Women like Ana never saw just how violent the world really was, which made it hard to understand people like the four Muldoons she was currently traveling with. Still, she was proving herself to be a real trooper, and had slowly earned his respect.
“Right, then,” Wally said, returning to the top of the dune with a rifle of his own and plenty of ammo. “Let’s slot these wankers.”
Tim, still lying in the prone, turned his head toward the British man. “You know, Wally, you still talk funny, but I love your attitude.”
“Sod off,” Wally retorted with a smile.
The two waited as Ana sat in the truck below. They didn’t want to waste fuel by keeping the engine running, so she would start it when they yelled for her to. The time for engagement was drawing near as the enemy truck crested a dune that Tim estimated to be roughly 450 meters away, well within range.
“Fire,” he yelled as he squeezed the trigger. Wally fired at nearly the same time, and they observed as one of the men in the truck bed fell off and landed in the sand.
“You know that was my kill, right?” Wally said.
“Fuck you, that was all me,” Tim said as they worked the bolt-action rifles to chamber new rounds.
They took aim again, but the jig was up, and men were jumping out of the truck to seek cover behind it. Tim counted five, plus two or three in the cab. They fired off the remaining four shots from the internal magazines of the rifles before quickly stuffing them with fresh rounds. He turned toward Ana at the bottom of the dune.
“Fire it up!” he hollered, and heard the engine roar to life.
Tim fired off one more shot and then he and Wally slunk back behind the peak of the dune so as not to give away their position or the fact that they were leaving, and then half-ran, half-fell down the sand hill. They tossed their rifles in the back, grabbed AK-47s, and Wally jumped in the passenger seat and Tim in the bed as Ana floored it and they sped away to the south.
It wasn’t long before they could make out the figure of Shane waving his oversized gorilla arms and they headed toward him. Tim peered back and saw that the truck was catching up again, although slower this time. Bullets cracked through the air, deadly accurate rounds comingfrom one direction fired by the two former Green Berets with long-distance rifles, and wild, off-the-mark shots from the other direction coming from the untrained terrorists with clunky assault rifles. Eventually, they made their way to the rally point.
“So far, so good,” Tim said as he and Wally swapped positions with Nate and Shane, who returned to their truck and sped off. They repeated the process several times as they slowly crawled back to the road. With any luck, they would be there by midday.
Shane gunned the engine to gain momentum that would carry them up the next dune. They had made four bounds so far and Nate assumed they had to be getting close to the road. Once they did, they would turn east and it would be a straight shot, and at that point, a race. Perhaps they would encounter a Saudi patrol, which would not be great, but could at least be a much-needed distraction. They simply needed to lose their tail so that they could hook north and get back on course.
As they crested the next peak, any thoughts of making a break for the Omani border faded. At the bottom of the hill were two pickup trucks full of armed men. As soon as Shane maneuvered the vehicle over the edge, the men opened fire on them. Rounds impacted the engine block and pierced the windshield, forcing Nate and Shane to duck below the dashboard.
“Gun it,” Nate yelled. “Ram them!”
It was their only chance. They couldn’t go back the way they had come; inertia saw to that. They also couldn’t turn left or right as the weight would shift off-center, and the vehicle would roll over. That left them with the options of stopping in place or going full speed ahead, which maybe would offer them a chance at survival.
“Fuck me!” Shane yelled as he slammed on the accelerator and the truck lurched forward.
They went careening down the dune as another hail of bullets came their way. This time, they hit the tires, which instantly deflated, and the truck listed heavily to the passenger side. It slid for several feet before beginning to tip.
“We’re going over!” Shane shouted.
The world was instantly flipped upside down, and then right side up, and then a blur of the two as they rolled down the sand dune. Nate was thankful he had fastened his seat belt, and was using his hands and legs to brace against the body of the vehicle as they went. Eventually, they came to rest upside down. Nate had been jostled around pretty good and his mind was foggy.
“Shane? You okay?”
He looked over at his friend, who appeared to be unconscious and was bleeding from the side of his head. Nate fumbled around and pushed the button to release his seat belt, but it was stuck. He tried harder and it finally gave way, collapsing him into a heap on the ceiling of the truck.
He slowly crawled out the window, intent on going around to Shane’s side and pulling him out. In the chaos of the crash he had forgotten the catalyst for it but was instantly reminded as a sandaled foot slammed down on his shoulder. He tried to look up, but more feet began stomping on him, and he instinctively curled up to protect his head and midsection with his arms and legs. A round from a rifle cracked through the air and the beating stopped. Nate looked up feebly just in time to see the butt of an AK-47 come crashing down on his temple.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Al-Mazunah, Oman
Novikov’s phone rang and he recognized the number as belonging to the local Al Qaeda leader, Omar. He hoped it was good news, as the Russian mercenary and his men had been waiting for over a day in Oman for verification of his target’s presence. He was unsure whether he should head west into Yemen or north to Saudi and was growing impatient. If he hadn’t heard anything by tonight, then he and his team were going to cross into Yemen and begin the hunt on their own. So if Omar was calling him, it had better be with an answer that would make his contingency plans unnecessary.
“Yes” was all he said as he answered the phone.
“I have him,” Omar responded.
“Wilde?”
