The Babylon Idol

Chapter 56

Just as Ben had feared, the battle had arrived virtually on top of them. A broad stretch of desert was lit up like daylight by scores of madly bouncing headlights and the strobe effect of muzzle flashes from rocket launchers and machine guns, punctuated every few seconds by the blinding glare of high-explosive blasts as heavy missiles blew craters in the ground. Ben thought he could count nine tanks rolling through the chaos. He could hear the harsh squeal and patter of their treads cutting through the gunfire as they scuttled like living dinosaurs over sand and rock.

And now he realised he’d been wrong about them being Turkish Leopards or Sabras. They were Russian T-90 main battle tanks, one of the most formidable and feared war machines ever made. Russian tank companies were made up of three platoons, consisting of three tanks each plus the command tank, for a total of ten. The tenth tank was the stationary blazing wreck several hundred yards back from the advancing column, hit by a lucky rocket strike from one of the fleeing rebel armoured trucks. But a force of even just nine T-90s were a terrifying enough opponent to send just about any militia army into total flight mode: that was what they were witnessing, and it was all happening less than a football field’s length away as Groppione pressed his foot to the floor in desperation to get them out of here.

A tank shell hummed overhead and exploded among the rocks just fifty yards to their right. The RV surged unscathed through the bursting shrapnel but the violence of the shockwave sent them into a wild skid that had Groppione yelling and wrestling the steering in a frenzy to stop them from overturning. He somehow managed to right the coach and accelerated harder across the undulating sands, crunching over boulders, no longer giving a damn about tearing off half the chassis.

For Usberti, it was as if they were out for a Sunday drive in the countryside. He was sitting calmly on his throne. Or as calmly as it was possible to sit, as he too was being thrown about by the bouncing suspension. He had the small Nikon camera in his lap and was wearing half-moon reading glasses, intently scrutinising the images on the camera’s glowing screen.

‘Professor Manzini, your expertise is required. Would you please come and look at this?’

‘Are you crazy?’ Anna screamed back at him. ‘Don’t you know what’s happening? You think God can save you from tanks?’

‘Ugo, assist her.’

Bozza was only too glad to oblige. He grasped Anna roughly by the upper arm and hauled her up the aisle. Usberti pointed to a nearby seat, opposite where Bellini had taken up his usual position, hands clasped in his lap, eyes darting nervously behind his thick lenses. Bozza dumped Anna into the seat. At the same instant, another rocket blast shook the RV from stem to stern and Groppione let out a yell of ‘Jesus!’ that drew a very disapproving look from his employer.

‘Now, Professor,’ Usberti said, handing her the camera, ‘our present circumstances dictate that you conduct your work with as much alacrity as possible. So please, get to it, and do not compel me to bring Ugo into this. Aldo, a little more haste from you would also benefit us greatly.’

‘It won’t go any faster, boss. Not on this surface.’

The RV was going so fast, it felt as though it could shake apart at any moment. If a random tank shell didn’t reduce them to splinters first. Watching from the window, Ben sensed there was a roughly fifty per cent chance of that happening. The RV was widening their distance from the battle, but only slowly. It was mayhem back there. The Russian gunners were very, very good. Another rebel truck blew apart in a fireball that turned the snowy sky golden-red. Then another, in a solid hit by the turret machine cannon of one of the T-90s that set off its target’s fuel tank and blasted it into a tumbling wreck.

But the insurgents were fighting back hard, even as they beat their retreat. Stabs of rocket fire erupted from the rearward-facing guns of the fleeing trucks. The leading tank burst into flame, rolled to a halt and sat there burning as its eight remaining platoon comrades rumbled and squealed past it, keeping up their steady fire. The Russians were getting more than they’d bargained for from the rebels, that was for sure.

Not for long. The sudden screeching howl from above came out of nowhere and made everyone inside the RV except Ben, Bozza, and Groppione clap their hands over their ears at the sheer massive deafening noise. The Russian tank commander had called in air support. The jets had come streaking in so fast out of the night that not even Ben had time to recognise them as MiG 29 fighters — they must have deployed from a carrier off the Syrian coast.

The air strike was over in seconds. The jets were already gone when a vast curtain of fire erupted into the sky in their wake. Like summoning the forces of death from the bowels of the earth to rise up and smite the enemy at a single stroke. Ben felt the heat on his face through the window as he watched dozens of armoured vehicles instantly vaporised in the awesome fiery blast. A hundred men blown limb from limb or reduced to a fine ash that was swept away by the desert wind. Maybe two hundred. Few people would ever know, fewer still would care, and a palatable version of their brutal destruction would be served up in the media soundbites, to be forgotten moments later.

The RV bucked and bounced away from the carnage. Ben turned to see what was happening up front: Anna was being made to study the images on the camera; Bozza was standing menacingly over her, hanging on to a rail for support; Usberti had produced paper and pens for her to write her translation of the cuneiform inscriptions Ben had photographed, as if anyone could write or even read in a shaking, rattling bus hammering over unpaved wilderness at breakneck speed. A patient man, that Usberti.

Then Groppione glanced in his remaining mirror, turned the colour of parchment and announced in a quavering voice, ‘Oh, no. Oh, shit. Boss, we g-got company.’