‘ALERT. ALERT,’ the PTP in the Land Cruiser screamed at him but the exhilaration of the moment made him momentarily deaf. He ran around the front of the car and saw the army truck approaching. It was kicking up sand, driving fast along the narrow sandy track he had himself taken.
Azrael reached the driver’s seat and stabbed at a control on the dash. He heard a couple of bolts snap on the roof followed by the sound of the aerodynamically designed plastic pod sliding from the roof-rack and thumping to the sand behind the car. Jumping out, he glanced to his left and saw the truck was now only a few hundred metres away.
Close to the back of the Land Cruiser, Azrael yanked on the lid of the box and a metal framework span away from the case. He pulled on a cord to one side of the frame and the arrangement untangled itself. The muddle of spindly poles and cross-beams, metal cylinders and specially designed sand-tyres snapped into place. It was a mini-motorbike, powered by a xenon difluoride battery that worked in conjunction with a powerful solar cell. Azrael pulled a plastic tag from a pouch in his commando pants, leaned into the machine, inserted the tag in a slot just under the handlebars and pushed the ignition button. The bike burst into life.
He jumped on and tore away. Fifty metres from the Land Cruiser, he glanced back to see the truck approaching the missile launchers. He left the track and hit the desert, hearing the rumble of the engine as its powerful four-wheel drive cut through the sand. Gunshots rang out through the desert air. A bullet flew past his right ear. He slipped the bike into a lower gear and squeezed on the gas.
A second bullet whizzed past him, closer this time. He pushed on the accelerator some more, shoved his right hand into his commando pants again and withdrew a slither of black plastic. He turned quickly. The army truck pulled up alongside the Land Cruiser. He touched a pad on the plastic controller and a microsecond later, the vehicle exploded in a ball of flame taking the rocket launcher, the army truck and eight human beings with it.
‘Eight down, 7 billion to go,’ Azrael said aloud into the stifling desert air.