‘What the hell? He’s running straight at the enemy!’ Cornell said.
‘He still has his backpack on,’ Evron said.
Out of nowhere, Kate Edwards put a flying tackle on Watkins, and they both tumbled to the ground in the smoke.
‘Holy shit,’ Cornell said. ‘I didn’t see she was missing.’
He moved to go after them, but Cavill pulled him back. ‘They’re in no man’s land. Stay put,’ Cavill said. The cacophony of weapons fire through the smoke was enormous.
Kate Edwards was trying to get on top of Watkins, who was recovering from the shock of suddenly being taken to the ground. He spun and punched her in the face. Her head snapped back, and he followed up by pushing her off him. Kate fell flat on her back, clutching her nose as blood streamed from it. The smoke was starting to clear. Watkins made the fatal mistake of standing straight up. His body jerked like a demented marionette as multiple professional soldiers automatically fired on an appearing target. His body hit the ground.
‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’ a voice yelled. It was the Daedalus commander. One by one, the different groups stopped firing, and the final wisps of smoke dissipated into the desert air. Cavill did a check left and right and confirmed none of his people had been hit. The enemy groups had been firing wildly at waist and head height, and since Cavill’s team members were on flat on the ground, they had been missed entirely.
‘Shit, what a mess,’ Cornell said, surveying the carnage in front them. There were dead bodies everywhere.
‘Their numbers have been halved, at least,’ Evron whispered.
‘Half of these amateur dipshits were probably taken out by friendly fire,’ Cornell said, pointing at the Niger and Titan forces.
‘Daedalus still has superior numbers,’ Cavill said.
While the Niger and Titan forces were coming to grips with their huge losses and checking who was still alive, the Foreign Legion and Daedalus commanders both stepped forward towards the inert body of Chris Watkins. They stopped walking at the same time, and the head of the Daedalus unit glowered at the Frenchman and pointed back at his superior force. The Frenchman lifted his hands in mock resignation—he would let this play out a bit more.
The Daedalus commander stomped over to Watkins, tore the backpack off him, and quickly took it back to his man in the NBC suit. The lead container was quickly out, and once again, the Geiger counter emitted a high-pitched screech.
‘It’s equally radioactive,’ the man in the suit called out.
The Daedalus commander pulled up his weapon and aimed it at Cavill. ‘Explain what’s going on,’ he said icily.
Cavill slowly stood up and raised his hands in the air.
‘The energy source was in multiple pieces,’ he said loudly and clearly, so everyone could hear. ‘So we dispersed it amongst the backpacks. There’s a piece of it for everybody. Team!’ he yelled. ‘Step forward and place your backpacks in a line. Now.’
All of his men stood up and took off their packs. Once Cornell had his off, he turned to Rebecca Grainger to help her with hers. Each of them stepped forward, and they placed the packs in a neat row.
‘Now step back,’ Cavill said.
Cornell kept a grip on Rebecca’s arm to make sure she complied. She didn’t seem to notice, as she was keeping track of the pack that Cornell had put down.
‘So there it is,’ Cavill called out to the surrounding forces. ‘You can each take a pack that has a fragment of the energy source in it or risk trying to get more of it—all killing each other and leaving with nothing. Furthermore,’ he said, slowly reaching into his pocket and pulling out a detonator. ‘One pack and the containers on the pyramid are rigged with high explosives linked to this detonator. If you don’t take my offer, or if you try to make a move on my team, I’ll blow the whole lot and kill us all in a zero-sum game. So do the right thing. Take part of the prize back to your masters, and you’ve had a successful mission.’
Silence reverberated around the space as each commander weighed his options.
‘C’mon,’ Evron whispered out the corner of his mouth. ‘Somebody crack…’
Silence.
‘I agree,’ the commander of the French force said.
‘Me too,’ said the captain of the Niger force.
‘Looks like we have no option,’ the leader of the small Titan force said through gritted teeth.
‘Agreed,’ the Daedalus commander said, comfortable that he already had two of the pieces.
Each commander waved a man forward to pick one of the remaining packs. The men sprinted to the packs.
Rebecca Grainger shoved Cornell from the side, and he staggered off balance. She leapt towards the packs, pointing to the one that Cornell had put down as the Titan man approached. She picked it up, passed it to the Titan soldier, and ran back to his group with him.
Cavill held up his hand, telling his men not to respond.
The other soldiers each carefully picked up a remaining pack before walking quickly back their units.
The Titan crew surged around Grainger and their prize. They piled into dune buggies waiting behind them and took off in a cloud of dust.
The other groups also dispersed and raced towards their vehicles, departing rapidly.
‘Now it makes sense,’ Cavill said, watching them leave.
‘What?’ Cornell asked, still smarting from being caught out by a civilian.
‘How Titan got here so quickly. She alerted them the same time as she alerted Stratton. They obviously made her a better deal. She was waiting for them to pick her up but then got word that we were going to get here sooner—’
‘Because we got the drop with Sir Henry’s satellite info,’ Evron said.
‘Exactly,’ Cavill said. ‘Which now makes me think that she engineered that gas explosion in the science labs to take out everyone else, so that only her version of the truth would exist when we arrived.’
‘Wow,’ Evron said.
‘She showed that she was desperate to take the credit for this find. Just didn’t think she was that desperate’ Cavill said.
‘Double-crossing, double-agent, murdering bitch,’ Cornell said. He turned and spat on the ground.
‘Well, it certainly makes doing this easier,’ Cavill said, pressing the buttons on the detonator in a specific sequence. ‘Professor, check I’m doing this right.’
Evron leant in and followed the hand movements. ‘Yup, two-four-one. Activates the drone engines.’
They heard a high-pitched whine in the distance as all of the small drones arrayed on the roof of the admin offices, facing south in the container complex, fired up.
‘Next sequence activates the bombs in the drones. Yup.’
‘Six-three-four activates the tracking chip in each lead container, right?’
‘Yes.’
Cavill dutifully keyed in the numbers. ‘And the hash key sends them to go seek.’
‘Yes,’ Evron replied.
Cavill jammed his thumb on the final button, and everybody looked up to the sky as the drones rounded the pyramid on the north side and streaked overhead, slowly fanning out into the desert in the same direction as the enemy forces went.
They narrowed their eyes to watch the small dots home in on the escaping cars and then drop down from the sky at speed. After a microsecond’s pause, huge explosions registered from four different points on the horizon.
‘Well, that takes care of that,’ Cavill said. ‘Should give us enough time to get the hell out of here.’ He looked around, surveying the scene again. Kate Edwards was still holding her face. She lay on the ground next to Watkins’s body.
‘Get her up,’ Cavill said. ‘She’s probably in shock.’
Harcourt raced forward to help her.
‘Cornell, Sansom, get up to some high ground and check we’ve no more hostiles in the area. No more surprises before we leave.’
‘We already have,’ Evron said, pointing.
Cavill followed his arm and saw it. ‘Two
plumes of dust. Vehicles coming back. Or the Americans.’
‘Everybody, weapon up!’ Cavill called. ‘Take up a fan defensive position.’
They quickly followed instructions. Harcourt helped Kate to stand and led her into the doorway of a nearby house. The rest of the team took cover behind walls and doors, where they could get a line of fire on the incoming road.
‘Contact!’ Cornell called from the roof of a nearby house as he looked through the optical sight on his rifle. ‘One person walking in the street up ahead. Sighting him…wait…you’re not gonna believe this.’
‘What is it?’ Cavill called.
‘It’s Rolleston!’ Cornell called back.
Cavill broke cover and ran into the street. He saw the silhouette of a man a couple of hundred metres up the street. The man’s arms were down, and he was staggering slightly. Cavill started sprinting, knowing that Cornell had him covered from above. As he got closer, the man’s features came into view.
‘Holy crap!’ Cavill yelled. ‘It is you!’
Rolleston nodded and smiled weakly as Cavill arrived to help support him.
‘Long…’ Rolleston said, gasping. ‘Long walk back with no water.’
‘Sorry I couldn’t come back,’ Cavill said. ‘It’s a tall tale, what’s happened since then.’
‘I knew you couldn’t come back…probably saved me when I fell out the car. I was exposed, but the drones, everybody, left to chase the cars. Just left me with the long walk.’
Harcourt arrived and gave Rolleston his water bottle as they walked back to the others.
‘Sip slowly,’ Harcourt said. ‘You’re quite dehydrated. We’ll get some salts in you on the way out.’
Rolleston nodded and quietly drank the water as they approached the others.
‘Put him with Edwards,’ Cavill said. ‘Then get back in position for the incoming.’
Harcourt nodded and led Rolleston away.
Cavill sprinted back behind his defensive wall. ‘How long?’ he called out.
‘Thirty seconds,’ Cornell called back.
‘Who is it?’
‘Looks like the French and Niger regulars.’
‘How many?’
‘One car each—about even numbers to us.’
‘Good.’
‘They look pissed.’
The French pulled up first, quickly followed by the Niger Army in a battered truck.
The French commander stepped off his truck with a look of pure venom. His remaining soldiers all focussed their weapons forward.
‘You tricked us—destroyed half my force,’ he said.
‘And what was the alternative?’ Cavill said. ‘Let my entire unit be wiped out?’
‘I’m not leaving with nothing,’ the Frenchman said.
‘Me neither,’ said the Niger leader. ‘Whatever you have rightfully belongs to us.’
‘Give us the real prize,’ the Frenchman demanded.
‘We don’t have time for another standoff,’ Cavill said. ‘My team has regrouped. We’ve fanned out to the high ground to strong defensive positions and have two snipers in place. We now have an equal number of men, and none of us has the prize. Look, there are no more backpacks. You saw that when you caught us by surprise coming out of the pyramid. My orders were that if the energy source could not be procured, it must be destroyed to prevent it falling into the hands of others. No doubt, your orders are the same.’
The leaders of both units wavered, showing that Cavill was right. ‘I’m sorry for your losses,’ Cavill said, ‘but I was following orders to destroy the energy source. And now what?’
He let the question hang in the air for a few seconds.
‘Now we have an equal number of men, but I have the tactical advantage. There’s no point continuing to fight and die,’ he said, lowering his weapon. ‘Let’s all depart the field as quickly as possible before the Americans get here.’
He could see the inner turmoil on the faces of both commanders; their blood was boiling, and they were spoiling for a fight despite the rational facts before them.
The French commander clenched his fists and let out a deep breath. ‘I pray we meet again,’ he said, before turning on his heel and waving his men to turn the truck around.
The Niger commander was still unsure. But then the elite French troops started driving away, and he quickly turned around and ordered the retreat.
As soon as the trucks were a safe enough distance away, Cavill let out a sigh of relief before turning back to his troops.
‘Everyone muster back to me,’ he called out. ‘Harcourt!’
Harcourt came running from his position.
‘What did you do the hundred metres in, again?’
‘Eleven point five, flat.’
‘Good, use that to get the lead box from where you stashed it in the tunnel. I want to be out of here in thirty seconds.’
Harcourt pulled his night-vision goggles from his plate carrier before unclipping it and handing his carrier and rifle to Cavill. He sprinted back into the house where they had exited the tunnel from the pyramid.
The rest of the troop quickly surrounded Cavill. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s move back to the east side, find Lampack and Fabrice, locate an operational vehicle, and get the hell out of here.’
Chapter 42
Lampack and Fabrice broke into huge grins when the entire troop came jogging around the corner.
‘About time,’ Lampack said. ‘I’ve only had this ugly mug to look at for hours.’
‘It was worse for me—I’ve had to look at his,’ Fabrice retorted.
They were both on the ground near the group’s containers with their wrists tied to their ankles. They’d been there for hours.
Cavill and Cornell quickly cut them loose and eased them onto their backs.
‘Take it easy,’ Cavill said. ‘It’s going to hurt from being in a stress position for so long.’
Both men grimaced as they carefully extended their limbs.
‘Will you rub my wrists for me?’ Fabrice said to Cornell, who was kneeling over him.
Cornell scoffed. ‘Don’t bloody think so. I think you can get on your feet in thirty seconds if you want to get out of this hell hole.’
‘Will do,’ Fabrice said, shaking his limbs to get the blood moving again.
Cavill stood up. ‘When did the Titan guys guarding you bail out?’
‘When the drones turned up, they ran and hid. Then they got word their secondary force was here, and they just left us. They talked about shooting us but said they didn’t get paid enough for that shit. Cheap mercs, eh?’
‘Good thing, too,’ Cavill said looking over the containers at their second Land Rover. ‘Did they touch any of our stuff?’
‘No, they thought the rest of you were dead, and they were on a quick in-and-out job. Maybe they thought the truck was booby-trapped too. Probably what they would do. Who knows? They looked at it but didn’t touch anything.’
‘We’ll soon find out for sure. You’re getting up,’ Cavill said. He bent down and put his arms under Lampack’s shoulders and started lifting. Cornell and Evron did the same with Fabrice. Both men grunted in pain but were soon up. They started moving around the containers to the second Land Rover. Sansom followed while still giving a steadying hand to Rolleston. Kate Edwards brought up the rear, still clutching her broken nose and in a dazed state of shock.
‘Cast of walking wounded here,’ Evron said as they lifted the three men and Kate into the open-top Land Rover.
‘Evron, up front with me. Cornell, at the back for cover,’ Cavill said, climbing into the car. Both men took up their positions, and Cavill placed his fingers on the key. ‘C’mon, Landie, don’t let me down now.’ He turned the key, and the engine spluttered, and then fired into life.
‘Yes!’ Cavill said. He crunched it into gear and eased it forward, around the containers and towards the main road out of the city.
‘There’s Harcourt,’ Evron said, pointing.
The Land Rover pulled up next to him.
‘Everything in order?’ Cavill asked.
‘Yes, no problems,’ Harcourt replied.
‘Good. Put that thing in the centre of the vehicle and strap it down. Then make sure no one falls out. It may get a bit bumpy.’
Harcourt climbed in, and Cavill started driving out of the city.
‘What’s our exit route?’ Evron asked.
‘South,’ Cavill said. ‘Stand up and see if you can spot anything else.’
As they cleared the last line of buildings at the edge of the city, Evron stood up, gripping the windshield for support.
‘Dust cloud approaching from the east,’ Evron said.
‘The Americans,’ Cavill said. ‘I’m still driving slowly to keep our own dust trail down. Let me know if theirs changes direction.’
‘Will do, but our exit plan’s blown. They’ll have drones back soon and spot us. On a straight run south, they’ll chase us down. How do we get out of here?’
Cavill watched the gleaming silver pyramid receding his rearview mirror. He was glad to see the back of the place.
‘I’m going to take a gamble,’ he said, ‘and pay a visit to our Titan friends.’
Chapter 43
Cavill lifted his arm and pointed. ‘I think the Titan explosion was that way. Can you check you think the same?’ he said.
Evron was still standing up. He looked back and forth between the desert and the pyramid they had come from.
‘Agreed,’ he said, pulling out binoculars and focussing forward. ‘I can see a thin trail of smouldering smoke—must be them.’ He kept panning across the horizon. ‘There’s a slightly thicker haze further to the right. Must be the Daedalus hit.’
‘Exactly what I figure,’ Cavill said.
Evron sat down as the car hit rough terrain and started jolting slightly over small, exposed rocks. ‘Why are we going after Titan?’
‘Daedalus was a bigger hit. They had three packs in the end; at least one with high explosives and two with radioactive elements. I’m fairly sure they’re all dead. The Niger unit is local, so they don’t have an air-extraction strategy—they’re taking the long drive. I don’t want to take on the French directly. So that leaves Titan. We know they’re sneaky fuckers, so they probably had a way out that didn’t involve driving hundreds of miles. Now, they took one pack with high explosives, so we don’t have to worry about radiation exposure. But more importantly, they drove off in two cars.’
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