by Chris Ryan
Hex shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But one thing’s for sure. We’re buried.’
THIRTEEN
‘I don’t understand it.’ Amber stared down at her GPS unit, then up at the empty space in front of the dune. ‘This is supposed to be accurate to within fifty metres. They should be here. The wadi should be here and they should be parked in it. But there’s nothing!’
Alex pulled his headcloth away from his face and stood up on his quad to get a better view. The sun was only just over the horizon and it was difficult to tell the difference between substance and shadow. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he looked around. He could not quite believe what was happening. Li had been taken away in the Scorpion’s Unimog while he and Amber had been pinned down all night in a ferocious sandstorm – and now Paulo and Hex had disappeared too. The situation just kept on getting worse.
Alex shook his head, then turned his quad and raced along the edge of the dune base, looking for tyre tracks. He rounded a curve in the side of the dune and a chasm opened up in front of him. With a curse, Alex swung the quad hard to the right, leaning into the turn with all his might. His rear left wheel skidded over the edge of the wadi and the quad started to tip. He found some extra power in the motor and forced the quad away from the edge. He came to a halt well away from the dune and scrambled from the machine.
By the time Amber caught up with him, Alex was standing on the bank at the place where he had nearly lost control of his quad. ‘Look at this!’ he called to her as she climbed from her machine and hurried over. ‘I don’t understand it. Here’s the wadi at the base of the dune, but it stops dead, right there, as though it ran into a wall.’
‘Or the other way round,’ said Amber softly, staring wide-eyed at the section of dune they had just skirted.
‘What?’
‘I think I know where they are, Alex,’ said Amber, her voice high with fear.
‘Where?’ asked Alex.
Amber pointed at the new curve in the dune. ‘Under there.’
They raced back to their original position and turned off the quad engines. ‘This is it,’ said Amber, studying the screen of her GPS unit. ‘This is where we left them last night.’
‘Listen!’ said Alex. ‘Did you hear that?’
They both stood stock still, holding their breath. Very faintly, from the slope directly ahead of them, came the sound of a truck horn. They threw themselves at the slope and started digging feverishly, scooping the sand out with their bare hands and sending it arcing back between their legs. The horn sounded again, louder this time, and they threw themselves into the digging with renewed effort.
‘Got something,’ panted Amber as her hand connected with metal. She brushed the sand away and revealed part of the roof of the Unimog cab. Quickly they found the edge of the roof then cleared the sand away from the side window. It was partly open, but the opening was blocked with sand. Alex knocked the sand away and peered inside. It was still too dark in the cab to see anything but there was no mistaking the sour air that sighed into his face.
‘Quick!’ he yelled, returning to clearing the sand from the cab door. ‘They’re out of oxygen!’
They dug until their muscles were screaming, and finally there was enough space to force the door open. Sand poured out of the cab but there was no other movement in the dim interior. Paulo was slumped to one side, clutching the tracker unit to this chest. His face was grey and there was a blue tinge to his lips. Hex was resting against the steering wheel, his head turned towards them. His eyes were closed.
‘Are we too late?’ quavered Amber.
Just then, Hex’s eyelids fluttered open. His green eyes tried to focus, then rolled back in his head. He reached up to the steering wheel and pressed the horn lever. The horn blared out and Hex gave a small nod of satisfaction before his eyes fluttered shut again. He must have been sending this signal in his semi-conscious state for hours.
‘We’re here, you idiot,’ said Amber in a voice choked with tears. ‘Enough of the signalling!’
Together, Amber and Alex dragged Paulo and Hex from the cab. Once they were out in the fresh air, the two boys recovered quickly and soon Paulo was sitting up, still clutching the tracker unit and looking around groggily. Hex stumbled to his feet, leaned over and vomited into the sand.
‘You took your time,’ he gasped, when he could talk again.
‘Yeah, well, we would’ve found you sooner if you hadn’t decided to play go seek,’ retorted Amber, handing him the container of water from her quad pannier.
Paulo’s eyes suddenly became sharp and focused. He looked down at the tracker device, then up to Amber and Alex. ‘Li?’ he croaked.
‘She’s with the Scorpion,’ said Alex. ‘She’s under cover, pretending to be a boy called Liang.’
‘And you let her go?’ said Paulo softly, staring at Alex.
‘Yes,’ muttered Alex, gazing down at his boots.
Paulo surged to his feet and aimed a punch at Alex’s face. His big fist landed squarely enough but he was still too weak to put any power behind it. Alex fell backwards on to the sand with his cheekbone smarting but still intact. He clambered to his feet again but did not retaliate. Part of him felt he had deserved the punch.
‘You let her go?’ repeated Paulo, staggering as he prepared to punch Alex again.
‘Stop it, you big idiot!’ yelled Amber, putting herself between Paulo and Alex. ‘It’s not Alex’s fault. You know what Li’s like. Once she gets an idea into her head, no-one can stop her.’
For a few seconds Paulo glared at Alex over Amber’s shoulder, then the fire left his eyes and he nodded slowly, acknowledging the truth of what she was saying. He stumbled and would have fallen hard if Alex had not caught him. Gently, Alex lowered Paulo to the sand, where he sat with his head down, cradling the tracker unit to his chest.
‘She’s wearing her tracker device,’ said Alex. ‘She wanted us to track her to the Scorpion’s headquarters, then bring in the authorities.’
‘It was a good plan,’ mumbled Paulo.
‘Still is,’ said Hex briskly. ‘They must’ve been caught in the storm too, so they can’t be that far ahead, and we know they’re heading north. We can catch up with them.’
While Paulo and Hex recovered from their near-suffocation, Alex and Amber dug around the buried Unimog. There was no sign of Hex’s palmtop, which meant they had no way of communicating with the outside world, but they did manage to retrieve two jerry cans of fuel and two girbas of water that had not burst under the weight of the sand. The quads’ fuel tanks were nearly full and there were bottles of water in the panniers, but they did not know how long they would be following the slavers: they would be no good at all to Li if they ran out of water or fuel in the middle of nowhere.
As well as water bottles, the quad panniers each held a first aid kit, high-energy emergency food rations, a pair of night-vision goggles and two pairs of pigskin gloves and ski goggles. When Paulo and Hex had recovered enough to travel, they all pulled on a pair of the gloves, wrapped the headcloths tightly around their necks and faces and fitted the ski goggles over their eyes. This was essential wear for daytime quad travel through the desert. The strong sun and drying wind meant they had to be completely covered from head to foot to protect against dehydration; even then they would have to stop every hour to drink.
Alex sat astride one quad, with Hex behind him, holding the tracker unit. Paulo took the other quad and Amber clambered on behind. Paulo had rigged some webbing to carry the extra jerry cans of fuel and Hex and Amber each had a girba hanging at their backs.
‘Ready?’ called Alex, over the revving of the quad engines.
Amber leaned over Paulo’s shoulder to make sure the GPS unit on the quad’s handlebars was set, then she gave a thumbs-up signal to Alex and thumped Paulo on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go get Li!’ she yelled.
Paulo set a fast pace and the two quads cut through the desert side by side as the sun rose in the sky. They travelled nor
th all through the morning, only stopping for water breaks or for Amber to input waymarks into her GPS unit. Every time they stopped, Paulo looked over at Hex and Hex shook his head. The tracker screen remained depressingly blank and Paulo’s face grew more and more grim.
‘Are you sure it is working?’ he asked at their fifth water halt.
‘Yes,’ sighed Hex, trying to remain patient. He pointed to the cluster of four green dots in the centre of the screen. ‘It’s picking up our tracker signals,’ he said, looking up at Paulo. ‘That means it’s working.’
Paulo’s shoulders slumped and he turned away, heading back to his quad. Hex turned back to the screen. He became very still, staring intently at the tracker unit. A small green dot had appeared, right at the top of the screen.
‘There she is,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve found Li.’
Alex took over the lead, responding to Hex’s shouted directions. Li’s tracker dot was not moving, so the gap was closing quickly when Paulo suddenly pointed ahead and shouted.
‘Tracks! I see tyre tracks!’
They brought the quads to a halt and Alex climbed down to study the tracks. ‘They’re heading north, just as we thought,’ he said, straightening up. ‘That’s their Unimog all right.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Amber.
‘I followed these tracks for most of yesterday,’ said Alex. ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘She’s still not moving,’ said Hex, staring at the screen.
‘They must have stopped for food, or something,’ said Amber.
‘But where?’ muttered Paulo, gazing across the stony, flat plain which stretched ahead of them with barely a dip in the ground. ‘According to this, she’s less than a kilometre away. We should be able to see the Unimog.’
They looked at one another uneasily.
‘There’s a small rise ahead – look at the rocks over there,’ said Amber.
‘Yes, but that’s not high enough to hide a Unimog,’ pointed out Alex.
‘It’s about a kilometre away,’ said Hex, looking from the screen to the rocky rise. ‘And it’s in the right direction . . .’
‘Come on,’ said Paulo, running for his quad.
As they drew closer, Paulo shook his head in puzzlement. The rise was little more than a pimple on the face of the plain. Even the quads would have trouble hiding behind it, but the Unimog tracks were heading straight for it. He looked over to Hex to see whether Li’s signal had moved on. Hex shook his head and pointed to the rise.
‘They definitely stopped here,’ said Alex, as the quads pulled up next to the rise. ‘See all the footprints around the tyre tracks?’ He picked up a discarded jerry can and sniffed at the open top. ‘They refuelled, then carried on north,’ he finished, pointing out the tracks heading away from the rise.
‘So why is Li’s tracker signal still here?’ asked Hex, staring at the screen.
‘Guys?’ called Amber. ‘Come look at this.’
As they drew closer to Amber, they could all see the dread on her face. Paulo felt a cold hand trace a path all the way down his back as he saw what Amber was holding out to them. It was a small rock. One side of the rock was smeared with blood and hair.
‘Dios,’ he breathed, looking around wildly. A few metres away the sand was churned up, as though there had been a struggle there. Paulo hurried over and stopped, staring down at the ground. A strange track led away from the churned-up area. There was a central rut, with deep holes and gouges in the ground alongside it. On the other side, gouts and splashes of something had spilled on to the ground, forming a sticky, brown crust.
Paulo leaned closer and caught the unmistakable smell of blood. Horrified, he pulled back and looked at the others, suddenly realizing what the odd tracks meant. ‘Someone dragged themselves away from here,’ he said. ‘They were bleeding. Lots of blood.’
They all turned and looked up to where the dragging tracks disappeared over the top of the low rise. Amber swallowed and her throat clicked loudly in the silence.
‘Li’s signal?’ she asked.
Hex held out the tracker unit. The dot marking Li’s position was still in the centre of the screen, alongside the other four dots. ‘She must be over the rise,’ he said.
Alpha Force looked at one another, then started up the slope, following the splashes of blood.
FOURTEEN
Li struggled to stay awake. Her eyes and throat felt as though they were full of needles and all her muscles ached. She had not slept all night. Less than fifteen minutes after she had left the village in the back of the Scorpion’s Unimog, the sandstorm overtook them. Within seconds, visibility was down to a few metres and the big vehicle had shuddered to a halt. The Scorpion had taken his dog into the cab with him, leaving the children to huddle together in the back of the truck.
All night the wind had howled, shaking the truck bed and making the canvas cover yank against the cords that secured it to the base. Sand blasted into the dim interior through every gap and hole in the canvas and soon the air was thick with dust. Pulling their headcloths tightly across their noses, they had formed a huddle on the stinking floor of the truck, with the younger ones in the middle, and waited for the storm to end.
The storm had raged until dawn, by which time they were all exhausted, but the Scorpion had only allowed them a hurried water break before herding them all back into the truck and continuing the journey. They had been driving for hours now. Jumoke was so exhausted she was sleeping with her head against Khalid’s chest despite the relentless rocking and jolting in the back of the Unimog. Khalid was supporting her with one arm and holding on to the bench with the other. Samir was asleep too, resting against Hakim, but everyone else was awake, concentrating on clinging on to the benches and trying to ignore their thirst.
Suddenly the engine spluttered and died and the Unimog coasted to a halt. The cab doors slammed and Li could hear the Scorpion shouting at his men outside the truck. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her head was ringing and her tired brain was having trouble understanding. It took her a few seconds to realize he was talking in Arabic.
‘What’s he saying?’ she asked Khalid in French.
‘He says they cannot afford any more delays,’ replied Khalid. ‘He says they must get there tonight. The auction is tomorrow and he has buyers coming from all over Morocco.’
‘Auction?’ said Juma. ‘What do you mean, auction?’
Li sighed. She had decided to keep quiet about their situation until they had reached their destination and Alpha Force had given her some sort of signal. There was no point in distressing the younger ones until she was sure that rescue was at hand. Now it seemed she had no choice. She looked Juma in the eye. ‘A slave auction. He is going to sell us, Juma. Sell us as slaves.’
‘No!’ Juma shook his head fiercely. ‘Our fathers told us we would become apprentices and learn a trade.’
The other boys nodded and Juma glared at Li, but she could see that, behind his denials, he knew the truth. He just did not want to admit it.
‘We will learn a trade and send money back to our families in Nigeria,’ said Juma, folding his arms. ‘That was the agreement.’
‘We are to be given positions with rich families,’ said Sisi.
‘And we shall be sent to school in return for a little housework,’ added Kesia.
Li looked at the two girls and saw that they too were clinging on to the promises the Scorpion had made to their parents, rather than face up to the truth.
‘I shall earn a lot of money in Morocco, braiding hair for the tourists,’ said Jumoke, sitting up and rubbing her sore eyes.
Li smiled at the little girl. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that she would probably be sold to a street trader, who would take all the money she made.
Li turned to look at Hakim. His face was haggard as he stared at her and his arm tightened around the sleeping Samir. Hakim knew she was telling the truth. He spoke Arabic and he had heard the Scorpion shouting at h
is men.
‘Don’t worry, Hakim,’ she said. ‘I have a plan. When we get to the auction house, we will escape.’
Hakim shook his head. ‘I must go back to warn my father now, while my village is still only a day’s walk away.’
‘It is too risky, Hakim! They have guns – and there is nowhere to hide out there!’
Hakim turned and peered out through a split in the canvas. ‘There is a small rise,’ he said, turning back to Li. ‘If I can get behind it without them seeing me, I can hide there until the truck leaves. But . . .’ Hakim hesitated, looking down at his sleeping brother. ‘I must leave Samir here. He is too young to make the journey. Will you look after him until I come back with the men from the village?’
‘Of course I will. But I don’t think you should try it, Hakim!’ hissed Li. ‘Wait until we get to the auction house. It’s too dangerous out here!’
Just then, the canvas flaps at the back of the truck were wrenched open. One of the Scorpion’s men flung a half-empty girba into the back of the truck, then pushed Li’s legs out of the way and yanked a jerry can of fuel out from under the bench. He started to lace the canvas flaps together again, but a shout from the Scorpion made him jump to carry the jerry can round to the front. He left the last part of the canvas flaps untied.
Li caught Hakim’s eye and shook her head, but she could see it was useless. He was determined to go. Wordlessly, Li pulled the plug from the neck of the girba and passed it to him. He took a long drink, then woke Samir and handed him the waterskin. While his brother was occupied with quenching his thirst, Hakim took a deep breath and slipped out under the canvas flaps.
Li crouched on the floor, watching through the little gap in the canvas and willing Hakim on. He landed softly and turned to check that the three slavers were still occupied at the front of the vehicle. Satisfied, he began to sprint away towards the rise, but the dog sprang out from under the truck after him.
Li’s heart clenched but she dared not call out in case she alerted the men at the front of the truck. As she watched, Hakim turned to face the dog just as it leaped for him. It knocked him to the ground and stood over him, snarling. Hakim scrabbled in the stony dirt until he found a fist-sized rock. He gripped the rock tightly and swung it at the dog, clubbing it on the side of the head as hard as he could. The dog yelped and fell on to its side, twitching and bleeding.