She sat up and took his face in her hands, turning it towards her and seeing the tears on his cheeks. She leaned forward and kissed them, tasting the salt of his sadness. Then she held his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘You’ve done everything you could to try to bring me to safety; no one could have done more. And I’ve felt more secure with you these past couple of weeks, even with the constant threat of death hanging over me, than I have ever felt in my life before. You did that for me — and I will always love you for it.’
Then she leaned in close and kissed his mouth. The static crackled in the air all around them as he kissed her back, their hands pulling urgently at each other’s clothes in their hunger for each other, never once breaking the kiss for fear of what would follow.
VI
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
102
The storm had lessened a little, but not by much, when the Ghost rode out from the compound at the head of his column of men. The dust still thickened the air and haloed the sliver of moon hanging low in the dirty night sky. Two armoured personnel carriers filled with security troops followed them out. Hyde was at the wheel of one of them with the giant frame of Dick filling the seat beside him. The combination of dust and darkness made it hard to see anything, but the Bedouin eyes of the Ghost and his men could see enough to ride by, and so they led the way. It had also been one of the Ghost’s outriders who had spotted the faint glow of a vehicle’s lights, moving stealthily across the desert to the south just before the dust cloud had swept over the land and obliterated everything.
Hyde was happy for the Ghost to be on point. If the interlopers were the hostiles they were looking for, he was hoping that there might be a bit of armed resistance and the freaky-eyed, gravel-voiced asshole might catch a stray bullet. It might even come from Hyde’s own M4: stranger things had happened in the heat of battle.
By the time they reached the mouth of the dry wadi the dust had thinned enough for the stars to reappear and the horizon to become visible to the north. The Ghost halted his caravan and rode up to Hyde’s vehicle.
‘You should let us go in alone,’ he said, his voice as dry as the desert air. ‘These trucks are loud enough to rouse the dead. They’ve probably heard us already and are busy loading rifles and lining up grenades.’
Hyde looked at the track leading to the wadi. It was too narrow for the trucks to travel down safely; they could easily get caught in an ambush with little room for manoeuvre. Even so, he wasn’t about to let the Ghost go off on his own where he couldn’t keep his eye on him.
‘I’ll ride with you,’ the blond giant said, opening his door and stepping from the truck.
The Ghost looked him up and down. ‘I don’t think anyone will want to lend you their horse. You’ll probably kill it just by sitting on it.’
Dick surveyed the ring of riders. ‘This one,’ he said, pointing to the sturdiest-looking mount.
The Ghost nodded at the rider, who reluctantly slipped from the saddle and handed over the reins.
‘Thank you,’ Dick said, hopping on to the back of the horse with surprising grace. ‘Whatever happens, the girl is to be spared. My instructions are clear.’
‘What about the man?’ the Ghost asked.
‘He can die, for all I care,’ Dick said, spurring his horse down into the mouth of the wadi. ‘The girl is the only thing that matters.’
103
Gabriel and Liv lay side by side on the floor of the cave, their hands entwined, their arms touching, their heads so close they could hear each other breathing. It was so profoundly dark that it was easy to imagine they were far away from everything, floating in space, disconnected. It was such a seductive thought that neither of them moved or spoke for a long time, holding on for as long as possible before the real world burst back in.
Gabriel was up and moving the moment he heard the sound.
It had come from the direction of the cave entrance. Something solid banging against the side of the car, only lightly, but hard enough that the sound had travelled into the cave. It could have been a rock falling from the roof, but Gabriel’s instinct told him otherwise. He found his discarded jacket in the darkness and pulled out the gun Washington had lent him — a Glock 9 with a seventeen-round clip. He dropped to a crouch and edged back to the entrance, gun first.
The punch caught him squarely in the stomach, so fast and hard it was as if he had been hit with a shovel. He tried to react, but his body was already caving in on itself through lack of oxygen. An elbow crashed down on his forearm, knocking the gun from his grip.
Then a lamp flickered on.
‘Hello again,’ Dick said, slipping the night-vision goggles from his head. ‘Remember me?’
Gabriel tried to move but was paralysed with pain from the brutal punch. He looked back over at Liv. Another man was standing over her, dressed in the loose desert clothes of a nomad, his sand goggles and keffiyeh covering his face and making him seem more alien than human. He had an AK-47 slung over his back and a pistol in his hand pointing directly at Liv. Gabriel held his hand out towards her but a huge foot caught him under the ribs and kicked him on to his back so he was staring up at the grinning giant, now holding the Glock that he had dropped.
‘No more escapes,’ the giant said. The gun looked vaguely ridiculous in his huge hand, like a toy. Gabriel watched the oversized thumb stroking the side of the gun and realized he was about to die.
There is no safety on a Glock — he thought, bizarrely grateful for his executioner’s mistake as it gave him a half-second more of precious life. He looked back over at Liv one last time and smiled.
Then a gunshot boomed in the confines of the cave.
Hyde heard the gunshot echoing down the channel of the dry river and away across the desert. Some of the horses nickered at the sound then fell silent. He listened for any more sounds, other gunshots that would suggest the ambush had gone wrong or was being met with armed resistance. There was nothing, just the whisper of the dying wind.
He felt slightly deflated. The single gunshot meant Gabriel Mann was dead and the girl had been captured. It was over before it had even begun. He started up his engine and eased the truck forward into the wadi, no longer worried about the possibility of an ambush. All he wanted to do now was pick up the girl and get back to the compound.
104
Dick wavered where he stood, his right eye a mass of broken blood vessels from where the bullet had entered his temple and blown apart everything behind it. He stood like that for a moment, as if an invisible thread
