He whispered a silent thank-you through bloody teeth and levered himself upright to get a look at Reed’s next move.
The bulky stone walls fencing the complex in were sturdy as all hell, and there was little chance the Liebherr would fit through the front gate. Its steel bars would do little to prevent the ultra-class haul truck from simply plowing through the fortification, but King couldn’t see a way around the perimeter wall.
Evidently, Reed could.
He elected to charge straight through it.
Unsuppressed gunfire roared across the complex, the never-ending streams of automatic weapon reports sounding similar to a grotesque popcorn machine spitting out kernels at a rapid pace. The shots rang harmlessly off the haul truck — now that King could take his time and study the Liebherr from a distance, he estimated the truck had to weigh well over a million pounds. It grumbled along, unfazed by the gunfire, Reed having safely returned to the driver’s cabin after hurling King over the guardrail.
King watched in abject horror as the Liebherr thundered straight into the front gate — and the concrete walls on either side. An audible boom resonated through the complex, like a thousand thunderclaps at once. King grimaced as chunks of rock flew in all directions. The front of the haul truck lifted up from the sheer force of the impact — he could only imagine the carnage that would be unfolding closer to the gate.
From two hundred feet away, it looked like all hell had broken loose.
A new thought roared into the forefront of King’s mind now that he had time to catch his breath.
What’s in the truck?
From his position, he had a clear view of the haul truck’s rear as it rumbled steadily out of the compound, bullets ringing off its gargantuan hull. The haul bed itself, usually reserved for three-hundred or more tons of mining payload, hovered ominously on top of the main chassis, towering far above the cabin. King would have no idea what it contained unless he could see the bed from a vantage point above. At close to fifty feet above ground at its peak, he doubted he’d get the chance anytime soon. The lip of the haul bed masked any sign of its contents.
It must have been damn important though, because Reed had risked his life to escape.
King couldn’t imagine the man could cover much ground with the Liebherr. In war-torn Somalia, the vehicle would attract the attention of everyone in the country, a tantalising target for an attack. Reed would spend the next week fending off armed bandits unless he transitioned its payload across to some other kind of vehicle.
With that thought in the back of his mind, King ignored his nerve endings screaming for relief and sprung to his feet, laser-focused on pursuit.
He could catch Reed.
There was still hope.
As the Liebherr disappeared into the lawless lands around the complex, a new wave of gunfire started up. This barrage originated from somewhere in the darkness, muzzle flares lighting up the night. King hesitated, unsure what it meant.
There was only one way to find out.
He heard the steady rumbling of an approaching vehicle and turned to see a truck speeding along the aisle, set to pass him by at any moment. It had no trailer attached — simply consisting of the tractor unit and an extra set of wheels — which lent it the convenience of speed.
It was in pursuit of Reed’s Liebherr.
King darted out into the centre of the aisle, waving his arms frantically from side to side in an attempt to flag down the truck. The driver had no intention of stopping, but King gave him little choice. He had nothing on his person to distinguish himself from an ordinary worker, so the driver refrained from getting suspicious. Instead he shouted obscenities out the open driver’s window as he stamped on the brakes and the semi-tractor slowed to a crawl to prevent running King down.
As soon as it had decreased speed, King darted out of the way and vaulted onto the driver’s step.
‘Out,’ he barked through the open window.
The driver — a bony man in a faded singlet with hollow, sunken eyeballs — barked a vicious barb at him in Somali. He waved a Kalashnikov barrel in King’s face.
‘Okay,’ King muttered. ‘My way, then.’
He slapped the gun away, heaved the door open, and hurled the man out onto the concrete, the veins in his good arm pumping as he utilised full exertion. The guy was made of skin and bone and flew out of his seat accordingly, offering little resistance to King’s wrenching motion.
King tossed the weapon he’d relieved the man of — another AK-47 — into the passenger’s seat and stamped on the accelerator as he swung into the space the driver had occupied moments earlier.
He felt the surge in the pit of his stomach as the tractor unit charged forward.
‘Coming, buddy,’ he muttered through blood-stained teeth.
You’re losing your mind, a quiet voice said in the back of his head.
He didn’t care. It was easily the most volatile situation he’d found himself in, trumping Tijuana and Guatemala. He was headed out into a hostile wasteland to pursue a vehicle at least five or six times the size of the truck he sat in. If Reed wanted to go on the offensive, he simply had to turn around and crush King’s truck like a child’s plaything.
But King would give chase all the same, for there wasn’t an ounce of quit in his body.
With his broken wrist throbbing and the skin across his upper back bruising and his nostrils bleeding and his ribcage aching, he sped out of the complex after Reed and the payload.
34
He didn’t make it far.
The semi-tractor bounced and jolted over the sea of rubble created in the wake of Reed’s mad charge through the perimeter wall. King spotted the twisted, mangled front gate lying a few dozen feet away from its original position — he swung the big truck around the roadblock and veered back onto a dirt trail leading away from the compound, back to the outskirts of Afgooye.
He spotted Reed’s ultra-class haul truck a hundred feet in the distance, already enveloped by the night. From a distance, the murky scale of the vehicle boggled the mind. It looked like a floating island rumbling into the darkness. King managed a wry smile in smug satisfaction, assured that he could match the Liebherr’s pace until he figured out a way to get Reed out of the cabin.
Worst case scenario — he would tail the moving behemoth to its final destination, whereupon he could inform Lars of its location and let the upper echelon of the Special Forces handle the rest.
As long as he kept track of Reed, he could manage.
Then the entire situation imploded in a single moment.
King noticed wraith-like shapes all around the cabin of his truck, ghosting along the sides of the trail, heading for the hole carved out of the complex’s front wall. Suddenly curious, he applied slight pressure to the brakes, allowing Reed a little extra ground he could make up later.
He wanted to work out what the hell was going on.
He recalled the blitz of gunfire as Reed had left the compound — the newly arrived party must have unloaded on him in the belief that he posed a threat. When Reed had rumbled straight past, unconcerned with them, they’d abandoned their efforts to stop him in his tracks. They must have assumed King belonged to the same convoy — no-one fired on him as he coasted to a crawl.
He stared in the side mirror and watched the shadowy forces slink into the artificial light of the compound.
They were dressed in cheap combat gear, sporting bulletproof vests and khaki pants. All of them were native Somali, wielding a wide range of assault rifles. They seemed high on stimulants, their movements jerky and charged with adrenalin. As King sat and observed, war broke out inside the compound.