-site would be only us, Sallim and his guards.  Ibrahim doubted that whoever the attackers were realised the size of Sallim’s reception committee and their training.

‘My source received a warning that you two have been under surveillance for the last two months.  Now that you have opened and excavated the tomb, you, and your finds, have become targets.  Especially this jar that you think may contain a codex or manuscript.  Whoever these hunters are, they have decided they need to retrieve that jar, and by that reasoning they will eliminate all of us to get it.  I certainly am not prepared to die just yet.’  A silence fell over the group only broken by groans as Sallim forced the Toyota over an increasingly rock strewn Wadi.

Dusk came quickly, and early, at Wadi Musa.  Sallim listened and could hear the distinct thud of helicopter engines.  ‘Sallim got the first report, ‘Two helicopters, possibly Black Hawks, coming in fast and low.  ETA about ten minutes, both should be there in twenty minutes max.’

‘I am glad we brought our friends with us then.’ answered Sallim.  ‘Start heading for this area, we may need your specialist help.’  Two helicopters hovered then landed close to the excavation site, ten men jumped out of each one, setting up a perimeter and heading for the camp.

Only an old Bedouin guard waited for them, sitting in the faint glare of his fire.  Striding towards him, drawing a Heckler and Koch machine pistol to point directly at the old man’s head, this man, the obvious leader, barked ‘Where is everyone you old bastard?’  He was rewarded by silence.

Raising his gun to strike the old man, the Bedouin started talking.  ‘All the archaeologists have left for a two day break; I am left as a guard to stop looting.  Is that what you are here for?’  The old man, Sallim, grinned and waited.

As the leader raised his machine pistol all the lights in the camp came on, making his troops night vision goggles useless.  At the same time his head exploded in a bloody shower.  As his body dropped, four more went down under a silent onslaught.  The remainder started diving for cover after surviving the initial onslaught.  An explosion almost caused a new dawn as one Black Hawk was hit by an RPG round.  The second, trying to take off, had its windscreen shredded by fire from at least six Heckler and Koch and another two AK47s, turning the two pilots into a crimson mass held in place by what was left of their safety belts.  At least another eight rounds from the Bedouins’ AMSD OM 50 Nemesis rifles killed the engines, finally sending it crashing into the ground.  The gun battle continued as Sallim grabbed his dead opponent’s Heckler and Koch then slipped behind some store boxes.  The lights were doused and some of the Bedouin donned their night goggles enabling them to start picking off the black uniformed troops almost at will.

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