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about a band of escaped prisoners, legionaries who had been captured at Carrhae. Prisoners who didn’t go west, back to a world that had forsaken them, but instead went east.”
    “You believe this?”
    “If they’d survived all those years of toil in the Parthian citadel, they’d have been the toughest. And they were Roman legionaries. They knew how to route-march.”
    “Let’s see. Heading east. That’s Afghanistan, central Asia?”
    Jack paused. “Some of the rumors come from much farther east. From the ancient annals of the Chinese emperors. But it’ll have to wait. We’re almost there.” Jack pointed ahead to a great tongue of land that jutted out into the Red Sea. “That’s Ras Banas. It’s shaped like an elephant’s head. I thought you’d like that.”
    “How could I forget?” Costas murmured. “My elephantegos . Never in a million years did I think I’d find ancient elephants underwater.”
    “Dive with me, and anything’s possible.”
    “Only if I provide the technology.”
    “Touché.”
    Jack lowered the collective and the helicopter began to descend. “I can see the excavation now. I can even see Maurice. Those shorts of his are like a signal flag. I’m going to put us down on a rocky patch just in from the shore to avoid making a dust storm. Hold fast.”
    The scene that confronted them as they stepped out of the helicopter was one of desolation, enormous expanses of sunbaked ground with nothing but the sea glinting behind. Despite Jack’s best efforts they had raised a whirlwind of sand as they landed, and the view now was refracted through a film of red dust as if the air itself were glowing hot. Inland to the west Jack could just see the line of low mountains that marked the edge of the coastal desert, on the route to the Nile; to the east, the rugged peninsula of Ras Banas curved out into the sea. Tucked in at the head of the bay a few hundred meters away were the ramshackle huts of the Egyptian customs outpost, and beyond that lay a shallow lagoon about a kilometer across enclosed by a thin sandy spit on the seaward side. It seemed a place on the edge of human existence.
    Costas stood beside Jack, wearing a straw hat and garish wraparound sunglasses, wiping the dust and sweat from his face. He pointed into the haze. “Here he comes.” A portly figure trundled out of the dust down the small hill beside them, his hand already outstretched. He was shorter than Jack, a little taller than Costas, but whereas Costas had the barrel chest and brawn of his Greek island ancestry, Hiebermeyer had never managed to shake off the impression that his entire being revolved around sausage and sauerkraut. It was an illusion, Jack knew, for a man who was continuously on the move and had the energy of a small army.
    “He’s still flying at half-mast, I see,” Costas muttered to Jack.
    “Don’t say anything. Remember, I gave him those shorts. They’re a hallowed part of our archaeological heritage. One day they’ll be in the Smithsonian.” He glanced at Costas’ own baggy shorts and luridly colored shirt. “Anyway, you can hardly talk, Hawaii-Five-Oh.”
    “Just getting ready,” Costas said. “For where we’re going in the Pacific. You remember? Holiday time. Thought I may as well kit up now.”
    “Yes. About that.” Jack cleared his throat just as Hiebermeyer came up and shook hands warmly with him, and then with Costas. “Come on,” he said, continuing down the hill without actually stopping.
    “So much for small talk,” Costas said, swigging at a water bottle.
    “He’s been wanting to show me this place for months,” Jack said, slinging his faded old khaki bag over his shoulder and following. “I can’t wait.”
    “Okay, okay.” Costas tossed the bottle back into the helicopter and followed Jack down the hill, catching up with them about fifty meters from the water’s edge. Hiebermeyer took off his little round glasses and wiped them, and then opened his arms