Juggernaut

Toon brought up the rear. He turned round every ten paces and walked backwards for a couple of steps, surveying the dunes behind them, SAW at the ready.

Railroad tracks half covered in sand.

‘Follow the tracks,’ said Jabril. ‘They will take us to our destination.’

‘Everyone all right?’ asked Lucy, checking her team. ‘Keep sipping water, yeah? Shout if you feel light-headed.’

They strode parallel with the tracks. Jabril walked beside Lucy.

‘Why did you leave the army, may I ask?’

‘I got tired of guys staring at my tits. Seriously. Eyes on me all the time. Another day, another butt-grabbing jackass. It wears you down. They have a saying: “Every chick in a war zone is a perfect ten.” Even the guys with rings on their fingers consider themselves operationally single. A woman has two options when she puts on a uniform. She can either be a bitch or a whore. I don’t want to be either. I’d rather be me.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Fucking military. Suck you dry and spit you out.’

Jabril pointed to an outcrop ahead of them.

‘We are almost at the entrance. It is on the other side of this escarpment.’

‘The valley?’

‘A tunnel. Formed by natural erosion. Possibly an ancient underground stream. It was widened to accommodate the railroad track.’

The team came to a sudden halt.

‘Holy shit,’ said Toon.

‘Whoa,’ said Huang.

They stood looking at the cliff high above them.

The crude tunnel mouth was flanked by two colossal statues carved out of the rock face. Bearded men with the bodies of bulls and the wings of eagles. Blank eyes. Mouths set in a sneer of cold command. They stared, Sphinx-like, across miles of empty desert.

‘Got to be three hundred feet,’ murmured Toon. ‘Maybe more.’

‘Must have taken generations to carve,’ said Amanda.

‘Who are they? asked Lucy.

‘Gatekeepers of the underworld,’ said Jabril. ‘No one knows their names.’

‘Jesus.’

Lucy took an involuntary step backwards. She was daunted by the scale of the rock carvings, overwhelmed by a sudden rush of time-vertigo as she struggled to comprehend the antiquity of the gargantuan statues.

‘Some suppose they are a twin image of Sargon, greatest of the Akkadian warrior-chieftans. King of the Southern Cities and Northern Plains, The Fist of God.’

‘What’s that inscription round the pedestal?’

Chiselled hieroglyphs taller than a man, deeper than an arm’s length.

‘A lost language.’

They looked into the impenetrable shadow of the tunnel mouth. Lucy stepped forward and stood at the threshold. She half-expected the light and wind-rush of an oncoming subway train. Sudden chill made her skin prickle.

‘It’s cold as a meat locker in here.’

Her breath fogged the air.

‘Hell of a welcome mat,’ murmured Toon, looking up at the gargantuan effigies.

‘It’s not a welcome,’ said Jabril. ‘It’s a warning to travellers to turn back.’

The Valley

They walked through the tunnel darkness. Their flashlights lit an arched, concrete roof. The crunch of boots on ballast echoed from the walls.

‘How long is this thing?’ asked Lucy.

‘Approximately eight or nine kilometres.’

‘What’s that? Six, seven miles? This tunnel? You’re fucking kidding me.’

‘It’s an old water course. An underground stream, cut through limestone sediment. Ancients must have explored the tunnel by torchlight, discovered it was the route to a secluded valley.’

‘Why widen it for a railroad?’

‘There were phosphate deposits in the valley. A Belgian mining company called Clyberta were contracted to develop the site. They drove a boring machine through this passageway. A massive thing. A huge, rotating cutting wheel. Slave labour cleared rubble and helped truck it south. The tunnel walls were reinforced with steel arches and coated with shotcrete to guard against rock falls.’

‘So there’s a mine?’

‘Some tunnels and galleries. Clyberta abandoned the project when Saddam invaded Kuwait.’

‘Freezing my arse off,’ said Lucy. She turned up the collar of her prairie coat. ‘This is crazy shit. I’m going to die of hypothermia in the middle of a desert.’

‘It can happen,’ said Jabril. ‘There is a dramatic drop in temperature after sundown. The night wind can be lethal.’

‘I don’t intend to stay that long.’

They trudged in silence.

‘Hold it,’ said Toon. ‘I got to stop a while.’

‘In this cold?’

‘I got to rest my knee.’

‘All right,’ said Lucy. ‘Take five.’

They sat with their backs to the tunnel wall. Jabril lit a cigarette. His match flared in darkness.

‘You know,’ said Lucy, ‘I’ve got a sister back in England. Christine. Lives in Oxford. Each time we meet I can’t think of a fucking thing to say to her. Childcare, decor, gardening. Shit, I’ve watched cities burn.’

‘Yeah,’ said Huang. ‘I was back in Clarksville last year. Everyone was so damn fat. Big Gulps and fried chicken. Made me want to puke.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Toon. ‘This tunnel. Perfect place for an IED. Couple of old artillery shells. Pressure plate under the shingle. Anybody wanted to fuck us up, we’d walk right into it.’