“That’s not what they did in Dubai,” Hawker said.
Perhaps not, but it was clear in this case. Danielle guessed that the guy with the radio and whoever else was in that Humvee were members of the cult, directing the show.
Danielle almost felt sorry for the men — except for the fact that they would kill her, Sonia, and Hawker if they got the chance.
“Not our problem,” she said.
She took another look at the sand rails. They looked like fast machines. She remembered racing something similar as a child along a beach in North Carolina. She doubted the ATVs would be able to outrun them.
She glanced toward her four-wheeler.
Hawker nodded. “Quietly.”
She turned to Sonia. “This time you’re with me.”
Sonia looked confused but didn’t question it. To Danielle, the thinking was clear. She was fifty pounds lighter than Hawker to begin with and he was carrying the heaviest piece of the stone. She and Sonia on one rig would be much faster than Hawker and Sonia had been on the way in.
Hawker smiled.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
Still smiling, Hawker pulled his rifle from the scabbard on the side of his ATV. With another glance at the men in the moat, he climbed on.
Danielle did likewise, pulling the straps on her backpack tight.
Without engaging the motor, she walked the ATV back from the edge, turning it through 90 degrees in the process. A necessary act, since they’d foolishly left them pointing toward the precipice upon arrival.
Sonia remained on the ground, staring at the men. Frozen once again.
“Come on, Sonia,” Hawker said. “We need to move.”
“Those are the men who killed my father,” Sonia said, as if mesmerized.
“They might be,” Danielle said. “All the more reason to put them behind us.”
Sonia nodded, then slowly stood, moving toward the back of Danielle’s ride.
As she did her footing gave way, not enough to make her fall, but enough to send a tiny avalanche of rocks and sand tumbling down the edge of the moat.
Click, clack. Crunch.
The tumbling rocks might as well have been gunshots in the silence of the night.
Flashlights swung their way.
“Not good,” Danielle said.
Shouts followed. They’d been spotted.
Sonia climbed on board and Danielle gunned the throttle, racing past Hawker and out into the night.
As she accelerated down the dry riverbed, she heard gunfire from behind.
The shooting was too close to be the Iranians. Hawker had to be blasting away at them, trying to keep them pinned down.
It would work for a minute, but once the men on the rim started firing back Hawker would have to flee or risk getting caught or killed himself.
Danielle raced on, trusting his judgment.
With Sonia clinging tight, she rounded a curve in the bend of the river and glanced at the GPS. In a half mile she would turn west and cut through the dunes toward the marshland and the waiting airboat.
She hoped Hawker would catch them by then and that they’d be able to lose any pursuit before they reached that point.
As Danielle and Sonia raced away, Hawker cracked off a half-dozen shots from the ArmaLite. He saw one man fall and get up again. The others took cover.
He aimed toward the sand rails and opened up with a hail of shells. Sparks flew from where the vehicles were parked, but before he could land any fatal blows, explosions of dirt began to kick up around him and bullets began to whistle by.
He shuffled backward to the ATV, shoved the rifle back into the scabbard, climbed back on, and gunned the throttle.
In seconds he’d left the shooters well behind him.
He flew along the dry riverbed, traveling at breakneck speed and suddenly realizing a problem. His helmet, and the night-vision goggles attached to it, sat strapped uselessly to the peg behind him.
He had no time to stop and put them on. He squinted into the wind, trying to navigate by the starlight that spread itself over the desert sand.
Danielle had reached the turnoff. She slowed, looking for the best place to climb up the slope of the bank. Finding a promising spot, she shouted to Sonia.
“Hold on.”
She gunned the throttle again and they raced up and out onto the open desert. A minute later they entered the sand dunes.
Like someone skiing huge moguls or avoiding massive swells at sea, Danielle did the best she could to race around the dunes, sticking to the low points. To speed across the top kicking up a rooster tail was just asking to be seen and then shot.
Lower was safer, even if it meant constant course changes and turns and rechecking the GPS. Trying to do all that and keep the ATV moving at full speed took all Danielle’s attention. She couldn’t risk a glance back to look for Hawker, but Sonia could.
“Do you see Hawker?” she shouted.
Danielle felt Sonia’s weight shift as she turned. She reduced the speed for a moment, to give her a better look.
“No!” Sonia shouted.
A second later something caught Danielle’s eye to the left. She glanced toward it and hoped it was Hawker.
“Damn.”
The sound of an unmuffled engine roared in her ears as lights blazed toward them from the dune above. The sand rails had found them.
CHAPTER 38
Hang on!” Danielle shouted.
One buggy raced down toward them from the top of the dune. A second followed on a slightly wider track.
Danielle curved away from them, snaking between a group of smaller mounds in the dark. The ATV bounced and skidded. Left, then right, then left again. Suddenly the world filled with light as one of the dune buggies dropped in behind.
The light was so intense that Danielle couldn’t see through the goggles. She flipped them up just in time to see an outcropping of rock.
She cut right, leaning hard to keep the ATV from flipping.
They missed it. But the sound of a heavy crunch and a sudden return of the darkness told her their pursuers had nailed it head-on. Whether they would be permanently out of the action or only held up for the moment she didn’t know. But she’d take what she could get.
Flying along at top speed in an attempt to catch up with Danielle, Hawker had encountered another problem: He’d become utterly lost.
The riverbed looked different: more dead trees, more rocks, less smooth ground to rumble over. He hadn’t seen this on the way in and that could mean only one thing: He’d stayed in the wadi too long and gone too far north.
He looked for a way out, found a slope that seemed climbable, and raced up it, pressing his weight forward to keep the ATV’s nose down.
Cresting the top of the climb, he saw lights racing westward across the dunes, three pairs in the lead and two in a trailing group.
Hounds after the fox, chasing Danielle and Sonia.
He accelerated forward, got the ATV up to full speed, and pulled the rifle out once again. Because the throttle was on the right, he switched the rifle into his left hand, holding it against the handlebar and accelerating further.
He couldn’t remember firing a rifle left-handed, but there was a first time for everything.
Danielle continued around the dunes, trying desperately to keep moving in the general direction of the airboat. It was only a mile off now and Hawker’s friend Keegan was waiting there with more firepower. Maybe enough to help even the odds.
She whipped into a right turn and the ATV almost flipped. Sonia had moved the wrong way.
A moment later it happened again.
“Move with me,” Danielle shouted.
“I’m looking for Hawker!” she shouted.