Warlord

by James Steel

  He gets the frequency and his signaller raises Arkady on the radio, who calls Alex up to the cockpit.

  ‘Black Hal, this Bronze Six, advise you should not approach Mukungu base. It will be targeted by airstrike at 18.30 hours.’

  In the noisy cockpit of the helicopter Alex closes his eyes.

  Reilly continues, ‘What is your ETA there?’

  ‘Bronze Six, our ETA is 18.25.’

  ‘Negative, Black Hal, that is too short to assault and extract a prisoner. I cannot delay the airstrike, I need it a-sap, we’re in deep shit here. I have ten men left and the Secretary of State to protect! You were supposed to be providing security for us!’

  Alex pauses before replying and rests his forehead on his hands for a moment. ‘Bronze Six, I have failed you, I am sorry.’

  ‘Black Hal, that is no good to me now. You cannot go back in to Mukungu now, if you go back you will die!’

  Alex pauses again before answering quietly, ‘Bronze Six, I know. Out.’

  The truck accelerates along the road towards the American camp at 6.20 p.m. Joseph and the four other men crouching behind the burning vehicle hear it coming and grip their rifles in anticipation.

  Reilly is back up on the roof and directs Jackson to fire another grenade. He kneels and sights on the truck.

  Joseph scrambles away from the back wheels and glances round the rear bumper. He sees the American kneeling on the roof lit up by the orange flames from the burning cab, raises his rifle and fires a long burst. The heavy slugs hit the soldier in the legs and track up across his body knocking him over backwards.

  Joseph screams with victory. At last, his first combat killing!

  Reilly presses his face down on the roof. A few soldiers bang out shots at the truck but the grenade launcher was the only thing that was going to stop it dead.

  It roars on at the wire gate, its front bonnet looking tall and powerful. Attackers stand up in the grass and cheer as it crashes through the flimsy wire and ploughs on into the first prefab hut, smashing the walls to shards as the long nose buries into it. The crowd of men with guns on the back of it jump off and run forward.

  Reilly and the others leap off the roof just in time and fall back around the next line of huts in their last-ditch defence.

  Joseph roars and leads the other men out of their hiding place. They run forward, weapons raised, hunting their prey in the light of the flames.

  Alex stands and stares out of the back of the helicopter at the black rain and rushing darkness below him.

  He is bewildered by pain over Sophie but filled with anger as well at the betrayal of his men by Rukuba. A murderous revenge is brimming in his heart.

  He has made preparations with Yamba as best they can for their two-man assault on the base but he doesn’t know if they will be enough. Realistically he has a few minutes left to live but it does not bother him.

  Mordechai told him on the radio that the pictures from the drone circling overhead showed Mahmood’s helicopter touch down on the lawn outside Rukuba’s farmhouse. A prisoner was marched off the back of it and into the house. At least they know Col is alive and where they need to attack; whether the plan will work is another thing.

  Johnson’s voice blares out of the desk speaker in the Oval Office, she is desperate and shouting, ‘Asani, you’ve gotta help us, they’ve broken through the perimeter, they’re coming for us!’

  The President, Kruger and the other officials crowding round the desk stare at the speaker ashen-faced. Though they are thousands of miles away, satellite technology has brought the battle right into the heart of the White House: they can hear the bangs as bullets smash through the walls of the hut over her head and grenades explode nearby as the attackers lob them at the remaining American soldiers.

  Johnson and the other diplomats and journalists are all lying on the floor, the hut they are in is pitch black. All over America the population is getting a similar blacked-out screaming commentary on the crisis from Carla Schmidt and the other network journalists.

  ‘How long till the missiles hit?’ Johnson yells over the noise outside; she can’t see her watch.

  Kruger leans forward and shouts back, ‘Five minutes, Patricia, you’ve gotta hang in there, we’re pushing them as fast as we can.’

  Joseph runs round the corner of a hut following the men from the back of the second truck. The first six of them are cut down in a hail of bullets from Americans firing from the top of two huts in a crossfire. The bodies twist and fall in front of him and he turns and darts back round the corner of a prefab with Simon. He pulls a grenade out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Here.’ He hands his rifle to Simon, stands back from the hut, pulls the pin out and pitches it forward onto the roof of the hut opposite him. In the two-second delay there is a confused shout and then a loud bang and someone starts screaming in pain.

  Kudu Noir soldiers dart round the corner of other huts and spray long wild bursts of fire at the Americans. Joseph rushes forward from behind them and throws another grenade around the next corner.

  Alex peers out of the side door of the helicopter as it circles over Mukungu. He can see the old farmhouse on the edge of the hill with the lawn in front of it. Lights blaze from the windows and arc lights on the roof illuminate the Fadoul company helicopter parked on the lawn.

  Arkady brings the chopper in slowly towards the house and Alex sees Unit 17 and Kudu Noir soldiers run out of the farmhouse with rifles and look up at them in confusion. Some raise their weapons to fire but then an argument breaks out as they see the Fadoul company logo on the side of the helicopter. It is approaching slowly to land and doesn’t seem to be a threat; an officer knocks down a rifle raised by one soldier and walks out onto the lawn, looking up and waving them in.

  Alex ducks back from the door and glances at Yamba in the cargo bay who nods grimly and they make their final preparations.

  The door of Johnson’s hut bursts open and Reilly rushes in. ‘Anybody know how to fire a weapon?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m a shooter.’ A journalist shouts back and stands up from the carpet of bodies.

  ‘M4 carbine, two magazines.’ Reilly shoves them into his hands. ‘You take that window, I take this one. Anyone moving out there now is a bad guy. We’ve got to hold them off for three minutes!’

  The six missiles scream on through the night searching for their quarry. Technicians on the USS Gettysburg send out signals to them and the pack splits into two groups, three missiles diverging off towards the American base and three heading towards Mukungu half a mile away.

  With minutes to go till they reach their targets, ejection ports slide open on both sides of each long missile. Bomb racks inside them whirr and click and bring the first of their one hundred and sixty-six bomblets next to the ports ready to be ejected.

  The barrage of grenades and gunfire drives the Americans back towards the centre of the complex. Joseph runs forward to the corner of a hut and looks round it. Flames are pouring up from burning huts behind him set on fire by the explosions and in the light of them he sees a rifle poke out of a window in a building.

  ‘There!’ He points it out to Simon. ‘You fire, I go!’

  The gunman at the window sees them and fires a burst that shreds the wooden corner post over their heads.

  Simon lies flat on the ground, crawls forward, pokes the end of the rifle round the corner and sprays a whole magazine towards the window. Joseph dashes forward towards the door to the hut, kicks it open and lobs in a grenade.

  Reilly is firing at targets on the other side of the hut when the door is kicked open behind him. Light comes into the hut from the flames outside and someone yells, ‘Grenade!’

  Screams of panic burst from the people lying on the floor as they scramble over each other to get away from it.

  Reilly’s senses are adrenaline-fast. In a split second he turns and sees the metal ball thump onto the floor and the space opening up around it as people scuttle away from it. He knows it’s going
to blow and he has to protect the people in the room. He hurls himself forward onto it and covers it with his chest.

  In the Oval Office, the President, Kruger and the others all hear the blast of the grenade muffled by Reilly’s body. Johnson screams, the President flinches and everyone looks aghast.

  Joseph runs forward to the door of the hut with his rifle held up in front of him. He looks in and sees about twenty people scuttling on the floor to get away from him. He looks down at a middle-aged woman who has a satellite phone in one hand and her back pressed up against one wall. She looks up at him in terror, her mouth hanging open – he’s seen that face of helpless fear before, it’s the one that recurs in his nightmares and he hates it.

  He raises his rifle and screams as he fires a burst into her and then turns the gun on the rest of the room and sprays bullets over them. President Rukuba said to exterminate the cockroaches in their house and that is exactly what he is doing.

  Chapter Sixty

  The helicopter settles down gently on the lawn and sinks onto its wheels. The ramp lowers slowly at the back of it and the crowd of soldiers on the veranda pushes forward curious to see who will emerge – more prisoners? A gasp goes up from them as a tall figure walks down the ramp.

  It ducks its head down under the whirling rotors and then straightens up and walks towards the crowd of men and stands still in front of them.

  The tall creature is half man, half beast. The massive kudu head stares imperiously at the soldiers; to the top of its huge twisted horns it is eight feet high. It wears a long army rain cape that drapes down over its front and back and flaps in the wind from the chopper. It carries no weapons but stands and gazes slowly and commandingly at them.

  A Kudu Noir soldier comes out of the aircraft and stands next to the creature. He is also wearing a cape and carries no weapons. His eyes dart across the crowd from the ragged eyeholes in his black mask.

  The Kudu Noir soldiers are ecstatic to see one of their commanders and start howling and yelling, ‘Kuuuudu! Kuuuudu!’

  Alex stares out of the eyeholes of the mask. The weight of it and its wicker frame is heavy on his shoulders. Inside it is stuffy and smells of animal hide and the blood of the man he beheaded to get it. He looks slowly across the crowd of soldiers as he counts them and assesses their weaponry. They are armed with rifles but they look drunk and excited.

  Behind him he hears the helicopter wind up its engine and lift off. The wind whips his cape around him and he thinks, ‘We’ve got five minutes before the missiles hit, how do we get Col out in time?’

  The crowd presses forward towards Alex shouting excitedly, but Yamba leaps in front of them holding his hands up and yelling, ‘Don’t touch, don’t touch!’ in Swahili.

  He pushes the men away from Alex who walks forward towards the veranda of the house.

  Yamba yells at the men, ‘Where is our prisoner? We want to see him!’

  A Kudu Noir shouts back, ‘He’s in the cowshed out the back! We got him! We got one of those bastards!’

  Alex continues to be mystically silent and walks towards the door into the house but a Unit 17 officer stands in front of him barring the way. He is annoyed with the Kudu Noir men for acting like they run the show in Mukungu. He holds his hand up in front of Alex. ‘You can’t see him now, the President is interrogating him.’

  Alex looks at the man five feet in front of him and thinks, ‘This has gone as far as it can.’

  His rain cape whips back and the AA-12 machine shotgun hanging on a harness on his chest comes up in his hands. He doesn’t need to bother sighting, he just fires on full auto. At such short range the fat twelve-bore cartridges blow holes in the Unit 17 officer and he then turns and pours fire at the crowd on the veranda. They stand stunned as the solemn, mysterious creature suddenly bursts into deadly life and shreds men with a fury.

  Behind him Yamba also pulls his AA-12 from under his cape and fires off a full magazine. Between the two of them, sixty rounds of buckshot blast into the crowd on the veranda and the lawn in a few seconds.

  Having massacred the men, Alex and Yamba quickly pull off the empty magazines, slap new ones home and then dig grenades from their webbing and throw them into the house through the door. They dart away along the veranda as the double blast blows out the windows and the room plunges into darkness.

  Alex pulls the kudu mask off and the night air feels fresh and cool on his skin. He darts into the doorway with his weapon held at his shoulder. Now that they have started shooting he can hear shouts of alarm from the other side of the farmhouse. They have got to get to Col in the cowshed fast before he is killed or the missiles hit.

  Nothing moves in the room so he and Yamba run on through it to the other side of the farmhouse. Alex switches out a light and they both dart across to a window overlooking the farm buildings at the back and quickly look out of it. He can see the cowshed fifty yards away and soldiers emerging from it and other buildings, looking shocked but bringing their weapons up as they stare at the now dark farmhouse in confusion.

  Alex ducks back from the window. ‘How many?’ he says quietly to Yamba.

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘OK. I’ll fire from here and you go right flanking round the side of the farmhouse.’ He checks his watch quickly. ‘We’ve got four minutes before the missiles hit.’

  Yamba nods, ducks down away from the window and runs out of the room.

  Alex gives him ten seconds to get round the side of the building and then kneels at the window and sights on the men approaching cautiously across the farmyard with their rifles raised.

  He clicks on auto again and fires off the full mag. Yamba opens up as well from his right and the crossfire cuts most of them down. Three men dart back into cover and then emerge from around a corner and fire long bursts across at them.

  ‘Shit,’ Alex thinks, ‘we don’t have time for a protracted firefight.’ He slams in a fresh magazine and ducks over to another window before popping up and firing at the corner of the building where the gunmen are hiding and sees chunks of wood being blown off it.

  He needs to change the game here and quickly. He yanks off the magazine and rummages in the bandolier on his chest. He pulls out a magazine with blue markings on its side, slams it into the weapon, gets back to his firing position and sights on the corner where the three soldiers are and pulls the trigger.

  Each shotgun shell fires a three-inch-long projectile, folding fins popping out as it leaves the barrel. The mini-grenades hit the corner of the building and blow it away. Shrapnel bursts out and spatters into the heads of the three men crowding behind it.

  Alex hears their screams. He grunts with satisfaction, quickly pulls off the grenade magazine and slaps a shotgun one back in the port. Then he is up and running to the door. He bursts out and his cloaked figure sprints across the open ground to the cowshed. A man emerges from behind another building and sights on him but Yamba blasts two shells into him and he goes down.

  Alex kicks in the door at one end of the long low building and runs in. It is empty and lit by harsh neon striplights. A soldier is walking towards him with his rifle levelled and fires from the hip. Alex drops to one knee and blasts two rounds at him with the twelve-gauge. The man is thrown backwards and his rifle clatters on the concrete floor.

  Behind him Rukuba leaps up from the chair he has been sitting on. Kneeling in front of him with his hands cuffed behind his back is Col; blood is running down the side of his face from a blow by a rifle butt.

  Rukuba’s tall figure is a blaze of white under the neon lights. His head darts around the room looking for another exit but the only door is blocked by the tall, bloodstained mercenary with an automatic shotgun held tight in at his shoulder and aimed at him. Alex stares at him over his sights.

  Rukuba’s eyes are wide with shock and desperation. His hands flutter up at his sides, like two panicking birds. ‘Colonel Devereux …’ he says, his voice high pitched with fear as he tries to think how he can talk his way out of the sit
uation.

  Alex lowers the muzzle of the gun slightly and stares at him. What should he do? Arrest him; allow the rule of law to take its course?

  Two minutes until the missiles hit.

  Rukuba finally finds something to say. ‘It was for the good of the people, for Kivu, we needed to take control …’

  Images flicker through Alex’s head: Sophie’s dead body, the artillery ambush of the helicopters, the desperate battle in the forest and the brave men that now lie there.

  Rukuba looks at him with his mouth open and his hands held up in appeal. Alex lowers the muzzle of the gun and Rukuba drops his hands in relief.

  The shot reverberates inside the low room. The blast hits Rukuba’s left knee and nearly severs his leg. Red blood spatters up over his white robes and he collapses to one side, screaming and clutching his leg.

  Alex takes one step nearer and looks down at him. He brings the gun up, fires into his body and again red bursts out on his white robes. He steps nearer and fires again and again with each step, blinded by rage and pouring his hatred into the bloody mess on the floor.

  ‘Alex!’

  Yamba’s shout from behind him cuts through the mayhem and he stops firing. Blue gunsmoke hangs in the air.

  ‘Come on! Get Col! Let’s go!’

  Alex looks round at the tall Angolan covering their escape route from the door with his rifle.

  Alex steps over Rukuba’s body and quickly cuts the plastic ties on Col’s hands with his bayonet. ‘Come on, let’s move! Can you walk?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Col mumbles through the blood in his mouth.

  Alex heaves Col to his feet and the smaller man gasps with pain. His broken ribs and battered head make him unsteady but Alex supports him with one arm and they hobble to the door.