Sahara Crosswind by T. Davis Bunn Page A

called hoarsely. “Thank you.”
    Before Jake could reply, the corporal gunned the motor and wheeled the jeep in a tight circle. Through the rising dust Jasmyn looked back at Pierre, and as a single tear escaped she mouthed the words, I love you.
    Then she was gone.

Chapter Twelve
    Jake followed Omar back to where the tribesmen waited, giving Pierre silent space to compose himself and erase the naked emotions that lay etched upon his features. Already he felt Jasmyn’s absence, and not just because of his friend’s sorrow. There was a new barrier between Omar and him, one that respect and hand signals could never fully cancel.
    Behind them, a hysterical voice began shouting incomprehensible words. They spun about, and spotted a wet and bedraggled Hareesh Yohari emerge from the side passage and limp furiously across the square toward them.
    Pierre mused aloud, “Now how did he get out of that well so swiftly?”
    A band of desert warriors appeared from the shadows behind Yohari. At the sight of Omar they howled their fury. Omar hissed, “Tuareg.”
    â€œThat explains it,” Jake said.
    Omar pressed them forward and ordered his tribesmen into a phalanx blocking the alcove behind them. They turned and fled as the passage erupted into fighting, shouting men.
    Omar led them in a twisting, winding pattern down countless, nameless streets. From time to time they would catch wind of voices shouting and calling to unseen fellows, before Omar jinked and sped them off in a different direction.
    The chase forced them farther and farther away from the oasis and the tribe and safety. Every time Omar sought to direct them around and back toward the camp, voices barely one street over warned them away.
    Jake crouched with the others in a shallow doorway, panting and sweating and feeling like a prey hunted by beaters, driven toward exposure and death.
    He opened his mouth to tell Pierre that it was time to separate, to let him and Omar try to draw them off whilePierre escaped with Patrique’s testimony on the traitor. He knew it was futile, that his friend would never let others sacrifice themselves so that he could live, yet all the same he had to at least try.
    Suddenly the voices of the approaching mercenaries were drowned out by a sound once familiar to Jake, and yet now so alien that for a moment he thought it was thunder.
    He craned and searched the empty spaces overhead, when abruptly the sun was blocked from view by a great roaring beast. Before the sky again emptied, Jake was up and racing and shouting behind him, “Come on!”
    They sprinted with all the strength they had left, Omar following a pace behind them and shouting fearful words they could neither understand nor spare breath to answer. Jake followed the sound of revving motors out beyond the final border of houses, through the great sand-and-mortar embankment erected as the city’s first line of defense, over the first line of dunes, up the second, where he flattened himself into a shallow crevice and drew the others down with a swift motion of his hand.
    Cautiously they raised their heads over the summit and looked down at a long, flat stretch of rocky terrain marked only by a series of blackened oil barrels, a dusty shed of corrugated sheeting, and a limp French flag. They scarcely saw any of it. Their attention remained fastened upon the behemoth standing just beneath their perch. Its four great engines idled noisily, impatient to break free from its earthly bonds and fling heavenward once more.
    The Lancashire bomber had seen many hundreds of hours of hard wartime service. Bullet holes traced a silvered pattern from wing to tail, the flaps were streaked with oil and ancient grime, one side window was starred and shattered, and two of the wheels were worn down to dangerous white patches. Despite all this, the great plane bore its age and scars with pride, and the engines rumbled with smooth accuracy. It was the sweetest