Their traversal of this seemed endless. It was enlivened at the beginning by some shots fired, apparently at them, from far below. It seemed that the jihadists were probing southward, trying to avoid or to outflank Sokolov’s position by moving through the woods. An abandoned mining camp down at the bottom of the slope looked like it would provide lots of cover for the jihadists, if they could only reach it. But Olivia and Zula were far out of range, and Sokolov was continuing his policy of trying to pick off anyone who took shots at them, and so within a few minutes Zula had stopped worrying about gunmen and turned all her attentions to the project of just making it through the next hour or two. Part of the time they were able to ride the bicycles in their lowest gear, which was very low indeed, but for the most part it was more efficient to push or even carry the machines. Olivia insisted it was worth it, that the bicycles would come in very handy once they got through this part of the journey. Zula did not respond and hardly cared; she had descended into some numb and semicomatose state where all that was going on around her seemed to have been shone dimly onto a screen by a failing projector with a bad sound system.