by Graham Brown
“They have the scroll,” Danielle said. “And they must still have Bashir.”
The poor man had never resurfaced, either dead or alive. She guessed they’d kept him around for a reason.
Still, she’d rather deal with their enemies than the Iranian military. And they’d already found what they were looking for. If they could just get it out of the ground and get moving the cult might never know they’d been there.
Hawker reached under the tablet and pried it loose. After pulling it out of the ground he heaved it up on his shoulder, like a boom box of some kind.
“How much time do we have?” he asked.
“Five minutes at best,” Danielle said. “But I don’t think they know we’re here. Otherwise they wouldn’t be charging this way with their lights on.”
“Good,” Hawker said. “Score one for us.”
Danielle moved off, making her way toward the edge of the main platform. Hawker and Sonia followed.
Danielle slid down to the lower level, the level that would have been underwater when this place had been a garden. Hawker came to the edge and slid down beside her, moving awkwardly with the heavy stone. Pausing, he looked over at the pit they would have to cross in a moment and then climb out of.
“This ain’t going to work,” he said.
She had to agree. Getting the forty-pound tablet down into the chasm was one thing, bringing it back up was another.
“Break it,” she said, pointing to one of the large blackened stones on the ground. “Crack it in half.”
As Hawker studied the sharp edge of the blackened stone, Danielle turned to Sonia. “Will it be okay?”
“It should,” Sonia said. “We’ll have to break it sometime anyway. All we really need is what’s inside.”
Danielle aimed her flashlight toward the stone. Sonia did the same.
Hawker raised the tablet up off his shoulder and slammed it down onto the sharp edge. The brick tablet cracked, not only in half, but into three major pieces and a handful of smaller chunks and shards.
Danielle studied the ground, moving the beam of her flashlight around. She had expected golden pods to drop out, like ball bearings or Christmas ornaments or seeds from a pumpkin. But there was nothing of the sort.
She crouched to examine the pieces. Sonia and Hawker did the same. But there was no sign of anything like what they hoped to see. Sonia put her hands on one of the pieces, picking it up and examining it.
From the south they could hear the sound of engines approaching.
“Just grab everything,” Hawker said. “We’ll figure it out later.”
Danielle clipped the flashlight back on her belt and grabbed a piece. She jammed it into the pack with McCarter’s samples and zipped the top shut. Sonia did the same with the piece she’d been studying, and Hawker grabbed the last section.
By the time Danielle looked up, Hawker was already on the move. She followed with Sonia trailing behind. They went down the slope and across the bottom of the pit, chasing after Hawker.
She could hear the approaching vehicles clearly now. There was an odd timbre to the noise, one she couldn’t place. She moved across the dry moat, quickly reaching the edge. Hawker was halfway up the rope already.
She held the end for Sonia. “Go,” she said.
The young woman grabbed the rope without saying a word and started to climb. Whether it was the weight in the pack or thoughts of failure swirling in her mind, Sonia did not move quickly.
Hawker had reached the top and lay flat, looking back down. “Come on,” he whispered sharply.
Sonia began to move a little quicker, finally cresting the edge. Danielle began climbing immediately. Her arms were burning by the time she reached the top. She stepped toward her ATV only to have Hawker pull her to the ground.
He pointed out across the sand. The strange-sounding vehicles had reached the far edge of the moat and were prowling the perimeter.
As they turned off their headlights, Danielle understood why the engines had sounded so odd. The vehicles were sand rails, dune buggies with unmuffled motors. She counted four of them and a foreign-looking offroad vehicle something like a Humvee.
At least eight men had dismounted.
Carrying guns and flashlights of their own, they picked their way toward the edge of the pit. She saw one man step out of the Humvee-like vehicle, but he never strayed from its side.
This man began directing the others, but they moved in a ragged fashion, speaking in loud voices without discipline. It sounded like Farsi at one point and then broken English.
“Locals, just like in Paris,” she said. “These guys hire locals to do their dirty work and then kill them to ice the trail. Those poor bastards think they’re about to get paid.”
“That’s not what they did in Dubai,” Hawker said.
Perhaps not, but it was clear in this case. Danielle guessed that the guy with the radio and whoever else was in that Humvee were members of the cult, directing the show.
Danielle almost felt sorry for the men — except for the fact that they would kill her, Sonia, and Hawker if they got the chance.
“Not our problem,” she said.
She took another look at the sand rails. They looked like fast machines. She remembered racing something similar as a child along a beach in North Carolina. She doubted the ATVs would be able to outrun them.
She glanced toward her four-wheeler.
Hawker nodded. “Quietly.”
She turned to Sonia. “This time you’re with me.”
Sonia looked confused but didn’t question it. To Danielle, the thinking was clear. She was fifty pounds lighter than Hawker to begin with and he was carrying the heaviest piece of the stone. She and Sonia on one rig would be much faster than Hawker and Sonia had been on the way in.
Hawker smiled.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
Still smiling, Hawker pulled his rifle from the scabbard on the side of his ATV. With another glance at the men in the moat, he climbed on.
Danielle did likewise, pulling the straps on her backpack tight.
Without engaging the motor, she walked the ATV back from the edge, turning it through 90 degrees in the process. A necessary act, since they’d foolishly left them pointing toward the precipice upon arrival.
Sonia remained on the ground, staring at the men. Frozen once again.
“Come on, Sonia,” Hawker said. “We need to move.”
“Those are the men who killed my father,” Sonia said, as if mesmerized.
“They might be,” Danielle said. “All the more reason to put them behind us.”
Sonia nodded, then slowly stood, moving toward the back of Danielle’s ride.
As she did her footing gave way, not enough to make her fall, but enough to send a tiny avalanche of rocks and sand tumbling down the edge of the moat.
Click, clack. Crunch.
The tumbling rocks might as well have been gunshots in the silence of the night.
Flashlights swung their way.
“Not good,” Danielle said.
Shouts followed. They’d been spotted.
Sonia climbed on board and Danielle gunned the throttle, racing past Hawker and out into the night.
As she accelerated down the dry riverbed, she heard gunfire from behind.
The shooting was too close to be the Iranians. Hawker had to be blasting away at them, trying to keep them pinned down.
It would work for a minute, but once the men on the rim started firing back Hawker would have to flee or risk getting caught or killed himself.
Danielle raced on, trusting his judgment.
With Sonia clinging tight, she rounded a curve in the bend of the river and glanced at the GPS. In a half mile she would turn west and cut through the dunes toward the marshland and the waiting airboat.
She hoped Hawker would catch them by then and that they’d be able to lose any pursuit before they reached that point.
As Danielle and Sonia raced awa
y, Hawker cracked off a half-dozen shots from the ArmaLite. He saw one man fall and get up again. The others took cover.
He aimed toward the sand rails and opened up with a hail of shells. Sparks flew from where the vehicles were parked, but before he could land any fatal blows, explosions of dirt began to kick up around him and bullets began to whistle by.
He shuffled backward to the ATV, shoved the rifle back into the scabbard, climbed back on, and gunned the throttle.
In seconds he’d left the shooters well behind him.
He flew along the dry riverbed, traveling at breakneck speed and suddenly realizing a problem. His helmet, and the night-vision goggles attached to it, sat strapped uselessly to the peg behind him.
He had no time to stop and put them on. He squinted into the wind, trying to navigate by the starlight that spread itself over the desert sand.
Danielle had reached the turnoff. She slowed, looking for the best place to climb up the slope of the bank. Finding a promising spot, she shouted to Sonia.
“Hold on.”
She gunned the throttle again and they raced up and out onto the open desert. A minute later they entered the sand dunes.
Like someone skiing huge moguls or avoiding massive swells at sea, Danielle did the best she could to race around the dunes, sticking to the low points. To speed across the top kicking up a rooster tail was just asking to be seen and then shot.
Lower was safer, even if it meant constant course changes and turns and rechecking the GPS. Trying to do all that and keep the ATV moving at full speed took all Danielle’s attention. She couldn’t risk a glance back to look for Hawker, but Sonia could.
“Do you see Hawker?” she shouted.
Danielle felt Sonia’s weight shift as she turned. She reduced the speed for a moment, to give her a better look.
“No!” Sonia shouted.
A second later something caught Danielle’s eye to the left. She glanced toward it and hoped it was Hawker.
“Damn.”
The sound of an unmuffled engine roared in her ears as lights blazed toward them from the dune above. The sand rails had found them.
CHAPTER 38
Hang on!” Danielle shouted.
One buggy raced down toward them from the top of the dune. A second followed on a slightly wider track.
Danielle curved away from them, snaking between a group of smaller mounds in the dark. The ATV bounced and skidded. Left, then right, then left again. Suddenly the world filled with light as one of the dune buggies dropped in behind.
The light was so intense that Danielle couldn’t see through the goggles. She flipped them up just in time to see an outcropping of rock.
She cut right, leaning hard to keep the ATV from flipping.
They missed it. But the sound of a heavy crunch and a sudden return of the darkness told her their pursuers had nailed it head-on. Whether they would be permanently out of the action or only held up for the moment she didn’t know. But she’d take what she could get.
Flying along at top speed in an attempt to catch up with Danielle, Hawker had encountered another problem: He’d become utterly lost.
The riverbed looked different: more dead trees, more rocks, less smooth ground to rumble over. He hadn’t seen this on the way in and that could mean only one thing: He’d stayed in the wadi too long and gone too far north.
He looked for a way out, found a slope that seemed climbable, and raced up it, pressing his weight forward to keep the ATV’s nose down.
Cresting the top of the climb, he saw lights racing westward across the dunes, three pairs in the lead and two in a trailing group.
Hounds after the fox, chasing Danielle and Sonia.
He accelerated forward, got the ATV up to full speed, and pulled the rifle out once again. Because the throttle was on the right, he switched the rifle into his left hand, holding it against the handlebar and accelerating further.
He couldn’t remember firing a rifle left-handed, but there was a first time for everything.
Danielle continued around the dunes, trying desperately to keep moving in the general direction of the airboat. It was only a mile off now and Hawker’s friend Keegan was waiting there with more firepower. Maybe enough to help even the odds.
She whipped into a right turn and the ATV almost flipped. Sonia had moved the wrong way.
A moment later it happened again.
“Move with me,” Danielle shouted.
“I’m looking for Hawker!” she shouted.
“Forget about him. You need to move with me or we’re going down.”
For emphasis Danielle took another turn they didn’t have to take, but Sonia got the message and leaned into it hard, if late.
Lights flooded the desert in front of her as one of the sand rails barreled toward them, attempting to cut her off. Danielle cut toward it like a fighter pilot breaking toward a missile. Her turn was too sharp for the buggy to copy, and it overshot her and vanished in the dark. Another narrow escape.
Danielle wondered how long their luck would last. To be honest she was surprised they’d gotten this far. She feared for Hawker, wondered where he was, and prayed that nothing had happened to him.
Still traveling full speed, Danielle raced up the next dune and then down. From the top she could see the lights of the others trailing them; they’d spread out in a wide V. An attempt to keep her from breaking containment and disappearing into the night, she thought, or …
She looked ahead — they were nearing the marsh now. Climbing over the top of the last dune, she caught sight of the reeds at the water’s edge. Her worst fears were realized.
The men in the sand rails were chasing her and Sonia all right, but they were also herding her toward a second group. A half-dozen men and another Humvee waited by the shore.
Danielle hit the brakes and turned, but this time Sonia’s lean came way too late and the ATV flipped, flinging both of them off and into the sand.
Tumbling and then sliding to a stop, Danielle quickly looked up. The ATV was upside down, its wheels spinning. She scrambled back to the overturned rig, and pulled the rifle loose. She turned and opened fire, just as the three sand rails came flying over the crest of the dune and down at them.
She hit one of the dune buggies. It went off course, flipping and tumbling down the hill, one wheel flying through the air like a Frisbee. The other two turned wide, made a long stretch outward, and then turned back. They began circling her and Sonia, penning them in halfway down the last dune, five hundred yards from the marsh.
Fifty feet away Sonia had gotten to her hands and knees.
“Over here!” Danielle shouted.
Appearing groggy from the fall, Sonia crawled to where Danielle was.
“Where’s your gun?” Danielle shouted.
Sonia reached into her pack and pulled out a small pistol. She gripped it awkwardly.
“Fire only if they start to close in.”
Danielle could see the men from the water’s edge heading up toward her. The Hummer followed, moving at a crawl, pointing its blazing high beams right into her eyes.
Danielle ripped off a group of shots and the Humvee’s lights went dark. Then she hunkered down behind the overturned ATV.
The men weren’t firing yet, but it was hard to watch them all and sort of dizzying and confusing trying to keep track of the two dune buggies racing around in opposite directions as they circled.
Beside her Sonia fired wildly and well behind one of the racing buggies.
“Wait till they’re closer!” Danielle said.
“I don’t want them to get closer!” Sonia shouted back.
Danielle had to agree with that thought, but they didn’t have all that much ammunition.
She glanced toward the edge of the swamp and realized something new. Keegan and the boat were gone.
Hawker’s plan for a mad charge had come with one deficiency: The vehicles he was chasing were faster than he was. They ran away from him without ever knowing t
hey’d been challenged.
He continued on, following their lights and aware that they were heading in the general direction of the marsh. When their progress stopped and the lights began dancing in strange circles Hawker feared the worst. It reminded him of a wolf pack having finally downed its prey.
He pressed forward, down through the dunes and up over the last one. He saw Danielle and Sonia on the ground, crouching in the cover of the overturned ATV. He saw the sand rails circling them like hyenas and a group of men marching toward them.
Now was the time for the charge.
He gunned the throttle again, aimed for the point where he’d intersect one of the sand rails on its wide circle, and raced down the last dune, opening fire as he went.
Within a few seconds he’d riddled the first vehicle with shells. Its gas tank exploded and it rolled away, burning.
From there he raced around wide, opening fire into the pack of men.
Danielle and Sonia must have joined in because as his weapon ran dry he could still hear gunfire and see the men scattering.
He glanced over toward Danielle. The last of the sand rails was racing toward her and Sonia. Hawker saw three men hanging on to the back, like firemen on a ladder truck.
As the vehicle raced past, the men jumped off. They lunged forward with nets in their hands, as if they would capture the two women like lions.
Hawker turned that way, accelerating. The nets were thrown, engulfing Danielle and Sonia. Gunfire flashed from Danielle’s position and one of the men staggered back clutching his chest. But the second man tackled her and she went down, tangled in the net, while the third fought with Sonia.
Hawker raced in at full speed, swinging the empty rifle like a club.
It whammed against the side of one of the men, ripping out of Hawker’s hand and pulling him off balance. He flew off the ATV and rolled. As he got up, he saw Danielle retraining her rifle and aiming through the netting. She blasted the third assailant off Sonia. The guy Hawker had hit lay flat and unmoving.
What had started as a rout was fast approaching even odds. But they still needed to get to the water.
With his ATV zooming out of reach, Hawker ran toward the women. He pulled the net off Danielle as Sonia untangled herself.
