Sweat soaked Thea’s cotton shirt. The relentless sun punished any exposed skin. The temperatures soared above 120 degrees, waves of heat rising from the desert floor. Trying to escape the unforgiving conditions, their small group huddled under an Apache-style kowa that Rif had created from nearby brush. Even with the shelter, the cruel rays reflected hotly off the sand.
Nothing had survived the massive explosion, leaving them with only the clothes on their backs. Because of her illness, Thea always kept two days’ worth of insulin in the special insulated container Papa had given her, which was in her cargo pants. She also had a few protein bars stashed in her pockets. She’d already rationed out pieces of the first bar to everyone but was saving the others until later, since they had no idea how long they would be stuck out here. She was concerned. Diabetes impaired one’s ability to sweat, and sweating was the body’s way of cooling down. And when the thermometer on her insulin clocked in at eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit, it could render her medication useless.
Heat was not her friend.
She thought back to her survival training and the powerful rule of three, which could help prioritize your actions in an emergency. Three seconds without hope, three minutes without air, three hours in punishing temperature extremes without adequate shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food—any one of them led to death.
They had the hope, air, and shelter covered, but they’d had nothing to drink for the last five hours, and dehydration was making her dizzy and weak. Searching for help in the desert would be reckless, likely fatal. Miles of endless sand dunes stretched across the bleak horizon in all directions. The safest plan was to wait for rescue. Waiting was an activity in which she usually excelled, but her and her current companions’ lives weren’t the only ones at stake. Every hour ticking by was an hour Papa might not have left to spare.
She had her phone and her father’s cell, but there was no reception in the desert. Her satphone and SINK bag had blown up with the plane. Fortunately, Rif had radioed in the distress call during their emergency landing, so Kanzi officials should be looking for them. Smoke from the burning plane would be easily spotted by anyone searching the desert, but would their little group last long enough to be rescued?
Brianna’s face was beet red; her body trembled. Rif crouched beside the flight attendant, comforting her. “Help is coming soon—hang in there.”
“Look, I see water. I need a drink.” Her eyes were unfocused, her lips dry. She pointed to the horizon and tried to stand. Rif gently pulled her back into the shade.
Thea glanced to the west. An inferior mirage floated in the distance—it appeared to be a lake. Too bad it wasn’t real. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you some water soon.”
The flight attendant was obviously in shock. It was painful to witness the deaths of co-workers and friends. Thea forced herself not to dwell on Captain Houston and the others. There was no room for negative thoughts in such a dire setting.
Their best tools were their brains, as survival often required more mental than physical skills. Keeping a rational mind helped you avoid making stupid mistakes. They needed to stay in the shade and avoid exertion to maintain hydration.
Drought had ravaged Kanzi the past few years. No wonder the country was ridden with strife. Local tribes struggled to find watering holes, herding their cattle into other tribal territories for survival. Deadly battles raged over both the water and the cattle. The desert was an unforgiving environment.
She’d undergone SERE training —survival, evasion, resistance, and escape—during her time with the DIA, and she was thankful that modern military training was more scientific than it had been early on in the Second World War. In North Africa, the US military command thought they could condition soldiers to survive with less water by progressively reducing the amount they drank during training. These experiments had led to hundreds of heat casualties. Humans needed water to survive, lots of it, especially in high temperatures. She would kill for a tall, cold glass right about now.
Peter wiped sweat from his forehead, his fair skin pink and mottled. “Christos demands impeccable maintenance of his planes. What the hell happened up there?”
“Sabotage.” Thea hugged her knees. Her suspicions about Kennedy had lessened somewhat, given that he was on the plane when it went down. She still sensed that he was holding something back, though.
“What?” she asked Rif, whose face was a study in intensity.
His expression darkened. “Someone must’ve slipped a little C4 into the hell hole. A perfect spot, because the pilot wouldn’t have seen it in his preflight visual inspection. We lost hydraulic pressure. And just to ensure we’d crash, both pilots were poisoned. Whoever was behind this was definitely thorough.”
“Who was the target?” Peter asked. Good question. It could have been one of them or all of them. Given the other attacks, Thea was likely at the top of the hit list.