The guards behind them laughed as Kurt and Joe struggled to keep up.
The SUV moved out past the entrance to the cave and onto a track that crossed the sand.
“What about now?” Joe asked. “Anything come to you?”
Kurt was jogging hard, his feet sinking into the soft sand. “No,” he said.
“Come on, Kurt,” Joe said.
“Why don’t you come up with something?”
“You’re the brains of this team, I’m the good looks,” Joe said.
“Not after you get dragged face-first through the sand, you won’t be.”
Joe didn’t reply. They’d begun to climb a low hill and it was even harder to keep up. The rear tires of the SUV were kicking sand into their faces. They topped the hill and came down the other side. Kurt was glad to see another flat section.
The desert sun was beating down on them, the air temperature close to a hundred degrees. After two or three minutes of running in the heat, both of them were drenched with sweat, more water their bodies couldn’t afford to lose. In the far distance, Kurt saw another rock formation. It had to be at least a mile off, but it seemed to be in their line of travel.
Joe caught his foot on something, tripping and almost falling.
“Stay up,” Kurt yelled, looking ahead.
Joe managed to keep running. Kurt tried to think.
If they made it to the rocky section coming up, he would look for a stone to scoop up. It would be risky to try to grab something off the ground, but there was no way he and Joe could keep running much longer.
Before either of those things happened, the SUV turned south and approached a group of parked vehicles. It rolled to a stop, and both Kurt and Joe fell to the ground.
Lying on the sand, trying to catch his breath, Kurt saw Jinn and several of his men standing beside what looked like an old abandoned well.
Jinn walked over. He must have seen Kurt’s eyes lingering on the well. “Thirsty?” he asked.
Kurt said nothing.
Jinn leaned close. “You don’t know the meaning of thirst until you’ve crossed a desert in search of the smallest oasis. Your throat closes up. Your eyes feel like they’re boiling dry inside your head. Your body can’t sweat because it has no more water left to give. That is the life of a Bedouin. And he would not fall after a mile or two in the desert.”
“I’m pretty sure he’d be riding a camel and not getting dragged by a truck,” Kurt rasped.
Jinn turned to his men. “Our guests would like some refreshment,” he said. “Bring them to the well.”
The guards untied Kurt and Joe and hauled them up, pushing and shoving them toward the well. As they reached the opening, Kurt realized they wouldn’t be getting a drink. The smell of death rose up from below.
He turned and kicked one of the guards, shattering the man’s ankle and lunging for his weapon. Joe sprang into action at almost the same instant, ripping his arm free and coldcocking the man to his left.
The speed of the assault seemed to take the guards by surprise. These men had been denied food and water for the entire day. They’d been beaten and dragged through the desert. They’d looked all but dead lying on the sand only moments before.
Four of Jinn’s men rushed in to help their comrades, but the Americans fought like spinning whirlwinds. For each man who landed a punch, another took a blow to the face, a kick to the knee or an elbow to the gut.
One guard tried to tackle Kurt, but Kurt dodged and tripped him, sending him into another guard. As those two crashed into the sand, Kurt jumped to his feet. He saw a pistol on the ground and lunged for it. But like a football player diving for a fumble, he was immediately covered by three of Jinn’s men, also grabbing for the gun.
It discharged, and one of Jinn’s men cried out in pain, his fingers blown off. But before Kurt could fire it again, a heavy blow hit the back of his head, and the gun was ripped from his grasp.
Beside him, Joe had been tackled as well.
“Pick them up!” Jinn shouted. “Throw them in!”
Kurt struggled mightily, but Jinn’s men had him by his arms and legs. They carried him toward the well like a spectator crowd surfing at a rock concert.
Joe was faring no better. One guard had him in a half nelson, pushing him forward, about to shove him over the edge.
As Kurt reached the well, he shook a leg free and kicked one of the men in the face. The man fell back, caught his ankle on the low adobe wall and tumbled backward, headfirst, into the well. His scream echoed for a second and then abruptly stopped.
The group holding Kurt wobbled like a table on three legs and then heaved him toward the opening.
As they released Kurt, he twisted, saw the low wall and the small A-frames made of iron jutting up from it. He threw his arms out, caught it and held on.
A second later Joe was shoved into the pit. He grabbed Kurt’s legs, perhaps instinctively.
The added weight pulled Kurt down until only a death grip on the scalding-hot bars held them up.
A shadow moved in front of the setting sun.
Jinn held a baton in his hand. He swung it back and whipped it forward toward Kurt’s fingers. Before it hit, Kurt let go.
He and Joe dropped straight down. They fell twenty feet, crashed into a pile of sloping sand and slid another ten feet to the bottom.
The impact jarred Kurt, but the slope of the sand and a pair of decaying bodies acted like an air bag of sorts, absorbing much of the impact. He ended up in an awkward position, facedown against the floor.
Stunned and all but knocked cold, Kurt forced his eyes open. Joe lay a foot to the left, piled up against the wall like a rag doll thrown in the corner. His arms were under him, one leg was bent up at an odd angle. He wasn’t moving.
A sound above caught his ear, Kurt didn’t dare move, but from the corner of his eye he saw Jinn leaning over the edge of the well. A group of shots rang out, and dirt and chinks of rock flew around the bottom of the well. Something sharp cut Kurt’s leg, and a bullet or rock fragment hit inches in front of his face, kicking dirt into the air.
Kurt held still, not flinching, not moving, not even breathing.
He heard shouting in Arabic and distorted words from far above. A flashlight came on, pointed down the well. The beam danced around them almost hypnotically. Kurt remained still. He wanted them to see him as nothing more than another dead body at the bottom of the well.
More words were exchanged. The light snapped off and the faces disappeared.
A minute later the sound of engines starting up echoed down the gullet of the well. Kurt listened to the vehicles driving off until he could no longer hear them. He and Joe had been left for dead. At least for the moment they weren’t, but if they didn’t get out of the well, it was just a matter of time.
CHAPTER 26
GAMAY WALKED INTO THE MAKESHIFT LAB TO CHECK ON Marchetti. She found him hunched over an experiment that involved a heat lamp, several temperature probes and a tall, narrow beaker full of water, the top layer of which looked murky.
“Am I right to assume there are microbots in that beaker?”
Marchetti sat straight up. “Oh, Mrs. Trout,” he said, holding his chest. “You snuck up on me.”
“Not really. You’re just very into your work.”
“Yes,” he said, tinkering with one of the probes and checking a display.
“Care to tell me what it is?”
“I’m just trying to figure something out,” he said, sounding as if he’d rather not talk about it.
She sat across from him and stared into his eyes. “Why is it men don’t like to share their hunches?” she asked. “Are you so afraid to be wrong?”