Ricki faced forward again. ‘No one’s,’ he said grimly.
‘But what if they…?’
He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. It was perfectly clear what would happen if Toby and Jack hit a landmine.
They trundled on in silence.
It was a clear night. The moon lit those parts of the desert not illuminated by the vehicles’ headlamps and the sky was alight with stars. So much beauty, and so much danger. Ben dragged his eyes away from the canopy overhead and concentrated on their path through the desert, and still he could not get the image of Amir speeding along on his motorbike out of his head. ‘Why don’t we call for a helicopter?’ he asked suddenly.
Ricki smiled. ‘It isn’t as simple as that, Ben,’ he said. ‘It’s not like calling a cab, you know. Choppers are thin on the ground. Even if there’s air support available, it can take an hour to arrive at the best of times, more if they have to scoop up extra personnel. The army has emergency procedures in place for all sorts of scenarios. I’m afraid this isn’t one of them.’
Yet again, Ben felt a bit stupid. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just—’
‘You haven’t got anything to be sorry for,’ Ricki interrupted him. ‘There aren’t many people who would do what you’ve done today.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And it’s not over yet, Ben.’
Half an hour passed.
With every second, Ben half expected to hear the sickening boom of a landmine.
Forty-five minutes. Silence in the truck: just the noise of the wheels crunching over the sandy, stony earth. They started to climb, up and over undulating hills. Ricki pointed through the windscreen. ‘Not far now,’ he said. ‘The British base is at the top of the dam. We’re travelling up towards it—’
He was interrupted. The truck came to a sudden, juddering halt.
Ben didn’t know whether he saw it first, or heard it; whether the red flash and sudden spray of metal burst into his senses before the deep boom of the explosion. All he knew was that one moment the truck ahead was there, and the next it wasn’t. He heard shrapnel raining down on top of his own vehicle; the windscreen shattered as something thumped against it. ‘Get down!’ Ricki shouted, and Ben quickly lay on the back seat, covering his head with his arms.
Suddenly the noise of the shrapnel on the roof stopped and they were surrounded by a thick, awful silence. Ben pushed himself up again just as a smell hit his nose. It was acrid and unpleasant. The smell of burning, of explosives. And of something else too. When he was younger, he had caught his hair in a candle. A few strands had fizzled and burned and the odour was horrible. It was that odour that he could smell now.
The SAS men were cursing under their breath. Ben looked through the window in shocked silence, but Ricki and Matt were already out of the truck. They ran towards the flaming shell of their mates’ vehicle, holding their arms up to their faces to protect them from the heat of the fire. He watched, wide-eyed, as they ran around the inferno, shouting at each other and looking for a way into that devastated hunk of metal.
Looking for signs of life.
But it was clear, after a minute of searching, that there were no survivors.
Ben felt sick. He started to scramble out of the truck, to see what he could do to help, but at that moment Ricki and Matt started returning, so he took his place and waited for them to climb back into the vehicle. Their faces, glowing from the fire of the wreckage up ahead, were bleak as they took their seats.
‘They’re gone,’ Ricki said. His face was dark and angry, his voice quiet. ‘Nothing we can do.’ Suddenly, out of the blue, he slammed his fist against the dashboard. The whole truck shook with his anger. Ben didn’t know what to say.
Ricki turned to him, his eyes flashing. When he spoke, he sounded even more businesslike, more professional, and it was clear to Ben that he was hiding other emotions: shock, sorrow, anger. ‘We have to keep going,’ he said. ‘We can’t stop just because we’re two men down.’
‘Right,’ Ben replied, his voice thick with emotion.
‘We can’t leave you here, Ben,’ Ricki continued. ‘You’re going to have to stick with us. But you know the dangers. We won’t now be following in Toby and Jack’s tracks. If we hit a mine…’ The three of them looked out at the wreckage of the vehicle up ahead.
‘I know,’ Ben said quietly. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and his skin tingled with nerves.
Ricki nodded curtly, then turned to Matt. ‘All right, mate,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
Matt nudged the truck into motion. They slowly drove around the wreckage, avoiding the hunks of metal that now littered the desert floor. As they passed the burning vehicle, Ben couldn’t help twisting his head to look at it. There was no sign of the dead SAS men and he tried not to think about what state their bodies must be in now…
The wreckage slipped into the background. Matt accelerated — as there was nobody to follow, there was no need to travel slowly. The truck bumped and juddered up the hill as Ben felt a weird combination of numbness and fear: disbelief at what had just happened, and terror that history might be about to repeat itself. It seemed like madness, what they were doing. But they had no choice. He knew that.
Over the brow of the hill and up another one. In the distance he thought he saw lights.
‘What’s that?’ he asked. His voice sounded very tense.
‘British base,’ Ricki replied. ‘It’s where we’re headed.’
Ben couldn’t tell how far away it was. Half a mile? A mile? As they sped up and down the undulating hills, the lights dipped out of sight and then reappeared. They didn’t seem to be getting closer at anything like the rate Ben would have wished. Nightmarish thoughts turned over in his mind. They were about to hit a mine. This vehicle was about to be shredded like the one they had just passed. They weren’t going to make it…
You can’t think like that, Ben, a little voice in his head told him. Keep thinking those thoughts and you’ll go mad…
And so he tried to put all thoughts of landmines and burning vehicles from his mind, to concentrate on the only thing that was important: Amir and the bomb. Had he passed this way? Were they gaining on him? Were they, as the truck thundered bravely through the desert, any closer to stopping this bomb?
Ben had to believe they were. He set his jaw, faced fully forward and steeled himself for the struggle to come.
Chapter Twenty-two
Amir drove through the darkness.
The suitcase bomb was uncomfortable and weighed heavily on his back; the extra weight of the girl slowed the motorbike down. More than once, he considered throwing her from the bike and shooting her there in the desert. But he decided against it. He had brought her this far, and she could still be of use.
His rifle was slung to his side and he drove two-handed, his arms stopping the exhausted girl from slumping off the bike. He drove without his headlamp as that would act like a beacon to his enemies far and wide. Instead he relied on the light of the moon, so bright that it caused lumps of rock to cast shadows on the ground. Only when he came to the hills near the dam did the lack of artificial light become a problem as the upward slopes were in shadow. It didn’t slow him down, though. It couldn’t slow him down. He had to get to the dam tonight. His companions had fallen by the wayside: it was now up to Amir to complete their mission alone. And as the enemy were on to him, it had to be done tonight.
As he travelled, he found himself cursing under his breath. When he had seen that foolish boy outside the house, he had wanted to explode with anger. Why was he there? How could he have found them? And now, thanks to the girl’s loose mouth, the boy knew where they were going, and why.