Kevin watched the sloping mass of the barricade rearing up in front of them.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked.
"Just trying to get us all out of Khurabi in one piece." Bolan became aware of a movement somewhere in that lifeless landscape. He had not been directly focused on it, but he spotted the warning sign.
He was sure it was not an animal, not a bird but a man waiting behind the ridge about five hundred yards ahead. It was the last of the transverse dunes before they reached the foothills trail. "Danny, take the M-60. Both of you, hang on tight!"
The last low trough was coming up on their left.
Bolan tapped on the brakes. They all braced themselves against the retrothrust of their suddenly reduced speed, as the Hog lurched sideways in a power slide.
It would have been a risky maneuver in a two-wheeldrive dune buggy; with a four-wheel system it was dicing with death. But that was better odds than he would get by staying on the track.
They were enveloped in a dark blanket of dust.
Bolan had downshifted, keeping up the compression.
The Jeep had already straightened out on its new course, charging parallel to the sandbank. Bolan let the revs build tight before he smoothly slotted back into fourth. The dune looked firm enough. They curved up it and shot the lip head-on.
Bolan trod on the gas until the rear wheels had cleared the pleated summit this was to stop the Hog nosediving into an end-over-end roll-then he eased off the pedal the second they were airborne, so the revs would not, build too high. He kept the wheels straight as they soared more than thirty feet down the lee side.
The Hog landed perfectly and Bolan accelerated, the tachometer swinging wildly toward the red line.
Danny's heart was still stuck in her throat, but she managed to shout, "Over there... ambush!"
Craig Harrison and the patrol trucks that had left Hagadan earlier that morning were concealed on either side of the track they would have been on, if it weren't for Bolan's last-minute maneuver. The desperate detour had swept them safely around the flank of Harrison's death trap. The lookout, who had been fooled by Bolan's off-road expertise, was slip-sliding in giant bounds down the slope to jump aboard the merc's Jeep.
Danny triggered the M-60 and hit the rear truck, which wandered around in a half circle before blowing up.
The Hog crunched up the trail. Bolan was moving too fast over the bumpy track for Zayoud's scouts to get a bead on them. The other truck tried to keep up with Harrison but it was slowly being left behind. Danny decided not to waste any more ammo; she had her hands full hanging on to the roll bar as Bolan climbed the hill with all the speed he could muster. She kept her eye on the pursuit vehicles as the Hog reached the top of the ravine and began weaving through the scattered boulders.
From this higher elevation Danny had a clear view back over the desert floor not all of the sheikh's forces had given up the chase.
The remaining trucks and Jeeps were spread out now, but the leaders had already reached that last dip where Harrison had planned his ambush.
"Heads down!" Bolan shouted over the noise of the Hog's screaming engine. Random shots were chipping at the rocks as they passed. Harrison was pressing hard on their tail.
Kevin Baker glanced with admiration at the big man driving the ATV. The youth was torn between the excitement of the chase and the pulse-racing fear of reallife danger. It seemed as if at any moment something might go terribly wrong, yet his courage was bolstered by the cool way Bolan reacted to each new threat.
Danny said nothing as they shot diagonally up the last slope leading to the very top of the Jebel Kharg, but she still wondered what on earth Bolan had in mind. To her, it looked as if they were on a one-way street to disaster... they would have to slow down once they topped the crest. Even if Bolan did remember the way through that mined gap, they surely couldn't negotiate it safely at this speed.
They flashed past the small depression from which Bolan and Danny had first surveyed the Forbidden Zone. She did not get a last look back at it; bullets were zinging overhead as they dropped over the skyline.
"Okay, time to hang tough again!" said Bolan, every fiber concentrating on what he had to do in the next few seconds. The walls of the wind-worn funnel were closing in.
Speed mounted as the drop became steeper. Bolan steered right, heading straight for the back of the flattopped rock that jutted out below them.
There was a slight bump as they dropped off to the boulder then utter smoothness as they took off from this improvised sandstone ramp. Bolan had the courage of his convictions. His calculations were correct. They flew over the strip he had forced the brigand to remine and hit the sand forty-five feet farther down.
He slowed dramatically, still tracking the Hog straight and true, right into the narrow exit at the bottom of the concealed pass. Harrison had entered the notch and was coming down the hill full tilt. He followed the natural sweep of the ancient track, swinging wide of the big rock.
The Hog was almost down to a crawl to squeeze through the sharp turn in the cleft when Harrison's Jeep plowed into the realigned mines. The first explosion flung the vehicle against the cliff, then it bounced back and triggered two more of the hidden devices.
The noise of the explosions reverberated between the walls of the cut... and the roaring vibrations brought down huge slabs of the weathered rock. The truck driver tried to brake as he saw the Jeep first tossed aside by the explosions and then crushed under the collapsing cliff. But he was too late. The heavy truck kept sliding forward, until it was flattened into another piece of debris blocking the passageway. Bolan was already into the clear on the other side. They saw a dust cloud and lots of loose stones come bounding out of the notch. And a screeching rumble as thousands of tons of rock smothered the trail behind them.
13
No one would be following them by this route over the Jebel Kharg. They sped past the campsite hidden behind the swayback ridge, slithering across the loose scree on their downhill run. Bolan had to fight to keep the Hog from sliding off the trail in places. Three-quarters of the way down the treacherous jebel, lie found a shelf that was level enough to halt the vehicle.
"Time to refuel... this is a five-minute pit stop, then we're on our way again."
The dust had billowed up on the crosscurrents of the wind and was now a grayish-yellow smudge smeared across the sky behind them.
"There must be other passes through those hills, someplace farther along," said Bolan. The landslide had only bought them time. They all knew that. Bolan flattened the last of the empty gas containers and stuffed them into a crevice. He wanted the ATV to be as light as possible for this last lap to the coast.
They shared a little more of the water. Something caught Bolan's attention far off on their left flank.
He swept the area through the binoculars. Kevin shaded his eyes and stared in the opposite direction.
"Look, what's that over there?" The youngster pointed toward the disputed frontier.
Bolan swung around. "Camels. Six riders. And they're moving fast."
"Another band of nomads?" asked Danny.
Bolan had given the glasses to Kevin.
"I don't think so," said Bolan, "they look more like a long-range border patrol."
"I've seen men like that at the fortress," Kevin told them. "They had a long discussion with Hassan... about four days ago."
"Yeah, and I saw a Khurabi Desert Police plane off that way, flying parallel to the road." Bolan pointed back to the left. "I think the desert police are in this together with Hassan. That plane's probably on the way to pick him up now."
"But how could..." Danny began.
"It's light enough to use the road as a makeshift landing strip. Zayoud can be back in the city in time to lead his coup."