War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 540 Arriving at the Captive Point

At three o'clock in the afternoon local time, Wei Ran, who was sleeping soundly on the recliner, was awakened by the alarm clock. Before he could turn off the alarm clock, Soliman next to him also opened his eyes sleepily.

"It's time?" Soliman angrily pulled away the little fox with big ears that was pointing its butt at him, and was about to sit up while talking.

"No rush, it doesn't matter if you leave later."

Wei Ran glanced at the off-road vehicle not far away, saw that Mr. Edward had also fallen asleep in the compartment, and then looked at the Berber children who were playing around his armored pickup truck, and simply turned the alarm clock on again. It was delayed for half an hour.

"Then shall we go directly to the destination?" Soliman asked, stretching his waist.

"Is there any interesting place to visit around?" Wei Ran asked with a yawn.

"There is a petroglyph on a mountain more than ten kilometers away. Do you want to see it?" Soliman pointed to the north direction, "If we go, we have to go back. If we are lucky , you might see wild camels there.”

"Forget it." Wei Ran waved his hands and rejected the proposal.

"Then there are no attractions." Soliman spread his hands, "This is not Cairo after all."

"Then go directly to the destination"

Before Wei Ran finished speaking, Saleh also walked over with a short and thin Berber man in a white robe.

"Have you rested yet?" Saleh asked with a smile, "If you've had enough sleep, let's go now."

Hearing this, Wei Ran, who originally wanted to wake up again, got up happily, put away the recliner and stuffed it into the cargo bed of the armored pickup.

In addition, Wei Ran took out a few cans of frozen coke from the car refrigerator, and after successfully coaxing away a few children who were playing around on the roof and hood of the car, Wei Ran started the engine without haste.

Contrary to his expectation, the Berber guide whom Saleh called was in the car driven by Soliman.Correspondingly, the leader also became the Ural truck pulling supplies.

After bidding farewell to the Berbers who saw them off enthusiastically, the three cars circled half a circle around the low hills that served as parasols before heading towards their destination.

Compared with the need to eliminate the connection between them and the shooting camp in the morning, and the extra detour to the Berber tribe as a guest, the straight-line distance of only forty to fifty kilometers in the afternoon is not much easier to run.

In many cases, the three vehicles have to make seemingly meaningless circles, and sometimes even have to drive a longer distance in order to bypass some towering sand dunes that stretch for several kilometers or a depression between two sand dunes.

But even with the leadership of the Berber guide, when the number on the odometer indicated that it had driven nearly [-] kilometers but had not arrived at the destination, the leading Ural truck stopped with a bang.

"what happened?"

Wei Ran, who was walking at the end, immediately asked by radio. Due to the dust brought up by the two cars running in front, although he could hear the loud noise, he couldn't see what happened at all.

"Unlucky, a flat tire." Soliman's somewhat helpless response made Wei Ran and Saleh heave a sigh of relief.

They each drove the car to the left and right of the truck, and Wei Ran saw the huge gap on the side of the co-pilot, the shriveled front wheel at a glance.

"It should have been scratched by a stone." Soliman jumped out of the cab with the guide as he spoke.

"How can I help you?" Wei Ran pushed open the car door while speaking.

"Help me remove the wooden board on the other side of the cargo bed." Soliman said as he walked around to the co-pilot's side and began to remove the spare tire between the cab and the cargo bed.

Hearing this, Wei Ran immediately went around to the other side, and removed the three-meter-long and half-meter-wide wooden board specially used to eliminate rut marks.

Under Soliman's command, Wei Ran stuffed the wooden board into the bottom of the car as a backing plate, and put a jack on it to support the car.

While the three young men were busy changing tires, Saleh on another off-road vehicle did not get off the vehicle, but enjoyed the cigars shared by Mr. Bei's was chatting, and by the way, collected useful fragments of information from the chat.

"Libya is at most 20 kilometers west of our current position"

Soliman, who was busy disassembling the tire, pointed to the direction of his back with a wrench, "Do you see the shadow of the mountain at the end of your vision?"

Hearing this, Wei Ran put his hand on his forehead and looked in the direction the former was pointing at. Sure enough, in the distorted vision scorched by the sun, he could vaguely see the shadow of a mountain range the size of a corn kernel.

"That mountain is already in Libya"

Soliman continued, "Just now, when our guide signaled me to look there, I accidentally crushed on a sharp stone and burst the tire."

"Our destination should still be in Egypt, right?" Wei Ran looked back and confirmed again.

"Yes, of course. It's just closer to the border."

Soliman obviously knew what Wei Ran wanted to ask, "But don't worry, I asked, there is usually no one there, even the Egyptian or Libyan border guards will not appear easily, the only one we may encounter is It's a caravan of smuggled camels from Sudan."

"Smuggling weapons?"

“And khat”

Soliman replied while he was busy, "Like all the camel caravans in the smuggling business, they like to drive close to the borders of the three countries, so that no matter which country's patrol team catches up with them, they can cross the border immediately Hide."

"Kat?"

Wei Ran reacted for a while, and asked uncertainly, "Are you talking about something called khat grass?"

"that's it"

Soliman temporarily stopped his work, lit a cigarette and explained, "In recent years, there have been more smugglers of that kind of stuff than weapons, and the profits are huge. Whether it's Libya Or Egypt, there are a lot of buyers.”

"Shipped from Sudan?" Wei Ran asked with great interest.

"South Sudan, probably"

Soliman picked up the wrench again, "The climate in that place is very suitable for planting. My father said that many people who used to do arms smuggling business switched to planting grass, and then used the channels used to transport weapons to transport those grass to Libya or Egypt, they all made a fortune."

"Worth more than weapons?"

"Of course!"

Soliman made a random gesture with his hand, "Think about the weight of an AK rifle. A khat of the same weight is much more valuable than a rifle."

"Are you also doing that kind of grass business?" Wei Ran asked quite inquisitively.

"I mentioned doing that kind of business two years ago"

Soliman pointed to the opposite side of the truck, and his tone became more and more helpless, "Then I was almost beaten to death by my father. I have never figured it out. Anyway, weapons are also used to kill people. Isn't the result the same?"

Wei Ran smiled and shook his head, "It should be different."

"What's the difference?" Soliman asked nonchalantly.

"Although it can kill people, at least the weapon can protect you from being killed by others." Wei Ran shook his head when he said this, "Of course, it still kills more people."

"You and my father really have the same views." Soliman had already removed the flat tire while speaking.

The topic of smuggling comes to an end here, after all, people from two worlds, Wei Ran doesn't care if this Soliman will do khat grass business in the future, and the latter also doesn't care about Wei Ran's response to this matter What do you think.

Fortunately, at least for now, these two young people of similar age, and even the Berber guide whose face is covered by a turban, insist on changing the tire as soon as possible to avoid being dried by the still hot sun Highly consistent.

After the episode, the three cars went back on the road. Perhaps it was because of the bad luck brought away by the previous tire blowout. Although the road ahead still needed to go around in circles from time to time, they finally arrived at the destination without incident before the sun set.

"Mr. Edward, are you sure that this is where your grandfather was captured?" Wei Ran asked while climbing onto the roof of the car to look around.

The only landmark here is just the nearby low mountain that stretches for 500 meters. Apart from that, there is really no hair except sand.

"Of course sure"

Holding a sun umbrella, Mr. Edward pointed to the mountains not far away and said, "My grandfather has been here more than once and took many photos, most of which were taken with that mountain as the background. .”

"That's weird"

Wei Ran squatted on the roof of the armored pickup truck and muttered to himself.

"What's wrong?" Edward, who had already hid in the shadow of the pickup truck, raised his neck and asked.

"Mr. Edward, was your grandfather really captured by the British?"

"It can't be German, right?" Edward asked helplessly.

"But what are the British doing here? Just to capture a German?"

Wei Ran glanced at the map on the satellite phone. It was less than 20 kilometers away from the border, just 500 kilometers away from Matruh Port, and nearly 700 kilometers away from Cairo.

If it is possible to say that Germany has made some small moves behind the scenes, then the British really have no reason to appear in this vast desert, let alone captured Edward's grandfather.

Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Wei Ran glanced at the sunset that was still some distance away from the horizon through his sunglasses, jumped off the roof of the car and said, "Let's rest here for a night, I'm too tired after driving all day today. I can't turn my mind around."

Edward opened his mouth, and finally nodded patiently in agreement with Wei Ran's suggestion. Although it was the former's invitation to come here for a field trip from the filming camp, he also nodded and agreed at the same time. Naturally, there is no reason to complain at this time.

(End of this chapter)