The Age of Ra

into gaze of Sobek himself, son of Neith the goddess of war. Set once hid briefly inside a crocodile, hoping to escape being punished for the murder of Osiris. Apophis, the serpent Set fought twice daily, was the son of Sobek.

He was conscious of all these associations, the linkage of god to god embodied within the reptile in front of him. His finger squeezed the trigger but not all the way.

He couldn't do it.

It was more than sacrilege. It felt like cold-blooded murder.

Blam!

Zafirah lowered her rifle.

The crocodile writhed and rolled, grunting horribly as the message passed along its nervous system from its bullet-smashed brain — you are dead.

It lay on its back, soft pale underside exposed, as the last few twitches of life ran through it.

The priest and the crowd of locals were on their knees, weeping.

''It was just a fucking crocodile,'' Zafirah said tersely, striding back to the cars.

On the evening of their fifth day in Libya, as they were making camp for the night, one of the team spied a Saqqara Bird in the distance. It was flying in a criss-cross pattern, searching the area by grid.

''Looking for us?'' Zafirah wondered, peering at the bird's small black silhouette as it glided to and fro against the twilight sky.

''You can count on it,'' David said. ''Word of what we've been up to will have reached Tripoli by now.''

''What should we do? Shoot it out of the air?''

''And give away exactly where we are? No, for the moment we stay put. The vehicles are camouflaged, and we personally are getting a measure of invisibility from these.'' He tapped the amulet around his neck. All of the team were wearing them. ''But I think our time here is coming to an end. The Lightbringer said we should avoid direct engagement with Neph forces if we can, and that's going to become inevitable if we stay much longer.''

''So our little jaunt is over.''

''Jaunt?'' David laughed. ''Don't you mean hostile sortie? Act of deliberate provocation?''

''That's what I said.'' Zafirah laughed too, and it occurred to David that this was an all too rare sound from her. She didn't laugh enough. Neither did he. They both took themselves too seriously. It was something they had in common and something, he felt, that was keeping them apart.

He wanted her. He desired her. She, he was certain, felt the same about him. But unless he did away with the reserve which he wore like a suit of armour and she stopped using her ability to wrong-foot him as though it were a weapon, nothing was ever going to happen.

''How many Anubians does it take to change a light bulb?'' he said.

Zafirah frowned. ''What?''

''It's a joke. Go on. How many Anubians does it take to change a light bulb?''

''I don't know. One?''

'''What's a light bulb?'''

Zafirah looked blank.

''You know. Anubians. Their thing about darkness. They don't like bright light. Try to avoid it. Therefore… they don't have…'' He trailed off.

''Oh. I see. Funny,'' said Zafirah, and she wandered off to talk to one of the Freegyptians.

David cursed himself for an idiot. He'd only wanted to hear her laugh again, and now he felt like a teenager on a fumbled first date.

What did it take to win this woman?

Whatever it was, he was now all the more determined to do it.

He was David Westwynter. Back in England, in his old life, in the circles he'd moved in, that had meant something. It had meant he could have just about any woman he set his cap at.

Here, the same rules did not apply. But that was fine. It upped the challenge, and the stakes. Here, where the name Westwynter and the reputation attached meant nothing, everything came down to the man himself. With Zafirah it was about admiration and lust, a combination David recognised as being the cornerstones of love, but it was about more than that too. It was about him finding out whether there was anything more to him than the sum of his upbringing.

Was he a somebody, as in England? Or was he somebody?

Their luck held for another two days, during which time they found and eliminated another six holy sites dotted among the Chinese-owned oilfields of Libya's south-eastern Al Kufrah municipality.

Then, just as David was thinking that the time had come to cut and run, a spotter plane located them. It flew directly over the three vehicles, returned for a second pass, then hurtled off into the blue. The Freegyptians sent trails of machine-gun fire after it, nipping at its tail.

''Saqqara Birds not working, so the Libyans have gone conventional,'' said David. ''Pilot's radioing base right now, relaying our position.''

''We should make for the border,'' said Zafirah.

''Too damn right we should. They'll be scrambling jet fighters from Maaten al-Sarra. Say twenty minutes for them to get here. We're about fifteen miles from Freegypt. It's going to be tight.''

The ZT and the two trucks tore across the desert at a mean sixty miles an hour, ploughing straight over rocks, clefts, and other obstacles normally best avoided at that sort of speed. Axles grumbled, suspension groaned. Everyone kept one eye on the sky. David reflexively sent up a small prayer to Osiris, asking for protection, while the Freegyptians, with no gods to importune, put their faith in the laws of probability. It was probable that they would reach the border in time. It was probable that the planes would arrive too late to catch them.

Probability, however, had little regard for human wishes, and Osiris, if he was listening today, turned a deaf ear.

A pair of Nephthysian jets appeared on the horizon to the rear, flying low — Locusts, to judge by the swept- back wings and the twin-bubble cockpit canopy. David's map and compass told him that he and his team were on Freegyptian soil, or at any rate so close you'd hardly notice the difference. Borders, however, were tricky things to define, especially from the air, and he suspected the Neph pilots' orders didn't involve giving the interlopers the benefit of the doubt. Two or three miles further into Freegypt, and there would have been no question of attacking. It would have been an overt infringement of Freegypt's sovereignty. But here, at the point of contiguity, in a stretch of desolate no-man's-land, there was room for uncertainty. Margin for error.

A bolt of purple ba hit the ground a few yards to the left of the ZT. The vehicle rocked. Debris from a freshly drilled crater rained down on the roof and bonnet. A second bolt struck just in front, and the ZT reared and came down with neck-jarring force. The windscreen shattered. Glass fragments flew everywhere inside the cab. Zafirah fought to maintain control, pulling out of a skid that threatened to turn into a somersault. The off-roader slewed and slalomed but kept going.

The Locusts shot ahead in side-by-side formation. Afterburners glowed as the planes went into a steep ascent, peeled off in different directions, and came round for a second run.

''Faster!'' David yelled, wind slamming into his face. ''We've got to go faster! It's our only hope!''

''No shit!'' Zafirah shouted back, shifting down a gear and flooring the accelerator.

In one of the trucks behind, a Freegyptian clambered out through the cab's rear window and loosed off a volley of bullets at the oncoming jets from the machine gun mounted on the flatbed. He might as well have been spitting at the planes for all the good it did. Ba crackled outward from under their wings. Zafirah swerved hard left, then hard right. Two of the ba blasts struck either side, missing narrowly both times. There was a loud detonation from behind, and in the wing mirror David saw the rearmost of the two trucks erupt, blown apart by purple light. Orange flame billowed a split-second later as the truck's fuel tank went up. Bodies and bits of bodies were hurled clear as the wreckage spun end over end, disintegrating a little more with each impact. When the truck finally came to rest, it barely looked like anything that might once have rolled off a production line. It was several sections of twisted, charred metal that were somehow still clinging on to one another, like an animal carcase after flaying and evisceration, held together by sinews alone.

Zafirah swore loudly and angrily. The two Freegyptians in the back seat of the ZT swore too.

The Locusts veered around for a third pass, but this time they did not open fire. As they thundered overhead