by Joshua Hood
The visibility was shit and it only got worse as he closed in on the convoy. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also had to contend with the motorists and tourists fleeing the gunfire. Every time one of the faceless, elongated silhouettes stepped into his path, the Beretta snapped on target and Hayes had a split second to decide if they were friend or foe.
The security element, on the other hand, had no such qualms and were soon firing bursts of automatic fire into anyone dumb enough to cross the street. Hayes was running out of air, his vision darkening at the edges, feeling more than hearing the rounds zipping past his head.
A man raced in from right to left, orange tracer fire following him across the street. “Get down,” Hayes yelled in French. He ran to the man, tried to grab him and wrestle him to the ground, but before his hand closed around the man’s arm, a bullet found its mark and the man dropped like a marionette with cut strings.
Just keep moving.
Using the muzzle flashes as his guide, Hayes lurched forward, all too aware that if he ran into one of the shooters with a gas mask, he was as dead as disco.
If he wanted to escape the battery acid burn of the gas in his lungs, all he had to do was turn back the way he’d come. The fresh air would clear the chemicals from his system, but he stayed the course, the pistol in his right hand up, left arm sweeping in front of him like a blind man’s cane, the only break in his stride a momentary pause to vomit.
Hayes felt the metal of the Excursion with his hand a split second before his forehead slammed into its side with a hollow thunk. He staggered backward, cursing, and dropped to a crouch, searching for the body of the man he’d shot.
He brushed rubber and, thinking he was back at the tire, was just about to turn around when he felt a boot, then a leg.
Thank God.
He ran his hand up the man’s body until he reached the gas mask. He set his pistol on the ground and ripped the mask free. Working by feel and the muscle memory etched during the hour he’d spent in the gas chamber at Fort Benning, he grabbed the elastic straps, hooked them over the protective lenses, and pressed the inner mask against his face. Holding his palm flat against the outlet valve, Hayes blew out a hard breath, clearing the contaminated air from the mask before pulling the straps tight over his head.
With the mask secured to his face, Hayes was protected from additional exposure to the gas, but he knew the only things that would reverse the effects he’d already sustained were time and clean water—both of which were currently in short supply.
Hayes stuffed the Beretta into his waistband and stripped the dead man of his rifle. He dropped the magazine and pushed his thumb down on the exposed bullet at the top of the mag, the spring tension telling him it was topped off. In one smooth motion he slammed the magazine home and slapped the charging handle. The reassuring chunk of the bolt told him that a bullet was in the chamber.
Time to stack some bodies.
He moved around the back of the van at a crouch and paused at the bumper to peek out. The fog had yet to dissipate, and even with the mask protecting his eyes, the shooters looked more like shadows—dark, body-armored blobs with disembodied heads—than men.
Any other time and he would have tried to get close enough to positively identify his targets before opening fire. But with the man before him actively firing at the Land Rover, Hayes didn’t have a problem skipping a step.
He thumbed the selector to fire, centered the rifle’s EOTech holographic sight on the back of the shooter’s head, and fired. Thanks to the MP5’s mellow recoil, Hayes was able to keep the reticle on target and was ready to send another round when he saw a puff of pink mist that told him there was no need.
One down.
Hayes hooked around the bumper, closing in on the flash of rifles and the muted voices shouting just out of sight. He paused at the front tire, hesitant to step out into the open until he had a better grasp on the situation, but all too aware of the ticking clock in his head to stop.
He knew he needed to move, to make something happen while he still had a chance, but what?
Hayes was considering his options when a stiff ocean breeze danced across the street. The wind cut through the cloud of gas like a straight razor.
Then he saw her standing at the rear of the SUV, screaming in fear as one of the men grabbed her by the arm.
“Nooooo,” she screamed, slapping at the man’s face and biting at his hands when he tried to pull a black bag over her head.
“Quiet, bitch,” the man ordered, slapping her hard across the face.
The blow buckled her knees and Zoe sagged against the SUV and would have dropped to her knees if the man hadn’t kept her upright.
The wet-handed smack of flesh on flesh lit the rage brewing in Hayes’s heart and he stepped out, the rifle at his shoulder.
“Contact left,” a voice shouted.
Before Hayes could fire on the man holding Zoe, bullets came snapping in from the flank, forcing him back behind the van.
Shit.
Hayes leaned out, settled the reticle on the black-clad shooter, knowing he’d rushed the shot the moment his finger touched the trigger.
He managed to fire three shots at the black-clad figure when a second shooter opened up. He ignored the bullets, steadied his aim, and dropped the man with a head shot before pivoting left, finger double-pumping the trigger as he engaged a second man.
The first shot hit the man in the chest and while the ballistic armor kept the bullet from finding flesh, the impact punched him backward into the van. Instead of adjusting his aim, Hayes thumbed the selector to full auto and held the trigger down, let the muzzle rise do the work for him.
The second shot hit an inch higher than the first, and was once again stopped by the plate carrier, but the third found flesh, blowing out the man’s throat and leaving a crimson stain on the skin of the bus.
The shooter sagged against the Land Rover, dropping his rifle, fingers clawing at his ruined throat. He held on tight, but Hayes knew from the spurts of arterial spray through his interlocked fingers that he wasn’t long for this world.
The crunch of gravel beneath boots drew his attention and he turned to find a third figure charging through the smoke. Hayes swung to engage, but the man was fast and on him and, in an instant, clubbed him in the head with the stock of the rifle. It was a staggering blow that sent him reeling, cracked the seal on his mask, and flooded his lungs with a fresh dose of gas.
Hayes tried to step back, make space, but the man was all over him, slamming the buttstock into his kidney, ripping the MP5 from his grasp, and then grabbing him by the throat.
The fight was up close and personal, all elbows and knees, close enough for Hayes to feel the man’s breath on his face. But, blind and choking on the smoke, there was little he could do but absorb the beating the man was laying on him and wait for an opening.
Finally, the man tried for the knockout blow, firing a loping fist at his head, but Hayes ducked below it, reached up, and ripped the mask from his attacker’s face.
“Fucker,” the man cursed, breaking off the attack to try and reseal his mask.
Hayes, on the other hand, had no intention of letting up and grabbed the man by the shoulders, pulled him close, and drove his forehead into the man’s nose. The cartilage exploded with the crunch of fresh wood and the hot spray of blood over his face.
He bellowed in pain and took a lurching step backward, giving Hayes the space he needed to tear the Beretta from its holster.
Hayes fired two shots into the man’s chest, the slap of the 9-millimeter to his chest plate shoving the man backward, giving Hayes the time to line up the head shot. He’d just pulled the trigger, the bullet snapping his target’s head back, when he heard the roar of an engine.
He glanced right in time to see the Excursion blast through the smoke, its grille guard big as a billboard.
/> Hayes threw himself clear, the rush of the passing SUV tearing at his clothes. He ducked his head and, rolling over his shoulder, came up in a crouch, the Beretta bucking in his hand.
It was an impotent gesture and he knew it. Knew that any damage the 9-millimeter did to the truck was cosmetic, but he didn’t care. Hayes was pissed. The rage that had begun as a flicker of flame had grown to a raging inferno, the heat and pressure building inside of him, leaving Hayes at critical mass.
The bullets shattered the back glass, but the driver kept the accelerator pinned to the floor and swung the Excursion into a screeching left turn, Hayes dropping the empty magazine, stripping the spare from his belt and slamming it into the pistol.
But by the time he dropped the slide and got back on target, the Excursion was racing north—well out of range of the pistol.
Hayes slammed the pistol into its holster. The silence that followed the gunfight was deafening, broken only by the ringing in his ears and the wounded cries of the innocents scattered around the street.
His heart went out to them, but the distant wail of sirens told Hayes that medical personnel were on their way—Zoe, on the other hand, was on her own.
He needed to go now, before it was too late, before the police made the scene and threw him in cuffs. But instead of heading back to the hotel, jumping into the Pathfinder, and driving like a bat out of hell to the airport, Hayes bent down, snatched the submachine gun from one of the dead, and started toward the dark-green motorcycle lying abandoned in the roadway.
What the hell are you doing? the voice demanded. This is not your fight.
“It is now.”
33
GRAND-BASSAM
Hayes slung the submachine gun and squatted beside the downed Ducati Multistrada, pressed his back against the seat, and got his feet set beneath him. He took a breath and pushed off with his legs, the skin on his forearm sizzling like bacon against the exhaust pipe as he worked to get the five-hundred-pound Ducati onto its wheels.
Of all the motorcycles in Africa, how is it I’ve got to find the heaviest son of a bitch on the road?
Finally, he got it upright, and after swinging the sub gun around to the small of his back, Hayes reached across and thumbed the starter.
It cranked right up, and Hayes hopped on, spun the bike north, and twisted hard on the throttle. The Ducati shot forward, Hayes working through the gears, hoping whoever owned the bike had full coverage, as he raced after the fleeing Excursion.
The Ducati Multistrada was designed as a dual-purpose bike, a hybrid that combined the performance of a sport bike and the long-distance capability of a touring model. Thanks to its 1200cc liquid-cooled engine, by the time Hayes hit the bridge the needle was already sweeping past sixty miles per hour.
From the peak he glimpsed the road ahead—the Excursion weaving in and out of traffic. The solid-steel brush guard, combined with the driver’s aggressive tactics, left the motorists in its path two choices—get out of the way or get run over.
Hayes had grown up riding motorcycles. He’d started with dirt bikes, 250cc Yamahas that were great for cruising the back roads of his native Tennessee, but too slow—and illegal—to ride on the street.
Hayes would have to wait until he turned sixteen and got a driver’s license before graduating to the much bigger and faster street bikes. The rush that came with being on the open road, the wind in his hair, warm sun on his face, was exhilarating.
It was also dangerous as hell, and even though he’d never been in an accident, all he could think about as he started down the hill was what his father had told him when he first got that street bike: “Son, there are two types of bikers in this world—those who have wrecked and those who will wreck.”
Hayes wasn’t sure where the memory came from, if it was a portent of his impending doom or just his subconscious screwing with him. Either way, the time for thinking had passed. He was committed, and it was either focus on the cars ahead or end up feeding the vultures perched atop the power lines.
He shifted into sixth gear, leaned low over the handlebars, and blanked his mind. At lower speeds Hayes had felt every bump, every defect in the road, but at eighty miles an hour the Ducati settled in and all it took was the slightest shift of his weight to send the bike cutting to the left.
Hayes centered the front tire on the white dotted line and shot the gap, the engine echoing off the line of cars on either side. At this speed he knew all it would take was for one driver to open his door or veer out of his lane and he was done. Finished. But with a mile between him and the target vehicle, it was a risk Hayes had to take.
In the distance, the driver of the Excursion swerved into the right lane, and knowing that he had to get over, Hayes downshifted, slowing the bike while searching the line of cars for a break in the vehicles. He squeezed the brake and dropped into fourth gear, knowing that if the truck turned while he was boxed in it was game over.
But the line of cars remained unbroken, the traffic bumper to bumper for as far as he could see.
The Excursion’s brake lights flashed; it was about to turn, and Hayes was still stuck in the center lane and unable to get over.
He was about ready to start shooting out tires when the engine gave out on an overloaded work truck twenty-five yards in front of him. The driver of the injured truck hit the brakes and the moment Hayes saw the hole in the traffic, he was back on the throttle.
Hayes let the RPMs rise, waiting until the engine was screaming beneath him before shifting gears, and then he was leaning left, slicing around the work truck and into the right-hand lane, rushing after the Excursion.
He pushed the Ducati hard, careful to keep the tires to the left of the seam that demarcated the roadway from the shoulder and rocketed after the massive SUV as it made the right-hand turn off the highway.
Don’t lose them.
As Hayes neared the turn, he let off the gas and downshifted, using the transmission to slow the bike.
You’re too fast, the voice warned, but Hayes was already committed.
He leaned into the turn, shoving hard on the inner bar, knee hovering dangerously close to the asphalt. With his eyes locked on the spot he wanted the bike to go, all he had left to do was hold on.
There was nothing natural about taking a turn at a high rate of speed, and while Hayes knew the laws of physics were on his side, his brain screamed at him to slam on the brakes. But he resisted the urge, all too aware that this far into the turn, even the slightest touch of the brakes could send him flying off the bike.
Hayes held his line, carving the Ducati around the apex of the turn, waiting until the road straightened out before shifting his weight back to the center and rolling the throttle.
Two hundred yards ahead, the Excursion chugged sluggishly down the road. The heavy SUV was still trying to regain the speed it had lost negotiating the turn.
Got you.
Up to that point his only concern was catching up with his prey, and now that he’d done it, Hayes realized he had another problem.
How the hell am I going to stop that thing?
The easiest and most effective way to stop a car in motion was to kill the driver, but with Zoe unsecured in the backseat, he couldn’t take the risk. Shooting out the tires posed the same risk, and Hayes realized the only option that didn’t end up with Zoe in the morgue was to get inside the truck.
But how in the hell am I going to pull that one off?
Then he saw it, the gaping black maw that had once been the Excursion’s back window.
You’re not really going to . . . ? the voice began.
“Oh, yeah,” he answered, twisting the throttle.
In Hayes’s experience, the key to pulling off a high-risk maneuver had nothing to do with the plan and everything to do with his ability to execute before his brain caught up with his balls.
Wishin
g he had a helmet, Hayes set the cruise control and brought his feet up to the seat. The bike wobbled beneath him, but he got his balance and inched up into a crouch. Still holding on to the handlebars, Hayes cleared his mind.
He blocked out the road racing beneath him and the buffeting crosswind threatening to swat him off the bike, focusing on nothing but the impossibly small rectangle of shattered glass that was his target.
Timing was everything, and at the last instant, Hayes shifted his gaze to the Ducati’s front tire and the rapidly diminishing space that separated it from the Excursion’s back bumper. Knowing that if he didn’t get the jump right, instead of sailing into the SUV, the collision would pile-drive him into the rear end.
Wait for it . . . wait for it . . . now!
Using the handlebars as an anchor, Hayes catapulted himself over the windscreen a split second before the Ducati slammed into the back of the SUV. And then he was airborne, the added force of the collision slingshotting him through the shattered window and into the back of the Excursion.
At fifty miles an hour, he had barely enough time to brace for impact. He turtled his head into his shoulders and brought his hands up to cover his face before slamming into the pair of kitted-up goons who were trying to get a zip-tie around Zoe’s wrist.
Hayes bowled them over and went pinballing through the gap between the driver and passenger seat, thumping hard against the dash. The only thing that saved him from a broken back was the bulging assault pack strapped to his shoulders.
“Shit . . . that . . . hurt . . .” he grunted.
The sudden arrival of the bloodied man in their midst threw the Excursion into an uproar and Hayes took advantage of the confusion, bringing his leg up to his chest and slamming a size twelve hiking boot into the passenger’s face. He ricocheted the man’s head off the window hard enough to shatter the glass.
“Adam . . . help me!”
“Get to the door!” Hayes yelled.