Solomon's Keepers Read Free

to the sky. You recognise the shape and realise Solomon is kicking in – urging information like an eager know-all friend. You feel it matching its rhythm with the flow of natural thought, like streams of traffic merging at speed. There’s a tiny check and then the geeky surge to your assisted conclusion: Chinese-made Stonebreaker – locally upgraded additional tanks doubling its range to fifteen hundred – position of the rear stabilising struts under stress indicate it is unlikely to be a decoy and is part way through launch – typically early hours in cloud cover to avoid detection. A moment later and you find a meteo balloon radar truck and command vehicle in sight – nearest settlement Al Hamra Wasri – no G-Two – terrain is marsh and category one desert – assets unknown – previous records none.
    Your physical movement overrides any further contribution as you scramble back down the bank to where Tyler is waiting. Schultz is hunched over under a tarp with his leg sticking out at a strange angle.
    ‘See anything?’
    ‘Yup, it’s in an old works complex. It’s a live one. I couldn’t see anyone on it but the jacks are down and it’s part way up. We’re late.’
    Tyler checks his watch and takes a disapproving look around. The storm is sliding shoreward from behind you and tall clouds already lean over, abruptly dark. ‘Tracker out? Need their balloons in this.’
    ‘Uh huh. I could see the dish.’
    ‘We can forget about lasers. I guess I’ve lugged this in here for nothing. How much of that shit do you need?’
    You show him the transmission boost – a single pack of maybe twenty pounds.
    He doesn’t look convinced. ‘Best stuff in little packages, huh? We’d better move out.’
    The mud has dried and cracked into track tread. There’s a lip of dry grass at the edge of the marsh and then it’s sliding steps in sand to the fence. Tyler takes a long look at the compound through his scope and then goes at the wire with the cutters. You hold back the flap as he squeezes his bulk through. The small physical manoeuvre as you follow seems a big step in commitment. Nothing but desert and darkness separate you from your target. You wonder what eyes, with what equipment, might be looking back at you. If they have heat sense you’re fucked. You’re betting they don’t. Tyler takes the same deep breath you do. Your thoughts are separate, inarticulate, but there’s a sense they are shared. You live the same life. You obey the same rules. You work the same odds, the same constants of preparation, fear and exhilaration tuned by the variables of circumstance. Except you alone have Solomon. There is an unspoken recognition you will never be more alive than at these moments of extreme danger when Fate’s red pen hesitates over your résumé.
    To one side of the buildings there is an aura of approaching lights. You can hear engines mumbling, axles whinnying, and tyres muddling through sand.
    Tyler gestures to stay down and whispers – as though to himself, ‘who the fuck are they?’
    You can feel it unravelling; first Schultz, now this. The job is to paint them for air support and get out. But there isn’t time. Part of you wants to engage, a tension looking for release. Part of you deep down is pleased when you have to improvise, likes the odds against. The part Netta warns you about.
    The convoy comes as a bow wave of dust. They park their trucks in a line along the road. You can make out a group of figures forming. There’s a conversation, cigarettes lit, and some arm-waving. They look as though they’re trying to decide something. One of them points to the sky. There’s a final dialogue and then they disperse into cover. The wind scatters their excited shouts.
    ‘We’re gonna lose them,’ Tyler says. You both take in the sky, blacker than ever now, and the first stipple of rain.
    ‘Those buildings don’t help – but if I get in close I can deliver a pinpoint.’
    Tyler doesn’t like your