Cairo practice

James sheltered on the edge of a dune. The vestigial grass had a razor sharp edge, scratching his arm as he slithered into a comfortable position. The Subaru was parked about 200 metres further away, concealed behind another dune. A long way ahead, he could see the tiny outline of the truck, heading towards him in a kind of shimmer from the heat. It seemed to be running above the ground because of the heat haze and he could understand how people thought they could see water in the desert.

The truck's progress was also almost silent initially, and then he started to hear a whine from an American military grade diesel engine. He'd heard the sound before, in Germany where there were many of these trucks, used around the bases, but here it seemed displaced.

Through the sound he started to notice a further noise, a slow throb getting quickly louder. He looked around and could see a small speck in the sky, not a bird, it was bigger and tracking the path of the truck. A helicopter, it looked like an Apache as it moved closer. An attack helicopter, carrying a fair array of armaments. By now the truck was less than 800 metres away, still proceeding at a steady speed. The Apache was still high in the air, but then suddenly, but rather languorously, the helicopter let go of a missile of some kind. It didn't fly straight, but took a lazy path, like the casual throw of a soft toy from an adult to a small child.

But whatever it was, it was going to hit the truck. A second or so later, there was a flash and it was as if time had moved from casual to accelerated in a split second. As the missile hit the truck, a white flash exploded in a vertical line from the ground to two or three hundred metres in the air. The power of the explosion seemed completely out of proportion to the previous few seconds of activity and James instinctively sheltered his face with his arm, the same one that had been cut a few moments earlier by the grass blade.

The helicopter was not expected and had made its intentions clear. In a slightly muffled way, he could hear a shrill electronic sound and he realised that the helicopter was locking on to his Subaru and was planning to vaporise it in the same way as the truck. He decided to bury himself in the sand rather than attempt to run. That way, if the chopper was mainly looking for vehicles, it may not spot a lone person on foot. In the far distance he saw a momentary flash from the ground and then noted a black line in the sky. Someone a long way away had launched a surface to air missile. The black trail weaved through the air towards the helicopter. He saw the Apache bank first left and then right as well as ejecting what looked like hot metal strips. But it was too late. The SAM made contact with the helicopter and in a much yellower fireball than the truck's explosion, he could see the helicopter drop to the desert floor like a stone. He decided to lay low for longer in case there were any more surprises, but no, a few minutes later he was preparing his escape in the Subaru, alert to the thought that whoever fired the surface to air may be heading his way.