Whiplash

42

Danny had left Boston and Sugar to pay off the mercenaries, close the camp, and get McGowan’s body and the rest of the gear back home.

The mercenaries were now a liability. Boston couldn’t just dismiss them — they’d sell him out in a heartbeat. But they were clearly on edge, and just from the expressions of the men on watch, he guessed he had a fifty-fifty chance of making it through the day without trouble. Boston told the bus driver, Abul, to find out what the men were thinking. Abul told him he didn’t have to ask.

“They’re anxious about getting paid. They’re wondering what happened to Kirk. And they’re worried about the government making trouble for them.”

“They’ll get everything they’ve been promised,” Boston said. “Unless I’m shot.”

Abul smiled nervously.

Danny and Nuri had driven the Land Cruisers to Khartoum, leaving them at the airport, where they could be picked up by a CIA contact and driven back to Ethiopia. Boston and Sugar had the bus, and two options for evac.

He could have Abul drive them over the Ethiopian border and then to the airport at Bole, just south of the capital of Addis Ababa. Crossing the border with a dead body was a problem, however. Without proper papers, it wouldn’t be allowed. Hiding him would be hard — the Ethiopian border guards thoroughly searched incoming traffic, and by reputation were difficult to bribe.

Driving north to Port Sudan would take longer and probably bring them into contact with regular army patrols — including the one that tried to hold Danny up on the way down. If anyone remembered the bus, they were unlikely to get by without a bribe large enough to buy Manhattan.

Boston opted for Ethiopia, and had asked Breanna to see if something could be arranged with the Ethiopian government to allow the body through without any questions. They were still working on it as night fell. He decided they were bugging out no matter what; it didn’t make sense to give the Sudanese army another day to recover from the drubbing it had taken.

Which brought him back to the question of what to do with the mercenaries.

They’d come from Ethiopia, and so taking them back there seemed like the logical thing to do. But they were frowning when he had Abul tell them at dinner they would go the next day.

“What’s wrong?” he asked Abul.

“They don’t have the right papers. They want to go to Port Sudan.”

“They’re welcome to do that.”

“They say Kirk promised them extra money. And they want more on top of that — twice what they were hired for. The fight with the Sudanese was not what they had planned.”

“I’ll pay them what Nuri left,” said Boston, who knew nothing about any extra bonuses. “It’s not worth debating — I’ll give them everything I have.”

“They think you are cheating them.”

“I’m not.”

“I think they have friends in Port Sudan,” said Abul. “Or maybe nearby. You should give them something, just to appease them.”

Boston looked around the two tables where the men were sitting. Not one of them was smiling.

“I’ll give them the money right now,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with it.”

He went and got the strongbox Nuri had left with the euros. Maybe, he thought, they’d take the hint and leave that night.

But he wasn’t counting on it.

It was just about midnight when Sugar went to the northwestern observation post with some water for the guard there. A minute after she arrived, a shell streaked overhead. She and the guard on watch stared at it wide-eyed, not quite comprehending what was going on.

There was a flash, then a rumble.

“Incoming!” yelled Sugar, throwing herself to the ground next to the sandbags.

The guard followed as several more shells streaked through the air.

Sugar reached for her radio. “Boston! We’re being shelled. Mortars!”

Her words were drowned out by machine-gun fire near the road. Sugar grabbed her gun and started returning fire.

“Go get help!” she yelled to the mercenary. “Go!”

The man didn’t speak English. More important, he didn’t think leaving the safety of the sandbags was a particularly good idea.

“We need help,” she told him. “Bring men and ammunition.”

The machine-gun fire from the other side of the perimeter ratcheted up another notch. Bullets flew nearby, smashing into the rocks behind the post. Shards of stone flew against the sandbags at the side of the post.

“That way, that way,” said Sugar, pointing to the north and then making a loop with her finger. “They’re attacking from this side here. If you go down the hill, they won’t be able to hit you. Go! Get more people!”

She grabbed the radio to call Boston again. The other lookout post had started to return fire, but Sugar couldn’t see anything to aim at. Another shell came overhead. It had been launched from a mortar near the road.

Still not sure what to do, the mercenary took a few tentative steps toward the opening in the sandbag wall at the rear of the position. Another shell landed, this one closer than all of the others. The explosion showered him with dirt and pebbles. That was the last straw — he threw himself into motion, running with his all his might to the main area of the base.

“God, I thought he’d never leave,” said Sugar.

“Careful,” said Boston over the radio. “Some of those guys speak a little English.”

“Yeah.” She pulled her rifle up and fired a few rounds toward the road.

Abul was sleeping in his bus when the gunfire started. He woke with the first explosion. As he scrambled to get his shoes on, two of the mercenaries knocked on the door.

“Driver, come. We’re getting out,” shouted one of the men.

“What’s going on?” answered Abul.

“The army has come. This isn’t our fight. Let us in.”

“My bus will be a target.”

“Let us in!” shouted the man. He smashed the door with the butt end of his rifle.

“No, no, no!” yelled Abul. “Not my bus. Wait! Wait!”

He scrambled forward to the driver’s seat and opened the door. The two mercenaries ran up the steps.

“Where is Commander Boston?” Abul asked.

“Go, just go,” said the man who had pounded on the door. He pointed his rifle at Abul.

“What about the others?”

“Go! Go!”

Abul’s hands began to shake as he struggled to get the key into the ignition. He turned the motor over. It caught but then stalled.

“Out of the seat, you worthless scum,” said the mercenary. He grabbed Abul and threw him down. As Abul struggled to get up, the man’s companion pushed him into the aisle, first with his hand and then with his foot. Abul flew to the floor, tripping over his bedroll and tumbling against the body bag.

The soldier got the bus started and put it into gear. The entire compound was under fire now, from both mortars and machine guns. He pulled the bus out into the open area near the building. Three of his companions were crouched at the edge of the flat, firing toward the blinking guns down the hill.

He threw open the door.

“Get in! Get in!”

As the men jumped onto the bus, Abul got up and yelled at them. “We’re easy targets! Don’t go that way!”

“Shut up, bus driver,” said the mercenary who’d taken the wheel. “We don’t need you.”

The bus jerked into motion. Abul interpreted the soldier’s last sentence as a warning that he could easily be killed. Rather than tempting that fate, he made his way to the back of the bus, sidestepping the dead American’s body with a short prayer asking for forgiveness. He leapt to the door, pushed up the lever, and dove out the back, unsure whether the mercenaries would object to his leaving.

A hundred yards away, Boston zeroed the focus on his night glasses and watched Abul hit the dirt. Things were moving faster than he had planned.

He pulled up the remote detonator and pressed a three-number sequence, detonating a charge on the road about thirty yards in front of the bus. The explosion sent a flash of flames shooting upward — gasoline bombs were always spectacular that way. But the bus driver continued straight along the road, passing through the smoke and staying on the road.

“You better stop that bus, Chief,” said Sugar. “Or we’re gonna be walking outta here.”

“Keep your shirt on,” said Boston.

He lit another explosive, this one in the minefield near the road. More dirt, more flash and smoke. The bus drove on.

Boston had one more charge down the road, but it was obvious that the driver wasn’t stopping for anything that didn’t obliterate the bus. He shoved the detonator into his pocket and picked up his rifle, aiming at the front left tire.

Hitting a tire on a moving bus at 150 yards in the dark is not easy, even with an infrared scope. Which explained why it took him two shots for the first tire and three for the second.

The bus was shaking so much that the driver didn’t realize at first that the tires had been blown. The first hint came when he tried to round the curve. The bus wobbled, then refused to turn. He jerked the wheel hard and the vehicle lurched to its left, the rear wheels skidding forward. He jammed the brakes, which in effect pirouetted the back end of the bus toward the front. It flew over on its side, sliding off the road.

Abul, watching from the roadway, covered his eyes.

Dazed, one of the mercenaries punched out a window and raised himself out of the bus. He emptied his magazine box at some imagined enemy soldiers behind them, then began running down the road.

One by one the others joined him. They ran toward the road for all they were worth, disappearing into the darkness.

Sugar yelled at them from the observation post. “Don’t run away, you bastards! Come back! Come on! Don’t give up!”

They couldn’t hear her over the din, and wouldn’t have stopped if they did.

The gunfire kept up for another ten minutes, mortars lobbing shells and machine guns firing. All were radio-controlled remote units, originally part of the Whiplash defense perimeter. The entire battle had been directed by Boston’s blunt index finger smacking against the buttons of the remote control unit.

“I think you can stop,” said Sugar, watching the mercenaries run off over the hill. “They’re out of sight.”

“Look at my bus!” cried Abul as Boston came down from his lookout post. “Destroyed!”

“It ain’t destroyed,” said Boston. “Why the hell did you jump out?”

“They were going to kill me.”

He pronounced “kill” like “kheel,” dragging out the vowel.

“I hope this don’t mean we’re walkin’,” said Sugar.

“We’ll have to pull it over with the motorcycles,” said Boston.

Sugar was doubtful. The bus lay at the side of a ditch; they would have to fight gravity as well as the bus’s weight.

But gravity turned out to be their friend, indirectly at least.

They had trouble finding a place to attach the ropes, until Boston realized he could simply tie them through open windows. Then he and Sugar — Abul was too depressed — got on the motorcycles and revved them together, starting up the hill. The older bike was too small and weak to do very much; it strained at the rope, but no matter how much gas Sugar gave it, couldn’t budge the bus.

Boston, sitting on the Whiplash bike, had better luck. The big bore V engine had good torque in the lowest gears, a function of a design requirement that called for it to be able to tow a small trailer. But even the Whiplash motorcycle was still just a motorcycle, not a wrecker or a crane. It pulled the bus up about six feet, then refused to go any further.

Boston leaned forward, trying to sweet-talk the bike as if it were a mule.

“Come on now, Bess,” he said, inventing a name. “Just a little more. Almost there, babe. Come on. Come on.”

The bike grunted and groaned. Together they managed to lift the bus another foot and a half. But the strain was too much — the bike’s engine stalled. The bus’s weight pulled it backward. Boston and then Sugar threw themselves to the ground as their motorcycles flew down the hill. The bus slammed down — then, with gravity’s help, rolled over onto its roof, flipped onto its side again, and jerked upward on one set of wheels. It teetered there for a second, its momentum in balance.

Then gravity asserted itself, and it fell forward, landing on its tires.

Abul was practically in tears when he reached it.

“My bus, my beautiful bus,” he said in Arabic. “What have they done to you? What have they done?”

“Suck it up, big boy,” said Sugar, walking down the hill. “Get inside and see if you can start it up.”

The engine had flooded when it turned on its side. Abul tried the key, pumped the gas, then got out and went to the hood. The front end of the bus was so banged up he had to bend the hood to the right to get it open. He fiddled with the air filter and carburetor, then went back into the cab. It started on the second turn.

The next problem were the flat tires. Abul drove it a few yards to a flat spot straddling the roadway and a sharper drop to the left. Then he and Boston went to the back of the bus and wrestled the spares out from their carriage underneath the chassis.

The first was fine. The second was a bit soft.

“Not a problem,” said Abul, pulling it toward the front. “Come on.”

Sugar called Boston over as he pulled down the jack.

“There’s somebody near that ridge,” she told him, pointing with her rifle. “I think our friends decided to come back.”

Boston picked up the gun and peered through the scope. He couldn’t see anything.

“Hey, Abul, how long will it take you to change that tire?”

“Ten minutes. You help me with the jack.”

They had just pulled the last nut off when the gunfire started.

“The tire is stuck!” yelped Abul, ducking and pulling at the same time.

Boston threw himself around the tire, put his right boot on the wheel well and pushed. He fell back with the tire, sliding down the embankment.

“Go, get the damn thing on!” he yelled.

Sugar started returning fire. The mercenaries, realizing they had been duped, were determined to get revenge — and the millions of euros they were sure Kirk would pay in ransom for his people. They spread out in a line, slowly climbing the hill. They were every bit as careful as they’d been at the two earlier battles, but now much better motivated.

Abul’s fingers felt as if they were frozen. He threaded the nuts onto their lugs, turning each slowly.

“Faster, faster, damn it,” said Boston, running up the hill. “Go, get in the bus. Get it going — let’s go.”

He jerked on the last nut himself, then screwed them with his fingers, tightening them as best he could.

“Let’s get out of here!” he yelled to Sugar.

“The bikes!”

“I got them. You get in the bus. Go! Get down the road. I’ll catch up.”

Boston ran to the bikes. He fired a few rounds through the gas tank of the smaller dirt bike, then into the tire. He grabbed the Whiplash cycle and started to jump on when something punched him off and threw him to the ground.

A pair of bullets from one of the mercenaries’ guns had struck his bulletproof vest. He looked around and realized that the man was less than thirty feet away.

And still firing.

Boston ducked down, trying to pull his body around so the vest would absorb the bullets.

The slugs from the MP-5 felt like hammer heads striking his body. He’d lost his rifle as he fell, and for a moment couldn’t locate it. When he finally saw it out of the corner of his eye, it was too late — a boot kicked him in the jaw, sending him over.

The man began cursing him, angrily denouncing him for trying to cheat them. Now he and his employer were going to pay.

Boston drew a quick breath, then exploded upward as the soldier tried to kick him again. His elbow went deep into the man’s solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. A hard chop across his windpipe threw him to the ground.

There were shouts nearby. Boston grabbed the motorcycle, kick-started and gunned it to life as bullets began to fly. Hunkering over the handlebars, he revved toward the bus, now lumbering down the road.

One of the bullets caught his rear tire. The bike began skidding hard to the right. Boston let off on the throttle, then dropped the motorcycle. But he couldn’t quite get off clean and his foot knocked against the gas tank, sending him over to the ground.

He rolled back up and started to run.

Sugar was at the back door of the bus, watching. When she saw Boston fall, she yelled to Abul to stop. Then she started firing at the mercenaries who were following.

“Stop the bus, stop the bus!” she yelled.

Abul had heard only the gunfire. Frightened, he stepped on the gas. Sugar turned and screamed at him.

“Slow down, damn it!”

Abul slapped on the brakes. Sugar flew forward, tumbling all the way to the front.

Boston got to the bus a few seconds later, grabbing the rear door and throwing himself inside.

“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled.

Abul stomped on the gas and the bus jerked forward.

“Get a grenade!” yelled Boston.

“What?” said Sugar.

“Grenade!”

Sugar grabbed her ruck, fished out the launcher, and snapped it to the bottom of her gun.

“Take out the bike,” Boston told her. “Abul, stop so she can aim.”

“That’s a word he doesn’t understand.”

Sugar opened the door as the bus stopped, a little more gently this time. The mercenaries had stopped firing, and she couldn’t see where Boston had left the motorcycle. She pumped a shell across the hill in the general direction.

“I don’t know if I got it,” she told him.

“All right. Let’s just get the hell out of here,” said Boston. “We have to get some distance between us and them.”

“They’re pretty pissed,” said Sugar. “You think they’ll follow?”

“Maybe. More likely they’ll try to turn us in somehow. Hopefully we’ll be in Ethiopia by then.” Boston went up to the front. “Let’s go, Abul. Let’s go.”

“My bus,” said Abul. “It’s ruined.”

“It’s still running, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“We’ll buy you ten when we get home. I promise.”

Encouraged again, Abul put it back in gear.