Chapter Fifty-Six
This was truly a cursed land, Novikov thought to himself.
They had made good time and arrived at the site by midday, pursuing Wilde and his team north, and it confirmed for the Russian that they were after the very thing he was meant to protect.
Fortunately, Novikov had been provided the grid for the area so he knew where they were headed, but it was still a large zone to cover.
It would have been a simple matter to fan out and sweep the area, and eventually they would come across them.
Perhaps Wilde and his team would take out a few of his men, but eventually Novikov’s force would overpower the group and this thing would be finished.
The desert, however, had other plans. At the same time as they arrived, a sandstorm had begun to roll in.
The Russians hunkered down inside the trucks with the windows rolled up as the howling wind dashed sand against them like waves against a rocky shore.
Occasionally, the trucks rocked back and forth when a particularly strong gust hit them, and he ordered the vehicles to cautiously make their way down into a low area between dunes. And here they sat.
Novikov fumed. This was unacceptable. Of all the dumb fucking luck.
At this rate, Wilde and his team could slip right past them to the south and the mercenaries would never know the difference.
They could spend days searching the area without finding them, and by that point the so-called graduate student could be anywhere.
Novikov would lose his advantage of knowing the destination of his target’s journey, and he could not let that happen. He keyed his radio.
“Out of the trucks,” he ordered. “All men. Leave one with the vehicles, the rest will start sweeping the area.”
“Sir?” the driver of his truck asked.
“You heard me,” he growled. “You’ve all been paid. You’re all professionals. Does a little sand scare you? This is nothing compared to the snows of Siberia.”
The driver said nothing. He simply exited the truck and the rest followed. Shame was a powerful motivator and was the complement to greed for these men. In the Spetsnaz, reputation was everything. Because one left the service did not mean that mentality went away.
Novikov exited with them and pulled a pair of goggles down over his eyes and a scarf over his nose and mouth.
Visibility was severely reduced, but he could still see nearly ten meters ahead.
It was more than enough. He ordered the men to get on-line and begin a search pattern of the area, and they moved slowly forward.
Sandstorms could last several hours, and he was not willing to lose more time.
After nearly half an hour, there was a call over the radio. One of his men had found something. He was on the right flank and so Novikov slowly and carefully made his way over to him. Eventually he found the man and asked for a detailed report.
“There is a cliff,” the man said.
“A cliff?” Novikov was skeptical.
“Yes. Straight ahead, about twenty meters. The cliff is over ten meters tall. And there is a camp at the bottom.”
“A camp?” Novikov asked suspiciously. “Show me.”
The mercenary led him through the storm to an area that was oddly bowl-shaped.
The “cliff” appeared to be a crater from some type of meteor impact, which Novikov knew had occurred in the area before.
The walls appeared to be raised higher on the northern side than the southern, and sitting in the bowl were three tents blowing in the wind.
Perfect. Wilde had no idea they were here.
Novikov doubted they would have seen him from a distance before the storm rolled in, and it appeared they had sought the low ground in an attempt to seek shelter from the storm. It would be their undoing.
Novikov quickly gave instructions to his men.
He sent two to each side to seal off the area and then sent four into the bowl.
The rest he held back with him. He had underestimated this man before and he would not do so again.
He gave the order and the men in the crater advanced toward the unassuming tents.
Nate and the rest of the team lay prone along the top of the northern rim of the crater.
It was nearly forty feet up from the bottom, and the feature had been well hidden from view behind some of the larger sand dunes.
Without the use of the aerial reconnaissance drones, it was possible they might have walked right past it.
The men hunting them did not appear to have the same issue, as they had spread out and begun sweeping the area, trudging forward through the driving sandstorm.
It had not taken them long to locate the crater, and Nate watched as they consolidated before beginning their approach.
Nate had little concern that the soldiers who were now advancing on the tents would be able to see them because he was barely able to make out the figures below, and he was looking for them.
The plan was relatively straightforward.
Take the high ground and plant a trap. Nate had no idea who was after them, but they clearly weren’t Arabs and appeared to be well armed and well trained by the way they moved.
It was more likely that these men worked directly for whoever was pulling the strings in Germany and Egypt, and that they had come to finish the job.
The force they were now facing was different from a group of desert terrorists.
If Nate and his friends went toe-to-toe with these guys, they would lose without a doubt.
That was why they needed surprise on their side, as well as a little bit of luck.
The armed men in the crater walked to within twenty feet of the tents before stopping. They must have received some type of order, because suddenly they all opened fire at once, shredding the tents in front of them. After several seconds of sustained fire, they moved forward to check their work.
“Now,” Nate said, tapping Shane’s shoulder with a fist.
Shane, who was lying beside him, initiated the firing sequence by placing two wires on one of the drone batteries, one to the positive terminal and one to the negative, thereby completing the circuit.
In their limited time, Shane had managed to take the suicide vest apart that they had retrieved from one of the Al Qaeda terrorists near the Saudi border, and he had stripped the wires he had in his possession to create a length that would not only link all the blocks of plastic explosives together, but reach the top of the cliff.
When he activated the makeshift detonator, the explosives placed around the camp exploded simultaneously.
The result was spectacular. A large eruption of sand shot up in the air past the lip of the rim and over their heads, accompanied by a huge rumble that shook the entire area.
They all sought cover and Nate lay across Ana to shield her from any falling debris.
He knew for certain that they got four of their pursuers with the blast, and he hoped more.
As the explosion subsided, they were once again left with the driving sand of the storm.
The plan now was simple. They were to move out quickly to the north, bounding the entire way.
Ideally, they would be able to pick off any remaining assailants as they went and put some distance between themselves and their attackers, using the storm for concealment.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it would have to work.
Nate grabbed his rifle, crawled to the edge of the rim, and peered over, searching for targets.
What he saw was something else entirely.
The camp was gone, as was the bottom of the crater.
In its place was something that resembled a whirlpool, only instead of water, it was sand being sucked down into a black hole that was steadily growing larger as the surrounding terrain rapidly disappeared into it.
Nate felt the ground beneath him begin to vibrate, and he glanced down at the base of the cliff as it slowly started to collapse, sand and dirt bursting out like waves in the ocean.
“We’ve got to move,” he shouted, still staring at the unexpected disaster occurring dozens of feet below. “We’ve got to move now!”
“What the hell is that?” Tim asked, following his friend’s gaze.
“Move!” Nate yelled.
He grabbed Ana by the arm and started pushing the rest of the group as he ran north through the storm and away from the expanding hole.
They all ran in the same direction as fast as they could.
Nate risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the ground rapidly disintegrating behind them.
He ran harder, pulling Ana along with him, but it was no use.
He felt the ground give way beneath his feet, and disappeared into the abyss.