by Jack Hayes
“Do we need a new plan?” Nate asked.
“We don’t have time to prepare one.”
47
The Jeeps snarled, wheels flailing as they ploughed diagonally up the dunes.
“Well, at least that’s a plus,” Blake muttered. “Seasoned drivers go straight up the banks – travelling diagonally risks all the weight of the vehicle being on one back wheel. If it digs in, at best, you’ll get stuck and at worst, you’ll cause the car to roll.”
He wound down his window and opened the Audi door.
The two Jeeps moved to each side of the Audi. Two Russians got out of each, all four armed with Kalashnikovs – a weapon so effective and symbolic that it appears on the flags or coat of arms of a half dozen countries with histories of civil strife.
The Land Cruiser, as Blake predicted, pulled up on the dune opposite.
Aarez climbed out with two Somali guards. One herded the girls with a shotgun. The second looked very comfortable pointing his AK-47 across at the Audi, his weapon facing the car’s boot.
Aarez, headscarf flowing elegantly on the desert breeze, directed the shotgun-holder to escort the girls down the bank into the valley below. He then followed his man slowly lower, always standing a few metres behind.
In his hand, Aarez held a pistol.
“This is bad,” Nate said. “They’ll have me caught in a potential killing zone down there.”
He held the puzzle box, source of so much trouble, between his fingers. He twisted and rolled the cube around as he watched.
“Stick with this,” Blake said. “I got a new idea forming.”
“I hope it’s better than the last one,” Asp replied and began to walk down the slope.
Blake didn’t tell him just how dangerous their position truly was – Aarez didn’t have to shoot the girls to doom them all. The bullet from a Kalashnikov can shoot clear through a brick wall and still kill a person on the other side.
A burst of eight rounds will disintegrate a concrete barrier a foot thick.
All the Russians had to do was fire a volley into the Audi’s engine and they’d be stuck out here in the desert, forty miles from the nearest source of water or shelter.
And there are no mobile phone masts so you can’t ring for assistance in the desert.
They’d be dead by nightfall.
***
Asp stumbled when he reached the bottom of the dune.
He could see his wife shivering in the shadow of the valley as his Pepper and Ginny held her close. The Somali menaced them with his shotgun.
“You have the box?” Aarez asked.
Asp held it out.
“And you are unarmed?”
“I am,” Asp replied. “Guns really aren’t my thing – and I think you know my colleague is capable enough for both of us.”
Aarez grunted.
“You will walk forward and give me the box and the girls will walk toward you,” Aarez said. “I have the key and will open it to check that you haven’t double crossed me. If I am satisfied, everyone walks away. You, no doubt, will want to check that your ladies are unharmed.”
“And bomb free,” Asp stated.
“Of course,” Aarez agreed.
Asp looked up at Blake. He seemed so far away.
Nate walked uncertainly forward, one hand extended to the side, the other outstretched in front holding the Rubick’s Cube-like box. He hoped to seem unthreatening as he haltered forward and his wife shuffled closer.
***
Blake watched through the gun sight of the P90.
Sweat was forming on the back of his neck and rolling uncomfortably down the open neck of his shirt. Already the material of his top was sticking around his belly. His nostrils riled with the stench of his own body.
“I know you’re planning something, you bastard,” he muttered to himself. “What is it? How do I get us all out of here alive?”
He felt the intense stare of the Russians against his back as surely as if they were prodding him with poles.
There was the light metallic ‘click’ carried on the wind. Blake knew that noise well. It was the sound of a Kalashnikov being cocked.
48
Aarez stepped closer to Asp.
He was near enough to make out the individual creases of Asp’s tightened face. His foe held the box out in an open palm.
“So near,” Aarez thought. “As soon as I’ve checked it, I’ll give the signal.”
Aarez stopped moving when he drew level with the shotgun-wielding Somali halfway between the dunes. Alexandria, Pepper and Ginny continued shuffling onward.
“That’s far enough, Alex,” Asp said. “Stay there – I’ll be with you in a second.”
Nate moved in. He stood a metre from Aarez.
“You have a key for the binders?” Asp asked.
Aarez passed it over, a gentleman handing a rose to a woman. He took the puzzle box and began working the mechanism. He flipped the panels up and across, sideways and round, exposing each of the locks. Finally, he inserted the key and twisted.
The puzzle box opened.
***
Asp groped at the ankle binders on his wife and children. The key almost wilfully disobeyed him in trying to turn. It took him a few moments to realise it was his own twitchiness, not the mechanisms at fault.
His chest rose and fell in sharp succession as he fought with the heat, the cuffs and his own fear.
The metal fell away.
He rose and removed the bags from their heads. Blake had been very specific – take leg restraints off first, in case they needed to run. Now he saw his wife’s face again, he understood more fully the wisdom of the move. He hugged her and kissed her, then his children.
“Oh Ginny,” he said. “My Pepper Pig!”
All of them cried.
He looked at their rope bound hands. He wished he’d brought a knife.
“Oh Asp,” Alexandria said and went to drown him in another embrace.
“Wait, wait,” he said sternly, “There’ll be time for that when we’re safe.”
He glanced up at Aarez.
“Oh my Lord, no!” Asp thought and his face turned to horror.
***
Aarez lifted the lid of the puzzle box.
“Yes!” he hissed.
The reek of burnt tobacco emanated from within.
Inside lay three used cigarette butts, all with orange filters with yellow speckles.
He lifted his eyes to Asp, preparing to order their deaths.
He was startled by the look on Nate’s face.
Then he saw it.
A tiny red dot slowly moved up Aarez’s chest to his forehead.
“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted.
***
“Wait!” Blake shouted.
His voice echoed from atop the dune.
“Everybody stay very still and very calm.”
In one fluid move everyone in the valley lifted their heads and focused on Blake, still squatting behind the Audi.
“Blake?” Nate shouted. “What are you playing at?”
“Asp. Seriously, just stand very cool and don’t move. Everybody just chill out. Relax. Aarez, you stay very, very still.”
“What is going on?” Asp asked.
“These Russians up here are getting a little too restless for my taste,” Blake replied. “We’ve got weapons cocking, all sorts. I want everyone to be calm. Remain very calm. No matter what happens: be very, very relaxed.”
49
The explosions were immense.
The ground shook. Fountains of sand and gravel shot skyward. The Jeeps launched into the air, twisting cartwheels. All four Russians were flung like cruelly tossed ragdolls.
The Somali with the shotgun moved his gaze from Blake to Asp.
He raised his aim.
Blake shifted his aim from Aarez to his henchman. He released a single bullet. The Somali fell. Kalashnikov fire raked the Audi from Aarez’s 4x4 on the opposite dune. Aarez
shot blindly into the air with his pistol. They were wild and poorly aimed. He began sprinting for safety.
Asp and the girls also ran.
Sand began to rain on the ground.
“As expected,” Blake thought. “Try shooting them if you can’t see anything.”
He raised his sight.
His breathing was slow.
So was the world.
Somewhere he could hear the sound of metal ripping through metal, tin cans torn apart at speed. The Jeeps hit the slopes and began somersaulting into the valley.
“Slow, slow, down,” he whispered.
His breathing halted.
Bullets thudding in sand. A ping to his leg and arm, as gentle as a fly walking across the skin.
He aimed through the gritty haze.
Head.
Trigger.
Pull.
The sound of an egg being crushed. The Kalshnikov abruptly stopped. The Somali on the opposite dune was no more.
“Now, for Aarez.”
Through the gun sight, Blake scanned for movement.
Nothing.
Blake panned across the desert.
A car started.
“Shit!”
Blake lifted his aim to the Land Cruiser.
Too late.
Aarez vanished over the dune in his vehicle.
***
Asp vaulted to the crest of the sandbank.
He saw tufts of dust fleck as Kalshnikov rounds impacted the ground. A second later came the supersonic crack of the bullets breaking the sound barrier, and then the thud of the shots being made.
He recalled a job he’d performed for a tribal leader in Yemen. On completion he’d flown to Sana’a and then driven hours to hand his report in person to the clan leader, who lived in an extraordinarily opulent mansion complex that rose out of the crappiest, most rundown village Asp had ever seen.
That night, the complex was raided by a small party from a neighbouring tribe. Over an evening of gunfire and terror, he’d seen for the first time an assault rifle fired in anger.
He’d marvelled at the insane beauty of the phenomenon.
Always the same.
You saw the dust of the bullet land. Then you heard the crack as the bullet broke the sound barrier, and then the thump of it being fired. The old adage was true: you never heard the bullet that killed you.
“Get on the far side of the dune,” he shouted to Alexandria. “And stay down.”
He recognised the danger, ordinance whistling through the air. He didn’t care. If no-one else killed Blake, he was going to.
He stormed forward. Rage filled him.
“How dare you endanger Alex and Ginny and Pepper.”
He watched Blake take careful aim and fire a single shot. The Kalashnikov stopped abruptly. Blake continued aiming, swore, then stood slowly. His attention was locked on the far dune. Before he had time to say anything, Asp punched him in the face.
Blake spun against the car.
Nate wasn’t going to stop.
“How many times did you...?” he shouted. “What were you thinking?”
He lashed out again.
Blake fell to the floor, stunned.
Before Asp could attack again, Alex intervened.
“Stop! Stop!”
Asp was heaving. Anger steamed from his body. Blake lay still.
“Oh my God!” Alex cried. “He’s bleeding!”
“Are you and the kids fine?” Asp asked.
“Yes, yes,” Alex said, on her knees beside Blake. “But your friend...”
Asp suddenly awoke, straight from a dream. He dropped down next to Blake. The sand was slowly reddening.
“Two wounds,” he said quickly. “One to his arm, the other lower leg. Pad him down for secondary bleeding.”
“What?”
“Run your hands along his back,” Asp said. “If they end up bloody he’s got bigger trouble than it appears.”
As Alex checked Blake’s back, Asp ran his fingers across the arm wound, then the leg.
“Okay,” he said. “Not so bad. How’re your hands?”
“Fine,” she replied. “Not bloody.”
“Good,” Asp stated. “I’m going to apply pressure here. Go to the boot of the Audi. You’ll find a first aid kit. These look far worse than they are – they’re not from bullets, probably ricochets from metal in the car door – but they will need dressing.”
Alex ran to the Audi’s boot. Blake, face pale but purpling about the cheek, opened his eyes.
“You hit me,” he whispered.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Asp said. “I got carried away. I thought you’d endangered us when you aimed at Aarez. All sense went out the window; it took me a minute to piece together that you probably just saved all our lives with that crazy stunt.”
Blake raised his fingers to his cheek bone and scowled.
“You’re welcome,” he said through the grimace. “Why am I down here? It couldn’t have been you. You hit like a girl.”
“Much as I’d like to take credit,” Asp replied. “I suspect it may have been shock. It seems you got grazed by the shrapnel from the car.”
They both looked at the Audi door. Sunlight shone through multiple peppered holes.
“Which considering how lucky you got not to be killed,” Asp continued, “means you may want to revise which one of us is the Jessie.”
Alexandria bent over with the first aid box.
“There’s no time for that,” Blake said. “We should catch Aarez. We can patch me up in the car.”
Blake, skin still pallid, brushed Alex aside and tried to stand on his shaking legs. He felt woozy and leaned on the bonnet.
“Is he alright?” Alex asked.
“I need a cigarette,” Blake muttered, feeling for the car door.
“He’s fine,” Asp replied. “But I’ll drive.”
50
“We’ll never catch him,” Asp said. “We’d be faster across flat road but on sand, he has the advantage.”
Blake played with an unlit cigarette in his hand. He pulled open the ashtray and extracted a lighter from the well underneath the handbrake.
“We don’t need to catch him here,” he said. “When he gets to the street, he’ll take twenty minutes to reinflate his tyres, even if he has an automatic pump like we do. Provided we follow his tracks, we can intercept him at that point.”
“Unless he has multipurpose tyres,” Asp added.
“Unless he has multipurpose tyres,” Blake agreed.
“What then?” Alexandria asked.
Blake said nothing. He simply tapped the P90 that rested across his lap. Alexandria sat back in her seat and tended to the girls.
Blake rolled down the passenger-side window and flicked the lighter. He pursed his lips, lifting the cigarette horizontal and brought the small, orange flame towards its end.
“What are you planning to do with that?” Alex asked, alarm in her voice. “You can’t smoke with my babies in here!”
Blake lit the end and blew as much of the noxious cloud as he could through the open window.
“Alexandria, my petal,” Asp said, his vision firmly fixed on following Aarez’s tracks across the dunes. “You know that I love you very much and I’m extremely grateful to have you back safe and sound. However, this man has just risked his life and mine to save yours. It’s his car, so shut the fuck up. He’s earned the right to smoke.”
Alexandria looked as though she’d been slapped.
“Well,” she harrumphed. “I don’t think you’ve ever spoken to me in quite such a...”
“And I think that’s been a problem,” Asp said flatly. “I love you – literally – more than life itself, but I think it’s time for me to be a little more assertive when I’m at home. This is a discussion for another day, though. In the meantime, Blake, if you don’t mind, I think I’ve earned the right to a fag myself, too.”
The Audi see-sawed as it rocked over the crest of another dune, then a
ccelerated down the far side. It hit the bottom and growled as it raced up the next sandbank.
“Here,” Blake said. “Have mine.”
Blake placed his cigarette directly into Nate’s mouth and took a second fresh one for himself. Nate took two puffs and tapped the ash out of his shattered window.
“Menthol?” he asked, surprised.
“Yeah,” Blake replied.
“Jessie,” Asp said.
The rolling waves of sand were beginning to lessen in height as they moved out of the Rub’ Al Khali.
“I’ve lost his route,” Asp said. “The tyre tracks have dried up or been blown away.”
Blake swore loudly.
“Want to double back?”
“No,” Blake replied. “Make straight for the road and we’ll try to catch him on the tarmac.”
“If all this is about is the puzzle box,” Alexandria said, “why do you need to catch him? Let him have the contents and be damned.”
“The puzzle box was only part of the story,” Asp replied. “We couldn’t figure out more than that section of his plan, though we reasoned he might well be trying to assassinate Prince William.”
“We need to interrogate him,” Blake agreed. “But, if that weren’t reason enough, he’s still the leader of an international terrorist organization. If he’s not stopped now, who knows what damage he’s got lined up for the future?”
Alexandria looked down and mumbled.
“I’m not sure he was the leader.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Blake said. “Even his name – Aarez – it means: ‘leader’.”
“When they had us captive,” she disagreed, “he was on the phone and seemed very – I don’t know, servile is the wrong word... supine. He seemed supine. The Russians clearly took orders from him, yet he seemed to be taking them from someone else.”
Mounting the last humps of sand, the lines of trees that marked the border of the road became visible, jutting from the desert a few miles ahead.
“Where did they hold you?” Nate asked.