Sheba's Gambit Read online

  Slowly, she walked over to the case, “Where did you get these?”

  “Michael got them from Aaron Aschler’s office.”

  Sheba walked over to the pots and stood looking at them for a few minutes, her mind wandering. Finally, she reached down and opened the case.

  “Don’t touch them,” Breckenridge ordered. “They are very old.”

  Ignoring him, she looked at each one carefully. Before he could stop her, she picked up an odd looking pot. A deep red, the pot was flat in the front and back with rounded sides. There was a white design on the front. The design had been crudely etched into the clay before it had been fired.

  She carried it over to the map of Turkey she had spent so many hours on. Laying the pot on its back, she began matching the landmarks on the map to the marks on the pot. Grabbing a different colored pencil, she traced the marks from the pot on to the map. Then she rubbed her index finger over one mark that didn’t match the map. It was deeply incised and was wider than the other marks.

  “Interesting,” she observed to herself. Moving the pot until it was laying just above the map and using a different colored pencil, she traced as best she could the thicker line on the map. It went up a valley deep into the Taurus Mountains. Then she turned the pot over and gasped. As the others crowded around to see what she had seen. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a map that will lead us to Sheba’s palace.”

  “What?” Breckenridge snapped. He looked closely at it. “I don’t see it.”

  Sheba pointed with her finger. “These are landmarks. When we find a location that matches this, I think we will have found the capital city of Sheba.”

  She turned the pot back over and pointed at the heavy line. “I think this line will lead us to this place.”

  Breckenridge took the pot from her hands. In a daze, he turned the pot over and looked at the drawing.

  “But how are we going to find this location?”

  Caldwell looked at him in disbelief. “Why not use Google Earth to give us the coordinates.”

  Slater said, “Do it.”

  Caldwell sat down at the computer as the others clustered around him. He downloaded Google Earth, then typed in the nearest town in Turkey. He waited while the map moved to Turkey and then to the town. Using the printed map he located the town and then the narrow valley that wove its way into the Taurus Mountains. Slowly, he moved to the mountains until the line Sheba had drawn on the map ended. Then he switched to the satellite view.

  Breckenridge turned the pot over so Caldwell could see the enlarged map. He slowly moved the cursor until he found an area that matched fairly closely the landmarks on the map. Then he saved the location and began moving farther up the valley. When he reached the end of the valley, he went back to the marked location.

  “I think this area most closely matches the map on the pot.”

  Breckenridge looked at Slater. “I’ll need the big helicopter. I believe I gave orders that it was to be fully stocked so it would be ready. I want to leave as soon as Marshall gets back with the boy.

  “We’ll need security,” Slater said. “It will take at least a day to--”

  “No,” Breckenridge said, roughly. “I want to be out of here today.”

  “I can’t vet the men I get in that short a time period.” Slater protested. “What’s the use of security that we can’t trust?”

  Helen suddenly spoke up. “Nathan, Michael is right. Give him a chance to do what he does best and that’s protect us. It will also give everyone a chance to make sure we have everything we need to find her palace.”

  Slater said, “Five or six helicopters flying over Europe might raise red flags.”

  A voice whispered in Sheba’s head, “Suggest that he have his troops assemble outside of Turkey. That way, we have time to get some of our men into his group of mercenaries.”

  Sheba said, “If you’ve got groups of men coming from different parts of Europe, why don’t you have them meet on an island in the Mediterranean. That would save time and avoid attracting attention that you don’t want.”

  Breckenridge said, “Good idea. Caldwell, find us an uninhabited island close to Turkey where we can meet.”

  Caldwell said with a smirk. “There is a very small, uninhabited island about twenty miles from the Turkish coast. It’s used by smugglers from time to time, but no one lives there. It’s just a big rock, but there’s an area in the center of the island that would be ideal to land helicopters. It’s hard to get to by foot so I doubt if anyone would bother us.”

  “Show me,” Breckenridge commanded.

  Caldwell moved the curser on Google Earth until Breckenridge and Slater could see the island.

  Breckenridge looked at Slater. “What do you think?”

  “It looks good.” He turned to Caldwell, “Give me the coordinates.”

  Sheba stepped closer to the three men to make sure that Maitland could hear them.

  Caldwell was shutting down the computer when Marshall strode into the room holding Braden by the arm.

  As soon as Braden saw Sheba, he squirmed out of Marshall’s grasp, throwing himself into her arms.

  Maitland looked at Dean who was rubbing his neck. “I don’t know what Marshall used on me, but it put me out like a light. I don’t remember anything until I woke up in the clinic.”

  Maitland said, “Do we have any connections with paramilitary groups in Europe?”

  “Why not use our troops. I can have CIA operatives funnel Breckenridge’s calls to us.” Bond said.

  “We have special ops teams in Belgium and Germany. It would be better to send them.”

  “Let’s do it, then,” Maitland ordered. “We don’t have much time to pull this off.”

  Bond said, “I wonder where Assid is. He’s a wildcard.”

  When Sheba heard that name in her head, she shuddered.

  “What is it?” Slater asked roughly.

  “I just had a bad feeling about Assid. I think he’s going to come back to haunt us.”

  Chapter 30

  Early the next morning, everyone was awakened by the sounds of rotors turning. Braden has insisted on sleeping in Sheba’s bed. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

  “Wow, Aunt Sheba. You should see the helicopter that just landed. It’s huge. There’s a big black one setting down behind it.”

  There was a knock on the door. Braden ran across the room to pull it open. Marshall handed him a pile of clothes. “Mr. Breckenridge wants both of you in the dining room in fifteen minutes. He wants to be in the air in one hour.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Sheba said coolly.

  --------

  Thirty-three hours later, the big Eurocopter set down in the center of a rocky island about fifty miles from Turkey’s coastline. Breckenridge and Caldwell immediately began setting up a computer station under a huge camouflaged tent. Caldwell looked up and frowned. “We think we know which valley the Captain meant, but the distances are wrong.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. He did his mapping about 1872 so he drew his map from the ground. If we find a valley with all the landmarks in the right order, that’s probably the right place.” Sheba said

  Breckenridge looked up from the computer screen. “This is the valley we looked at the other night. There are numerous other valleys, but this one is the closest.”

  Sheba walked around to look at the screen. “It sure looks like the valley on the pot to me. I think we should check there first. When are you planning on starting?”

  “We’ll head out before dawn tomorrow.”

  Sheba nodded. “That’s a good idea. Things look differently in the morning or evening because of the shadows. Sometimes things pop out at you that you wouldn’t see when the sun is overhead.”

  Caldwell said, “That’s true. I’ve found veins of ore in the evening that I couldn’t see during the day.”

  ------

  Early the next morning, the helicopters set down at the foot of the valley. Sheba, He
len and Braden walked up a sandy, dried-up river bed that led toward a large mountain in the distance. After a few minutes, the valley was covered with men looking for anything that would show the location of Sheba’s palace. Some men were carrying metal detectors, others were checking out openings in the cliffs or moving rocks.

  As the sun rose over the eastern mountains, Helen said, “I’d like to go back to the helicopter. For some reason, I’m just not comfortable here.”

  Braden said, “I’ll take you back.”

  Sheba closed her eyes. She sensed a presence next to her and opened her eyes. Slater and Marshall were standing next to her.

  “Where’s Helen going,” Slater asked.

  Braden is taking her back to the helicopter. She said she doesn’t feel comfortable here.”

  “If she wanted to stay, Braden could have gotten her a chair to sit on. That rock wouldn’t be comfortable to sit on.”

  Frowning, Sheba realized that he had just said something important. “It’s not the rock--” She stopped, seeming to hear something in her head.

  Slater glared at her, but Marshall shook his head.

  There’s a presence here--a hostile presence.

  Sheba looked from Slater to Marshall. “You need to get those men out of the valley.” She said urgently.

  “What the heck?” Marshall demanded. “Why?”

  “I can’t explain it. We’re disturbing someone or something and it isn’t happy about it?”

  “No way that Breck--” Slater started to say, but before he could finish he was interrupted by a loud yell.

  One of the men had been climbing to the top of a pile of loose rocks when he suddenly stepped backward tumbling down the rocks. When Slater, Marshall and Sheba reached him, he was lying with his neck at an impossible angle. Marshall bent over and felt his carotid artery. He shook his head. “He’s dead.”

  Sheba said, “He won’t be the last if you don’t get the men out of the valley.”

  Marshall said, “I think you’re overreacting. He just made a bad step, that’s all.”

  Sheba walked back to her rock. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what the city would have been like. What the Queen of Sheba looked like. She had used this technique when she faced a particularly difficult code that she couldn’t crack. It had always worked before, perhaps it would work now.

  She slowly looked around. Quietly, she got up and turned around facing the other way. Then she got up and walked toward another large boulder that offered a clear view down the valley past the helicopters.

  As she looked she could see that the valley narrowed sharply and the climb steepened. “Of course, she said. “The terrain was what protected the city. She got up and hurried back to the helicopter where Caldwell was still working on the computer.

  He looked up as she hurried toward him. “What do you need,” he growled.

  “I want to know what the mountains on either side of this valley look like on their far sides.”

  He frowned, but pulled up the satellite image and began moving the map to show the mountains that surrounded the valley. The far sides of the mountains were perpendicular in most places. “It looks like it would have been difficult to get into this valley any other way than up the valley, right?”

  Caldwell nodded. “I would say that it was impossible, but let’s use the street side view. That would give us more of an idea of--”

  “What an invading army might see.” Sheba finished for him.

  “Right. You want to see if there is any place that an invading army could come over the mountains?”

  Sheba nodded. “Yes.”

  While Caldwell slowly moved the curser around the mountains, Breckenridge hurried up. “What are you doing?” He snapped at Sheba.

  “Following a hunch,” she said, slowly, not taking her eyes from the map.

  When they were back to the starting point, Caldwell said. “These cliffs are very unstable. They aren’t volcanic, at one time they were part of a lake or stream system. I think even climbers with equipment would have a tough time.”

  Breckenridge looked at her curiously. “What are you thinking?”

  “The Queen of Sheba went to visit Solomon for two reasons. One was that she had heard of his wisdom, but the other was that she was afraid that he would attack her kingdom. That’s why she brought all the gold and other gifts—to buy him off

  She turned and walked swiftly up the trail to where it opened into the valley. When she got to ‘her’ rock she sat down and looked up the valley. Then she walked up the valley to the north. An hour later, when she got to the end, she began to climb. It didn’t take long to find a narrow path that skirted the boulders. The path almost seemed familiar.

  After she climbed for fifty feet or so, she came to a boulder that had a smooth square top. When she sat down on it, there was a place for her feet. She tried again to focus her feelings.

  This seems like I’m in the right place at the right time. She felt a wave of contentment wash over her. As she sat there, the valley seemed to widen out, the mountains that surrounded it seemed to straighten. There were tunnels running back into the straight cliffs.

  It seemed to her that she could see men and oxen moving wooden carts out of the tunnels. Each cart was loaded with dirt, dirt that glittered.

  Then a building seemed to block her view. It ran from one side of the valley to the other and rose four stories. Her impression was that it was more fort than palace.

  She felt that there was something special about a place just to the right of where the building joined the mountain.

  Suddenly, her attention was drawn to a small figure with blond hair running up the valley toward her. Then he veered to the left and began to climb the scree.

  “Braden,” she called. “Braden, don’t go up there.”

  He waved his hand but continued to climb. She jumped to her feet, stepping down off the rock. She screamed as she began to tumble down the hill. Her roll was stopped when she hit a large boulder that, eons earlier, had fallen from the mountain side and rolled on to the path.

  She hit it hard, her face stopping just inches from the rough stone. As she opened her eyes, she realized that she was staring at what looked like chisel marks. She rolled on to her back and traced the trough with her finger. It ran from the top of the huge stone to the bottom.

  “What happened?” Breckenridge snapped, breathing hard.

  “I jumped down off that rock,” she said pointing, “I fell and rolled into this rock. “Look,” she said running her finger down the trough. This is worked stone. We need to check the other side to see if there is a ridge.”

  Frowning, Breckenridge walked around the stone. “There is a ridge. It doesn’t run from the top to the bottom though.”

  Sheba limped around to join him. “No, because it’s been knocked off. See, you can see the ridge, here, and here, and here. The ridge must have gotten scraped off when it rolled here. But if you look at the sides, you can see that they are straighter than a regular boulder. The sides have definitely been worked.”

  She looked for Braden but he had vanished “Where is Braden? He was climbing on that pile of rocks.”

  Marshall and Slater jogged down the path and began climbing the up through the scree.

  Sheba limped down the path and hobbled around to where the scree met the cliff, then keeping her hand on the cliff face, she began to climb, favoring her bad knee. “Braden,” she called every few steps.

  She could see Marshall speak into his radio. As she watched, every man dropped their tools and begin searching the valley is a neat and systematic way. The cliff face was riddled with long, narrow cracks that seemed quite shallow, but every so often, the cracks were wider and deeper although she couldn’t figure out the significance of the pattern. When her knee really began to hurt, she began crawling.

  When she had reached the place where she thought she had last seen Braden she saw that one of the cracks was much wider than the others. It got wider as it wen
t down the cliff face. Curiously, she scrambled to the crack.

  “Braden,” she yelled into the hole.

  She could hear something faintly.

  “Marshall, Slater. I need you.” She called as she turned her head toward the crack.

  When they reached her, she said, “I think Braden has fallen through this crack. Do either of you have a flashlight?”

  Slater pulled a small, but powerful LED flashlight from his belt. She shown the flashlight into the crack. They could see that the crack widened behind the scree.

  “He’s down there.” The men dropped to their knees and began carefully moving rocks away from the crack and shoving them to the side.

  Breckenridge ordered the men to form a chain. The rocks were passed from hand to hand until they were moved out of the way. Finally, they reached a boulder that neither of them could move.

  “We need a lever,” Marshall said. “It’s too big to move by hand.”

  Breckenridge said, “No. We need a chain and a wench. If we’re not careful, the rock will fall into the crack.” He spoke into the radio again and Frank jumped into a jeep with a wench on the front.

  When he got to the scree, he careened to a stop, grabbed the rest of the cable and the crowbar.

  “Here,” he said as he handed Marshall the crowbar. Then he handed the steel cable to Slater., “If we wrap the cable around those two knobs, we should get it high enough so that I can pull it away without dragging the cable over the other rocks.”

  Marshall shoved the crowbar between the boulder and the cliff face, then he made a saddle with his hands, lifting Slater to the top of the rock.

  While Slater and Marshall secured the cable, the man started the wench. As the wench pulled the cable tight, he put the jeep into reverse. The cable tightened even more, but the boulder didn’t move. He gave the jeep more power, until the wheels began spinning in the dirt.

  Sheba began pull the rocks from around the boulder, scraping her hands and breaking her nails. The men hurried to help her.

  Finally, they could see the bottom edge of the boulder. When Frank engaged the clutch, each man began pulling on the cable.