Desert Pursuit by Chris Ryan Read Free Book Online Page B

reached up and nudged open the door with his hand. Still nothing. Alex clenched his jaw, then made himself turn and look up, expecting to come face to face with the barrel of a Kalashnikov. The cab was empty.
    Alex sagged against the wheel with relief and something shot out from under the Unimog and grabbed him around the ankle.
    Hex heard Alex yell, then saw him fall. He launched himself forward at the same time as Li broke cover from the opposite direction, closely followed by Paulo. Amber wanted to follow but made herself hang back, ready to go for extra help if it was needed. The other three reached Alex together and Li automatically went into a fighting stance, balanced on the balls of her feet, while Hex lunged under the truck to free Alex’s leg. He grabbed hold of something, yanked hard – and a scared little gap-toothed girl slid out from under the Unimog with her hand still gripping Alex’s ankle.
    ‘That’s the one who’s always with Khalid,’ said Li, once they had recovered.
    ‘She was here last night,’ called Amber, hurrying over. ‘She arrived just as we were leaving, remember?’
    ‘Yeah, I remember. The munchkin,’ said Hex.
    Paulo crouched down and checked that there was no-one else under the Unimog, then he turned to look at the little girl. Her face was smeared with dust and tears and her eyes were wide with fear. ‘Hello,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘Are you hurt?’
    The little girl choked back a sob and stared at him uncomprehendingly.
    ‘She doesn’t speak English,’ said Amber.
    Paulo tried again. ‘Can you tell us, where is Khalid?’
    At the mention of Khalid, the little girl grabbed on to Paulo’s shirt cuff and launched into a torrent of words in her own language. Now it was Paulo’s turn not to understand. He shrugged helplessly and looked up at Amber, the language expert of the group.
    ‘I’ll try her with French,’ said Amber, squatting down beside Paulo. French was the second language of Algeria – a legacy of the time when the country was a colony of France.
    Amber began to talk slowly and clearly in French and the little girl’s face brightened with understanding. She began to answer Amber’s questions, speaking so fast that she was almost gabbling.
    ‘She says she and Khalid were sleeping beside the Unimog, when the men came in the night,’ translated Amber. ‘The men were driving past, heading north, but they stopped when they saw her and Khalid. Khalid told her to hide under the Unimog.’
    ‘What sort of men?’ asked Alex. ‘Bandits?’
    Amber turned back to the little girl and the others waited impatiently.
    ‘No, not bandits. She says . . . it sounds like she’s saying “the child stealers”,’ said Amber.
    The little girl began talking again and Amber listened and translated at the same time.
    ‘They had a Unimog, like this one, but the cab was smaller and the back was covered like an army truck. There were bench seats down the sides and these seats were full of children.’
    ‘But why did they take Khalid?’ asked Li.
    ‘She says when the leader found out Khalid had no family, he took him away. Khalid went without a struggle because he did not want the man to find her too.’
    ‘This leader, can she tell us anything about him?’ asked Hex.
    Amber asked the question and the little girl gave a two-word answer they all understood: ‘Le scorpion .’
    ‘The scorpion? What does she mean?’
    The girl bent down and drew a picture in the dust with her finger. The drawing was crude, but there was no mistaking the curving tail with the stinger on the end. The little girl pointed to the sand drawing, then to her arm.
    ‘A tattoo?’ asked Hex. ‘He had a tattoo of a scorpion?’
    The little girl nodded hard. ‘Tattoo,’ she repeated.
    ‘I think he must be a trafficker. A child slaver,’ said Li. ‘My parents came across something like this on their last West African expedition. The traffickers take children from the poorer African