The Templar Heresy

12

As soon as the three figures appeared on the far side of the deserted encampment, the terrorist who had been running towards the tents — Farooq’s companion — stopped. He braced himself, legs slightly apart, left hand holding the wooden fore-end of his Kalashnikov, his other hand wrapped around the pistol grip. He reached up and shifted the fire selector from full to semi-automatic, then took careful aim at the running figures.

The people he was trying to kill were over a quarter of a mile away and appeared to be little more than distant blobs over the iron sights of the AK-47. It would have been a difficult shot to hit a paper target at such a distance even in the relatively calm surroundings of a range. The shooter was panting from his exertions. Running even a short distance in the punishing heat of the desert was debilitating, and his targets were moving in such an erratic fashion that holding even one of them within his sight picture for more than a second or so was almost impossible.

But he tried.

He took two deep breaths to try to control his breathing, aimed the weapon more or less at the middle of the three distant figures and squeezed the trigger gently. The Kalashnikov kicked against his shoulder as the gas-operated mechanism ejected the spent cartridge case from the breech and loaded another round. He altered his aim slightly and fired again.

A few dozen yards behind him, Farooq mirrored his actions, firing single shots towards the fugitives.

But within seconds it became clear that the distance was simply too great and the targets far too elusive for there to be any realistic chance of cutting them down.

‘Save your ammunition,’ Farooq instructed, running up to his companion. ‘Get after them and do not shoot again until you are certain of a kill.’

The other man nodded and ran off towards their quarry. As he did so, Farooq pressed the transmit button on his walkie-talkie.

He knew that the three fugitives had already made a bad mistake. He could see that they had just run past the vehicle park and had continued out into the open desert, presumably intending to escape that way or hide among the dunes, and Farooq knew that that was never going to work.

They were unarmed and on foot, and the easiest way to run them down was simply to summon the 4x4 and the lorry that was waiting out to the west of the encampment. Because however far and however fast the three fugitives ran, they could neither out-distance the vehicles nor hide from Khaled and the rest of his men.

‘Yes?’ Khaled responded.

‘We see them, and Mahmoud is—’

‘What do you mean “them”?’

‘There are three of them. I think one is the woman.’

‘It had better be her,’ Khaled said. ‘Where are they?’

‘Mahmoud is following them, but they’ve headed off into the desert, out to the east. If you bring the 4x4 over here we’ll be able to catch them in a few minutes.’

Over the open mike of the walkie-talkie, Farooq heard Khaled instruct the driver to start the jeep and head towards the encampment.

‘You mean they ran out of the camp but didn’t take one of the vehicles?’ Khaled asked.

‘Exactly. They ran straight past the vehicle park. I think they probably panicked when we started shooting at them.’

Khaled didn’t respond for a moment, but when he spoke again Farooq could hear the urgency in his voice.

‘How many jeeps are in the parking area?’

Farooq scanned the flat ground to the south of the encampment. ‘I can see four.’

‘That’s why they’re run into the desert,’ Khaled snapped. ‘They have five jeeps. They must have one of them parked outside the camp. You have to stop them. Right now.’

Farooq clicked the microphone button once in acknowledgement, but he had already started running in the same direction as Mahmoud and the three fugitives.