The vehicle appeared to be stationary, or at least it did when he first saw it, but within a few seconds it was clear that either it had been moving very slowly or the driver had just started off. Which deduction was correct was irrelevant, because almost immediately the vehicle came to a stop on the crest of a dune, and seconds later Bronson saw a sudden flicker from above the cab.
Somebody on the lorry was firing a weapon at them, and this time there was no doubt at alclass="underline" at 600 yards, the Toyota was well within range of the Browning.
20
The first bullets from the half-inch machine gun mounted behind the cab of the second lorry chewed up the sand less than thirty feet in front of the Toyota.
Their only defence — apart from simply driving out of range, which wasn’t going to happen any time soon — was to get out of sight. To drop down into the gullies that lay between the dunes.
Bronson hit the brakes and swung the wheel hard over to the right. The Land Cruiser lurched and swayed, and then headed straight down the slope.
He’d reacted as quickly as he could, but he still thought it might have been too little, too late, as he saw the explosions in the sand marching steadily towards them.
A second later the back of the vehicle seemed to lift up bodily into the air from some immense impact. The rear window shattered, greenish-blue jewels of safety glass flying in all directions.
Angela wasn’t a screamer, but she instinctively ducked down in her seat and squealed in terror. Stephen dived for the floor, shouting expletives.
When Bronson took his eyes from the terrain in front of him for the briefest of instants he could see the exit hole punched through the roof of the Toyota.
‘We’re okay,’ he said. ‘One bullet hit the car, but no serious damage.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Stephen said, the terror in his voice obvious.
‘Stay low, both of you,’ Bronson instructed in the chaos. ‘I’m going to try to keep in the valleys, where the dunes will hide us. Or at least hide most of the vehicle.’
But already he was running out of options. The valley down which he was driving was rapidly coming to an end, and in front of them was the side of a gently sloping dune.
Stopping wasn’t an option. Instead, Bronson dropped the Toyota down a gear, and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator pedal. The big turbo-charged diesel engine roared its defiance and the 4x4 powered up the slope, clouds of sand being blasted away from the low-pressure tyres.
‘Hang on!’
Angela and Taverner gripped whatever they could find as the Toyota again powered into the air over the crest and crashed down on the opposite side of the dune, the impact driving the breath from their bodies.
Bronson lifted his right foot from the accelerator as the vehicle lifted off the ground, but immediately pressed it down again the instant the tyres were back in contact with the sand. He was concentrating on getting the hell out of the killing ground as quickly as possible, but still found a second to take a look out of the side window to check the lorry whose inhabitants were determined to murder them.
The faint flicker from above the cab told him that the weapon was still firing, but the lorry was on the move now, the driver obviously trying to close the distance between them.
As long as the lorry was moving, Bronson knew that there was less chance of the machine gunner — no matter how good or competent he was — being able to hit them. Angela was quite right: trying to hit a moving target from a moving vehicle was as near impossible as made no difference unless they were really close together, and Bronson estimated that they were already almost half a mile apart.
But even as that thought crossed his mind, another salvo of bullets from the heavy machine gun tore up the sand just feet behind the Toyota. It seemed that the gunner was more competent — or simply a lot luckier — than Bronson had anticipated.
Then the Land Cruiser dropped down the slope, the dunes on its left-hand side providing a natural barrier impervious to even the heavy-calibre bullets being fired from the truck, and for a few precious seconds they were safe.
It was a cat-and-mouse game they were playing and Bronson guessed that there was only one possible outcome. The gunner on the lorry now knew the direction they were heading, and every time the Toyota drove out of one of the dips between the dunes, as it inevitably had to do, there was a greater and greater chance of him hitting the vehicle with his next salvo. And when that happened, they were as good as dead.
Even if they weren’t killed by the bullets that would perforate the thin steel of the Toyota, Bronson had no doubt that the men in the back of the truck would arrive within a few minutes to finish the job with their assault rifles or pistols.
What he needed, apart from a miracle, was some way of keeping out of sight, of keeping the vehicle below the top levels of the dunes until he could drive out of range of the weapon. The problem was that the dunes simply marched like a giant frozen sea, each crest followed by a dip and then by another crest, and in order to get away Bronson was being forced to continually climb over crests before descending into the relative safety of the shallow valleys beyond.
Again he powered the Toyota up the side of the dune in front of him, and again he felt the unmistakable sensation as it left the ground, and then the crash as the tyres hit and the suspension compressed all the way to the stops.
Even over that noise, the hammering of the machine gun was still audible, and again the Toyota shuddered as another one of the heavy bullets smashed into it.
Glass from one of the side windows at the back of the vehicle sprayed all around the interior. And at the same instant the opposite window blew out as the bullet continued its journey through the Toyota before burying itself in the sand a few feet away.
This time Angela screamed.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Stephen shouted again, the panic evident in his voice. ‘I felt that go right over my head.’
But again they’d been lucky. Any lower and, as Taverner had just pointed out, the bullet would very probably have killed him. And a couple of feet lower than that and it could have taken out the drivetrain or gearbox, which would have signed a death warrant for all three of them.
They were out of sight of the lorry again, Bronson steering the 4x4 along the bottom of a dip. This time he decided to stay down for longer, even though that would mean they weren’t putting much distance between them and their pursuers, because as far as he could tell that shallow valley ran like a section of an arc around the location of the lorry. But at least the gunner couldn’t possibly know where his target would appear next, and that just might give them an edge.
Bronson eased the vehicle further over to the left, picking his spot on the opposite side of the valley carefully, choosing the lowest dune that he could see, and then he steered the Toyota up the slope and over the crest and down into the next valley of sand.
This time, no shots followed as the 4x4 appeared from the dip. Bronson drove the Toyota down the opposite slope and at the bottom reversed direction to head back the way they’d come, hoping that the gunner would be expecting him to do the opposite.
Again he picked an area where the crests were the lowest, and accelerated the vehicle as hard as he could. As he steered it over the crest and down into the next dip, he saw the long barrel of the machine gun swing towards him, but too late for the gunner to open fire before the Toyota disappeared again. And they were about another couple of hundred yards away, and distance was vital. Distance would keep them alive.