"Lost Treasure Found"

[TheNextNewGuy]

"Lost Treasure Found"

PLEASE NOTE:
This role play needs a female writer.
However, do not simply post to it.
I am particular about my writing partners.
Plus, you'll need more info to know whether
you even want to write this.
PM me to join.​

The UN convoy's lead vehicle tapped its brake lights several times to warn the others behind it before slowing to a stop in the middle of the paved road. The team's leader, Pierre Girard, exited the third car and moved forward, finding one of the first SUV's occupants standing atop the roof with binoculars to his eyes.

"Why are we stopping?" he asked in French. "Company?"

This region of the desert -- and its vital oases -- had been claimed off and on for a thousand years by four different nomadic clans. Claimed and, at times, fought over. To make matters worse, elements of two international terrorist organizations also had a presence here. While the former gave the UN its due respect, the latter didn't.

"Who is it?" Girard asked.

"Not who," a third man, still inside the lead vehicle said, also in French but with a heavy accent that came with his Central African Republic upbringing. He pointed off to the horizon, at a thickening, mile high cloud of dust and sand and clarified, "What."



The team set up only two tents, each a specially designed unit meant to withstand the desert's occasional, fierce sand storms. The vehicles were wrapped against the storm as well with quickly installed vehicle covers, all in an attempt to keep their engines free of the damaging sand. It was only noon, and yet the sixteen members of the UN monitoring team were huddled inside the secure tents to wait out the storm, men in one, women in the other, all knowing that their day was over.



In the middle of the night, after the sound of the winds had long since died down, a new sound revealed itself: vehicles that weren't those of the team. Girard and four of the six armed escorts went out into the darkness to check on the activity. A moment later, arguing and orders in four different languages drew out more of the team's members. Then, the very unique sound of AK-47s, followed quickly by the sound of the FAMAS 5.56 rounds, ripped the night apart. Screams of anger, fear, and agony mixed with the gunfire.

"Get out!" Girard was suddenly yelling from the opening of the women's tent to those still inside. Standing in the opening he waved with one hand as the other clutched at the bleeding hole in his chest. "Get out! Get into the dunes! Hide! Don't ... don't come out ... until..."

He fell into the arms of a woman rushing to his aid. She tried to stem the bleeding with pressure, but before the last of the tent's occupants had evacuated, Girard was dead.



Adil had been on perimeter watch, sitting in a little divot atop a sand dune a mile north of his tribe's camp when the sand storm rolled through. They, of course, had known the storm was coming long before it became a source of panic. And Adil braved the sirocco in the same way his ancestors had for a thousand years: he wrapped himself in his thobe to keep the sand out of his eyes and lungs, then occasionally shifted his position to keep himself above the sand that was threatening to bury him to death.

The storm broke in the middle of the night. He heard and responded to a call from the camp from his brother, wanting to know whether or not he was still alive. An hour or so later, he heard the gun fire miles away in the distance of the dark night. He stood and cocked his head in an attempt to pin point the location of the fire fight. But other than calling back to the camp and receiving confirmation of his information, Adil did nothing. Gun fire in the desert wasn't unheard of, any more than it was in the crime ridden neighborhoods of some of the world's creates cities.

Despite it commonness, the conflict did cause Adil to remain awake and vigilant through the rest of the dark. He continually swept the horizon from his elevated vantage point, watching for signs of the belligerents. He saw nothing...

At least...

Not until he saw her...

An hour or so after dawn, Adil began to follow the movement of a body -- a female body it would turned out -- over the dunes in his direction. He didn't suffer from mirages like some of those not from the desert sometimes did when they came here. But he seriously began to wonder whether what he was seeing could possibly be real. He finally rose and circled around a dune to bring him up to where she would soon appearing.

He finally stepped out to watch the Desert Angel near him...