The pipe wasn’t too heavy, so she had to choose her line of attack carefully. Only a few steps behind him, she decided to aim for the side of his head. She could feel the sweat on the palm of her hands, and prayed that she wouldn’t screw this up. If Torres turned around she was fucked.
He didn’t. Andrea planted her feet firmly on the ground, swung her weapon and hit Torres with all her strength on the side of his head near the temple.
‘Take that, you bastard!’
The Colombian dropped into the sand like a stone. The mass of red ants must have felt the vibration because immediately they turned and headed for his fallen body. Unaware of what had happened, he started to get up. Still semi-conscious from the blow to his temple, he staggered and fell again as the first ants reached his body. When he felt the first stings, Torres brought his hands to his eyes in absolute terror. He tried to get up on to his knees but this provoked the ants even more and they swarmed over him in greater numbers. It was as if they were passing on a message to each other through their pheromones.
Enemy.
Kill.
‘Run, Andrea!’ Fowler yelled. ‘Get away from them.’
The young reporter took several steps back, but very few ants turned to follow the vibrations. They were more concerned with the Colombian, who was covered in them from head to toe, howling in agony, every fibre of his body under attack from the sharp jaws and needle-like stings. Torres managed to stand up again and take a few steps, the ants covering him like a strange skin.
He took one more step, then fell, and didn’t get up again.
Andrea, in the meantime, had retreated to the place where she had dropped the wipers and the shirt. She wrapped the wipers in the cloth. Then, making a wide detour around the ants, she approached Fowler and lit the shirt with her lighter. When the shirt was burning she traced a circle with it on the ground around the priest. The few ants that hadn’t joined the attack on Torres scurried away from the heat.
Using the steel pipe, she pried Fowler’s handcuffs and the spike that held them away from the rock.
‘Thank you,’ said the priest, his legs shaking.
When they had gone about a hundred feet away from the ants and Fowler considered they were safe, they collapsed on the ground, exhausted. The priest rolled up his trousers to check on his legs. Other than the small reddish sting marks, the swelling, and the continuous but dull pain, the twenty-odd bites hadn’t inflicted too much damage.
‘Now that I’ve saved your life, I suppose your duty to me has been repaid?’ Andrea said sarcastically.
‘Did Doc tell you about that?’
‘That, and a lot of other things I want to ask you about.’
‘Where is she?’ the priest asked, but he already knew the answer.
The young woman shook her head and began to sob. Fowler held her gently.
‘I’m so sorry, Ms Otero.’
‘I loved her,’ she said, burying her face in the priest’s chest. As she sobbed, Andrea realised that Fowler had suddenly gone tense and was holding his breath.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
In answer to her question, Fowler pointed at the horizon, where Andrea saw a deadly wall of sand heading towards them as inevitably as night.
90
AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN
Thursday, July 20, 2006. 1:48 p.m.
You two, don’t take your eyes off the entrance to the excavation site. I’m on my way.
Those were the words that caused, albeit indirectly, the demise of Dekker’s remaining crew. When the attack came, the eyes of the two soldiers were looking everywhere but the place from which the danger came.
Tewi Waaka, the huge Sudanese, only glimpsed the intruders dressed in brown when they were already in the camp. There were seven of them, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. He alerted Jackson on the radio and the two opened fire. One of the intruders fell under the hail of bullets. The others hid behind the tents.
Waaka was surprised that they didn’t return fire. In reality that was his last thought, because a few seconds later two terrorists who had climbed the cliff ambushed him from behind. Two bursts from the Kalashnikov and Tewi Waaka joined his ancestors.
On the other side of the canyon in Nest 2, Marla Jackson saw Waaka being shot through the scope of her M4 and understood that she was heading for the same fate. Marla knew the cliffs well. She had spent so many hours there with nothing to do other than look around and touch herself through her trousers when no one was watching, counting the hours until Dekker would come and take her off on a private reconnaissance mission.
During the hours of sentry duty she had imagined hundreds of times how hypothetical enemies might climb up and surround her. Now, peering over the edge of the cliff, she saw two very real enemies only a foot and a half away. She immediately plugged them with fourteen bullets.
They made no sound as they died.
There were now four of the enemy left that she knew of, but she could do nothing from her position without cover. The only thing she could think of was to join Dekker down at the excavation so they could decide on a plan together. It was a shitty option, because she’d lose the advantage of height and an easier escape route. But she had no choice, because she now heard three words on her walkie-talkie:
‘Marla… help me.’
‘Dekker, where are you?’
‘Down below. At the base of the platform.’
Unconcerned for her own safety, Marla climbed down the rope ladder, and ran towards the excavation. Dekker was lying next to the platform with a very ugly wound to the right side of his chest and with his left leg twisted under him. He must have fallen from the top of the scaffolding. Marla examined the wound. The South African had managed to stop the bleeding but his breathing was…
Fucking whistling.
… worrying. He had a punctured lung, and that was bad news unless they got to a doctor straight away.
‘What happened to you?’
‘It was Russell. That son of a bitch… he caught me by surprise as I came in.’
‘Russell?’ Marla said, surprised. She tried to think. ‘You’ll be all right. I’ll get you out of here, Colonel. I swear.’
‘No way. You have to get yourself out of here. I’m finished. The master said it best: “Life to the great majority is a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of being overcome at last.” ’
‘Could you please leave fucking Schopenhauer out for once, Dekker?’
The South African smiled sadly at his lover’s outburst and made a slight gesture with his head.
‘Behind you, soldier. Don’t forget what I told you.’
Marla turned and saw the four terrorists converging on her. They had fanned out, and were using the rocks as cover, while her only protection would be the heavy tarpaulins protecting the hydraulic system and steel bearings of the platform.
‘Colonel, I think we’re both finished.’
Strapping the M4 on her shoulder she tried to drag Dekker under the scaffolding, but could only move him a few inches. The South African’s weight was too much, even for a strong woman like her.