The Power of Five Oblivion

even smell the garlic on his breath. Akkad had his finger on the trigger. He was trying to bring the gun round. There was a gunshot, close and muffled. Richard stared. But it wasn’t he who had been shot. Akkad tried to say something, then fell to his knees. Richard saw the light in his eyes go out. He released him and turned away.
    The attackers were less than forty metres from them, moving in from all sides, lumbering across the sand. Scarlett couldn’t wait any longer. She knew what she had to do.
    Summoning up every ounce of her strength, she released her power, just as she had done in Hong Kong. She felt it at once, flowing through her like a breeze through her fingertips. The effect was astonishing. It was as if an invisible comet had smashed into the desert. A blast of wind came pounding down, causing the sand to explode outwards. The soldiers were thrown down, cartwheeling then crashing into the ground. Even the shape-changers were forced back. The sky darkened. The wind howled.
    “Into the car!” Richard couldn’t make himself heard but he didn’t need to. There was nothing else to do. They were in the eye of the storm that howled all around them, even if the immediate circle in which they stood was calm. Richard grabbed Scarlett and led her into the Land Cruiser. Rémy came with them, his face contorted with pain, one hand clutched across his chest. Scarlett saw that he had been hit by a stray bullet and that the wound was bad.
    The three of them piled in, Richard in the driving seat, Scarlett next to him, Rémy sprawled out in the back. They couldn’t see anything. The sand had formed a tornado around them – but it was a barrier through which no living thing could hope to come. For a brief moment, Richard wondered if Akkad had also tried to trick them. Suppose there was no fuel in the car? It might not even work. But when he turned the key, the engine started at once. Perhaps the Field Marshall had been concerned that they would send an agent ahead of them to examine it. So he had decided to take no chances and had provided them with exactly what they had demanded.
    “Are you OK?” Richard shouted.
    Scarlett nodded. She was controlling the weather. All her attention was focused on maintaining the spinning wall of sand.
    In the back, Rémy groaned and slumped against the side.
    Richard shoved the car into gear and they set off. They could see no more than a few metres ahead of them but the storm slipped back to let them pass. Gradually they picked up speed. They didn’t see any of the soldiers or the shape-changers. None of them had got close.
    The Land Cruiser slid and shuddered across the desert, leaving Cairo behind.

THE TREE

SEVENTEEN
    Scott Tyler had come to the conclusion that he really didn’t like Pedro very much.
    They had been together in this stinking cell for … how long now? Scott had already lost track of the time but it must have been more than three weeks, maybe as much as a month. However long it had been, Pedro never complained. He ate the disgusting food that they gave him and didn’t ask for more, even though the portions were tiny and they were both starving. He never seemed to be bored. When they were allowed to exercise – just one hour a day – he walked around the empty yard under the black sky as if it were Central Park. They also had one daily visit to a shower and toilet complex, the cubicles arranged around a manhole set in a concrete floor. The water was cold and they had only a few minutes to wash. But he didn’t seem to mind. It was like he was in another world.
    Pedro never spoke very much either. That wasn’t his fault. He had lived all his life in Peru and had only recently learnt English, mainly from his conversations in the dreamworld with Matt. But Scott got the impression that it was more down to the fact that he didn’t want to talk. After all, the two of them had spoken together at the start, when they had both been captured. But as the days had gone by, Pedro had retreated into himself. And he had done it deliberately. Scott was sure of it.
    He examined the other boy now. Pedro was stretched out on his bunk with his hands folded behind his head (neither of them had been given a pillow), gazing at the ceiling as if he could read something interesting there. Not that he knew how to read anyway. Pedro was much smaller than Scott and although they were almost exactly the same age, he looked five years younger, with the smooth skin and innocent