Dictator

83

As he blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dazzling sunshine after the darkness of the van, Justus took in a scene of total pandemonium. All around him, drivers had abandoned their vehicles. Cars were slewed across the road. Not far away, passengers were fighting to get off a bus. Pedestrians were running for the shelter of shops and offices, or huddling for cover behind parked cars. The reason for their fear was apparent: the four men positioned around the prison van.

Justus felt a hand grabbing his wrist and pulling it hard.

‘This way,’ said Carver, leading him round the side of the van.

In the front seats, the driver and guard were slumped forward, unconscious. A dart was sticking out of the driver’s neck, exactly like the ones Justus had seen being used to sedate wild game when he worked at the Stratten Reserve. Up ahead, a truck had blocked the van’s way, stopping just before a crossroads.

‘Get in,’ said Carver, gesturing at the passenger door of a large white four-wheel-drive.

‘Where are my children?’ asked Justus, fear in his voice as he looked around the interior of the car.

‘Don’t worry, they’re safe,’ Carver replied, getting in the front passenger seat.

Two of the gunmen got in the back, squeezing Justus between them. Up ahead, the truck began rumbling over the crossroads, oblivious to the traffic coming from either side, forcing its way through. Another vehicle pulled in behind it, a four-by-four like the one Justus was in, but with an extra row of seats. Justus could see Canaan and Farayi sitting in the middle row. He wanted to cry out to them but bit his tongue. They would not be able to hear and he did not want to seem ridiculous in the eyes of the men around him.

‘Let’s go,’ Carver told the driver, and they set off, taking the third place in line, the speed picking up as they followed the truck.

Now they were racing through the middle of Buweko, passing modern office blocks and grand old redbrick colonial buildings, faster and faster, amid the roar of engines and the almost continuous blare of the truck’s own klaxon up ahead as it urged everyone else on the road to make way.

They crossed two full city blocks, then five… ten… and then came the wail of a police siren. Justus twisted his head to see a police car come speeding out of a side street, almost losing control as it skidded round the corner, then gathering itself and chasing after them. A few seconds later, a second police car joined the chase.

One of the men next to Justus said, ‘Cover your ears.’

The man turned in his seat and pointed his gun back down the road. Then he fired a single thunderous shot and the rear wind-screen simply vanished as if it had never been. He rotated his head to ease his neck muscles, settled over the sights of his gun and pressed the trigger. As the noise crashed round the four-by-four, the drum magazine rotated, cartridges were spewed from the side of the gun and a gigantic hammer of flying lead hit the leading police car and obliterated it.

Justus had fought in a long and bloody war. He had witnessed more slaughter and destruction than any human being should have to face. But he had never seen anything like that before.

The police car seemed to stop dead in the road. The car behind went skidding into its rear. A policeman got out of the passenger seat and ran away with his hands in the air.

The gunman let him go. He stopped firing and slipped back down into his seat.

‘Damn!’ he said. ‘That was fun!’