Got to be a coincidence, he thought. Security contractors—mercenaries, in more common parlance—were ubiquitous in developing countries, working as bodyguards for wealthy businessmen, or training military and police forces.
His belief that there was a rational explanation lasted about ten seconds—the length of time it took for the lead truck to race ahead and pull alongside the taxi. As it did, the passenger side window slid down.
“Look out!”
Even as he shouted the warning, King curled himself into a ball behind the driver’s seat. An instant later he heard a sound like hammers striking metal followed by the distinctive crack of shattering glass, but the report of the gunfire was conspicuously absent. There was a rush of air through the cab and the noise of an engine roaring past. He risked a quick look.
All the windows on the driver side had been shattered and the tempered glass of the windshield was now fogged with myriad tiny cracks. King saw the truck that had strafed the cab a few hundred meters ahead, while the second remained close on their tail. He then turned his attention to the driver.
“Are you…” He didn’t bother finishing the inquiry. The Ethiopian man lay slumped over the steering wheel, his head and back a mess of red.
King breathed a curse at the senselessness of the murder, and then another when he realized that the cab was now veering out of control toward the edge of the road.
Even though it meant risking exposure, he knew he had to keep the car on the pavement; if it crashed, then he was dead anyway. He thrust his upper torso over the back of the driver’s seat, shoving the slain driver out of the way with one hand, and gripping the steering wheel with the other. He steered the cab away from disaster, but this minor victory did little to cheer him. The cab was losing speed and the two pick-ups had him boxed in. It was only a matter of time before they checkmated him.
Where’s Chess Team when I really need them?
He pushed that idea right out of his head. Defeatism was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe he didn’t have the team to back him up, but that was no reason to give in to despair. Maybe it was true that the king was the least effective, most vulnerable piece on the chessboard, but his callsign didn’t define him or his abilities.
Still, it would have been nice to have Rook next to him, blasting away with his Desert Eagle pistols.
Prioritize, he told himself. First order of business, get control of this vehicle.
He manhandled the driver’s dead weight over onto the passenger’s seat, and then without letting go of the wheel, crawled over the back of the seat. By the time he finally got his legs onto the pedals, the Corolla was down to about 30 km/h—he could sprint faster than that. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the trailing pick-up hurtling toward him like a tsunami. King stomped the accelerator to the floor.
The engine revved loudly with the infusion of gasoline, but for a few seconds, the car refused to gain speed. Just as it was grudgingly beginning to cooperate, King’s head abruptly snapped back against the headrest. The charging truck had rear-ended him, hard.
A sharp pain shot through King’s neck, but he gritted his teeth through it and maintained steady pressure on the gas pedal. The driver of the pursuing Dodge had probably been hoping that the bump would send the Corolla spinning out of control, but instead it acted like the catapult on an aircraft carrier, launching the cab forward and giving it enough momentum to actually start accelerating again.
It was another small—too small—victory. King was still vastly outmatched. His unknown enemies had all the advantages. As he maintained steady pressure on the accelerator, the speedometer needle creeping past 100 km/h, he took quick stock of what he had to work with in order to mount an effective counter-attack.
It was a very short list.
He tore a hole through the damaged windshield to get an unobscured view of the road ahead. The lead truck was braking, slowing down and dominating the center of the road to prevent him from passing. The side mirror showed him the grill of the trailing truck, looming large once more as it closed in for another bump. It was safe to assume that the drivers were coordinating their actions; King knew that his only hope lay in unpredictability.
He steered to the right side of the road. The pick-up immediately moved right in order to block him.
King swerved to the left, and again the truck did, too.
He did this twice more, testing the driver’s reaction time, and more importantly, getting familiar with the Corolla’s capabilities. The vehicle was not in the best shape, but thus far he’d seen no indication that it was on the verge of breaking down. The temperature gauge showed the engine running hot—not too hot yet, but he didn’t want to take the chance of it failing at a critical moment. He turned the heater on full blast, venting some of the heat into the car’s interior. With the windows shot out, he barely noticed.
He steered left again, all the way to the edge of the road. The truck followed suit. He then swerved right, exactly as he had before, putting the Corolla in what he hoped was the lead truck’s blind spot. The driver of the pick-up took the bait, pulling all the way to the right in order to prevent King from passing on that side.
King shifted the automatic transmission out of overdrive and stomped the gas pedal. Even as the truck was moving right, King steered left. The taxi surged ahead closing the gap before the other driver could react.
King kept one eye on the pick-up as the Corolla pulled alongside it. He caught a glimpse of the driver—a Caucasian man—snarling in frustration as he hauled the steering wheel left to cut King off, but he was too late. The taxi slipped past the Dodge. King had escaped their killing box.
He didn’t waste time congratulating himself. His situation was just marginally better than it had been thirty seconds earlier. His only hope lay in finding a way to lose his pursuers, and that meant getting off the highway where the trucks had the advantage of superior horsepower. With one eye on the road, he took out his phone.
Before leaving home, he had downloaded a city map of Addis Ababa. It wasn’t quite as useful as a live GPS, but it was better than nothing. He dragged his finger around the touch screen until he found the airport, and from there, was able to guess his present position, moving northeast along Ring Road, the major highway that circled the city.
The area near the airport was sparsely inhabited, with few access roads, but a more developed section of the city lay ahead. If he could make it there…get lost in the maze of surface streets and buildings… he just might have a chance.
If, he thought grimly.
The sound of hammer blows reverberated through the taxi’s frame and King ducked as bullets plucked at the upholstery of the seat beside him. He felt something tug at his right arm and a moment later his biceps started burning. He didn’t look; his arm was still working, so it probably wasn’t anything more than a graze, and besides, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Then he realized, almost too late, that the shots had been a diversion. When he had ducked down instinctively, it had given the pick-up’s driver a chance to close in. The protective bumper guard that wrapped around the Ram’s front end filled the side mirror as the truck sidled up next to him.
In a rush of understanding, King realized that the other driver was trying to spin him. It was a technique taught in tactical driving courses; a carefully delivered hit to the rear wheel of a fleeing car could force it to spin around 180°, at which point the car’s momentum would be pulling against the direction of the drive wheels, causing the vehicle to stall instantly.