Mabeki heard a shout of alarm from the guard in the hall. It was suddenly cut short, ending in a strangled cry of pain followed by the thud of a body slumping against the door to the room. Somebody was out there, he realized. They were willing to kill. And he was next.
Still kneeling on the floor, Mabeki fired three rounds in the rough direction of the door, the sound of the shots almost deafening in the small, echoing room. Behind him, Zalika was raising herself on her elbows. Mabeki didn’t want her crying for help. He turned back to the mattress and gave the girl a hard backhanded slap to the face. She whimpered in pain.
‘Quiet!’ he whispered. ‘Not a sound!’
He could just about see the outline of her nodding head. There was a sniff as she tried to control her tears, then Mabeki heard a scraping sound as the body was dragged from the door by the unseen predator.
He shot again, twice more. This time there was a wordless shout from beyond the door and more stumbling footsteps, followed by the sound of a body against a hard surface. Whoever was out there had been hit, but how badly?
Mabeki needed to find out, but he wasn’t leaving the safety of the room with just his gun to protect him. Zalika Stratten would be his shield. He got to his feet, then, still holding the gun in his right hand, he bent down and grabbed Zalika with his left, making her wince as he clamped his fingers round the soft flesh of her upper arm.
And then he heard another sound from beyond the door.
15
The bullet that hit Carver as he tried to dodge to one side of the door had struck him a glancing blow beneath his left armpit and spun him across the hallway. There was a lot of blood and it hurt like hell. Every breath ended with the sharp stab of a broken rib. But aside from that, he was still in one piece and more pissed off than ever. The blasts from Mabeki’s gun would surely have been heard down in the shebeen. No matter how drunk they were, his people were bound to investigate.
Carver strode back to the door, the face behind his balaclava clenched in furious determination, and kicked hard. The flimsy door with its rusty hinges and half-rotten wood flew open.
Ahead of him and to the right, Carver could see Mabeki, dimly illuminated by the light from the hallway. He was bending over the mattress, dragging Zalika Stratten to her feet with one hand while holding a gun in the other. He wasn’t wearing any trousers and the sight of his bare legs only underlined the obscenity of what he’d been about to do to the girl.
Mabeki let go of her. His head and shoulders were rising back up and turning towards Carver. He was bringing his pistol to bear.
Carver put his first bullet though Mabeki’s jaw, which exploded, showering Zalika Stratten with blood and fragments of flesh and bone. As the impact sent Mabeki staggering backwards, Carver fired again, hitting him in the upper torso.
Mabeki was thrown to one side. He lay still as the blood, just one more liquid shade of black, pooled round his body and spread across the floor.
The girl started screaming. She was huddled on the bed, shaking uncontrollably. Somehow, her pitiful vulnerability affected Carver far more than the shattered body on the floor.
‘Time to go,’ he said, his voice sounding far harsher than he intended.
She looked up, eyes wide with horror at the sight of the masked, faceless figure looming over her.
‘Come on!’ Carver insisted.
Zalika did not move, just pointed at the body and sobbed, ‘Is he dead?’
‘I certainly hope so,’ Carver replied, holding out a hand. ‘Now, please, get up. We’ve got to get out of here before his mates arrive. Your uncle’s expecting you.’
That seemed to do the trick. Zalika took Carver’s hand and let him pull her up. But then she stiffened, unable to move any further, still transfixed by the sight of Mabeki’s body. Carver tightened his grip on her wrist and started running, dragging her with him, forcing her to follow him out of the room, past the body in the corridor towards the outside walkway.
‘Stay here,’ he mouthed as they reached the door to the walkway.
He let go of Zalika’s hand and inched out into the open. People were starting to spill out of the shebeen on to the street. He could not see them, but he could hear them, just as he heard the sound of heavy boots clattering up the concrete stairs. The silhouette of a heavy-set man appeared a few paces down the walkway and swayed slightly as he took his bearings. Carver dropped him with a single headshot. There were no more footfalls on the steps.
Carver gestured with his cupped left hand, ordering Zalika out on to the walkway. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘Stick tight to the wall.’
He led her away from the two dead men, through the shadows to the side of the building till they reached the place where he’d jumped on to the walkway less than a minute earlier.
A shout came from the street below, followed by more excitable, angry voices. They’d been spotted.
Carver muttered a curse. Then his spirits rose as he heard the coughing and spluttering of the VW van and saw it pull up directly beneath them. Justus got out and dashed to the side of the building. He raised his arms and said, ‘Let her down, I will catch her.’
Carver manhandled the terrified girl to the balustrade and then, wincing as the pain from his cracked rib sliced through him, lifted her up and over it. He let go of her arms and watched as she fell six or seven feet into Justus’s arms. The African buckled under Zalika’s weight, but kept her from hitting the ground.
As he pulled himself and the girl to their feet, Justus turned his head then looked back up at Carver and shouted, ‘Quick, they are coming!’
Carver vaulted over the balustrade and fell to the ground, unable to stifle a sharp cry of pain at the impact. He looked up to see Justus bundling Zalika into the back of the VW and closing the rear passenger door behind her. Beyond them about fifteen or twenty men were rounding the corner of the building, the pitch of their voices rising as they saw the car and its would-be occupants. Their advance slowed as they saw Carver straightening with the gun in his hand. He raised the MP5 to point at the crowd. The men came to a halt, looking at one another as if seeking guidance. None of them appeared to be armed.
Carver heard the sound of Justus starting up the VW behind him. He moved back very slowly towards the vehicle, keeping his eyes and gun fixed on the crowd.
It was the movement that alerted him, an anomalous shift in the pattern of limbs, bodies and faces captured on the edge of his peripheral vision that told him someone was aiming a gun. Carver flicked his eyes to a man in the second rank aiming an AK-47. He was using his companions as cover, assuming Carver would be reluctant to shoot unarmed civilians.
Carver fired anyway, aiming three bursts over the crowd, but keeping the shots as close as he dared to their heads. They scrambled to get out of the way, and their movement was just enough to knock the man with the AK-47 off his aim, sending his first burst harmlessly wide.
Now, though, the stampede worked against Carver, preventing him from getting a clean shot on his target. He fired his last two rounds fractionally high again, just to discourage anyone from getting closer, then dived into the VW as Justus floored the pedal and sent the vehicle moving with surprising speed down the street, away from the men who were now getting to their feet behind them.
‘Kill the lights!’ shouted Carver.
He pulled off his balaclava and stuck a fresh magazine into the MP5 as they raced away into the purple-black night.
16
He was known as Killaman. He was thirty-eight years old and he’d been a soldier for twenty-five of them. It was he who had led the poaching expedition to kill the rhinos and lure the Strattens into the trap. Mabeki may have been the brains behind the operation, and President Gushungo’s consent had been required for it to go ahead, but Killaman had been the senior fighting man.