“What the hell happened, Blaine?”

“I do not know but I am afraid to make a call and have someone zero in on me again. I do not know if the phone had anything to do with it or not. Could be satellite images they are following.”

“You don’t think it was ours that blasted the package?”

“Who is to know? Someone shot them out of the sky.”

“I think it was ours but I don’t know who shot them. Probably NATO. They got drones up there.” Haines looked up at the sky. “I used to love to look up at the clouds…watching them change shapes. Now I wonder what they hide.”

“Haines, run over to the car and make a call to headquarters. Leave the phone on top of the car and run back quickly. Give them our coordinates again.”

“You want to see me get blasted?” Haines pulled out his phone and ran.

They lay on the embankment with their hands covering their heads for about ten minutes and nothing happened. They agreed it was satellite images someone was following.

Blaine turned back, looking up at the sky again. “You know, I am thinking if I get back to London. I am going to resign. This is madness This is typical Sir Brennan.”

“Yeah, Blaine but you knew him before you signed on. You’ve done some field work for him before.”

“I have, yes. He once sent me into Beirut with a prisoner to exchange for my Uncle Trevor. The prisoner escapes and I am all over the place putting my people in danger looking for him. I get Trevor in the end but you know the prisoner was working both sides.  I did not know this until later. He was meant to escape. I came home with my hand nearly blown off.”

“Whose fault was that?”

Blaine shook his head slightly. “It was mine. A faulty shooter. I was not healthy then and should not have gone. I had to, though, for Uncle Trevor, who I didn’t know existed.”

“Sir Brennan is what he is, a crafty old sauce. He knows what he’s doing, though.”

“You say that and here we are stranded in the middle of nowhere. Ah, I have to get up. We can start walking.”

“Are you able to walk?”

“Yes,” Blaine said a little forcefully. He was aggravated and not without some pain in his back.

Haines helped him up the embankment and then he insisted he could walk. “Unless you want to hold my hand.”

“Are you making a pass at me?” Haines grinned.

“No, if I was you would not have to ask that question.”

They walked along in silence for about 100 yards. Haines could tell it was a struggle for Blaine. “Want to rest a bit?”

“Just a short while. It should be getting dark soon.” They both had on flak jackets now and the weight of it didn’t help his back. “We can pretend we are having dinner.”

“Right, I want the steak, rare, with a mountain of chips.”

“Chips? Ah, there is so much more to eat than chips, Haines. I have never heard your first name.”

“Hamish…Hamish Malcolm Haines. I think the military rid me of my first name. Why do you go by your last?”

“I don’t really know. Some call me David. That is a lie. I do know. It is what Ali called me.”

“That was Regent Street.”

“That was the end of Ali.”

“You know, that’s the thing about you. The outside gives no indication of what’s inside. I drove you to Regent street that day. I’ve been around  you since then. You’d never think you had it in you to do what you’ve done. You’ll make a good spy, Blaine.”

“Not out here in the middle of nothing.” Blaine’s phone buzzed. “Should I answer it?”

“You’d better.”

“Yes.”

“Please to give your coordinates again.”

Blaine hesitated and looked at Haines. He went to the GPS and sent it in. “We can only hope until the missile hits.”

“You don’t have any fear of dying do you?”

“No…I would prefer to live but we all must die eventually. Are you afraid, Haines?”

“I don’t think I am. It’s hard to be a soldier and be afraid of anything. It’s just that I think I haven’t lived yet. I haven’t…done anything.”

“What is it you wish to do before dying?”

“I’d like to fall in love. Crazy, eh?”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“There is plenty of time for that.”  Blaine sat up. “Listen! What do you hear?”

“Motors, more than one.”

They went flat on their stomachs and scooted backwards down the embankment.

“Which direction?”

“3:00”

Blaine was glad of that. At least it wasn’t from Sirte.  The vehicles were getting closer and sounded like large heavy trucks of some kind…or tanks. He began to worry. Could they still be part of Gadfhi forces? “They’ll spot the car back there.”

Haines nodded and looked to his left. He could still see the vehicle as a black blob on the landscape. The moon was out but not giving off much light yet. The ground rumbled as they got closer and closer. He glanced over at Blaine who’d put his face down in the dark grass. Blaine was dressed in black but he’d worn his regulation desert issue and probably glowed against the grass. He put his face down too and prayed.

It seemed like an eternity before the trucks passed and they were trucks, not tanks, some carrying heavy equipment and others personnel. When the rumbling abated a bit Blaine glanced up and got a good look at the last vehicle as it passed by Haines’ prone body. He dropped his face in the grass again and laughed quietly.

“What?”

“Oil workers, probably off to work for the night.”

“Jaysus.” Haines rolled over on his back and giggled. “I nearly shit meself.”

“Haines!” Blaine heard it over the distant rumble of the trucks.

“A bloody helicopter come to blow us up, I reckon.”

Blaine looked for it but the moon had gone behind a cloud. It came up quickly over the ridge just ahead of them and set down in the road. Armed men jumped out.

“Blaine?” someone called.

“They are ours.” Blaine scrambled to his feet and Haines was beside him to help him up the embankment.

“We are here,” Haines answered. They were roughly grabbed and inserted into the copter and were up in the air in less than five minutes.

Haines caught his breath and looked at their saviors. “Special Forces.”

“Mr. Blaine, I’m Col. Carter and I’ve got orders to get you and the Lieutenant out of here.”

“Thank you,” Blaine replied. “Was that one of your helicopters that got shot here today?”

“No, Sir, not one of mine.”

They were handed bottles of water and blankets.

“Canna ask where you’ll be takin’ us?”

“You’ll see soon enough, Lt. Haines.”

The helicopter was above the clouds now and neither of them could see anything. Blaine personally didn’t care where he got deposited as long as it wasn’t Libya. It came to him that Sir Brennan had ordered their rescue. He wondered why because it was  a very un-Brennan thing to do.