He turned to her husband. ''How are you holding up? Can you go the distance? We have another two hours, maybe less, till we're supposed to meet with the Land Rovers. Can you keep up that long?"
"I can make it," the youth assured him. "I know what's waiting for me back there. Just give me something to shoot with. It'll make me feel like I'm doing something, and I do know how to shoot."
Langers liked the way the young St. Johns spoke, and he did have an extra weapon. "Dominic, give him Foche's piece and an extra magazine."
The men around him were beginning to get that special look of uncertainty around the edges of their eyes. No one liked to run. It was always easier to attack than defend.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
From his outriders Sunni All knew the exact position and direction the Land Rovers were taking. On his map he began to rule out possibilities of escape. Giving it some thought, he tried to figure out what he would do if he was given the assignment the raiders were on.
The most likely choice of options would be for the raiders to meet with the Land Rovers at a given spot and then make it to someplace a plane could set down to fetch them. Checking his map again against his memory of the area, he touched a spot with his fingernail. "It will be here, and I will be waiting for them."
Felix spotted them first, coming out of the rocks. "There they are!" he cried out. Sims had his kit in hand, ready to take care of any wounds.
Langers was in the lead. He waved Sims back. "No time for that shit now. We have company tailing us. Let's get loaded and get out of here. No one is hurt too badly. Mostly just blisters and sunburn."
Under the coating of fine dust it was hard to tell how badly anyone was sunburned. They all looked the same.
"Sims, I want you and the others to keep driving. You know what the ground is like better than we do. Just get us to the LZ. Monpelier did get the signal, didn't he?"
Sims answered him dryly, slightly offended at the implied question of his competence. "Of course I did. And if I have it timed right, they should be over the LZ within minutes of our own arrival."
"Good. Now let's get gone."
Langers put the girl and her husband in the same Land Rover with Gus. The rest of the crew just climbed gratefully into the vehicles wherever there was room. It was with no regrets that they were leaving Baguezane behind them. They'd had enough of the mountain and were quite content to leave it to the lizards, snakes, and vultures.
It looked as though they might have had it made, but Carl still didn't like the feeling of being herded. "Sims, where was the last place you saw riders?"
"Oh, about twenty kilometers from here. They were heading southwest away from me. Probably just a caravan of some sort, though I was a bit concerned for a time. They were the third group I had seen since yesterday. Why, do you think they're trouble?"
Carl leaned his head back against the seat, trying to ignore the jolting of the Land Rover as Sims maneuvered it between, over, and around obstacles.
"I don't know and that's what bothers me,'' he admitted. "Those Tuaregs should have been more confused, more disoriented. We hit them pretty hard. Caught them with their pants down. But they came back just as hard, and fast, too. Very professional. They didn't act like nomads. They responded like regular army troops, and damned good ones. We were lucky to get out with no more losses. Very lucky."
Closing his eyes he made one last comment. "Try to keep this thing level. I 'm going to try and get some shut-eye. Wake me if you see anything or if we get within five kilometers of the LZ."
"Right'o, love. You got it."
Three dust trails marked their passage as they raced across the scrublands to where the plane would come to get them. Somehow it didn't seem possible that all this had started just a short time before. It seemed much longer than that.
Monpelier leaned over between Parrish and Rigsby. "How much longer?"
Parrish checked his watch. "About an hour, give or take five minutes."
Sunni Ali was ready. The timing was nearly perfect. His horsemen and his vehicles awaited his command. Hidden behind rocks and in wadis, they had camouflaged their positions very carefully, especially so as not to be seen from the air. If the pilot was worth a damn, he would make at least one quick flight over to check out the area. Ali had reason to be satisfied. He had called the progression of the game perfectly. A bit of pressure here, a touch there, nothing too sinister, but it did force them to reveal what he wished to know. That and the process of elimination gave him the location of the landing zone.
He had kept just enough pressure on the raiders to make them believe they had the edge, but not enough to waste any time. They would be anxious to get away. He knew he could have forced the issue at any time, but he wanted to see if he was right. Now the Land Rovers were at the end of what would be the LZ, a lake bed gone dry and baked as hard as concrete. They were at the south end. That meant the plane would come in from the north. Then they would load there, do a turn around, taxi back to the north, and take off into the wind. He would hit them when they began to load and perhaps, if he was lucky, gain a plane in the bargain.
Sunni Ali had given his warriors their orders. As soon as the plane began to throttle, back on the ground they were to shoot for the tires. His halftracks would block the runway to prevent the possibility of them taking off, while his jeeps and horsemen would take care of the Land Rovers and their crews. Now it was time for just a bit more patience.
"Silver to Copper. Do you read me? Over." Carl was contacting the plane.
"Roger that, Silver. We've got you five by five. What does it look like down there? Over."
The looks of relief were obvious on all faces except those of Gus, Dominic, and Sharif Mamud. They didn't seem to care one way or the other.
"From where we're at it looks clear. The wind is from the south to north, about ten knots with light gusts."
"I read you. We'll make a flyover and orbit the area for a look-see. Then we'll come on in. Be ready to get on. I don't want to waste any time getting our ass out of here. Over and out."
Parrish took the C-47 into a wide spiral, working toward the center. He saw nothing. Moving off a few miles to the north he turned the nose of the plane, put down his landing gear, lowered his flaps, and started coming in. "Should be easy," he said to Rigsby who merely grunted, his usual response.
The wheels touched down, throwing up a stream of dust behind them. Opening the cargo door, Monpelier stood ready with a Browning automatic rifle. This was no time to get sloppy. Most things, if they went wrong, did so at the last moment.
Langers and his party were ready, but Langers had had a bad feeling for the last fifteen minutes. "Gus! Take a couple of men and one of the Land Rovers and circle the strip. Keep an eye out. There's something wrong. I hope it's just my imagination. If everything's okay we'll meet at the far end. Graves, you and Abdul come with me."
Gus had seen Langers's hunches prove right too many times in the past to argue about it. "Check your weapons, put one in the spout if you haven't already. We're going to take a look-see." Obediently they climbed in, weapons out the windows, ready to fire if need be.
They moved out rapidly. Halfway down the LZ they passed the plane. Gus waved at Parrish in the cockpit, then turned the nose of the Land Rover to avoid a rock and saw a flash to his left.