by Chris Ryan
The soldiers had just reached the observation platform when the mine exploded. They ducked instinctively. One flung himself down on to the platform, then climbed to his feet again a couple of seconds later, grinning shamefacedly. They looked for the cause of the explosion and spotted the three vultures, climbing into the sky in a panic of flapping wings. Satisfied, the soldiers turned away and headed back to the shelter of their jeep, hooking their cigarettes from their shirt pockets as they went. This was a routine patrol in a quiet area and they did not intend to stand out in the desert sun for long. None of them had spotted the bodies of the two boys lying out on the minefield, half-hidden by razor wire and churned-up earth.
Paulo staggered to his feet at the bottom of the western slope as sand and small stones rained down all around him. His ears were ringing painfully but, to his surprise, he seemed to be all in one piece. Dizzily, he looked over at the quads. The others were mounted and ready to go. They were waving him on and their mouths were moving as they yelled encouragement, but he could not hear a thing. Paulo headed for the nearest quad at a stumbling run and climbed on behind Hex.
‘Let’s get out of here!’ called Alex.
The three quads blasted out from under the camouflage awnings and headed off at high speed with their trailers bouncing crazily. Three minutes later they rounded the shoulder of another dune and disappeared from sight, leaving nothing but a trail of settling dust behind them.
SIX
In the early dawn light the huge, dusty refugee camp sprawled in the middle of a plain of dark, featureless sand. The only splash of colour came from the black, white, green and red flags that fluttered from the tent masts, and the only sound was the snap of canvas in the fierce, gusting wind. Alpha Force grinned at one another as they headed across the plain towards the camp. It might look bleak but it was a welcome sight. The previous day, once they were sure they had not been followed by the Moroccan soldiers, they had waited for the cool of the night before travelling back to the camp. Now they were tired and hungry and looking forward to a wash and a change of clothes.
As they reached the outskirts of the camp, the packed-earth roads between the tents and mud-brick huts were empty, but the whine of their quad engines brought heads popping from doorways and children tumbling out into the dust. Soon their arrival had turned into a noisy procession and they had to slow the quads to a careful crawl to avoid squashing small children under their wheels.
Khalid climbed down from the back of Alex’s quad and walked along, waving and smiling like a returning hero. The camp was divided into six villages, or darias, and this was his home daria. He was well known and loved here, and nobody noticed his scarred face. The sad fact was that Khalid was not unusual. There were plenty of other Sahawaris with landmine injuries. The smaller children especially loved Khalid. They were clustered around him now, hanging from his arms and clinging to his gandourah. Khalid bore it all with a broad grin on his face.
Minutes later, they arrived in the main square at the centre of the daria. In the middle was the all-important water cistern, which supplied the whole daria; around the edge a row of low, mud-brick buildings housed a primary school, a crèche, a dispensary and a hospital. As Alpha Force turned off their engines and climbed tiredly from the quads, the hospital doors flew open and Philippe Larousse hurried out, closely followed by a tall black man in western clothes who was checking them over for injuries before he was even out of the doorway. This was John Middleton, Amber’s uncle, who acted as a financier, organizer and anchor man for Alpha Force, as he had done for Amber’s parents before they were killed.
‘Hi,’ said Amber, smiling at his anxious face. ‘Don’t worry, Uncle. We’re all back in one piece.’
‘No problems, then?’ asked Jack Middleton, looking from Amber to Paulo, who was standing next to her.
‘What?’ shouted Paulo.
‘I said, did you have any problems?’
‘What?’ shouted Paulo again.
‘Is he OK?’ asked John Middleton, giving Amber a questioning look.
‘Wha-?’ Paulo’s third shout ended abruptly in a grunt as Amber dug her elbow into his ribs.
‘Sand in his ears, probably,’ Amber lied. She knew that Paulo was still suffering from the after-effects of the landmine explosion, but she had no intention of telling her uncle about that particular incident. When they had all first come up with the idea of forming Alpha Force, John Middleton had been very reluctant to agree to it and she did not want to give him any reason to change his mind.
Just then a tall, imposing Sahawari woman walked into the square. Her brightly coloured malaafa robe covered most of her head and body, but her dark eyes, her straight back, even the way she moved, were all full of a quiet authority. She was the head of the daria and everyone, even the chattering toddlers, grew silent as she approached. Beside her walked the parents of the two dead Sahawari boys, their faces marked with sorrow. Trailing sullenly behind were the three surviving boys from the ill-fated mine-collecting trip. They obviously did not want to be there, but lacked the courage to openly defy the head of the daria.
Philippe Larousse gave her a respectful nod, then turned to Alpha Force. ‘Do you have the footage?’ he asked.
Hex retrieved the DV tape cassette from his palmtop pouch and Alex pulled the camcorder case from his quad trailer. Philippe took the tape and the case, then walked back into the mud-brick hospital building, with the head of the daria at his side and the sad little group of Sahawaris following behind.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Amber.
‘We wait,’ said Hex with just a hint of impatience. He could have sent the footage from the minefield almost as soon as he had filmed it – the digital camcorder had fire-wire technology which allowed him to download the images on to his palmtop and then send them to every major news station in the world – but Philippe had insisted that the boys’ parents must be the first to see the footage. Only when the parents gave their permission could it be shown to the rest of the world.
Alpha Force waited silently in the square, watching the closed hospital doors and imagining what the parents of the boys must be going through. Hex busied himself connecting his palmtop to the Net and retrieving his file of the unlisted e-mail addresses of most of the top news programme editors. He smiled as he scanned the list. That had been a worthwhile few hours of hacking.
Hex looked up as the hospital doors creaked open. Philippe, the head of the daria and the three boys came out, their faces etched with the horror of what they had just seen. The parents remained inside. Philippe walked over to Hex and handed him the camcorder.
‘They say yes,’ he said gruffly.
The Sahawaris gathered around Hex as he sent the footage off to the news stations. When he had finished, he closed the lid of the palmtop and looked at the head of the daria. ‘That’s done,’ he said.
She nodded to show she understood, then looked each of them in the eye, finishing with a special smile for Khalid. Khalid proudly straightened his shoulders and stood as tall as he could.
‘I thank you,’ said the head of the daria, in heavily accented English. ‘We thank you.’
SEVEN
Paulo woke in the musty heat of the tent. He thought he had heard the musical sound of water trickling into a metal bowl, but the tent was silent now. He swallowed dryly, licked his cracked lips and decided that his thirst must have made him dream of water. Lifting his arm to his face, he peered at his watch in the dim light. It was early evening and he had slept the day away. Beside him, Hex and Alex were still deeply asleep on their camp beds.
Paulo closed his eyes and eased over on to his back with a groan. Every muscle in his body was aching fiercely, but his ears were just about back to normal. He could hear children shouting somewhere in the camp, and inside the tent there was the faintest rustle of cloth and the sound of – stifled giggles . . . ?
He opened his eyes. Li was standing over him with a brass bowl suspended above his head. She grinned at
him, then tipped the bowl a little further and a shock of water cascaded down on to his face. Paulo sat up with a yell, shaking his head like a dog and sending sprays of water flying from his dark, curly hair. In the other camp beds, Alex and Hex lurched upright with identical yells as Amber doled out the same treatment.
‘C’mon sleepy-heads,’ she crowed. ‘This is your wake-up call. It’s time to rock and roll. Meet you at the Monster.’
Paulo, Hex and Alex used what was left of the water in the jug to wash themselves, then pulled on the freshly laundered gandourah and sirwal that had been laid out at the bottom of their camp beds. Finally, they pulled on their boots, automatically giving them a shake first to dislodge any scorpions.
Amber, Li and Khalid were waiting for them in a vehicle compound, next to the landing strip that served the camp. The strip was where the big-bellied aid agency planes landed, bringing bags of flour, sugar and lentils for the camp dwellers. The food supplies were loaded into the dusty old lorries in the compound and then distributed amongst the darias.
Paulo smiled fondly when he saw the huge, battered vehicle that Amber, Li and Khalid were leaning against. This was what Amber had nicknamed the Monster. It was an old, flat-bed Unimog, with a six-seater, double-crew cab. Paulo had spotted it in the compound when Alpha Force had first flown in on one of the aid agency planes and he had instantly fallen in love with it. Alpha Force were planning a few days of camping and dune driving after they had completed their mission and Paulo had decided that the Unimog was just what they needed for their trip. He had pestered John Middleton until he had agreed to hire it for them.
‘There she is,’ crooned Paulo, hurrying over to the Unimog. ‘Isn’t she a beauty?’
‘If you say so,’ said Li, rolling her eyes.
‘The ideal desert vehicle,’ continued Paulo. ‘Look at the ground clearance – we will not get bogged down in soft sand in this. And we can drive over rocks with no worries about cracking the sump.’
‘Yeah, right. Sump-cracking. That was number one on my worries list,’ said Amber.
‘Mine too!’ continued Paulo, completely missing the sarcasm. ‘And she has been converted to diesel, so she is lighter on fuel. Coil-sprung suspension,’ he added, patting one of the Unimog’s huge wheels. ‘Eight gears, tough transmission. She is the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.’
‘Paulo,’ sighed Hex, ‘we’re here to load the thing, not to have sex with it.’
‘And if we’re planning to leave at dawn, we need to get a move on,’ added Alex.
‘Sorry,’ grinned Paulo. ‘Let us load.’
Three hours later they had just about finished. Two quads were in place and secure on the Unimog’s flat bed, their tents and camping equipment were stored on the rack above the cab and jerry cans of fuel were stacked in the space behind it. The sides of the flat bed were hung with sand ladders, shovels and ten goatskin girbas, each full of water. The girbas were shaped like fat bananas, and they were hung by the cord that tied the two ends closed. This was the traditional way of carrying water in the desert. Water evaporated through the goatskin, acting as a cooling device to stop the water inside heating up.
‘Is it going to cope with this load?’ asked Hex, eyeing the battered Unimog doubtfully.
‘Of course she will,’ insisted Paulo. ‘Let me tell you about her engine—’
‘No, please,’ begged Li, clapping her hands over her ears. ‘I can’t take any more!’
Paulo folded his arms and grinned at her, then his grin faded as he spotted an open-topped jeep speeding towards them across the compound. The front-seat passenger in the jeep was Amber’s uncle, and his expression was grim.
‘What? What’s wrong?’ demanded Amber, as the jeep pulled up.
‘Bad news,’ said John Middleton. ‘We’ve been monitoring all the news channels and, well . . .’
‘Well what?’
‘Nobody’s picked up on the footage.’
‘Nobody?’ asked Hex, after a shocked silence.
‘Not one lousy news agency,’ sighed John Middleton. ‘I guess the guys here at the camp are right when they say they’re a forgotten crisis. The rest of the world doesn’t want to know.’
‘They are moving,’ called the jeep driver, pointing over to the transport plane that was taxiing across to the far end of the landing strip.
‘Gotta go,’ said John Middleton, heading back to the jeep. ‘That’s the last plane out tonight, and I’m hitching a lift.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To kick a few media asses. I have my contacts – and I’ve told the guys here that I’ll do my best to get that footage shown.’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Amber.
‘You go have your break. You deserve it.’
‘But shouldn’t we stay in the camp? Show our support?’
‘I think we’ve enjoyed their hospitality for long enough,’ said Alex.
The others nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. Sahawari hospitality was legendary, even in the refugee camp where everything was in short supply. Someone always kept the water jugs in their tents topped up, while the rest of the camp operated a system of rationing. There was no natural water supply there – a steady stream of tankers had to ferry water in to keep the cisterns full. Food was in short supply too. The aid agencies could only supply the basics and the Sahawaris supplemented this by keeping little herds of sheep, goats and camels on the edges of the camp. They had even managed the small miracle of creating vegetable gardens in the middle of the desert. These extras helped, but there was still not enough food to go round and Alpha Force had become increasingly uncomfortable with having plates full of vegetables and meat presented to them at every meal.
‘Alex is right,’ agreed John Middleton. ‘It’s time to leave. You go and enjoy your dune driving. I want you to listen to Khalid, though. He knows the safe areas and the places to avoid. Right, Khalid?’
Khalid nodded solemnly. He was acting as their guide on the trip and he took the responsibility very seriously. Parts of Algeria were very dangerous to foreigners. Some routes were plagued by bandits and there were fundamentalist groups operating in the north of the country that would not think twice about killing a group of westerners.
‘Is safe, where we go,’ said Khalid. ‘I promise.’
‘Good lad,’ smiled John Middleton. He kissed Amber goodbye and nodded to the rest of them. ‘Keep in touch,’ he said, pointing to the pouch where Hex kept his palmtop.
He gave a thumbs-up sign and climbed into the jeep. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he said, rummaging through his briefcase and pulling out a slim black box. ‘Since I’m not going to be around for a few days, you need to hand this tracker unit over to Philippe before you set off on your trip. That way he can find you if anything goes wrong. You are all wearing your trackers, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ sighed Amber, reaching up and stuffing the tracker device into the door pocket of the Unimog.
‘Let me see.’
Wordlessly, Alex, Paulo and Hex lifted their shirts and pointed to their belt buckles, while Amber and Li hooked out the lockets they were wearing around their necks. The buckles and the lockets all carried concealed tracker devices within them.
‘And you have your insulin? Your blood-sugar testing kit?’ continued John Middleton, looking at Amber.
‘Uncle! I may be a diabetic, but I’m all growed up. You don’t need to keep checking up on me!’
John Middleton merely raised his eyebrows and waited.
‘It’s all in here,’ sighed Amber, pointing to the pouch at her belt. ‘Wanna make sure my hands are clean, too?’ she added sweetly.
‘OK,’ grinned John Middleton. ‘I’ll get out of your hair.’
‘Let’s go see what’s happening in the square,’ said Amber, once they had waved the plane off. ‘You coming, Khalid?’
Khalid hesitated. ‘No, I stay here,’ he said, gesturing to the loaded Unimog. ‘I sleep here. Under. I guard.’
&nbs
p; ‘It’ll be safe here, Khalid,’ said Alex.
Khalid shrugged. ‘I stay.’
‘You’re just scared we might leave you behind,’ teased Li and Khalid gave her a broad smile.
‘Do you think he’ll be OK out here on his own?’ asked Amber as Alpha Force headed away towards the centre of the daria.
‘He won’t be on his own,’ said Hex as a tiny girl with a gap-toothed smile scurried into the compound and headed straight for Khalid. ‘He’ll have the munchkin for company.’
The others laughed and gave Khalid a casual wave before heading off into the camp. If they had known what was going to happen in the deserted compound that night, they would not have left his side.
EIGHT
‘There’s no sign of life,’ said Alex as they strolled back to the compound at dawn the next morning. ‘I would’ve thought he’d be up and raring to go by now.’
‘Khalid slept in!’ crowed Amber. ‘All that garbage about “I rise with the sun, always,” and he’s still snoring under the truck. What a fraud! Come on, you guys, let’s sneak up on him.’
‘He might not be there,’ said Paulo. ‘Maybe he has gone to get some breakfast.’
‘No.’ Li shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t risk leaving the Unimog even for a minute in case we left without him.’
‘That’s true,’ said Hex. ‘He wouldn’t.’ He came to a halt and frowned at the dark bulk of the Unimog. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said flatly.
The others stopped too and looked at one another uneasily. When Hex had a bad feeling about a situation, he was usually proved right and they had heard enough tales about bandits and fundamentalist groups to put them instantly on their guard. A loud, metallic crash made them all jump. It was coming from the far side of the Unimog.
‘Split up,’ whispered Alex, and Alpha Force melted away into the early dawn light. Paulo and Li dodged to the right, behind a stack of pallets, while Amber, Hex and Alex headed left, using a line of lorries for cover. The metallic crash came again and they all instinctively ducked to the ground. Seconds later they were up again, slipping between the rows of vehicles like shadows.