SAHARA DESERT
If you wait long enough, you can see interesting things even in the most barren desert.
However, on the south side of the Chad–Libyan border, in the area known as the Aozou Strip, there is precious little to draw sightseers. The scenery is drab and the climate unattractive, often with a daytime low of ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Wildlife, though varied, is rare. Fortunate spotters might see antelope, gazelle, or ostrich.
The unfortunate might witness murder.
Early in the afternoon, amid swirling dust devils, a well-used Land Rover lurched to a stop in Chad’s Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture. Three men and a woman stepped out; the men dragged two human forms from the rear, feet first. Each of the unfortunates was bound hand and foot and gagged. One had nearly suffocated during the long drive to the remote area.
The tallest of the three captors produced a stiletto and cut the straps securing each prisoner. Both raised themselves from the sand; one even bothered to dust himself off.
Both knew what was coming.
The driver leaned into the back of the vehicle and withdrew two shovels. He tossed them at the men’s feet and merely said, “Dig.”
The older of the doomed men folded his arms. “Why don’t you just be done with it?”
“Because I don’t dig.”
“Well, then, mon vieux, we have something in common. Neither do I.”
The leader of the captors resisted the urge to knife the insolent bastard where he stood. Instead, he rocked back on his heels and regarded the man. He had courage, and one had to admire courage wherever one found it.
Even in the Sahara. Maybe especially in the Sahara.
One of the captors picked up a shovel and swung it in an overhead arc, connecting with the defiant man’s shoulders. The victim staggered, biting off a cry of pain, then sagged to one knee. “There are many uses for shovels,” the assailant said evenly. He looked to his comrades for appreciation. Finding none, he raised the shovel again.
“Etienne!” The leader’s bark stopped the offender in midswing.
The leader turned to the other victim, who stood trembling visibly. “You, dig for both of you.”
The younger man looked to his partner, vainly seeking guidance. There was none—the older prisoner was still gasping for breath, rubbing his shoulder.
After an agonizingly long age—perhaps closer to an eon—the younger man found himself. “I won’t dig, either.” He spit into the dirt for emphasis, though his mouth was cotton-dry.
“Oh, I think you will.” The leader turned to the senior prisoner and, with practiced ease, drew a 9mm Makarov from his belt and fired into the kneeling man’s cranium from four meters away. Eighty kilos of dead weight pitched face forward, twitched imperceptibly, and expired.
The executioner holstered and kicked the second shovel toward the survivor. No words were necessary.
I can see the hate and the fear in his eyes, the killer told himself. It’s always like this. At least one will always comply.
The doomed survivor sucked in lungs full of arid Saharan air. He looked upward, saw cumulus clouds in the direction of the Atlas Mountains, and tried to control his bladder. Briefly, he thought of running. But where? Even if he escaped, he was literally in the middle of the desert.
With trembling hands, he picked up the shovel and began to dig.
“You see, Etienne? What did I tell you? Some men choose to die on their feet, but most will lick your boots for five more minutes of life.”
It was longer than five minutes, for the spade man was neither strong nor eager to finish his task. But at length he reached a satisfactory depth. “Enough,” the leader said. He drew the pistol again. “You wish to pray?” They always do.
The victim merely nodded, lowered his head, and cupped his hands. He mumbled the ancient words, dredged up from a far-off childhood.
The leader intended for the man to die before the prayer was over—as much a kindness as one could muster at such times. He motioned to the driver, who nodded compliance, raised his own pistol, and began to press the trigger.
“Let me.” It was the woman.
The leader waved a hand. “My God, Gabrielle, you’ve seen men die before.”
She leaned toward him, fists clenched before her. “But I’ve never done it, Marcel! Don’t you understand? I want to know how it feels!”
Mentally he catalogued the progress of the situation. Her insistence on accompanying the killers; her pledge of silence on the drive, which had mostly been honored. Now, however, he recognized the signs: the little-girl petulance, complete with pouting lips.
With an eloquent shrug, the leader drew his Russian pistol and handed it to her. He was going to remind her about the safety but she was familiar with the weapon. She raised the pistol in both hands, flipped the lever, took two seconds to align the sights, and three more to press the double-action trigger.
The 9mm round spat out, impacted the supplicant’s left temple, and he collapsed into the hole he had dug.
She decocked the weapon and handed it back, butt first. The owner changed magazines and holstered it, faintly shaking his head.
“What?” she demanded.
He leveled his brown eyes at her baby blues. “Curiosity satisfied?”
“It’s nothing.” She shrugged as unconcernedly as possible and reached for a cigarette. She almost managed to suppress the tremor in her hand.
“Congratulations, my dear. Welcome to the club.” He picked up both shovels and handed one to her. “Now you can help bury them.”
* * *
Two hundred thirty meters away, partially concealed by a low-lying dune, two men watched the proceedings through precision optics. An observant bypasser would have pegged them in their thirties, though neither’s face was visible. One had draped a sand-colored veil over his head to break up his outline and shield his Zeiss 8×25 binoculars. The other wore a white kaffia with a black diamond design while looking through a ten-power Hensoldt rifle scope.
Both had light-colored Saharan robes over French and Italian military fatigues, and both wore Israeli Army desert boots.
The observer carried a Romanian AKM with Egyptian ammunition. His partner had a British AWC sniper system with an integral suppressor on the barrel. It was loaded with match-grade 7.62×51 manufactured in America.
The mythical observer would have noted that both appeared accustomed to the desert.
When the executioners were finished with their chore, they climbed into their vintage Land Rover and drove off, leaving their handiwork buried in the lee of a dune. The distant witnesses watched them go, headed south across the Mourdi Depression toward Oasis Fada.
In their native tongue the two men discussed their options.
The sniper asked, “Should we check the bodies for papers?”
The leader thought for a moment. “No. No point. Any additional information probably isn’t worth the risk of being seen. Besides, with the homer attached to the Land Rover we can track the Frenchmen wherever they go.” He put his compact Zeiss in its case and consulted his map: Libya lay 165 kilometers to the north. “We’ll walk back to the helicopter and have David call ahead for a jet. I want to be in N’Djamena before tomorrow morning.”