Andrew Britton - The Exile

“Negative,” Kealey snapped. Bruce Greenwald was the shooter on board the helicopter, a graduate of the U.S. Army’s famed Sniper School and a former marksman with the Los Angeles Police Department. He’d retired from the LAPD two years earlier with the rank of sergeant. He was a good man and a true professional, but Kealey could easily see things getting out of hand if he gave the sniper a green light. Besides, shooting into the crowd would only work to further enrage the protesters, placing the stranded Blackwater men at greater risk. “There’s nothing to engage. Are those people even armed?”

A brief silence. Kealey could picture Greenwald scanning the crowd through his gun scope, searching for any sign of a lethal weapon and probably hoping to find one.

“Negative,” came the reluctant response.

“Okay, Air One, tell him to hold his fire. Let me know if the crowd gets to the truck, over.”

“Will do. Air One, out.”

Kealey immediately tried to raise the stranded vehicle again, but there was still no response. They were now moving south through the business district, towering skyscrapers on either side of the busy street. The congestion had forced them to slow down, but Flores was skilled at finding holes in the traffic, and they were rapidly approaching the M2. As a blue sign flashed by, Kealey caught sight of the white lettering, realized they had missed their turn, and instantly turned to face the driver.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “I told you to head for Marshalltown. You’re going the wrong way.”

The Gauteng Provincial Government Building was on Simmonds Street in Marshalltown and located less than two kilometers west of the Johannesburg High Court. After a quick check of the map in the glove compartment, Kealey had decided it was the best place to get Zuma and his aide secured before going back for Stiles and Whysall. Normally, he would have dropped the South African leader at the nearest police station, but some inner instinct warned him against that idea. According to the pilot of Air One, the SAPS units in front of the courthouse had yet to use nonlethal deterrents on the rioting crowd, which gave Kealey reason to think that at least some of the officers-and possibly even the captain in charge-were loyal to the man Zuma’s testimony had essentially buried in the high court.

Flores was shaking his head. His mouth was set in a tight line, and beads of perspiration were running down his dark, weathered face as he skillfully navigated the busy midtown traffic. “We’re not going back there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know the rules. If something goes down, we get the principal clear. That’s what we’re doing. Stiles and Whysall are on their own. There’s no sense in risking four to save two.”

“Fuck that,” Kealey snapped. He knew the Honduran was referring to what he had learned at the training facility in Moyock. Blackwater policy was “to get off the X,” or move out of the target area as fast as possible when a vehicle was hit in an ambush. In other words, it was every man for himself. But Kealey had no intention of adhering to that particular policy. “I don’t know or care how they ran things in your army, Flores. There is no way I’m leaving those guys behind. Turn this truck around right now.”

Flores swerved hard to avoid a red Opel that had braked to a sudden halt in front of them. He gunned the engine as they shot through an intersection, horns blaring behind them. The entrance ramp to the M2 was just a few hundred meters away, and from there, Kealey knew, it was a fast, straight run to Pretoria. There was just one more intersection between them and the highway, and once they hit the ramp, there was no turning back. The 2 men stranded outside the courthouse-the two men he was responsible for-would be as good as dead.

“No,” Flores repeated. His heavily accented voice was hard, and it seemed to leave no room for argument. “No way. We’re getting out of here, and that’s final. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? I don’t give a shit about the things you did with the CIA, Kealey. This isn’t the Agency, and you don’t have any real authority here. You can’t make me-”

The words died in his throat, and he reflexively took his foot off the gas. The three lead vehicles jumped ahead immediately, as though the invisible chain that linked them had suddenly been cut. Kealey had drawn his Beretta 92FS and was now holding the weapon to Flores’s left temple.

“Turn around,” he said evenly. He was oblivious to the stunned silence in the backseat; his steady, uncompromising gaze was fixed entirely on the man sitting next to him. “We’re going to Marshalltown, and then we’re going back for our guys. Turn around right now, or I’ll shoot you, kick you out of this fucking truck, and do it myself. Do you understand?”

Flores hesitated, his mouth working silently. His eyes were still fixed on the road ahead, but it was clear that he was thinking about just one thing: the gun currently pressed to his head. Both men were lost in their own private standoff, oblivious to the traffic around them, the delayed shouts of fear and confusion in the backseat, and the fact that the three lead vehicles had already hit the M2 and were essentially out of the picture.

Although Flores had taken his foot off the gas, they were still rolling forward. When they were halfway through the intersection, a blur to the left caused Flores to turn his head instinctively. Before Kealey could react, another vehicle plowed into theirs, crushing the truck’s left front fender and knocking them out of their lane. The armored Land Cruiser lurched to the right and traveled another 20 feet before slamming into the rear end of a minibus. Kealey snapped forward in his seat, the belt tightening over his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. His right hand banged against the dashboard, and the Beretta slipped out of his grasp. Everything seemed to go black for an instant, a strange silence settling in the aftermath of the accident.

Shaking it off, Kealey groaned and reached under his seat, searching for the weapon he’d dropped at the moment of impact. Almost simultaneously a man shouted an order in Xhosa, one of the few local dialects Kealey recognized. Then gunfire erupted, rounds pounding into the armored exterior of the vehicle.

The instant the bullets hit, Kealey folded at the waist, twisting his body below the level of the windows. With a cold sense of fear, he realized that the crash had not been an accident at all. It was an ambush, and it had worked to perfection. The rear escort had been taken out with consummate skill, the helicopter was still back at the courthouse, along with Whysall’s disabled Land Cruiser, and the other vehicles were already on the M2, moving fast for Pretoria.

They were alone, outnumbered, and completely exposed.

And no one was coming to back them up.

KHARTOUM

“Before we begin,” the consultant said as he sank into the comfortable armchair across from his host, “I’d like to thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I know things are pretty hectic around here, sir, and you must have a lot on your plate. I just want you to know that I appreciate your time. Not to mention your hospitality.” He smiled agreeably and lifted his cup of coffee, which had just been provided by his host’s secretary, Joyce, in the adjoining room, in a casual toast of sorts.

Walter Reynolds, who had spent most of the morning reading the Washington Post online and washing his gut with coffee, almost winced at the gratitude. Now more than ever he felt like a complete fraud in his neat two-piece suit, strangling tie, and polished wing tips. But shaking it off, he raised his cup to return the toast. It was an unusual gesture, he thought. In all his life he couldn’t remember carrying out the ritual with anything other than alcohol, which was notoriously hard to procure in Sudan, God-fearing and genocidal republic that it was, much to his lasting annoyance.