The door closed in front of him, and in the darkness they could hear the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock; moments later, the engine of the truck started up, and the vehicle drove away.
It was Ben who spoke first. 'Depleted uranium shells?' he asked. 'What are they?'
'You don't want to know.'
'Actually, I do.'
Annie sighed impatiently. 'Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the nuclear power industry. It's very dense, which makes it an effective material for ammunition.'
'Right,' Ben replied, his voice a bit tight. 'And, er, seventy rounds per second. That's quite a lot, isn't it?'
'Yes, Ben. It's quite a lot. If we get hit by those things, chances are they won't even find our bodies.'
Ben took a deep, shaky breath; it was all he could do to stop his limbs from trembling. 'Then we'd better think of a way to get out of here. And fast.'
'I've already tried.' Joseph's voice came weakly from the corner of the hut. 'There's no way out. We're locked in.'
Surprised by the fact that he had suddenly spoken, Ben and Annie spun round to look at him. 'We can't give up now,' Ben stated. 'There must be a way out.' He approached the door and banged against it. It shuddered slightly in its frame. 'It's a cheaply built hut,' he said. He remembered how easily Annie had knocked down the posts on the perimeter fence. 'What do you think?' he asked her. 'Can we break through this wood?'
Annie joined him and she too banged on the door. Once more it rattled. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Maybe if we can pound it enough, but we might not have enough time.'
Ben shrugged. 'Got any better ideas?'
'Not really, no.'
'Then let's do it,' he said urgently. 'Come on, we need to work fast.'
They started to kick against the door, doing their best to aim at the same spot about halfway up each time. Annie's kicks seemed a lot more effective than Ben's — her tae kwon do training allowed her to put the full force of her body into it. For several minutes, they pounded away, their noisy kicks echoing regularly around the hut. The door seemed to rattle increasingly, but after several minutes of solid work, they did not seem to be any closer to breaking it down.
'This is useless,' Ben muttered angrily, wiping sweat from his brow. 'We've got to try harder. Those planes will be here any—'
And as he spoke, he heard them.
The three of them exchanged a nervous look. They all recognized the distant drone, of course. It was the sound of approaching aircraft, and it was getting louder. Without speaking, Ben and Annie resumed their desperate attempt to break the door down: the sound of the planes in the distance made them redouble their efforts.
It grew louder. And louder.
When the first round of shells fell, their reverberations knocked them both off their feet — for a minute, Ben thought it had been a direct hit, but when he realized that they were still in one piece, he pushed himself painfully to his feet to start kicking at the door again.
Annie, however, had beaten him to it. She was standing a couple of metres from the door, a look of intense concentration on her face as she raised her arms in a way that immediately reminded Ben of how she had looked when he had walked into her bedroom only a few days ago.
'Stand back,' she said under her breath.
A Tankbuster screamed overhead.
'This is our last chance, Annie,' Ben whispered. 'Make it a good one.'
'I'll do my best.' Another bomb blasted nearby.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and launched herself at the door. With an enormous crack, the wood splintered down the middle.
Ben's eyes widened, and without waiting for any instruction from Annie he started kicking down the splintered wood. It fell away from the door with surprising ease, and within seconds there was a gap through which they could all squeeze.
The two of them looked back at Joseph. He was staring around the hut, as though listening for something he couldn't hear, and he hadn't even seemed to notice that they had broken their way out, so they ran back to him and with all their strength pulled him to his feet, then dragged him towards the door and pushed him through the hole.
And for a split second they stood perfectly still, taking in the scenes of devastation around them.
It was like a war zone. The noise was deafening; clouds of thick dust surrounded them; planes scorched overhead, firing the depleted uranium shells in what seemed like a completely random way. As soon as they hit the earth they exploded into massive craters, or destroyed huts, blasting them into piles of rubble. Like rabbits in headlights, the three of them stood still, agog at the scenes of destruction. There were twice as many planes as last time, twice as many bombs — and there was nowhere to run and hide. They were in the middle of a huge area of grassland, and the forest they had skirted around was a long way distant.
'What are we going to do?' Annie screamed.
'I don't know!' shouted Ben. He looked desperately around. Ammo was falling as far as he could see — it would take precious minutes they didn't have to run from the field of war and it would be like running into a hailstorm of deadly firepower…
And then his eyes fell upon the tank.
It was about thirty metres away, heavy and imposing; as far as Ben could tell it looked identical to the Chieftain Mark 10 Annie had pointed out yesterday. It was old and spattered in mud, but still looked awesome and threatening, the barrel of its enormous gun pointing belligerently out at a forty-five-degree angle. Maybe they could get some protection inside there, Ben thought to himself; who knows, it might even be operational.
Annie was looking at him, and seemed to know what he was thinking. 'Let's go for it!' she shouted. They each grabbed one of Joseph's arms and hustled him in the direction of the huge armoured vehicle. They were only metres away from the hut when a burst of shells fell directly on top of it, and the whole thing exploded, sending huge, ugly splinters of wood flying that missed them only by a miracle.
They ran even faster towards the tank.
'What are our chances of surviving a direct hit?' Ben yelled at Annie, his voice hoarse from trying to make himself heard above the sound of the planes.
'Not good,' she replied, 'with or without the tank. But at least we'll be protected from shrapnel and flying debris if we get inside.'
'OK. How do we get in?'
'Up the top.'
Annie clambered onto the khaki chassis of the tank while Ben helped Joseph up the side before climbing up himself. His cousin lifted a metal disc hinged onto the turret, and the three of them dropped inside the tank, then closed the top behind them.
The interior of the Chieftain was like nothing Ben had ever seen — a metallic, industrial mess of displays, pedals and levers, wires and buttons. It was dingy — the only light coming through a small peephole in front of him that gave a limited amount of vision. A worn-out padded seat with holes in it was situated in the middle of the tank, in front of the controls, and Ben took his place there. As soon as he sat down, there was a massive explosion nearby: the whole tank seemed to shudder, and the three of them were knocked roughly against the metal walls. Annie cried out in pain, and Ben moved to see that she was OK; Joseph was already there, however; his eyes were suddenly alert again as he held her firm to stop her hurting herself as a result of a second explosion that rocked the tank once more.
'We're no safer in here than we were out there,' Joseph said. 'We need to get away.'
'Too right,' Ben said grimly. He looked at the jumble of mechanical equipment in front of him. They meant nothing.
'There should be a starter button somewhere,' Annie said through clenched teeth.