Juggernaut

There is an abandoned mine to the north of the valley, at the end of a deep ravine. A series of exploratory shafts and galleries. A sheltered, remote location. We could hide the craft in the tunnels. We could drape camouflage nets over any of our vehicles left in the open to mask them from aerial surveillance. The war would rage down south. Young men would squander their lives battling an invader they couldn’t hope to defeat. But we would be safe. History would pass us by. We could work without interruption.

I radioed Samarra. I demanded the loan of winch gear, an additional crane truck and a flatbed rail car. An absurd request. The country was in chaos. Most people couldn’t locate bread, let alone heavy-duty excavation equipment. Nevertheless, Koell told me the equipment would arrive in hours. I suppose, in a time of chaos, a man with briefcase full of US dollars can get anything he wants.

I asked Koell about the spacecraft.

I knew the Russians built their own shuttle. I saw it on television, years ago. It was called Borun Snowstorm. Pretty much identical to the American craft. It made a single, unmanned flight. Then the programme was cancelled. The vehicles were scraped. One of the decommissioned shuttles became a fairground attraction in Gorky Park.

The craft at the bottom of the crater was much smaller than a space shuttle. It was sleek, streamlined, little bigger than jet fighter. The wings were torn and blunted. Ailerons ripped away. Stripped heat tiles. Wing membranes peeled back revealing twisted titanium-alloy spars.

‘What is it?’ I asked Koell. ‘This thing. This spacecraft. Where is it from?’

‘It’s Russian,’ said Koell. ‘A trans-orbital vehicle. Military prototype. They call it Spektr.’

The Body

Lucy sat beside Jabril and fed him mouthfuls of cereal bar.

‘Spektr.’

‘That’s right,’ said Jabril.

‘It’s here, in this valley?’

‘Yes. If you follow the railroad track across the valley floor it brings you to a mine.’

Voss joined them by the fire. He crouched, shook sand from the folds of a map, and spread it on flagstones. He and Lucy examined the terrain by flickering flame light.

‘I’ve been mulling our options,’ said Voss. ‘Plenty of towns closer than Baghdad. If we walk out of here we could head north to Mosul. Or east to Ramadi or Fallujah.’

‘Taliban strongholds. They would happily cut our throats.’

‘We could jack a car soon as we reached habitation.’

‘After a couple of days in the sun? We’d be in no state for a fire-fight. Our best bet is to head south-east for Baghdad. Turn ourselves in at a coalition checkpoint.’

‘Some hard miles of desert.’

‘Got any other ideas?’

‘No.’

‘You’re a survivor,’ said Lucy. ‘A cockroach, just like me. You’ll make it. You’re not the quitting kind.’

‘There has to be some way to summon help. How about we write a big SOS in the sand? Someone will see it. A satellite. A plane.’

‘No guarantee,’ said Lucy. ‘We could sit here for days hoping for rescue, getting thirsty, getting weak, watching Huang die. I prefer to make my own luck. I’ll try to raise Gaunt again on the radio in a while. Maybe I can reason with the guy. If he has any sense, he will cut a deal. He’s marooned out here, just like us. But I reckon he’s too scared to think straight. It’ll be sunrise in a few hours. We should get our shit together. Be ready to head out at first light. We should carry water and basic weapons. Ditch everything else. How many bottles do we have left?’

‘Enough to fill our canteens one more time.’

‘All right.’

‘What about the gold?’ asked Voss.

‘Fuck the gold.’

‘It’s ours. I’m not giving it up.’

‘We hide it. Bury it. You want to come back here with some buddies and retrieve the stuff, be my guest. Me? I don’t want to drive a Cadillac knowing I bought it with some poor bastard’s gold teeth.’

‘And Toon?’

‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘That’s a bitch. The guy wouldn’t want to be left in a godforsaken place like this. But what else can we do? We could load his body onto the quad, but it’s only good for a few miles. What do we do after the fuel tank runs dry? We can’t dump him in the sand. The man deserves a proper grave.’

‘Yeah.’

‘We bring Jabril along for the ride. He’s an old fuck with one arm but he made it out this desert once before. Tougher than he looks.’

‘I don’t trust him,’ said Voss.

‘He’s played out. No more surprises. Obedient as a puppy dog. Huang. That’s the big question. We can’t carry him on our backs. Sure as shit can’t schlep a stretcher across five hundred miles of desert. But I’m not walking out on the guy. I’m not leaving him behind.’

Huang sat the other side of the campfire, staring into the flames. He was listening to his iPod.

Lucy lowered her voice.

‘The guy is fading fast. He looks eighty years old. We’ll stay. We’ll keep him company the next few hours. But I reckon we’ll be digging a second grave soon enough.’

Voss walked round the campfire and sat beside Huang.

‘How you feeling?’ asked Voss.