Part 15 (2/2)

'So did I.'

'If you decided to kiss me now, you would meet very little resistance,' she admitted.

'Cayla is watching us.' They both smiled at Cayla, and she smiled back uncertainly.

'Do you mind if I kiss your mother, Miss Bannock?' Hector asked and this time Cayla shook her head and giggled.

'You two are so d.a.m.ned naughty!' She watched them kiss with interest. The kiss went on for some time, but was interrupted in the end by the sound of men's voices echoing down from the cliffs above them. All three of them looked up.

'Don't go away,' Hector whispered to Hazel. 'I'll be back to continue where we left off.'

He stood up and reached for his rifle. He saw that Tariq and the men were already watching the cliff tops above them for the first enemy to show himself. Hazel and Cayla crouched down at his feet behind the parapet, both of them gazing up at the cliff top in trepidation. Hazel had the AK resting on the top of the wall with the b.u.t.t in her shoulder, and Cayla had the Beretta pistol in her lap, holding it with a two-handed grip. Daliyah squatted behind them.

'Can you shoot a gun, Daliyah?' Hector asked. She shook her head and lowered her eyes.

'Then look after Cayla,' he told her, and she nodded and smiled, still not looking at him. He left them and climbed to the top of the wall, squatting down beside Tariq. Now they could also hear the voices of the men a.s.sembling around the bend in the pa.s.s below them. The rock walls were acting as a sounding board so that Hector recognized Uthmann Waddah's voice as he harangued them, working them up to fighting pitch.

Hector knew that the men on the cliff above them would show themselves first, so he concentrated his attention there. He saw a furtive movement against the blue of the sky, and he waited. The movement was repeated and he raised the rifle and mounted the b.u.t.t to his shoulder. He saw a man's head peering over the lip of the cliff and he fired a three-round tap. Chips of stone flew from the top of the cliff, and the head jerked back out of sight. Hector thought he had missed. He waited a few seconds, ready for the next target, then suddenly a disembodied rifle slid over the rock lip and dropped into the pa.s.s. It clattered on the rocks close to where Hector sat. Seconds later a lifeless human body slithered over the same place on the cliff. It fell with its white robes fluttering like a flag and landed on top of the rifle. The dead man lay on his back staring up at the sky with one eye and a startled expression. His other eye had been ripped out by Hector's bullet.

Hector went to the body and rolled it off the rifle. He picked up the weapon and weighed it in his hands with a surge of delight. It was a Beretta SC 70/90. For a moment he wondered where it had come from; then he remembered the Cross Bow men that Uthmann had murdered at the oasis. Clearly this was one of their weapons. The one-eyed corpse had a bandolier draped around its waist. Hector pulled it off. He checked the pouches and found there were five clips, each loaded with thirty rounds of ammunition. He slung the bandolier over his own shoulder.

Quickly he checked to see if the optical sight of the rifle had been damaged by the fall. Before he could decide if it was still intact there was another movement on the cliff above him. Instinctively he swung the rifle upwards and in the magnifying lens the image of an enemy head appeared before his eyes with the crosshairs perfectly aligned. He fired. The bullet struck exactly where he had aimed. The jihadist tumbled over the edge of the cliff and dropped lifelessly into the rocks at Hector's feet.

Hector's pleasure at having a real rifle in his hands again was shortlived. Almost immediately dozens of other turbaned heads began popping out over the edge of the cliff and bullets drummed like tropical rain on the rocks around them. The war cries of the enemy resounded off the walls. They were coming from the a.s.sault force that Uthmann Waddah was a.s.sembling lower down the pa.s.s.

'Come on,' Hector yelled at Tariq and the two surviving men. 'We can't stay here to be picked off like fleas on a dog's belly. We have to get under the overhang!' They jumped up and started down the reverse side of the barrier. Almost immediately one of his men was. .h.i.t by the bullets from above. He went down with that peculiar rag-doll limpness which Hector knew was death. Nevertheless Hector stopped in the middle of the firestorm to make certain that the fallen man was beyond help. Then he jumped up again and started after the other two. Before they reached the bottom of the barrier and were under the rock overhang Tariq was. .h.i.t, and he went down sprawling. Hector saw the blood spring brightly on the back of his tunic and a dark shadow seemed to pa.s.s before Hector's own eyes.

'Not Tariq. Please G.o.d, not him.' He changed his rifle to his left hand and with barely a check in his run he scooped Tariq up from where he had fallen. Tariq was not a heavily built man and Hector carried him easily and dropped him behind the stone parapet.

'Do what you can for him,' he told Hazel. He was angry again, and he stood tall and swept the cliff face above him with a long burst of fire. Three of the enemy toppled over the lip and came thudding down into the rocks. The other enemy heads jerked back behind cover. Hazel and Daliyah were already attending to Tariq. He saw that Daliyah was weeping, and even in the extremity of the moment this came as a surprise.

'Why is she bawling?' he blurted out.

'Stupid question. She loves him, of course,' Hazel replied without lifting her head.

'My G.o.d! Everybody's doing it.' Hector grinned recklessly with the battle madness fizzing in his blood. 'How bad is he hit?' He fired twice at the heads showing on the far side of the pa.s.s, and killed another man.

'I don't know. It's in his back. But there are no bubbles in the blood, so maybe it hasn't pierced his lung.'

'Put pressure on the wound. Try to stem the bleeding. That's all we can do for now. But in the name of all that's holy keep your own head down. You too, Cayla. You can't take them on with that handgun.' He punctuated his speech with single rifle shots.

A burst of enemy bullets splashed across the parapet, showering them with stone chips and dust. Hector ducked down and spat out a chip of stone. Then he lifted his head to listen. There were shrill Islamic war cries coming from the direction of the mouth of the pa.s.s. Uthmann's men were scaling the far side of the rock barrier and reaching the top without being offered any resistance. Hector wriggled around on his belly under the parapet until he was in position to fire up at the top of the barrier, without having to expose his head to the men on the cliffs when he did so. He was ready when the first man raised his head above the top of the barrier, but he held his fire and waited for more of them to show themselves. The first head bobbed down again, and when there was no rifle fire it rose again cautiously. Then others came up and went down again. Hector waited for them to become careless. Three of them stood up to their full height and chanted, 'Allahu Akbar!'

Hector fired five aimed shots so swiftly that they sounded like a burst of automatic fire. Men fell or threw themselves down, shouting with surprise or squealing with pain. In the uproar it was impossible to be certain, but Hector thought that he might have got all three of them.

'Not too dusty,' he congratulated himself in an undertone. 'We haven't completely lost the touch.'

The rest of the enemy reacted violently and from the top of both the cliff and the barrier they poured a stream of automatic fire into the overhang. The bullets tore chunks out of the cliff, filling the air with a white mist of dust and then whining away in ricochets. Hector put one arm around Hazel and the other around Cayla and pushed them down on the stone floor. All their faces were powdered dead-white by the fine stone dust. Through the chaos of gunfire and the shouted war cries Hector made out the distant but mounting roar of many truck engines.

What trick is Uthmann pulling now? he asked himself. he asked himself. He isn't going to be crazy enough to try and bring his vehicles over the barrier, much as I'd love to see that. He isn't going to be crazy enough to try and bring his vehicles over the barrier, much as I'd love to see that. But the engine beat grew louder, almost drowning the jihadist shrieks. Abruptly Hector realized that the engine roar was not coming from the other side of the rock barrier, but was echoing down the open pa.s.s from behind their position. The Arab gunfire began to shrivel and dwindle. Hector rolled over and, still keeping the two women pinned to the ground, sheltering them with his own body, he peered back up the open pa.s.s to the bend in the rock walls to their rear. But the engine beat grew louder, almost drowning the jihadist shrieks. Abruptly Hector realized that the engine roar was not coming from the other side of the rock barrier, but was echoing down the open pa.s.s from behind their position. The Arab gunfire began to shrivel and dwindle. Hector rolled over and, still keeping the two women pinned to the ground, sheltering them with his own body, he peered back up the open pa.s.s to the bend in the rock walls to their rear.

At that moment a column of three huge GM trucks roared into his field of vision, coming straight down the pa.s.s towards them. On their sides was blazoned the Cross Bow logo, and in the front of each was mounted a pair of 50 calibre Browning heavy machine guns. Behind the guns on the leading truck stood Paddy O'Quinn. He was grinning happily as he gripped the firing handles and swivelled the twin barrels onto the jihadists who were still swarming over the rock barrier that blocked the pa.s.s. In the truck that followed him Dave Imbiss was leaning back and aiming his heavy Brownings up at the cliffs.

'Paddy O'Quinn and his rock and roll band will now play their famous signature tune for us,' said Hector, laughing and hugging the two women. The guns opened with a tumultuous thunder that filled the pa.s.s with sound. Paddy's tracer sh.e.l.ls ripped the top off the rock barricade and filled the air with dust. Running Arabs trying to get to the top of the rock pile disappeared in the storm of shot, cut down before they reached it. In the second truck Dave swept the tops of the cliffs with his fire. Human bodies rained down into the pa.s.s, like overripe fruit shaken from the trees of an orchard by a gale of wind. Within seconds all the visible targets were destroyed and the guns fell silent. Paddy looked around and spotted them huddled behind the parapet under the overhang, and he waved cheerily.

'Top o' the mornin' to you, Hector. What a lovely surprise to find you still in such good form. May I offer you a lift home?'

'Enchanted, I am sure,' Hector shouted back. 'I never truly appreciated the suns.h.i.+ne of your smile until this very moment.' Gently he picked up Tariq. 'How are you, my brother?' he asked as he carried him to the leading truck.

'I will be with you for many more years. You and I still have to kill that son of Shaitan, Uthmann Waddah,' Tariq said. His voice was feeble but at least there was no blood in his mouth. Hector knew he was going to make it. He laid Tariq in the back of the truck, and the women climbed in beside him.

'Look after him well,' he told Hazel. It was more a plea than an order.

'Don't worry, Hector,' Hazel replied. 'Daliyah and I won't let anything happen to him.'

'Where are the others?' Paddy asked lightly as Hector climbed up beside him.

'What you see is what you get, Paddy,' said Hector sadly. 'There ain't no others, not no more.' Paddy stopped smiling and let his next flippant remark die before it reached his lips.

'G.o.d save their souls,' he said soberly.

'Amen to that.'

'But I see you managed to rescue the girl.'

'She's not rescued until we get her home. Let's go, Paddy!'

They drove back up the pa.s.s towards the Ethiopian border. It was soon apparent that Uthmann had not been able to get his vehicles over or around the barrier of collapsed rock, for there was no pursuit. They stopped once so that the Bannock Oil company doctor whom Paddy had brought with him could attend to Tariq. He set up a plasma drip, gave him shots of antibiotics and painkillers, and strapped up the wound. Then they drove on, making good progress even though in places the track had been washed away. Paddy's men had hastily repaired it as best they could on their way in. They reached the crests of the foothills and debouched into a maze of interconnected valleys and mountain pa.s.ses, through which the old road threaded. They followed it westwards for the remainder of that day, climbing gradually into the highlands. So far there had been no sign of human habitation, so they risked using the headlights of the trucks and drove on after dark. Paddy was navigating with his truck's GPS. Four hours after nightfall he announced that they had crossed into Ethiopia. However, there was no indication of any kind to mark the border. They halted the convoy briefly to celebrate with a cup of hot tea. While the canteen brewed Hector warmed up the satphone. From this high ground the reception was crystal clear and he spoke to Nella Vosloo at Sidi el Razig as though she were sitting beside him.

'We will be at Jig Jig before first light. Come and fetch us, my darling.'

'Bernie and I will be there. Trust me!' Nella told him. They kept on driving through the night. Hector stood beside Paddy in the open gun mounting, both of them vigilant and unsleeping. But the dark mountains through which they were travelling were deserted. Two hours before dawn they reached the Jig Jig airstrip without having encountered a single living being along the way.

They went into a defensive laager on the edge of the airstrip, and the women prepared breakfast. In the lorry's tucker box Paddy had two dozen fresh eggs, a side of streaky bacon and four loaves of mouldy bread. They made toast over the coals and plastered it with canned New Zealand b.u.t.ter while it was still hot. With Daliyah's a.s.sistance even Tariq was able to sit up and, devout Muslim though he was, wolf down a bacon b.u.t.ty. They were still drinking steaming mugs of black tea when they heard the sound of Hercules engines approaching. Paddy ordered a truck to park at each end of the strip, and switch on their headlights. Nella brought the colossal aircraft down smoothly on the strip between the trucks, and as soon as she lowered the rear loading ramp Paddy led all three trucks up into the cargo bay and strapped them securely. The Hercules was airborne again within twelve minutes of touching down.

The doctor re-dressed Tariq's wound and gave his opinion. 'He's lucky. Looks as though the bullet missed any vital parts. He is as tough as he is fit, and will be on his feet again in no time.' Daliyah wept helplessly when Hector translated this into Arabic for her. Then at Hazel's request the doctor turned his attention to Cayla. He took her into the tiny pilot's cabin behind the flight deck and examined her carefully. 'Physically she is doing well enough,' he p.r.o.nounced. 'The antibiotics that Mr Cross administered seem to have taken care of the food poisoning. However, once you get her back to civilization you should immediately see to it that she is tested for any infection. Of course, she is still weak but after the ordeal she has been through that is only to be expected. Her psychological state seems much more precarious. Of course that is not my field; however, I can only urge you to get her to a top specialist as soon as you possibly can.'

'I plan to do exactly that,' Hazel agreed. 'My jet should be waiting at Sidi el Razig. Right now I am going to make certain she gets some sleep.' She turned to Hector. 'You too! You haven't slept for three days.'

'Don't fuss so,' he protested as she tucked him in to one of the sleeping bags that she found in the rack above the bunk.

'Fussing is one of the things I do best. You have been giving the orders up until now, Hector Cross. From here on I am giving you a taste of your own medicine. Stop arguing and go to sleep!' She switched out the light. Both Hector and Cayla were still dead asleep when Nella landed the Hercules at Sidi el Razig.

From the moment they landed Hector found himself shunted into the background. He did not see Hazel again for the rest of that day. She disappeared into the executive offices of the Bannock headquarters, where she was locked in meetings with Bert Simpson or in conference calls with her head office in Houston. Every time Hector glanced out of the window of his own office he was made acutely aware of the big Gulfstream jet waiting on the airfield with all her luggage already loaded aboard and her pilots and cabin crew ready at a moment's notice to whisk her and Cayla away to the other side of the world.

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