by Chris Ryan
Hakim staggered to his feet again and turned to run. There was a shout from the front of the truck but he kept going until two shots rang out, hitting the ground a metre ahead of him and blasting clouds of dirt into the air. Hakim stopped and turned, raising his hands. The Scorpion’s men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him back to the truck.
The Scorpion was hunched over his dog, which was lying still with its tongue hanging from the side of its mouth. He stroked the animal’s bony head and crooned to it, until it opened its eyes and staggered to its feet with a whine. As soon as the Scorpion was sure his dog was not going to die, he rose to his feet and turned to Hakim.
‘You could have killed him,’ said the Scorpion, switching to French. His voice was hoarse with fury. He back-handed Hakim twice across the face and his signet ring cut the boy’s mouth open. Hakim took the blows silently, then stared defiantly at the Scorpion, blood pouring down his chin.
‘You want to leave us?’ rasped the Scorpion. ‘Very well.’
Li gasped as the slaver pulled a wicked-looking, curved knife from the sheath at his belt. He stepped towards Hakim and his men turned the boy to give their boss a clearer target.
Li could not stand by any longer. She launched herself from the truck, landing a flying kick in the throat of the nearest man as she came down. He let go of Hakim, dropped his Kalashnikov and fell to the ground, clutching his windpipe. Li grabbed the weapon and rolled to her feet. Before the second man had time to react, she came up behind him and clubbed him on the back of the neck with the rifle butt.
Hakim took the chance to break free while the second man was still reeling from the blow. The man staggered and leaned on his Kalashnikov while he put a hand up to the back of his neck. Hakim lashed out with his foot and kicked the rifle away. Caught by surprise, the man fell and Hakim scurried to pick up the weapon.
Li grinned when she saw Hakim take possession of the second Kalashnikov. She was beginning to think they might just get out of this situation alive.
‘Keep them in your sights!’ she yelled, pointing to the two men on the ground. Hakim nodded, raising his Kalashnikov, and Li turned, ready to deal with the Scorpion. She froze, her eyes widening with horror at what she saw.
The Scorpion was standing at the back of the truck, holding a crying Samir in front of him. His curved knife was digging into the side of Samir’s throat and a thin trickle of blood was running down the boy’s neck.
‘Put down the weapons,’ said the Scorpion coldly.
Li felt the hope drain out of her. There was no way they could refuse. If they did, Samir would die. She looked over at Hakim. He was already laying the Kalashnikov on the ground, never taking his eyes off his little brother. Li sighed and did the same.
‘On your feet,’ barked the Scorpion to his men. Coughing and staggering, they picked themselves up, retrieved their weapons and trained them on Li and Hakim. Li narrowed her eyes, judging her chances if she used her fighting skills again, but the element of surprise had gone and the men were standing well back, out of range. Li relaxed and stood balanced, feet apart and arms by her sides, waiting for her next chance. She never got it.
Suddenly the Scorpion pushed Samir to the ground and sprang for Li. His knife flashed in the sun as he lunged for her face. Before she could move, the knife sliced past her ear, close enough for her to hear the swish of the blade. She winced, waiting for the pain to start, but there was nothing. The Scorpion stepped back and Li moved up on to the balls of her feet, to be ready for his next attack. He merely stood there, watching her with a cold smile.
Li was getting seriously freaked. What was he waiting for? His first lunge had missed: why didn’t he try again? A chill ran through her as she considered the possibility that the knife had injured her so seriously, she was experiencing no pain. Cautiously, Li raised her hand to her neck, expecting to feel the slick warmth of her own blood. All she found was whole, undamaged skin. She peered down at her hand, double-checking. When she looked up again, the Scorpion was holding something up for her to see. Dangling from his fingers was a twist of her long, silky black hair.
Li froze in shock. The tendril of hair must have come loose from her headcloth during the fight. Quickly, she tucked the rest of the escaped hair back under her headcloth, even though it was too late now. The Scorpion already knew she was a girl. He lunged forward again and, before Li could react, yanked the layered cloth from her head. Her long black hair came tumbling down over her shoulders, falling nearly to her waist. There was a gasp from the Scorpion’s men and from the children in the truck, who were all peering through holes and gaps in the canvas.
Still smiling coldly, the Scorpion stepped up to Li and, using the knife, pulled her gandourah open at the neck. He saw the bandage wrapped around her chest and his smile widened.
‘Your value has just increased,’ he said. ‘There will be many men interested in buying you tomorrow. A pretty, light-skinned girl is worth a lot more than a scrawny boy.’
The dog whimpered again from under the shade of the Unimog and the Scorpion’s expression hardened. ‘Get the others out here,’ he ordered his men. ‘I want them to see this.’
Once the rest of the children were gathered in a frightened huddle outside the truck, the Scorpion grabbed hold of Samir and pulled him away from his big brother. Hakim looked over at Li, wordlessly reminding her of her promise to look after Samir. She nodded and gathered up the little boy, holding his shaking body in the circle of her arms.
Satisfied, Hakim turned to face the Scorpion. The slaver back-handed him again, hard enough to make him fall to the ground. Then he bent down, grabbed Hakim’s right ankle and pulled his leg up into the air. Hakim’s baggy sirwal slid down and pooled at his hip, leaving his skinny leg exposed.
‘This is what we do to those who try to run away,’ said the Scorpion, looking at the other children.
His curved knife flashed again and Hakim gave an agonized scream as the blade cut deep into the back of his leg, just above the knee. It sliced through the two tendons behind the knee and Li heard the snap as they parted from the big muscles at the back of Hakim’s thigh. The muscles contracted, shrinking up towards the tendons that anchored them to his hip. The knife had sliced through a major artery and arcs of bright blood began to pump from the back of Hakim’s knee on to the Scorpion’s western jeans and checked shirt. He grimaced with distaste and stepped back, letting go of Hakim’s ankle. Hakim screamed again as his leg flopped to the ground.
‘Now, he cannot run,’ said the Scorpion, staring at the horrified faces of the other children. ‘Remember, you do not need the use of your legs to weave carpets.’
Quickly, Li shepherded Samir over to the group of children and handed him to Khalid, then she walked back towards Hakim, picking up her discarded headcloth on the way. She wanted to bind his leg for him and stop the worst of the bleeding. She wanted to do something, anything, to stop the high screams that were coming from his throat, but the Scorpion’s two henchmen stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop.
‘Get them back in the truck,’ ordered the Scorpion.
The men turned and bent towards Hakim.
‘Not him,’ said the Scorpion.
‘You can’t leave him here,’ protested Li.
‘He hurt my dog!’ snarled the Scorpion, his dark eyes flashing with anger again for an instant.
‘But you’ll lose money,’ said Li desperately. ‘Don’t you want to sell him? Like you said, he could still weave carpets.’
‘I won’t be able to sell this one,’ said the Scorpion, recovering his composure. ‘I cut too deep this time. He will bleed to death soon.’
The Scorpion turned his back on Hakim, dismissing him. Quickly Li reached inside her gandourah and pulled out the locket with the tracker device inside. She lifted the chain over her head, then held it clutched in her hand while she checked on the slavers. The Scorpion was squatting with his back to her, stroking his dog; the two henchmen were still hustling the other child
ren into the back of the truck.
Li took two sideways steps, then swiftly bent down and slipped the locket around Hakim’s neck. ‘My friends are following,’ she whispered. ‘They will find you.’
Hakim, deep in his pain, gave no sign of having heard her. He was whimpering now, writhing on the ground and clutching at his injured leg. Li gave his shoulder a squeeze and made herself step away. She did not want the men to find the locket and destroy Hakim’s only chance of being found. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she moved towards the truck.
Li clambered into the back to join the others. She sat down next to Samir and put her arm around his shoulders. He was too shocked to cry. He sat rigidly on the bench, shaking all over but making no noise at all. Li held him close as the Unimog started on its way again and she vowed to repay the Scorpion for this if it was the last thing she ever did.
FIFTEEN
They found the boy just beyond the rise, with Li’s tracker locket strung around his neck. He was lying on his back with his head pillowed on his arm and his eyes closed as though he had simply fallen asleep.
‘Are you sure?’ whispered Amber, staring at the peaceful face. ‘Check again, Paulo.’
Paulo pressed his fingers to the boy’s neck, feeling for a pulse. He kept his fingers in place for a long time, but there was not even the faintest flicker of life. ‘I am sure,’ said Paulo finally. ‘He is dead. He has been dead for a while.’
‘It’s the boy from the village,’ said Alex. ‘The older one of the two brothers.’
‘What killed him?’ asked Amber.
‘There’s blood everywhere,’ said Hex, staring down at the boy’s bloodstained clothes. ‘It’s hard to tell where it came from.’
Paulo looked over the body, noting that the bloodstains were most concentrated on the right leg of the boy’s sirwal. Gently he eased the boy on to his left side and pulled the blood-stiffened material away from the right leg until the gaping wound behind the knee was revealed.
‘What the hell happened there?’ gasped Hex.
‘They had a dog,’ said Amber faintly. ‘A big, ugly-looking mutt.’
Alex shook his head. ‘This isn’t a dog attack. The wound is too neat.’ He looked down at Paulo, who was still squatting by the body. ‘Knife?’ he asked.
Paulo nodded. ‘I, too, think it was done with a knife.’ He leaned forward to inspect the wound more closely, then shook his head. ‘The cut severed the hamstring tendons,’ he said, looking up at the others.
‘Why would someone do that?’ asked Amber, in a quavering voice.
‘To stop him from running away,’ said Hex grimly. ‘It’s one of the Scorpion’s trademarks.’
‘He was carrying a knife,’ said Alex, remembering the hand-tooled leather sheath he had seen on the Scorpion’s belt.
‘The cut also severed a major artery,’ continued Paulo. ‘That is what killed this boy. He bled to death. Li did her best to save him by guiding us here with the tracker, but there was no real chance for him. No chance at all.’
They scraped out a bed for the boy in the hard ground and laid him in it, covering his face with his headcloth. Then they built a low cairn of rocks and stones over him, to mark his position and protect the body from scavengers. They left the tracker device around his neck, so that he could be found later and given a proper funeral.
‘Someone should say something,’ said Amber as they stood around the finished cairn.
There was an awkward silence. They did not know this boy’s name, or which god they should talk to on his behalf, and their sadness at his death was mixed with a guilty relief that it was not Li under the stones.
Finally, Paulo sat down beside the cairn and began to speak, not to any god, but straight to the boy. He kept it simple, as though they were friends sitting side by side, passing the time on a lazy summer’s day.
‘It is a good place here, behind the rise. You have found the only shade on the whole plain. The sky is blue. The wind smells fresh and sweet after the storm. There is a sandstone bluff to the north and your village lies to the south, not too far away. Not too far at all. You will be fine, resting here in this good place for a while. When we have found your little brother, we will come back for you and take you home, I promise. We will bring you both home.’
Paulo rose to his feet again and looked around at the others. ‘Will that do?’ he asked, slightly unnerved by the silence.
Amber stepped forward, went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.
‘It was OK,’ said Hex, clearing his throat.
‘Come on,’ said Alex gruffly, keeping his head down. ‘Let’s move out. We have promises to keep.’
Alpha Force travelled on through the growing heat of the day, following the Unimog tracks. Sitting astride the quads with only their desert clothes to protect them against the soaring temperatures and drying wind, they were risking severe dehydration, but they had to catch up with Li. Now that she no longer had the tracker device, there was a real chance that she would disappear into slavery before they could find her. Once she was sold, Li would be very hard to trace and her future would not be pleasant. She could become a prisoner in a back-street hovel, weaving carpets in bad light until her eyes gave out and her lungs became clogged with the fibre-filled air. She might end up as an unpaid servant in a private household or be forced to work in the sex industry. The thought of Li having to suffer any of these fates was enough to spur them on despite the rising temperature. The Scorpion’s tracks headed north like an arrow, only swerving off course once to divert around the western side of the sandstone bluff that rose out of the plain like the back of a huge whale. Alpha Force stopped there for a water break and for Amber to waymark the bluff on her GPS unit.
‘Why did they go that way?’ asked Alex, frowning at the Unimog’s tracks veering off to the west. ‘It would’ve been quicker to cut round the eastern side of the bluff.’
‘Yeah, but if they’d gone east, they would have been in full view of that,’ said Amber, pointing out an oil installation that squatted out on the plain to the eastern side of the bluff. ‘Security is tight around those places, and the last thing the Scorpion wanted was a bunch of armed guards coming out to investigate him.’
While the others drank their share of water from the girba, Alex took his binoculars from his pannier and focused on the drilling post. The gas burn-off reared above the pumps like a vast, smoky candle and black pipes stretched to the horizon, carrying away oil that had formed from sediments deposited at the bottom of a Saharan ocean four hundred million years earlier. A small cluster of Nissen-type huts and steel cargo boxes sat inside a fenced compound about the size of a football pitch, with a helicopter pad off to one side. Alex guessed that the oil men were housed in those huts, in air-conditioned comfort.
Amber was right, he noted. Both the compound and the wells were patrolled by armed men. As Alex watched, he caught the flash of sun on binoculars. One of the guards was scanning the plain around the installation. Hurriedly, Alex lowered his own binoculars, suddenly feeling very exposed.
‘Let’s move on,’ he said, anxious to get out of sight behind the bluff.
They kept close to the base of the bluff, glad of the shade it provided for them as they travelled through the hottest part of the day. The sandstone had been carved into fantastic shapes by the wind and the walls were dotted with caves. It took them half an hour to travel the length of the bluff, then they were out of its shade and back in the full heat of the desert sun, but they kept going, determined to catch up with Li before night fell.
The sun was low and the shadows long when Amber slapped Alex on the shoulder. Alex jumped. He had fallen into an almost trance-like condition as he followed the Unimog tracks through the desert with the sun beating down on his head.
‘Border!’ yelled Amber.
‘What?’
‘Border coming up! Stop!’
Alex brought the quad to a halt and Paulo pulled up beside him. Amber sh
owed them the map on her GPS unit. The border was clearly marked on the little screen, but there was nothing ahead of them to show that they were about to cross over into Morocco; just the flat plain with the Unimog tracks cutting across it towards a range of low dunes. Alex lifted his binoculars and scanned the area.
‘What are you expecting to see?’ drawled Hex. ‘A red line marking the border? Or maybe a little checkpoint, just for us?’
‘There might be soldiers,’ said Alex.
‘Out here?’ Hex snorted. ‘Why would they be out here? There isn’t even a road. That’s why the Scorpion came this way.’
‘I know it’s unlikely,’ said Alex tightly. ‘But it would be stupid to head into danger unprepared.’
‘But that was just what you let Li do,’ said Paulo. ‘Wasn’t it?’
The three of them glared at one another. They knew they should stop, but they were all feeling tired and dehydrated and wanting to take it out on someone.
‘Guys, back down!’ yelled Amber. ‘Can we focus, please? According to my GPS unit, there’s a town over the other side of those dunes. It’s in Morocco, but only just.’ She grinned at them. ‘A frontier town. If I were the Scorpion that’s the location I’d chose for my base. I think that town is where he’s taken Li and the others. We’re nearly there!’
Paulo smiled for the first time since Li had gone missing. ‘Let us go,’ he said.
The town was just where Amber had said it would be, spread out beyond the dunes like a 3D map. Alpha Force lay on their bellies at the top of a dune, studying the layout. The only road to the town came in from the north. To the south, there was nothing but desert, with the Unimog’s tracks cutting across it. The town was built beside a large oasis. Unlike the dying well back at the village, this oasis was green and thriving. There was a large palmery around the edge, full of the feathery tops of date palms. Further in, there were terraces of olive, almond and fruit trees. Looking through his binoculars, Alex could even see grain and vegetable crops planted beneath the trees.