The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,64

marked off, and another zoomed image had grid lines through it. A navigator in each of the other jeeps had similar material. Chalthoum’s plan was to send a jeep to each corner of the section and work inward, while he and Soraya drove straight to the center and started their part of the search there.

As they rattled along at a breathtaking pace she looked over at Amun, whose face was grim and tight as a fist. But what was he leading her to? Surely if al Mokhabarat was involved, he wouldn’t allow her even the faintest glimmering of the truth. Were they on a wild goose chase?

“We’ll find them, Amun,” she said, more to alleviate the tension than because of any strong conviction.

His laugh was as unpleasant as a jackal’s bark. “Of course we will.” His tone was dark, sardonic. “But even if by some miracle we do, it’s already too late for me. My enemies will use this breach of security against me, they’ll say I’ve brought disgrace not only on al Mokhabarat, but on all of Egypt.”

His uncharacteristic tone of self-pity rattled her, made her harden her own voice. “Then why are you bothering with the investigation? Why not simply turn tail and run?”

His dark face turned even darker with the sudden rush of blood to his cheeks. She felt him gathering himself, his muscles tensing, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to strike her. But then, just as quickly as it came, the storm of emotion passed, and now his laugh, when it presented itself, was bright and deep.

“Yes, I should have you at my side always, azizti.”

Once again she was rattled, this time by his use of the intimate endearment, and she felt a sudden rush of latent affection for him. She could not help wondering whether he was this good an actor, and with this thought came the flush of instant shame because she wanted him to be innocent of involvement in this heinous act. She wanted something from him she felt she couldn’t have, certainly never would have if he was guilty. Her heart said he was innocent, but her mind remained dappled in the shadows of suspicion.

He turned to her for a moment, his dark eyes alighting on her. “We will find these sons of camel turds, and I will bring them in front of my superiors shackled and on their knees, this I swear on the memory of my father.”

Within fifteen minutes they had arrived at a patch of desert that looked not a bit different from the bleak countryside through which they had been traveling. The other four jeeps had peeled off some time ago, their drivers in constant radio contact with Amun and one another. They gave running commentaries as they began their respective searches.

Soraya took up a pair of binoculars and began to scan for any anomalous object, but she wasn’t optimistic. The desert itself was their worst enemy because the winds would have shifted the sand, most likely burying anything the terrorists might have inadvertently left behind.

“Anything?” Chalthoum said twenty minutes later.

“No—wait!” She took her eyes from the binocular cups and pointed off to their right. “There, at two o’clock—about a hundred yards.”

Chalthoum turned in that direction and put on some speed. “What do you see?”

“I don’t know—it looks like a smudge,” she said as she trained the binoculars on the spot.

She jumped out of the jeep even as it reached the location. Staggering for two steps from the momentum and the softness of the sand, she pushed on. She was squatting down in front of the dark patch by the time Chalthoum reached her.

“It’s nothing,” he said with obvious disgust, “just a blackened branch.”

“Maybe not.”

Reaching out, she used her cupped hands to excavate away from the branch, which was almost fully buried. As the hole widened, Chalthoum helped keep the sand from running back into the hole. About eighteen inches down, her fingertips found something cool and hard.

“The stick is caught on something!” she said excitedly.

But what she unearthed was an empty can of soda, the end of the stick lodged into its opened pop-top. When she pulled the stick out the can fell over, causing a shower of gray ash to scatter from the opening.

“Someone made a fire here,” she said. “But there’s no way to tell how long the ashes have been here.”

“Maybe there is a way.”

Chalthoum was staring intently at the spill of ashes, which was more or less the