27. SAHARA ADVENTURE SERIES — THE TREASURES OF MARABASH
In Tunis, at the luxurious Hotel Europa, Teuns Stegmann, a member of the French Foreign Legion, encounters Dr. Heinz Frielingsdorf, his daughter Magdel, Dr. Klaus Bergh, and the French official Charles Bovary. Frielingsdorf, an antiquarian, unveils his lifelong quest for the lost temple of Marabash in the Sahara, where a vast treasure may lie hidden. Teuns has been appointed to lead the expedition, owing to his extensive desert expertise, although he remains skeptical about the temple’s existence. Initial tension arises from the uncertainty surrounding the treasure’s reality and the potential perils of the journey.
Teuns, now amidst the planned expedition, is confronted with the abduction of Dr. Frielingsdorf, the disappearance of the crucial map, and the discovery of Magdel’s secret knowledge of the temple’s location. Emotions run high as Teuns observes suspicious behaviour among the expedition members, particularly Charles Bovary. Teuns’s attempts to procure essential supplies are interrupted by a violent kidnapping attempt, which exposes Bovary’s true identity as a secret agent and results in his tragic death. The revelation of this betrayal and the escalating threat underscore Teuns’s pivotal role in the search for the fabled treasure.
Teuns’s plans, formulated with detective Emil Pascal, centre on using an aircraft and parachutes to reach the temple before the kidnappers. They locate the temple but discover they are not the first to arrive. Teuns must employ all his ingenuity and knowledge in an effort to rescue the other members from the temple of Marabash. Will Teuns succeed in unravelling the temple’s secrets, and whom can he truly trust before it is too late? But how will he ever manage if he does not even know how to exit the temple? Deeper within the temple awaits a truth even more staggering than the treasures themselves.
