The Lucifer Gospel by Paul Christopher Page B

fly one of these,” said Adamson to Hilts, nodding at the French chopper.
    “I can fly anything,” the pilot answered, smiling and looking pointedly across the hardstand to Nasif’s sinister-looking Mil-24.
    “Show me,” said Adamson. “The charts are in the door pocket. I’ll fly the copilot’s seat.”
    “You’re rated on this?” Hilts said, surprised.
    Adamson smiled. “If it’s got my name on it, I’m rated for it.” The two men stared at each other briefly. Finn felt as though she was in the middle of a pissing contest and it surprised her. She didn’t think Hilts was the type, and Adamson should have been too rich to care.
    Boys will be boys,
she thought with a sigh. She pulled open the big sliding door, climbed up the single welded step, and ducked into the lavishly appointed passenger cabin of the transport helicopter. A few minutes later, following Nasif in the gunship, they rose heavily off the hardstand and took to the air once more.
     
     
     

11
     
     
    From the air the site at Deir el-Shakir looked more like a science-fiction moon base than an archaeological dig. Two dozen huge, white nylon high-tech yurts, or domed tents, were scattered across a plateau above a narrow sandstone valley that marked the ancient bed of a long-vanished river. The yurts, each with a forty-foot diameter, were connected by arched nylon tunnels. There were several more lozenge-shaped arch-roof tents that served as living quarters, offices, and even as garages and maintenance sheds for the expedition’s fleet of Range Rovers and Hummer Alphas. The domes and tunnels all had a single purpose: to protect the occupants—man or machine—from the constant winds and the eroding, choking, ever-present dust and sand. The two largest structures, anchored, guy-wired, and lag-bolted into sunken concrete columns, were the two hangars used to house Adamson’s transport chopper and the single-engine Polish PZL “Wilga” that Hilts would be using as his aerial photography platform. With a takeoff requiring only five hundred feet of run-way, the PZL was just about the only aircraft available that could fly in and out of the site. Between the two hangars was a GFI portable helipad to smooth out the rough, pitted area of rock and sand and to keep down flying debris.
    Hilts put the big transport down without a quaver, then switched off. As soon as the rotors slowed, four men in white uniforms like cruise ship stewards appeared, and without waiting for the passengers to climb down they rolled the helicopter into the big hangar tent and pulled the Velcro closers on the hangar doors. Like the helipad outside, the floor of the hangar was covered in heavy-duty composite mats to create a stable, clean area. The passenger compartment door slid open and Finn and the others climbed out. Achmed and the men who’d rolled the helicopter inside began unloading.
    “Well, Ms. Ryan, what do you think?” Adamson asked, smiling proudly.
    Finn wasn’t quite sure what to say, or why she was being singled out by the expedition leader for attention. “Impressive,” she answered.
    “Expensive,” added Hilts.
    “Very,” Adamson said and nodded. “At last count it was several million dollars.”
    “I’m not sure the Copts would approve,” said Hilts. “If I remember right, they took a vow of poverty.”
    “True enough,” put in Laval. “On the other hand, most of the hermetic Copts, such as the ones who lived Deir el-Shakir, were fleeing debts.”
    “People have always run into the desert in the hopes of disappearing.” Adamson laughed. “That’s what the French Foreign Legion was designed for.” They walked across the hangar and went into one of the connecting tunnels. The steady wind outside whispered against the heavy nylon, rippling the fabric slightly and making a faint slapping sound.
    “Almasy,” said Finn. It was just about the only concrete thing she knew about this part of the world.
    “I beg your pardon,” said Adamson,