A red tracer spat from my QCW and flew into a man’s chest, where it was extinguished. I fired twice at people shooting at me, ejected the magazine and jammed in a fresh one.
‘Out, out!’ Rutherford yelled as he fung open his door and jumped down into the night. He was right. Only ducks sat around waiting to be shot. Actually, not even ducks did that.
I hit the door with my shoulder and rolled out, landing on an African waiting there below the door with his rifle raised and ready to shoot. Unfortunately for him, he was not prepared for two-hundred-and-forty-odd pounds of falling ammunition and special agent. The combined weight knocked him to the ground, a cry strangling in his throat. When I got up on a knee, the guy was raising his weapon in my direction, so I tapped him on the head with the QCW’s stock a couple of times and his lights went out. Scooting under the Dong, I started shooting at feet, then at the screaming shapes that dropped to the ground on top of them.
I worked my way to the truck’s rear axle. The volley of gunfire spitting from the back of our Dong was now a serious horizontal rain of lead. The truck that had come up behind us was beginning to roll back down the hill, steam hissing from its smashed radiator and shattered engine, bullet holes punched all over the fenders. The truck slowly gathered speed, freewheeling backward. It quickly departed from the road, mowing down the forest. Several Africans ran with it, followed by a swarm of tracer; lethal fireflies zipping from the black hole under our tarpaulin chasing them.
The incoming fire that began as a fusillade was reduced to ragged individual shots, the enemy having lost its resolve in the face of the concentrated firepower unleashed on it. And, of course, it had also lost numbers. I rolled out from under the Dong and kept the roll going off the road and into the forest. I came up to a crouch and worked my way forward to flank the truck blocking our way into camp. Coming around from the side, I could see that two men were kneeling behind it, using the wheels as cover, hiding their ankles from me. I put the QCW down and swung the M4 — a more reliable weapon at this extended range, of around fifty meters — from my shoulder and took aim. But then Rutherford appeared from the forest shadows and shot the man nearest him from the side, so that the soldier’s pal kneeling beside him died a spit second later, his brainpan stopping the round that had killed the first man an instant before. Economical shooting. ‘Waste not, want not,’ I muttered.
Rutherford stepped fully into the moonlight and raised his fist in the sudden shocking silence, letting me know that the area was clear. I made my way down toward him warily, just in case there were any FARDC lying in wait among the elephant grass and shrubs, but there didn’t appear to be. I gave a low whistle as I approached, to avoid friendly fire.
‘It’s all right, mate,’ Rutherford called out, breathing heavily. ‘I gotcha.’
I ran the last twenty meters. Jesus, there were bodies everywhere, black shadowy lumps on the ground. No one wanted this. ‘Move that vehicle,’ I told him as I went to the back of ours. I couldn’t hear any sound coming from inside. ‘Everyone okay?’ I asked before arriving at the tailgate. Ryder stepped forward out of the darkness under the tarp.
‘The damn truck came outta nowhere,’ he said. ‘Drove up fast behind us, then hit the high beams. Freaked the shit out of us.’
‘I think you freaked ’em back.’
‘Yeah, Boink threw a couple of grenades straight through their windshield.’
‘I got a mean fast ball, yo,’ came his voice from the shadows. He stepped into the moonlight and looked down at me, grinning broadly.
‘Are we nearly done yet?’ Leila called out.
‘No, not nearly. Stay there and stay down.’ I asked Ryder, ‘How’re the defenses holding up?’
‘We took a lot of heat, but they look okay,’ said Ryder.
I heard the truck blocking our way fire up, followed by roaring engine noise and the crash of snapping trees and palms as it headed off the road, a weight on its accelerator pedal.
‘Top off your mags and get ready for round two,’ I said and headed back to the front cabin. Rutherford was already back behind the wheel. Blood was all over the seat. Francis was leaning forward, holding his forearm.
‘I think he took a round,’ said Rutherford, punching the starter button.
‘It is nothing,’ said Francis. ‘Allez! Go… let’s go!’
Rutherford didn’t need to be told a fourth time and the Dong leaped forward up the hill. I ripped part of my sleeve off and used it as a pressure bandage, wrapping it around Francis’s upper arm, staunching the blood flow. He’d taken a bullet splinter, which had peeled his forearm like a banana, a loose fap of skin revealing the muscle beneath. I ripped off another bit off my sleeve, tied it around the wound and told him to keep pressure on it. It was going to sting like fuck, but he’d live.
A flash of light burst on the ground somewhere ahead, just as we came up into the outer reaches of the area cleared by the logging company. The boom of the percussion wave reached us through the windowless cab a few seconds later and made my cheeks wobble.
‘It’s started,’ yelled Rutherford, the rough ground and the increasing speed of the vehicle causing us to bounce up and down on the seat like we were on a trampoline.
Francis threw up onto the floorboards.
The skirmish at the barrier had delayed us an extra two and a half minutes but Cassidy and West, up on the observation ridge with the mortar, couldn’t know that. This first round was the ranging shot. West would be spotting, rushing forward, once the mortar had been fired, to check the shell’s detonation point in the encampment, and relaying elevation and azimuth corrections to Cassidy. A second shell would verify these adjustments and, assuming the round was on the money, the barrage would start in earnest, another eighteen 60mm HE rounds in the first stick.
‘Get us the hell up there!’ I yelled.
‘Pedal’s pressed to the floor here, skip!’ Rutherford shouted back.
A couple of FARDC men scattered out of our way.
The second mortar round fell fifty meters away on our right, an orange and yellow flash swallowed quickly by its own smoke mixed with the earth blown into the air.
‘We’re on the wrong side of the encampment,’ I said.
‘That’s because we’re late,’ Rutherford shouted.
I knew that.
Cassidy and West would be dropping rounds on the FARDC HQ, using the blue UN tents as the bull’s eye. The plan was that they’d then march the bombardment back toward the clearing closest to the ridge where the Mi-8 was parked. All of which meant that if we didn’t get our asses out of this general area, pronto, a round could land close enough to kill our vehicle, and us.
A round hit a tree not far in front, exploded somewhere high, and snapped off a branch that came crashing to the ground. Rutherford couldn’t avoid it. The truck hit the obstacle hard, bounced up over it and launched the three of us at the ceiling.
I smacked my head hard and, an instant later, the truck’s rear wheels hopped over the tree, throwing me against the dash. I wondered how Ryder and our principals in back had fared. Francis was back in the foot well, heaving.
‘Count ’em off,’ Rutherford yelled.
‘Count what off?’ I asked him.
‘The mortars. Count ’em off so we know where we stand.’
Another mortar landed close — too close — exploding less than fifty meters away, and shrapnel rattled off the Dong’s metalwork. A tight ball of orange fury burst among five men running for cover and when the earth cleared, none of them was there.
‘That’s six!’ I yelled over the noise of the motor, the explosions and shouting men.