James PATTERSON - Cross Country

No way. No way. Not going to happen, I told myself.

I wrenched my arm free and rolled hard to one side. The machete whiffed and the pistol fired, ringing sharply.

But at least I wasn’t hit. Not yet, anyway.

I wasn’t done. Or even started. I entwined my arm with the shooter’s and snapped his wrist. I heard it break, and the gun fell from his hand.

The first one to get to it was me!

Everything was shadows and noisy chaos after that. The punks were all over me again, which was lucky in a way. I think it kept the machete blade away long enough for me to get off a warning shot.

Then I scrambled up, my back to the door. “Get over there!”

I shouted, motioning with the gun. I had them covered, but it was dark, and the layout of the building was a complete mystery to me. They would figure that out soon.

Sure enough, Rockets barked an order.

“Go! Outside!”

Two of the gang whipped away in opposite directions. One of them vaulted out an empty window frame. I didn’t see where the other one went.

“What you gonna do, man?” Rockets said with a shrug. “Can’t kill us all.”

“I can kill you,” I told him.

The others were doubling around behind me, I knew. I was either going to have to start shooting these boys or run like hell.

I ran!

I HAD ENOUGH of a head start and enough cover from the darkness to get out of sight fast. Suddenly I could smell a combination of things – burning, rotting, and growing – all at the same time. I flew down a couple of dirt streets and around a corner and eventually saw the light of a fire in a vacant lot.

Moses? I was in the vicinity of where he’d said he’d be.

I threw myself down in a stand of high weeds and waited for the thugs to run past. They shouted as they went, one small group to another, splitting up and looking for their prey – me.

It was difficult to accept that boys this young could be hardened killers, but they were.

I’d seen it in their eyes, especially Rockets’s. That boy had definitely killed before.

I waited several minutes. Then, keeping low, I cut around behind the fire until I was close enough to call out quietly.

Thank God Moses was there! He and his friends were eating crumbly rice and homemade peanut butter. He was tentative at first, until he saw who it was skulking in the tall brush.

“Come with me, sah,” he told me in hushed tones. “It’s not safe for you to be here now. Boys lookin’ for you. Bad boys everywhere.”

“Tell me about it.” I wiped a stream of blood from my face with the back of my arm, forgetting how much it was going to hurt it. “Shit!”

“It’s not much, ya’ll be okay,” said Moses.

“Easy for you to say.” I forced a grin.

I followed him through the back of the lot and up the next road to a narrow side street. We were in a shabby tenement neighborhood, one long row of mud-brick hovels. Several huts had people in front, cooking and tending fires, socializing at this late hour.

“In here, sah. This way, please. Hurry.”

I kept my head down and followed Moses through an open doorway into one of the huts. He lit a kerosene lamp and asked me to sit down.

“My home,” he said.

The place was just one room with a single window cut into the back wall. There was a thin mattress on the floor, and a jumble of cookware, some clothing, and caved-in cardboard boxes stacked in the corners.

Moses deftly tossed a dirty cloth onto two hooks over the open doorway and said he’d be right back. Then he was gone again. I had no idea where he’d gone or even if I could trust him.

But what choice did I have right now? I was hiding out for my life.

IT TOOK A minute for me to catch my breath, and to check out the handgun I’d grabbed from the gang of boys. It was a subcompact Beretta, not a cheap piece. The magazine had the capacity for only seven rounds, and five were gone. With luck, I wouldn’t need the other two to get through tonight. Make that – with a lot of luck.

I was sweating profusely and I was scared. No way around it. I’d almost lost an arm back there. Things could easily have gone the other way. Talk about close calls.

I heard a noise outside and raised the Beretta. Who was there? Now what was happening?

“Don’ shoot me, sah.” It was Moses, and he had a small pot of water. He gave me a rag to clean my face.

“What do you do now?” he asked me.

It was a good question. My instincts told me Houston Rockets hadn’t lied; the Tiger was already gone. Most likely he was on his way to Nigeria with his diamonds. I’d missed him again. The killer and gang leader was no fool.

“I guess I need to see about a flight out of here in the morning,” I said to Moses.

“The airport is small, sah. They can easily find you there. The boys, or maybe police.”

He was right about that. It wasn’t even an airport; it was just an airstrip with no cover anywhere that I could remember.

For that matter, I still didn’t know who had arranged my little “Welcome to Lagos” party the first time around. If the Tiger knew where I was – and I had to assume he did now – I could be setting myself up for another round of the same hospitality, maybe with a worse ending.

Suddenly shouting rose up outside. Young men’s voices. It was hard to tell how many – at least half a dozen, I was sure.

Moses ducked his head out the open doorway, then came back in and blew out the lantern.

“They are here,” he said. “You should go. You must go, sah.”

I had to agree, if for no other reason than to keep Moses out of this terrible mess.

“Tell me when it’s clear.”

He hung in the door sideways, watching. I stood opposite, ready to bolt at his signal.

“Now!” He motioned me out to the left. “Go now! Go quickly.”

I darted across a narrow road and straight up another dirt alley. The next street I came to was wider, but completely deserted. I turned left and kept going that way.

It wasn’t until then that I realized Moses was still with me.

“This way.” He pointed straight into the dark. “I know where you can buy a truck.”

I FOLLOWED THE brittle-looking, one-armed man to an old stone house on the outskirts of the village, back toward Running Recovery. It was at least eleven o’clock by now, but the house lights were still on. I wondered if Moses was an anomaly, or if many people around here would help a stranger, even an American. From what I’d heard, most of the people in Sierra Leone and Nigeria were good, just victims of circumstances and greed.

A salt-and-pepper-haired man answered the door. “What do you want?” he asked.

A brood of kids was clustered behind him, trying to see who had come to the house in the middle of the night.

“The American wants to buy a vehicle,” Moses said simply. “He has cash for it.”

I hung back at first, at Moses’ advice. Before I offered any money, we needed to see exactly what our options were.

“You’re lucky,” the man at the door said and smiled thinly.

“We stay open late.”

The best of the old wrecks he had out back was an ancient Mazda Drifter, with a tattered canopy over the bed and an empty space in the dash where the odometer used to be.

But the engine turned over, gingerly, on the first try. And the price was right – five hundred in leones.

Plus, he didn’t mind our spending the night right there in the truck.

I told Moses he had done more than enough and that he should go home, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He stayed with me until morning and then went out to secure the few things he said I’d need for my safe journey, including a police clearance sheet to leave the country.