Rebels across the Red Sea III: The Terrorists of Tibesti

By Duncan Watt

This is the fourteenth book in the Wallace Boys series. On returning to Egypt from northern Saudi Arabia, Nigel, Bruce and Hanafi follow a trail leading to the band of terrorists who carried out the vicious Luxor massacre. They travel by ultralight aircraft to a remote training camp in the Tibesti Mountains on the border of Northern Chad and Southern Libya.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Duncan Watt
• Release date: Apr 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476071770

Duncan Watt

I was born in Africa where I grew up; but I have lived in countries like England, America, Papua New Guinea and Japan. I have now lived in Singapore for 35 years.When I was teaching in Zambia I wrote a couple of books in simplified English for my students and these were published by Oxford University Press. Since living in Singapore, where I have, among other things, appeared on the TV News for nearly twenty years, I have written 20 books in my Wallace Boys Series - 11 of which were published here in Singapore.Please visit The Wallace Boys Web Site to find out more about the books, and there is more about me too.

Book preview

Rebels across the Red Sea III

The Terrorists of Tibesti

An Adventure of the

Duncan Watt

_

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Duncan Watt

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Contents

1. Return to Luxor

2. Laying Ghosts to Rest

3. It All Starts Again

4. Ismail is Put Under the Microscope

5. The Stakeout

6. Opening Pandora’s Box

7. Off into the Wild Blue Yonder

8. They Never Had a Chance

9. Hanafi is Also Taken

10. In the Terrorists’ Camp

11. Coming Up Trumps

12. A Busy Little Bee

13. Bruce Becomes a Cannibal!

14. Bruce’s Worst Nightmare

15. Setting the Stage for a Big Bang

16. Flight from Tibesti

17. Locusts

18. The Camel Train Now Approaching…

Glossary

Queen Hatshepsut

Massacre on the Nile

Specifications for the three ultralights

Photos of Luxor - Egpyt

Maps and Charts

Africa

The Middle East

Luxor and its environs

The Town of Luxor

Flight Path to Danger

The Hidden Wadi

1

Return to Luxor

The meal was nearly over. Dishes lay to one side, and the restaurant clamour of earlier had died down. Relaxed and deeply contented, Nigel Wallace leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Gone was the strain of the last few weeks; colour had returned to his cheeks and the ugly, dark stains beneath his deep blue eyes that told of many sleepless nights had faded. The dreadful nightmare was behind him and never did he want to face something like that again.

He smiled as he listened to one of his brother’s most unlikely stories, one that couldn’t go unchallenged.

Bruce, that’s not how it happened at all, and you know it, Nigel began. He opened his eyes, but what he was going to add remained unsaid.

The colour in his cheeks faded to a sickly grey. His hands shook uncontrollably, and the sheen of perspiration on his forehead shone in the harsh neon light. His mouth went suddenly dry, and he ran a nervous tongue round his lips, as he looked past Bruce’s shoulder to the table behind his brother. He slid down lower in his chair.

Don’t turn round whatever you do, especially you, Hanafi, he managed to croak. Don’t look at the next table. Oh, geez, it’s started all over again. I thought it was finished; over and done with, but it isn’t. Naked fear showed in Nigel’s eyes, wide and staring.

What’s the matter, Nigel? Bruce demanded in a low voice, resisting the temptation to turn round.

It had been a mistake. Out of all the many eating establishments to choose from in Luxor, they had chosen this one. On the face of it, though, there was much to recommend the Peace Abouzeid: there was a magnificent view of the River Nile gliding past, the Arab food was excellent and it was crowded with a cheerful, friendly clientele.

It is the best restaurant in the whole of Upper Egypt, Mahmoot had announced as he led his companions through the open entrance that ran the width of the building earlier that evening. And check out the mighty view. Expansively, he had gestured to the darkening river where a number of graceful feluccas, silhouetted against the blood red sky, were bringing the last of the tourist crowd back from the west bank sites of Ancient Egypt. Here you can get a meal fit for a king, he continued, heaving his immense bulk over to a reserved table at the edge of the noisy diners. I was lucky to get this table. It’s the best they have. This place is always full.

The delicious aroma of all the spices of the Middle East wafted over the four newcomers as they sat down. Despite the fact that the restaurant was able to catch every breath of cool air off the river, it was still hot. It was crowded and throbbed with life. From a number of strategically positioned loudspeakers came the wailing violin strains of an Arab love song.

I could eat a horse, Bruce announced above the noise, picking up a greasy menu.

What’s new? Nigel retorted with a laugh. I’ve never known my brother not to be hungry.

Though, being in Egypt, I probably should say that I could eat a camel, Bruce amended, looking at Nigel with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Don’t say that even in jest. Nigel shuddered. He had a momentary vision of a bloated, decomposing camel stuck in the bottom of a desert well, heaving with pulsating maggots. Anything but camels. Now, what do they have? The food smells tremendous. What do you recommend, Mahmoot, since it’s your favourite haunt? I’ll let you and Hanafi choose for me; you’re the experts.

For the first time in two weeks, Nigel was relaxed and this evening he was determined to put the past completely behind him. As Mahmoot began giving the order to the waiter, Nigel examined his companions round the table.

Next to him sat Mahmoot. He was a taxi driver in the Nile city of Luxor, driving tourists round the Ancient Egyptian sites of Karnak and Thebes in his nearly equally ancient Chevrolet Impala taxi which he had named Shaitan, the Arab word for Satan. Mahmoot was a large man who seemed to ooze out of his dark suit and grimy shirt. He was constantly wiping his perspiring features with a chequered cloth which he usually wore atop his bald head. However, this evening he wore a jaunty red fez. My formal wear, he joked when he had picked the boys up from their hotel earlier. The wife made me wear it. For a few years, he had been a taxi driver in New York driving a yellow top where he had acquired both his excellent command of English and his taxi. He was full of outrageous stories and kept the other occupants of the table in fits of laughter.

Next, diagonally opposite him at the table, there was Bruce, his brother; a year younger than him but as different as two brothers could be; where he was dark-haired and slim, Bruce was stockier with fair wavy hair. The only feature they shared was a pair of intensely blue eyes, almost violet; and they were also both well tanned.

Finally, beside Bruce, sat Hanafi who actually looked more like a brother to Nigel than Bruce did, and it was this fact that had caused the brothers’ visit to Egypt to be interrupted a week or two earlier[1]. Like Nigel, Hanafi was in his late teens and had the same build, but where Nigel was suntanned, Hanafi had the natural brown of an Arab. Hanafi was a prince of the Saudi royal family and was now a student at Oxford University in England where he had spent most of his life, first at a small rural prep school near Guildford followed by Charterhouse, the famous public school. Nigel and Bruce themselves were attending university in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe in Central Africa. The two brothers had been born and grew up in Zimbabwe where their parents owned a farm in the Matopo Hills outside the country’s second city of Bulawayo.

The brothers had taken a year off their studies in order to take a ten-metre yacht, the Silver Spray, from Scotland[2] out to the South Pacific for their Uncle William who was retiring soon from the Island of St Helena where he was the governor[3]. Bruce and Nigel had now reached Egypt on their long voyage, and at this moment the yacht was berthed in a marina at Hurghada on the Red Sea. Nigel, Bruce and Hanafi were seeing the sights of Upper Egypt, resuming their interrupted visit.

And that morning the ghosts of the past had been laid to rest, or so Nigel had thought.

But for now the three boys and Mahmoot were bent on having a good time and Mahmoot proved to be the life and soul of the party. He knew the three boys had gone through a lot in the last few weeks, and he felt that he should help them get over this period. He ordered from the menu and specialities he knew were off the menu but that the chef was inordinately fond of cooking; and it was a meal to remember.

It’s certainly nice being back in Luxor, Bruce announced as the boys and Mahmoot found their seats, after that terrible Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia. Do you know, I don’t ever want to step into a desert again in my life. Wild horses or wild camels couldn’t drag me back into any desert.

I am so glad you boys remembered to look me up when you returned to Luxor, Mahmoot said as the first of the many courses arrived. "After you set off on the Silver Spray, I wondered if I would ever see you again."

We had to come back and tell you everything that happened, said Bruce. It was you who set us off on the right track. Without you, Hanafi and I would never have been able to follow Nigel.

Oh, I just played a small part in the adventure, Mahmoot claimed modestly.

But you could have reported us to the police, put in Hanafi. That’s what you should have done. You knew that we had witnessed that terrible massacre of tourists at Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple. We would have been vital to the police in their investigations; or at least they would think so.

I don’t agree. Mahmoot shook his head so vigorously that his fez wobble slightly and looked as though it was about to slide off his head and into the plate of steaming yellow rice. What could you have told the police? That you’d seen a minivan and terrorists shooting at those poor helpless visitors. There was nothing you could tell that would have helped them. And, if you remember, you did phone the authorities about where the minivan could be found and you warned them that it could have been tampered with.

"And it was tampered with, agreed Bruce, remembering the BBC news bulletin they had heard on Mahmoot’s taxi radio. At least the police didn’t get blown up, which they might have been."

Now, said Mahmoot, I want you to tell me everything that happened to you. I’ve just heard scraps. I want the story in full.

And so Nigel told of how he had been captured in the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, taken across the Nile and bundled into a Volvo which headed to the coast of the Red Sea where he was carried aboard a dhow.

Yes, we had worked that out, Mahmoot stated. And did the terrorists keep your head covered all the time? Otherwise, they would have realized they had got the wrong person.

Yes, I was kept well covered. It was only after I had reached Saudi Arabia and been taken some distance in a Land Rover into the desert that they discovered I wasn’t Hanafi here.

They must have been pretty mad that they had got the wrong person.

They were, Mahmoot. They were. I thought my days were numbered when an AK-47 was pushed into my neck. I thought I was for it that time and no mistake. It was touch and go.

Talking about necks, what amazes me is how well Hanafi could get on with Bruce, Nigel stated with a grin.

What do you mean?

You’re just such a pain in the neck.

Bruce is just fine. He sort of grows on one, Hanafi put in.

You make me sound like a fungus! Bruce cried in mock disgust.

And so with the arrival of more and more dishes, the three boys filled in all the details of their adventures across the Red Sea and how, now that they were back in Luxor, they were trying to lay their ghosts to rest.

As the Americans would say: we have been trying ‘to seek closure’, Bruce concluded.

Most of the dishes had been cleared, apart from a large plate of deliciously sticky sweetmeats and cups of incredibly thick black Turkish coffee. Mahmoot was indulging in his single vice. Don’t you ever tell the wife, he whispered, looking around as though expecting to see her appear along the road.

A sheesha, the hubble-bubble pipe

A hubble-bubble pipe, otherwise known as a narghila or sheesha, had been brought to the table and Mahmoot was contentedly drawing the honeyed smoke through the water filter into his lungs. My only vice, he said with a seraphic smile on his cheerful face. And do you think you have achieved this closure? he asked in a cloud of smoke.

I think so, said Nigel, speaking for the others. I think those ghosts have been squarely laid to rest.

And that is what the boys had done that morning.

Very early, well before the sun rose, the three boys had left the Winter Palace Hotel and made their way along the deserted, darkened streets of Luxor to the jetty where they had arranged for a felucca to be waiting for them.

I bet he doesn’t show, Bruce said as they walked along the Corniche, the road that fronts the east bank of the River Nile. And did we have to be so early? We could just as well have come much later. Or not at all. Why are we doing this?

Neither of the others bothered to answer; Bruce was always complaining about getting up before dawn. And if the truth be known both of them tended to share his views; were they in fact doing the right thing? Should they have just left everything? Pretended that the past didn’t exist and just got on with their lives. That would have been the easy thing, they knew. Would this morning’s venture do any good? Perhaps some things are better not faced.

Eventually, Nigel said in a low voice, "I don’t know, Bruce. I just don’t know. Anyway, look. You’ve lost your bet. The felucca is there."

A single hurricane lamp glinted from the mast from which hung the tall triangle of sail. A breath of the predawn breeze fluttered the canvas.

At least we won’t be becalmed in the middle of the river and end up in Cairo, Bruce murmured.

Now, now, Grumpy, Nigel smiled. Was he as bad as this in the desert when you two were chasing after me, Hanafi?

No, the Arab boy replied. "He only ever complained about his camel. Come on let’s get aboard. Salaam, aleikum," he added to the boatman.

"Aleikum salaam, was the intoned response. Welcome aboard my boat."

The boatman shook out the sail, and the craft left the jetty as the breeze filled the canvas. The first faint silvering of a cloudless dawn touched low down on the eastern horizon behind the buildings of Luxor. The Nile, about a kilometre wide at this point, gently pushed the felucca downstream, but the boatman kept the craft’s head pointed into the current. Nigel shut his eyes, listening to the water gurgling against the side of the hull, and he recognized the sound from the time he had been blindfolded and shoved into the slopping bilges of a similar boat with the muzzle of an AK-47 pressed against his head.

The West Bank fast approaching, Bruce announced, breaking into Nigel’s thoughts. Stand by. Look. The donkeys are waiting for us. And that’s Ahmed’s mother; she must have got our message.

Standing on shore a short distance from the jetty was a heavily veiled woman, stooped, waiting patiently. With her were three donkeys, stamping their feet and whisking their tails as the first of the morning’s flies arrived.

She hasn’t got over her loss, Hanafi murmured as he leapt out of the felucca and approached the woman. Poor little Ahmed. I’ll go to her first. You wait here a second and then come on up. Fiddle with your rucksacks for a bit - make it look natural. We don’t all want to crowd round her at once.

Hanafi climbed up the slope. Barely above a whisper, he intoned the formal Arabic words of greeting, at the same time passing his right hand from his heart to his lips and up to his forehead. She followed the ritual and Bruce and Nigel caught the words, "Aleikum salaam," in her response.

Come on over, Hanafi called and once more broke into Arabic as he said to the woman: You remember Bruce. This is his brother, Nigel.

So your brother didn’t die in the massacre, she gasped. "I am so pleased for you. And so would little Ahmed. I remember he told me how both of you had been so kind to him the day he took you to the Valley of the Kings, especially you, Nigel. He was so looking forward to showing you Deir el Bahri[4], and then… and then… Her voice trailed off into a little sob. She turned away for a moment. Here are the donkeys, as you asked. And I am so pleased for you, Bruce. I know why you’ve come and you must do what you must do; it will take a long time before the horror of that day is past, and at least Nigel survived; but for me… Come, take the donkeys and bring them back anytime." The woman pulled her black veil close round her face and she walked into the darkness towards a village of square, mud