Bang! The shock of his touch made Ben squeeze the trigger, and a deafening sound numbed their eardrums as the bullet ripped into the dashboard. But Suliman kept his grasp, squeezing hard and painfully while his accomplice slowly peeled Ben's struggling fingers from around the gun grip. The man caught it before it fell to the floor.
By now the vehicle was at a standstill, but pointing towards the side of the road. Suliman spoke briefly to the man sitting next to him, then let Ben's arm go and took the handgun from his accomplice before opening the door, climbing out of the front and getting into the back next to Ben. He held the gun firmly against his abdomen, then gave the driver a muttered instruction. The Land Rover started moving again, straightening itself out before continuing along the road.
'You won't get away with this,' Ben told him. 'People know I'm here.'
Suliman ignored him.
'You need to listen to me,' Ben persisted. 'There's a virus down there. That's what's killing everyone. If you let it spread, millions of people could-'
'Speak again, Mr Ben,' Suliman interrupted him with a growl, 'and it will go very badly for you.'
They drove for twenty minutes. Ben stared ahead of him, his face fixed in an expression of the deepest contempt, and even though he didn't dare turn to look at her, he could sense that Halima was doing the same. He could sense Suliman too; he was close enough for him to feel the warmth emanating from his skin, and he could smell the sweat on his clothes. Ben was sweating as well, from a horrible mixture of humidity and fear. But most of all, he could feel the barrel of the gun bruising between his ribs. He did his best not to think about it, trying instead to come up with a way to get out of this. There had to be something he could do.
He could think of nothing.
One of the men in the front pulled a pewter hipflask from his pocket and drank deeply from it. He offered it to the driver, who shook his head in annoyance. Around them the state of the road worsened, forcing the driver to reduce his speed somewhat, and the vegetation grew thicker: tall rubber trees started to line the road, forming an impenetrable wall of rainforest. There were no other cars. It all looked deeply inhospitable. At one stage the car slowed down as it negotiated a rickety wooden bridge crossing a wide river. The river itself was not very full – just a stretch of muddy-looking water slinking its way underneath them. Ordinarily, the treacherous bridge would have made Ben uneasy; at the moment, however, his mind was on other things.
Eventually Suliman spoke again, and the vehicle came to a halt. Still pointing the gun at Ben, he opened the door and climbed out. 'Get out,' he said flatly.
Ben and Halima did as they were told.
'Go round to the front of the car, face it and kneel down.'
By now the two other men were in the road. One of them had his Kalashnikov trained on them, so Suliman let the handgun fall and threw it onto the passenger seat. As Ben and Halima knelt down in front of the Land Rover, Ben could feel the scorching heat of the engine against his face. It gave him no warmth, though; his whole body had gone cold with fear. He knew what these men had in their minds.
One of them said something in Kikongo, and the others laughed. 'He wants to know which one of you will be first,' Suliman called out.
More laughter.
'Gentlemen first, I think,' Suliman continued. 'That is the British way, is it not?'
Ben's body shuddered. The man with the gun was behind him – he could tell by the scuffing of his feet in the dusty earth. But how far? A metre? Five metres? He had no way of telling. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered to Halima. Her breath was shaking and tearful. Ben glanced to the side to see a look of terror such as he had never seen before.
'Do it,' Suliman barked.
Ben clenched his eyes shut, every muscle in his body tensing.
Click.
He started, the shock of the sound forcing his body forward.
Click.
The sound again.
Ben and Halima looked sharply at each other, both realizing what it meant. The rifle had stuck: they had one chance to get away. 'Run!' he shouted hoarsely. The two of them stood up, spun round and barged their way past the man, who was looking at his weapon in confusion. Ben caught another whiff of alcohol – clearly the guy was too bleary to have cocked the gun properly. They sprinted down the road, and as they did so, Ben heard Suliman screaming behind them in Kikongo. 'We need to get into the trees,' Ben panted at Halima, loud enough for her to hear but not so loud that the others would know what they were planning. 'After three, bear to the left, OK?'
'OK.'
'One.'
Bang! A gun fired, and just ahead of them Ben saw an explosion of dust where the bullet fell.
'Two.'
He heard the three men behind them arguing and shouting.
'Three.'
Immediately they veered right, plunging under the canopy of the rainforest. It was unforgiving and barely penetrable, but they had no option other than to fight their way through. Back on the road, they heard Suliman furiously shouting something.
'What's he saying?' Ben asked urgently.
For a moment Halima didn't reply, too intent on fighting her way through the verdant bush. But eventually she spoke.
'Track them down,' she translated. 'And kill them.'
CHAPTER TEN
A couple of years ago, Ben's mum had taken him to Kew Gardens in London. A typical Bel Kelland day out, with lots of lectures about the environment and what we were doing to it. What he remembered most, though, was the Palm House, a huge glass pavilion in which the heat and humidity levels were high enough for all the exotic trees and plants that were kept there. It had been oppressive after only ten minutes; but it was as nothing to the surroundings in which he found himself now. His face was moist, not only from the perspiration of running, but also from the thick humidity in the air – ten times worse now he was under the canopy of the rainforest than it had been in the village. His unsuitable Western clothes were already ripped by the angry thorns of the unfamiliar plants all around him, their tough, juicy leaves barbed on the edge like the teeth of a saw. Remarkably he had not yet cut his skin, but he suspected it was only a matter of time.
Halima led the way, deftly finding paths through the thick foliage that Ben would never have seen. Behind them they heard the shouting of the men, seemingly coming from different directions but in fact, Ben soon realized, confirming the fact that he was wildly disorientated. He had no idea if he was running north, south, east or west. All he knew was that he had to keep going. They ran blindly for at least half an hour, both of them breathless and Ben feeling a sharp stitch in the side of his abdomen; he forced himself to push through the pain barrier, however, knowing that the alternative was a lot less palatable.
Eventually they stopped, spent a minute catching their breath and then, barely daring to move, listened around them. It was not silent. The screams of unseen birds filled the air; closer to the ground were the shuffles and movement of unknown creatures. But the sounds they were listening for – the shouts of their pursuers and the noise of humans inexpertly cutting their way through the forest – were absent. Ben looked at Halima in relief; her eyes were flashing darkly and she returned his gaze with a coldness Ben hadn't expected. 'You OK?' he whispered.
'No,' Halima replied sternly. 'This is all your fault.'
Ben blinked at her. 'What do you mean?'
'Those men, they would have never done this to me if you had not interfered.'