by James Becker
The driver knew that timing was everything. As the straight section of the track came to an end, he hit the brakes and shouted out, ‘Get ready.’
As the lorry shuddered under braking, two of the men who’d been clinging on to the sides of the loading area clambered painfully to their feet and grasped the steel bar that ran across the truck directly behind the cab. The moment the vehicle came to a complete stop, one of them pulled a grey canvas cover off a long and somewhat bulky object located right in the centre, and directly above, the steel bar.
Underneath the cover – used only as a precaution to keep the worst of the sand out of the mechanism – the long black barrel of a Browning M2 half-inch machine gun gleamed in the sunlight.
The man designated as the gunner checked the weapon, ensured the belt carrying the ammunition was properly aligned with the breech and clear of obstructions, cocked it and then grasped the twin grip handles at the rear of the machine gun and swung it round to point the barrel towards the distant vehicle. Even for that powerful and heavy weapon, he knew that the 4x4 was at the very limit of its range, probably around a mile distant, but he had his orders.
The good thing was that although the 4x4 was travelling quite quickly, it was also following a reasonably straight course, making it an easier target.
He sighted the weapon, allowing a slight lead ahead of the vehicle, and raised the barrel a fraction to cater for the drop the bullets would experience in flight due to the effects of gravity.
‘Quickly,’ his companion urged. ‘They’ll be out of range in a few seconds.’
The gunner adjusted his aim, then pressed the trigger in a short and controlled burst.
19
Vicinity of Al Muthanna, Iraq
Bronson slammed his foot on to the brake pedal and simultaneously swung the steering wheel hard around to the left. The Land Cruiser rocked and lurched with the sudden change of direction, then surged forward as Bronson shifted his foot to the accelerator.
‘What’s happening?’ Stephen demanded.
‘That,’ Bronson snapped, nodding his head at the ground over to the right of the vehicle, but not taking his hands off the steering wheel.
Stephen and Angela glanced in the direction he was indicating, but neither saw anything. Then, looking deceptively innocent in the harsh midday sun, a puff of sand seemed to erupt from the top of a nearby dune, followed immediately by two other flurries of dust and sand.
‘What is it?’ Stephen asked.
‘They’re shooting at us,’ Bronson replied shortly. ‘I saw a kind of flicker from the back of that truck a few seconds ago.’
Stephen twisted round in his seat to stare over at the now stationary lorry. Then he shook his head.
‘We must be at least a mile away by now. Surely they haven’t got a hope of hitting us at that distance.’
‘Not with a Kalashnikov,’ Bronson replied grimly. ‘But plenty of other things have the range.’
‘Like what?’
‘The Ma Deuce. That’s what the American troops call the Browning M2 half-inch heavy machine gun. I don’t know exactly what weapons those guys had mounted on the trucks, but quite often out here you’ll find that anything much bigger than a jeep will carry a half-inch machine gun of some sort, and the Browning is pretty much the best of the bunch, so it’s a really popular choice.’
‘And that could hit us from over a mile away?’ Stephen still sounded incredulous.
‘Definitely. Its effective range is two thousand yards, but it’s still dangerous at well over four miles. It fires between five hundred and six hundred rounds a minute, and that’s about ten shells every second. Any single half-inch bullet hitting this Toyota could easily take out something vital – a tyre or the engine, say – and if that happens we’re dead.’
‘Jesus,’ Stephen exhaled, and again turned to look towards the lorry.
The bigger the clouds of dust and sand Bronson managed to create the better, because that would obscure the 4x4 from view, and travelling in a straight line would be the height of stupidity, so he swung the Toyota left, away from the threat posed by the heavy weapon that was firing short bursts towards them. They couldn’t hear the shots over the roar of the diesel in the Land Cruiser, but puffs of sand were erupting from the dunes near them, so it was clear they were still under attack.
Bronson dropped down a gear and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator pedal, sending the big Toyota barrelling down the side of a dune, the suspension bottoming as he reached the rocky level ground at its base.
On the firmer surface he could increase speed still more, which is precisely what he did, causing Stephen to seize the grab handle above his door with one hand and his seat belt with the other.
‘If those bullets they’re firing hit us, that’ll be the end of us,’ he yelled over the commotion. ‘But the same applies if you crash this jeep.’
‘I do know that,’ Bronson replied, but didn’t noticeably slow down.
He crested another dune, and for a split second all four wheels of the Toyota were turning in the air as it left the ground. It landed back on the slope on the far side of the dune with a crash that bounced all three of them around in their seats, but he continued to keep the power on, forcing the big vehicle to travel as fast down the slope as the conditions permitted.
‘This isn’t as dangerous as you might think,’ Bronson said, turning the steering wheel slightly to avoid a rocky outcrop that projected from the sand about fifty yards ahead of the Toyota. ‘Sand dunes are formed by the action of the wind, and that usually means that the slopes on both sides are relatively gentle.’
Stephen didn’t look convinced when Bronson glanced at his face in the rear-view mirror.
‘And the chances of the bullets hitting us now are pretty much nil.’
‘We haven’t come that far,’ Stephen said. ‘We must still be in range of that machine gun.’
‘We are, obviously,’ Angela said, ‘but what Chris means is that we’re travelling away from them, and we were already close to the maximum accurate range of the weapon when they started firing. So they have to move, they have to follow us, if they’re going to have any chance of hitting this vehicle. And one of the few things I do know about weapons is that trying to hit a moving target from another moving target is virtually impossible.’
She gasped for breath as the Land Cruiser again lifted off the ground and then crashed down once more.
‘That is what you meant, isn’t it?’ she asked.
Bronson nodded. ‘Got it in one.’
A couple of minutes later, Bronson began to back off the speed. He hadn’t seen any signs of further firing from the lorry, and the vehicle itself was now at least two miles behind them, maybe three or more. They were safe, at least for the moment.
And then, off to the left, Bronson saw an almost identical dark shape, and in that instant he realized he was facing a clever ambush. The reason the pursuing lorry had fired at them – apart from trying to stop the Toyota and kill them, obviously, which would have been a bonus – was to force them over to the north, and within range of the other heavy machine gun he had no doubt was mounted on the second truck.
The vehicle appeared to be stationary, or at least it did when he first saw it, but within a few seconds it was clear that either it had been moving very slowly or the driver had just started off. Which deduction was correct was irrelevant, because almost immediately the vehicle came to a stop on the crest of a dune, and seconds later Bronson saw a sudden flicker from above the cab.
Somebody on the lorry was firing a weapon at them, and this time there was no doubt at all: at 600 yards, the Toyota was well within range of the Browning.
20
Vicinity of Al Muthanna, Iraq
The first bullets from the half-inch machine gun mounted behind the cab of the second lorry chewed up the sand less than thirty feet in front of the Toyota.
Their only defence – apart from simply driving out of range, which wasn’t goi
ng to happen any time soon – was to get out of sight. To drop down into the gullies that lay between the dunes.
Bronson hit the brakes and swung the wheel hard over to the right. The Land Cruiser lurched and swayed, and then headed straight down the slope.
He’d reacted as quickly as he could, but he still thought it might have been too little, too late, as he saw the explosions in the sand marching steadily towards them.
A second later the back of the vehicle seemed to lift up bodily into the air from some immense impact. The rear window shattered, greenish-blue jewels of safety glass flying in all directions.
Angela wasn’t a screamer, but she instinctively ducked down in her seat and squealed in terror. Stephen dived for the floor, shouting expletives.
When Bronson took his eyes from the terrain in front of him for the briefest of instants he could see the exit hole punched through the roof of the Toyota.
‘We’re okay,’ he said. ‘One bullet hit the car, but no serious damage.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Stephen said, the terror in his voice obvious.
‘Stay low, both of you,’ Bronson instructed in the chaos. ‘I’m going to try to keep in the valleys, where the dunes will hide us. Or at least hide most of the vehicle.’
But already he was running out of options. The valley down which he was driving was rapidly coming to an end, and in front of them was the side of a gently sloping dune.
Stopping wasn’t an option. Instead, Bronson dropped the Toyota down a gear, and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator pedal. The big turbo-charged diesel engine roared its defiance and the 4x4 powered up the slope, clouds of sand being blasted away from the low-pressure tyres.
‘Hang on!’
Angela and Taverner gripped whatever they could find as the Toyota again powered into the air over the crest and crashed down on the opposite side of the dune, the impact driving the breath from their bodies.
Bronson lifted his right foot from the accelerator as the vehicle lifted off the ground, but immediately pressed it down again the instant the tyres were back in contact with the sand. He was concentrating on getting the hell out of the killing ground as quickly as possible, but still found a second to take a look out of the side window to check the lorry whose inhabitants were determined to murder them.
The faint flicker from above the cab told him that the weapon was still firing, but the lorry was on the move now, the driver obviously trying to close the distance between them.
As long as the lorry was moving, Bronson knew that there was less chance of the machine gunner – no matter how good or competent he was – being able to hit them. Angela was quite right: trying to hit a moving target from a moving vehicle was as near impossible as made no difference unless they were really close together, and Bronson estimated that they were already almost half a mile apart.
But even as that thought crossed his mind, another salvo of bullets from the heavy machine gun tore up the sand just feet behind the Toyota. It seemed that the gunner was more competent – or simply a lot luckier – than Bronson had anticipated.
Then the Land Cruiser dropped down the slope, the dunes on its left-hand side providing a natural barrier impervious to even the heavy-calibre bullets being fired from the truck, and for a few precious seconds they were safe.
It was a cat-and-mouse game they were playing and Bronson guessed that there was only one possible outcome. The gunner on the lorry now knew the direction they were heading, and every time the Toyota drove out of one of the dips between the dunes, as it inevitably had to do, there was a greater and greater chance of him hitting the vehicle with his next salvo. And when that happened, they were as good as dead.
Even if they weren’t killed by the bullets that would perforate the thin steel of the Toyota, Bronson had no doubt that the men in the back of the truck would arrive within a few minutes to finish the job with their assault rifles or pistols.
What he needed, apart from a miracle, was some way of keeping out of sight, of keeping the vehicle below the top levels of the dunes until he could drive out of range of the weapon. The problem was that the dunes simply marched like a giant frozen sea, each crest followed by a dip and then by another crest, and in order to get away Bronson was being forced to continually climb over crests before descending into the relative safety of the shallow valleys beyond.
Again he powered the Toyota up the side of the dune in front of him, and again he felt the unmistakable sensation as it left the ground, and then the crash as the tyres hit and the suspension compressed all the way to the stops.
Even over that noise, the hammering of the machine gun was still audible, and again the Toyota shuddered as another one of the heavy bullets smashed into it.
Glass from one of the side windows at the back of the vehicle sprayed all around the interior. And at the same instant the opposite window blew out as the bullet continued its journey through the Toyota before burying itself in the sand a few feet away.
This time Angela screamed.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Stephen shouted again, the panic evident in his voice. ‘I felt that go right over my head.’
But again they’d been lucky. Any lower and, as Taverner had just pointed out, the bullet would very probably have killed him. And a couple of feet lower than that and it could have taken out the drivetrain or gearbox, which would have signed a death warrant for all three of them.
They were out of sight of the lorry again, Bronson steering the 4x4 along the bottom of a dip. This time he decided to stay down for longer, even though that would mean they weren’t putting much distance between them and their pursuers, because as far as he could tell that shallow valley ran like a section of an arc around the location of the lorry. But at least the gunner couldn’t possibly know where his target would appear next, and that just might give them an edge.
Bronson eased the vehicle further over to the left, picking his spot on the opposite side of the valley carefully, choosing the lowest dune that he could see, and then he steered the Toyota up the slope and over the crest and down into the next valley of sand.
This time, no shots followed as the 4x4 appeared from the dip. Bronson drove the Toyota down the opposite slope and at the bottom reversed direction to head back the way they’d come, hoping that the gunner would be expecting him to do the opposite.
Again he picked an area where the crests were the lowest, and accelerated the vehicle as hard as he could. As he steered it over the crest and down into the next dip, he saw the long barrel of the machine gun swing towards him, but too late for the gunner to open fire before the Toyota disappeared again. And they were about another couple of hundred yards away, and distance was vital. Distance would keep them alive.
Then, right in front of him, Bronson saw another valley in the sand that intersected with the one he was driving along, but this one tracked away from the position where the gunmen’s lorry was parked. He didn’t hesitate, just swung the Land Cruiser into it and accelerated hard.
It wasn’t all that long, and at the end another wall of dunes rose up, but that didn’t matter. They were now another couple of hundred yards further away from the lorry, and would – or so Bronson hoped – be coming back into view somewhere that the gunman wouldn’t expect.
And when he crested the dune, he was proved right. No shots came their way, and when he checked the rear-view mirrors he estimated that they were now about a mile, maybe even a little further, away from the armed lorry.
‘I think we’re clear now,’ he said cautiously, picking the straightest route he could and winding up the speed, while still weaving slightly from side to side, just to continue offering as difficult a target as he could. Though in reality he knew that the plume of sand the tyres were already chucking into the sky was probably their best defence.
Then through the blown-open window on the right-hand side of the vehicle Bronson heard another volley of shots, though he had no idea where the bullets struck. All three of them looked in that direction,
to see the first lorry they’d avoided bouncing over the dunes straight towards them, but still about a mile away from the Toyota.
‘They’re wasting their time firing at us,’ Bronson said. ‘We’re right at the limit of his range and the truck’s all over the place.’
They continued to hear sporadic firing from both vehicles for another few minutes, but no other rounds hit the Toyota, and the sounds drifted further and further into the distance as they accelerated away.
Twenty minutes later, without further incident, they crossed the border into Kuwait and could all relax for the first time since they’d left the camp.
‘We should tell the Kuwaiti border guards what’s happened,’ Taverner said.
‘Probably not a good idea,’ Bronson replied. ‘I had a few dealings with Arabs when I was in the Army, and their mindset is very different to ours. If we tell them we’ve been shot at, the most likely outcome would be for them to arrest us, on the grounds that clearly some kind of crime has been committed and we were on the spot at the time. And if we were there, then we must obviously have been involved. Once news of the massacre at the archaeological camp breaks, we’d probably be the prime suspects for that as well. We’d be lucky to ever get out of jail.’
‘So what do we do?’ Angela asked.
‘We head for the hills,’ Bronson replied. ‘We’ve all got our passports with us – I hope – so we park this 4x4 at the airport in Kuwait City and buy tickets on the first flight out of Kuwait that isn’t going to another Arab country.’
‘Why?’ Angela asked.
‘Because if the Kuwait authorities are alerted and discover that we are on an aircraft operated by an airline based out here, they could always instruct the crew to turn it round and bring us back, or land somewhere else en route where we could be arrested. That technique is much less likely to work if we’re being flown out using a Western European airline. Even a fairly short-haul flight would do. Then, once we’re in Greece or Italy or wherever, we buy another ticket and keep moving until we get back to Britain. Then we go to the police and tell them what’s happened and let the authorities sort it out.’
