The Watchman

Sixty

We got lucky; the shooter was as surprised as we were. His finger must have tightened on the trigger as he brought up his gun and the round slammed harmlessly into the hard-packed earth at our feet. In the flash of light I saw a shocked face above a bandolier of shells and a white shirt, and a pair of bug eyes staring back at me from less than three feet away. I was too close to bring the AK level, so made do by chopping him under the chin and stashing him back inside the hut under a heap of netting and canvas.

We hurried on and hit the beach a few minutes later, emerging between two long bungalows lit by flickering oil lamps. I kept my fingers crossed that the people inside were fishermen and not Musa’s men looking for a taste of glory.

Tober squatted next to me and pointed at a group of five boats in the distance. They were about three hundred metres away across open sand, which is a long way to go with a wounded man losing blood, and being chased by a bunch of trigger-happy gunmen.

But we had no choice.

‘Three of those have got engines that looked in working order,’ he whispered, and stifled a cough. ‘The rest are useless.’

Working order might not be enough to do it, but it was better than the alternative. ‘Good. Can you make it that far?’ He sounded bad and I wasn’t sure I could carry him far; he was a big guy to throw over my shoulder.

‘I’ll beat you any day,’ he muttered sourly.

We set off for the boats, our feet sinking into the softer, sun-dried sand at the top of the beach. It was hard going, especially for Tober, but the sooner we got down on to the harder surface, the easier it would be.

We were about halfway across when whatever thin cloud lay overhead shifted away completely as if a puff of breeze had been thrown up by the fates. Then a shot came sizzling past our heads and a man shouted, followed by others. As we turned and looked, two vehicles burst out through a thin fence at the far end of the beach, throwing wood and palm fronds into the air and charging straight towards us. The lead vehicle had two headlights, while the one behind had only one. We’d met that one already; now he was back for a rematch.

‘Go!’ I shouted, and pushed Tober towards the boats. I needed him to find one that worked and to get the engine started.

But he wasn’t having any of it. ‘Too far,’ he gasped. ‘It’ll take too long and they’ll be all over us before we leave the beach.’

I glanced towards the charging vehicles. He was right: they were moving too fast and would cut us off in seconds. The light of the second one lit up its companion and showed a bunch of armed men clinging on to the back, and among them, something long poking into the night sky. Then a man stood up behind it and swung it down towards us and I felt my blood run cold. I’d seen that profile before.

It was a heavy machine gun.

Jesus, what else were they going to bring to the party?

‘Here.’ Tober jerked a thumb at his shoulder and knelt down heavily on the sand, putting his fingers in his ears. He was indicating that I should use him as a firing platform.

Good plan.

I laid the AK across his shoulders and dropped to one knee, pushing the muzzle as far forward from Tober’s head as I could. I sighted on the lead pickup, which was the most dangerous.

The gunner beat me to it. The muzzle flickered crazily as each round left the barrel, the yammering sound of the shots rolling across the bay towards us in a frenzy of firepower.

The air around us turned crazy as the shots went over our heads in a deadly stream, snapping through the night. But the gunner was too keen to show what he could do and didn’t wait for the truck to hit firmer ground; the pickup was bouncing too much for him to get a bead on us and he had an unsteady platform beneath him. We both ducked instinctively, and I turned my head and watched as a stream of shots curved downwards beyond us and kicked up sand at the water’s edge … and ripped through the very boats we had been heading for.

The devastation was total. The heavy shells tore the wooden hulls apart like papier maché, throwing a shower of wood chunks, torn canvas and punctured engine casing into the air. The shots that missed the boats with engines continued on by and chopped through the remainder, rendering the entire fleet beyond use.

I turned and sighted back on the pickup, and felt Tober settle and take a deep breath to steady himself.

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.