At 2a.m. Zara spotted the peak of Emi Koussi out the left-side window of the Range Rover. Standing at 11,204 feet, the ancient volcano in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad cast an enormous shadow over the night’s horizon. It was also one of the few visible landmarks for many miles. Zara made a quick mental note of her most probable location. The region had few topographical changes with which to navigate by. She looked up towards her right. Sharing the horizon in the west were the faintest images of the Air Mountains, no more certain than a mirage. She shook her head, unwilling to believe what she was going to do next. She continued driving due south — into the Erg of Bilma.
The Erg of Bilma in the Ténéré desert region of the south central Saharan Desert was the last place she wanted to visit right now. The Erg’s sand grains were supplied from the Tibesti Mountains by the Harmattan — a northeasterly trade wind which blew steadily for most of the year. The Erg of Bilma spread out southwest from the Tibesti Mountains into Chad and Niger. From there it would be another 745 miles until she was free of one of the world’s deepest sandpits, and a further 400 miles until she was entirely free of the Saharan desert.
There were nearly 1100 miles of thick sand dunes between her and the southern tip of the Sahara desert inside Chad or Niger. The deeper sand dunes would further reduce her mileage and certainly weren’t her first preference. Zara considered turning left, heading on towards Egypt, or even taking a wild and reckless giant U-turn to reach the Mediterranean by passing through Libya. Any of these paths would have made more sense, given the fact that she was driving further away from her freedom. Instead, she drove due south into an Erg she could never hope to cross — because that’s where Nostradamus told her she would go.
At the heart of the Erg, approximately 300 miles further south, and at least 50 miles further than the Range Rover would continue to travel, was the oasis town of Bilma. A once thriving trading post, vital to the trans-Saharan trade route stretching between Central Africa and Libya, it now remained home to fewer than 2500 people. If she reached it, there might just be a chance one of those people would be willing to find a way of getting her out of the country.
All of this, of course, relied heavily on the answer to one question — could she reach it before they did?
Chapter Fifteen
It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning — about seven a.m. when the engine first coughed and then misfired. The fuel gauge rested below empty. The thirsty V8 sucked on fumes. It drove for another six minutes before choking and conking out permanently.
Zara tried the starter button.
The engine turned, but nothing fired. She pushed the starter button another three times and then stopped. She couldn’t will the SUV into driving across the desert without fuel. She unclipped her seatbelt and stepped out to look in the back of the vehicle for anything useful. Two large jerry cans were attached to the back of the lift gate next to the spare tire, and both were full of bullet holes and empty. She pressed the lift button and the hatch opened. Inside, there was a single half-empty gallon bottle of water. Otherwise the rest of the luggage compartment was bare.
Zara shook her head. Where did they plan to drive to once they’d found the book of Nostradamus? Without additional fuel, they never would have made it out of the Sahara, even if they drove north. The only alternative was that the camels carried its additional fuel. It didn’t matter, however they planned to make it across the desert it wasn’t going to help her.
Zara looked up at the first light. The morning’s sun crept towards the horizon in the east. There was another forty or fifty miles to reach the oasis of Bilma. She cursed herself for diverting towards the east in an attempt to miss the town and reach the second oasis. Now that option was out of the question. If she was lucky, she might just survive long enough to reach the first. She grabbed the half-filled gallon bottle of water and pulled her headdress over her face again. It was going to be a long walk. She left the Range Rover and turned her back to the rising sun and began walking west towards Bilma.
By her reckoning she might reach it by dusk. If it was winter she would have made it easily. In the middle of summer her chances of survival were low. By eight a.m. the sun was high enough to burn. Zara protected her face from the harsh light reflected off the dunes in front of her with her green shesh and continued to walk. Ordinarily she’d never even attempt to walk through the thick sand dunes during the heat of the day, but she needed to keep making distance if she wanted to survive. She moved quickly, at a rate somewhere between a walk and a slow run. Her feet trod lightly, never allowing them to pause long enough to sink into the deep sand before lithely taking another step.
She prayed for a sudden dip in the barometer to send the otherwise stable Harmattan trade wind into a heavy gust, lifting the grains of sand and burying her footprints. Instead, the barometer went higher, and the Harmattan stopped completely. Without wind, the temperature soared. By one p.m. it scorched to a hundred and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit. There was no way she could keep up the pace in that sort of heat. She found the steepest section of the rolling sand dune and sank into its side. The temperature dropped marginally, but it might just be enough for her to survive.
She forced herself to sleep until the sun dipped and the heat became tolerable. Zara took comfort in the knowledge her attackers and their camels would be forced to wait until the temperature dropped too, before continuing. By six p.m. the sun was making its way over the western horizon and she began to move again. She traveled on and off through the night. Keeping the pace of a brisk walk for an hour and then having a five minute break, she carried on through the night. By morning she was exhausted; her feet ached and her stomach was empty. No longer driven by the release of adrenaline after her immediate near death experience, the pain and weariness began setting in. Zara consciously made the effort to ignore the sensations. She still had another ten miles to go before she reached Bilma.
The sun hit the eastern horizon and quickly rose above her head. It felt hotter than the day before, if that was even possible. Zara struggled to keep pace, relying heavily on large gulps of the remaining water. She stopped rationing, and focused on keeping herself moving through the heat of the day. If she didn’t reach the oasis by tonight, her attackers would catch her by tomorrow.
By two p.m. she drank the last of the water. She cursed herself for not being more frugal with her rations. She felt frustrated and confused. Had she misjudged the distance to the oasis, or worse yet — missed it completely? Even as she struggled to go on in the worst heat of the day she wondered if the oasis had lain hidden just beyond the next sand dune?
She checked her compass and stayed true to her course. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Teasing her and tormenting her that water was nearby. She wanted to build a makeshift camp to protect her from the sun’s heat and wait until dusk before going again, but by then it would be too late. Instead, she forced herself to keep going. She’d never made the mistake of becoming dehydrated in a desert before — and she had crossed this particular desert more times than she could remember. Of course, normally, she waited for the right weather, rode a camel — and wasn’t running for her life.
Sometime after four p.m. she began having hallucinations like conscious dreams, and she struggled to differentiate between her past and her present. She remembered things about her mother and her father that she hadn’t thought about for nearly two decades, when she was still a child. At first the hallucinations frightened her, and then she welcomed them. They brought her to a place filled with peace and happiness. Zara fought to maintain focus on reality. She was conscious that if she let herself go and succumbed to the enjoyment and peace of the dreams they would be the last she ever had.