Then, right in front of him, Bronson saw another valley in the sand that intersected with the one he was driving along, but this one tracked away from the position where the gunmen’s lorry was parked. He didn’t hesitate, just swung the Land Cruiser into it and accelerated hard.
It wasn’t all that long, and at the end another wall of dunes rose up, but that didn’t matter. They were now another couple of hundred yards further away from the lorry, and would — or so Bronson hoped — be coming back into view somewhere that the gunman wouldn’t expect.
And when he crested the dune, he was proved right. No shots came their way, and when he checked the rear-view mirrors he estimated that they were now about a mile, maybe even a little further, away from the armed lorry.
‘I think we’re clear now,’ he said cautiously, picking the straightest route he could and winding up the speed, while still weaving slightly from side to side, just to continue offering as difficult a target as he could. Though in reality he knew that the plume of sand the tyres were already chucking into the sky was probably their best defence.
Then through the blown-open window on the right-hand side of the vehicle Bronson heard another volley of shots, though he had no idea where the bullets struck. All three of them looked in that direction, to see the first lorry they’d avoided bouncing over the dunes straight towards them, but still about a mile away from the Toyota.
‘They’re wasting their time firing at us,’ Bronson said. ‘We’re right at the limit of his range and the truck’s all over the place.’
They continued to hear sporadic firing from both vehicles for another few minutes, but no other rounds hit the Toyota, and the sounds drifted further and further into the distance as they accelerated away.
Twenty minutes later, without further incident, they crossed the border into Kuwait and could all relax for the first time since they’d left the camp.
‘We should tell the Kuwaiti border guards what’s happened,’ Taverner said.
‘Probably not a good idea,’ Bronson replied. ‘I had a few dealings with Arabs when I was in the Army, and their mindset is very different to ours. If we tell them we’ve been shot at, the most likely outcome would be for them to arrest us, on the grounds that clearly some kind of crime has been committed and we were on the spot at the time. And if we were there, then we must obviously have been involved. Once news of the massacre at the archaeological camp breaks, we’d probably be the prime suspects for that as well. We’d be lucky to ever get out of jail.’
‘So what do we do?’ Angela asked.
‘We head for the hills,’ Bronson replied. ‘We’ve all got our passports with us — I hope — so we park this 4x4 at the airport in Kuwait City and buy tickets on the first flight out of Kuwait that isn’t going to another Arab country.’
‘Why?’ Angela asked.
‘Because if the Kuwait authorities are alerted and discover that we are on an aircraft operated by an airline based out here, they could always instruct the crew to turn it round and bring us back, or land somewhere else en route where we could be arrested. That technique is much less likely to work if we’re being flown out using a Western European airline. Even a fairly short-haul flight would do. Then, once we’re in Greece or Italy or wherever, we buy another ticket and keep moving until we get back to Britain. Then we go to the police and tell them what’s happened and let the authorities sort it out.’
‘Suppose they don’t believe us?’ Stephen asked. He had perked up considerably the moment they’d turned on to the road inside Kuwait that paralleled the border.
‘I’d rather take my chances with British justice than sit in an Arab court hoping for the best. I took a bunch of pictures of the dead bodies on my phone before we left the camp, and that will help establish our innocence. My arrival time at Kuwait Airport should be enough to prove that the killings must have taken place well before our arrival. I’ll take some shots of the damage to this jeep as well before we fly out, and that should substantiate what we tell them.’
21
‘My men did their best, Khaled,’ Farooq said, ‘but the woman was lucky. And whoever was driving that car knew what they were doing. We didn’t anticipate that. My gunner is certain he hit the vehicle at least twice, but obviously the bullets missed the engine and anything else that would have stopped them.’
Khaled nodded. There was no point in recriminations, and he was very aware that the main reason the woman was still alive was because of his original mistake.
He and Farooq had done a quick headcount of the bodies of the archaeological team while they were looking for the satellite phone, and he was now aware that one of the men was also missing. He guessed that archaeologist was one of the two men accompanying the woman, though he still didn’t know who the second man could be.
‘So what will you do now?’ Farooq asked.
‘I will decipher the inscription and follow the trail that it reveals,’ Khaled said. ‘That is the most important task, and the reason for everything we have done.’
‘So you’ll have to forget about the woman?’
Khaled shook his head.
‘No. That trail is still fresh. I have a good idea what she’s likely to do and where she’ll go. These people are very predictable. I have contacts I can task to find and follow her, and when they track her down I will see that she is silenced for ever. Bring me the sat phone. I have calls to make.’
22
Their first look at the departure board at the airport was not encouraging. There were plenty of planes leaving, but almost every flight was not only operated by an Arab-owned airline, but was also flying to an airport in another Arabic country, precisely the combination Bronson most wanted to avoid.
‘We’ll take that one,’ Bronson said, coming to an immediate decision. ‘The Nile Air flight to Alexandria.’
‘Pardon me for asking,’ Stephen said, ‘but isn’t Egypt an Arab country?’
‘It is,’ Bronson agreed, ‘but it’s not a Gulf Arab state, and right now that looks to me like our best option. If you’ve got any better ideas, now’s the time to share them.’
There was only a short queue at the Nile Air ticket counter, and apart from the clerk nobody so much as glanced at them as Bronson bought the tickets. None of them had even heard of the airline, but the aircraft was a modern Airbus A320. Boarding was on time, the three-and-a-half-hour flight passed entirely without incident, and after the aircraft touched down in Alexandria they walked straight through customs and immigration.
The next problem was the complete lack of any useful onward destination from Alexandria, and after a few frantic minutes checking schedules and departure times, they knew they had only one option: get to Cairo. They left the airport after hitting a couple of the ATMs hard and piled into the first taxi they saw outside. There was a train service between Alexandria and Cairo, but even if it left spot on time it would get them to the airport precisely five minutes before the next possible flight took off. And that was never going to work. Their only hope was to put their trust in the ability and competence of an Egyptian taxi driver.
‘I hope you know what we’re doing,’ Angela said from the back seat, pulling her seat belt as tight as it would go.
Bronson glanced over his shoulder, gave her an encouraging nod and then waved a fistful of Egyptian pounds in front of the driver’s face.
‘Cairo International,’ he said, ‘as fast as you can.’
Getting from place to place quickly on Egyptian roads is never easy. The traffic, especially near the major cities, is invariably horrendous. The road surfaces frequently alternate between new smooth tarmac and stretches where the metal layer has almost completely disappeared to reveal the rutted and potholed base below the road. And, of course, there are frequent police checkpoints, toll booths, wrecked vehicles and other obstructions to impede progress.