Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [100]
As they crossed the border into Iraq, the laptop pinged.
Someone on board the plane had sent out a homing signal.
HARITHA, IRAQ
19 MARCH, 2006, 0900 HOURS
1 DAY BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
To get to Haritha, the Halicarnassus had to skirt the port-city, Basra.
As it soared over the outskirts of Basra, Sky Monster’s voice came over the PA. ‘Hey, Captain West, you better come up here and see this.’
West went up to the cockpit and peered out the windows.
A long column of heavy-duty vehicles was rumbling out of Basra, heading north toward Haritha.
It was a gigantic convoy. Of American military vehicles.
Troop trucks, engineering vehicles, Humvees, jeeps, motorbikes, plus no fewer than ten Abrams battle tanks and several Black Hawk helicopters, prowling overhead.
In all, it amounted to maybe 5,000 troops.
‘How can this be?’ Zaeed asked, appearing behind West with Pooh Bear.
‘How can they be onto us again?’ Pooh Bear asked.
West just stared at the convoy, trying not to betray his thoughts: Who gave us away?
‘Oh, shit!’ Sky Monster exclaimed, hearing something through his headphones. ‘The Yanks just scrambled fighters from Nasiryah. F-15s. We better find this place fast, Huntsman.’
A few minutes later, they arrived above the dusty town of Haritha, situated on the eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab River about fifty kilometres north of Basra.
‘Okay, Sky Monster, swing us due east,’ West said.
Sky Monster banked the Halicarnassus above the town, but as he did so, he and West glimpsed the highway coming from the north, from Qurna—
—and on that highway, they saw another column of American vehicles.
It was almost identical to the first—lots of troop trucks, Humvees and tanks; and another 5,000 men, at the very least.
West’s mind raced.
‘Judah must have had people at Qurna, searching for the waterfalls,’ he said. ‘But Qurna is the wrong junction of the rivers. He was searching too far to the north.’
‘And now—suddenly—he knows to come south,’ Sky Monster said pointedly. ‘How about that. . . ’
West just tapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘East and low, my friend.’
But their position was clear—with a rat in their ranks, they were now caught between two converging convoys of overwhelming American firepower.
If they found the Hanging Gardens—which wasn’t guaranteed— they’d have to be in and out fast.
Within minutes, the jagged peaks of the Zagros Mountains rose up before them, the boundary line between Iraq and Iran.
Numerous small rivers snaked their way through the range’s maze-like system of peaks and valleys—descending to the Shatt al-Arab. Waterfalls could be seen everywhere: tall thin string-like falls, short squat ones, even horseshoe-shaped ones.
There were many double-tiered waterfalls, and several quadruple-tiered falls, but as far as West could tell, there was only one set of triple-tiered falls in the area due east of Haritha: an absolutely stunning cascade easily 300 feet from top to bottom, that bounced over two wide rocky ledges, before flowing into a stream that wound down to the mighty al-Arab. These falls lay right at the edge of the mountain range, looking out over the flat marshy plain of southern Iraq.
‘That’s it,’ West said. ‘That’s them. Sky Monster, bring us down anywhere you can. We drive from here. You take the Hali to these co-ordinates and wait for me to call.’ He handed Sky Monster a slip of paper.
‘Roger that, Huntsman.’
The Halicarnassus landed on the flat cracked surface of a lakebed that hadn’t seen water in 1,000 years.
No sooner had its wheels touched down than its rear loading ramp dropped open, banging onto the ground, and—shoom!—a second four-wheel drive Land Rover came rushing out of the big plane’s belly, bouncing down onto the mudplain and speeding off to the east, kicking up a cloud of sand behind it.
For its part, the Halicarnassus just powered up again and took off, heading for the secret hangar where Jack West had originally found her fifteen years before.
The Land Rover skidded to a halt before the towering triple-tiered