The Exodus Quest

III

'Any good?' asked Omar, leaning over from the driver's seat to check Knox's photographs on the screen of his camera-phone.

'Just watch what you're doing, will you?' said Knox, as Omar crunched the Jeep's gears again.

'Huh!' said Omar. 'They're pretty dark, aren't they?'

'Maybe I should send them to Gaille,' said Knox. 'She'll be able to make something of them, if anyone can.'

'She'd better. We need more than that to show the police.'

'Says the man who didn't think we needed photographs at all.' He started composing a text message, not easy as they bumped across the field, without even a seat belt to hold him in place. Took the attached at poss Therapeutae site! Light terrible. Can you help? All speed appreciated! Love, Daniel. He frowned in dissatisfaction, replaced Love with Much love then All love and finally All my love. None felt right. Everyone protested their love these days. The word had been cheapened into meaninglessness. He sat there feeling ridiculous. This was scarcely the time to fret over such things, after all. Yet he fretted all the same. He stabbed out some other words with his index finger, stared down at them for several seconds, unnerved by how plaintive they sounded. But he'd already wasted too much time, so he attached the photographs and sent them on their way before he could change his mind.

Omar muttered a curse, slowed, came to a halt. Knox looked up to see headlights crisscrossing a main road a kilometre away. 'What's the matter?' he asked.

'Down there.'

Now Knox saw it, moonlight glowing on a pickup parked by the wooden bridge. 'Bollocks,' he muttered.

'What now?'

'There has to be another way out. Let's keep looking.'

The engine screeched as Omar tried to force it into gear. 'Mine's an automatic,' he said with a wince.

'You want me to drive?'

'It might be best.'

They switched seats. Knox belted up, thrust the Jeep into gear, headed off in search of another way out. The pick-up lumbered after them, obviously wanting to keep them in sight, but staying a wary distance behind, between them and the bridge.

Knox crossed a rise, swung around. The moment the pick-up reappeared, he floored the pedal, accelerated towards it, jolting violently over the rutted ground. Omar clutched the door-handle, stamped on imaginary brakes. But Knox kept his foot to the floor. The pick-up swung round, aware it was a race for the bridge. He sped past it, but it quickly caught up, its engine newer and more powerful.

'We'll never get away,' cried Omar.

'Hold tight,' said Knox, weaving back and forth to prevent the pick-up from pulling alongside, wheels spitting clods of mud. He swung out wide then turned sharply back towards the bridge. He was almost there when a 4x4 surged out of the darkness on the far side, its headlights springing on full and dazzling, so that Knox had to throw up a hand to shield his eyes, slam on the brakes, but too late, tyres losing grip, slithering sideways, missing the bridge and hurtling instead into the irrigation channel, flinging out his arm in an instinctive effort to pin Omar in his seat, their bonnet smashing into the opposite bank, metal crumpling, windscreen exploding in a great cacophony of glass, hurling him against his seat belt, his head snapping violently back, something crashing into the back of his skull, and everything going black.