The Templar Heresy

16

Khaled ordered the driver to stop the jeep near the crest of a range of dunes so that they could try to spot the vehicle they were chasing. Given the time they’d wasted searching for the sat phone at the archaeological camp, the only sign of the missing Toyota had been a distant cloud of dust and sand, and a few minutes later even that had disappeared from view.

At first, Khaled had assumed that the vehicle had just slowed down, to avoid being quite so visible, and would be continuing to follow the same track. But what now bothered both him and Farooq was what looked like a recent set of tyre tracks — or to be exact faint depressions in the sand that could have been tyre tracks — that led away from the established route and down to the south.

‘If that is them,’ Farooq said, scanning the horizon in a fruitless attempt to spot their quarry, ‘they’re heading straight for the Saudi Arabian border.’

‘They won’t go there,’ Khaled said, with a confidence that Farooq suspected was not entirely justified. ‘They’ll still have to cross the border into Kuwait. All they’ve done is turn off route in case we were following them.’

‘So do we follow these new tracks?’

‘No.’ Khaled shook his head firmly. ‘We’d have to go too slowly if we were going to follow them. We’ll stay on the original route and keep the speed up. The second lorry must be somewhere down to the south of us by now. Contact the driver on the walkie-talkie and tell him we think the 4x4 might be somewhere near him. And keep trying to raise the other lorry as well, because that’s still in the best position to stop these people.’

A few seconds later, the driver steered the jeep off the dune and back on to the track towards the Kuwaiti border.