”That’s not a car. It’s … a dust cloud.”

Lars narrowed his eyes again, looking intently back over his shoulder – towards the hill lands behind them.

He was still walking, along the reddish dirt track, as if he stubbornly tried to show with this gesture that in the next few minutes nothing would happen that would make it necessary to do anything else but… walk.

“It’s a dust cloud from a car. Their car.”

Lisbeth Salander narrowed her eyes too, but in contrast to Lars her eyes did not radiate suppressed fear; only a grim understanding of what had to happen now.

They had been walking for only two hours; starting out extremely early, the sun barely more than a glowing disc over the remote eastern mountains. The intention was to reach the main road – the paved road – before noon, if at all possible; before the sun became too murderous.

Out here in the badlands around Fish River Canyon, one of poverty-stricken Namibia’s only – magnificent – tourist attractions there was no shelter. The tallest natural cover for many kilometres around was rocks and a few bushes. They might as well have been hiking on Mars.

“W-what should we do?”

Lars looked at her, trying his best to remain collected, calm. But the last 24 hours had done their work to his care free, slightly shy, intellectual persona. It had slowly been degraded, bit by bit, as the young backpacker had realized that this was not going to be another, slightly more adventurous detour from his relatively unplanned sabbatical-year – before embarking on the final two years of his Nordic studies and that big and all important thesis on the analogies between Kierkegaard’s ethics and the values promulgated by the early romantic era authors in Denmark.

No, that contribution to filling out shelf space in the back of Odense University library might not even come to pass.

For as the seconds ticked mercilessly way the dust cloud grew and the distinct shape of a man-made vehicle materialized against the horizon. And it grew bigger.

It came nearer.

Lisbeth Salander stood still, but her mind raced.

She had no doubt it was the two highway-men from yesterday – probably with some friends. Somebody had expected them to return. They hadn’t – at least not on time. So they had been looked for – and picked up. They had either repaired their car or gotten a new one, from their friends.

They might be an entire organised gang of sorts, but more likely just a family or clan or something living out here, occasionally preying on tourists who were too  careless, who ventured too far away from the marked road where at least there was some control imposable by the authorities.

Whatever the state of corruption in Namibia – and Lisbeth Salander had no reason to doubt that it probably pushed the top of the scale – the government had not interest in losing too many revenues from foreign visitors if it became known that their primary attraction was prone to random attacks by robbers.

What happened further out in the desert lands, well … that was another story.

“We have to move!” Salander concluded doggedly.

“Move where?” Panic was quickly rising in Lars’ voice. More quickly than Salander had expected – or liked.

“We can’t hide anywhere out here,” he continued, stating the obvious. “We can’t reach the main road in time. We’re done.”

“Shut up.”

“No!”

She looked at him, surprised – and a bit curious; like a natural explorer who had just discovered a strange new fish. Was he actually going to waste time with an argument?

The very idea of being so irrational couldn’t help but intrigue Salander – even here, moments away from their probable rape, torture and demise by a gang of very angry Namibian highway-men.

But then again, if there was one thing life had affirmed for Lisbeth Salander again and again: People were rarely rational.

“I’m not just going to shut up – “ he railed on “ – It’s your fault we’re in this situation. You do something about it. Don’t just tell me to ‘move’ – that’s ridiculous.”

“Suit yourself,” Salander said and began running, away from the track – out across the stony, dusty wasteland.