Chapter 59: 59
"You're probably right. I knew there was something off with that guy."
"There's—I think there's a woman there," Abdul says. "I can't see much. She has her back to me, and she's wearing a hat. The tall, skinny man keeps looking at her."
Abdul creeps back to the group, and Esme, speaking in a hushed, fast whisper, begins planning.
"OK," she says. "This isn't too bad. It doesn't sound like the welcome party is too big. We can take them, but we have to be clever."
"What about the other exit?" Sam asks. "The passage to the south?"
You can't see Esme's face, but you imagine excitement shining in her eyes as a plan comes together.
"Here's what we shall do," she says. "We need to split up. Two of us need to go ahead and confront them. Keep them talking, keep them distracted. Meanwhile, the other two come out of the south exit: hopefully they don't know about it. That pair needs to get behind them and try to find a way to get one up on them. So who's doing what?"
"I'm not a talker. You and Abdul keep them distracted."
You and Sam wordlessly retreat back down the passage, lighting your lantern once you have put enough distance between you and the entrance. "We have to be quick," says Sam as you emerge in the central chamber. "I don't know how long Esme and Abdul will be able to keep them distracted."
The southern tunnel is much shorter than the eastern, and within a couple of minutes, you are outside once again, the blazing midmorning sun stinging the back of your neck. There is no sign of the Nazis at this entrance, and the truck is where you left it.
Sam starts to jog to the eastern side. "Come on," they say. "Let's get a look."
You peek around the sharp edge of the rock. The scene is as Abdul described it: four armed Nazi soldiers stand with their rifles leveled at Esme and Abdul. A sour-looking, skeletal, towering man with a pinched face and unruly straw-colored hair stands interrogating them. The confrontation hasn't got violent yet, but if you don't act soon, it most likely will.
Then you notice a woman standing near two parked desert trucks a little way away from the main group at the entrance. It's the woman Abdul saw from behind. But she is facing you—and you would recognize that face anywhere. The tumbling, shoulder-length, flame-red hair, the hard hazel eyes, the determined set of her chin. She is someone you haven't seen for quite some time but will never forget. Dr. María García Pérez.
A notorious Spanish treasure hunter, she is a pariah in academic circles but a very effective retriever of valuable lost relics. You knew her in England, at Oxford, where you both studied for your doctorates. She was the shining star of your cohort, an undeniably brilliant historian and archaeologist, but she was never popular. Too cold, too calculating, too amoral. She was the apple of her eminent elderly professor's eye. Malicious college gossip claimed she was sleeping with him, but that could have just been jealousy speaking.
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