movements.
He was still advancing, one hand hovering near his holstered pistol. Had he seen him? Chase couldn’t imagine how, but he was striding right for the bush. He brought the Browning up, ready to fire.
The man stopped, less than six feet from him, only the twisted branches of the bush between them. He looked down . . .
And opened his fly.
Chase forced himself not to flinch away from the spray as the man unleashed a splattering stream of urine on to the bush. Which just kept coming. How much had the bastard drunk?
Finally, the torrent eased off . . . then started again, a second wind before it finally trickled to nothing. The man made a satisfied sound, then fastened himself up and turned away. By now, the other guard had come round the camp; the two men exchanged a few words before the urinator went back to join his fellows and the patrol trudged on.
Chase disgustedly wiped his face, then peered round the bush. Pisso’s little excursion would work to his advantage: he could follow the new set of tracks straight into the camp without the guards wondering where they had come from.
He waited for both men to move out of sight, then quickly crossed the sands to the nearest tent. He was uncomfortably aware as he traversed the open space that Sophia was almost certainly tracking him through the rifle scope - if for any reason she decided that he had outlived his usefulness to her, he could be dead before he even heard the crack of the Lee-Enfield.
But he reached his destination. Glancing round the tent, he saw the circle of Humvees not far away. He also saw reflections of flames in their windows; they were close to one of the Janjaweed campfires.
Giving the horses a wide berth in case his presence spooked them, he hurried to another tent, then into cover between two of the parked technicals. One of them, a Toyota Hilux pickup, was missing its cab. The bent stubs of metal poking up from behind the gaps where the doors had once been suggested it had rolled over at some point, and rather than waste a still-working engine the Janjaweed had simply sawn off the flattened roof. He glanced inside, seeing the key still in the ignition - with a plastic Hello Kitty key ring dangling from it. He almost smiled at the incongruity, then moved to the front of the truck.
The nearest Humvee was not far away. The men round the fire nearby mostly had their backs to him. Nobody in sight in the other direction. He rose to his full height, looking for signs of movement inside the circle of Covenant vehicles—
One of the Janjaweed emerged from a tent - and saw him.
For a moment, neither man moved. Chase’s gun hand was hidden from his view behind the Hilux. He slowly raised it . . .
The man stared at him disdainfully, then turned and walked away towards one of the other groups of loud, whooping thugs. Chase realised what had happened. The militiaman had assumed he was one of the Covenant troopers - in the shifting orange half-light, his pale, dusty clothes could easily be mistaken for their camo fatigues.
He held back until the man moved away, then strode to the Humvee. He made sure nobody was watching, then dropped and rolled underneath it. The Covenant men inside the circle wouldn’t be as gullible.
He could see one of them approaching. He waited for the patrol to pass, then rolled out from under the Humvee and scurried between two of the domes. He knew where Nina’s tent was, and stayed low as he headed for it.
He stopped as he saw another Covenant trooper sitting on a folding chair outside Nina’s illuminated tent. A TAR-21 rifle lay across his lap. ‘Bollocks,’ Chase whispered. There was enough open space between the tents for the soldier to see him and bring up his gun before he could get close enough for a knife attack, and if he fired a shot the entire camp would be alerted.
He needed another way . . .
He backed up, weaving between the tents as he followed a circuitous route to bring him round behind Nina’s tent, watching for the men on patrol. One passed; Chase darted to his destination and took out the knife. He wouldn’t have long before the other man came round - if he didn’t make it inside in time, he would be in plain view. Jabbing the knife through the fabric at the base of the curved frame, he quickly drew it across to cut a slit. When it was wide enough to fit through, he ducked inside—
The heavy base of a battery-powered lamp came within an inch of smashing down on his head.
‘Eddie!’ squeaked Nina, just barely arresting the blow.
‘Shh! Chase hissed frantically, a finger to his lips. He glanced back through the hole, seeing the patrolling trooper walking past.
Nina put down the lamp beside the slit and hugged him. ‘Oh my God!’ she whispered. ‘You found me, I can’t believe you found me!’
‘I can’t believe it either - we didn’t expect the Covenant to be out here ahead of us.’
‘We?’ She made a face. ‘Oh, so Sophia’s alive too?’
‘’Fraid so. But what about you? Not that I’m complaining, but why’d they bring you along?’
‘They needed me to find Eden, since I was the only one who’d seen the map.’
Chase frowned, noticing a map, several pages of notes and the cylinder she had taken from the frozen city on a folding table. ‘And you
‘Not . . . exactly,’ she answered hesitantly. He stared at her. ‘What? I don’t know where the damn place is. I was stringing them along!’
‘Yeah, and you strung them along to thirty miles from it!’
‘It’s a big desert!’
‘They’re a big organisation!’
‘Actually, I don’t think they are - they’ve started running out of goons . . . and can we discuss this later? Once I’m, y’know, out of here?’
‘Yeah, I think we ought to,’ he snapped as he went to the door flap. The zip was slightly down, giving him an eyehole through which he could see the back of the sitting guard’s head. He hadn’t heard anything - yet.
He moved back to Nina as she gathered her belongings, including the cylinder, and stuffed them into a backpack. ‘Okay, once the patrol goes past, go out and hide under one of the Humvees.’ He realised she wasn’t looking at him, but the door. ‘What?’ He turned his head to see—
‘Shadows!’ hissed Nina, just as he realised what was wrong. The lamp was casting their silhouettes like shadow puppets across the fabric.
And he heard the chair creak as the man outside stood and began to tug down the door’s zip—
Chase hurled his knife as the Covenant trooper looked inside. The blade stabbed deep into his neck with a wet
‘Get ready to go,’ Chase told Nina as he pulled the trooper inside and picked up his assault rifle.
Nina dropped to all fours, lifting the cut fabric and peering through.
She saw a pair of boots. ‘Uh-oh.’
The guard outside yanked up the slit, revealing Nina behind it. She looked up at him as he pointed his gun at her face—
Chase fired the TAR-21, sending a sweep of bullets through the tent’s wall above Nina. The Covenant soldier screamed and fell backwards.
‘Get under the Humvee!’ Chase shouted, rushing to the door to locate the other patrolling guard. Nina scrambled through the slit, vaulting the fallen soldier and diving beneath the nearest 4x4. Shouts rose all around, Janjaweed and Covenant responding to the gunfire.
Chase spotted the remaining guard ducking behind a tent. Another burst of fire from the stolen TAR-21, the taut nylon puckering as bullets slashed through it, and the soldier tumbled back into view with several bloody wounds across his chest.
More movement, beyond the Humvees. A group of Janjaweed running to investigate, AK-47s raised.
Chase fired again. Blood puffed from the head of one of the running men, who fell. The others scattered, taking cover behind the armoured vehicles. One militiaman looked round a Humvee and recognised Chase - it was
