The Fusion Cage

XIX

Ethan saw the first grenade lobbed from the side of the asphalt road arc through the air, a black speck against the brilliant sunrise as the small convoy of vehicles approached. The militants had set up their ambush well, positioning themselves in a staggered line with the sun almost at their backs, the glare helping to conceal them from the view of the drivers.

Two more grenades bounced across the sun — scorched asphalt and Ethan threw his hands over his ears and ducked his head down behind a low dune just before the weapons detonated with a series of deafening blasts. He counted all three before he dared look up to see the four vehicles in the convoy swerving across the road, tires screeching as they slid to a halt and a clatter of machine — gun fire rattled out across the desert as the militants opened fire on the vehicles.

‘Hold your fire!’

Ethan’s cry was muted by the staccato gunshots as the militants swarmed up the sandy banks by the side of the road and dashed toward the vehicles, yelling threats in Arabic and broken English.

‘Move, now!’ Ethan yelled at Lopez.

They dashed together onto the road and headed directly for the SUV in the centre of the convoy even as Ethan saw flashes of gunfire coming from the cabs of the vehicles in front as Huck Seavers’ escort began returning fire against the militants. Ethan reacted instinctively, dropping down onto the asphalt as he drew his pistol and aimed at the nearest escort guard, a man with a scar on his cheek who was now shielding himself behind an open door and firing through the shattered window at the militants.

Ethan could see from his position the SUV that almost certainly contained Huck Seavers and Amber, the vehicle having left the road and slammed into a sand dune. Clouds of wispy blue smoke slithered from beneath the hood where the radiator must have ruptured, while oil spilling from a damaged filter onto the hot engine smouldered with brown coils of smoke.

Ethan took a breath and held it for a brief second before pulling the trigger of the pistol. The shot crackled out and he saw the guard with a scar on his cheek hurled backwards as the round hit him in the shoulder. The guard slumped against the side of the vehicle with his legs out in front of him.

‘Go now, I’ll cover you!’ Ethan yelled at Lopez.

Lopez responded instantly and sprinted for the SUV, a pistol in her hand as she reached out and yanked the vehicle’s door open. Ethan advanced forwards in a low run, crouched in order to avoid any of the wildfire coming from the militants to his left, and he reached the SUV just as Lopez was hauling Amber’s disorientated form out of the vehicle.

Amber pushed angrily away from Lopez, clearly unsteady on her feet from the impact and with a trickle of blood spilling from just above her left eye where she must have struck the back of a seat or perhaps the interior door.

‘Go, now!’ Ethan snapped.

Lopez dragged Amber with her across the asphalt as behind them Ethan heard horses galloping across the dunes toward the road, riders sweeping in to pick up survivors and flee with them into the desert wastes. Their Arabian horses looked born to traverse the deserts, with arched necks on a clean throatlatch and high tails.

Ethan leaned into the SUV with his pistol held before him, and at once saw Huck Seavers slumped in his seat. The businessman was unconscious, and Ethan reached out to his neck in search of a pulse. He found it immediately. Satisfied that the man was not dead, Ethan backed away and immediately ducked as a fist swung towards his face with lightning speed.

The blow cracked across the top of Ethan’s skull, Ethan’s defensive manoeuvre barely avoiding the blow as he felt somebody grab his wrist and twist hard, driving all of their weight behind it as they attempted to force the pistol out of his grip.

Ethan twisted in pain with the force of the grip, but he managed to keep his mind focused as he deliberately released his grip on his pistol and swung his left hand in to catch it. A knee drove up into his rib cage and Ethan gasped as pain ripped across his side and his right leg quivered and almost failed him. The pistol brushed past his fingers to clatter onto the asphalt, and his attacker’s boot landed on top of it to prevent Ethan from grabbing it again.

Ethan felt his arm twisted over his back with a violent tug that almost tore it out of its socket and he flipped awkwardly over. Ethan slammed onto his back on the hard asphalt and looked up against the bright sky to see Seavers’ senior bodyguard, Assim Khan, looking down at him over the barrel of a compact Sig pistol.

Assim aimed for Ethan’s forehead, anger twisting his features with fury, blood trickling from his nose, and then he squeezed the trigger. The gunshot shattered the air around Ethan’s head and he threw his hands uselessly to protect his skull even as Khan’s body shuddered and his legs gave way beneath him as the bullet passed through his chest and out with a faint spray of scarlet blood that stained his crisp white shirt.

Ethan leaped up and twisted the pistol from Assim’s grip, even as the guard slumped onto his back, his chest heaving as the dark scarlet stain spread across his shirt. Ethan looked up to see Lopez on the far side of the road, her pistol still aimed at Assim. Ethan looked down, shocked at how close he’d come to death, and saw Assim Khan staring up at him with a pained expression.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ the guard gasped.

Ethan looked up and saw the militants withdrawing, firing still at the damaged vehicles to keep any of the remaining guards pinned down. Ethan dashed away across the road, jumping down into the safety of the dunes as the militants mounted their horses and one of them held the reins of an animal for Ethan.

‘Come, now, before it’s too late!’

Ethan vaulted into the saddle and checked over his shoulder to see Lopez already astride a horse, with Amber sitting in front of her and struggling to get out of the saddle.

‘Amber!’

Stanley Meyer called out to his daughter, and she looked up in shock and stopped fighting against Lopez as together the horses turned again and galloped away across the desert. Ethan heard the staccato blasts of the AK–47s behind them fall silent as the militants fled across the open desert, and behind him he heard a few feeble cracks as the guards attempted to return fire on their attackers. But the shots were wild and distant, and pistols simply too inaccurate at such long — range, and within a few moments they were galloping alone through the desert sunrise.

‘Dad?!’ Amber gasped, shouting above the wind.

‘They’re with me!’ Stanley called back.

They rode for almost twenty minutes, following ancient tracks that wound through the desert wadis, deep canyons carved by ancient, long — extinct rivers that sliced through the wilderness. Ethan could see that the militants were seeking an escape from the open dunes as they rode through ancient riverbeds long since desiccated by the Arabian sun, the high walls of the wadis shielding them from view of the drones and jets that would soon converge upon the shattered convoy far behind them.

The rising heat and the effort of galloping across open sand dunes had exhausted their mounts, but the militants had long learned to plan well ahead in the hostile environment and as they slowed the animals to a trot so Ethan saw ahead a small encampment concealed deep below the ragged walls of the wadi. There he saw wide buckets of water, the contents concealed by elaborate blankets laid across them by women completely concealed by their black burqa, only their dark eyes observing the militants as they dismounted from the horses and allowed the animals to drink. The Rabicano horses’ lean flanks were sheened with sweat that glistened in the morning light.

Ethan climbed down from the saddle and guided his horse out of sight of the sky above and towards the water pales. The animal drank gratefully as he turned to see Stanley Meyer stagger across to his daughter and embrace her, Amber throwing her arms around her father’s neck. To Ethan she looked far more attractive as she smiled broadly, compared to the sullen expression that she normally wore.

He turned and pulled from his satchel the satellite phone that Jarvis had given him, and within moments he was dialling.

‘Jarvis?’

‘We need an out,’ Ethan replied hurriedly, not wanting to remain on the line for any longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘We’re near Riyadh, hostiles in pursuit, and need to leave the country fast.’

There was a moment’s silence on the line before Jarvis replied.

‘Damman, and Al Qatif seaport. We have people there, they’ll make contact. Your recognition call sign is Vanquish. Memorize this number and call it when you reach the city.’

Jarvis recited a phone number and then the line went dead, and Ethan slipped the phone back into his bag as he heard one of the militants talking to Stanley Meyer.

‘We must hurry. The Saudi military are not fools and they will soon guess where we have gone.’

Stanley released Amber and nodded as his daughter looked up at him.

‘Why did you come here?’ Amber asked.

‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ Stanley said in reply. ‘There is much that I need to tell you.’

‘I already know about the device, the fusion cage,’ Amber said. ‘We all do. But there is much that you need to know also.’

‘We can share stories later,’ Ethan said as he strode up to them. ‘Right now, we need to get away from here.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Amber insisted. ‘We’ve got it all wrong. Huck Seavers wants in on this.’

‘I’ll bet he does,’ Stanley uttered in disgust. ‘Seavers would kill us all sooner than see the fusion cage come to light.’

‘No,’ Amber said desperately. ‘He wants in. He’s not the one behind this, his hands are tied. He said there’s somebody else behind it, kept going on about some kind of shadow government.’

‘I don’t care what he said,’ Stanley insisted. ‘The man paid millions to have everybody go silent and abandon what I’d achieved. Clearwater sold out, Amber, the whole town. They didn’t give a damn about what I’d done as soon as Seavers waved a few million bucks in their faces. He stole the device from me, Amber.’

‘He says he doesn’t have it,’ Amber replied. ‘He’s just the company through which those people were paid off, but most of the money came from elsewhere. If we can prove that, then we can show that Seavers is not behind this and that somebody else is paying people off to remain silent.’

‘Seavers is a liar,’ Stanley almost shouted. ‘He would say anything in order to turn you to his side. I will never sell — out to somebody like him.’

‘Seavers might be lying about his motivation,’ Ethan said, ‘but this stuff about the shadow government? Did he ever mention something called Majestic Twelve?’

Amber shook her head. ‘He never mentioned names of any kind, and he said he didn’t know any of the members of the shadow government he insists is behind all of this. He said they could crush him like a worm if he didn’t do as they said.’

‘It’s too late now,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘We just abducted you from that convoy, and these trigger — happy goons probably killed a few of Seavers’ guards. That’s murder in any country, and Sharia Law’s not going to look favourably upon us. We need to leave before we find ourselves rotting in a Saudi jail for the next five hundred years.’

Ethan was about to reply when he heard a faint humming sound that drifted down the wadi from somewhere above them. He froze in motion and raised a hand to forestall any more conversation as he focused all of his senses on the sound, closed his eyes and tried to identify from where it was coming. The militants around him beat him to it.

‘Predator drone, probably within a mile of us,’ one of them identified the noise. ‘It must have taken off from Damman and hasn’t had time to get to enough height to be inaudible to us.’

Ethan opened his eyes and pointed at Stanley.

‘We need to split up,’ he said. ‘The only way we can ensure the maximum number of us escape is to provide too many targets for them to follow once.’

‘Agreed,’ the lead militant said. ‘But we can also fight back.’

Without prompting, two of the women guarding the water reached beneath their burqas and produced a pair of rocket — propelled grenade launchers, the long barrelled weapons easily concealed beneath their flowing robes.

The militants took the weapons and began jogging away down the wadi in an attempt to gain a visual on the circling drone before it climbed out of sight.

‘What about us?’ Stanley asked.

‘We have further transport for you,’ the militant leader said as he beckoned for them to follow him down the wadi.

Ethan followed them at a jog as they made their way through the winding confines of the canyon, the heat rising and the air scented with the musk of ancient desert sand. They reached a tight curve in the wadi, and there parked beneath the soaring cliffs were several motorbikes and two non — descript looking vehicles, sedans with peeling paint and ancient, almost flat tires devoid of grip.

‘There will be more traffic on the roads by now,’ the militant said. ‘The police will set up roadblocks into and out of the city. My men and I will ride further out into the desert and meet you on the outskirts of Damman, where we will once again change vehicles in order to help conceal you as you enter the city. Make sure you leave the road before you reach the city, we will be waiting for you at An Nandah.’

The militant slid a grenade launcher from his shoulder and pressed it into Ethan’s hands.

‘May Allah walk with you. Inshallah.’

Ethan walked quickly across to the motorbikes, all three of which were fairly powerful and designed for off — road use. They were older machines, but fully functional and kept clean and likely well — maintained. He climbed aboard one, switched on the fuel valve and then brought his boot down on the kick starter. The engine roared into life immediately and he nodded with satisfaction as he looked at Amber.

‘Time to leave. Get on.’

As if on cue, Ethan heard a clatter of gunfire and a sudden thumping sound that reverberated down the wadi as a helicopter thundered overhead.

‘Saudi Arabia has arrived!’ the militant yelled.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Stanley shouted as he looked at the lead militant. ‘You have the plans now! Can you build it?’

‘We can try,’ the militant replied. ‘Now go, all of you! Get to Damman as fast as you can!’