Yasmina Khadra - The Dictator's Last Night

We drive past the burning 4×4. One of the rear doors is lying on the road next to a dismembered torso. Inside the cabin the occupants are on fire where they sit, killed instantly.

‘The road’s mined,’ the general shouts.

‘A mine would have destroyed the road,’ Mansour says, ‘but the 4×4 was stopped dead. That means an air strike. A drone probably.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Trid’s car draws level with the leading vehicle; I see him order the driver to accelerate before he lets two cars pass him and rejoins the convoy in front of my armoured 4×4.

Behind us part of the convoy has halted because of the crash or possibly mechanical problems; the other half is overtaking in any way it can in an effort to catch up with us.

Mansour puts his hand on my knee to comfort me.

‘Remove your hand,’ I order him. ‘Whatever you do, do not touch me. I have not forgotten the way you behaved yesterday.’

He does not take his hand away but presses my knee more firmly.

‘Muammar, my brother, master, guide, we’re going to die. What is the point of leaving each other still angry about things that don’t matter?’

‘We’re going to get out of this mess,’ the general shouts at him. ‘God is with us.’

‘God has changed sides, my poor Abu-Bakr,’ Mansour sighs. ‘He’s with our enemies now, leaving us only our eyes to weep with.’

I elbow him hard in the ribs to make him shut up.

‘Silence, bird of ill omen.’

Behind us there is disarray. Some vehicles are turning back, others are scattering down minor roads. Sporadic explosions can be heard, then longer salvoes.

‘Are we being attacked, General?’

‘I don’t think so, Rais.’

‘Our men are panicking,’ Mansour explains. ‘They’re firing at random because they don’t know what’s going on. They’ll kill each other without realising it.’

The lieutenant-colonel has also seen the chaos overtaking the second part of the convoy. He turns his car round to try to restore some order to the column, realises the situation is deteriorating, and returns to us. With a hand he invites our driver to follow him.

We negotiate a roundabout to go back the way we have come, doubling back as far as the 4×4 hit by the air strike, then turn down an avenue cratered with holes. The general signals to me that a third of the convoy has got lost. I turn round to check and can see only twenty or so vehicles weaving along behind us.

‘We have to restore some order here, General, otherwise we shall get bogged down.’

‘There is a barracks not far from here,’ he says.

‘Head for it.’

We overtake the lieutenant-colonel’s car to direct him to the barracks. But the complex is occupied by militiamen. They meet our arrival with 12.7 mm machine guns and anti-tank rockets. We retreat in indescribable chaos. A deafening roar comes from overhead. I just have time to see two fighters streak across the sky like meteorites, then two bombs hit the column right in the middle. Behind us vehicles start exploding in a chain reaction, like Chinese firecrackers. A human arm, on fire, bounces off the windscreen of my 4×4. The convoy is in utter confusion. Men abandon their vehicles and flee in all directions.

There are oil drums blocking the avenue. We turn onto a road that runs parallel.

‘They’re drawing us into a trap,’ Mansour warns us. ‘Let’s turn back.’

‘Where to?’ Abu-Bakr curses.

‘To the Hotel Mahari.’

‘It’s too risky.’

‘It’s less risky than driving like maniacs into the unknown.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Trid’s car brakes. Too late to avoid the spikes scattered across the road, his driver loses control; my 4×4 rams him. The driver and the general are stunned by the airbags. Mansour opens the door, jumps down, shooting as he goes two militiamen attracted by the collision. I grab my Kalashnikov and get out of the vehicle after him. The still groggy driver helps the general out. We start running in no particular direction. My soldiers fire blindly. The area is stiff with rebels. We are locked down. Skirmishing starts in the side streets. Shouts of ‘Allāhu Akbar’ are punctuated by interminable volleys. The convoy’s third section, commanded by my son, tries to break through to join us, but is stopped by mortar fire. Jets of fire and steel are tearing my troops to shreds. Mansour has disappeared. Lieutenant-Colonel Trid’s face is covered in blood. He gestures to me to put my head down and follow a low wall to where he is. My personal bodyguard regroups around me. Nearby, on the other side of the wall, a pickup mounted with a heavy machine gun is spraying fire. Its exhaust clouds choke the air. My throat is burning. Trid aims at the gunner and blows his head off. We attack the pickup from the rear and take it out with the second grenade. I see the driver writhing inside it as the flames consume him.

To our left, a group of about fifty soldiers is holding several groups of rebels at bay. I can see my son Mutassim directing the operation. He has seen me too, and gestures to me to stay where I am. The rebels are trying to outflank us to prevent us getting into a residential area. The exchanges of gunfire are becoming more intense. Mortar shells are targeting our position to dislodge us. One falls thirty metres from where we are sheltering, but fails to explode. Mutassim manages to crawl over to me. I am so happy to see him in the flesh that I do not spot the sniper taking aim opposite. A round whistles past my ear, forcing me to the ground.

‘We have to pull out,’ my son says. ‘I’ve sent a company to create a diversion further down. It won’t hold out for more than an hour. The rebels are constantly being reinforced. There’ll be tanks here soon and the whole sector will be surrounded. We need to fall back to the north. It’s the only gap left.’

The sniper is keeping us flat on our stomachs. We cannot lift our heads. Mutassim takes two guards with him and, hugging the wall, creeps into a garden. A grenade detonates and the gunfire opposite stops. Mutassim comes back with one guard, the other is dead.

We run towards a building that explodes before we reach it and retreat under falling shrapnel. Some soldiers signal to us to join them in a villa. The general has sprained his ankle; a guard helps him run. The villa is fifty metres away, but it feels as if it is at the end of the earth. Mutassim pushes me ahead of him. We succeed in reaching it, losing two men on the way. The rebels have discovered us; they converge on our location, heavily armed pickups in support. Our soldiers try to cover us from the balconies; they are mown down in a single sweep of fire. We go into the villa, which is already crumbling under a hail of missiles. The windows are smashed, the walls are shredded by large-calibre rounds. Shells start to rain down on us, turning our refuge into a hell. The building is choked with dust and smoke. The screams of the wounded can be heard upstairs. A man teeters at the top of the stairs, one arm torn off, his face blackened, then collapses and crashes down the stairs to the ground floor. He rolls almost to my feet, grimaces at me and breathes his last, his eyes bulging. The rebels are very close now; some have scaled the wall of the compound and are crawling through the garden. My guards spray them with fire.

Mutassim tells me that the building will not withstand mortars or anti-aircraft guns and that we must evacuate.

‘I’m going to reconnoitre,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen some orchards at the back. Hold on till I get back.’

He calls a squad together to go with him and leaves by the service door. It is the last time I will see him. A few minutes later, just two of his men return.

‘The colonel has been wounded,’ one of them tells me.