CHAPTER TWO – MY SWINGING DAYS
The heat immediately pounded into him. Charlie thought the truck was bad, but that was nothing compared to the direct sunlight beating down. Thankfully his helmet provided some resistance, and his sunglasses were dark enough to take out the worst of the glare. That didn’t stop the instant perspiration though.
‘Corporal… you.’ Simeon pointed at the ground while he reached into a satchel and pulled out a pair of standard binoculars. Their illustrious leader turned his attention to the horizon and Charlie did the same through the binoculars.
‘Look like standard tyre tracks,’ said Baz, kneeling over the ground. ‘Width is bigger than usual, so maybe a truck. Depth in the sand is reasonable, and with that wide tread… yeah, I’d be guessing a truck. Have to be pretty fresh too, otherwise the wind would have disappeared them by now.’
Simeon grunted. ‘Go.’
Charlie had no idea what that meant, but he assumed they were green lit to match treads with the previous truck. He jumped back in and keyed the ignition, instantly thankful for the shade that fell across his face.
Baz was the last back into the truck. ‘It just leads straight out into the middle of nowhere… what are they doing out here, in the dry, dusty, motherfucking desert?
‘Same thing we are?’
Baz just grunted. He was getting serious and that couldn’t be a good sign.
The sand underneath made driving distinctly difficult. It shifted more than the compacted road, and it was obvious that this wasn’t a common route. From the amount of cacti that were knocked over, this was only the second trip this route had handled – and the first hadn’t gone very well.
‘Terrible place to be meeting Walter.’
‘Walter?’ Simeon queried in accented English.
‘Idiotic slang.’ Charlie replied. They were tense and he knew it. This wasn’t a situation you willingly drove into. Yet that was what they were paid to do.
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The tracks beneath him were easy to spot, not just because of the path they ploughed through the cacti, but due to the depth of the tread. Whatever had come this way had been heavy and it looked like, from the smashed cacti, it had come through at some speed. On the pale horizon, he could see a drop away and a shift to dunes, with large rocks sticking out of the ground. The track disappeared beyond that point, as did the entirety of his sightline.
‘Tracks going out of sight, be on your guard.’ Two grunts came in reply and Charlie could hear weapons being brought up.
He thought about stopping, but that would just leave them sitting in the open. The other option wasn’t much better. They were going down this bluff blind and he wouldn’t be able to tell what was on the other side until he was perched atop the crest. Perched and waiting to be shot.
But what else were they meant to do? Sneak up? That ship had sailed a long time ago with the rumbling of the truck. Nobody was saying it, but speed was their friend, as was the small protection offered by the shell of the truck.
Muscles clenched and tingling, he gave the truck a burst of acceleration to maintain its speed and whispered a prayer to whichever god had decided to spare his life to date. This wasn’t recon. Recon involved long-range lenses and some knowledge of what you were looking for. No, this was fucked up grand. This was called going in at breakneck speed, guns ready to blaze a path through anything that was down there.
Just as the truck reached the front of the crest, just as it prepared for its descent into no man’s land, it gave out a strangled gurgle and then burst forward, wheels spinning in looser sand at the top of the crest before plunging over and dropping down on what was below.
‘Fuck!’ Charlie yelled immediately.
There weren’t any hostiles on the other side of the hill, there was just a truck, planted smack bang in the middle of the sand road and seconds away from being rear-ended. No, not seconds, the other truck was in the act of being ploughed. The front of the truck punched inwards, glass shattered and crumpled across the screen before scattering like confetti. Metal gnashed metal before everything stilled.
‘Holy fuck!’ Charlie yelled. ‘Everbody alright?’ The dust, glass and shards of metal were settling around their truck. Some of the tension eased out as there was no movement, or more importantly, bullets.
‘Think I’ll make it,’ Baz replied.
‘Espèce d’idiot!’ Simeon looked disgusted.
Charlie raised his eyebrow at Baz who shrugged. ‘I thought we let you drive because you were good at it?’
Letting out a sigh of relief, Charlie thumped his door handle until it dropped down and the door opened. It didn’t stop with just opening but fell out at an awkward angle.
‘Haven’t seen that level of quality rear-ending since my swinging days,’ Baz joked. ‘But I guess at least we found the truck.’
Charlie nodded and pushed himself into the Afghani sun again- there was still a job that needed to be done.
Whatever he expected to see, whatever thought that filled his mind as he looked at two trucks stuck together by the force of their crash, flashed from his mind as he saw it splashed across the ground. Crimson.