Bash scanned the sky again, and for the first time, Sean noticed Bash hadn’t turned on the truck’s headlights, a fact which became even more alarming as Bash swerved and guided the vehicle off the road and onto the packed sand surrounding it. “They’ll close the roads soon, if they haven’t done it already. We’re going to have to go off-roading for a while. Thank God this isn’t the Sahara. I wouldn’t want to take even a Hi-Lux across those dunes.”
The truck bounced hard over the uneven ground, and Sean clutched at the grab hand above the door and braced his other hand against the dashboard. “Are you certain you should take one acrossthisdesert?”
Bash leaned back in the seat, his expression grim. “Positive. The chopper is headed this way.”
Sean shifted so he could peer out Bash’s window. He could see the lights of the helicopter, a powerful searchlight panning over the ground as it approached. “Is that the only one?”
“The only one I can see, at least. I don’t think they’ve spotted us, but they’re looking. It makes sense. They’d have to assume we’d head for Turkey.”
“I suppose so.” Sean bit his lip, frowning as he considered their options — which were incredibly few as far as he could see. But then, he wasn’t Bash.
“It’ll be alright.” Bash spoke softly, and Sean realized he was leaning close enough to feel the warmth of Bash’s body. It was an inappropriate moment to want to press closer to Bash, to take comfort in his solid presence. Sean looked into Bash’s eyes, seeing no trace of doubt in his steady gray gaze. Sean had never in his life met anyone like him, and even though their current circumstances seemed grim, Bash’s words made him relax.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Sean said, and he reluctantly moved back to his own seat. “What can I do to help?”
“Keep a lookout to see if anyone else comes along. Cars, trucks, tanks, trains, planes, Godzilla…”
The irreverent non sequitur made Sean smile, but he did as requested and scanned for any other pursuit. The expanse of desert on his side of the vehicle remained empty, though it seemed the sky to the east was showing the first faint light that indicated the approach of dawn.
“Hang on.”
Sean had barely processed the warning before Bash swerved the truck hard to the right, throwing Sean against the door. The quick glance Sean had showed they’d narrowly skirted some large, dark object, but before he could even speculate on what it might be, the truck was airborne. Sean’s stomach dropped, a weightless feeling that had him sucking in a startled breath as his eyes widened in horror. Then they landed. Hard.
The entire truck bounced as the engine roared and rattled. Sean was thrown forward, his head narrowly missing the dashboard, and then back against his seat, which knocked the breath out of him. He was grateful for the seatbelt, because otherwise he might have ended up concussed or worse. As it was, his teeth clacked painfully together, narrowly missing his tongue, and he was sure he was going to have bruises later — if they got out of this alive.
“Sorry.” Bash glanced at him, then turned his attention back to the ground in front of them. “No way to avoid it. And the chopper is getting closer.”
Sean didn’t know what to say, so he just held on as Bash kept the truck hurtling forward as fast as it would go. Over the noise of their passage and the throb of the engine, he noticed a rhythmic thumping as the helicopter approached, and then they were bathed in blinding light as it found them.
“What will they do?” Sean squinted against the glare, which was worsened by the dust and gravel being thrown up around them, obscuring his vision.
“If they were going to shoot at us, they would have already started,” Bash said, frowning in concentration. “They’ll probably play chicken with us until we run out of fuel, or try to slow us down so a bigger force can catch up. They know they can’t let us get to Turkey, so they’re going to try to stop us. I assume that will include shooting at us if all else fails.”
Sean’s stomach dropped again, although this time it had nothing to do with the motion of the truck. “So do we give up?”
“Fuck no.” Bash bared his teeth, putting Sean in mind of a predator snarling in defiance of a hunter. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you never know when fate will deal you a new hand.” He swerved abruptly to the left as the helicopter feinted as though attempting to ram them. Sean didn’t know how Bash could see where he was going through all the debris, but he didn’t slow down, and he didn’t flinch at having a couple of tons of airborne steel with deadly whirling propellers hovering twenty feet over his head.
“If anything is going to give us a hand, it had better happen soon,” Sean muttered. There wasn’t much he could do except hold on and hope they didn’t get killed.
The movements of the chopper grew increasingly frantic, and Sean was certain it was trying to ram them, perhaps to force them into wrecking. Then there was a sharp jolt and a metallic shriek as one of the landing skids brushed against the roof.
“Shit!” Bash wrestled with the steering wheel as the truck lurched and fishtailed wildly. Another impact nearly sent them into a spin, hurling Sean against Bash, the side of Sean’s head smacking painfully against Bash’s armored shoulder. They were rammed a third time, and then the chopper pulled back.
“What’s happening?” Sean stared out the back window, watching with surprise as the helicopter that had been so desperate to stop them banked away and headed back to the south. He strained his eyes to see if there were vehicles gaining on them, but the desert behind them seemed empty. He glanced out of the side window, but again he didn’t see any evidence of pursuit from that direction, either. “I don’t see anything coming after us.”
He turned his gaze to Bash, to find him staring out in front of them into the desert, his jaw set. Sean didn’t see any lights, so he wasn’t certain why Bash wasn’t relieved the helicopter had broken off pursuit. Then he blinked, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. The darkness couldn’t be rolling and writhing, could it? Then he realized what he was looking at, and he could only stare in numb horror.
Fate had dealt them a hand, all right. Unfortunately, it seemed to be full of jokers.
7
Things abruptly went from bad to worse. Possiblymuchworse.
It was quickly apparent why the helicopter had harried them with such desperation before turning and running. No chopper could survive ahaboob.
The massive sandstorm was only partially visible, a roiling blur against the starlit sky. In a way that only made it more horrifying, because the scale of the storm was impossible to judge, making it an unknown terror compared to the known threat behind them. With winds approaching sixty miles per hour and with the possibility of lasting for hours, a haboob could suffocate an unprotected man in minutes or flay him to death with the power of wind-driven sand.
Bash slowed the truck, staring out at the horizon and weighing their options. If they turned, it might be possible to outrun the storm, but they’d be heading right back into Faisal’s hands. There was no telling how intense the storm was, either; it could last half an hour, a day, or even longer. The one thing he was sure of was that their destination lay on the other side, which meant they had no choice but to take their chances with the fury of nature, rather than risk the fury of the king.
