The Covenant of Genesis (51 page)

Chase snapped up the Browning and fired, hitting the man’s arm and spinning him against one of the petrol cans strapped to the pickup’s side. He reeled back, shrieking, before falling on to the fire in an explosion of flying embers. The shrieks became much louder as he leapt back up, clothes and hair aflame.

Half a dozen Janjaweed ran round the first pickup, guns raised.

Chase fired again - not at the militiamen, but at the petrol can.

A jet of fuel spurted from the hole - and splashed over the burning man as he staggered in blind agony. Flames surged back along the gushing petrol—

The can exploded, liquid fire sluicing out. The screaming man was consumed, as was a second, larger can, which blew up and bowled the pickup into the approaching gunmen inside a roiling fireball.

Chase reached the Hilux, shielding his face from the heat, and looked round to see if there were any more Janjaweed posing an immediate threat.

There were. A man on the edge of a group near the Humvees pulled the pin from a grenade, about to throw it at the Hilux—

His wrist was blown in half by one of Sophia’s bullets. The severed hand plopped to the ground at his feet, still clutching the grenade . . . which exploded, lacerated Janjaweed flying in all directions.

But there were still plenty more left, and the Covenant troops to worry about as well. Chase looked at the pistol in his hand - then up at the weapon in the pickup’s rear bed. It was an old Kalashnikov PK, a light anti-aircraft gun being used here as a heavy machine gun, a belt of ammunition already loaded.

Definitely more firepower than the Browning.

‘You drive,’ he told Nina as he climbed into the back of the Hilux. ‘I’ll shoot.’

Nina entered the open cab, searching for the key. ‘Cute,’ she said, finding Hello Kitty. ‘Drive where?’

‘I’ll tell you when I’ve shot a big enough hole to fit through!’ He swung the gun round towards the Humvees - and pulled the trigger.

The machine gun roared, the recoil threatening to rip the makeshift mount from the pickup’s floor. Chase held on and swept the PK back and forth. Every fifth round was a tracer, green lines from the Russian ammunition streaking across the camp like lasers, but Chase was barely able to see them through the staccato flames erupting from the muzzle. The flanks of the Humvees cratered, tyres bursting and dropping them with a crash on to their run-flat steel inserts. The onslaught was enough to shatter even the armoured windows.

A Covenant soldier aimed at him over the bonnet of a Humvee; he hauled the gun round and hosed him with lead. More movement, outside the circle of 4x4s - another group of Janjaweed, realising that the machine gunner wasn’t a militiaman. Chase turned the barrage on them before they could act on that realisation, bullet-riddled bodies tumbling.

The ammo belt reached its end, the thunder stopping abruptly. There were more ammunition boxes in the pickup bed, but he didn’t have time to reload. Nina was bent almost double in her seat, hands pressed against her ears to protect them from the deafening noise. ‘Start the truck!’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I said start the - never mind!’ He jumped into the cab and turned the key. ‘Go!’

She raised her head. ‘Which way?’

‘Left.’

Nina released the clutch, the Toyota kicking sand from under its tyres as it lurched into motion. She turned left - only to see a group of Janjaweed running towards them. ‘Maybe not,’ she said, spinning the wheel to the right.

‘I said go
left
!’ Chase shouted.

‘Yeah, and there’s a bunch of guys with guns that way!’

‘Have you seen what’s
this
way?’

She looked. ‘Oh, shit!’

The man who had destroyed the Humvee had reloaded his rocket launcher, lining up a second RPG round - not at the Covenant vehicles, but at the Hilux.

Nina tried to turn, but found nowhere to go, armed men on both sides and the burning wreck of the upturned Humvee directly ahead . . .

‘Go straight!’ Chase shouted. He shoved his foot down on hers, jamming the accelerator to the floor.

‘Eddie, what—’

‘
Straight!
’ he said, pointing forwards. The Humvee’s broad underside rose out of the sand like a ramp.

‘Are you out of your—’

The RPG leapt from its launcher, hurtling across the camp.

‘—fucking—’

The Toyota hit the inverted Humvee, shot up the slope—

‘—
miiiiiind!
’

The grenade slammed into the upturned Humvee just as the Toyota cleared the top of the makeshift ramp. It exploded, blasting the wrecked 4x4 into the air. It cartwheeled out of the swelling fireball to smash down on top of one of the other Humvees, ripping it in half - along with the Covenant trooper in cover against it.

The Hilux landed in a massive spray of sand, demolishing the dome tents as it ploughed through them. Every bone jarred by the impact, Nina looked up - to see another Humvee directly ahead. She yelped and spun the wheel, narrowly missing Vogler as the pickup swerved. Flaming debris rained down behind the Toyota.

She aimed the truck out of the encampment and switched on the headlights. ‘Where now?’

‘Northwest,’ said Chase, pointing. ‘Towards Eden.’

 

Sophia tracked the fleeing Hilux with the rifle, picking out the person at the wheel. Nina.

She lined up the crosshairs, finger hovering over the trigger . . . then lowered the gun. ‘Not just yet.’

Movement - much closer than the camp. She snapped her head round to see one of the Janjaweed running towards her. He had heard the rifle shots, worked out her position, and was coming for her.

The Lee-Enfield came back up. ‘Not tonight,’ Sophia said, looking through the scope again. The man was so close that his face entirely filled her magnified field of view - then suddenly there was a large hole in the middle of it. ‘You have a headache.’

She cycled the bolt, then ran back to the Land Cruiser.

 

Hamed struggled upright. An explosion had knocked him down, his head hitting a rock, but he had fared better than his men. Many had been massacred, the rest fleeing into the desert to escape the Covenant’s superior firepower.

He looked round. One of the technicals was barrelling out into the desert.
The woman
, he remembered - he had seen her at the wheel just before the blast threw him to the ground.

Anger surged inside him.

He grabbed an AK from a dead man and hurried to where his horse was tied. It was struggling to break free, frightened by the noise, but he quickly took control and mounted the animal, turning to pursue the retreating tail-lights into the desert.

 

Vogler bent low and moved along the side of one of the surviving Humvees to reach Zamal. The Arab unleashed a burst of automatic fire, then ducked back into cover. ‘What’s our status?’ he asked.

‘The Janjaweed are running,’ Vogler told him. ‘We’ve lost at least half our men, though.’

Zamal let out an angry breath. ‘Why did they turn on us?’

‘They didn’t. It was Chase.’

‘
What?
’

‘He was in that truck - and Wilde was driving it.’

Zamal swore loudly in Arabic. ‘If Chase is here, Blackwood must be as well - the sniper!’ he realised, looking towards the dark dunes. ‘It must have been her.’

Both men turned as Callum ran to them, firing a burst from a SCAR and taking down a man with a rocket launcher. ‘Wilde’s escaped!’

‘Yes, we noticed,’ said Vogler acidly. ‘With the help of Chase - and your former prisoner.’

‘Don’t try to pin this on me,’ Callum growled. ‘I didn’t turn this whole goddamn thing into a slaughterhouse. Your psycho friends did that, Zamal.’

Zamal’s face tightened, but Vogler interrupted before he could reply. ‘We need to secure this situation. How many Janjaweed are left?’

‘Forget the Janjaweed, we need to get after Wilde,’ Callum said. ‘Are the Humvees still driveable?’

Vogler looked at the vehicle they were crouched behind. Its bodywork was scarred with bullet holes, windows cracked and broken, and a tyre had been blown out. ‘Two destroyed, and the rest all damaged. Repairable, but I doubt we will be able to leave before morning.’

‘They could be fifty kilometres away by then,’ said Zamal. ‘We’ll never find them.’

‘I’ll take care of that,’ said Callum. ‘Just find me a satellite phone.’

 

‘Slow down, slow down!’ Chase yelped as the Hilux crested a rise and briefly took off, ploughing back with a suspension-straining crash.

‘Are you crazy?’ said Nina, grinding the pickup into a lower gear to keep up its speed. ‘I want to get as far away from them as possible!’

‘We need to wait for Sophia.’ He looked back. A pair of headlights was bounding across the desert towards them - not from the Janjaweed camp, but from the surrounding dunes. Sophia, in the Land Cruiser.

‘Do we really?’

‘Yeah, really. She’s got an extra gun, if nothing else.’

‘Right, and how long before it’s pointing at us?’

‘Not as soon as that one,’ Chase said with alarm, seeing something pursuing them, silhouetted against the fires. A man on a horse, AK-47 on his back.

Catching up fast.

Chase climbed into the cargo bed. ‘Okay, forget slowing down, go faster!’ He found one of the ammo boxes and pulled out the heavy belt of bullets. A glance behind: the horseman was still coming, but had veered to one side, moving to intercept the approaching Land Cruiser.

 

Sophia was slammed forward as the Land Cruiser hit another bump. The elderly vehicle only had a lap belt rather than a full seatbelt, and a threadbare one at that. She spun the wheel to straighten out, aiming for the tail-lights ahead. Nina was charging through the desert like a maniac, far too fast for the terrain.

But she wasn’t the only one.

Movement in her peripheral vision - a man on horseback galloping parallel to the Land Cruiser, a hundred feet away and closing as he swung an AK from his back and aimed it at her.

She tried to swerve away, but too late.

Only a few bullets from the wild spray of fire hit her vehicle - but one found a vital spot. The front tyre blew out, the wheel hub digging into the sand. The Land Cruiser skidded to a stop in a huge cloud of dust, almost rolling over before dropping heavily back on to its remaining three wheels.

Dazed, Sophia sat up - to see the horseman flash through her headlight beams, still pursuing the other truck.

‘Shit!’ said Chase as he saw Sophia’s 4x4 slew to a halt. The Janjaweed rider was still gaining - and now had his gun at the ready.

He struggled to load the machine gun, having to rely almost entirely on touch to figure out the unfamiliar mechanism in the dark. He managed to open the ammo feed’s cover, hinging it up and trying to load the first round—

The AK-47 spat fire. A bullet hissed past Chase’s head; he dropped, the ammo belt chinking down beside him as more shots hit the back of the Hilux. Nina ducked in her seat.

The gunfire stopped. Chase risked a look over the tailgate. The rider was a blood-red demon in the rear lights. He shouldered the AK - out of ammo.

But he had another weapon.

A machete. He raised the long, brutal blade high like a sword.

Chase retrieved the ammo belt and jumped back up to reload the machine gun, glancing at Nina to check she hadn’t been hit. She was only just sitting up . . .

And hadn’t seen what was rushing at them in the headlights.

‘Look out!’ he started to shout - but the Hilux had already reached the edge of the ditch.

The empty stream bed was shallow, the steep bank no more than eighteen inches deep - but it was enough to tip the Toyota over as its right wheels dropped into the depression. Nina braked hard and tried to stop the truck overturning . . .

Too late.

Chase threw himself out of the cargo bed as the truck rolled, landing hard in dry stream. The pickup hit the far bank and crashed to a standstill on its side.

He crawled towards it. Only one headlight was still working. No sign of Nina. He stood—

And was smashed to the ground as something huge and heavy hit him from behind.

Hamed pulled the reins to slow his horse and wheel round for another attack, preparing to trample Chase into the sand.

Chase dived into the ditch as the horse thundered at him, then scrambled clumsily back to his feet. The rider turned again, his horse jumping down into the red-lit arena of the stream bed.

They faced each other for a moment. Then the Janjaweed leader extended his arm, pointing his machete at Chase - and spurred the horse into a charge.

Chase grabbed for the Browning. It wasn’t there - he had lost it when he jumped from the truck. He turned and ran for the pickup, the pounding hooves closing fast, almost on him.