“Good. So you’ll wait here for us here.”
“You assume too much.” He handed the AR back to Tucker. “If anyone tries to shoot at us, I will shoot back. What happens to them is God’s will.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard,” Tucker said.
“So my mother tells me. Without the bastard reference, of course.”
11:45 A.M.
“How confident are you about your coordinates?” Harper asked.
Tucker stood in the barn next to the Range Rover. He had just finished an inventory check. Everyone else had retired out of the noonday heat for lunch, leaving him alone. He used the private moment to check in with Sigma.
“Ninety percent. It’s as good as it’s going to get, and it puts us ahead of the competition.”
“Speaking of them, a woman matching Felice Nilsson’s description and bearing a Swedish passport arrived in Cape Town this morning. Four men, also with Swedish passports, cleared customs at roughly the same time.”
“Not surprising. But we’ve got a big head start on her. Without Utkin feeding them info, they’re in the dark. And they still have to figure out the Klipkoppie mystery.”
“Hope you’re right. Now one last thing. You know that photo you forwarded us—the one of you in the Internet café in Dimitrovgrad?”
“Yes.”
“There’s something off about it.”
“Define off.”
“Our tech people are concerned about artifacts in the image’s pixel structure. It may be nothing, but we’re dissecting everything you sent—including all of Bukolov’s data.”
“Any verdict in that department?”
“We’ve got a team of biologists, epidemiologists, and botanists looking at everything. There’s not a whole lot of consensus, but they all agree on one thing.”
“That it’s all a hoax. We can turn around and go home.”
“Afraid not,” she replied. “They all agree that LUCA, if it’s the real deal, could have an r-naught that’s off the scale.”
“And that would mean what in English?”
“R-naught is shorthand for basic reproductive ratio. The higher the number, the more infectious and harder an organism is to control. Measles has a known r-naught value between 12 and 18. If Bukolov’s estimates and early experiments are valid, LUCA could clock in at 90 to 100. In practical terms, if a strain of LUCA is introduced into an acre of food crops, that entire plot of land could be contaminated in less than a day, with exponential growth after that.”
Tucker took in a sobering breath.
“Find this thing,” she warned, “and make sure Kharzin never gets his hands on it.”
Tucker pictured the plastic-wrapped blocks of C-4 packed aboard the Rover.
“That I promise.”
After they signed off, Tucker circled around to the front of the Rover and leaned over a topographical map spread across the hood. It depicted the southern Kalahari Desert and eastern Namibia. He ran a finger along the Groot Karas Mountains. He tapped a spot on the map where De Klerk’s cave should be located. Once there, they had to find a feature that looked like a boar’s head. But first the group had to get there.
“I’ve brought you lunch,” Christopher said behind him. “You must eat.”
He came with a platter piled with a spinach-and-beetroot salad and a club sandwich stuffed with steak, chicken, bacon, and a fried egg—the four essential food groups.
Kane—who had been lounging to one side of the Rover—climbed to his legs, sniffing, his nose high in the air. Tucker pinched off a chunk of chicken and fed it to him.
“What is troubling you?” Christopher asked.
Tucker stared at the map. “I’m trying to decide the best place to cross the border into Namibia. With our truckload of weapons and explosives, it’s best we try to sneak across at night.”
“Most correct. It is very illegal to bring such things into Namibia. Long prison sentences. And because of the smuggling operations of guerrillas and bandits, the border is patrolled heavily.”
“So you understand my problem; how about a solution?”
“Hmm.” Christopher elbowed him slightly to the side and pointed to the plate. “You eat. I’ll show you.”
He touched a town not far from the border. “Noenieput is a small agricultural collective. The South African police are lax there. Should be no problem to get through. Might have to pay . . . a tourist surcharge.”
Tucker heard the trip over the last. “In other words, a bribe.”
“Yes. But on the other side of the border, the Namibia police are not lax at all. Bribe or no bribe. All the paved roads are blockaded. We will have to go overland at night, like you said.”
Christopher ran his finger north and tapped a spot. “This is the best place to make a run for the border.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s where the guerrillas most often cross. Very dangerous men.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
Christopher looked at him. “Of course.” He pointed to the plate. “Now eat.”
For some reason, he no longer had an appetite.
32
March 20, 6:55 P.M.
Namibian Border
As Christopher drove, the landscape slowly changed from savannah to a mixture of rust-red sands, stark white salt flats, and scattered, isolated tall hillocks called kopjes. With the sun sitting on the horizon, those stony escarpments cast long shadows across the blasted plains.
Far in the distance, the crinkled dark outline of the Groot Karas Mountains cut across the sky. How were they going to reach those distant peaks? As flat as the terrain was here, a border crossing at night seemed impossible. Confirming this, small black dots buzzed slowly across the skies. They were spotter planes of the Namibian Air Force. By standing orders, they shot smugglers first and asked questions later.
Tucker tried to coax Christopher’s plan out of the man, but he remained reticent. Perhaps out of a secret fear that Tucker might leave him behind once he knew the plan.
“Noenieput,” Christopher announced, pointing ahead to a scatter of whitewashed homes and faded storefronts. “It has the only police station for a hundred miles. If they search our cargo, things will go bad for us.”
Anya slunk lower in the front seat, clutching the door grip.
Bukolov gave off a nervous groan. The doctor shared the backseat with Tucker and Kane.
“DOWN,” Tucker ordered the shepherd.
Kane dropped to the floorboards, and Tucker draped him with a blanket.
Ahead, a white police vehicle partially blocked the road, its nose pointed toward them. As they neared, the rack on top began flashing, plainly a signal.
But of what?
Christopher slowed and drew alongside it. He rolled down his window and stuck out his arm in a half wave, half salute. An arm emerged from the driver’s side of the police vehicle, returning the gesture.
As Christopher passed, he reached out and slapped palms with the officer. Tucker caught the flash of a folded bill pass hands.
The tourist surcharge.
The Rover rolled onward.
“We made it,” Anya said.
“Wait,” Christopher warned, his eyes studying the side mirror. “I have to make sure I paid him enough. Too much, he could get suspicious and come after us. Too little, he might be offended and hassle us.”
Thirty seconds passed.
“He’s not moving. I think we’re okay.”
Everyone relaxed. Kane hopped back into the seat, his tail wagging as if all this was great fun.
“Three more miles,” Christopher announced.
“Three miles to what?” Bukolov grumbled. “I wish you two would tell us what the hell is going on.”
“Three miles, then we’ll have to get off the highway and wait for nightfall,” Tucker explained. Though he was no happier than the doctor at being kept in the dark about what would happen from there.
As that marker was reached, Christ
opher turned, bumped the Rover over the shoulder, and dipped down a steep slope of sand and rock. As it leveled out, he coasted to a stop in the lee of a boulder that shielded them from the road. They sat quietly, listening to the Rover’s engine tick tick tick as it cooled.
Within minutes, the sun faded first into twilight, then into darkness.
“That didn’t take long,” Anya whispered.
“Such is the desert, miss. In an hour, it will be twenty degrees cooler. By morning, just above freezing. By midday, boiling hot again.”
Tucker and Christopher grabbed binoculars, walked west a hundred yards, and scaled the side of a kopje. They lay flat on their bellies atop the hill and scanned the four miles of open ground between them and the border.
A deadly no-man’s-land.
It seemed too far to sneak across, especially because of—
“There!” Christopher pointed to the strobe of airplane lights in the dark sky. “Namibian Air Force spotter. Each night the guerrillas do what we are doing, only in reverse. They use the cover of darkness to sneak into South Africa, where they have supporters here that provide supplies and ammunition.”
Tucker watched the plane drone along the border until it finally faded into the darkness. “How many are there? How often do they pass?”
“Many. About every ten minutes.”
It didn’t seem possible to cross that open ground in such a short time.
“And what happens when they catch you crossing?” Tucker asked.
“The spotter planes are equipped with door-mounted Chinese miniguns. Capable of firing six thousand rounds per minute. The Namibian Air Force averages three kills a night along the long border. When we go across, you will see the wreckage of many trucks whose drivers timed their run poorly.”
“Here’s hoping our timing is better,” Tucker said.
“Tonight, timing does not matter. We just need to find a rabbit.” Upon that cryptic note, Christopher rolled to his feet. “We must be ready and in position.”
But ready for what?
Back behind the wheel, Christopher set out with the Rover’s headlights doused. Milky moonlight bathed the dunes and kopjes. Farther out, the Groot Karas Mountains appeared as a black smudge against the night sky.
Christopher kept the Rover to a pace no faster than a brisk walk, lest the tires create a dust wake. Christopher steered the Rover into a narrow trough between a pair of dunes, keeping mostly hidden. After a mile, they emerged beside a line of scrub-covered kopjes.
Crawling forward, Christopher drove alongside the row of hillocks until they ended. He then parked in the shelter of the last kopje, camouflaged against its rocky flank.
Only open flat ground lay ahead.
“Now we wait,” Christopher said.
“For what?” Tucker asked.
“For a rabbit to run.”
8:22 P.M.
Tucker held the binoculars fixed to his face. He had switched places with Anya, taking the passenger seat, so that he had a sweeping view of the open land ahead. Through the scope, he picked out the blasted wreckage of unlucky smugglers and guerrillas. Most were half buried in the roll of the windswept dunes.
Then off to the northwest, he caught a wink in the distance.
He stiffened. “Movement,” he whispered.
Christopher leaned next to him, also using binoculars. “What do you see?”
“Just a glint of something—moonlight on glass, maybe.”
They waited tensely. Christopher had finally revealed his plan a few minutes ago. Tucker no longer believed the young man had held off telling him as some sort of insurance plan against being abandoned. He had kept silent because his plan was pure insanity.
But they were committed now.
No turning back.
“I see it,” Christopher said. “It is definitely a vehicle—a pickup truck. And he’s gaining speed. Here, Tucker, this is our rabbit.”
Run, little rabbit, run . . .
Through his binoculars, Tucker watched the pickup careen at breakneck speeds, heading toward South Africa. No wonder Christopher had picked an area regularly frequented by guerrillas. For his plan to work, they needed traffic.
Illegal traffic, in this case.
“If the spotters are in the area,” Christopher warned, “it won’t be long now.”
The rebel truck continued to sprint, trying to reach the highway on the South African side. Tucker no longer needed his binoculars to track its zigzagging race through the dunes.
It had covered a mile when Christopher whispered, “There, to the south!”
Lights blinked in the sky. A Namibian spotter plane streaked like a hunting hawk across the foothills on the far side, going after the fleeing rabbit. It dove, picking up speed, drawn by the truck’s dust plume. Soon the plane was flying seventy yards off the desert floor. On its current course, it would sweep past their kopje, where they hid.
“Time to get ready,” Christopher whispered. “Buckle up and hold on.”
“This is madness!” Bukolov barked.
“Be quiet, Abram!” Anya ordered.
“Any moment now . . .” Tucker mumbled.
Suddenly the plane streaked past their position and was gone.
Christopher shifted into gear and slammed the accelerator. The Rover lurched forward and began bumping over the terrain.
“Tucker, keep a close eye on that plane. If they finish off that other truck too quickly, we might still draw the spotter’s attention.”
“Got it.” He twisted around in his seat, climbed out the open passenger window, and rested his butt on the sill. With one hand clutching the roof rack, Tucker watched the pickup truck’s progress.
“Doesn’t look like he’s going to make it!” he called out.
“They rarely do! Hold on tight!”
The Rover picked up speed, slewing around obstacles, bouncing over rock outcroppings, and dipping into dune troughs. The cooling desert wind whipped through Tucker’s hair. His heart pounded with the exhilaration.
“How far to the border now?” he shouted.
“One mile. Ninety seconds.”
Tucker watched the plane suddenly bank right, running parallel now to the racing truck.
“Almost there!” Christopher called.
Fire arched from the plane’s doorway and streamed toward the truck. The aircraft’s minigun poured a hundred rounds per second into its target, tearing the vehicle apart in an incendiary display that lit the black desert.
The engagement quickly ended.
Smoke and flames swirled from the wreckage.
Above, the plane banked in a circle over the ruins. As it turned, their dust trail would surely be spotted.
“He’s coming about,” Tucker called.
He turned forward to see a waist-high stone cairn flash by the right bumper of the Rover. Any closer and it would have knocked Tucker from his perch.
“Border marker!” Christopher called. “We’re across! Welcome to Namibia!”
Tucker ducked back inside and buckled up.
From the backseat, Kane crowded forward and licked his face.
“Are we safe?” Anya asked.
“We’re in Namibia,” Christopher replied. “So no.”
Bukolov leaned forward, red-faced and apoplectic. “For God’s sake! Are you two trying to get me killed? Actually trying?”
Tucker glanced back. “No, Doctor, but the day’s not over yet.”
33
March 20, 10:11 P.M.
Borderlands of Namibia
“Should be just over that next dune,” Tucker said.
He had a map on his lap and his GPS unit in hand.
“What are we looking for?” Anya asked, leaning forward between the two front seats, careful of her cast.
After their flight across the border, Christopher kept the Rover at a cautious pace, proceeding overland, using the terrain to cover as much of their movement as possible.
“There should be a paved road,” Tuck
er replied. “One heading west into the mountains.”
“Is that wise?” she asked. “Won’t there be traffic?”
“Perhaps, but a vehicle with South African plates in Namibia isn’t unusual. As long as we don’t attract attention to ourselves, the odds are in our favor.”
Christopher glanced over to her. “And on the road, we’re less likely to encounter guerrillas or bandits.”
“That is, until we reach the mountain trails,” Tucker added. “Once we’re off the paved roads and climbing into the badlands, then all bets are off.”
With his headlamps still dowsed, Christopher picked his way over the last of the dunes. A blacktop road appeared ahead, cutting straight across the sands. They waited a minute, making sure no traffic was in sight, then bumped over the shoulder and out onto the smooth pavement.
Christopher flipped on his lights and headed west.
Despite its remote location, the road was well maintained and well marked but completely devoid of traffic. For the next twenty-five miles, as the road wound higher into the mountain’s foothills, they saw not a single vehicle, person, or sign of civilization.
The road finally ended at a T-junction. Christopher brought the Rover to a stop. In the backseat, Bukolov was snoring loudly. Anya had also fallen asleep, curled in the fetal position against the door.
“She is lovely,” Christopher said. “Is she your woman?”
“No.”
“I see. But you fancy each other, yes?”
Tucker rolled his eyes. “It’s complicated. Mind your business.”
Still, he considered Christopher’s words. Anya certainly was attractive, but he hadn’t given much thought to any sort of relationship with her. She would need a friend once she reached America, and he would be that for her, but beyond that . . . only time would tell. He felt pity for her, felt protective of her, but those feelings might not be the healthiest way to start a romance. And, more important, this was the wrong place and time to think about any of it.
Especially in guerrilla-infested Namibia.
Tucker checked their GPS coordinates against the map. “We’re on track,” he said. “We should turn right here, go a quarter mile, then turn northwest onto a dirt trail.”
“And then how far to our destination?”
Kill Switch (9780062135285) Page 26