The Eden Prophecy (31 page)

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.

“Forget about him. You need to move with me or we’re going down.”

For emphasis Danielle took another turn they didn’t have to take, but Sonia got the message and leaned into it hard, if late.

Lights flooded the desert in front of her as one of the sand
rails barreled toward them, attempting to cut her off. Danielle cut toward it like a fighter pilot breaking toward a missile. Her turn was too sharp for the buggy to copy, and it overshot her and vanished in the dark. Another narrow escape.

Danielle wondered how long their luck would last. To be honest she was surprised they’d gotten this far. She feared for Hawker, wondered where he was, and prayed that nothing had happened to him.

Still traveling full speed, Danielle raced up the next dune and then down. From the top she could see the lights of the others trailing them; they’d spread out in a wide V. An attempt to keep her from breaking containment and disappearing into the night, she thought, or …

She looked ahead—they were nearing the marsh now. Climbing over the top of the last dune, she caught sight of the reeds at the water’s edge. Her worst fears were realized.

The men in the sand rails were chasing her and Sonia all right, but they were also herding her toward a second group. A half-dozen men and another Humvee waited by the shore.

Danielle hit the brakes and turned, but this time Sonia’s lean came way too late and the ATV flipped, flinging both of them off and into the sand.

Tumbling and then sliding to a stop, Danielle quickly looked up. The ATV was upside down, its wheels spinning. She scrambled back to the overturned rig, and pulled the rifle loose. She turned and opened fire, just as the three sand rails came flying over the crest of the dune and down at them.

She hit one of the dune buggies. It went off course, flipping and tumbling down the hill, one wheel flying through the air like a Frisbee. The other two turned wide, made a long stretch outward, and then turned back. They began
circling her and Sonia, penning them in halfway down the last dune, five hundred yards from the marsh.

Fifty feet away Sonia had gotten to her hands and knees.

“Over here!” Danielle shouted.

Appearing groggy from the fall, Sonia crawled to where Danielle was.

“Where’s your gun?” Danielle shouted.

Sonia reached into her pack and pulled out a small pistol. She gripped it awkwardly.

“Fire only if they start to close in.”

Danielle could see the men from the water’s edge heading up toward her. The Hummer followed, moving at a crawl, pointing its blazing high beams right into her eyes.

Danielle ripped off a group of shots and the Humvee’s lights went dark. Then she hunkered down behind the overturned ATV.

The men weren’t firing yet, but it was hard to watch them all and sort of dizzying and confusing trying to keep track of the two dune buggies racing around in opposite directions as they circled.

Beside her Sonia fired wildly and well behind one of the racing buggies.

“Wait till they’re closer!” Danielle said.

“I don’t want them to get closer!” Sonia shouted back.

Danielle had to agree with that thought, but they didn’t have all that much ammunition.

She glanced toward the edge of the swamp and realized something new. Keegan and the boat were gone.

Hawker’s plan for a mad charge had come with one deficiency: The vehicles he was chasing were faster than he was. They ran away from him without ever knowing they’d been challenged.

He continued on, following their lights and aware that they were heading in the general direction of the marsh. When their progress stopped and the lights began dancing in strange circles Hawker feared the worst. It reminded him of a wolf pack having finally downed its prey.

He pressed forward, down through the dunes and up over the last one. He saw Danielle and Sonia on the ground, crouching in the cover of the overturned ATV. He saw the sand rails circling them like hyenas and a group of men marching toward them.

Now was the time for the charge.

He gunned the throttle again, aimed for the point where he’d intersect one of the sand rails on its wide circle, and raced down the last dune, opening fire as he went.

Within a few seconds he’d riddled the first vehicle with shells. Its gas tank exploded and it rolled away, burning.

From there he raced around wide, opening fire into the pack of men.

Danielle and Sonia must have joined in because as his weapon ran dry he could still hear gunfire and see the men scattering.

He glanced over toward Danielle. The last of the sand rails was racing toward her and Sonia. Hawker saw three men hanging on to the back, like firemen on a ladder truck.

As the vehicle raced past, the men jumped off. They lunged forward with nets in their hands, as if they would capture the two women like lions.

Hawker turned that way, accelerating. The nets were thrown, engulfing Danielle and Sonia. Gunfire flashed from Danielle’s position and one of the men staggered back clutching his chest. But the second man tackled her and she went down, tangled in the net, while the third fought with Sonia.

Hawker raced in at full speed, swinging the empty rifle like a club.

It whammed against the side of one of the men, ripping out of Hawker’s hand and pulling him off balance. He flew off the ATV and rolled. As he got up, he saw Danielle retraining her rifle and aiming through the netting. She blasted the third assailant off Sonia. The guy Hawker had hit lay flat and unmoving.

What had started as a rout was fast approaching even odds. But they still needed to get to the water.

With his ATV zooming out of reach, Hawker ran toward the women. He pulled the net off Danielle as Sonia untangled herself.

“I need a weapon,” he said.

Sonia handed him her pistol.

“Where’s your friend?” Danielle shouted, firing a carefully aimed shot in one direction and then the next, trying to keep the rest of the men at bay.

Hawker looked toward the swamp and realized what Danielle was saying.

“They must have chased him off!” he shouted. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

“He better make it quick. I have two more shells.”

Hawker reached into his vest, pulled out an extra clip, and handed it to her. “I won’t be needing this.”

Danielle snapped off her last two shots, popped the empty out, and jammed the clip Hawker gave her into the rifle.

As she racked the slide, Hawker looked over the field.

The men attacking them had been scattered. Some were cowering behind overturned vehicles, others taking what cover they could out on the open ground. There was no one between them and the marsh.

“How many of them are left?”

“No idea,” Danielle said. “Seven or eight. Maybe a dozen.”

“I can’t believe they haven’t shot us yet,” he noted.

“They’re not going to shoot,” Sonia said.

He turned.

“They want me,” she explained. “Just like you said. They killed my father because he wouldn’t help them and now they want me—alive.”

That was one of the reasons he’d wanted her in the safe house.

He looked around, pissed at himself for not forcing her to go with Savi and her sister.

“Sooner or later they’re going to try another run,” he said. They’d go for him and Danielle and then they’d swarm Sonia and take her. No way in hell he was going to let that happen. But how to stop it?

Hawker looked around. His own ATV was gone. A runaway that had zoomed off into the darkness, it probably wouldn’t stop till it hit the Persian Gulf.

“Does this thing still run?” he asked.

“I think it will,” Danielle said.

Hawker grabbed the handhold and pulled with all his might. The ATV came up slowly and then went over and landed back onto its wheels.

“You two get on this thing and head for the marsh,” he said. “Keegan’s out there somewhere.”

“What if he’s not?”

“He is,” Hawker insisted. “If you don’t see him, just drive right into the damn water and swim for it. He’ll find you.”

He took Danielle’s rifle.

“What about you?” Sonia asked, fear in her eyes.

“I’m going to make these people wish they’d messed with someone else tonight.”

Danielle’s face was white, but she tried to play along. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “This is what he does.”

Sonia didn’t look convinced, but she nodded her head.

Danielle flipped the switch and the ATV’s panel lit up. “We have power.”

Danielle climbed on and Sonia settled in behind her.

“Go!” Hawker shouted.

The ATV’s wheels spun, showering Hawker with sand as it raced away toward the water’s edge.

Almost immediately several of the men and the last of the sand rails moved to cut the women off.

Hawker targeted the buggy and lit it up with three quick bursts. Desperately trying to keep the alley open he fired a burst at the men on the right and then at the group on the left. Alternating his shots like this he tried to keep them pinned down as Danielle and Sonia raced for the water.

It looked as if it might just work. The men who’d come to get them were cowering. They’d bit off more than they’d expected and had begun regressing into survival mode, staying down even when they didn’t have to. Danielle was still accelerating, head down, throttle wide open.

And then, right in front of his eyes, something happened that Hawker could not believe.

D
anielle held the ATV’s throttle at full and the four-wheeler flew down the sand gathering speed. Seeing no sign of Keegan or the airboat, she planned to race into the water as far as possible and then dive off with Sonia in tow.

They could swim out into the dark and hide in the reeds and the murk of the swamp. Their pursuers were still unlikely to shoot at them for fear of hitting Sonia, and eventually they’d have to leave or risk trouble with the Iranian military. But that did not help Hawker, and unless Keegan showed up and began throwing some fire support their way, Hawker wouldn’t last long.

As they roared down the hill and onto the mud flat, Danielle listened for Hawker’s shots. She knew he was deadly accurate, enough that she didn’t look to either side, only ahead. If someone popped up it would be the last thing they did.

No one rose to challenge them, no one cut them off. Fifteen seconds and they’d be in the water.

And then suddenly, something was wrong.

She felt Sonia’s hands slip from her waist, felt her fall away, and felt the ATV surge forward with the sudden reduction in weight.

She slowed slightly and turned a bit, enough to see.

Sonia had fallen in a heap, tumbling like a ball.

“What the hell?”

Danielle began a turn to pick her up, but shots flew her way. Tracers that she hadn’t seen before in this fight. It was like they knew Sonia had fallen and could now open fire. She cut away from the incoming, but a shell or two hit the front right wheel.

The tire exploded. The ATV went down hard like a racehorse with a broken leg. Danielle flew off again, hit the mud at the swamp’s edge, and slid forward like she’d landed on ice. Covered in mud, she hit the waterline and lay sprawled in muck.

A group of men were moving toward her, a second group racing toward Sonia. Unbelievably, the young woman stood and began to move toward them.

Staying low, Danielle unholstered her Beretta. From behind her a great noise came zooming forward. The airboat roared out of the darkness with Keegan at the helm. Rapid fire from the twin guns on the tripod scattered the men who’d come for her, but it was too late for Sonia. The men had her and were dragging her off.

Danielle raised her gun to fire but couldn’t without hitting Sonia. She heard a shot from Hawker’s ArmaLite. But then nothing.

The tables had been turned. They hauled Sonia into the waiting Humvee, threw her in the back, and slammed the door. Seconds later they were racing off. The other men piled on the sides of the second Humvee and the surviving sand rail, and the ragtag convoy raced off with its prize.

In a moment they were gone, disappearing into the dunes.

Danielle looked around. The light from the burning vehicles flickered across the desert, illuminating the wreckage of the battle: dead men, ruined machines, smoke, flame. Up on the slope, alone in the center of the carnage, it lit upon Hawker, stunned and immobile and staring after the departing vehicles.