Ejecta Read Free Page B

bastard!” Guiscard said feelingly, as he started the Land Rover.
    “’Rotten bastard?’” Palmer inquired mildly. “Why do you say that?”
    “Because of the ladder,” Guiscard answered, as he released the brake.
    Palmer put on his sunglasses. “Yeah? What about it?”
    “He knew about it,” Guiscard answered, as the engine came to life. “And it wasn’t in the report! I forgot to write it down and I was going to tell him about it!”
    “Uh oh,” Palmer replied grimly. “So Jann was in on it?”
    “It’s a distinct possibility,” Guiscard replied, as he guided the 4 X 4 between a pair of gaping potholes. “There have been rumors about Jann. Nothing solid mind you…. But some people have questions about the big house that he lives in and the Mercedes parked next to it.”
    Both sides of the street were lined with ramshackle buildings seemingly held together by many layers of peeling paint, garish Coke signs, and the force of gravity. Squinty-eyed men sat on the hoods of half-cannibalized cars as children chased soccer balls up narrow alleys and brightly clad women went about their endless work. “So what, if anything, can we do?” Palmer inquired.
    “Go after the bastards ourselves,” Guiscard said with a sideways glance. “Unless you’re willing to go home without your rock.”
    “The iron is a lot more than a rock,” Palmer insisted defensively. “But no…. I’m not about to let those bastards keep the iron.”
    “Good,” the Chadian replied with a characteristic grin. “Go Wildcats!”
    ***
    South of Mongo, Chad
    Haani Damya was a tracker. A very special tracker who had grown up in the desert, where his fathers and uncles taught him how to follow vehicles instead of the increasingly scarce animals. It was a skill Damya regularly rented out to the police, the army,
and
various types of criminals. And, like many people in the area, the Tuareg scout was related to Madame Guiscard and her son.
    Which was why the indigo clad tribesman was sitting on a bucket seat attached to the front right fender of the Guiscard family’s venerable Volvo C303 utility vehicle. A precarious position that provided the tracker with an unobstructed view of the road whipping past below his feet, and more importantly, of the complex tracery of tire tracks recorded on the soft surface of the
piste.
Every tire had its own unique tread pattern, wear marks, and flaws. Therefore each snaking mark was different to Damya’s discerning eye.
    And that was how the tribesman had been able to guide Guiscard and Palmer from
Le fort,
to a secondary road that was headed south, as it passed between rows of distantly seen
hamadas
or plateaus. The boxy truck shuddered like a thing possessed as it rolled onto a stretch of what the French call
tole ondule
, or “corrugated iron,” and Palmer thought of as “washboard.” A surface common to many back country roads in Arizona. Palmer knew the four-inch high corrugation was the result of heavy braking, aggressive acceleration, and usage by trucks with bad suspensions.
    The ride was similar to what it would be like if one were strapped to an enormous jack hammer. Palmer’s body shook uncontrollably, the old C303 rattled like a bucket of loose bolts, and gear bounced up and down back in the cargo compartment. At that point Damya turned to look in at them. He was equipped with a pair of motorcycle goggles and his blue veil whipped back and forth. A harness held the Tuareg in place, but Palmer knew that if
he
could feel the effects of the road, then the scout was suffering even more. “Faster!” Damya mouthed, and gave Guiscard a thumbs up.
    The Chadian acknowledged the request with a cheerful wave and pressed down on the accelerator. “We need to increase our speed to about fifty-miles per hour,” Guiscard explained. It was necessary to yell in order to make himself heard over the noise of the engine. “Then it will smooth out!”
    That was more than a little counter intuitional