‘Now I see what you mean,’ the passenger said as he stared at the beaten track that stretched away in front of them. It was a long way from being a proper road, but it was relatively flat and level and mostly free of potholes and dips. ‘How far does it go?’
‘Only about three kilometres, according to Farooq, and then it turns away to the south. But that should be far enough for what he wants us to do.’
The driver knew that timing was everything. As the straight section of the track came to an end, he hit the brakes and shouted out, ‘Get ready.’
As the lorry shuddered under braking, two of the men who’d been clinging on to the sides of the loading area clambered painfully to their feet and grasped the steel bar that ran across the truck directly behind the cab. The moment the vehicle came to a complete stop, one of them pulled a grey canvas cover off a long and somewhat bulky object located right in the centre, and directly above, the steel bar.
Underneath the cover — used only as a precaution to keep the worst of the sand out of the mechanism — the long black barrel of a Browning M2 half-inch machine gun gleamed in the sunlight.
The man designated as the gunner checked the weapon, ensured the belt carrying the ammunition was properly aligned with the breech and clear of obstructions, cocked it and then grasped the twin grip handles at the rear of the machine gun and swung it round to point the barrel towards the distant vehicle. Even for that powerful and heavy weapon, he knew that the 4x4 was at the very limit of its range, probably around a mile distant, but he had his orders.
The good thing was that although the 4x4 was travelling quite quickly, it was also following a reasonably straight course, making it an easier target.
He sighted the weapon, allowing a slight lead ahead of the vehicle, and raised the barrel a fraction to cater for the drop the bullets would experience in flight due to the effects of gravity.
‘Quickly,’ his companion urged. ‘They’ll be out of range in a few seconds.’
The gunner adjusted his aim, then pressed the trigger in a short and controlled burst.
19
Bronson slammed his foot on to the brake pedal and simultaneously swung the steering wheel hard around to the left. The Land Cruiser rocked and lurched with the sudden change of direction, then surged forward as Bronson shifted his foot to the accelerator.
‘What’s happening?’ Stephen demanded.
‘That,’ Bronson snapped, nodding his head at the ground over to the right of the vehicle, but not taking his hands off the steering wheel.
Stephen and Angela glanced in the direction he was indicating, but neither saw anything. Then, looking deceptively innocent in the harsh midday sun, a puff of sand seemed to erupt from the top of a nearby dune, followed immediately by two other flurries of dust and sand.
‘What is it?’ Stephen asked.
‘They’re shooting at us,’ Bronson replied shortly. ‘I saw a kind of flicker from the back of that truck a few seconds ago.’
Stephen twisted round in his seat to stare over at the now stationary lorry. Then he shook his head.
‘We must be at least a mile away by now. Surely they haven’t got a hope of hitting us at that distance.’
‘Not with a Kalashnikov,’ Bronson replied grimly. ‘But plenty of other things have the range.’
‘Like what?’
‘The Ma Deuce. That’s what the American troops call the Browning M2 half-inch heavy machine gun. I don’t know exactly what weapons those guys had mounted on the trucks, but quite often out here you’ll find that anything much bigger than a jeep will carry a half-inch machine gun of some sort, and the Browning is pretty much the best of the bunch, so it’s a really popular choice.’
‘And that could hit us from over a mile away?’ Stephen still sounded incredulous.
‘Definitely. Its effective range is two thousand yards, but it’s still dangerous at well over four miles. It fires between five hundred and six hundred rounds a minute, and that’s about ten shells every second. Any single half-inch bullet hitting this Toyota could easily take out something vital — a tyre or the engine, say — and if that happens we’re dead.’
‘Jesus,’ Stephen exhaled, and again turned to look towards the lorry.
The bigger the clouds of dust and sand Bronson managed to create the better, because that would obscure the 4x4 from view, and travelling in a straight line would be the height of stupidity, so he swung the Toyota left, away from the threat posed by the heavy weapon that was firing short bursts towards them. They couldn’t hear the shots over the roar of the diesel in the Land Cruiser, but puffs of sand were erupting from the dunes near them, so it was clear they were still under attack.
Bronson dropped down a gear and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator pedal, sending the big Toyota barrelling down the side of a dune, the suspension bottoming as he reached the rocky level ground at its base.
On the firmer surface he could increase speed still more, which is precisely what he did, causing Stephen to seize the grab handle above his door with one hand and his seat belt with the other.
‘If those bullets they’re firing hit us, that’ll be the end of us,’ he yelled over the commotion. ‘But the same applies if you crash this jeep.’
‘I do know that,’ Bronson replied, but didn’t noticeably slow down.
He crested another dune, and for a split second all four wheels of the Toyota were turning in the air as it left the ground. It landed back on the slope on the far side of the dune with a crash that bounced all three of them around in their seats, but he continued to keep the power on, forcing the big vehicle to travel as fast down the slope as the conditions permitted.
‘This isn’t as dangerous as you might think,’ Bronson said, turning the steering wheel slightly to avoid a rocky outcrop that projected from the sand about fifty yards ahead of the Toyota. ‘Sand dunes are formed by the action of the wind, and that usually means that the slopes on both sides are relatively gentle.’
Stephen didn’t look convinced when Bronson glanced at his face in the rear-view mirror.
‘And the chances of the bullets hitting us now are pretty much nil.’
‘We haven’t come that far,’ Stephen said. ‘We must still be in range of that machine gun.’
‘We are, obviously,’ Angela said, ‘but what Chris means is that we’re travelling away from them, and we were already close to the maximum accurate range of the weapon when they started firing. So they have to move, they have to follow us, if they’re going to have any chance of hitting this vehicle. And one of the few things I do know about weapons is that trying to hit a moving target from another moving target is virtually impossible.’
She gasped for breath as the Land Cruiser again lifted off the ground and then crashed down once more.
‘That is what you meant, isn’t it?’ she asked.
Bronson nodded. ‘Got it in one.’
A couple of minutes later, Bronson began to back off the speed. He hadn’t seen any signs of further firing from the lorry, and the vehicle itself was now at least two miles behind them, maybe three or more. They were safe, at least for the moment.
And then, off to the left, Bronson saw an almost identical dark shape, and in that instant he realized he was facing a clever ambush. The reason the pursuing lorry had fired at them — apart from trying to stop the Toyota and kill them, obviously, which would have been a bonus — was to force them over to the north, and within range of the other heavy machine gun he had no doubt was mounted on the second truck.