Desert Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page B

But if they catch you, you’ll end up in prison!’
    ‘I stay,’ said Khalid. ‘I am guide. Only I know safe way back.’
    ‘I have the GPS, remember?’
    ‘Do this GPS show hiding mines?’
    Amber glared at Khalid. He stared back calmly, his dark eyes stubborn and determined in his ruin of a face, and all the while the noise of the jeep engine grew louder.
    ‘I can see the pin,’ said Paulo.
    ‘Can you get hold of it?’ asked Hex.
    Paulo reached forward to grasp the pin, then hesitated, frightened of knocking it from the hole. His hand hovered uncertainly and Li’s foot twitched again as a particularly bad cramp bit into her leg. The wire jumped, yanking the pin and Paulo lunged. He nipped the pin between his thumb and forefinger just before the last few millimetres slid from the hole.
    For one second, two, he was frozen in place, waiting for the explosion. When nothing happened, he slowly slid the pin back through the hole in the flash tube. Once it was in, he picked up the pliers and clipped the wire.
    Li collapsed to her knees and covered her face with her hands.
    ‘Let’s go!’ yelled Paulo.
    ‘Come on,’ said Hex, putting an arm around Li’s shaking shoulders and dragging her to her feet. ‘No time for that. We have to get out of here.’
    Hex half-dragged Li up the slope as the jeep came to a stop on the other side of the berm. They were still in full view and in another few seconds the soldiers would be out of the jeep and climbing the metal steps to the observation platform that was built into the berm.
    Amber, Alex and Khalid were already running down the other side of the dune, heading for the quads. Hex and Li reached the top and plunged after them without looking back. Paulo watched them go, making sure Li was out of harm’s way before he looked down once more at the little pin he was still holding in place with his finger. He had known straight away that the pin was unstable. The mine was tilted to one side and, without the sand packed around it, the pin was likely to slip out as soon as he let go of it.
    Paulo heard the sound of booted feet clanging on metal and then men’s voices talking and laughing. The soldiers were climbing the steps to the observation platform and he was still in full view on the dune slope. Quickly, Paulo scooped a wall of sand around the pin and patted it into place, but the fine, dry grains of sand had nothing to hold them together and the wall started to crumble away almost immediately. Paulo groaned, then let go of the pin. Without stopping to see what happened he surged to his feet and powered up the slope. He was still a metre away from the dune crest when he heard a sharp, metallic click.
    The pin had fallen out, releasing the striker mechanism.
    With a yell, Paulo launched himself over the crest of the dune as a fist of air hit him in the back. A split second later, the noise of the explosion blasted his eardrums and a geyser of sand erupted, rising high above the top of the dune. Then he was rolling down the far slope of the dune, falling out of control, head over heels.
    The soldiers had just reached the observation platform when the mine exploded. They ducked instinctively. One flung himself down on to the platform, then climbed to his feet again a couple of seconds later, grinning shamefacedly. They looked for the cause of the explosion and spotted the three vultures, climbing into the sky in a panic of flapping wings. Satisfied, the soldiers turned away and headed back to the shelter of their jeep, hooking their cigarettes from their shirt pockets as they went. This was a routine patrol in a quiet area and they did not intend to stand out in the desert sun for long. None of them had spotted the bodies of the two boys lying out on the minefield, half-hidden by razor wire and churned-up earth.
    Paulo staggered to his feet at the bottom of the western slope as sand and small stones rained down all around him. His ears were ringing painfully but, to his