We’re hauling ass across the desert in a Mitsubishi Pajero, desperately seeking the road. The AC is blasting cold, but it doesn’t do much good against the overbearing sun. The vents freeze my hands, as sweat pours off the rest of me. The joints in my fingers ache from the chill, or maybe it’s just the white-knuckled vice-grip I’ve got on the steering wheel.

I jerk to the right to avoid a big hole.

We’re following a marked trail across the barren landscape. The sand is pushed aside exposing the hard-caked dirt beneath. The rocky path shoots strait ahead and disappears over the next hill.

I glance to my left and there I see it. A black ribbon, barely visible through the haze of dust that hangs in the air, snakes through the tan of the desert maybe half a kilometer to the south.

“I can see the hardball, sir,” I say. “I think we’re running parallel to it. Maybe we should have taken the left fork back there.”

“I think we’re converging,” the major replies. “Keep going. We’ll get there eventually.”

I toy with the idea of pulling a hard left and heading straight for the road, but the sand off the trail looks pretty soft. I’d rather go the long way than get stuck out here. I lay on the gas and we accelerate. The truck is shaking so bad I’m afraid it’ll fall apart. A piece of the ceiling lining, crumbling with dry rot, falls on my lap and I brush it away.

“Watch out for that bump up there,” the major says. “Move to the left, find another way.”

He’s been doing this since we started, like I can’t see the ground in front of us. I swerve to the left and put the vehicle right through another hole, bigger than the one the major pointed out. The front of the Pajero dips down and leaps up suddenly, finding the far end of the hole. We’re tossed out of our seats and slammed down again as the vehicle rocks through the pit. The undercarriage slams sickeningly against the hard ground. I have to fight to keep my grip on the wheel.

I’m laughing.

“OK! OK!” the major calls out. “I’ll let you drive.”

My annoyance is gone, and now it’s just pure adrenaline. This is freedom, real freedom – a desert with no speed limit beyond your own fear. I have a mission, and a deadline that’s getting shorter.

We’re on our way to pick up the colonel from the airport. No one likes to keep a full bird waiting.

We finally find the hardball and I make a hard left, almost a u-turn, and accelerate.

We pass a sign that says “80.”

“Go one-twenty,” the major orders, and I comply.

The tires sing against the asphalt as we pass sand drifts, herds of camels, Bedouin tents. We sail through a tangled mess of rusted husks of cars and trucks. Someone said it’s one of the last remnants of the Highway of Death from the first war, but you can never be sure. People say a lot of things, and most of them aren’t true.

We reach the point where the hardball meets the highway and we head south. I ease back in my seat, happy that the dangerous part of the ride is over. Well, except that the local drivers are fucking insane. I can handle bad traffic, though.

The highways is boring, almost tedious, once you get used to dodging haphazard lane changes and those crazy guys in robes that keep running out into the road.

My mind has a chance to wander and I’m haunted again by my dream about Richard last night.

It’s strange how someone can be gone, I mean really gone, and yet sometimes the memory of them comes back so strong you believe they never left at all. It’s like that sensation the amputees talk about, the phantom limb. You know it’s gone forever, and yet you still get that itch every now and then.

I woke up this morning, sweating because even at 5 a.m. it’s hot here. Went to the gym, listened to the Magnetic Fields on my iPod while I worked the treadmill and pretended it was just sweat in my eyes.

“Watch out!” the major yells, and I just barely miss this crazy mother fucker who’s weaving through traffic in this little Audi.

I recover my lane and straighten the wheel.

It’s smooth sailing from there to the airport and we arrive with plenty of time. The colonel’s plane doesn’t land for another half hour.

I’m getting my camera out, because, you know, that’s what I do, and this Air Force lieutenant tells me to put it away. Twenty minutes of polite arguing with his boss, a lieutenant colonel, and I still don’t have permission to take photos.

Oh well, no sense in worrying about it, so I sit back and pull out my Su Do Ku book and work a few puzzles while I wait.

Finally we’ve got the full bird in the car. We’re heading home when the day throws a final, surreal curve ball. On the way out of the airport, graffitied in green spray paint and standing ten feet tall against a concrete barrier is Trogdor, The Burninator.

We pull back onto the highway and I’m dumbfounded, wishing I could snap a picture while I was driving.

The major and colonel talk business as we speed north, heading home, and I spend my time pondering the graffiti. Trogdor? In this God-forsaken place? What the fuck?