As the days with golden sand and dry but comfortable winds went by, he was closing in to the end of his desert trek.
He already started feeling a little difference in the wind: a change in rhythm, humidity and sometimes a flash of different smells.
Yes, he found out that it was not just his eyes that were better than before.
So, he started thinking about doing something about his quasi-nudity. After all, he could not stroll among people in towns or cities with only a dirty sheet on his back.
A few days later, he started hearing faint sounds of gunshots brought by the wind. They were coming from his left side and after thinking for a bit, he steered himself in their direction. He may want to avoid contacts and complications but while his previous route would have allowed that, he may have been caught off guard if things were to take a turn not favorable for him and his journey. And more importantly, he still needed pants. After going forward for about half an hour at full speed while running, he saw an outline of what seemed like ruins.
"It looks like remnants of a town, maybe a village. There should be a fight going on and judging from the sounds, I would say some roughly trained trigger happy group, most probably terrorists, seemed to be suppressing what looks like a few elites whose retaliations are becoming more sparse as time goes on."
He stopped moving to observe the ruins and crouched to avoid the luck of taking a bullet from so far away.
The gunfight kept going for fifteen minutes more before a house at the periphery took a rocket that exploded inside, followed by the guns going mute five minutes later.
From where he was, he saw a few fist size shadows moving among the ruins. With his dirty piece of unique clothing, he blended perfectly with the desert so, without worrying about being found out even by a sniper, he stayed there to think while the target of his observations became a ghost town.
After waiting for everything to calm down, Lucas started advancing toward the ruins while staying crouched. While remembering the terrorists who almost killed him, he muttered to himself:
"I am not curious at all, I am not vengeful either. Yes, I just want to assess the possible threat and find some pants by the way."
Nodding to himself for finding a logical reason to be nosy(vengeful), he kept closing in on the ruins.
Half an hour later, he hid in the shadow of a dilapidated house and took in his surroundings. Seeing nobody, he crawled toward the bombarded house fifteen meters across. Once there, he hastened inside, making sure to stay concealed.
Taking a look around, he saw what should have been a living room and a door on the side surely leading to the bedroom of the previous users.
Coming back after checking the inner room, he approached the only thing that could be of any help to him. It was the body of a burly white man sprawled on his back, looking more than 35 years old and certainly the target of the rocket that was used to redecorate this neglected living room.
He was wearing a sandy colored combat uniform: pants, boots, long sleeve camo shirt, bullet proof vest and tactical supplies, with a pistol holstered to the left thigh and a rifle across the chest.
Judging the person dead after checking his breathing and pulse, he turned him around and found a nasty wound on the back of his head.
Going through his supplies, he thought to himself: 'Dead. Yeah, not everybody has my luck after a rocket blast. Seeing the state of the supplies, they should have been suppressed since the start of the battle. Too bad for him and the comrades he must have had. He has no identification for any country, only a logo so either he was a mercenary or he was a black ops operative. Anyway, thanks for the treat buddy.'
Done with his inner monologue, he first took the pants and boots for himself and put the sheet on his back to the side after wearing them. Then, carefully taking the bullet proof vest for himself while avoiding the wound and anything that came out of it, he wore it while on one hand regretting the position of the wound since it prevented him from taking the shirt too unless he wanted to wear it all bloodied and, on the other hand, he felt fortunate for not having to wear a bloodied pant. After taking the gloves, he took the tactical supplies next: ammunition, grenades, knife, multi-tool, watch, compass, map,... But, what really brightened his expression up was the money, about 100 $ and fifty thousand XOF.
'I won't be a poor ghost anymore and it will be easier to go home.' He thought smiling.
Now taking the firearms, a pistol and a rifle, he was happy that they had mufflers on. After checking them and ensuring that they survived the blast unscathed, he made sure the equipped magazines were full and engaged a bullet in the chamber of each before finding a place for them on his body, the rifle across the chest and the handgun in a thigh holster.
Done with the looting, he ripped the sheet in two after securing the piece of paper with the hints, and used them to cover his head and his face leaving only his eyes in the open.
Before he could plan his next moves he saw, from the corner of his eyes, a blinking red light. Looking closer, he found that it was coming from the tactical helmet of the unlucky dude or more precisely, from the camera on the helmet.
The light was blinking rhythmically as if to pass a message, important or not, almost hurrying its audience to understand it.
Unfortunately, even if Lucas could guess that it was a code, most probably Morse, he wasn't a f*cking intelligence agent or a sailor to make sense of what was being transmitted.
Looking around, he found the radio he threw aside previously and put on the earpiece in spite of his discomfort (he wasn't a clean freak but there were some things he did not like sharing). But it was that or letting the radio make noise in a hostile environment. The choice was evident.
Without giving the other side the chance to speak, he went to the camera, turned it off then said:
"Alright, now I'm listening. What do you want?"