They stood there and stared at each other in horrified disbelief.
Royan spoke first. ‘I didn’t even have the feeling that we were ascending,’ she whispered. ‘The whole thing is infinitely more complex than I first assumed.’
‘It must be constructed like one of those nuclear models of some complicated carbon atom,’ Nicholas agreed with awe. ‘It interlinks on all eight planes. Quite frankly, it’s terrifying.’
‘Now I have some inkling what those extraneous symbols signify,’ Royan muttered. ‘They set out the levels. We are going to have to rethink the entire concept.’
‘Three-dimensional bao, played to enigmatic rules. What chance have we got against him?’ Nicholas shook his head ruefully. ‘What we really need is a computer. Taita wasn’t puffing his own virtues without good reason. The old hooligan really was a mathematical genius.’ He shone the lamp back down the tunnel from which they had come. ‘Even when you know it’s there you cannot actually see the fall in the floor level. He designed and built it without even a slide rule or a spirit level in his back pocket. This maze is an extraordinary piece of engineering.’
‘You can form your fan club later,’ she suggested. ‘But right now let’s start grinding those numbers again.’
‘I am going to move the lights and the desks up here, on to this central landing of the staircase.’ Nicholas agreed, ‘I think we should work from the centre of the board. It may help us to visualize it. Right now he has got me thoroughly confused.’
The only sound in the room was the soft sobbing of the woman who lay curled on the floor in a puddle of her own blood and urine. Tuma Nogo sat at the long conference table and lit a cigarette. His hands trembled slightly, and he looked sickened. He was a soldier, and he had lived through the Mengistu terror. He was a hard man and accustomed to violence and cruelty, but he was shaken with what he had just witnessed. He knew now why von Schiller placed such reliance on Helm. The man was barely human.
Across the room Jake Helm was washing his hands in the small basin. He dried them fastidiously and then dabbed at the stains on his clothing with the towel as he came back and stood over Tessay.
‘I don’t think there is anything else she can tell us,’ he said calmly. ‘I don’t think she held anything back.’
Nogo glanced down at the woman, and saw the livid burns that spotted her chest and her cheeks like the running ulcerations of some dreadful smallpox. Her eyes were closed, and her lashes were frizzled away. She had held out well. It was only when Helm had touched her eyelids with the burning cheroot that she had at last capitulated, and gabbled out the answers to his questions.
Nogo felt queasy, but he was relieved that it had not been necessary to hold her lids open, as Helm had ordered, and to watch as he quenched the flame of the cheroot against her weeping eyeballs.
‘Watch her,’ Helm ordered, as he rolled down his sleeves. ‘She is a tough one. Don’t take any chances with her.’
Helm walked past him, and went to the door in the far end of the hut. He left the door open, and Nogo could hear their voices, but they were speaking in German so he could not understand what they were saying. He understood now why von Schiller had chosen not to be present during the questioning. He obviously knew how Helm worked.
Helm came back into the room, and nodded at Nogo. ‘Very well. We are finished with her. You know what to do.’
Nogo stood up nervously and placed his hand on the webbing holster at his side.
‘Here?’ he asked. ‘Now?’
‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ Helm snapped. ‘Take her away. Far away. Then get somebody in here to clean up this mess.’ Helm turned on his heel and went back into the rear room.
Nogo roused himself and then went to the door of the hut. He walked wide of where Tessay lay, so as not to soil his canvas paratrooper boots.
‘Lieutenant Hammed!’ he called through the door.
Hammed and Nogo lifted Tessay to her feet. Neither of them spoke and they were subdued, almost chastened, as they helped her into her torn and bloodied clothing. Hammed averted his eyes from her naked body and the burns and other injuries that marred her glossy amber skin. He draped the shamma over her shoulders, and led her towards the door. When she stumbled he caught her before she fell and supported her with a hand under her elbow. He led her down the steps to the truck, and she moved slowly, like a very old woman. She sat in the passenger seat with her burned and swollen face in her cupped hands.
Nogo summoned Hammed with a jerk of his head, and led him aside. He spoke quietly to him, and Hammed’s expression became stricken as he listened to his orders. At one point he started to protest, but Nogo snarled at him savagely and he chewed his lower lip in silence.
‘Remember!’ Nogo repeated. ‘Well away from any of the villages. Make certain that there are no witnesses. Report back to me immediately.’
Hammed straightened his shoulders and saluted before he marched back to the truck and climbed up into the seat beside Tessay. He gave the driver a curt order and they drove out of the camp, following the track back towards Debra Maryam.
Tessay was so confused and in such pain that she had lost all sense of time. Only half-conscious, she lurched about in the seat when the truck hit a particularly rough stretch of the track, and her head rolled loosely on her shoulders. Her face was so swollen that it required an effort to force her eyelids apart, and when she did she thought that her vision was failing and that she was going blind. Then she realized that the sun had set and darkness had fallen. She must have spent the whole day in the hut with Helm.
She felt a mild lift of relief that the burns on her eyelids had not done more damage. At least she was still able to see. She peered out through the windscreen, and found that in the headlights the road was unfamiliar.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she mumbled. ‘This is not the way back to the village.’
Lieutenant Hammed sat slumped beside her in the seat and would not answer. She relapsed into a daze of pain and exhaustion.
She was jerked awake when the truck braked abruptly and the driver switched off the ignition. Rude hands dragged her out of the cab and into the glare of the headlights. Her hands were jerked behind her back and her wrists were bound together with a raw-hide thong.
‘You are hurting me,’ she whimpered. ‘You are cutting my wrists.’ She had used up the last of her strength and courage. She felt beaten and pathetic, with no fight left in her.
One of the soldiers yanked on her bound wrists and shoved her off the road. Two others followed, each carrying trenching tools. There was enough of a moon for her to see a grove of eucalyptus trees about a hundred metres from the side of the road, and they led her there. They pushed her down at the base of one of the trees and the man who had tied her wrists stood over her, holding his rifle casually aimed down at her and smoking a cigarette with his free hand. The others stacked their rifles and began digging. They seemed to take no interest in her at all, but were discussing the All Africa Soccer Championships that were being held in Lusaka, and the Ethiopian team’s chances of reaching the finals.
It was only after a while that it began to sink into Tessay’s befuddled mind that they were digging a grave for her. The saliva in her injured mouth dried up and she looked around desperately for Lieutenant Hammed. But he had stayed with the truck.
‘Please,’ she whispered to her guard, but before she could say more he kicked her painfully in the belly.
‘Keep quiet!’ he used the derogatory term of address only applied to an animal or a person of the lowest order, and as she lay doubled up on the ground she realized the futility of appealing to them. A feeling of weakness and resignation overwhelmed her and she found herself weeping softly and hopelessly in the darkness.
When she looked up again through her swollen lids, there was sufficient moonlight for her to see that the grave was now so deep that the two men still digging in it were out of her line of sight. Spadefuls of dirt flew over the lip of the hole and spla
ttered on to the growing pile. Her guard left her side for a moment and sauntered over to the edge of the hole. He looked down in it and then grunted.
‘Good. That is deep enough. Call the lieutenant.’
The two soldiers scrambled up out of the grave, then gathered up their tools and weapons and traipsed off into the darkness of the grove. Chatting amicably amongst themselves they headed back towards where the truck was parked, leaving Tessay and her guard.
She lay there shivering with the cold and with terror, while her guard squatted at the lip of her grave and puffed on his cigarette. She thought that if she could get to her feet she could kick him into the hole and make a run for it, back through the trees. But when she tried to sit up her movements were stiff and slow, and she had no feeling in her hands or feet. She tried to force herself to move, but at that moment she heard Lieutenant Hammed coming from the truck and she slumped back in despair.
Hammed was carrying an electric torch. He flashed it down into the grave.
‘Good,’ he said loudly. ‘That is deep enough.’
He switched off the torch and said to the man guarding her, ‘No witnesses. Go back and wait at the truck. When you hear the shots, come back with the others to help me fill the hole.’
The guard slung his rifle over his shoulder and disappeared amongst the trees. Hammed waited until the man was well out of earshot, then he came to Tessay and hoisted her to her feet. He pushed her to the edge of the grave, and then she felt him fumbling with her clothing. She tried to lash out at him, but her arms were still bound behind her.
‘I want your shamma.’ He pulled the white woollen cloak off over her shoulders, and then went with it to the edge of the grave. He jumped down into the hole and she heard him scuffling about in the bottom.
His voice came back to her, speaking softly. ‘They must see something here. A body—’
He climbed back beside her, puffing with the exertion, and stepped behind her. She felt the touch of cold metal on the inside of her wrists, and then he was sawing at the leather thong. She felt her bonds fall away, and she gasped at the pain as the blood poured back into her numb hands.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered in confusion. She looked down into the grave and saw the pale shamma arranged to look like a human body. ‘Are you going—’
‘Please don’t talk,’ he instructed her softly, as he took her by the shoulder and led her back amongst the trees.
‘Lie here.’ He pushed her down and made her lie flat, with her face to the ground. He began piling dead leaves and fallen branches over her.
‘Stay here! Do not try to run. Don’t move or speak until we are gone.’
He flashed the torch briefly over the mound of dead branches to make certain she was covered, then he left her and hurried back to the graveside, unbuckling the flap of his pistol holster as he went. Two spaced pistol shots cracked out in the night, so loud and unexpectedly that she jumped and her heart raced wildly.
Then she heard Hammed shout, ‘Come, you men. Let’s get this thing finished.’
They trooped back into the grove, and she heard the sound of their spades and the thump of earth clods falling into the grave.
‘I cannot see what I am doing, lieutenant,’ a voice complained. ‘Where is your torchlight?’
‘You don’t need a light to fill a hole,’ Hammed snarled. ‘Get on with your work. Tramp that loose soil down. I don’t want anybody stumbling on this place.’
She lay quietly, trying to stop the wild tremors that shook her body. At last the sound of the shovels let up, and she heard Hammed’s voice again.
‘That will do. Make certain you leave nothing here. Back to the truck!’
Their footsteps and their voices died away. At a distance she heard the truck engine whirl and fire. The headlights shone through the trees as the truck backed and filled, turning in the direction from which they had come.
Long after the sound of the engine had died away completely, she continued to lie under the pile of dead branches. She was still shaking with the cold and weeping softly and silently with exhaustion and pain and relief. Then slowly she pushed the branches off herself and crawled to the trunk of the nearest tree. She used it to pull herself up to her feet, and then stood there, swaying weakly in the darkness.
It was only then that guilt overwhelmed her. ‘I have betrayed Mek,’ she thought sickeningly. ‘I have told everything to his enemies. I must warn him. I must get back to him and warn him.’
She pushed herself away from the treetrunk and blundered back through the darkness towards the track.
The only means of ascertaining if they had solved Taita’s codes correctly was to play out the moves he had listed. They went very carefully through the tunnels of the maze, stepping out the moves that he had noted and marking them on the walls in white chalk figures.
There were eighteen moves set out on the winter face of the stele. Using Royan’s first interpretation of the symbols, they were able to advance through twelve of these. Then they found themselves at a dead end, confronted by a blank stone wall and unable to make the next move.
‘Damnation!’ Nicholas kicked the wall, and when this had no effect he hurled the chunk of white chalk at it. ‘I wish I could get my hands on that old devil. Castration would be the least of his worries.’
‘Sorry.’ Royan scraped the hair back out of her eyes. ‘I thought I had it right. It must be the figures in the second column. We will have to invert them.’
‘We will have to start again,’ Nicholas groaned.
‘Right at the very beginning,’ she agreed.
‘How do we know when we have finally got it right?’ he wanted to know.
‘If by following the clues we arrive at one of the winning combinations, a bao equivalent of checkmate, on precisely the eighteenth move. There will be no logical move after that, and we can assume we have worked through it correctly.’
‘And what will we find if we ever reach that position?’
‘I will tell you when we get there.’ She smiled at him sweetly. ‘Cheer up, Nicky. It’s only just starting to hurt.’
Royan inverted the values of the second and third numbers of Taita’s notations, taking the first as the cup value and the second as the file value. This time they completed only five moves before they were stymied and could proceed no further.
‘Perhaps our assumption about the third symbol being the change of level is incorrect?’ Nicholas suggested. ‘Let’s start again and give that the second value.’
‘Nicky, do you realize just how many possible combinations there are, given the three variables?’ She was at last starting to waver. ‘Taita has assumed an intimate knowledge of the game. We have only the sketchiest notions of how it was played. It’s like a grand master trying to explain to a novice the intricacies of the King’s Indian Defence.’
‘In Russian!’ Nicholas embroidered the simile. ‘At this rate we are getting nowhere in a hurry. There must be some other way of approaching it. Let’s go over the epigrams Taita stuck in between the notations again.’
‘All right. I’ll read and you listen.’ She hunched over her notes. ‘The trouble is that a subtle variation of the translation might change the sense. Taita loved puns, and a pun can rely on a single word for effect. One wrong twist or slant to a word and we have lost it.’
‘Try anyway,’ Nicholas encouraged her. ‘Remember that even Taita had never played bao in three dimensions before. If he left a clue it would have to be at the very beginning of the stele. Concentrate on the first couple of notations and the epigrams that separate them.’
‘We’ll try it that way,’ Royan agreed. ‘The first notation is the bee followed by the numbers five and seven and the sistrum.’
Nicholas grinned. ‘Okay, I have heard that so often already that I will never forget it. What follows?’
‘The first quotation.’ She ran her finger over the hieroglyphics. ‘“What can be given a name can be known. What is nameless can only b
e felt. I sail with the tide behind me and the wind in my face. O, my beloved, the taste of you is sweet upon my lips.”’
‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘Yes, then the next notation. The scorpion and the number two and three and the sistrum again.’
‘Slowly! Slowly! First things first. What can we make out of the “sailing” and the “beloved”?’
So they riddled and wrestled with the text of the stele, until their eyes burned and they had lost track of day or night. They were eventually recalled to reality by Sapper’s voice echoing up the staircase. Nicholas stood up from the desk and stretched before he looked at his watch.
‘Eight o’clock. But I’m not sure if that is morning or evening.’
Then he started as Sapper came up the staircase, and saw that his bald head was shining with moisture and his shirt was soaked.
‘What happened to you?’ Nicholas demanded. ‘Did you fall into the sink-hole?’
Sapper wiped his face with the palm of his hand. ‘Didn’t anybody tell you? It’s pissing with rain outside.’
They both stared at him in horror.
‘So soon?’ Royan whispered. ‘It wasn’t supposed to start for weeks yet.’
Sapper shrugged. ‘Somebody forgot to tell the weatherman.’
‘Has it set in?’ Nicholas asked. ‘What’s the state of the river? Has the level started to rise yet?’
‘That’s what I came to tell you. I am going up to the dam, taking the Buffaloes with me. I want to keep an eye on it. As soon as it gets unsafe I will send a runner down to you. When I do that, don’t stop to argue. Get out of here fast. It will mean that I expect the dam to burst at any moment.’
‘Don’t take Hansith with you,’ Nicholas ordered. ‘I need him here.’
When Sapper had gone, taking most of the workers from the tunnel with him, Royan and Nicholas looked at each other seriously.
‘We are running out of time fast, and Taita still has us in a tangle,’ Nicholas said. ‘One thing I must warn you. When the river starts to rise—’