The camp that night was overrun with happy Berber children willing to fetch water, wash clothes, and even sing and dance for a couple of ten-santimat coins. They lightened the mood considerably. The sky glittered with thousands of stars, many of which were rarely visible to the naked eye.
Crocker learned that his team, Eagle Bravo, was currently ranked thirty-fifth out of the 120 teams in competition. They would have been even higher if not for Akil, who was still suffering but refused to quit.
They exchanged stories with some of the Aussies and told filthy jokes. Akil managed to find a Frenchwoman who massaged his feet and calves.
Day three was a bitch, with endless dunes as far as the eye could see. The sand somehow seemed softer and deeper than before. It crumpled as soon as you touched it and caused them to sink halfway up to their knees with each footfall. Crocker felt he was about to hit a wall but refused to stop. He had to set an example for his men.
The sun burned through his Adidas Explorer sunglasses. The heat pounded his shoulders and neck.
He started to feel light-headed, then felt something touch his hand. It was a blond girl in a blue bikini. Her stride was strong and sure. They were walking down the beach together. He felt water lapping at his feet.
He turned to kiss her. “Kim?”
His first wife smiled and pushed back her hair.
“Hey, Kim.”
“You okay, boss?”
It was Ritchie, with his head and face wrapped in a white scarf.
Crocker thought he heard music as they approached the day’s destination, a little desert town called Tazzarine. Turned out the music was real. A local band played enthusiastically as girls danced in circles and shook tambourines. They ate lamb couscous for dinner and immediately passed out.
The next morning the sky was cloudy, and one of the organizers warned him that a storm was approaching. Crocker told his men to stick together. “They can blow in quickly, so stay alert.”
Fortunately, the first set of dunes wasn’t as high as those of the previous day, and the sun wasn’t as strong.
After an hour of trekking they stopped at a water hole to wash their faces and refill their bottles. Cal was leaning back in the sand, looking up at the clouds, when he ripped out the earbuds of his iPod and shouted, “That fucking hurt!”
“What?”
Crocker saw that a yellow sand scorpion (Opistophthalmus) about two inches long had bitten the palm of his right hand. He washed the area with water and noted that the site of the sting was becoming red and swollen.
Even after he applied a local anesthetic, Cal continued to complain about the pain. He also reported a tingling, twitchy sensation up his right arm.
“It’s my trigger hand,” Cal said, grimacing. “Maybe it’s karma.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Payback for all the people I’ve killed.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Crocker knew that in some cases scorpion poisoning could cause shock and even death. He wished he had some tetanus toxoid with him, but he’d have to make do, because they wouldn’t reach the next medical aid and communications point until evening. So he wrapped his Buff headband around Cal’s right wrist to restrict the poison.
Meanwhile the sky had darkened and the wind had picked up. A cloud of fine red dust enveloped them. Huge balls of desert brambles raced across the sand.
“Where’d they come from?” Akil shouted.
“Seek cover, but stay away from the leeward side of the dunes. Keep your scarves secured over your nose, ears, and mouth. Make sure you keep your sunglasses on. Goggles, if you have them!” Crocker yelled back.
Within minutes visibility was zero. The temperature dropped twenty degrees. Each gust of wind carried with it a blast of highly abrasive sand that felt like it could rip the skin right off your body.
Crocker wrapped the thin Tyvek sheet he carried in his backpack around Cal and led him over to the water hole, where they knelt behind the stump of an old palm tree. It was hard to breathe.
Cal started to shiver. “How long is this likely to last?”
“Don’t think about that.”
After half an hour Crocker released the headband around Cal’s wrist, held his arm in the water for approximately five minutes, then secured the headband again, just tight enough to slow the flow of blood. He repeated the process a half hour later. Then the wind abated and the air started to clear. Within five minutes the sky overhead was blue and the sun was beating down strongly.
“Amazing,” Cal said.
“You feeling better?”
“My arm is killing me, and the rest of my body feels like shit.”
Five men were accounted for, but Akil was missing. They found him on the other side of a dune, wrapped in a blanket and covered with sand, and helped him dig out.