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The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

Page 56

by Christopher Cartwright


  She crawled to the peak of the sand dune closest to her camp. Down below she saw the destruction. The large mesh of interconnected tarpaulins were missing. What remained of the bounded wooden sticks which formed the camp’s skeleton was crooked or missing entirely. The dry sand had swallowed all evidence of the recent rain; the only sign of its presence being the sudden introduction of humidity in a land that rarely experiences more than a few inches of rain per year. She saw men running through the camp. They appeared to be feverishly working to bring order to the destruction. Their skin was dark and they wore green camouflaged clothing – and held AK-47s in their hands.

  Zara felt her throat tighten and her chest pound. The image just confirmed the first step of the prophecy had come true, and her world would be shattered forever.

  Chapter Twelve

  Zara slid forward until she could get a good view of the camp. There were bodies huddled together at the northern end of the camp. They might be sleeping, or they could be dead. Either way Zara couldn’t tell and even if she could, there was nothing she could do to help any of them. At least a hundred camels were penned down at the edge of the camp, their masters working hard to keep them from fleeing. Her eyes turned to focus directly on her tent. The tarpaulin had disappeared, but the brass box vault remained. Adebowale was missing, and for a fleeting moment she allowed herself to believe he’d made it out alive. She recalled his words when she left – he would protect the book with his life – and she doubted he survived.

  She heard the shots fire and saw the sudden flashes of light bursting from the weapon’s nozzle. One of the bodies she’d seen lying at the northern end of the camp had moved and one of the attackers emptied his full magazine into the remaining bodies until there were no movements left.

  Who the hell are these people?

  The sound made her focus on her own life again. Nostradamus had written that she’d survive, but she would have to head south. How could she possibly do that? There was over a thousand miles of sand between her and the southern edge of the Saharan desert in Chad. Even knowing where the periodic waterholes and few oases were, she could never cross the desert on foot.

  Zara crawled up to the edge of the sand dune, trying to dig herself as low to the ground as possible. She watched two men enter the remains of her tent. They examined Nostradamus’s brass vault. The box which had housed one of the most extraordinary relics ever made. The two spoke to one another animatedly.

  “Master, Ngige!” the second man yelled into a radio. “I think we found it!”

  A black SUV drove through the middle of the camp. A Range Rover Autobiographical edition. The sort of thing whose ownership was limited to royalty, the ultra-rich, and film stars. She’d never seen anyone attempt to drive one through the Sahara. From what she’d heard it was sort of a cross between a race car and an all-purpose, go-anywhere, four wheel drive. A man stepped out of the vehicle, leaving the door open and the engine running. He wore dark green camouflage seen on the other men in the camp, but there were golden crowns on each of his epaulettes.

  Zara watched him approach the two men standing next to the brass chest. They both saluted him and she guessed the man with the crowns was their leader.

  “We found it, Ngige!” The shorter of the two men said.

  Ngige shook the man’s arm. “Well done! We have found it!

  So they had come for the book of Nostradamus. Zara looked at the black Range Rover. It was her only possible chance of escape, and it might as well have been on the moon for all the chance she had of reaching it. Even if she did make it, there was no telling whether or not someone else was still inside.

  “Gabe Ngige! Gabe Ngige!” The men started shouting the name and firing their AK-47s into the air like madmen.

  Pandemonium raged through the camp and Zara thought her odds of making it may have just risen to a percentage point above zero.

  Gabe Ngige – why does that name sound so familiar?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zara slid down the remaining edge of the sand dune while the mayhem and hysteria of success flooded through the camp. This was her only chance. Her only possibility of surviving was to roll the die and get lucky. It was a long shot, but she had to take it. She heard the distinctive rat-a-tat of at least fifty AK-47s being fired into the air. She was now out in the open, entering the camp, and committed to her attempt to steal the Range Rover. Zara focused on the vehicle and didn’t bother to look at the shooters. At any moment one of those bullets would kill her, but there was nothing she could do about that – the future had already been decided.

  She ran down the last section of the dune and to her own surprise reached the driver’s seat and closed the door. Zara took in a deep breath, looked around, still expecting to find someone else inside. She didn’t. It was empty and she was still alive. The air conditioning was set low, providing an environment of comfort she hadn’t experienced in the past two years, since she moved to the Sahara. The car smelled new. The cream Napa leather seats were piped with black. The man driving was taller than her, but not by much and her body sat perfectly inside.

  She threw the Range Rover into gear. Released the electric handbrake and planted her foot down hard. The supercharged engine had great acceleration. Better than turbocharged. No lag. The high-end, sports SUV took off with a lurch. There was a moment of reprieve before any of the soldiers noticed their leader wasn’t in his vehicle, followed by a large amount of screaming and barking of orders. A tall soldier approached from up ahead of her. He waved his hands and shouted, “Stop there!”

  The man had made a millisecond failure to act and still hadn’t aimed his weapon at her. Instead he’d stepped in-between the two sand dunes in which the camp had been built – making it impossible for her to drive around him. She hit the car horn to warn him without thinking.

  And it did warn him.

  He picked up his AK-47 and began raking the SUV’s hood. Sparks flew as the bullets ricocheted across the military grade windshield. The owner, presumably an African drug lord, had purchased the top end protection add-ons.

  The soldier stared at her – his eyes vacant and his mouth open as though he wanted to scream, but no words were coming out. At the last moment his eyes went wide and realization dawned on him. He was going to die. Zara didn’t lift off on the accelerator for a second. She pushed her foot harder to the floor, willing the Range Rover to somehow gain more speed.

  The man went under the hood with a crippling crunch, without even a shudder or reduction in speed to the two and a half ton SUV. Zara didn’t feel any remorse. Instead she felt elated to be alive and free. She’d rolled the die and scored a one in a hundred possibility, at best, of surviving – and won. Her eyes glanced at her rearview mirror. The gruesome mixture of crushed bone and flesh brought everyone out of their victory revelry. At least a dozen men had already mounted their camels, while more still fired at the Range Rover.

  She steered left to climb out of the camp and avoid a direct line of sight for her attackers. The SUV responded immediately. Rack and pinion steering. Fast response. Its Desert Hawk tires eating up the sand.

  More gunfire echoed through the sand valley and the rear windshield was quickly scattered with bullets, sending star-like fractures in its modified bullet resistant glass. There was only so much it could withstand. The rear windshield, pelted with hundreds of bullets broke free of its hold and fell forward onto the rear seats.

  Zara ducked her head down low. At any moment she expected to feel the pain of a bullet piercing her skin at an unimaginable velocity. She wondered, with the morbid fascination of someone who’d already accepted her fate, if she’d even know she’d been hit before she died.

  Instead, she felt a different sensation. The contents of her gut suddenly rose and she felt the Range Rover lose traction on the ground below. It felt like minutes, but was less than a few seconds – the powerful SUV had cleared the top of the sand dune and was now on a free fall down the opposite side.

 
She landed with a jolt as the soft sand on the downward side of the dune was sprayed above over the hood, sending sand scattering over the windshield. The steering wheel swung wildly. Zara fought with it, trying to keep the SUV from rolling. If one of the front wheels dug into the sand her escape was all over – the SUV would roll and even if she survived the crash, she’d never be able to escape her attackers who were swarming after her.

  The steering became more responsive as the sand dune leveled out. She pushed hard on the accelerator and began up the following mound. By the time she reached the crest, Zara no longer heard bullets raking the back of the SUV. She smiled. She was reaching the outer limits of their accurate firing range. Her eyes darted to the rear-view mirror. A tail of bright orange fire raced towards her. It took a split second to recognize the tail end of the rocket.

  The SUV dropped of the crest, descending steeply, and the poorly-aimed RPG flew high by several feet. She heard the roar of its rocket motor blast overhead. She sighed with relief. It would take too long for her attacker to load and fire a second one.

  Zara recalled the view from her rear-view mirror. Several attackers on camels had begun their pursuit. They would never keep up with the high speed Range Rover, but they didn’t have to. She looked at the dashboard for the first time since stealing the vehicle. At present usage, the SUV had 400 miles worth of fuel remaining on its long-range, dual tanks. She needed a thousand to reach the southern tip of the Sahara, deep inside Chad. She could reach any number of oases, but that wouldn’t help much. She wasn’t worried about dying of thirst. It was her attackers who would be the death of her.

  Despite her misgivings, Zara sped south, heading deeper into the Saharan desert – where her heavy Range Rover left deep imprints in the sand for her trackers to easily follow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zara pointed the powerful SUV due south and kept driving. She was safe for now, but needed to put as much distance as she could between herself and her pursuers. One thing was certain as she watched her fuel diminish – she would no longer be driving by sunrise. The mercenaries she’d left behind at her camp would come after her. And if they ever reached her, she would die.

  If she could forge a two day head-start on the men on camelback she might just lose them if she walked softly. But where would she go? Anyone who knew the area would also know she would have to aim for the Bilma oasis. It was the only one close enough that she might have the chance to reach before dying of dehydration. They would know that too, which meant she’d need to lose them after reaching the oasis, or better yet – bypass it entirely and find another one altogether.

  Zara knew one. It was at least another eighty miles past Bilma and almost definitely out of her reach. She swore. It was unlikely she’d even reach the first oasis. At a guess she’d run out of fuel at least forty miles before it. She shook the thought from her mind. There was nothing she could do – just watch her fuel, wait, and see. Then adapt to her circumstances and see what options came up. She might get lucky and come across some nomads willing to come to her assistance.

  Zara quickly found desert driving required a unique combination of speed, finesse and technical skill. It was critical that she tackled the dunes with precision. Knowing the right time to go full throttle and the right time to slow down took experience and clear judgement. Zara had neither, but she mastered the skill quickly out of necessity.

  At 2a.m. Zara spotted the peak of Emi Koussi out the left-side window of the Range Rover. Standing at 11,204 feet, the ancient volcano in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad cast an enormous shadow over the night’s horizon. It was also one of the few visible landmarks for many miles. Zara made a quick mental note of her most probable location. The region had few topographical changes with which to navigate by. She looked up towards her right. Sharing the horizon in the west were the faintest images of the Air Mountains, no more certain than a mirage. She shook her head, unwilling to believe what she was going to do next. She continued driving due south – into the Erg of Bilma.

  The Erg of Bilma in the Ténéré desert region of the south central Saharan Desert was the last place she wanted to visit right now. The Erg’s sand grains were supplied from the Tibesti Mountains by the Harmattan – a northeasterly trade wind which blew steadily for most of the year. The Erg of Bilma spread out southwest from the Tibesti Mountains into Chad and Niger. From there it would be another 745 miles until she was free of one of the world’s deepest sandpits, and a further 400 miles until she was entirely free of the Saharan desert.

  There were nearly 1100 miles of thick sand dunes between her and the southern tip of the Sahara desert inside Chad or Niger. The deeper sand dunes would further reduce her mileage and certainly weren’t her first preference. Zara considered turning left, heading on towards Egypt, or even taking a wild and reckless giant U-turn to reach the Mediterranean by passing through Libya. Any of these paths would have made more sense, given the fact that she was driving further away from her freedom. Instead, she drove due south into an Erg she could never hope to cross – because that’s where Nostradamus told her she would go.

  At the heart of the Erg, approximately 300 miles further south, and at least 50 miles further than the Range Rover would continue to travel, was the oasis town of Bilma. A once thriving trading post, vital to the trans-Saharan trade route stretching between Central Africa and Libya, it now remained home to fewer than 2500 people. If she reached it, there might just be a chance one of those people would be willing to find a way of getting her out of the country.

  All of this, of course, relied heavily on the answer to one question – could she reach it before they did?

  Chapter Fifteen

  It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning – about seven a.m. when the engine first coughed and then misfired. The fuel gauge rested below empty. The thirsty V8 sucked on fumes. It drove for another six minutes before choking and conking out permanently.

  Zara tried the starter button.

  The engine turned, but nothing fired. She pushed the starter button another three times and then stopped. She couldn’t will the SUV into driving across the desert without fuel. She unclipped her seatbelt and stepped out to look in the back of the vehicle for anything useful. Two large jerry cans were attached to the back of the lift gate next to the spare tire, and both were full of bullet holes and empty. She pressed the lift button and the hatch opened. Inside, there was a single half-empty gallon bottle of water. Otherwise the rest of the luggage compartment was bare.

  Zara shook her head. Where did they plan to drive to once they’d found the book of Nostradamus? Without additional fuel, they never would have made it out of the Sahara, even if they drove north. The only alternative was that the camels carried its additional fuel. It didn’t matter, however they planned to make it across the desert it wasn’t going to help her.

  Zara looked up at the first light. The morning’s sun crept towards the horizon in the east. There was another forty or fifty miles to reach the oasis of Bilma. She cursed herself for diverting towards the east in an attempt to miss the town and reach the second oasis. Now that option was out of the question. If she was lucky, she might just survive long enough to reach the first. She grabbed the half-filled gallon bottle of water and pulled her headdress over her face again. It was going to be a long walk. She left the Range Rover and turned her back to the rising sun and began walking west towards Bilma.

  By her reckoning she might reach it by dusk. If it was winter she would have made it easily. In the middle of summer her chances of survival were low. By eight a.m. the sun was high enough to burn. Zara protected her face from the harsh light reflected off the dunes in front of her with her green shesh and continued to walk. Ordinarily she’d never even attempt to walk through the thick sand dunes during the heat of the day, but she needed to keep making distance if she wanted to survive. She moved quickly, at a rate somewhere between a walk and a slow run. Her feet trod lightly, never allowing them to pause long enough to s
ink into the deep sand before lithely taking another step.

  She prayed for a sudden dip in the barometer to send the otherwise stable Harmattan trade wind into a heavy gust, lifting the grains of sand and burying her footprints. Instead, the barometer went higher, and the Harmattan stopped completely. Without wind, the temperature soared. By one p.m. it scorched to a hundred and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit. There was no way she could keep up the pace in that sort of heat. She found the steepest section of the rolling sand dune and sank into its side. The temperature dropped marginally, but it might just be enough for her to survive.

  She forced herself to sleep until the sun dipped and the heat became tolerable. Zara took comfort in the knowledge her attackers and their camels would be forced to wait until the temperature dropped too, before continuing. By six p.m. the sun was making its way over the western horizon and she began to move again. She traveled on and off through the night. Keeping the pace of a brisk walk for an hour and then having a five minute break, she carried on through the night. By morning she was exhausted; her feet ached and her stomach was empty. No longer driven by the release of adrenaline after her immediate near death experience, the pain and weariness began setting in. Zara consciously made the effort to ignore the sensations. She still had another ten miles to go before she reached Bilma.

  The sun hit the eastern horizon and quickly rose above her head. It felt hotter than the day before, if that was even possible. Zara struggled to keep pace, relying heavily on large gulps of the remaining water. She stopped rationing, and focused on keeping herself moving through the heat of the day. If she didn’t reach the oasis by tonight, her attackers would catch her by tomorrow.

 

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