‘What happened was that next thing he knew, he had a gun in his face. When Abdul and his team had realised the size of the find, enough gold to make millionaires out of all of them, they went nuts. Dad couldn’t do a thing to stop them taking it for themselves. The rule of law had totally broken down in the wake of the Russians leaving, so it wasn’t like he could call the local cops. In fact that might made things even worse, when they started joining in the fun of filling their pockets with all they could grab. He had no choice but to stand back and watch as what could have been one of the most valuable discoveries in modern archaeological history was pillaged and scattered to the four winds.’

Chapter 31

Wolf asked, ‘So why didn’t he press ahead with his excavation project anyway? If he really thought there was a whole lost city under here?’

Madison replied, ‘He planned on doing exactly that. Dad wasn’t someone you could deter that easily. But then, that same month, the Afghan Civil War kicked off, with the Soviets supporting the Afghan government from a distance on one side, and the Mujahideen backed by the US and the Saudis on the other. In a flash, the whole nightmare had started up all over.’

‘History repeating itself once again,’ Ben said.

‘And once again Dad had to get the hell out of there, and watch helplessly as things went from bad to worse. When the Mujahideen finally won that fight, they all just started on each other and things dragged on for years, right up until 2001. At which point, the Americans invaded and it was the start of our own Afghan war. Air strikes, troops everywhere, battles erupting, a total debacle.’

‘Tell us about it,’ Wolf said dourly. ‘Our guys spent the next twenty years spilling their guts out to hang on to this place. And for what?’