But even as the thought came to him, a missile sped out of the parking area where the army’s technicals were and smeared itself across the front of the T80 with such power that only the reactive armour saved the tank and those inside it. That, and the fact that the missile had been hastily aimed and had hit at an extreme angle. Even so, this was no time to give whoever was out there leisure for a second try. He focussed on what lay dead ahead and forgot about the people in the buildings around the compound. ‘Gunner!’ he called in his rough Matadi. ‘Fire as soon as you have a lock on where that came from!’
Anastasia hit the back door of the biggest hut and the flimsy wood yielded as easily as she had known it would. She had helped Brother Jacob hang the thing in the first place, seemingly aeons ago. She rolled into the hut, spraying warm rain all over the floor, her head filled immediately with shrieks of terror and shouts of rage. She pulled herself on to her knees, with the long SIG like a crutch beneath one arm, and looked around. In the dim light she saw the younger, smaller girls, huddled in terror against the back wall. And, in front of them, armed with bits of wood, chair legs, knives, forks, anything they could grab, a wall of older girls, Ado’s friends, ready to do battle. ‘It’s me!’ shouted Anastasia, just in time to stop them coming at her. Her voice halted them the instant they recognized it, she realized. But only her voice. For her clothes and blacked-up face would hardly be familiar — and she was certainly not the first person they had been expecting to see.
The plan had made no allowance for a potential squad of young women ready to fight. But the best plans were the ones that adapted most quickly to changing circumstances, she thought, as she pushed herself to her feet, then eased between them to the front door and opened it. The moment her feet started moving, so did her lips. ‘Robin. Anastasia. I have the girls,’ she said into her headset. ‘We’re in the longest of the huts by the brick-built generator house. Do we have back-up?’
‘Sanda? Squad One? Robin here. Can you spare anyone?’
‘Yes,’ answered Sanda. ‘We have to fall back from the vehicle compound anyway because some maniac in a burning tank has just charged over here at the better part of seventy kph, and opened fire at point-blank range…’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Richard. ‘I’ll cease fire and let you mop it all up if you like. From where I’m sitting it looks as though the Army of Christ the Infant was coming at you mob-handed…’
‘So you say. Maybe they were simply running for cover…’
‘Enough!’ snapped Robin. ‘Sanda, leave Squad One to sort out things there. Get your men to Anastasia’s location. That’ll be target four on your battlefield GPS.’
‘Sanda. Anastasia here,’ said the Russian as she eased the door open a crack to get a good look across the compound towards the chapel with its blasted bell-tower and roof still well ablaze now in spite of the rain. ‘Bring guns as well as men. We have some people here who want to get actively involved. It’s starting to look like payback time…’
But now it was her turn to give a shout of shock. For no sooner had the door eased back an inch than Ngoboi himself burst in through it. The only thing that stopped absolute pandemonium was the fact that the familiar figure of Ado followed the weirdly dressed form inside. Then, even as Bonnie Holliday fought out of her soaking disguise — though not out of her life-saving blue body armour — Esan stepped in too. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Ado and the fact that she accepted him ensured the other girls did as well. The two of them started organizing the girls’ escape at once, even as Sanda appeared with half a dozen men and twice as many extra guns.
‘I may have spoken too soon,’ he gasped. ‘Things are hotting up out here. Squad One and Richard seem to have driven them back from the technicals but there’s still a good deal of increasingly well-organized resistance. Some of these soldiers of Christ the Infant have been well trained and very well equipped. We may have to barricade ourselves in here, hunker down and wait for the colonel’s men to follow Captain Mariner’s T80 in.’
Bonnie joined Anastasia at the door. ‘We need to get whoever’s in charge. General Nlong or Ngoboi,’ Anastasia calculated. ‘Where did he go?’ she asked. ‘The other Ngoboi? He has to be someone powerful. Did you see where he went?’
‘Into the chapel,’ answered Bonnie.
‘Shit!’ spat Anastasia. ‘That means he went after Celine. And from the look of things the chapel’s not going to be a safe haven for long. Rain’s easing but the roof’s still burning. We have to get over there!’
But even as she spoke, the doorway of the distant chapel filled with figures. Wreathed in smoke, like something out of a nightmare, Ngoboi led a tight group down the steps and on to the level of the compound itself. The white coat of the doctor and the soiled white robes and coifs of the nuns caught the light behind the weird, raffia giant and the masked faces of the two helpers who had danced with him. It also gleamed against the blades of the matchets and the barrels of the guns that a number of them appeared to be carrying. The unmistakable figure of Moses Nlong stood at the heart of the group, taking Saddam Hussein’s infamous ‘wall of bodies’ technique to new heights.
‘I can take out that bastard Ngoboi,’ grated Anastasia, raising the long Sig semi-automatic to her shoulder and taking aim. ‘That’ll be a start…’
‘STOP! Anastasia, hold your fire!’
Mercifully, the Russian woman had broadcast her thoughts as she spoke them into the battlefield comms headset. And Richard’s voice answered, shouting almost painfully in her earpiece. Then ‘HOLD YOUR FIRE!’ was bellowed in English and Matadi as Richard repeated the order over the T80’s loudspeaker system.
Richard had also seen the group come out of the chapel, but he had been able to use the T80’s enhanced vision equipment to zero in for a maximum illumination close-up. Instantly suspicious that the Poro god’s costume included the headpiece once again, he calculated that whoever had originally been wearing it might well have had the time — and the cunning — to change. But Richard had no idea what the man who had shot Bonnie actually looked like. His face could well be one of those crowded around the familiar face of Moses Nlong.
He eased the T80 forward slowly now, leaving Squad One to mop up the blazing ruins of the army’s hopefully defunct motor pool, keeping a close eye on the group as they shuffled away from the blazing chapel, searching first of all for Celine. She was the lynchpin. The others would have a good idea of what was going on immediately around them. The medical team from Malebo, the nuns whose names he did not know. But only Celine was likely to have the wider view that was vital; only Celine would recognize friends as well as enemies.
But even when he managed to identify her, it would need some kind of a small-scale surgical strike to get her away from Nlong and his men unscathed. A T80 main battle tank was capable of many things, but a small-scale surgical strike was not one of them.
Then he thought of Bonnie. Bonnie had seen the other Ngoboi without his headdress — at point-blank range. And that thought became important, suddenly, as he realized Celine was not amongst the little group he had under enhanced observation. Which meant she was either still in the chapel — or she was in the costume of Ngoboi or one of his masked attendants. It was impossible to calculate which was more likely because he could make neither head nor tail of what General Nlong and his men were up to. Always assuming that any one of them had thought further than the immediate imperative of simply getting as safely as possible out of the burning building — even though under the circumstances that was like getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. Could this stand-off be part of some wider, cleverer plan? Did he have time to work it out if it was?