The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 28

They ducked away from the window milliseconds before the violent explosion shattered the still of the night. The response was exactly as Tuesday had predicted. Within seconds, soldiers from Khosa’s personal guard were rushing out of the hotel, firing off shots at the unseen attackers. A Jeep had caught fire across the street, billowing smoke. Moments later, the first armoured car came screeching onto the scene with its machine guns at the ready, quickly followed by another. Troops spilled out and ran in all directions.

‘Look at them go,’ Jeff said with a smile. ‘It’s total anarchy down there.’

‘Looks like our cue,’ Tuesday said.

The flimsy bunk-room door didn’t take much breaking down. The corridor outside it was empty, just as anticipated. Jeff and Tuesday sprinted through the hotel, found a fire exit staircase leading downwards and within sixty seconds were bursting out of a ground-floor doorway that opened onto a side alley. Chaos was still raging all around the front of the hotel. The burning Jeep had exploded in a blast even more violent than the grenade, scattering blazing wreckage all across the street.

‘All we need now is a vehicle,’ Jeff said.

‘What about that one?’ Tuesday pointed at the hulking black shadow of the Range Rover parked at the side of the hotel. ‘That’ll piss off the generalissimo even more, when he finds out we nicked his wheels.’

‘You cheeky sod. I love it.’

khosa 1 was unlocked, as befitting a man of his fearsome status, and the keys were still in the ignition. Better still, a submachine gun and QBZ rifle complete with sheathed bayonet lay on the back seat, both loaded. The bayonet would come in handy to cut the rope. Both men hoped they wouldn’t need to use the guns.

The inside of the Range Rover smelled of leather and cigars. The dashboard lights and instruments lit up brighter than the flight deck of a jumbo as Jeff twisted the key and the engine burst into life with a rasping twelve-cylinder roar. Where the grid of the city should have appeared on the built-in sat nav, the screen showed only a blank, unmapped nothingness with their GPS coordinates in one corner. Jeff hit the gas hard and the SUV took off like a spurred stallion.

As they sped away from the hotel, Jeff glanced in the rear-view mirror at the scenes of mayhem they were leaving behind. If any of the panicking soldiers spotted Khosa’s vehicle taking off at high speed, they would assume for now that the General was escaping to safety. That might buy a little time. Jeff powered the car through the empty streets, driving like a wild man.

‘That way. Next left,’ Tuesday said, pointing ahead. The dying braziers of the square came into view up ahead, then the makeshift gallows.

‘He’s still there. He’s not moving.’

Jeff screeched to a halt. They leaped out and ran to where Ben’s limp body hung upside down from the wooden beam.

‘He’s alive,’ Jeff said, feeling Ben’s pulse. ‘Mate, can you hear me? Ben?’

Tuesday reached inside the Range Rover to detach the bayonet from the rifle, then clambered up onto the gallows and used the sharp blade to slash the rope. Jeff held Ben tightly in his arms and caught his falling weight as the rope parted. Tuesday jumped back down to the ground. ‘Jesus, he’s a mess,’ he breathed, staring down at Ben’s bloody form.

Jeff said, ‘He’ll be okay. Take his ankles and help me carry him to the car.’

‘Then we head for the hospital and grab Dizolele.’

‘And a big bag of salt,’ Jeff said with a snarl. ‘For me to rub into his wounded leg if the bastard won’t talk.’

They had carried the still-unconscious Ben just halfway to the Range Rover when floodlights burst into life and the whole square was suddenly lit up like day. Soldiers swarmed from the barracks building. More burst out of hiding from behind another building across the street.

‘It’s a trap!’ Jeff yelled as shots cracked off and bullets flew overhead. ‘Hurry!’ They made it to the vehicle and with grunts of effort managed to heave Ben into the back. Tuesday slammed the rear hatch. The enemy force that had appeared out of nowhere was overwhelming. More shots rang out. A side window of the Range Rover exploded from a bullet strike and showered Tuesday with glass fragments as he kept his head down and raced for the driver’s door. Jeff was just a couple of yards further away from the vehicle, but a couple of yards made all the difference with eighty soldiers bearing down on him at full pelt, screaming and brandishing their automatic weapons. ‘Get out of here!’ he bellowed at Tuesday.

Tuesday knew that if he hesitated or looked back even for a second, neither of them was going to get away. He had no choice but to leave Jeff standing there, and regret it later. The Range Rover spun its wheels and fishtailed away in a cloud of burning rubber smoke with the driver’s door flapping.

Alone, Jeff could do nothing as the soldiers flooded towards him from both sides of the street. He was taken — but at least Tuesday was getting away. He launched himself at a soldier who was firing at the escaping Range Rover. He managed to slap the gun down before a rifle butt caught him in the back and slammed him to the ground. More shots blasted out at the vehicle, punching holes in its bodywork and smashing the back window. Captain Umutese had appeared on the scene and was yelling at them to cease fire, cease fire! The white soldier was not to be killed!

Tuesday glanced wildly back out of the shattered rear windscreen as he screamed away with his foot hard to the floor. He saw Jeff being taken by the soldiers, and knocked to the ground; then a street corner was flashing towards him and he sawed at the wheel and went skidding around it on four locked wheels. His heart was pounding like crazy. ‘Hold on, Ben,’ he yelled over the roar of the engine. ‘I’m getting you out of here!’

It had been an ambush. The rescue attempt was badly compromised, but maybe there was still a chance of escape before a whole fleet of Jeeps and armoured cars came tearing after them. Tuesday gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel, driving like he’d never driven before. Buildings flashed by in a tunnelled blur. Nothing looked even faintly familiar and he was beginning to panic, thinking he was lost in the maze of streets.

Then he caught sight of a park on the left that he recognised from the inward journey in the truck, and shortly after that the Range Rover’s headlights were blazing off the fast-approaching construction plant machinery at the edge of the city and he knew he was on the right road out of here.

Moments later, Tuesday was speeding along the smooth, broad stretch of highway that separated the city from the first perimeter fence. His rear-view mirror was empty. He’d given them the slip, but he still had the heavily guarded gates to deal with. He swallowed and pressed his foot down harder.

When the gate guards saw their leader’s personal Range Rover bearing down on them and obviously in a great hurry, they rushed to open the gates in time for it to speed through. They were used to seeing their commander come and go at all kinds of odd times. Though it was highly unusual for him to be travelling without an armed escort, it wasn’t their duty to ask questions.

It was only when the vehicle hurtled past them through the open gates and some of the soldiers noticed the smashed glass and bullet-holed tailgate that they understood that something was wrong. One of them pointed in alarm and began to jabber to his comrades that the single visible occupant he’d glimpsed through the Range Rover’s broken windows was definitely not General Khosa. Realising their mistake in letting it escape, they quickly got on the radio to warn the outer gate that a vehicle was attempting an unauthorised exit. At the other end, the guards muscled up their defences around the gate and got ready to intercept the speeding car with a wall of gunfire that nothing could possibly get through.

It never got there.

The soldiers would find the abandoned vehicle minutes later, left on a dirt slope at the side of the road somewhere in the no-man’s land between the inner and outer perimeters. In the back they discovered a loaded submachine gun and a semi-conscious, battered white man whom they instantly took to be an escaping prisoner, and swiftly recaptured. The unidentified young black driver had vanished into the night.