the distant dust as if her eyes were the only things keeping it there, hoping maybe that the riders had gone looking for Gabriel and were now bringing him back.
‘Maybe,’ Tariq said, his hand unconsciously drifting to the shoulder strap of his rifle. ‘We should get back to the compound – I have a bad feeling about this.’
16
By the time Liv and Tariq made it back inside the compound the approaching dust cloud was clearly visible in the sky and everyone had emerged from the silver-sided buildings and gathered by the central pool, all eyes looking in the same direction, waiting for whatever was heading their way to arrive. With everyone gathered together like this, Liv realized how few of them were left. She counted thirteen including her – a mixture of oil workers and a couple of the riders who had stayed along with Tariq.
‘Thirty riders!’ a voice called from halfway up the steps to one of the guard towers. ‘Maybe more.’
‘Ours?’ Tariq called back.
There was a pause as the man reached the top and raised a pair of field glasses to his eyes. ‘No,’ he shouted down, ‘not ours.’
Tariq snapped to attention like a shotgun being closed. ‘Close the gates.’ He barked at a startled-looking rigger still wearing his white work overalls. ‘NOW!’ He watched the rigger scurry off then called back up to the watchtower. ‘How long until they get here?’
‘Five minutes, maybe less. They’re riding pretty hard.’ The man paused again and stared through the field glasses. ‘They have guns.’
Tariq turned to the assembled few. ‘Who knows how to operate the fifty-calibre cannons?’ He was met with silence and a ring of frightened faces. ‘What about rifles – can anyone fire a rifle?’ A couple of drill technicians put their hands up nervously. ‘Good, go and get weapons from the locker in the transport hangar and push some of the vehicles outside to give us cover. We’ll use that as a fallback position and try and keep them at bay using the tower guns if we need to.’
Liv looked on with a sense of detachment. Part of her felt anxious about the approaching men and what their intentions might be, but another, stronger part felt that preparing to meet potential violence with more violence was the wrong move. The land wasn’t even theirs and neither was the water running out of it.
‘Stop!’ she said. ‘This is wrong, this is not how it is supposed to be. We should not fight. We should welcome them.’
Tariq looked at her as if she had gone mad. ‘But they are riding here at speed and they are armed. Their intentions are clear I think.’
‘And what of our intentions – if we meet them with closed gates and pointed guns, what does that say about us?’
‘It says we are strong and we are prepared to defend what is ours.’
‘But this isn’t ours. A few days ago I had never even set foot here and neither had you. And now you are prepared to take men’s lives and risk your own for it? Doesn’t that strike you as insane?’
‘It is the way of things. It has always been the way of things.’
‘But things can change. People can change. Open the gates and put down your guns. Whatever happens is meant to happen. Nothing here is worth fighting for. And nothing here is worth dying for either.’
17
Shepherd drove through the barrier and back into Quantico a little after midnight, just as the storm was finally blowing itself out. Franklin had been on the phone most of the way. He’d called O’Halloran first to give him a pared down headline account of what they’d discovered at Marshall, then spent the rest of the time liaising with the tech guys who had finished processing Kinderman’s office and were now heading back. Shepherd drove squinting through the spray and the darkness, trying to glean what he could from Franklin’s half of the conversations and wondering what would happen when they got back to base.
The van was already parked up by the laboratories when Shepherd pulled up next to it and shut off the engine.
‘Thank you, driver,’ Franklin said. ‘That will be all.’ He slid out of his seat and was already halfway to the entrance before Shepherd managed to fumble his own door open.
‘What do I do now?’ he called after him.
Franklin didn’t look back. ‘I want your report on my desk by 0800. After that you’re free to return to your training.’
Shepherd got a sinking