The Darfuri driver stood in the dirt under a street-lamp next to the soccer stadium, no shirt on his back, scratching his head as a crowd converged on him with unbridled curiousity.
Court hoped he was not too late. Once Ellen Walsh was taken through the front gates of the Ghost House, it would be suicide to even attempt trying to get to her, and it would do nothing to help her chances. He just had to do something before the NSS car made it in.
Just up ahead at the last intersection he saw another traffic jam of crap cars, beasts of burden pulling wood and rusted carts, and NGO vehicles. He jacked the handlebars to the left and bumped up on a little curb, drove straight through men walking home from work or out for dinner or an evening stroll. White-turbaned men leapt to the side as if for dear life, though the rickshaw was probably not big or powerful enough to do much more than cause bruises or a few broken bones to a pedestrian.
He tried to picture the scene ahead because he had no real idea what he was going to find around the corner. But he'd seen his share, more than his share, of secret police HQs in third-world, ex-colonial outposts. There would be a squat building with a fortified wall around it, a front gate with a guard shack and some sort of movable barrier. Often there would be a sandbagged machine gun emplacement or two, or even an armored personnel carrier at the front.
This damn Canadian investigator better appreciate this, he thought to himself. Then he remembered that if not for him, she would be nowhere near the predicament from which he was now trying to extract her.
He was at the left turn now, leaving more screaming and shouting and horn honking behind him. He pulled too hard for the turn, and the little two-stroke machine rocked high, its left rear wheel off the ground for a few seconds before banging back to the dusty pavement, causing the cab of the vehicle to bottom out with an ear-piercing scrape. Gasoline sloshed on his pants leg, but he'd managed to save eighty percent of the contents of the bucket by lifting his opposite knee to compensate for the tilting in his seat.
And then there it was, right ahead of him and on the right. The wall was lower than he had expected, and the building was taller and a bit more ornate than he had envisioned. There was an access gate with a guardhouse on the near side of the road, and some sort of tin-shack bunker on the far side.
And there was the NSS car, about to make a right turn at the intersection ahead, just beyond the entrance to the Ghost House.
Shit, thought Court. Not going to make it.
But he floored the little rickshaw and leaned forward, hoped against hope something would slow down the sedan's advance on the entrance.
A donkey pulling a cart overladen with plastic watering cans entered the intersection in front of the NSS sedan, causing it to slow and honk. It was twenty-five yards tops to the entry drive of the Ghost House, and Court knew this was his chance, he would get to the sedan in time, though his odds for success at any part of his plan after that were still pretty lousy. He grabbed the bucket of gas by its rickety handle, held the rickshaw straight by its throttle, and barreled in on the stationary car. Just as the donkey cart began rolling out of the way and the sedan started to drift forward again, Gentry let go of the handlebar, spun out of his seat, and leapt out of the rickshaw. Though he stumbled forward and splashed another twenty-five percent of the gasoline from the bucket, he remained on his feet, running into screeching and honking traffic.
The rickshaw slammed into the front passenger-side door of the NSS car at twenty miles an hour, jolting and denting the car with a crunching crash and knocking it into the wooden cart in front of it.
TWENTY
Horns honked at Gentry, at the accident itself, in annoyance of the delay this would surely cause. Animals brayed at the loud noise of the crash and the ensuing protesting blarings.
The NSS car had stopped in the middle of the intersection, its headlights reflecting off of steam pouring forth from its grill. The rickshaw had bounced away and rolled on its side in the street. Gas flowed from its open tank.
Court arrived at the passenger-side door just as the dazed NSS commander kicked it open. Gentry grabbed the small bespectacled man by his necktie and pulled him free of the wreckage and then let him go, using both hands now to douse the bucket of gasoline over the man's head.
The two soldiers were piling out of the back of the car, and the driver was slowly exiting his side, when Court pulled the road flare from his pants pocket, pulled the lid off the top, and struck the wick on the head. With an explosion of fire and sparks, he held the flare far away from his body with his left hand. With his right he grabbed the NSS commander by his collar and pulled him tight in a headlock.
The soldiers from the back of the car leveled their guns and screamed at him.
The NSS subordinate moved around the car, his pistol high in his hands, and screamed at him.
Three uniformed guards from the Ghost House approaching the wreck lifted their rifles to their shoulders and screamed at him.
Court stood in the middle of the intersection, holding the commander tight by the neck. He spoke softly into his ear in English.
"Reach for your gun, and I burn you."
The man said nothing, but his hands pushed out wide from his body, away from the holster on his hip under his suit coat.
Court whipped the sparkling flare close to the man and then jerked it away quickly. "If they shoot me, I drop this. If I drop this, you die. Understand?"
The man clearly understood. He raised his arms high and began shouting into the chaos around him. Court understood the Sudanese Arabic. "Lower your guns! Put them down! Put them down! Do not shoot!"
No one lowered their guns, but no one fired them either. Court continued to yank the small NSS man to the left and to the right, tried to keep himself a moving target in the hopes that some sniper on the Ghost House roof or some overzealous sentry or passing cop might think twice instead of feeling confident enough to pop a shot off in his direction. While he did this, careful to keep the buzzing and burning road flare near enough to the secret police commander to be dangerous but not so close as to start an inferno, he chanced a look in the back of the black sedan. Ellen Walsh had not moved. She stared at him, her wide stunned eyes obvious under the car's interior light.
"You okay?" He asked. He moved around quickly to the other side of the car, still trying to preclude any hot shots from feeling lucky. "You okay?" he asked from the left of the vehicle now. She nodded blankly, and he worried she may have been in shock. "Pay attention! Get in the driver's seat! Hurry! Now! Get it together!" He moved forward and back a few feet. Ducked down, nearly pulling the secret policeman to the pavement. The blaring horns of the cars and trucks and bleating animals of the carts crowding the intersection continued unabated. Court knew the road flare would not last another minute. In sixty seconds he'd have to either be gone from the scene or be prepared to torch the scene.
He strongly preferred the former.
Ellen finally scooted out of the backseat. She seemed confused more than terrified. He yelled at her mercilessly, a profanity-laced tirade designed to focus her and bring her back into the here and now, to convince her that all the danger around her was real, and her own actions were the only thing that would save her from it.
"That's right," his tone softened as she sat behind the wheel. "You're doing good. See if the engine will start." The deputy NSS man from the airport backed away from the car slowly, moving to Court's left. Gentry worried the man was thinking about taking a shot, planning first to get away from the fireball that was sure to follow. His boss would die, no doubt, but for all Gentry knew, this clown was next in line for a promotion and saw an opportunity to create the vacancy he needed to make that happen.