Andrew Britton - The Exile

The sight of the CS-laden smoke was reassuring, as was the fact that the responding officers had yet to find their way through it. He still had one grenade left, and if he could get to Whysall’s disabled vehicle in the next few minutes, he might still have a chance at dispersing the crowd long enough to get the two Blackwater contractors out of the area. It was a long shot, but better than nothing at all, and as the head of the detail, he owed it to them to try.

Pushing the map onto the passenger seat, he threw the Land Rover into reverse and looked over his shoulder. With both eyes fixed on the rear windshield, he hit the gas and the SUV jumped backward, accelerating quickly. The Peugeot they had hit a few minutes earlier was still blocking the northbound traffic, giving him a clear run to the alley entrance. The only problem was the second police Land Rover, which was backed into the brick wall at a strange angle, the driver dead behind the wheel. The space between the front end of the SUV and the abandoned cars in the southbound lane was miniscule, no more than seven feet across, and Kealey knew there was no way they would make it through. Still, he was left with no other option. Keeping his eyes fixed on the short gap, he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

With his attention focused on the rear windshield, he not only heard but saw Oliphant cry out before he heard the shot. Jerking his head to the right, he saw the fresh hole in the windshield just as another round punched through the weakened glass, burrowing into the top half of the passenger seat. When he saw where the second bullet had hit, Kealey couldn’t help but flash on the fact that he had nearly put Flores in that seat. He dismissed the thought just as quickly, and fighting every instinct he had, he turned away from the officers firing at the front of the vehicle. Instead, he focused on the rear windshield and the rapidly approaching gap.

A second before they reached the narrow space, Kealey realized he had badly misjudged the width. The gap was five feet across at most, and no matter how he hit it, they were going to collide with at least one of the stationary vehicles. Reacting instinctively, he cringed and reached over his chest with his left hand, his fingers grasping for the seat belt hanging loose at his right side. He had just managed to grip the material, his fist tightening around the expedient lifeline, when the impact came. The rear passenger side of the Land Rover hit the second truck, heaving them into the air. The rear wheels spun crazily as they sought for something solid to grab onto. Then the back end of the SUV came crashing down without warning, slamming Kealey back in his seat. They were still rolling backward when several more rounds passed through the windshield. The sound of incoming gunfire, more than anything else, shook Kealey out of his daze, and he reflexively hit the gas and turned the wheel to the left, swinging them out of the line of fire.

Now the second police vehicle was temporarily blocking the incoming fire, but it was also blocking their escape route. He backed hard into the vehicle, hitting it broadside, then pushed the accelerator to the floor, driving it sideways. Having created enough room to maneuver, he shifted the truck into drive, pressed down on the accelerator, and swerved to the right. Once they were back in the alley, he immediately slowed to a crawl and shot a glance over his shoulder, ignoring the people running ahead of the vehicle, away from the scene of the massacre.

“Is everyone okay?” he demanded. “Is anyone hit?”

Steve Oliphant shakily raised his head, then sat up. He was in a daze, too confused to immediately respond, but looking him over, Kealey didn’t see anything to indicate that he had been injured.

Pointing at Jacob Zuma’s prostrate form on the floor behind the front seats, Kealey said, “Check him. Make sure he’s okay.”

As Oliphant complied, Kealey called back to Flores, but there was no response, and he realized that the Honduran couldn’t have come through the last collision uninjured, as he had been closest to the point of impact. He would have been thrown all over the place. If he had not already been unconscious when the crash occurred, he almost certainly was now, and that was the best-case scenario. The worst didn’t bear thinking about.

Oliphant was saying something, and it took Kealey a second to decipher the words. When he did, his mounting despair was replaced by a surge of relief; Zuma had made it through unscathed. “Okay,” he said. “We’re getting out of here. Get low and stay there until I tell you otherwise.”

Oliphant nodded and immediately slid to the floor, cramming his body into the narrow space between the seats. Apparently, he was done arguing. Zuma had raised his head to respond to his aide, but now he lowered it once again. Kealey could hear them moving around, though he didn’t see them respond to his order as he hit the gas and fumbled for the Motorola receiver/transmitter he had pulled out of his ear a few minutes earlier. Pushing it back into place, he immediately heard the frantic speech of Jeff Venora, the pilot of the Blackwater helicopter. He cut in without hesitation, and the pilot came back a split second later, his voice laced with anger and barely contained panic.

“Kealey, goddamn it, where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to raise you for-”

“Just tell me what’s happening,” Kealey snapped. “Save the theatrics.”

There was a brief pause, and Kealey could sense the other man biting back his instinctive reply. “The vehicle is still intact, but the situation is only getting worse. I don’t know how much longer they can hold out, over.”

“Any word from Whysall or Stiles?”

“Negative…Their radio must have been knocked out in the attack, over.”

“Okay…” Kealey thought for a second as they hit the end of the alley. Swinging the wheel right, he ran through the route in his mind as the SAPS Land Rover shot north on Banket Street, the speedometer nosing up to sixty kilometers per hour. The hospital was now eight blocks away, and from there it was a five-minute run to the courthouse. “Just stay in position, Air One. I’m coming to get them out.”

“You’re what?” The disbelief in the pilot’s voice was plain. “You must be crazy. They’re surrounded on all sides… You’ll never even reach the vehicle, let alone get them out.”

“I’m coming to get them,” Kealey repeated. He didn’t bother to acknowledge Venora’s words, even though deep down, he knew the man was probably right. Regardless of the odds stacked against him, he had to try. “Just stay where you are. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

KHARTOUM

Seth Holland sat in his dimly lit office, staring at his computer screen in utter dejection. As he used the mouse to scroll slowly down the page, the faces of a unique, secret community blurred before his eyes. Dusk was falling outside his windows, a dark purple haze sinking over the city, but Holland could not take comfort in the end of the workday. He was beyond frustrated, and the late hour had nothing to do with it.

The answer he sought was just out of reach. He knew it, had known it for hours on end, for that matter, but now it was really starting to get to him. His patience-which was fleeting enough on the best of days-was long past the point of wearing thin.

The identity of the man with the rucksack had consumed him since that afternoon, when Holland had first spotted him on the front steps of the embassy. It had started as nothing more than vague curiosity, an itch that refused to go away. Hoping to rid himself of it, Holland had gone directly from the lobby to his fourth-floor office, where he’d proceeded to place calls to several different departments on an internal line. He’d assumed that he would have his answer in a matter of minutes, as that was how this kind of thing usually played out. In this case, though, that assumption was wrong. He’d been shut down at every turn, and now, six hours later, what had started as simple curiosity had evolved into a very different sort of beast. And an implacable one at that.