Andrew Britton - The Exile

The car, a dusty black Ford Escort, was waiting on Ali Abdel Latif Street, engine idling. The vehicles lined up behind it were honking incessantly, turbaned men leaning out of their windows to scream insults in Arabic at the driver, who had parked with the rear end of the Escort jutting into the road, just as Landis had instructed.

He could see that the diversion had worked perfectly. As the confused scene played out, all eyes were fixed on the car in the road and not on the lean, dark-haired American descending the steps of the embassy. Hitting the street, Landis turned right and started weaving his way through the pushy pedestrian traffic, walking quickly toward the intersection at Nillien University where in two minutes’ time he would be picked up by the man in the Escort.

Satisfied with what he had seen in the street, he had missed the one person who had not been distracted, a fellow American who’d been climbing the steps as he’d been descending. He did not see the man stop at the top of the steps, turn, and stare after him. The man was still staring after Landis as he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Then, shaking his head, he walked forward and entered the building, a welcome blast of cool air hitting his face the second he opened the door.

Seth Holland was officially listed on the embassy’s organization chart as a budget and resource manager with the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management. In keeping with this exalted title, his office on the fourth floor was large and comfortably furnished, with French windows that opened up to the inner courtyard. It was the kind of office that, in the budget manager’s absence, might be occupied by the CIA’s chief of station in Khartoum. Fittingly, this was the position that Holland, a twenty-year Agency veteran, actually held.

Unlike the man in charge of the embassy, Holland’s workload had increased sharply since the attack on Camp Hadith. But as he stepped into the elevator and jabbed the appropriate button, he wasn’t thinking about reports of increased rebel activity in the Nuba Mountains, or the sharp, unexplained increase in anti-Bashir demonstrations, which had recently begun popping up all over the city. Instead, Seth Holland was thinking about the dark-haired man with the rucksack he had seen on the steps, and two thoughts in particular.

Who was that man, and where have I seen him before?

JOHANNESBURG

Outside the parking garage on Von Brandis Street, the situation had gone from bad to worse. The police, unable or unwilling to hold back the mob any longer, had been overrun by hundreds of screaming men and women, a great many of whom had focused their rage on the crippled Toyota and the two men trapped inside. The truck was surrounded on all sides, and it was being rocked violently from side to side. The doors and windows were being kicked and beaten with bats, metal chair legs, and bare hands, but so far the heavily armored exterior had managed to withstand the furious assault.

In the front passenger seat, Alex Whysall was working frantically to repair the radio, even though he suspected the problem was not with the unit itself. The engine wouldn’t start, which wasn’t surprising in and of itself, given the force of the explosion beneath the vehicle. But it wasn’t even trying to turn over, indicating that the battery was probably out of commission. Although the battery itself was surrounded by additional steel plating, it was possible that the explosion had severed the cables. This would explain why they couldn’t communicate with the other vehicles in the motorcade, as the radio drew its power directly from the battery. Though Whysall had tried to reach the other vehicles using his portable radio, it didn’t have the necessary range. In short, they were completely cut off from the rest of the team.

The only thing they still had working for them was the helicopter, which Whysall could see hovering southwest of their position and more or less directly over Kerk Street. He assumed it was reporting everything to Ryan Kealey, the head of the PSD, but Whysall had no way of signaling that they were okay. Stupidly, he had lent his cell phone to another man on the detail earlier in the day, and he’d forgotten to get it back. He only hoped that someone was on the way to get them out, and soon. It wouldn’t be long before the mob found a way into the vehicle, and once that happened, they would not be able to defend themselves for long.

At the intersection just north of the M2, the second disabled Land Cruiser was coming under heavy fire. Kealey had managed to find his 9mm, but he was folded awkwardly to the side, his head crammed against the passenger-side door. Tilting it up and to the right, he screamed for the men in the backseat to keep down, then looked over at Ramon Flores. The Honduran was slumped over the steering wheel, his thick arms limp at his sides.

Kealey could hear rounds pounding into the rear windshield now, but the bullet-resistant glass seemed to be holding. He knew it was specced to stop anything up to a 7.62mm rifle round. Anything heavier than that would pass right through, and a sustained assault from weapons of a lesser caliber would eventually have the same effect. Either way, they couldn’t just sit and wait for help to arrive; they had to move immediately.

The engine was still running. Kealey couldn’t tell if the truck was drivable or not, but there was only one way to find out. Shifting his weight onto the console between the seats, he leaned into Flores, twisted his body to the right, and jammed his left foot onto the brake. Reaching back awkwardly, he shifted the vehicle into reverse without looking, then moved his foot onto the accelerator. The truck lurched back and careened off an unseen object before it started to pick up speed. Kealey could hear men shouting outside, and he was vaguely aware of people diving out of the way, but he ignored all of it, just as he ignored the two men lying prone in the backseat. Looking over the shoulder rest of the driver’s seat, he swerved around two stationary vehicles, then swung the wheel hard to the left, whipping the truck back in the direction they had come from. The sudden maneuver brought the vehicle to a screeching halt.

In the rearview mirror, Kealey now had a clear view of two police Land Rovers, one of which had suffered obvious damage to the front end. The vehicles were white with blue stripes and lettering, and the light bars on both were flashing, though the sirens were off. They were parked about 30 meters away, and a quick count yielded six men. Four of them were already sprinting toward the damaged Blackwater SUV; two more were getting back into the Land Rovers, anticipating a possible chase. They were all wearing standard South African Police Service attire, and when Kealey saw the field dress uniforms, he endured a moment of doubt, even though he knew what he had to do. He shook it off, holstered his Beretta, and reached for the metal case tucked under his seat. Flipping the latches, he opened the lid to reveal the components of a Fabrique Nationale FNC Para.

Slumping low in the seat, he slapped the lower edge of the rearview mirror with the tips of his fingers, angling it so that he could see through the back windshield without exposing his upper body. Then, without taking his eyes off the approaching police officers, he put the assault rifle together by feel, sliding the bolt into the upper receiver before closing the upper and lower receivers into place with the front and rear pins. Locking the bolt to the rear, he slid one of the preloaded steel magazines into place, then let the bolt snap forward, chambering the first 5.56mm round.

A low groan to his right caught his attention, and Kealey snapped his head around, searching for the source. It took him a second to realize that Flores had regained consciousness, as the man was still slumped over the steering wheel. As Kealey stared at him, though, he groaned again and raised his head a few inches, a thin trickle of blood spilling out of his mouth and over his unshaven chin.