Alpha Force: Desert Pursuit

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Ready?’ said Hex, looking enquiringly at the others.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said Li.

  The smell hit them when they were nearly at the top of the slope. It came from the other side of the dune, carried on the hot, desert wind that had started with the sunrise. One by one they came to a halt, digging the toes of their boots into the steep slope to make footholds in the sand. Their faces were grim as they looked at one another. They knew what the sweet, meaty smell was. It was the odour of rotting flesh.

  ‘That is so gross,’ said Amber faintly, turning her back to the wind.

  As protection against the sun, they were all wearing layered headcloths, wrapped around their heads and faces in the desert way. Amber pulled her headcloth more tightly across her face so that only her big, dark eyes were showing. It made no difference and she retched as the thick smell coated the back of her throat.

  ‘You don’t have to go any further,’ said Hex, pulling his own cloth across his nose.

  ‘Or you, Li,’ said Paulo.

  The colour had left Li’s high cheekbones, but her eyes above the headcloth were determined. ‘Hey! We’re all in this together,’ she protested, turning back to the climb.

  They went down on their bellies and commando-crawled the last couple of metres to the top. One by one they propped themselves up on their elbows and silently looked down on the dreadful scene below. Hex lifted the camcorder, adjusted the focus and began to film the bodies in close-up.

  The first boy lay on his back where the blast had thrown him. He was staring sightlessly into the burning desert sun and his open mouth was full of sand. His legs ended at the knees in tatters of ragged flesh, but that was not what had killed him. A splinter of metal had pierced his eye, driving deep into his brain. There was no blood. The sand had soaked most of it up and the sun had dried the rest. Hex kept the camera on the body for as long as he could, turning away only when a centipede slithered from the boy’s ear.

  The second boy was a few metres away, face down. He had fallen on top of another mine and the explosion had blasted him apart. There was not much left to show that the scattered remains had once been a person. Hex swallowed hard and held the camcorder steady while he silently counted to ten, then he pulled back for a wide shot of the desolation of razor wire and churned-up earth. All the while, the others lay alongside him, silent witnesses to the pointless deaths of two young boys.

  Hex stopped filming and played back the footage to make sure it was good. The camcorder had caught every detail. He slipped the tiny DV tape cassette out of the camcorder, stowed it in a protective wallet and stashed it safely in the leather pouch that held his palmtop.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said finally. ‘We’re done—’

  At that instant, Li jumped to her feet with a wordless cry, pointing at the sky. They all followed her shaking finger and saw three dark shapes circling above the minefield, their broad, ragged wings spread wide to catch the thermals that came with the heat of the day. Vultures. The three huge birds began to spiral lazily downwards as the rest of Alpha Force scrambled to their feet and looked on in horror.

  The vultures landed on the bodies, holding their wings aloft to protect their share and hissing evilly at one another. Paulo groaned and turned away as one bird thrust its naked head and neck deep into the chest cavity of one of the boys and tore away a chunk of flesh with its heavy, sharply hooked beak. The boy twitched and his arms flopped as though he were trying to get up.

  ‘I can’t watch any more,’ said Amber. ‘Can we go now?’

  Sickened, they turned away, ready to head back down the slope, but Li suddenly launched herself out onto the minefield side of the dune and ran with floundering strides down the steep slope. As she ran, she waved her arms above her head and yelled at the top of her voice, trying to scare the birds off. The vultures barely moved. Li was too far away from them to pose a threat.

  Khalid shouted a warning, his voice high with panic, but Li ignored him.

  ‘Dios,’ breathed Paulo. He turned, ready to launch himself after Li, but Alex grabbed him round the legs and brought him down in a rugby-style tackle.

  ‘Li!’ shrieked Amber. ‘Stop! You have to stop! The mines!’

  Li seemed to come to her senses. She leaned back and dug in her heels, trying to slow her descent, but she was going too fast. She careered down to the bottom of the dune slope, coming to a stop only as the ground levelled out. There, she stared at the birds for a few more seconds while the others held their breath, then her shoulders slumped in defeat. She turned and began trudging back up the slope towards them.

  Alex gave a relieved sigh and let go of Paulo.

  Paulo scrambled to his feet, shaking his head. Under his tan, the blood had drained away from his face so completely, he looked almost green. ‘That girl,’ he said. ‘She is mad. Does she stop to think? No! She just—’

  ‘—jumps in,’ finished Amber, nodding in heartfelt agreement. ‘Yeah, well, I’m gonna give her something to think about when she gets back up here—’

  ‘She’s stopped,’ said Hex.

  They all turned to look at Li. She had come to a sudden halt a third of the way up the slope and was standing, head down and motionless, with her left foot suspended centimetres above the sand.

  ‘What is she doing now?’ demanded Amber. ‘Honestly, I . . .’

  Her words faded away as Li slowly, carefully, raised her head and looked up at them. There was no mistaking the expression on her face. It was sheer terror.

  Hex lifted the camcorder to his eye and zoomed in on Li’s foot. ‘Oh, no,’ he breathed, as he saw the taut length of shimmering, silver wire that she had hooked out of the sand with the toe of her boot. It was caught under one of the little metal tabs that held her bootlaces in place.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Paulo.

  ‘Tripwire,’ said Hex briefly.

  ‘Dios,’ breathed Paulo. Of all of them, he was closest to Li and his hands clenched into fists at the thought of her ending up like the two boys in the minefield.

  ‘What do we do?’ whispered Amber. ‘What can we do?’

  Paulo looked down the slope, directly into Li’s terrified eyes, and he forced himself to smile reassuringly. ‘Good girl, Li. You are doing exactly the right thing. Stay as still as you can. We will get you out of there.’

  ‘She can’t stay motionless for long!’ hissed Amber. ‘Not on a forty-five-degree slope! What do we do?’

  ‘Hex?’ said Alex. ‘Can you help?’

  Hex waved away the question. He was already deep in thought, going through all the landmine information he had picked up on the Net a few hours earlier. Hex had a photographic memory, so if he had read anything about tripwire mines, he would be able to retrieve it. All he had to do was find the right file.

  ‘Got it!’ he said, lifting his head. ‘It’s probably one of the M2 series. They’re nasty. A type of bounding, fragmentation mine.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Paulo with an anguished glance down the slope to Li.

  ‘When the tripwire is triggered, the mine fires a sort of grenade two metres into the air. The grenade explodes, blasting shrapnel at everything around it.’

  ‘Do you know how to defuse it?’ asked Alex.

  Hex brought the relevant page up on the screen inside his head. He scanned the information there, then nodded. ‘In theory,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need some pliers.’

  Paulo patted the tool-pouch at his belt. ‘I have them. Let us go.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Hex. ‘Before anyone goes down there, I want to make sure we’re all clear about this. The mine on the end of that tripwire jumps into the air before it explodes. So, if things turn bad, Li won’t be the only one to die. Understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Paulo. ‘Now, can we go?’

  Hex and Paulo set off down the slope, treading slowly and carefully in Li’s footprints. They were the logical choices – Hex had the knowledge and Paulo had the tools and the skill to use
them – but still, Alex and Amber found it hard to stay back and watch. Khalid joined them at the top of the dune and the three of them lay belly down on the western slope, peering over the crest of the dune, willing the rescue to go well.

  As Paulo got closer to Li, he could see the strain on her face as she struggled to stay balanced on the steep slope. Her muscles were extremely strong from years of free climbing, but already there was a slight tremor in the leg that was holding all her weight.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she begged, in a high-pitched, panicky voice. ‘And don’t make the sand move.’

  ‘Not going to,’ said Hex calmly as he stepped over to the left in front of Li. He placed his feet with great care, making sure the sand was not going to shift before he put his full weight on the slope. Once he was sure the sand was stable, he eased down into a kneeling position. Paulo slowly moved into place on his right, hunkering down on his haunches so that Li’s foot, and the tripwire, were directly in front of him. His heart sank when he saw how firmly the wire was caught in the metal laces tab. There was no way they could release it without tripping the detonator.

  ‘OK, Li,’ said Hex. ‘I’m not going to touch you, but if you want, you can use my shoulder to lean on.’

  ‘You won’t move?’ quavered Li.

  ‘Me? Steady as a rock.’

  Li lifted her hand, hesitated, then reached out and gripped Hex’s shoulder, digging her fingers in hard enough to make him wince.

  ‘Do not worry, Li,’ said Paulo. ‘Hex knows how to make this mine safe. Right, Hex?’

  ‘Right. First, we need to make sure it’s the type I think it is. Paulo, I want you to dig down into the sand about ten centimetres to the right. We’re looking for a black tube, the size and shape of a large torch, with a separate, smaller pipe sticking up alongside it, attached at the base. If you uncover any part of the tripwire, you have to stop immediately – and I mean immediately. The tripwire must not move. Cover it up again and start digging a bit further over.’

  Paulo worked in silence, painstakingly moving the sand a handful at a time. Hex kneeled, staying as still as he could to support Li. The sun burned down on their backs and the sweat poured out of them, evaporating instantly where their skin was exposed and leaving behind a fine, white residue of salt.

  Finally, Paulo sat back on his haunches. ‘Hex,’ he said, his voice tight with tension. ‘I have found something.’

  FIVE

  Paulo leaned back to let Hex see the top of a black tube, with a smaller pipe periscoping out of the sand beside it.

  ‘Good,’ said Hex, injecting as much confidence into his voice as he could. ‘Just as I thought. Don’t touch anything yet, Paulo. Li, when you’re ready, I want you to let go of my shoulder and lean on Paulo instead. I need to dig this side now.’

  ‘But, I have found the mine, yes?’ said Paulo.

  ‘Yeah, but sometimes these tripwires have two nasty surprises – one on each end.’

  Hex waited patiently until Li felt confident enough to switch shoulders, then he started digging.

  ‘Paulo,’ whispered Li, ‘I – I don’t know how much longer I can hold still.’

  Paulo looked up at her. Two tears were trickling down her cheeks and her head was beginning to tremble on her neck.

  ‘You will be fine,’ he said, looking her in the eye.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be fine,’ whispered Li. ‘But . . . just in case, if I tell you both to get out of here, you have to go. Promise me you’ll go.’

  ‘Stop being so noble,’ said Paulo with a grin.

  ‘Got it,’ said Hex, as his fingers came up against a hard, rough surface. Gently, he brushed the sand away, then sat back on his heels with a relieved sigh. His end of the tripwire was wrapped around nothing more than a large rock.

  ‘Now, all we have to do is make the mine safe without tripping the wire,’ said Hex lightly.

  Paulo grinned at him and took out the customized tool-kit he carried in his belt pouch. ‘Let us start,’ he said.

  At the top of the dune, Amber nudged Alex impatiently. ‘Why have they stopped digging?’ she demanded.

  Alex frowned into the camcorder, adjusting the focus slightly. ‘Looks like they’ve uncovered the mine.’

  ‘Let me see!’ Amber snatched the camcorder away from Alex. He sighed and lifted his head to ease the tension in his neck. Since Hex and Paulo had started digging, every second had seemed to last a minute. As he stretched his neck, a bright flash from the road on the other side of the berm caught his eye. Alex looked across, then snatched the camcorder back, ignoring Amber’s protests. He focused on the road and what he saw there made his heart sink. The bright flash he had seen was the sun bouncing off the windscreen of an approaching vehicle. A jeep. A military jeep.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Amber.

  ‘Army patrol,’ said Alex. ‘And they’re heading this way.’

  ‘See those three prongs sticking out of the top of the smaller pipe?’ asked Hex.

  Paulo nodded.

  ‘The pipe is called a flash tube. The three prongs are the top part of the fuse,’ said Hex. ‘If I’m right, there’s a hole through the flash tube just under the sand there. The tripwire is attached to a release pin which fits into that hole. When the wire is tripped, it yanks the pin out of the hole. That releases a spring-loaded striker—’

  ‘—which sets off the mine,’ finished Paulo.

  ‘Yeah. Now, when Li tripped the wire, she must only have pulled the pin part of the way out. What you have to do is clear the sand away and push the release pin all the way back into the hole. When you’re sure it’s secure, then you can cut the wire with the pliers.’

  ‘That is it? But it is so simple,’ said Paulo, smiling up at Li.

  ‘In theory, yes,’ said Hex reluctantly. ‘But what we don’t know is how much of the pin is still left in the hole. It could be hanging by a thread. Even the slightest disturbance could—’

  ‘Hex!’ called Alex softly from the top of the dune. ‘Patrol on the way. ETA three to four minutes.’

  Li gave a strangled sob and the foot that had snagged the wire wobbled dangerously.

  ‘Be still!’ snapped Paulo. ‘Forget the soldiers. We are doing this. Only this.’

  Li gulped and nodded, holding her leg as still as she could and trying to ignore the excruciating cramps that were twisting through her thigh muscles. Paulo leaned forward and began to move the sand from around the flash tube. His big hands worked with delicacy and confidence and soon he could see the gleam of the wire through the sand. He stopped, leaned forward and gently blew the last of the sand away. As he did so, the sound of a jeep engine carried on the wind. The patrol was nearly upon them.

  Up on the top of the dune, Alex, Amber and Khalid ducked low as the jeep came into view on the road.

  ‘Khalid, run. Hide!’ ordered Amber.

  Khalid shook his head.

  ‘You must get out of here!’ insisted Amber. ‘If the troops find us five, it’s no big deal. We’re just a bunch of stupid tourist kids who lost our way. But if they catch you, you’ll end up in prison!’

  ‘I stay,’ said Khalid. ‘I am guide. Only I know safe way back.’

  ‘I have the GPS, remember?’

  ‘Do this GPS show hiding mines?’

  Amber glared at Khalid. He stared back calmly, his dark eyes stubborn and determined in his ruin of a face, and all the while the noise of the jeep engine grew louder.

  ‘I can see the pin,’ said Paulo.

  ‘Can you get hold of it?’ asked Hex.

  Paulo reached forward to grasp the pin, then hesitated, frightened of knocking it from the hole. His hand hovered uncertainly and Li’s foot twitched again as a particularly bad cramp bit into her leg. The wire jumped, yanking the pin and Paulo lunged. He nipped the pin between his thumb and forefinger just before the last few millimetres slid from the hole.

  For one second, two, he was frozen in place, waiting for the explosion. When nothing happened, he slowly slid th
e pin back through the hole in the flash tube. Once it was in, he picked up the pliers and clipped the wire.

  Li collapsed to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Let’s go!’ yelled Paulo.

  ‘Come on,’ said Hex, putting an arm around Li’s shaking shoulders and dragging her to her feet. ‘No time for that. We have to get out of here.’

  Hex half-dragged Li up the slope as the jeep came to a stop on the other side of the berm. They were still in full view and in another few seconds the soldiers would be out of the jeep and climbing the metal steps to the observation platform that was built into the berm.

  Amber, Alex and Khalid were already running down the other side of the dune, heading for the quads. Hex and Li reached the top and plunged after them without looking back. Paulo watched them go, making sure Li was out of harm’s way before he looked down once more at the little pin he was still holding in place with his finger. He had known straight away that the pin was unstable. The mine was tilted to one side and, without the sand packed around it, the pin was likely to slip out as soon as he let go of it.

  Paulo heard the sound of booted feet clanging on metal and then men’s voices talking and laughing. The soldiers were climbing the steps to the observation platform and he was still in full view on the dune slope. Quickly, Paulo scooped a wall of sand around the pin and patted it into place, but the fine, dry grains of sand had nothing to hold them together and the wall started to crumble away almost immediately. Paulo groaned, then let go of the pin. Without stopping to see what happened he surged to his feet and powered up the slope. He was still a metre away from the dune crest when he heard a sharp, metallic click.

  The pin had fallen out, releasing the striker mechanism.

  With a yell, Paulo launched himself over the crest of the dune as a fist of air hit him in the back. A split second later, the noise of the explosion blasted his eardrums and a geyser of sand erupted, rising high above the top of the dune. Then he was rolling down the far slope of the dune, falling out of control, head over heels.