On target

TWENTY-FIVE

Court looked down at his watch. He began quickly pushing the crowd around him farther off the road, first with nudges and then with shoves.

The Janjaweed commander then shouted something to his dismounted men. It was Sudanese Arabic, but close enough to the Gulf Arabic that Gentry understood.

"Beat them all to death."

Rifles were raised and turned upside down. The weapons' butts were then used to viciously slam into the crowd from all directions. A half dozen men hammered into the bodies of nine men and one woman; they went about their cruel business amid shouts and screams and begging pleas from the victims. At the same time those Janjas on horses and camels began shoving the group tighter and tighter together, using the thick animals' massive bodies to literally crush the pathetic group of defenseless civilians.

Court took a glancing rifle butt in the right shoulder while he was looking in the other direction. It propelled him sideways and knocked him into the haunches of the camel upon which the commander sat. The Janjaweed leader looked down at him with his coal black eyes showing through the folds of his turban. Court winced in pain but again looked down to his watch.

Then he turned to Ellen. She tripped backwards over a felled man and then rolled onto her stomach at Court's feet. She started to get back up as if to run, but there was nowhere to run to. They were completely encircled by the Arab thugs.

And only Court Gentry knew that the safest place in the world for her right now was right where she was, facedown in the dirt.

He dove onto her, used his body to slam her down and his arms to cover her ears.

Here we go, he thought to himself as he tightened his body.

From the third truck, the vehicle in which Court and Bishara had ridden, there came a muted pop, like a car backfiring through its muffler. It was audible, even above the shouts and the cracking of rifle stocks on thin arms and legs, but it wasn't one-tenth the volume Court had expected it to be.

Huh? He lifted his head, looked back, had no idea what he'd done wrong. Underperformance had been the absolute least of his worries.

The beatings stopped momentarily as the Janjaweed looked to the vehicle. Even the Speranza Internazionale staff, lying prostrate or fetal on the ground all around Gentry and Walsh, looked around in confusion.

Smoke billowed out of cab windows and through the slits of the sliding lift door at the back of the cargo space. But the roof did not blow off, there was no cacophonic concussion blast, and certainly no shrapnel.

Orders were barked in Arabic, and a pair of men on horses dismounted, passed their reins off to others standing around, and ran over to the truck. Court knew these men had planned on looting cargo. They needed to see why the cargo in one of the trucks was now smoldering.

The Janjaweed leader shouted another command to the rest of his men, and again Court understood.

"Shoot them all."

The men moved, formed in a single ragged line facing their prostrate victims.

Kalashnikovs were raised, and safety levers were clicked down to the fully automatic setting.

Court stood quickly. One man against dozen, he reached behind his back and under his shirt to grab something hidden there.

And then it happened. For whatever reason, stage one of Gentry's diversion had been all but a dud.

But stage two?

Stage two was a goddamned masterpiece.

As the men neared the rear of the vehicle there was another loud bang, then the demonic high-pitched scream of a missile launch. The acetylene tank rocketed out of the back, a jet of fire behind it. Almost faster than the eye could pick up its image it smashed in a downward angle through the windshield of truck four and buried itself into the cargo space of the rear vehicle.

The big four-ton truck shuddered on its chassis.

Court spun back towards Walsh, tackled her to the ground once again.

The truck exploded in a flash of fire, eardrums were assaulted with a deafening thunder, brains were slammed around inside skulls with a concussion like a brickbat to the temple. Court felt the flame envelop his body and then dissipate in an instant. The quick burn sucked the oxygen from the air and starved his lungs. He gasped and grunted, inhaled nothing until new air moved in and he could catch a fresh breath.

He fought the pain in his chest and the daze in his head, looked up to see that the concussive battering had rendered one Janja dead instantly, while three more were knocked off their horses and stunned. One more fighter, one of the men who had just moved between vehicles three and four, simply ceased to exist. Only his frightened horse running off into the distance gave any proof that he was ever there. Two more Arabs were burned and wounded by projectiles fired out of the exploding vehicle.

Six seconds after the blast, flaming scraps of debris were still falling and scattering all around them. Horses and camels alike were spooked; they danced and sprinted and wobbled on shaky legs.

Every single one of the SI crew were dazed at least and concussed at worst, but they'd all been on the ground and therefore were somewhat less affected by the blast. Gentry and Walsh made out the best of everyone because he'd covered both his ears with his upper arms and hers with his hands. Still, he staggered while rising to his knees. He glanced at truck four, looked past men staggering around like drunkards. Its cab was bent and blackened and twisted but intact, its wheels and chassis and gas tanks and flatbed were still in place, but the sides and roof of the cargo container were simply gone, the gas bladders contained there were up in smoke, the other goods that had been housed in the cargo space now all over the road and burning, or even still floating through the air. Court turned now, still a bit unsteady, took a full, awkward step towards the commander, who had somehow managed to remain in the saddle on his monstrous camel. The camel and one other horse were the only animals not to scatter after the detonation. The Janjaweed leader lifted his wire-stocked Kalashnikov up towards Gentry. The white man was the only person from the convoy on his feet now, but the commander himself was slow and disoriented. He just got his muzzle up when Court knocked it to the side with his open left hand. In his right hand Gentry retrieved the instrument he'd kept hidden under his shirt in the small of his back.

It was the hammer-hatchet combo, wielded to the sharp side, and Gentry windmilled it down from over his head with all the strength in his shoulder and back, sank the hatchet's blade squarely into the kneecap of the camel-mounted Janjaweed commander.

There was no scream from the man, but his knee lurched up, and he grabbed at it in agony. The hatchet remained embedded in the bone of the kneecap and deep into the femur, and the handle pulled free from Court's grip. The man slid off the saddle on the opposite side of his attacker, fell the six feet or so backwards, slamming his neck and back into the dusty earth, his rifle tumbling back with him.

Court turned away from the now riderless camel and spun towards Ellen Walsh, who was scrambling away from the men and the trucks on her hands and knees. From behind him he heard full automatic fire from a Kalashnikov. Even though he'd covered his ears before the blast of the truck, the gunfire sounded tinny and distant. His eyes next went to the rear vehicle. Fires burned all around it from the massive detonation. He knew the gas tanks could go up at any time, they all were well within the blast radius, and every living thing could be killed if they were this close when it detonated and the chassis and drive train turned to a thousand supersonic slugs of hot metal.

Another burst of AK fire behind him encouraged Gentry to find himself his own weapon. The Janja commander's AK would be lying on the other side of the camel. Court began turning around to go after it, but then something huge slammed into his back, as if he had been hit by a bus at speed. He crumpled forward with an incredible weight on him from behind. Gentry fell to the ground face-first with a grunt, his arms askew. Instantly he knew he was pinned down on the hard earth by something massive and unyielding.

Looking back over his shoulder he saw the gargantuan camel lying on top of him, covering him from his waist down. The hairy beast's head had flopped around in its death throes and ended up facing Court: vacant eyes with oddly long lashes, flared teeth, and a droopy wet tongue hanging out. The animal had been felled with an assault rifle, and after only a second or two of scratching into the dirt with his fingers and hands did Gentry realize there was no way he would be able to get out from under nearly fifteen hundred pounds of dead weight by himself.

He reached behind his back, tried to get hold of anything fastened to the saddle of the camel that could help him unpin his legs or, failing that, at least something that would help him fight from where he lay.

But there was nothing within his awkward reach.

And the fight continued around him. Five feet from his face an SI driver clambered to his knees, blood trickling down his ears from the concussion of Gentry's overcooked car bomb. Behind him other men, both Speranza Internazionale and Janjaweed, were all moving in different directions and at different speeds, each man at a unique point in the timeline of recovery from the brutal shock wave. A Janja, also dazed by the explosion, tried and failed to climb back up on his camel. The beast was having none of it, backing up and away from the Arab, who finally gave up. Instead he yanked the rocket-propelled grenade launcher free of the scabbard on the camel's side. He spun around. Court watched but was helpless to do anything as the man then raised the weapon. He seemed uncertain of a target for a long time. Gentry knew he was surely close enough to his intended victims, the men in the dirt on the side of the road, that he would no doubt blow himself up in trying to destroy them. But the man was out of it, disoriented. He pointed the RPG and pulled the trigger, seeming to forget that the tube on his shoulder possessed an external hammer that must be cocked for the weapon to fire. He looked the launcher over. Court watched him, legs pinned down by the fifteen-hundred-pound carcass, and soon enough the Janja seemed to figure out his mistake. He charged the weapon and resighted it on the crowd of staggering men.

A burst of rifle fire from the other side of the camel forced Court's head down into his neck like a turtle escaping to the shelter of his shell. The Janjaweed with the rocket launcher stumbled backwards, fired his weapon into the air, the back blast into the dust and sand of the Saheli track enveloped the man as he fell dead.

The gray smoke from the rocket-propelled grenade shot upwards into the blue sky but angled off harmlessly towards the south.

Court looked back over his shoulder again, just as young Bishara vaulted the dead camel, ducked down on Court's side to cover himself, a smoking AK-47 in his hands.

A huge white grin on his face greeted Court.

"Man, you blew up that truck, American!" He rose and fired a short burst over the camel's brown stomach at a target Gentry could not see, pinned as he was facedown in the dirt. The return fire was sporadic, but Gentry saw dust kick up between his position and the trucks in the road. Rasid, the SI driver from Court's truck, pulled the AK from the camel of the dead RPG man and returned fire with no real skill for doing so. He held the AK out in front of him, shut his eyes as he pulled the trigger, and the gun leapt all around as 7.62-millimeter bullets snapped through the air just above Gentry's head. Bishara ducked down from this new threat, turned, and screamed at the older man. Court hoped he was telling him to watch where he pointed his fucking gun.

"You gonna fight, American?" Bishara asked Court, still smiling. He seemed to be enjoying this chance to kill the Janjaweed murderers who had destroyed much of his homeland under orders from President Abboud.

"I'm stuck," replied Court, still trying to pull himself free. He did not feel pain in his legs, only intense pressure, and he prayed he wouldn't find anything broken when he finally did get extricated from under the camel.

Bishara fired another burst over the dead animal. Its long, fat body provided excellent cover, but Court knew the Janjaweed horsemen on the other side could flank his and Bishara's position at any moment.

The young Zaghawa tribesman slung the AK around his neck, took Gentry by both arms, and, while still crouched low behind the camel, pulled with all his might. Court did not budge. One of the other SI men crawled over and shared duty with Bishara, each taking an arm, and this time Court felt his body becoming unwedged. Gentry tried to dig his knees into the dirt to help pry him out from the punishing weight of the massive animal carcass above him. More AK bursts from the Janjaweed by truck one sent both Sudanese men to the dirt next to Gentry, but they scrambled back up after a moment for another heave of the sweaty white man pinned under the camel. Their third try was successful; Court felt his legs and then his feet break free. They tingled and ached, but he could move them. Nothing was obviously broken, so he kept his head down low and clambered to his knees.

Gentry looked up to see the driver who had pulled him free keeping his own head low to the ground, but Bishara was in a half crouch, pulling his Kalashnikov back up to the firing position, his eyes fixed on a threat on the other side of the camel and a determined look on his face.

A burst of automatic fire from behind Court and, just like that, young Bishara spun around, cried out in surprise, and crumpled to the dirt, dead in an instant.

But in the next instant Court yanked the bloody, dirt-covered AK off of the hard packed dirt road and spun around on his knees. He peered over the camel, and saw six Janjaweed fleeing on horseback. They were crossing behind truck one in the distance, leaving his sight line. He managed to fire one aimed round, striking the low back of the last horseman. The Janja man tumbled out of his saddle and into the sand.