“You get him, and I’ll get the important looking guy!” Tom said and started running toward the General.
Sam lined the crosshairs with the mercenary standing in the distance. He breathed in deeply. Forced himself to relax and breathe out slowly. Consciously slowing his heart rate in the process. Midway through exhaling he paused for an instant and pulled the trigger — releasing a burst of three bullets.
The shots went wide by several feet to the left and the mercenary dropped to the sand. The weapon hadn’t been correctly calibrated. Sam gritted his teeth and searched for the mercenary again. He’d watched the now dead mercenary reload the full magazine just before Tom arrived. Sam made the mental calculation. At least ten rounds fired before the mercenary died, plus the three he’d just fired. That left him with seventeen from the original thirty round magazine.
“You got eyes on the shooter?” Tom asked.
Sam scanned the sand dune in the distance and stopped. The back of the guy’s legs were just visible above the sand. Nothing to shoot at, but so long as the other guy’s head stayed down, they were safe. “I’ve got him. He’s holed up over there.”
“Are there any others?”
“No. Just him and the guy who got the lucky punch.”
“Okay. You take care of the shooter and I’ll get the other guy!” Tom said.
“Sounds good.”
Sam watched Tom come to a crouched standing position and run in the direction of where the General had fled. Tom’s height, combined with his massive frame made for an awesome opponent. Sam quickly returned his glance toward his attacker.
The shooter lifted his head, unable to resist the target. Sam corrected for the inaccuracies of his weapon and squeezed the AK-47’s trigger.
Sand, approximately two feet to the left of the shooter’s head, turned into small clouds of dust. Sam watched as the shooter’s head disappeared again. Sam gritted his teeth. He’d overcorrected.
Over the sand dune, where Tom had run, Sam heard the distinct popping sound of the Barretta being fired. He hoped the sound meant the General had been shot, but there was always a risk the General had a second weapon.
Sam adjusted his position slightly to the right, trying to get a clearer shot. Nothing. All he could see was the guy’s ankle and boot. It looked like the shooter was less interested in showing his face again.
Sam swore. He could wait in the stalemate for hours. Neither of them getting a clear shot until one of them slipped up. Sam sunk into a relaxed firing position. He carefully made the adjustments to his focus. Moving approximately two feet further to the right and then settled, ready to fire.
He breathed in slowly. And then exhaled even slower. Each breath slightly adjusting the position of his weapon until he was certain of his aim. On the third breath Sam squeezed the trigger — and a spray of pink mist replaced the boot.
Sam grinned. Finally, the AK-47 was firing true.
He heard the guy yelling in his own language. It didn’t matter that Sam couldn’t speak a word of it. Swearing sounds the same all around the world. Sam focused in where the shooter had disappeared.
There was nothing but sand.
It meant the mercenary was well trained. Even a good soldier would be inclined to roll around in agony. It would be a reasonable mistake, and if the shooter had made it, Sam would have killed him.
But the mercenary was well trained. Disciplined. And that meant more waiting. Sam heard the rapport of three shots fired from the Berretta followed by the mechanical clicking sound of an empty chamber.
Sam had run out of time. If Tom had run out of bullets he was in trouble. He stood up and ran toward the injured mercenary. Sam’s trigger finger squeezed the edge of the trigger. He was ready to fire the first shots if he had to. Without hesitation he ran up the sand dune.
The mercenary reached for his weapon. His mouth set hard, and his eyes filled with intense hatred, the injured man aimed the AK-47 right at Sam. But his reaction was too slow.
Sam fired several shots in rapid fire succession. He bent down and searched the mercenary’s lifeless body. He took two full magazine as spares for his AK-47 and then called out to Tom.
“You okay, Tom?”
No answer.
Shit! Sam ran through the thick sand dune, following the deep imprints where Tom’s heavy feet had trod.
He rounded the first crest and found Tom slowly walking back towards him.
“Tell me you got him!” Sam said.
“No. He was quick for a man who just lost his eye. By the time I reached the second ridge I knew I wasn’t going to catch him. I emptied the Berretta trying to get lucky and put him down, but he disappeared over that far ridge.”
Sam swore. “How could you let him get away?”
Tom laughed. “What can I say, I never was a very good runner. By the way, you’re welcome.”
“For what?”
“I just saved your life!”
“And I appreciate it. I just wished you hadn’t let him slip through our fingers in the process.”
“Don’t worry,” Tom replied, looking at the burning sun rise above the horizon. “Without water, the desert will finish him off before nightfall. Who was he, anyway?”
“General Ngige. The rebel leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo — and the most dangerous man in Africa.”
Sam and Tom turned to walk back to the oasis.
“What’s he doing this far north?” Tom asked.
“Beats me. He says he came to find the book of Nostradamus.”
“Why? What did he expect to read in it? His future?”
“No. He thinks he already knows his future.”
“Then what did he want it for?”
“Said he needed to destroy it, to protect his future.”
In the distance, on the other side of the oasis, Sam could see a figure swimming towards the surface. Above it were several bubbles. The woman whose life he’d saved, was about to surface. Good. She might just give me the answer to a number of questions. He glanced to the other side of the oasis and spotted a fourth man — another mercenary, carrying an AK-47, running towards her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zara waited as long as possible to surface from her refuge beneath the cooled water of the oasis of Bilma. The longer she remained there the more likely her attackers would leave, or be killed by the treasure hunter who’d saved her life. There was still a high probability the treasure hunter would have been killed instead.
She stared at the dive gauge through blurred eyes, unprotected by a mask. The gauge read 10 BAR or possibly 70 BAR. It was impossible to differentiate between the one and the seven the more she stared at the instrument with blurry eyes. Zara had done a dive course years ago, while on a short vacation to the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. BAR, she recalled, was a measurement of pressure representing a standard atmosphere. Or technically slightly less than a single atmosphere at sea level. Ten BARs meant there were ten times the pressure which the air would exert on the tank if it was at sea level. Depending on the size of the dive tank, BAR represented a different value of air. For example, a 3L tank is going to hold significantly less air than a 12L tank. For each BAR of pressure in the larger of the two tanks, the diver would have four times as much air volume.
There was no way she could remember all the technical details, but Zara knew that 10 BAR meant she was dealing in minutes before the tank ran out. She slowly maneuvered herself toward the surface. Stopping her ascent at three feet from the surface, because she heard gunfire.
She remained at that depth until it became hard to draw air from the regulator. Once she could no longer breathe at all, she moved right to the edge of the oasis and surfaced. Zara allowed no more than her eyes and nose to break the surface and even then, she was right up against the shoreline. The sound of gunfire had ceased. She turned in the water and scanned the oasis. The treasure hunter’s camp she’d spotted earlier had been tossed into disarray. The camels had all gone. Did that mean the treasure hunters had left without her? They would probably want their dive equipment back. It was more likely the beasts had been spooked by the gunfire and run off.