I aimed at the gunner first. If he got even half lucky with that thing, we’d be reduced to dog meat. I fired twice and saw him punched back off the pickup as if he’d been slapped aside by an invisible hand. Then I aimed at the other men and hosed a brief burst at them, watching them jump or fall as they lost their tenuous hold on their ride.
The pickup swerved wildly, its lead offside tyre digging deep into the sand. The driver struggled to correct but he’d been frightened by my shots coming close by over his head and sensing his colleagues jumping ship. In trying to regain control, he only managed to over-correct. The vehicle swerved again, this time more violently and turning the other way. Only now there was no way he could hold it. With a groan, it flipped, showing us its underside before slamming down on it back and rolling twice before coming to rest on one side.
The second pickup driver did the one thing he shouldn’t have done in the circumstances: he slammed on the brakes and pulled to a stop.
‘Firing,’ I warned Tober, and squeezed the trigger. The shot punched straight through the windscreen, knocking the driver sideways. The engine roared like a wounded beast, but the pickup didn’t move.
Driver down.
I grabbed Tober’s gun and fired a burst at the rear of the vehicle. After the silenced AK, I needed the noise of hot gunfire to demoralise the men further. It worked. I saw figures jumping clear and racing back along the beach away from us. I fired a short burst over their heads, then dropped the rifle and took out the Vektor.
Time to get us out of here.
I walked towards the pickup, my heart pounding with blood and my head singing from the gunfire. As I got close, I saw movement behind the windscreen and caught the glimmer of metal.
Rifle barrel.
I fired twice, aiming for a spot at the bottom of the screen. The shots punched through the metal surround and blew off the windscreen wiper blade, and the rifle disappeared.
When I got closer, the driver was slumped in his seat, his face towards the sky.
I couldn’t see any passengers but I wasn’t taking any chances. I fired two rounds from the Vektor at the passenger side of the cab, then walked off at an angle, waiting for someone to pop out from hiding.
Nobody did.
I opened the driver’s door and pulled the man out on to the sand. He stared up at me with dead eyes. I jumped in and drove towards Tober. He was sitting where I’d left him, holding his side and shaking his head at me, but grinning weakly. I got him into the passenger seat and securely wedged in, then drove north along the beach and headed as fast as I dared along the track towards Dhalib and the villa.
‘Where we going?’ Tober grunted.
‘Back to where there are boats with good engines,’ I replied. Back to the hornets’ nest.
As we bumped over the rutted ground, Tober’s head lolled against the back of the cab. He was trying to hold on but his grip was failing. He gave me that weak grin again and said, ‘You’ve done this shit before, haven’t you?’
Then he passed out.
I was close to Dhalib before I dared risk pulling off the track and heading inland for about half a click. I found a dip in the landscape behind some scrubby trees, where the pickup would be invisible, and parked with the truck’s nose pointing towards the villa. It wasn’t a great location but I didn’t dare risk driving off too far for fear of getting stuck in a gulley. With Tober’s condition and Musa’s men almost certain to be scouring the area looking for blood after all the damage we had done, I needed to be ready for a fast getaway.
Before that, though, I had to check on Tober’s wounds and call Vale.
Sixty-One
‘What are you going to do?’ Moresby looked beaten, his voice dulled and tired as he looked across his desk at Vale. It wasn’t quite the response Vale had been expecting; he’d been anticipating more venom and wondered if Moresby was playing him. Not that he was going to trust the man further than he could throw his desk; even wounded animals can fight back.
He’d spent the day waiting for news from Portman and talking to the SIS liaison officer at the embassy in Nairobi. Pryce had been delayed by bad weather out of Mombasa, and the local security officer had advised against trying to speak to her until she was safe in the embassy’s secure suite. In between, he attended to two other operations he was running and a third where he was first stand-in. The hours had been eaten away surprisingly quickly, and it was only now that he’d been able to go back to Moresby to find out what the man had done since their last meeting.
The answer, it turned out, was almost nothing. In fact, Moresby seemed nearly paralysed by indecision, pushing papers around his desk in a seemingly random manner as if hoping to find an answer buried in their midst.
‘How far away are the frigates?’ Vale asked him.
Moresby’s eyes flickered. ‘I don’t know — several hours, last I heard.’
Vale picked up Moresby’s phone and slid the handset across the desk. ‘Get on to the MOD and find out their best estimate. We need those Lynx choppers in the air as soon as they get close enough.’
Moresby shook his head. ‘But the Somalis—’
‘Screw the Somalis,’ Vale barked, cutting him off short. ‘We can worry about territorial niceties later. If they had better control of their coastline, none of this would be happening.’ He reached for his mobile and punched in the speed dial number for Portman’s satellite phone.
It rang but there was no reply.
He let it ring out for a full minute, hoping against hope that Portman was either in a dead zone or unable to answer securely due to outside circumstances.
He cut the connection. Even if the Lynx and their detachments did arrive, it would take time to locate Portman and Tober — if they were still alive. Better to concentrate on Pryce and make sure she could give a full account of what had happened.
He stood up and walked towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Moresby called after him.
He turned his head but didn’t stop. ‘I’m going to make sure that we at least have one person coming out of this alive.’ He wanted to add that he was going to talk to Scheider, but he didn’t trust Moresby not to wake up and jump in first and tell the American to keep out of it. Once he recovered his equilibrium, Moresby would be looking to rescue the situation and start the process of clearing up the mess. And that would entail making sure that there were no embarrassing stories circulating afterwards. ‘Don’t wait up,’ he added, before closing the door firmly behind him.
He returned to his office and slumped behind his desk, exhaustion beginning to invade every fibre of his body. If he didn’t get some proper sleep soon, he’d start to unravel like a badly-spooled ball of wool. And that would suit Moresby just fine.
His phone rang and he picked it up, nearly dropping it in the process. Christ, he felt like an old man. What the hell was he still doing this for? It certainly wasn’t for the money or the kicks. Perhaps this call was going to put a stop to it.
‘Vale.’
There was a slight delay, then a familiar voice floated down the line.
Portman.
He sat up immediately while the American brought him up to date in a few terse sentences stripped to the bare bones.
‘We had a couple of hot contacts, but we’re out and away. Tober’s taken two. He’s mobile for now.’
‘Badly?’
‘He’s got one in him and I think a busted rib. He’s lost some juice but I’ll patch him up as best I can. He’s tough — he’ll make it.’
‘How will you get out?’
‘By sea. We’ll aim to head down the coast and make landfall somewhere near where Piet keeps Daisy.’