“I think I found the one thing this battle armor doesn’t do very well—you can’t fight very well on sand,” Hal Briggs observed. “You sure as hell can’t crawl around with it, and the thrusters don’t work very well unless you find a patch of hard-packed sand.”

“All true—that’s why we can’t fight like the king does,” Patrick said. “Your Highness, I recommend you stay in hiding and keep an eye out for newcomers or anyone who tries to escape. We’ll engage—our way.”

“We could use a few of those tanks and armored personnel carriers, Tor,” Sanusi said, using his new nickname for Patrick in his battle armor, “Tor,” meaning “bull.” “Try not to destroy all of them, my friend.”

Patrick nodded and moved off. Patrick had Hal circle around to cross over to the east side of the highway, keeping Chris on the west side. Patrick took the middle—the highway itself.

The line of Libyan armor was following the highway but staying well off of it, spread out about a mile either side of the highway. The armored vehicles stayed on the road— they were wheeled, not tracked—with gunners at the ready in the cupolas. The armored vehicles had AT-2 antitank missiles fitted out on the front of the vehicles along with a fifty-seven-millimeter rapid-fire cannon and a 12.7-millimeter machine gun for the commander; the tanks were ex-Russian T-60s with one-hundred-ten-millimeter main guns. They were not moving very quickly—they were probably playing it cautious after losing contact with their helicopter gunship.

The commander of the lead armored vehicle was surprised to see a lone figure standing in the middle of the highway when he crested the slight rise in the highway. He was standing right there, not moving or attempting to get away or hide. He might have been a hitchhiker—except for the weird head-to-toe outfit he wore. Both armored personnel carriers’ fifty-seven-millimeter cannons trained on the solitary figure as they approached, but the stranger did not move.

“Wa’if hena,” the lead APC commander ordered. The stranger was dressed unlike anyone he had ever seen. It resembled a chemical warfare exposure suit, which is why he ordered his column to halt—if there were biochem weapons around, he didn’t want to go charging in blindly. “What in hell does he think he’s doing?”

“What kind of uniform is that?” the other commander radioed in response. “Could it be one of our men, maybe a survivor from Jaghbub? Maybe that’s a protective suit he’s wearing. Who else would be stupid enough to be walking right up to an armored patrol unarmed in the middle of the day?”