by Paul Sussman
The man stared up at him, bubbles of blood frothing at the corners of his mouth.
'Please,' yelled Khalifa. 'Where's Sayf al-Tha'r?'
The man's mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. One of his hands was clawing at Khalifa's shirt, smearing it with blood. Khalifa took the hand and held it.
'Tell me! Please! Where is he?'
For a moment the man just stared at him, uncomprehending. Then, with a supreme effort, he pulled his hand free and pointed behind him, towards the excavation site.
'Rock!' He was choking. 'Rock!'
He slumped backwards, dead.
Khalifa muttered a quick prayer, came to his feet and ran on, oblivious to the turmoil around him. He reached the edge of the excavation crater and threw himself behind a bale of straw, frantically scanning the outcrop away to his left.
'Where are you, brother?' he hissed. 'Where are you?'
Initially he couldn't see him. There was too much activity, too much confusion. Then, just as he was getting desperate, a curtain of smoke momentarily parted and he spotted a small figure hunched at the base of the rock, a thick black cable snaking away from a box at his feet down into the excavation trench below. It was a hundred metres away, but there was no mistaking who it was. Nor what he was doing.
'Got you!' he cried.
He started running. There was a flash of movement to his left and he swung and fired, a black-robed figure flailing backwards into a pile of shields. Another figure half rose from behind a wooden crate and again Khalifa fired, bullets thudding into the man's chest. Seconds, that was all he had. Seconds.
He hit a heavy bank of smoke and everything went dark. He tripped over, stumbled, somehow managed to keep his footing and staggered on, fighting for breath, uncertain if he was even going in the right direction still. The smoke seemed to go on and on, and he was beginning to wonder if he'd ever get out of it again when, as suddenly as it had come, it cleared. There, just a few metres away, the rock face rearing massively above him, was Sayf al-Tha'r, finger poised above the detonator button, ready to destroy the remains of Cambyses' army. Khalifa powered forward and leaped, slamming into his brother and knocking him back against the rock.
For a moment Sayf al-Tha'r lay still, winded, his body limp, a trickle of blood leaking down his temple from where it had hit the jagged stone. Then, with a painful rasping, the breath rushed back into his lungs and he launched himself at
Khalifa, tearing at his face and hair, mouth twisted into a foaming knot of fury.
'I'll kill you,' he roared. 'I'll kill you!'
He got his hands around Khalifa's head and slammed it against the rock, once, twice, three times.
'You betrayed me, Yusuf! My brother! My own brother!'
He yanked him onto his knees and punched him in the mouth.
'You can't fight me! I'm too strong. I've always been too strong. God is with me.'
He punched him again and again, and then threw Khalifa sideways onto the sand, struggling upright and turning back towards the detonator. Desperately, Khalifa lashed out with his foot, catching Sayf al-Tha'r just behind the knee, buckling his legs, knocking him down. He scrambled on top of him and pinned his arms to the ground.
'I loved you!' he cried, tears filling his eyes. 'My brother. My blood. Why did you have to become like this?'
Beneath him Sayf al-Tha'r bucked and writhed.
'Because they're evil!' he spat. 'All of them. Evil.'
'They're women and children! They've done nothing to you.'
'They have! They have! They killed our father!' He got one hand free and clawed at Khalifa's eyes. 'Don't you see that? They killed our father. They ruined our lives!'
'It was an accident, Ali! It wasn't their fault!'
'It was their fault! They destroyed our family! They're evil. All of them! Devils!' With ferocious strength he threw Khalifa off and, leaping to his feet, kicked him in the ribs. 'I'll butcher them! Do you hear me? I'll butcher them! Every last one!'
He kicked again and again, shunting Khalifa downwards to the very edge of the excavation crater. Desperate, the detective looked around for something to use as a weapon. There was an ancient dagger lying on the sand nearby, its iron blade green and notched, and he grabbed it, slashing at the figure above, trying to keep him away. Immediately Sayf al-Tha'r was on him, grabbing his wrist and, knees pressing down on his chest, slowly twisting the knife so the point was aiming at Khalifa's throat.
'They think they can treat us like animals!' he screamed. 'They think they are above the law. But they're not above God's law. God sees their wickedness. And God demands vengeance!'
He began to push the dagger downwards. Khalifa tried to hold it away, arms trembling with the strain, wrists twitching, but his brother was too strong. Inch by inch the tip edged closer to his throat until eventually it was pressing right up against his Adam's apple, breaking the skin. He held it for a moment longer, and then slowly eased his grip. He gazed up into his brother's eyes. Suddenly the noise of battle receded and it was just the two of them.
'Do it,' whispered Khalifa.
Although he alone was holding the dagger, Sayf al-Tha'r's hands were trembling violently, as though he was struggling with an unseen force.
'Do it,' Khalifa repeated. 'It's time. I want to be free of you. Be with my brother again. My beautiful brother. Do it. Do it!'
He closed his eyes and braced himself. The knife pushed a hair's breadth further into his throat, a trickle of blood running down his neck. Then it stopped. There was a pause and, slowly, the blade was withdrawn. Something thudded onto the sand beside Khalifa's head and the weight was lifted from his chest. He opened his eyes again.
His brother was standing over him. They gazed at each other for a brief second, each looking deep inside the other, searching for something they could understand, something they could hold onto, and then Sayf al-Tha'r turned back towards the detonator. He took one pace, two, and then a crack of gunfire blasted him sideways against the rock and down onto the ground. For a moment he sat slumped against the stone, a ribbon of blood spilling from his mouth, hand clawing limply at the sand. Then another flurry of bullets punched into his chest and he toppled away and down, rolling over and over into the crater, where a tangle of desiccated arms and legs closed around him, as if the army was claiming him as one of its own.
Khalifa looked up, horrified. Ten metres away Daniel was standing, gun in hand. He came slowly forward and, bending, ripped the cable from the detonator. Khalifa slumped back and looked up at the sky, eyes blinded with tears.
'Oh God,' he whispered. 'Oh Ali.'
Dravic heaved Tara away from the ridge, the mayhem below disappearing from view behind a slope of sand. She punched and clawed at him, but he was far too strong, manhandling her as though she was no more than a rag doll. She didn't waste her breath screaming, knowing the sound would make no impression on the cacophony of gunfire and explosions that filled the air.
'I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget,' he snarled. 'You've fucking ruined everything and now you're going to pay.'
He kept pulling her until they were well below the summit of the dune, then forced her down onto her face, digging his right foot into the slope and jamming his left knee into the small of her back. She tried to punch up into his crotch, but he was too tall and her fist flailed harmlessly against his thigh. He grabbed a hank of her hair and yanked her head back, exposing the pale arc of her neck. The stench of his sweat filled her nostrils like ammonia.
'By the time I've finished with you you'll wish you'd only been raped!'
'You're a brave man, Dravic.' She was choking. 'Killing women and children. A real fucking hero.'
He laughed and yanked her head back further, her vertebrae cracking in protest.
'Oh I'm not going to kill you,' he said. 'That would be far too kind. I'm just going to scar you a bit.'
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his trowel, holding it up in front of her eyes, showing off th
e well-honed edge.
'I like to think that after today you'll never look in a mirror without remembering our time together. Although you'll have to beg me to leave you an eye to look in the mirror with.'
He ran the flat edge of the trowel across her cheek and down onto her breast, slapping the tip of it against her nipple. The areola hardened slightly.
'Well, well.' He chuckled, easing back the material of her shirt to expose her chest. 'You are a dirty girl, aren't you? Seems you like it rough after all.'
'Fuck you, Dravic.'
She tried to spit at him but there was no saliva in her mouth. He leaned right down so his face was almost against hers, his lips wet and quivering.
'What shall we start with, then, eh? An ear? An eye? A nipple?'
He lifted the trowel to his mouth, licked it and then lowered it again to her breast, leaning back slightly to avoid her hand, which was vainly trying to claw at his eyes. She could feel the trowel against her skin, knew he was about to cut her and, in a final desperate effort to free herself, she clasped a handful of sand and flung it backwards into his face.
'You bitch!' he bellowed, letting go of her hair and raising his hands to his eyes. 'You fucking bitch!'
She squirmed out from under him and rolled onto her back. He was half standing, half kneeling, legs to either side of her, eyes weeping from the sand. With every ounce of strength she possessed she drew her right foot back and drove it into his crotch, pulping his testicles. He screamed – a hysterical, high-pitched woman's scream – and doubled over, coughing violently.
'I'll cut your face off.' He was slobbering. 'I'll fucking slash you.'
He stabbed at her with the trowel, but she dodged the blow and began scrambling away along the side of the dune. Dravic swarmed after her. He lunged, missed, lunged again, grabbed the corner of her shirt, and suddenly they were both rolling, tumbling madly down the slope, over and over each other, lost in a blur of sand and sky and flailing limbs.
At the bottom Tara somersaulted away from the dune and slammed onto the sand. For a moment she lay still, dizzy and disorientated, then staggered to her feet. Dravic had tumbled away from her on the lower part of the slope, and was now ten metres away. He too was coming to his feet, the sharpened trowel still clenched in his hand. Blood was dripping from his nose.
'You bitch.' He coughed. 'You fucking bitch.'
He started towards her, his feet sinking deep into the sand. Surprisingly deep, given that they were now back on level ground. Tara backed away, ready to turn and run. The giant heaved his leg out and took another step, but went in even deeper, above the knees. Suddenly he wasn't looking at her any more. He leaned back and tugged at the leg, but something seemed to be holding it from below and it wouldn't come.
'Oh no!' There was fear in his voice. 'Oh no, not that!' He looked up at Tara, face suddenly weak with terror. 'Please, not that!'
For a moment he was still, something almost childlike in his pleading eyes, and then he began to fight, face contorted in a rictus of strain and horror. He bucked up and down, trying to yank his legs free, but all he did was drive himself deeper into the quicksand, sinking to the level of his thighs, then his groin and then his waist. He leaned back, placed a hand to either side of him and pushed, but his arms just sank in too. He dragged them out, still clutching his trowel, and tried again, but with the same result. The sand was now lapping against his ribs. He began to weep.
'Help me!' he screamed at Tara. 'For God's sake, help me!' He was holding a hand out towards her, desperate. 'Please! Oh please! Help me!'
Tears were streaming down his face, his arms windmilling. He started screaming, a high bestial wail of despair, his fists beating on the sand, his upper body heaving and writhing as though he was being electrocuted. But the desert refused to ease its grip, slowly pulling him down, taking him up to the level of his armpits, then his shoulders and then all that was left of him was his huge head and the upper part of one arm, the trowel still clasped in his hand. Unable to watch any more, Tara turned away.
'Oh no!' he screamed at her back. 'No! Don't leave me alone! Please don't leave me alone! Help me! Get me out!'
She began to walk back up the dune.
'Please!' he wailed. 'I'm sorry for what I did! I'm sorry! Please don't leave me like this! Not on my own! Come back! Come back, you bloody whore! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you! Oh God, help me! Help me!'
His screams continued until she was about halfway up the dune, then ceased abruptly. Near the top she turned and looked back down. She could just make out the topmost part of his head still protruding above the sand and, beside it, his trowel. She shuddered and carried on to the summit.
The battle was all but over by the time Tara reached the dune-top. Fires were raging everywhere and the air was heavy with smoke and fumes, but the gunfire had dropped off and the three hovering helicopters had landed. Khaki-clad figures, obviously soldiers, were picking their way methodically through the wreckage, stopping every now and then to pump bursts of bullets into the black-robed bodies lying strewn across the ground. Camels wandered aimlessly to and fro. She couldn't see any of Sayf al-Tha'r's men still standing.
She surveyed the scene for a while, then noticed two small figures set apart from the rest, close to the base of the great black rock. They were some distance away, but one was wearing a white shirt and she was sure it was Daniel. She started down the side of the dune. At the bottom she pulled her shirt over her face against the fumes and began moving through the carnage. Soldiers were everywhere. She tried to stop one to ask what was going on, but he simply walked right past her as though she didn't exist. She tried again, with the same result, so she just continued onwards towards the pyramid rock, skirting the edge of the excavation trench and eventually coming to the two figures she'd seen from above. Daniel was nearer, sitting on the sand gazing down into the trench, a machine-gun slung across his shoulder. Khalifa was beyond him, leaning against the outcrop, a cigarette in his mouth, face swollen and bruised, shirt stained with blood. They looked up as she approached, but neither said anything.
She went to Daniel, squatted beside him and took his hand, squeezing. He squeezed back, but still said nothing. Khalifa inclined his head towards her.
'You are OK?' he asked.
'Yes. Thank you. You?'
He nodded and drew deeply on his cigarette. She wanted to ask what was going on, who the soldiers were, what it all meant, but sensed he didn't want to talk and so said nothing.
Nearby a camel was chewing at a bale of straw, the crate on its back peppered with bullet holes. The sun was up and the air was growing hotter.
Five minutes passed, ten, and then they heard the distant pulse of an approaching helicopter. It grew louder and louder and then swung in over the top of the dune opposite, hovering above the valley for a moment before coming down fifty metres from where they were sitting. Sand sprayed towards them and they turned their heads. The camel loped away along the side of the crater.
As soon as it was on the ground the pilot killed the engine and the rotors slowed. Several soldiers hurried towards it and there was the clatter of a door being slid back on its far side. They heard an indistinct babble of voices, and then four figures appeared from around the front of the helicopter. Three of them Tara recognized – Squires, Jemal and Crispin Oates. The fourth, a fat balding man dabbing at his head with a handkerchief, was a stranger. They trudged across the sand, incongruous in their suits and ties, and stopped a few metres away.
Tara and Daniel came to their feet.
'Good morning to you all,' cried Squires jovially. 'Well, this has been an adventure, hasn't it!'
42
THE WESTERN DESERT
For several seconds no-one said anything. Then the fat man spoke.