The Age of Ra

15. Sortie

They entered Libya around midnight, after a long trek across Freegypt's Western Desert. There were three vehicles in all — a ZT and a pair of flatbed trucks with guns mounted on the back. The full personnel complement was eight, including David and Zafirah. They made the crossing from one country to the other off-road, in a remote, uninhabited area, to avoid checkpoints and lessen the chances of encountering a border patrol.

As big moments went it was low-key, even anticlimactic.

''We've done it,'' David said to Zafirah, glancing up from the map. ''We're officially on Neph soil. This is it. No turning back now.''

''We can always turn back, any time,'' Zafirah replied, peering ahead at the landscape picked out by the headlamp beams. ''If we choose to.''

''Do you want to?''

''No.''

Thus was an act of war begun.

The eastern fringes of Libya played host to an assortment of Nephthysian sub-sects, which were tolerated if not sanctioned by the authorities in Tripoli. Littered across the wastes and wildernesses of the region were shrines, temples, even monasteries, each dedicated to a lesser member of the Pantheon. They had been established during the Divine Diaspora, when Pantheonic worship spilled out from what was then just plain Egypt like fruit from a cornucopia. While the renowned foreign archaeologists went racing back to their homelands with their arms full of tomb treasure and their hearts full of gnostic revelation, Egyptians themselves began spreading the good news to their immediate neighbours and to more distant nations as well. Most of the attention was on the major deities and the philosophies they represented, but the Egyptians didn't want the minor ones to be neglected. The One True Pantheon was rich and diverse. It would be a shame if, in the worldwide rush to embrace Isis, Osiris, Set, and their ilk, their less celebrated relatives ended up trampled underfoot and forgotten. In a frenzy of proselytising zeal, Egypt gave away every last one of its gods, draining its religious reservoir, leaving nothing behind for itself. In hindsight it was clear that this was what the gods themselves had willed, and so were laid the foundations of the world's one and only lay state.

Some of the sub-sects took root; some did not. None flourished to any meaningful degree, and the few that survived did so by virtue of gaining a purchase in territory that was sympathetic, or at least not hostile. This was the case in, for example, South America, where the children of Horus would never have succeeded in obtaining joint custodianship had that part of the continent not been so strongly under the sway of its neighbour to the north, their father's realm.

The same was true in Africa, where toeholds were available only to lesser gods who had some connection, however tenuous, to Nephthys or her husband.

The Lightbringer's orders to David, Zafirah, and their team were simple. Go into Libya. Find sites sacred to lesser gods. Blow them up.

They located a Wepwawetian monastery on the very first day.

It was a primitive, semi-subterranean edifice, more tomb than dwelling, more cave than tomb. A dozen monks occupied it, pallid creatures, their modesty barely preserved by the tattered remnants of black robes. Their bodies were so thin as to be almost skeletal, emaciated by a meagre diet of jackal flesh and baked dung beetle. Wepwawet was Anubis's son and a regular chip off the old block, pure darkness and annihilation, so his worshippers delighted in mortifying themselves, spending their lives teetering as close to the brink of death as possible.

Consequently the monks were too feeble to put up any resistance as the Lightbringer's troops rousted them from their sarcophagus-style beds and dragged them blinking into the sunlight. Held at gunpoint, they stood in line like living scarecrows, swaying and moaning while David supervised the laying of charges inside the monastery.

When the blast happened, the monks cried out in a strange sort of ecstasy. As their holy home collapsed in on itself in a vast billow of dust, they looked both aghast and perversely gratified, as though this act of violent desecration confirmed everything they believed in. All was ruin and decay. Life was a bleak catastrophe. Here — here was the proof.

One of them, apparently the abbot, hissed a command to the rest. The monks immediately began advancing on their captors, ignoring requests to stay put or be shot.

David realised what they were up to. He shouted to Zafirah, telling her to tell the others: on no account were they to open fire.

But too late. They did.

Bullets flew. The Wepwawetian monks went down happily, willingly. It was an act of mass suicide. They died with blissful smiles on their skull-like faces.

''They could see no need to carry on,'' Zafirah said later. ''What we did, destroying the monastery — it made their lives complete.''

''Yes, well,'' said David, guiding the ZT around a rock outcrop. The off-roader's initials stood for Zemlya Tantsovschik, Land Dancer, but it hardly lived up to the name. It was murder to drive, the steering wheel asking for effort all the way from your shoulders to your wrists before it would rotate even a few degrees. The ZT could be said to dance in the same way that a portly octogenarian babushka could be said to dance. ''Nobody else dies. Not if we can help it. That's not what we're here for. Our targets aren't civilians, remember. Or even enemy troops.''

''No. The gods. Only the gods.'' Zafirah smiled grimly. ''I wonder if we're not insane, David Westweenter. What are we doing, provoking them like this? It's asking for trouble.''

''Of course it is. But the Lightbringer'' — he nearly said Steven — ''has calculated the risks. He thinks he knows how this is going to play out.''

''And do you trust him?''

''I do.''

''You sound surprised.''

''I am, a little. But only a little.''

''Is it because he's an Englishman like you? You wouldn't have gone along with this if he was from any other country? Compatriots sticking together.''

''That's not it. I just feel…''

David wasn't sure what he felt. He knew only that he felt something. Whenever Steven spoke about his plans, his grand scheme, his crusade, it sounded right. Sounded plausible. Sounded like a cause worth fighting for and a confrontation that could be won.

''I don't know,'' he said. ''I mean, this goes against everything I believe in. Used to believe in. Somewhere inside me a faint little voice is going 'Don't!' But there's another voice, a louder one, and it's saying 'Why not?' I've never heard it before, I don't recognise it — but I quite like it.''

''I hear that voice,'' Zafirah said. ''I think it may be the voice of freedom.''

David adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. ''I think it may be too.''

It was a tiny village, a handful of houses clustered around a water hollow. In the hollow, a stone effigy of the hippopotamus-headed goddess Tawaret squatted, thigh-deep in the muddy water, belly bulging, breasts heavily pendulous.

''Ugly bitch,'' Zafirah commented. ''I hope someone will shoot me if I ever let myself get that fat.''

''Fertile, though,'' said David. ''Isn't that the point? Tawaret's all about the babies.'' He gestured at the largest of the nearby buildings, into which the villagers had all been herded, as much for their own safety as anything. They were howling with rage and indignation from inside this makeshift corral. ''At least half the women are pregnant, and I've never seen such a high child-to-adult ratio as in this place.''

''The women lie beside the statue for a day,'' said Zafirah, ''then lie beside their husbands at night.''

''Stinking of brackish water…''

''But it still works. Perhaps it's the only time they do lie with their husbands. The poor men are so desperate, they'll forgive the smell.''

David inserted a blasting cap into the last of the charges, then waded out of the hollow, unspooling wires as he went.

There was a massed scream from the house as the effigy exploded, followed by high-pitched ululations of despair.

The Freegyptian vehicles were pursued as they left the village. Women chased them down the road, cursing and hurling rocks.

Only women, though, David noted. The village menfolk had looked… relieved?

An intimidated local gave them directions. Follow the river, three miles, where it bends, there is the shrine to Sobek.

What they found was an altar stone on the riverbank and a heavily tattooed priest holding down a young sheep, barely a lamb, preparing to sacrifice it. A cluster of onlookers chanted rhythmic prayers. The sheep's terrified bleating sounded close to a scream.

The priest raised his left arm. He had no hand, only a stump with a hook attached. He brought the hook down towards the sheep's throat.

David fired into the air, and everyone shrieked and froze. The priest remonstrated with the new arrivals, furious that the ritual had been interrupted. While he was shouting at them the sheep wriggled out of his grasp and skittered away, tossing its head.

''Not much to destroy here,'' Zafirah observed. ''That altar stone will have to do.''

Then there was a thrashing in the water, and a ten-foot-long crocodile emerged, clawing its way up the bank.

The locals retreated in alarm. Even the priest backed off, rubbing his hook-ended arm. He, it seemed, had better reason than anyone to be wary of this beast.

The crocodile eyed them all with a slow, yellowy stare. It shuffled over to the altar and opened its jaws wide, revealing tooth upon tooth. It thrashed its tail, eager for the offering of a meal, which the sheep's bleating had promised.

The rifle David was carrying was a Brazilian-made Anaconda, loaded with.303 brass-jacketed fragmentation rounds. He brought it up to his shoulder and took careful aim.

The crocodile turned towards him.

A sacred animal. For an uncanny moment David felt as though he was looking down the gunsights straight into gaze of Sobek himself, son of Neith the goddess of war. Set once hid briefly inside a crocodile, hoping to escape being punished for the murder of Osiris. Apophis, the serpent Set fought twice daily, was the son of Sobek.

He was conscious of all these associations, the linkage of god to god embodied within the reptile in front of him. His finger squeezed the trigger but not all the way.

He couldn't do it.

It was more than sacrilege. It felt like cold-blooded murder.

Blam!

Zafirah lowered her rifle.

The crocodile writhed and rolled, grunting horribly as the message passed along its nervous system from its bullet-smashed brain — you are dead.

It lay on its back, soft pale underside exposed, as the last few twitches of life ran through it.

The priest and the crowd of locals were on their knees, weeping.

''It was just a fucking crocodile,'' Zafirah said tersely, striding back to the cars.

On the evening of their fifth day in Libya, as they were making camp for the night, one of the team spied a Saqqara Bird in the distance. It was flying in a criss-cross pattern, searching the area by grid.

''Looking for us?'' Zafirah wondered, peering at the bird's small black silhouette as it glided to and fro against the twilight sky.

''You can count on it,'' David said. ''Word of what we've been up to will have reached Tripoli by now.''

''What should we do? Shoot it out of the air?''

''And give away exactly where we are? No, for the moment we stay put. The vehicles are camouflaged, and we personally are getting a measure of invisibility from these.'' He tapped the amulet around his neck. All of the team were wearing them. ''But I think our time here is coming to an end. The Lightbringer said we should avoid direct engagement with Neph forces if we can, and that's going to become inevitable if we stay much longer.''

''So our little jaunt is over.''

''Jaunt?'' David laughed. ''Don't you mean hostile sortie? Act of deliberate provocation?''

''That's what I said.'' Zafirah laughed too, and it occurred to David that this was an all too rare sound from her. She didn't laugh enough. Neither did he. They both took themselves too seriously. It was something they had in common and something, he felt, that was keeping them apart.

He wanted her. He desired her. She, he was certain, felt the same about him. But unless he did away with the reserve which he wore like a suit of armour and she stopped using her ability to wrong-foot him as though it were a weapon, nothing was ever going to happen.

''How many Anubians does it take to change a light bulb?'' he said.

Zafirah frowned. ''What?''

''It's a joke. Go on. How many Anubians does it take to change a light bulb?''

''I don't know. One?''

'''What's a light bulb?'''

Zafirah looked blank.

''You know. Anubians. Their thing about darkness. They don't like bright light. Try to avoid it. Therefore… they don't have…'' He trailed off.

''Oh. I see. Funny,'' said Zafirah, and she wandered off to talk to one of the Freegyptians.

David cursed himself for an idiot. He'd only wanted to hear her laugh again, and now he felt like a teenager on a fumbled first date.

What did it take to win this woman?

Whatever it was, he was now all the more determined to do it.

He was David Westwynter. Back in England, in his old life, in the circles he'd moved in, that had meant something. It had meant he could have just about any woman he set his cap at.

Here, the same rules did not apply. But that was fine. It upped the challenge, and the stakes. Here, where the name Westwynter and the reputation attached meant nothing, everything came down to the man himself. With Zafirah it was about admiration and lust, a combination David recognised as being the cornerstones of love, but it was about more than that too. It was about him finding out whether there was anything more to him than the sum of his upbringing.

Was he a somebody, as in England? Or was he somebody?

Their luck held for another two days, during which time they found and eliminated another six holy sites dotted among the Chinese-owned oilfields of Libya's south-eastern Al Kufrah municipality.

Then, just as David was thinking that the time had come to cut and run, a spotter plane located them. It flew directly over the three vehicles, returned for a second pass, then hurtled off into the blue. The Freegyptians sent trails of machine-gun fire after it, nipping at its tail.

''Saqqara Birds not working, so the Libyans have gone conventional,'' said David. ''Pilot's radioing base right now, relaying our position.''

''We should make for the border,'' said Zafirah.

''Too damn right we should. They'll be scrambling jet fighters from Maaten al-Sarra. Say twenty minutes for them to get here. We're about fifteen miles from Freegypt. It's going to be tight.''

The ZT and the two trucks tore across the desert at a mean sixty miles an hour, ploughing straight over rocks, clefts, and other obstacles normally best avoided at that sort of speed. Axles grumbled, suspension groaned. Everyone kept one eye on the sky. David reflexively sent up a small prayer to Osiris, asking for protection, while the Freegyptians, with no gods to importune, put their faith in the laws of probability. It was probable that they would reach the border in time. It was probable that the planes would arrive too late to catch them.

Probability, however, had little regard for human wishes, and Osiris, if he was listening today, turned a deaf ear.

A pair of Nephthysian jets appeared on the horizon to the rear, flying low — Locusts, to judge by the swept-back wings and the twin-bubble cockpit canopy. David's map and compass told him that he and his team were on Freegyptian soil, or at any rate so close you'd hardly notice the difference. Borders, however, were tricky things to define, especially from the air, and he suspected the Neph pilots' orders didn't involve giving the interlopers the benefit of the doubt. Two or three miles further into Freegypt, and there would have been no question of attacking. It would have been an overt infringement of Freegypt's sovereignty. But here, at the point of contiguity, in a stretch of desolate no-man's-land, there was room for uncertainty. Margin for error.

A bolt of purple ba hit the ground a few yards to the left of the ZT. The vehicle rocked. Debris from a freshly drilled crater rained down on the roof and bonnet. A second bolt struck just in front, and the ZT reared and came down with neck-jarring force. The windscreen shattered. Glass fragments flew everywhere inside the cab. Zafirah fought to maintain control, pulling out of a skid that threatened to turn into a somersault. The off-roader slewed and slalomed but kept going.

The Locusts shot ahead in side-by-side formation. Afterburners glowed as the planes went into a steep ascent, peeled off in different directions, and came round for a second run.

''Faster!'' David yelled, wind slamming into his face. ''We've got to go faster! It's our only hope!''

''No shit!'' Zafirah shouted back, shifting down a gear and flooring the accelerator.

In one of the trucks behind, a Freegyptian clambered out through the cab's rear window and loosed off a volley of bullets at the oncoming jets from the machine gun mounted on the flatbed. He might as well have been spitting at the planes for all the good it did. Ba crackled outward from under their wings. Zafirah swerved hard left, then hard right. Two of the ba blasts struck either side, missing narrowly both times. There was a loud detonation from behind, and in the wing mirror David saw the rearmost of the two trucks erupt, blown apart by purple light. Orange flame billowed a split-second later as the truck's fuel tank went up. Bodies and bits of bodies were hurled clear as the wreckage spun end over end, disintegrating a little more with each impact. When the truck finally came to rest, it barely looked like anything that might once have rolled off a production line. It was several sections of twisted, charred metal that were somehow still clinging on to one another, like an animal carcase after flaying and evisceration, held together by sinews alone.

Zafirah swore loudly and angrily. The two Freegyptians in the back seat of the ZT swore too.

The Locusts veered around for a third pass, but this time they did not open fire. As they thundered overhead they see-sawed their wings in a victory salute, then peeled off in a 180 degree turn, heading back to base.

''Bastards,'' David hissed, but in his heart he knew the pilots had let them off lightly. They could have kept on strafing till all three vehicles were gone. This way, honour was served and there were survivors left to carry the message back home: That's how we treat people who come into our country and cause trouble.

The ZT and the remaining truck drove the rest of the way to Luxor at a sombre pace, much like a funeral cortege.