“Make sure the windows are all closed tight,” Bash said, pressing the button on his own side to make certain there wasn’t even the smallest crack. A jab at the dashboard put them on internal air. Then he glanced at Sean, who was staring at him in horror.
“You don’t actually mean to drive into that!”
“Yes, I do.” Bash injected as much confidence into his tone as he could. He knew Sean had doubted many of the things they’d done to get this far, and only by keeping up a front of total certainty would he be able to keep Sean with him and keep him looking forward.
This time, however, Sean didn’t seem reassured. “It’s ahaboob! You won’t be able to see anything! We could drive off a cliff, or into a boulder, or—”
“Or we could drive in another direction and be captured,” Bash replied calmly. He’d dealt with civilians before in situations like this, and there was only one way to handle it. “You promised to do what I said, remember? You can get out now and try to flag down the chopper, or you can stick with me and go to Turkey. You have about five seconds to give me an answer.”
Sean gaped at him and then turned away. “Fine. But if you get us killed, I am going to follow you to whatever afterlife you believe in and mock you for your foolishness for all eternity.”
Bash chuckled. “My dear prince, if I get us killed, I’d deserve it. Now, are those windows tight?”
“Yes.”
Bash saw the way Sean seemed to steel himself for the coming ordeal, and he nodded with silent approval. Some people fell apart at times like this, and others showed their inner strength, a strength they might not even have known they possessed. He couldn’t help but be pleased that Sean was one of the strong ones. It was a promising sign.
“Hang on, then.” Bash sped up to meet the storm and flipped on the headlights and the bar of floods mounted over the cab as the first swirling tentacles of dust stretched out to meet them.
He’d never driven through a sandstorm before, but he’d driven through pea-soup fog and blizzard white-outs that had been a slice of frozen hell. This wouldn’t be much different. He hoped.
The wind suddenly struck, buffeting the truck as though trying to flip it over. He fought with the steering, slowing their forward speed in order to keep better control. Within seconds, visibility had fallen to zero, and the only way he could navigate was via the compass on the rearview mirror.
He risked a quick glance at Sean, seeing his white-knuckled grip on the grab bar and the way he was clenching his jaw hard.
“Sean, I need you to watch the compass,” he said, pulling Sean’s attention away from the sandy hell outside. “It needs to stay on northwest. I need to watch in front of us, and it’s your job to tell me if I stray off course.”
For a moment, he wondered if Sean had heard him, but then Sean looked away from the storm outside and focused the compass. “Northwest it is.”
“Thanks. That’ll help.” Bash risked another glance at Sean before gazing forward once more. It wasn’t a matter of getting them where they were going as much as making certain they didn’t wreck before getting out of the storm.
“How long do you think this will last?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.” Bash thought back over his mission brief, but it hadn’t contained a long range weather forecast. “As I recall, they can last anywhere from half an hour to a couple of days, and we’re right in the perfect season for them. It’s slowing us down, but even if it’s a long one, at this speed we should reach the Turkish border in twelve to sixteen hours.”
Sean frowned. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“You could turn on the radio. If we can get any reception in this, they’re probably talking about it.” Bash was a man of logic, but he wasn’t the type to ignore someone’s gut feelings.
“Good idea!” Sean flipped on the receiver and scanned through the stations. Most of the spectrum seemed to contain only static, but there were isolated bands of wailing Arabic music, and one transmission that seemed to be chanted prayers. Near the bottom of the band was an urgent voice speaking in Arabic.
Bash could speak enough of the standard variant of the language to get by, but he couldn’t follow the rapid speech of the broadcast. “Is that about the weather? Or about us?”
“Weather,” Sean replied, leaning closer to the speaker as the signal wavered and faded. “It seems to be a broadcast from Syria, warning people to stay under cover because of the conditions. Winds of 100 kilometers per hour and complete blackout. There are reports of flying debris killing people caught out on foot.”
Bash slowed the truck down as he pondered the information. “If Syria is still in the midst of this, we could have a problem. That would mean the storm is hundreds of kilometers across.” He’d hoped that the storm was small and isolated, that it would pass quickly and shield them from air pursuit until they were close enough to Turkey to avoid capture. Sean had been right about the danger, but it was too late to back out now. He couldn’t drive fast enough in the darkness to get out of the storm even if he turned around and went back the way they had come. For better or worse, they had to either go forward or find shelter. But where?
He stopped the truck, letting the engine idle, and turned on the overhead light. “Maps. This truck is old enough that it doesn’t have GPS, but there might be maps. Look under the seat, in the glove box, in the door pockets.”
As Sean searched the glove box and his seat, Bash checked the driver’s side and twisted to look behind the seat. He didn’t find any maps, but there were two gallon jugs of water and a flashlight, undoubtedly stowed there by the owner for emergencies.
“Ha! I found one!”
Sean smiled victoriously as he held up a dog-eared map that was probably as old as the truck. They spread it out on the dashboard, and Bash traced their approximate path from Nineveh.
“What are you looking for?” Sean leaned close as Bash pointed to where he thought they probably were.
“There are a lot of old structures left over from Desert Storm,” Bash said. “Bunkers and refugee camps plus all the oil facilities that have made Akkadia rich for years. I just want to find us a hidey hole. If the storm blows out quicker than we thought, we head on to Turkey. If it doesn’t, we’ll keep our heads down until we can leave.”
