Dictator

23

Before the skids of the helicopter’s undercarriage had hit the ground, Justus was racing across the open ground towards it, urging Zalika to keep pace with him as he went. He tried to keep his body between hers and anyone who might still be out there, but only a few wild, aimless shots were fired in their direction. The downdraft had cleared away the smoke from the flare and it looked as though whoever had been attacking them had lost the will to fight.

Flattie Morrison was standing in the open doorway of the helicopter firing bursts at the retreating figures to speed them on their way. He stopped shooting and reached one hand down to help Zalika up into the passenger compartment.

Justus was next in line. He turned his head to look back across the football pitch.

‘Get in!’ Morrison shouted.

Justus ignored him. Instead he sprinted away from the chopper, back towards the remaining whispers of smoke.

Morrison made Zalika comfortable, then, still standing, turned back to follow Justus’s progress.

Now he knew what his old comrade had seen. Right in the middle of the pitch a black-clad body Morrison instantly recognized as Carver’s was lying face-down, moving slightly, as though retching or gasping for air.

Behind the body, another man was staggering towards it with a knife.

Two more steps and the knife would be plunged into Carver’s defenceless back. Justus stopped some forty or fifty metres away from the knifeman, raised his shotgun, took aim and fired; pumped more rounds into his chamber; pulled the trigger until his magazine was empty and his target blown away.

Morrison gave a wry smile. His wartime lessons had clearly left their mark: fire till the last round is gone. And only then ask questions.

Justus jogged up to the knifeman’s dead body, gave it a quick look, then bent down and helped Carver to his feet. He draped Carver’s right arm across his shoulder and the two of them staggered back across the field.

Morrison raised his gun and swept it from side to side, looking for any possible threats to the two men, but none came. The field behind them was empty, save for the bodies of the dead and those too wounded to walk, crawl or drag themselves away.

Now Justus and Carver were by the helicopter door, and Morrison was taking Carver and hauling him aboard.

So he only had one hand on his gun. And his eyes were focused on Carver, not the field.

He did not see the man lying not far from the changing-room building – the man Carver had hit and wounded barely a minute earlier – summon up the last of his strength, raise himself to his elbows, point his gun and fire.

‘Fuck,’ said Flattie Morrison, almost in surprise.

Then he keeled forward, half in and half out of the helicopter, blood seeping across the back of his shirt.

Justus raised his gun, holding it like a pistol, but there was no need to fire. The wounded man had already slumped back to the ground.

Justus dropped the shotgun and grabbed hold of Morrison’s body. By the time he had dragged it inside the cabin, the pilot had already taken off and was heading for the hills and the safe embrace of the Zambezi river gorge.

Carver looked round the cabin. Zalika was strapped into one of the seats, still disoriented but physically unharmed. Morrison was either dead, or about to be. Justus looked exhausted, caught by the comedown that hits a fighting man when the adrenalin has drained away. He raised a hand and smiled weakly when Carver caught his eye.

‘Nice work,’ said Carver.

Then he, too, slumped back, mentally and physically spent but – the only thing that mattered – still alive.