The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 44

On the bullet-scarred corner of Rue Okapi and Avenue Laurent Kabila across the street from what was obviously now the residence of the former governor of Luhaka, an unseen figure watched from a shadowy doorway and counted the soldiers milling around the front of the building opposite.

Finding the spot had been easy — all Ben had had to do was follow the trail of dead men. The doorway he was using for cover belonged to the entrance hall of a large, comfortable townhouse whose owners must have fled at the first sign of trouble. Wisely so, because the house had taken quite a bit of fire during the exchange between the attacking army and the defending forces across the street. Its ground-floor windows were mostly reduced to empty frames, the front door was matchwood and the façade was going to need a lot of stone repairs. The owners had made their escape from the back door, not bothering to close it on their way out, which was how Ben had got inside.

By the time Ben had got here, the show across the street had already been pretty much over. Meanwhile the distant gunfire that had been crackling here and there across the surrounding city blocks had all but died out, dwindling to just the occasional solitary pop. The radio he’d taken from Umutese’s body spluttered and fizzed every few seconds, broadcasting snatches of jubilant back-and-forth dialogue in French and Swahili as the troops gained full control of the city. They sounded giddy with happiness at having won.

The outcome of the attack on Luhaka had probably never been much in doubt. But Ben would have advised the winners not to crack open the champagne too soon. Victory had a way of being snatched out from under you at the very last minute. Sometimes, all it took was a determined man with a gun, the skill to use it, and nothing left to lose. And there was one of those standing right across the street.

He took in the scene. What would normally have been a busy main boulevard filled with traffic and people was empty and hushed, as if the entire population of the city had died of plague overnight or suddenly emigrated to Venus. The only vehicles in sight were those Ben could see parked in a ragged formation at the foot of the white stone columns at the entrance to the governor’s mansion. One armoured car had led the assault, battering through the gates and soaking up the worst of the gunfire. Behind it was parked Jean-Pierre Khosa’s new Hummer, sporting a few bullet holes of its own but relatively undamaged. A motley procession of technicals had followed, with a second armoured car bringing up the rear.

The last stand of the governor’s personal guard had been brief but fairly intense, judging from the number of dead attackers strewn about the lawns. Their surviving comrades left outside to guard the entrance were leaning on their weapons, smoking and laughing and generally winding down from the adrenalin-pumped immediate aftermath of battle. Ben counted thirty-four of them, and reckoned there would be at least as many inside the building, if not more.

A lot for one man to go up against alone, but nothing compared to the numbers that would soon start appearing as the hundreds and thousands of troops currently still circling for blocks around, taking out the last scraps of resistance and merrily raping, looting, and pillaging for all they were worth, gradually recongregated around their leader.

As far as Ben was concerned, the time to strike was now.

He weighed up his options, of which he could see just three. The grounds were fenced off from the street by a high iron railing that ran eighty metres both ways up and down Avenue Laurent Kabila. Option A was to slip past the entrance and work his way quickly and quietly along the railing as far as the corner, then creep around the side of the building and look for a convenient way in. Which would be virtually impossible, even for him, to achieve without being seen. He discounted it right away.

Option B was to retrace his steps back a few blocks, find a side street running parallel to Avenue Laurent Kabila that wasn’t teeming with soldiers, and track round in a wider flanking manoeuvre to come at his objective from the rear, in the hope that he could slip inside the grounds and either set up a sniper position outside with a good view of the windows, or infiltrate the building.

Option B wasn’t much better than Option A, for four reasons: first, the extreme risk of getting nabbed by a street patrol before he even got close; second, the lack of an appropriate sniper weapon capable of picking off a target through a window at anything better than medium range; third, the reliance on pure luck in hoping Khosa would appear at a window in the first place; and fourth, the exposure while crossing the grounds in full view of the rear of the house.

And all of that was even before he got inside and faced the task of tackling an unknown and vastly superior number of opponents without any real firepower of his own.

So, as crazy as it seemed at first glance, Option C was his best bet. The attack needed to be swift, explosive, and direct, and bold strokes were called for. Option C ticked those boxes just fine. It involved him walking out of his doorway, straight across the street and in through the gate. They’d spot him right away, of course, but before anyone had time to react he’d surprise them with a one-man assault on the entrance, keeping up a steady walking fire and taking down as many men as he needed in order to get inside the rearward armoured car.

That would be Phase One, and he reckoned it was just about feasible if he didn’t catch an unlucky bullet.

Phase Two would be where the fun began. Ben ran the scenario through his mind, visualising it frame by vivid frame like a widescreen movie playing in slow motion inside his mind. Jumping in and locking down the hatch behind him. A fury of point-blank gunfire pinging and popping off the armour-plate shell, like being inside a metal drum during a hailstorm. Diving behind the controls, gunning the throttle and rolling straight towards the entrance of the mansion, crushing and battering its way through the vehicles blocking its path and not slowing for the doorway. The thick steel shell of the vehicle smashing past the columns, up the steps and right through the door, bringing down half the wall as it ploughed inside.

Next, Ben visualised himself abandoning the controls and rushing rearwards to grab the tail machine gun and empty it in the direction of the soldiers who tried to storm into the building after him. Piling them up like sandbags all over the front steps. Then clambering up to the main gun turret and turning his attention on the inside of the building, wreaking all kinds of destruction before making his exit back out of the hatch and escaping through the smoke and confusion to go and find Khosa.

Not exactly a subtle kind of strategy. Potentially effective, more than likely a one-way ticket for him. Ben had no problem with that. As long as he achieved what he’d set out to do, he was willing to pay the boatman. Nothing else mattered.

Ben remembered the witch doctor’s prediction of his death. Maybe the weird old bastard had been able to see something, after all. Should have put money on it.

He took three deep breaths. His pockets were weighed down with spare ammunition and there was a fresh thirty-round mag clipped into his weapon. Cocked, locked, set to fire, good to go. He wasn’t afraid. He would leave that part to his enemies.

He shouldered his rifle, muttered, ‘Fuck it,’ and stepped out of the doorway to meet whatever was coming.

Except that he hadn’t sensed the presence behind him.

‘Psst,’ said the voice.