Chris Ryan - Outbreak

The man raised his gun and aimed it at Ben's head. He was about ten metres away, and his trigger finger was twitching. As they stepped backwards again, Ben and Halima tripped over a branch and fell heavily to the ground. The assassin's smile grew broader. He lowered his aim and took another step forward towards the side of the road.

Nobody heard the click of the hidden landmine as he trod on it; but the explosion was so loud that for one deathly moment Ben thought he had been shot. The devastating effect of the landmine on the assassin soon put that thought from his mind. He was thrown two metres in the air and landed awkwardly in a scrambled heap somewhere between the exploded landmine and where Ben and Halima were sitting. The leg that had stepped onto the firing mechanism appeared to have been splintered in two along its length and blood was pouring out of the wound. His other limbs were gnarled and disjointed from the way he had fallen and his face was covered in blood and dirt. For a few horrible seconds his body twitched in the dust and then it lay still.

Everyone around looked at the dead man in shock; when he managed to snap out of it, Ben fully expected Suliman to order another of his men to kill them, and he prepared to lift Halima from the ground and run. But Suliman's attention had been diverted: he was looking all around and up into the sky, clearly worried, and Ben realized that the buzzing sound had not just been in his ears – everyone could hear it, and it was getting louder. It was more of a roar now, and all the guards – including the one Suliman had instructed to shoot them – were looking up to the sky.

Then they saw them.

Hovering into view above the trees came two khakicoloured Chinook helicopters. Their double rotary blades whipped up a deafening roar and caused the branches of the trees to blow back as if they were in the path of a gale. Ben felt the hair on his head being blown around, but his attention was fixed on Suliman and his men. They were staggering backwards, buffeted by the winds and looking scared and confused. They were not going to be carrying out Suliman's order. Not yet.

And then there was a voice, coming out over a loudspeaker from one of the Chinooks. It spoke in French first. ' Ici la force de maintien de la paix de l'ONU. Déposez vos armes. Je répète, déposez vos armes .'

Ben looked desperately around him, unable to understand what was going on. And then he almost crumpled with relief as the voice spoke in English.

'This is the United Nations peacekeeping force,' it called. 'Throw down your weapons. I repeat, throw down your weapons.'

Suddenly there was confusion all around. The choppers manoeuvred themselves so that everyone was closed in and unable to escape either way down the road, and as they hovered, trap doors opened in the bottom and ropes dangled down. Almost before Ben knew what was happening, he saw figures in protective white suits being winched down. They looked terrifying, their faces masked with complicated breathing apparatus and their bodies encased in sealed clothing – like something out of a science-fiction movie, Ben thought. They carried guns, too, and as soon as they were on the ground they started rounding everybody up, indiscriminately, pointing their weapons in such a way that made it quite clear they would not hesitate to use them.

'What is happening?' Halima screamed desperately over the noise of the Chinooks' propellers.

'I don't know,' Ben shouted back.

Suliman was shouting too, barking instructions at his men that Ben couldn't make out; but the sight of the peacekeepers had thrown them into a frenzy of panic, and they were at that very moment throwing down their weapons. When Suliman realized what was happening, however, his eyes narrowed and he quietened down.

Whenever Ben tried to remember what took place next, he always found himself confused by a jumble of memories. He saw Suliman talking earnestly to one of the masked men, while the Chinooks landed in the road and the faceless, uniformed men ordered them all – in voices that sounded strangely robotic through the breathing apparatus – to make their way into the choppers.

And then they were sitting on the hard, uncomfortable floor with Suliman and his men looking on at them with pure hatred. Suliman particularly refused to take his dead eyes off Ben, who could only imagine what was going through his head. Only the threatening presence of three peacekeeping guards and their weapons stopped the situation erupting into violence – of that, Ben was sure. The guys from the UN might look scary, he thought to himself, but he was glad they were there.

Clearly Sam Garner must have heard his message.

'Where are we going?' he shouted at the guard who was nearest them as he felt the Chinook rise up into the air.

'Back to the village you came from, sir,' came the reply in a Midwestern American accent.

'Then what?'

There was a pause. 'Quarantine.'

Ben nodded grimly. Deep down it was what he had expected, but that didn't make it any easier to hear.

'Are there doctors arriving?' he asked. 'With medicine?' He was desperate to know what sort of chance his dad had.

The guard nodded. 'They're on their way. But from what I've seen…' His voice trailed off, and Ben could not persuade him to continue.

It only took a couple of minutes to fly back to the village, and the scene appeared to Ben to be one of organized mayhem. Chinooks seemed to be flying in from all around, and the place was swarming with masked, white-suited men unloading equipment and barking instructions at the frightened-looking villagers who were being herded around into small groups. Signs with the words ' Cordon Sanitaire ' had been put up all over the place; tents and a few more solid-looking structures were being erected with surprising speed.

Ben watched in horror as he saw stretcher after stretcher of the ill and the dying being carried into one of those tents. A long, canvas-covered corridor led out the back of it to an area Ben couldn't see. 'Where does that lead?' he asked the guard who had brusquely helped him and Halima down from the chopper.

'You don't want to know,' came the terse reply.

'I do want to know,' Ben shouted at him, his patience wearing thin. 'I'm the one who raised the alarm. I'm the one who got you here. Where does it go?'

The guard seemed to consider that for a moment. Finally he answered. 'Incinerator,' he said. 'They're building it now. We can't risk just burying the bodies.'

Ben let that sink in. 'I need to speak to the person in charge.'

The guard shook his head. 'We have our orders, sir. You need to proceed to the processing area.'

'No,' Ben argued. 'You don't understand. There are people in Kinshasa who knew-'

'The processing area, sir,' the guard said firmly, taking a firmer grip on his rifle.

Ben wasn't going to be bullied. Not now. 'You're either going to let me speak to whoever's in charge, or you're going to have to shoot me.' He jutted his chin out.

The guard appeared to think about it. Eventually he took a radio handset from his belt and spoke into it. 'This is Alpha Nine. I've got the English kid here. He's insisting on speaking to the commander. Over.'

There was a short crackle, and then another voice came over the radio. 'Roger that.'

Thirty seconds later, another masked man approached. 'What's the problem here?'

The guard started to speak, but Ben interrupted him. 'My name's Ben Tracey. I'm the person who informed Dr Sam Garner about the virus, and I'm the person who has just stopped a busload of people from the next village from entering Udok – so please stop fobbing me off.'

'OK, Ben,' the masked man said in a pacifying tone of voice. 'You need to calm down – I know who you are. What can I do for you?'