lead. More movement, outside the circle of 4x4s - another group of Janjaweed, realising that the machine gunner wasn’t a militiaman. Chase turned the barrage on them before they could act on that realisation, bullet-riddled bodies tumbling.
The ammo belt reached its end, the thunder stopping abruptly. There were more ammunition boxes in the pickup bed, but he didn’t have time to reload. Nina was bent almost double in her seat, hands pressed against her ears to protect them from the deafening noise. ‘Start the truck!’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I said start the - never mind!’ He jumped into the cab and turned the key. ‘Go!’
She raised her head. ‘Which way?’
‘Left.’
Nina released the clutch, the Toyota kicking sand from under its tyres as it lurched into motion. She turned left - only to see a group of Janjaweed running towards them. ‘Maybe not,’ she said, spinning the wheel to the right.
‘I said go
‘Yeah, and there’s a bunch of guys with guns that way!’
‘Have you seen what’s
She looked. ‘Oh, shit!’
The man who had destroyed the Humvee had reloaded his rocket launcher, lining up a second RPG round - not at the Covenant vehicles, but at the Hilux.
Nina tried to turn, but found nowhere to go, armed men on both sides and the burning wreck of the upturned Humvee directly ahead . . .
‘Go straight!’ Chase shouted. He shoved his foot down on hers, jamming the accelerator to the floor.
‘Eddie, what—’
‘
‘Are you out of your—’
The RPG leapt from its launcher, hurtling across the camp.
‘—fucking—’
The Toyota hit the inverted Humvee, shot up the slope—
‘—
The grenade slammed into the upturned Humvee just as the Toyota cleared the top of the makeshift ramp. It exploded, blasting the wrecked 4x4 into the air. It cartwheeled out of the swelling fireball to smash down on top of one of the other Humvees, ripping it in half - along with the Covenant trooper in cover against it.
The Hilux landed in a massive spray of sand, demolishing the dome tents as it ploughed through them. Every bone jarred by the impact, Nina looked up - to see another Humvee directly ahead. She yelped and spun the wheel, narrowly missing Vogler as the pickup swerved. Flaming debris rained down behind the Toyota.
She aimed the truck out of the encampment and switched on the headlights. ‘Where now?’
‘Northwest,’ said Chase, pointing. ‘Towards Eden.’
Sophia tracked the fleeing Hilux with the rifle, picking out the person at the wheel. Nina.
She lined up the crosshairs, finger hovering over the trigger . . . then lowered the gun. ‘Not just yet.’
Movement - much closer than the camp. She snapped her head round to see one of the Janjaweed running towards her. He had heard the rifle shots, worked out her position, and was coming for her.
The Lee-Enfield came back up. ‘Not tonight,’ Sophia said, looking through the scope again. The man was so close that his face entirely filled her magnified field of view - then suddenly there was a large hole in the middle of it. ‘You have a headache.’
She cycled the bolt, then ran back to the Land Cruiser.
Hamed struggled upright. An explosion had knocked him down, his head hitting a rock, but he had fared better than his men. Many had been massacred, the rest fleeing into the desert to escape the Covenant’s superior firepower.
He looked round. One of the technicals was barrelling out into the desert.
Anger surged inside him.
He grabbed an AK from a dead man and hurried to where his horse was tied. It was struggling to break free, frightened by the noise, but he quickly took control and mounted the animal, turning to pursue the retreating tail- lights into the desert.
Vogler bent low and moved along the side of one of the surviving Humvees to reach Zamal. The Arab unleashed a burst of automatic fire, then ducked back into cover. ‘What’s our status?’ he asked.
‘The Janjaweed are running,’ Vogler told him. ‘We’ve lost at least half our men, though.’
Zamal let out an angry breath. ‘Why did they turn on us?’
‘They didn’t. It was Chase.’
‘
‘He was in that truck - and Wilde was driving it.’
Zamal swore loudly in Arabic. ‘If Chase is here, Blackwood must be as well - the sniper!’ he realised, looking towards the dark dunes. ‘It must have been her.’
Both men turned as Callum ran to them, firing a burst from a SCAR and taking down a man with a rocket launcher. ‘Wilde’s escaped!’
‘Yes, we noticed,’ said Vogler acidly. ‘With the help of Chase - and your former prisoner.’
‘Don’t try to pin this on me,’ Callum growled. ‘I didn’t turn this whole goddamn thing into a slaughterhouse. Your psycho friends did that, Zamal.’
Zamal’s face tightened, but Vogler interrupted before he could reply. ‘We need to secure this situation. How many Janjaweed are left?’
‘Forget the Janjaweed, we need to get after Wilde,’ Callum said. ‘Are the Humvees still driveable?’
Vogler looked at the vehicle they were crouched behind. Its bodywork was scarred with bullet holes, windows cracked and broken, and a tyre had been blown out. ‘Two destroyed, and the rest all damaged. Repairable, but I doubt we will be able to leave before morning.’
‘They could be fifty kilometres away by then,’ said Zamal. ‘We’ll never find them.’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ said Callum. ‘Just find me a satellite phone.’
‘Slow down, slow down!’ Chase yelped as the Hilux crested a rise and briefly took off, ploughing back with a suspension-straining crash.
‘Are you crazy?’ said Nina, grinding the pickup into a lower gear to keep up its speed. ‘I want to get as far away from them as possible!’
‘We need to wait for Sophia.’ He looked back. A pair of headlights was bounding across the desert towards them - not from the Janjaweed camp, but from the surrounding dunes. Sophia, in the Land Cruiser.
‘Do we really?’
‘Yeah, really. She’s got an extra gun, if nothing else.’
‘Right, and how long before it’s pointing at us?’
‘Not as soon as that one,’ Chase said with alarm, seeing something pursuing them, silhouetted against the fires. A man on a horse, AK-47 on his back.
Catching up fast.
Chase climbed into the cargo bed. ‘Okay, forget slowing down, go faster!’ He found one of the ammo boxes and pulled out the heavy belt of bullets. A glance behind: the horseman was still coming, but had veered to one side, moving to intercept the approaching Land Cruiser.
Sophia was slammed forward as the Land Cruiser hit another bump. The elderly vehicle only had a lap belt
