... a piece of wood?"
"A piece of wood is what you see, in reality, this object represents much, much more," Bryan answered. At that point Abdel doubted that infidel was brazenly making fun of him and struggled to keep the temptation to draw the scimitar; he would have loved to cut him in slices and leave him agonizing on the spot. Then he told himself that Bryan might have become suspicious and had therefore decided to leave the treasure there and return to take it secretly at a later date; maybe that tree trunk was just a distraction.
"Forgive me, Sahib, but I don't understand," he said, pretending to be more humble than he could to try to hide instead his anger. "If it's not just a piece of wood, then what is it?"
"You know who Jesus Christ was, don't you?"
"Of course Sahib, the Qur'an speaks of him as a prophet ... but I still don't understand!"
"Do you know what the priest says at the most important moment of the Christian Eucharist when he gives the sacramental bread to the faithful?" Asked Bryan. He shook his head more and more confused.
"The Body of Christ".
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said! Some time ago, during an expedition near this place, I found the true Gospel of Judas Iscariot in a cave and I managed to translate it! It looked like reading a science fiction novel, but I believed it and did researches after researches. And if I am not wrong, what we have in front of us is the body of Jesus Christ, or rather, the body with which he fell on Earth aboard his spaceship. The body he then abandoned in order to look like a human being."
Abdul haven't even the time to process that information, because, just a moment after the ranting revelations of that man, he saw many heads appearing from behind the dunes in the distance. After only a moment, he became aware that he had bothered the entire merciless tribe of marauders of Sinai. In order to get them involved in his plan, he had told them about a great treasure and now that he found out the treasure did not exist he was in trouble. A deadly mess, to be precise.
"Those up there are your friends, aren't they?" Bryan read in his thoughts.
"No Sahib, I swear to you ..." the Bedouin tried to deny, but the way Bryan looked at him took away his desire to finish the sentence.
"I think now they'll really want to pull that greedy heart out of your chest," said Bryan indifferently. Knowing he made that mess, the Bedouin looked around desperately, but knowing they were the ones looking for them, then the desert was not a place large enough to hide. Seeing that the sunset was approaching, he hastened to unroll the mat and knelt down, then began to pray towards Mecca and the marauders standing on the surrounding dunes descended from their camels and did the same thing. Bryan pressed a button on his watch and communicated with his partner.
"It's been ten minutes since I sent you the radio signal, where the hell are you? As soon as they will finish praying I will have them all on and I can guarantee you they are really ugly and bad!"
"Quiet Indy, all this sand caused me a problem with the carburetor, but I solved it. You'll see me coming sooner than you think," a distorted voice answered.
"I really hope you're telling the truth ..."
When their prayers were over, the marauders carefully rolled their carpets and began to descend unhurriedly from the dunes, "the prey" was alone and unarmed and with no way out, so there was no reason to pick up the pace. But after a few moments, a deafening noise made them turn in unison as in choreography. Right after they all were with their faces sunk in the hot sand and with their hands covering their heads, in order to protect it. The Dune Buggy, suddenly sprung up behind them, climbed skidding to the top of the dune and from there jumped like from a trampoline, flew over them a few inches above their backs and fell a few meters ahead, skipping a couple of times and risking to overturn, but the pilot regained control and accelerated. The marauders stood up and began to descend the dune in leaps, spitting and crying out like crazy, they wanted to run but could not, because their legs were sunk in the sand almost to their knees.
"It's unbelievable, you really did it! Harrison Ford would die of envy," the Dune Buggy driver commented, stopping in front of Bryan.
"It's not the time for congrats, in case you haven't notice yet those guys you almost ran over, they just braced their Kalashnikovs," he said nervously.
"Then it's better to load up and leave quickly," said the pilot, jumping down from the vehicle to help him lift the trunk. The bullets began to whistle a few meters from them. At first, the raiders simply wanted to force them to stop, because according to their code of honor when you kill a man you have to be close enough to look him in the eye. The two hoisted the trunk and began to secure it to the roll bar with a rope. The marauders had realized that they would never reach them in time and began to shoot them closer and more intensely, aiming at the tires of the vehicle. Bryan and the pilot jumped aboard, finished fixing the trunk and were ready to flee.
"Please, Sahib, don't leave me in their hands ... I have four wives and seven children, what will happen to them?" Abdul pleaded, kneeling. A real hail of bullets whistled a few centimeters far from them, one of which hit the oil lamp in the tent and fire broke out everywhere. A great black smoke momentarily hid the fugitives from the sight of the marauders, who for the anger began to shoot blindly as they quickly and dangerously got closer and closer. Bryan glanced at the pilot.
"It is your choice, but it is still a guide and could be useful to us" proposed him.
"The scimitar and the mobile phone leave them here though," Bryan pointed out, nodding to him to jump aboard.
At that moment there was a metallic bump and one of the diving tanks exploded in a thunderous roar. The shockwave caused the Dune Buggy to leap up in the air.
"Come on, jump on!" Ordered the pilot to Abdul, but now he was lying on the ground with his eyes fixed on the sky and he was gasping.
"They hit him! Come on, we can't do anything for him anymore," Bryan shouted at the pilot, patting him on his shoulder.
Following the procedure Dr. Parker had recommended to her by phone, Helen carefully washed her finger with a block of antibacterial soap and placed it in front of the fan to dry it, avoiding painful rubbing. After some hesitation, she finally found the courage to spray the disinfectant on the sore and immediately swore repeatedly hopping on her toes because the burning was tremendous; she waited a few moments and brushed the last two phalanges with an herbal calendula ointment from the refreshing effect, which gave her immediate relief. Stevenson entered as she applied the plaster to fix the linen bandage with which she had wrapped it. "Still struggling with that finger?" He asked her, almost thoughtfully.
"That's right."
"How are you?"
"Not very well, apparently," she replied, grinding her teeth due to an unexpected and painful stab like a knife one, forcing herself up, she told herself that maybe it hurt so much because the miraculous ointment had already begun to take effect. "But didn't you say you'd come tomorrow?" She asked the Coroner, thinking back to their last conversation.
"It's true, but I annoyed so much those who work to the analysis lab that they gave me the report earlier than expected. They owed me a favor, so I sat down there last night and they worked until late night because they knew they had no alternative, if they wanted me to get off my feet," he explained, throwing the report on the table. Helen looked hopefully at it, but Stevenson shook his head.
"... nothing?"
