August 1, 2016, IN THE DESERT NEAR AIN BEN TILI, ON THE BORDER BETWEEN MOROCCO AND MAURITANIA
10:00 P.M.
Otto hadn’t played a game of hide and seek since he was a kid, and he decided that he really didn’t like it anymore.
Sure, when he was eight, it was fun, playing with the neighborhood kids or his cousins, hiding in laundry bins or behind bushes and giggling as the person who was “it” walked right past you without seeing you.
Now it wasn’t so funny.
Hiding in the middle of the Sahara desert in a war zone while trying to avoid some unknown convoy of jeeps and Humvees driving around the area somehow lacked the same childish innocence. In fact, it was really damn scary.
Grunt had gone through the possibilities of who they could be—human traffickers, smugglers, separatists, radical Islamists, the Mauritanian army, or even the Moroccan army checking out the wrong side of the border. None of those possibilities really made Otto feel like going up and saying hello.
Otto kept his gun close. It was an AK-47, the most common assault rifle in these parts. He didn’t really know how to use it that well. He had only had a few training sessions with Grunt in the fields outside Marrakech before making this crazy voyage south, but clutching it made him feel better. He tried not to think of the fact that all the people in that mystery convoy probably had AK-47s too and had been practicing with them on live targets since before they were old enough to smoke.
They’d seen the convoy right after the sandstorm hit, right after that crazy blind escape from the shifting sand dune that buried half their gear and nearly buried them. If it hadn’t been for some quick thinking on Grunt’s part and some heroic digging by Dr. Yuhle to get the Land Rovers unstuck from the moving sands, they’d be buried for all time.
Burial was still something that could happen pretty soon. As they fled through the sandstorm, the howling winds and clouds of sand making it impossible to see anything beyond a few feet, they had shot along a rocky plain, driving as fast as they dared.
They’d nearly hit the Humvee in a head-on collision. It had appeared out of the swirling sand in the blink of an eye. Grunt’s hand had wrenched the wheel and missed it by inches. Dr. Yamazaki, at the wheel of the other vehicle coming right behind, had managed to miss it too and had seen from her rearview mirror that the Humvee was actually the lead vehicle in a convoy.
Machine guns were mounted on the tops of some of the vehicles. That wasn’t a good sign. Dr. Yamazaki said the convoy had disappeared into the swirling dust within seconds, but the newcomers must have seen them.
Half an hour later, the wind died down and the sun poked through the last bits of haze. Within a few minutes, it was as though there had never been a sandstorm. The desert looked as it always had, a bleak brown landscape of gritty plains interspersed with hilly areas of sand dunes. The only sign of what they had been through was the fine layer of grit that covered every square inch of them, their vehicles, and whatever bits of equipment they had managed to salvage.
That hadn’t been much. All the tents were gone, as well as a couple of the guns and much of the food. They still had plenty of water—Dr. Yamazaki had been smart enough to leave her supply in her Land Rover—and all the computers, but they were missing the topo map and the solar stove. That meant no cooked food until they got to civilization, and without the topo map, they couldn’t find civilization.
Of course, they could always fix up the satellite transmitter and log into the GPS, but Edward, the computer hacker working for the Atlantis Allegiance back in Marrakech, had warned them not to do that except as a last resort. Someone might be watching. Someone almost certainly would be watching.
Otto had decided Edward was paranoid. The guy believed in a bewildering array of conspiracy theories. The problem was, in the past few weeks, Otto had discovered so much about how the world really worked that conspiracy theories were beginning to sound a bit tame.
Grunt and Otto were talking about the GPS at that moment.
“We only need to know one thing, Pyro,” the hulking mercenary said. “Only one location matters right now, and that’s where that convoy is. We need to know where it is and where it’s headed and make damn sure we’re somewhere else.”
“We need to know where Jaxon and Vivian are too.”
“I know how to get back. The sandstorm didn’t change the terrain that much. It’s getting there that’s the problem.”
When they’d fled the sandstorm, they had crossed a flat, open area before entering another cluster of dunes. The convoy was parked right in the middle of the open area, right between them and the camp where they’d had to abandon Jaxon and Vivian, shooting up flares that sizzled in red arcs high into the sky. There was no way for Otto and the rest to get back to their old camp without being spotted.
“Who do you think they’re signaling?” Otto asked. He found himself whispering even though the cluster of Humvees and jeeps was parked a mile away.
“More trouble,” Grunt replied.
The mercenary moved down the back side of the dune. Otto followed. Their two Land Rovers were parked in the swale between the dunes. The two scientists sat inside, ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
“Looks like they’re going to hang out for a while,” Grunt told them. “We should be safe enough if we sit tight. Whoever is going to come meet them will probably drive in that flat area between the dunes. I checked the topo map yesterday, and it runs for a good thirty miles.”
“We can’t just wait here!” Otto cried. “Jaxon and Vivian might be hurt.”
Dr. Yamazaki put a hand on Otto’s shoulder. “I told you before, they’ll be fine. The wind was blowing from the west, which is why the dune to the west of us moved over and almost buried us. Jaxon and Vivian were on the western slope of the next dune over. They would have been blown around pretty badly, but they wouldn’t have gotten buried.”
Otto shook his head. “You’re a geneticist, not a sand expert.”
“An arenologist,” Dr. Yuhle said, adjusting his glasses.
“A what?” Otto and Grunt said together.
“An arenologist is a sand expert, although I suppose if you wanted to specifically study sand dunes and their movements, it would be better to use the term ‘arenological morphologist,’” Dr. Yuhle replied.
“Whatever,” Otto said, rolling his eyes.
The distant sound of engines made them all perk up.
Dr. Yuhle looked toward the sound of the engines, growing pale as it grew louder. “They’re coming for us. They spotted us in the sandstorm, and now they’re coming for us.”
“Most likely, it’s whoever they were waiting around to meet. Sit tight while I have a look,” Grunt said, hurrying back up the sand dune. Otto followed.
When they got to the top, they saw Grunt was right. The convoy remained where it was, no longer sending up flares and only barely visible as a dark cluster of rectangles against the pale desert. To their right, about half a mile off, the lights of a second convoy moved along the flatlands. Otto counted eight vehicles.
“When they get together to do whatever they’re doing, should we risk trying to sneak past?” Otto asked. He realized he was whispering again.
“Tempting. Let’s see how it plays out.”
“You don’t seem very worried about Jaxon and Vivian.”
“I am worried, Pyro, more than you, because I know more about what’s out here. But being panicky and getting into a rush ain’t going to help them. If we get caught or chased out of the area, where will Jaxon and Vivian be then? Stuck in the middle of the desert with hostiles close by and no way to get out. I don’t know how much water they had in their tent, but it probably won’t last through tomorrow. We’ll wait all night and all day if we have to, and so will Vivian. She’s probably having the same conversation with your girlfriend right now. Whatever these guys are doing out here, they’re not going to stick around. They’ll clear out soon enough.”
A strange rushing sound came from behind and above them, and yet they felt no wind. Otto turned, wondering if another sandstorm was kicking up.
He spotted something in the air, a dark shape moving across the sky and blotting out the stars.
Grunt swore.
He shouted down to the scientists. “Get out of the Land Rovers and run as far away as you can!”
Dimly, Otto could see the pair leap out and run off into the night.
“What’s going on?” Otto asked.
The shape flew right over them. Briefly, Otto saw the outline of a plane, swooping all but silently through the night. It continued out across the desert. The newcomers had already made it to the convoy. Their headlights were still on, and Otto could see a bunch of trucks illuminated, as well as various tiny, distant figures hauling what looked like boxes.
Suddenly, twin jets of flame shot out from the airplane’s wings, and the entire combined convoy exploded in a ground-shaking explosion.
The desert lit up as the vehicles detonated, their gas tanks bursting into flames, each sending up a mushroom cloud of fire.
Otto stared in awe, all fear gone as he witnessed the most beautiful fire he had ever seen. The barn he had burned down, the car of those government agents going up a few weeks ago, even the firebomb he’d thrown once—all were nothing compared to this exquisite sight before him.
Otto’s breath caught as the plane, catching a bit of light from the scene below, made a sharp turn and came around for another run. It fired two more missiles, shooting into the clustered vehicles and shaking the desert once again.
Guilt welled up in him. He was seeing a bunch of people die, and all he could think about were the pretty flames. What a sicko he was!
But, damn, those flames were so pretty. Like a painting in some museum. Like a brilliant sunset.
“Who...” His voice came out as a croak. “Who was that?”
“The United States Air Force, most likely. None of the North African air forces have planes like that. Those poor bastards down there were probably a terrorist group.”
“Probably? What else could they have been?”
“Smugglers.”
“The Air Force goes after smugglers?”
“No, they go after terrorists, but accidents happen. Here’s hoping they don’t come for us.”
Grunt cupped his hands and shouted, “Hey! Yamazaki! Yuhle! Wherever you are, get farther away from the vehicles. Our flyboys just wasted whoever was out there, and if they see the Land Rovers, they might decide to share the love. Yuhle, change your underwear. I know you made a mess in them.”
Yuhle’s voice came up to them from the darkness. “Very funny!”
Grunt snickered. “It’s always fun to make fun of eggheads. Hey, Pyro, you okay?”
Otto couldn’t stop staring at the flaming vehicles. There had to be twenty or more, each one a little volcano of gouty fire. Smaller fires burned between them. Otto didn’t want to think about what those were.
“I want to go home,” he murmured.
Grunt walked up to him, his hands on his hips, and looked down at him curiously.
“What, back to your parents?”
Otto snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. That was never home.”
“Back to the group home?”
Otto shook his head.
“Then where?” Grunt asked.
Otto let out a frustrated sigh, finally turning away from the flaming convoy. “Nowhere, I guess.”