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  He headed for a vertiginous cliff face, the point where jagged limestone crags rose from the desert dust.

  He covered the last few feet convinced he would, at any moment, be snatched beneath the sand.

  He gripped a boulder, hauled himself up onto its grit-dusted surface. He scrambled one-eighty, intending to offer Akingbola a hand, but the guy wasn’t there. He was a hundred yards away, sitting on the outcrop they just fled.

  Trenchman cupped his hands.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Akingbola pointed to his torn and bloodied pant leg.

  ‘I got bit,’ he shouted.

  Trenchman sat head in hands. Tired, defeated.

  ‘Sorry I dragged you out here. Didn’t have the right.’

  ‘No sweat,’ shouted Akingbola. ‘It’s a fucked-up world. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it is.’

  They sat, looking at each other, separated by a hundred yards of sand.

  ‘You better get going,’ shouted Akingbola. He gestured to the rock face. ‘Sunset. You don’t want to climb that thing in the dark.’

  Trenchman nodded.

  Akingbola pulled a miniature bottle of rum from his pack and twisted the cap with a gloved hand. He stood at the jagged peak of the atoll and raised the bottle in salute.

  ‘Take it easy, bro.’

  ‘And you.’

  Trenchman stood, turned and started to climb.

  30

  Moonlit rocks.

  Trenchman pulled himself upwards ledge by ledge. Gloved hands brushed grit aside to clear handholds. He looked down at the crags below. Icy lunar light messed with perspective.

  Timeless terrain. Easy to imagine Palaeolithic man scaling the heights to chew a psychotropic root and commune with the savage gods of the wilderness. Maybe, in daylight, these rocks would reveal themselves to be stained with ochre handprints, representations of horses and hunting kills, the petroglyph dream-life of men that lived in the penumbral regions of the desert.

  His ascent blocked by vertical rock spurs. Smooth, nothing to grip. He couldn’t climb higher, so he worked sideways, headed right, clambering one shelf to another.

  Some kind of mine entrance. A cave mouth framed by prop beams. Dug by prospectors looking to strike borax, or locate a uranium seam.

  Trenchman shone his flashlight into the darkness. Jumbled rubble. Tunnel collapse a few yards inside the shaft.

  Good place to rest. A chance to shelter from a cold desert wind.

  He lowered himself to the ground, shuffled his ass to get comfortable and leant back against one of the prop beams.

  He thought about the journey west. Maybe he would find water in the mountains. Somewhere, in a shaded canyon, he might stumble upon a rockpool.

  Half-remembered advice from survival class: if you find a basin of deliciously clear water, don’t drink. Could be tainted with sulphur or arsenic. If, on the other hand, you discover a pool green with algae, then the water is probably free of toxins, so drink hearty.

  He drowsed, pleased that he was thinking straight and true, had yet to succumb to the manias and night terrors that could play out during prolonged isolation.

  Faint noise.

  Shifting grit. Skittering stones.

  Couldn’t see a damned thing. Too dark. Maybe he disturbed a desert critter, something that made the mine entrance its home.

  Clattering stones. Rubble mounded against the shaft wall began to shift and bulge. An emaciated, dust-caked figure slowly pulling itself free as if reluctantly emerging from deep hibernation.

  The creature drew itself fully upright and stepped clear of the rubble pile.

  It stood over Trenchman. It reached for him.

  Trenchman snatched the pistol from his holster and fired. Three shots, centre of mass. Muzzle flash lit the rotted revenant in a series of freeze-frame contortions as bullet hits sent it stumbling backwards out the mine entrance into moonlight. A red jumpsuit. A skeletal, eyeless face. Something buckled round each wrist as if the thing had broken free from heavy restraints.

  Two more bullet strikes nudged the creature to the cliff edge.

  Headshot. The figure toppled over the ledge, and fell out of view. Muffled sound of impact somewhere below.

  Trenchman slowly got to his feet. He edged towards the lip of the stone shelf. He switched on his flashlight, leaned over the precipice and trained the beam downwards.

  The body lay forty feet below, sprawled face down on rocks.

  White stencil on the back of the jumpsuit:

  Clatter of stones from the rock face high above him.

  Trenchman quickly shut off his flashlight. He stepped back and pressed against the rock wall, willed himself to become a shadow. He stood still as he could. He held his breath.

  Skitter of shifting gravel to his far left.

  Might be grit displaced by a scorpion or snake. Might be frost-shattered scree shifting, settling, of its own accord. Or it might be a rotted, skeletal thing prowling the ridges above his position, searching for a route down.

  Trenchman ducked beneath the cross-beam of the mine entrance and crouched in darkness. He trained his pistol on the moonlit entrance, ready for whatever might come.

  31

  Frost stood on the ridgeline and watched the sun descend towards the western horizon.

  Noble climbed the dune and joined her.

  ‘I’ll head out in an hour,’ he said.

  ‘Be another cold night.’

  ‘Then I better not stop to rest.’

  ‘I’ll explain the situation to Hancock when you’re gone.’

  ‘He won’t like it.’

  ‘Not much he can do,’ said Frost. ‘He’s in no shape to chase you down.’

  ‘His head wound smells pretty cankerous.’

  ‘I’ll remind him you’re his best shot at survival.’

  ‘Reckon you’ll be okay?’ asked Noble.

  ‘Bring back one of those SUVs. We can drive out of this damned desert, find a pharmacy, maybe hook up with a MASH. Shit, if Hancock is still set on detonating the bomb we can toss him the keys once we reach safety and let him drive back here. Fucker can do as he likes.’

  ‘I don’t like to leave you two alone together. Watch your ass, all right? Not sure the guy is thinking too clear.’

  The flight deck.

  They sat cross-legged on the floor.

  Hancock solemnly broke an energy bar and shared it like he was re-enacting the Last Supper.

  Noble turned the hunk of granola between his fingers.

  ‘Right now, I want a cheeseburger more than I’ve wanted anything my whole life.’

  ‘Ever eaten lizard?’ asked Frost. ‘I hear they taste like tuna.’

  Hancock glanced at the cockpit windows. Amber light.

  ‘Sundown in an hour or two,’ he said. ‘Ought to pack. Figure how to remove the warhead and carry it to the sled.’

  Frost didn’t meet his eye. She examined a split nail.

  ‘I’ll load a backpack,’ said Noble. ‘Bottle as much water as we can carry.’

  ‘Well, best get to it. We’ll need food. Survival blankets. Might be worth bringing the trauma kit. And don’t forget the map.’

  ‘I’m on it, boss.’

  ‘Navigation should be easy enough. We’ll head for Capricorn. Adjust our heading five degrees an hour to compensate for natural deviation. That should keep us on the right heading.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll remove the core element from the missile. The warhead itself weighs less than a hundred pounds. We’ll strap it to the sled, take turns to pull.’

  Frost looked like she wanted to argue but Noble threw a glance, a barely perceptible shake of the head. Just let the guy talk.

  Hancock got to his feet, stumbled and gripped the wall.

  ‘I’ll need your help down in the bomb bay, lieutenant.’

  ‘Be with you directly, sir.’

  Frost stepped outside.

  Daylight curdled red. The low su
n cast long shadows. Her silhouette stretched across the sand.

  She tied the sleeves of her flight suit round her waist and tucked the Beretta into the waistband.

  She lifted the nuclear authorisation lanyard from around her neck. She snapped the plastic tab, extracted the code slip, and hurled the spent lanyard as far as she could.

  She unfolded laminate paper. The authorisation sequence. Ten digits that would arm the nuclear device, transform a canister of rare metals into a new sun.

  She held the slip in her hand, felt the power that resided within the row of inked symbols.

  She flicked open her Zippo and wafted the flame beneath the paper. The slip browned and caught alight. Text blackened and shrivelled. She let the paper burn down to her fingers, dropped the stub and kicked it beneath the sand.

  Noble emerged from the plane. He bent and double-tied his boots. Then he stood and shouldered the backpack.

  ‘Guess it’s time to leave,’ he said.

  They embraced. They stood back and looked at each other.

  ‘Via con Dios, brother,’ said Frost. ‘Don’t forget about us, all right? Once you reach the world, come get us, you hear?’

  He nodded, smiled, adjusted straps.

  ‘Back before you know.’

  He set out, big strides, crested a high dune. He glanced back, parting wave, then dropped out of sight.

  Frost stood alone and contemplated his footprints in the sand.

  32

  Moonrise. Dunes lit ice-white.

  Residual day heat quickly radiated into a cloudless sky. Skin chill. Each exhalation fogged the air. Noble zipped his flight suit to the neck.

  He was awash with adrenalin, tempted to break into a run, try to cover as much ground as he could before morning.

  ‘Calm the hell down,’ he told himself. ‘You’re a rational man, a trained professional. You got a solid plan. Stick to it.’

  Machine mode. Steady respiration. Breathe from the diaphragm. Inhale: three paces. Exhale: three paces. He zoned out and let his body eat miles.

  He knew better than to sing or hum. If he summoned a tune it could easily turn into a tormenting earworm he couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried. An endurance lesson learned during Basic. Pre-dawn reveille. Hauling himself across an assault course in cold morning light. High wall, water trench, belly-crawl under wire. The unmastered mind will break and fail long before physical collapse.

  He wanted to pause and tighten the straps of his backpack but knew if he stopped for any reason, sat a while to sip from his canteen or relace his boots, he might be crippled by lactic acid. His limbs would seize, leaving him unable to walk another step.

  He monitored the rotation of the constellations. Figured he’d been walking four, five hours. The wrecked B-52 lay far behind.

  He strode the first mile fast as he could, in case Hancock put up a star shell and tried to chase him down. Didn’t know the guy well enough to predict how Hancock would react once he discovered he’d split. He might regard him as a mutineer and, in his fury, climb a high dune and lose a few shots from his Beretta. A mile would put him out of reach.

  He tried hard not to think of the vast aridity around him. An implacably hostile landscape. Three-sixty desolation.

  Absolute silence.

  Absolute stillness.

  A barren sea of silica.

  The death-dry plains of an alien world.

  Mixture of terror and exhilaration. Marooned, yet absolute master of his fate.

  He looked up at the sky. Wheeling constellations. Scorpio, Cassiopeia, Draco.

  He was heading north-east towards Dry Bone Canyon. He looked up, used the handle of the Big Dipper to confirm the position of the North Star. It would be visible most of the night, shifting position approximately fifteen degrees each hour. He would take precise compass readings every three hours.

  He tried to imagine what lay over the horizon ahead of him. A way to fill monotonous hours.

  The reconnaissance photograph showed SUVs and a couple of house trailers. Perhaps it marked the establishment of a permanent military site. An advance team staking out the ground-plan of a secure compound to be built far from urban pandemonium.

  He pictured crew cabins, generators, sealed food, jerry cans of water.

  He might find fresh underwear. He might find toiletries on a bathroom shelf, a chance to freshen up and shave, foam the dust from his hair, wipe the fried-onion stink from his armpits.

  Most of all, he wanted to find a vehicle with a full tank of gas and keys in the ignition. Big, black government SUV with tinted windows. A sweet journey back to Liberty Bell: blast the air con, crank the music, relish soft leather seats.

  He tried to recall a Discovery Channel doc he once saw about the Paris/Dakar. Bunch of rich guys bouncing dunes in a tricked out Mitsubishi Pajero. A half-remembered tip for driving through desert: bleed air from your tyres. Wider they spread, less likely the vehicle will bed down.

  Absurd wish? A fuelled automobile waiting for him to climb inside and turn the key to IGN? What the hell. About time they caught a break.

  He kept walking.

  Easy to picture old-time settlers crossing the dunes, trying to make is west. Near-dead horses hauling covered wagons merciless miles. Gaunt, hollow-eyed men and women, reins in their hands, praying for the landscape to change, anxious for any hint of vegetation.

  They might be beneath his feet right now. Consumed by the landscape. Submerged cartwheels and planks. Horse skulls and tackle. Coffee pots and griddles. Boots, bonnets and bone.

  His canteen hung from a lanyard slung from his shoulder. He uncapped and took a single swig, rolled the water round his mouth, sluiced cheek-to-cheek, finally swallowed. He licked the neck of the canteen in case a droplet of moisture hung from the screw thread, then recapped.

  Eyes fixed on the starlight horizon. Part of him prayed for daybreak and rest. But it would be tough to sleep during the day. Heat would put him in a delirium. Physical exhaustion replaced by mental torment.

  He began to fear the wilderness went on for ever. Boundless dunes, like he was lost within some kind of simulation. A game environment. A world built from code. Each time he crested a ridge a new section of virtual terrain, a wire-frame scaffold overlaid with plates of sand texture, would snap into being. The landscape would curl on itself like a Möbius strip. Walk long enough and he’d find himself back at the plane, back where he began.

  He shook his head, tried to arrest his free-spinning imagination and return to the present.

  How long had he been walking? A long while. Didn’t necessarily mean he’d covered much ground. Wading through soft sand. Laboriously hauling himself to the top of each dune. His calves and ankles burned.

  He reconsidered his decision not to stop for rest. He wanted to cover as much ground as possible before sunrise. But if he drove himself to walk ten hours straight he might collapse.

  Ought to conserve some energy for the following night. And the night after.

  Better stop a moment and eat.

  He came to a halt and stretched. Didn’t want to sit down. If he sat down his legs might stiffen up, make it impossible to walk.

  He tore open a protein bar.

  The eastern sky had begun to lighten. He must have walked most of the night. Might be able to cover a couple more miles before sunrise. Then he would have to pitch camp, arrange a survival blanket as a parasol.

  He finished the energy bar and pocketed the wrapper.

  He blew to warm his fingers.

  He allowed himself another sip of water.

  He reslung the canteen over his shoulder, tried to ignore the slosh of liquid that signalled the declining water level within the canteen.

  A glance back. A trail of footprints receded to the horizon.

  He touched his toes, swung his arms, then resumed his journey. He strode double-pace to cover as much ground as he could before sun-up, mouthed ‘… one, two, three, one, two, three …’ to set a rhythm.


  He crested a high dune, and found a limousine.

  33

  Frost stumbled through the tear in the cabin wall. Her flight suit snagged and tore.

  She hurriedly shunted equipment trunks against the aperture, sealing it shut.

  Frantic scramble up the ladder to the flight deck. She disregarded jarring pain from her injured leg.

  She threw herself into the pilot seat and pulled down the blast curtains, blocking out a blood-red sunset.

  Hancock climbed the ladder and switched on cabin lights.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  Frost ejected her pistol mag and thumbed bullets into her palm. Four rounds. She reloaded, chambered, sat clutching the gun.

  ‘Seriously. What’s the deal?’

  Frost sat, panting hard.

  Hancock crouched beside her. He clicked his fingers for attention.

  ‘Hey. Lieutenant. Look at me.’

  She looked at him. She slowly got her breathing under control, regained her composure, ashamed of her panic.

  ‘We need light,’ said Frost. ‘Lots of light. We should dig trenches and fill them with fuel. Circle the plane with fire.’

  ‘Slow down. What the hell is going on? Are we under attack?’

  ‘The bastards are out there, circling the plane.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘Fuckers are getting bold. It’s like they got a purpose, a schedule.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘Pinback, Guthrie, Early.’

  ‘You saw their faces?’

  ‘They’ve come for us.’

  ‘Slow down,’ said Hancock. ‘I’ve seen thousands of infected bastards. So have you. They’re dumb. They got the intelligence of an earthworm. They don’t stalk their prey.’

  ‘Maybe there are different grades, like ants. Drones. Soldiers. Queens.’

  ‘It’s a fucking virus. A protein chain. A string of RNA. It doesn’t have a social structure. It can’t dictate tactics, strategies.’

  ‘It out-flanked humanity without much trouble.’