The Key

94

Hyde stepped out of the main building and into the heat of the day.

‘Over there,’ Tariq said, pointing east past the drilling tower.

Squinting into the sun, he saw the dust cloud rising up on the horizon. Sand and dust storms were a constant hazard in the desert. They could spring up out of nothing and turn day to night within seconds. They also did more damage to equipment than bullets or bombs, so he spent more time watching out and defending against them than he did against possible aggressors, saboteurs or kidnappers.

He walked swiftly over to the eastern perimeter and climbed the guard tower. Failure to react quickly to a sandstorm could shut down the whole operation for weeks. If sand got into an engine it would have to be stripped, cleaned and reassembled before it would work again. Guns seized when dust clogged the oil. Electronics shorted as microscopic grains of dust found their way into circuit boards. Even the men could go temporarily blind from tiny particles in the wind scouring away the surface of their eyes. Just another of the many, many reasons why Hyde loathed this country so much.

As soon as he got to the top of the tower he raised his field glasses to study the column of dust. Like a small mountain on the march, it billowed up from the ground as if the earth had started to boil. At the moment it was relatively small and still some way off, but it was definitely heading their way. If it didn’t dissipate or change direction they would have to shut down until it had passed. Shutdowns cost money and time and the only reason he’d taken this job was because they’d offered him a profit share. So far, that equated to half a per cent of nothing.

Hyde glanced at the windsock by the helipad. The wind direction was northwesterly, yet the storm was coming from the east. Perhaps there was a crosswind out there somewhere, which would blow the storm off course before it reached them — or maybe it wasn’t a dust storm at all.

As he squinted through the binoculars, focusing on the leading edge of the column of dust to try to make out some detail, he saw a flash of white, then another. Hyde smiled. He was right. It wasn’t a force of nature at all, it was the Ghost, riding in with an army of horsemen spread out alongside him. The Bedouin always used this formation when riding at speed. It ensured they all breathed clean air and was an effective intimidation tactic, the rising dust cloud amplifying the presence of their approaching force.

He watched them draw closer, the riders visible now to the naked eye, points of white at the leading edge of the dust cloud, like the small, sharp teeth of a huge animal. There were nearly thirty riders, dressed in white dishdashas with their keffiyehs drawn across their faces. It occurred to Hyde that this scene would have changed little in thousands of years: the horses, the men, even the clothes had remained the same throughout history. The only difference was the weapons.

Hyde could hear the thump of hooves now, and something else, chopping its way through the air and getting louder. He turned and, in the blink of an eye, spanned the entire history of desert warfare. A helicopter gunship was skimming low across the ground and heading directly towards them. The guard started swinging his M60 towards it, but Hyde held up his hand and ordered the rest to do the same through his handheld radio. The chopper roared overhead and banked sharply, settling into a hover before dropping down to the helipad on the far side of the compound. The horsemen arrived at the perimeter fence at the same time.

Descending from the guard tower, Hyde made his way over to greet the new arrivals. He could see one of the riders separate from the rest and drift over to the main gate. He waved at the guard to let him in then carried on over to the helicopter.

It was a Bell AH-1W Super Cobra, or what the marines called ‘the world’s deadliest snake’. It was equipped with Hellfire missiles and a nose-mounted chain gun, slaved to the pilot’s helmet. Whatever he was looking at, that was where the bullets would go, ten per second with a sound like the sky being ripped apart. It also had the latest Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) instruments on board, which could pick up radiation from heat and any number of other sources. Ground troops had learned not to wash their clothes with commercial detergent because the brightening additives effectively made them glow in the dark. The Cobra was a loaner from a local airborne division, courtesy of an earlier request he had made and the impressive political pull of his employers. The side door slid open as he approached and a huge blond guy uncoiled himself from the back seat and stepped out to meet him.

‘Name’s Dick,’ the man said, thrusting out his hand and shooting him a cold smile that seemed like a challenge. He was more than a foot taller than Hyde and probably a hundred or so pounds heavier. ‘I’m here to collect the girl and take her back, once she has been re-ac-quired.’

‘Hyde,’ he said, grasping the hand and embarking on a short hand-crushing competition that, if he was honest, he lost. The guy was a monster. He was also now in charge.

The giant let go of Hyde’s hand and looked up just as the rider dropped down from his horse and unwrapped the keffiyeh from his face.

‘You expecting an army?’ the Ghost said, nodding at the idling helicopter.

‘It’s good to be cautious,’ Hyde said, in no mood for his particular brand of shit today. ‘And it can find a target and kill it before it even knows it’s been spotted.’

The Ghost looked the machine up and down then turned to Hyde and smiled. ‘It never found me. I suggest I organize my riders into tracking parties. Maybe your whirlybird can cover the eastern section while we cover the desert to the west. Is there anything out there we should know about — anything of yours that might not be marked on the maps?’

Hyde looked into the pale eyes, knowing from the tone of his question that he already knew the answer. ‘There’re some excavation works left over from test drills about twenty or thirty clicks from here. There’s also a smaller compound further out with temporary huts and security. You’ll know it when you find it. They’ve been instructed to be aggressively defensive. I’ll warn them you’re in the area, but I still wouldn’t get too close.’

‘Sounds serious. Maybe you found something valuable out there.’

‘Maybe.’ Hyde turned and introduced the giant, partly to change the subject and partly to put the Ghost through the same hand-crushing ordeal he’d just had to endure. He watched the two men shake. The Ghost didn’t flinch. He just stared into the big man’s eyes and pulled him slowly down until his face was level with his. ‘You need to cover up,’ he said, his voice like fingernails on a blackboard. ‘Out here, someone as fair as you can easily get burned.’

Then he let go of his hand and walked back to his men and his horses.