Blue Warrior

Mann had recently settled down with a younger wife. The union had produced beautiful twin girls. They lived in England where most of the nuclear power plant demolition work he supervised was taking place.

“They’re becoming too English. I only speak to them auf Deutsch anymore.”

Pearce hadn’t seen the dark-haired German since the Mexico operation. Missed his company.

“Seems like you and I are always around the sand, one way or another.” They first met years before while windsurfing off the coast of California, not far from Pearce’s beachfront condo in Coronado.

“I forgot to bring my board. You?” The German grinned.

“Didn’t even bring my shorts.”

Truth was, Pearce was in heaven. He’d seen plenty of sand before, especially in Iraq. But somehow there it was a nuisance, a constant grit that got in his teeth and eyes. Sometimes it was so fine it was like talcum powder. And there was no shortage of heat over there, either. But out here, on the dunes of the Sahara, it all felt so clean. Purified. Now he understood, at least a little, why the ancient monks had fled to the desert. But maybe it felt clean because there weren’t any people around. People had a way of ruining things.

* * *

Six hundred and thirteen meters now,” Salah said. His Chinese-made military binoculars featured a laser range finder. The AQS fighter was perched just below the crest of the dune, his body carefully hidden. Only his head and binoculars were on the crest line — barely — and the tinted lenses were designed to not reflect the harsh sunlight. There was nowhere to hide in the desert once you were seen.

“How many?” Al Rus asked. He was standing in the bed of his Nissan pickup next to the big machine gun, his short-barreled AK still strapped to his chest. Four other armed pickups were next to him, engines off. They were in the flattest part of the trough between two big rollers. Beige camouflage webbing tented over their vehicles, partly to hide, partly for shade. Not nearly as efficient as camels and far louder, the trucks still made the journey easily enough after his men lowered the air pressure in the oversize tires to improve traction.

“Seven.” Salah was still winded from the long, hard crawl up the far slope of the dune. “Six Tuaregs. And one fool wearing a dish towel on his head.”

Al Rus’s men laughed. The oldest, Abdelmalek, said, “That must be Pearce.”

“Quiet! Do you want them to hear us?”

The men hushed.

Al Rus checked his watch. His scout never reported back. No matter. The scout had confirmed Mossa’s arrival at the oasis, and Guo’s intel had been correct. These dogs really were heading for the abandoned Aéropostale airfield. Al Rus had put his team between the oasis and the airfield. What else could he do? The desert was too vast to find a man who didn’t want to be found. Perhaps someday he would acquire one of those devil drones. The Shi’a Persians had them and the Crusader infidels had them, so why shouldn’t he?

“Vehicles?” Al Rus asked.

“None. Only camels.”

Allah be praised, Al Rus thought. He has delivered them into my hands. “Come down, Salah. Carefully.”

The young man slid slowly backward down the dune so as not to attract attention by his movement. Once his head cleared the crest line, he turned around and belly-crawled a few feet in the scalding sand, then leaped to his feet and ran the rest of the way, thudding into the side of a truck.

“Idiot!”

“I am sorry, lord,” Salah whimpered. He was the youngest of the group.

“Clear the nets. On my signal, start your engines.”

The men pulled down the nets and stored them in the truck beds as quietly as possible. Sound carried out here. Drivers took their positions, as did the gunners.

Al Rus took the gunner position on his truck, told his other man to drive. “Kill the infidels!”

The engines roared to life and the trucks jumped forward, throwing sand and exhaust as they raced between dunes. The plan was for two of the trucks to break off and attack from the rear, while the other three trucks would charge straight into the single file of camels heading toward them. The animals would break and run, and it would be an easy matter to chase them down.

Just as they passed the first dune, a shadow flickered in the corner of Al Rus’s eye. He whipped around to see a four-wheeled vehicle no more than a meter tall pacing with them a kilometer away. Its cowling was ungodly, the shape of a demon’s head, or an alien, long and smooth and black. His spine tingled. Something was wrong. Al Rus turned around in the bouncing truck bed. Another one of the vehicles was following them, also a kilometer back.

* * *

Mann showed Pearce his screen. He had just tapped on each truck image on the screen, then assigned a Wraith UGV attack drone to each.

“Ready on your command.”

“Now,” Pearce said.