Shadows Out of Time

Mamoudou flattened himself against the stone wall, allowing the gunmen from outside to push forward, their own submachine guns blazing. In moments they came racing along the main route and met unexpectedly head-on with the first of the things from below. A dreadful conflict ensued as those terrible lamprey mouths fixed on the leading gunmen, shredding them in a bloody cloud. They seemed impervious to bullets and crushed the weapons to useless, mangled metal. Mamoudou watched in horror as the old city spewed forth even more creatures, their attention snared now by the noise of battle. They poured and slid from every crevice, things whose genera had been hidden by the darkness of centuries. For each of them ripped apart by gunfire, another dozen emerged. It was an impossibly unequal conflict and there could be no retreat. Every man from outside was slaughtered. When it was over, the creatures turned to Mamoudou, but his eyes had already closed for the last time.

Phillips moved as swiftly as he could in the confined space of the higher cleft, at last reaching a point where it debouched on to a small plateau of flat rock outside, under the stars. Ancient bricks ringed it, a former tower and a high place affording a unique view of the surrounding desert. Phillips wondered what long-dead tribe had built and used it. He and the engineers wriggled out, the last hour of darkness greeting them with its eerie desert silence. Cautiously the three men wriggled across the rock to a point where they could look down to the foot of the escarpment. Moonlight flooded the valley floor and among the broken rocks and scree they saw the dunes rising up gently beyond. On the nearest of them a great black shape sat in the sands.

“That’s how they got here,” said O’Reilly. It was a helicopter. “It’s a Lynx, Mark 9. The Brits recently de-commissioned them. Looks like Al-Qaeda have done some deals on the black market.”

Garner trained a small pair of binoculars on it. “Two guards,” he said. “Can’t see any others.”

“Any sign of the camels?” said Phillips.

Garner swept the immediate terrain below. “No. There are bodies down there. Our own Arab guards. I reckon the camels were chased off.”

“What about the bird?” O’Reilly asked him. “I’m a bit rusty.”

Garner smiled. “I can fly it. But you’ll need to get shot of the two guards. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’ll take them from here,” said O’Reilly. “You guys go and flush ’em out into the moonlight.” He lifted his weapon and settled it gently on a natural vee in the rocks in front of him, fitting and adjusting a telescopic sight.

Garner gripped Phillips’s arm and led him to the edge of the escarpment. Together they wound their way downward, slowly and mindful not to disturb anything loose. In the deep silence they could hear voices below, amplified by the rocks. Phillips glanced toward the shadows under the edge of the dune and saw cigarette smoke. The two guards were relaxing, oblivious to the chaos within the tunnel.

At the foot of the escarpment, some distance from the helicopter, Garner dropped into a low crouch and motioned Phillips to follow him. They got to within fifty feet of the two guards and saw them, stretched out casually on the sand as if they were loafing on a beach. Garner took a small rock and tossed it among bigger rocks at the bottom of the dune. It clattered noisily and the two guards sat up, grabbing their weapons. One of the men rolled over and pointed his gun down at the rocks. The other got to his feet, ducked down and scrambled forward like a spider across the sand. He went from shadow to moonlight, studying the rocks, ready to fire at anything that moved. Several minutes passed. The silence was absolute.

Gradually the man unbent himself, lifting his head to get a better view. Abruptly he fell backwards, his gun falling, his body hitting the sand with a puff of dust. Up in his rocky eyrie, O’Reilly had picked him off with a single shot.

Garner grinned at Phillips. “No one does it better than O’Reilly.”

Phillips was watching the other Arab guard. He’d seen his companion collapse and knew something was wrong. Immediately he got up and ran back under the shadow of the helicopter, meaning to board it. Garner raced after him, firing as he went. The Arab dropped for cover, but wasn’t hit. Instead he fired back so that Garner had to drop to his belly. It was still too dark for a clear view.

“He’s under cover,” Garner called softly. “O’Reilly can’t see him. I’ll have to go in.”

Phillips didn’t argue. Garner got to his feet and ran in a zigzag. Immediately the guard opened fire. Sand spurted as the bullets hit and Garner’s own weapon was pouring a stream of bullets into the darkness. Phillips wove his way around to the side of the helicopter. Silence fell again. Phillips waited. He heard something at the escarpment, the crumbling of rock, as if a large buttress had collapsed. That thing in the tunnel, was it breaking free?