Dictator

17

There was a football pitch on the edge of town, out beyond the last houses. On the road leading up to it, just behind one of the goals, stood a large warehouse used for storing food sent to the area by aid agencies. To one side of the pitch, by the halfway line, was a small stand made of scaffolding with a dozen rows of seats to hold a couple of hundred spectators. Directly opposite, on the far side of the ground, a motley collection of concrete buildings, little more than tin-roofed huts, provided changing rooms and an office. The playing area itself comprised an area of flat, beaten-down earth without a blade of grass upon it, surrounded by a few wooden poles topped by rudimentary floodlights. Carver had taken one look at the aerial photographs of the village and picked it immediately as his extraction point.

His plan had been to coordinate his arrival there with that of the helicopter. That way there’d be no hanging around. The chopper would touch down, the girl would be bundled aboard, swiftly followed by Carver, then they’d be off again. Now he had time to kill. And what bothered him was the possibility that time might kill him first.

‘Pull up over there,’ Carver said, as Justus got to the warehouse. He pointed towards a padlocked door, above which a security light gave off enough of a weak, flickering glow to illuminate the van and draw any pursuer’s eye. Just raising his arm made the cracked surfaces of his broken rib grind together, sending another agonizing jab into his chest.

Carver gave Justus the torch. That hurt too. Everything hurt. There were painkillers in Carver’s medical kit, but any dose strong enough to make him forget his ribs would by definition dull his senses and lessen his effectiveness. It was better to hurt and stay alive than be drugged up and die.

‘Take her over to the huts,’ he said. ‘One of them is painted pale blue. I’ll meet you inside it.’

The girl looked from Carver to Justus and back again. Carver had tried to explain to her that they were all working for her uncle Wendell Klerk, but she was still mentally paralysed by the unrelenting traumas she’d been forced to endure.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safe with him.’

‘Have no fear, Miss Zalika,’ said Justus, grinning, as he pulled out from beneath the dashboard a weapon that looked like an oversized black pistol. ‘This is a very powerful shotgun. No one gonna get you now.’

‘Go,’ said Carver. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

Justus got out of the VW, walked round to the passenger door and took Zalika’s hand, helping her out. She gave one last look towards Carver then let Justus lead her away.

Carver watched them go. He spent about a minute more in the VW van. Then he grabbed his gun and walked across to the warehouse door. He put a single bullet through the padlock and freed the chain that secured it. Then he opened the door. An alarm began to ring. Carver did not seem concerned. Another twenty seconds passed as he stood by the half-open door. Finally he took a step back, looked at the opening, nodded to himself and loped away towards the changing rooms.

Not far away, he could hear the growl of an approaching engine. Carver picked up his pace.