‘I killed him,’ Leila screamed. ‘Get away from me. I killed him!’ If there were neighbors, they’d have been out on the street.
Ryder groaned and moved a leg.
‘Killed who?’ I asked.
Leila shrieked when she saw that Ryder was still with us and fell to her knees beside him.
‘Can someone tell me what the problem is?’ I asked, hoisting myself up into the load area. ‘Boink…?’
‘When the mortars fall,’ he began, ‘Leila started to panic, man. I kept telling her to stay down, but she was fighting me. When the explosions stopped and you got out of the truck, she wanted to go with you and Rutherford. I tol’ her she couldn’t and we struggled around some. But then she said she was okay and I let her go. Soon as I did, she jumped to her feet and Ryder tried to stop her. That’s when it came through. I don’t know what it was, but something going fast came in one side and went out the other. It nearly took Duke’s head off, man. He lost his balance and fell, hit the side of the case and knocked hisse’f out cold. I pulled Leila down and kept her quiet for a time but she bit me. We was out of the danger zone, so I let her go, and she started screaming and carrying on like you just saw. You want my opinion, I think she lost it. It’s rubber room time for her, yo.’
He took his hat off, smoothed the rim between thumb and forefinger, then resettled it on his head, over the bandage that was now dirt and blood-stained.
I glanced at Leila, who was hovering over Ryder. She appeared a little disconnected from reality, but that did seem to be her natural state.
‘How’s Duke?’ I asked Ayesha.
‘He’ll be all right, but he’s got a bump.’
Yes, he did, and I didn’t need to go in for a close-up to see it. It was like the side of his head was pregnant. This was his second concussion. He’d have to be watched.
‘I’m fine,’ Ryder told me, voice cracking, moving his head from side to side.
Ayesha gave him some water.
‘Make sure he doesn’t fall asleep,’ I told her, though with all the noise Leila was making, I didn’t think there was much chance of that.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Leila cried, fussing over him.
So now I had an account for the RPG Lissouba had fired. I thought he’d hit us and he had, but the round had passed clean through the truck’s load area without detonating. Looking up, I saw that there were matching tears on both sides of the tarpaulin at around head height. RPG grenades traveled fast, a little under three hundred meters a second, and pushed a lot of air around because of it. That grenade, big enough and powerful enough to stop a Bradley, would have come through this enclosed space like a bullet train.
Leila was blubbering. I crouched beside her in the puddle of water that had drained out of our sandbags. She was scared and in a mild state of shock. Although I wanted to tell her that she should have listened to me and stayed with the other truck, this wasn’t the time, though at least I now had an I-told-you-so moment to counter the one she had on me. Boink looked down at her, shaking his head, unimpressed by the star’s latest performance. ‘How are the defenses holding up?’ I asked him.
‘We’re all still here, yo,’ he said.
‘C’mon, Leila,’ I told her. ‘Let’s get you back behind these barricades.’
‘You’re wounded,’ she said. ‘Looks like something chewed on your shoulder.’
Yeah — a cheese grater maybe. The wound looked worse than it was.
‘I want to ride up the front with you and Lex and the African.’
Here we go again… ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no protection there. The safest place to be is right here.’
I knew this wasn’t going to fly. Leila was going to bitch and moan until she got her way. This time, though, I was prepared to hog-tie her for her own good, if I had to.
‘Okay, if you say so,’ she murmured.
What? I didn’t think Leila had compliance in her. Maybe she finally realized, after her scene nearly resulted in Ryder having an RPG round parked in his earhole, that her bullshit had consequences. ‘That’s the spirit.’ I said, patting her shoulder while I threw Boink a shrug of ‘go figure.’ ‘Now I want you to do what Boink tells you.’
She nodded.
‘Can you move?’ I asked Ryder.
‘Think so,’ he replied, and Ayesha helped him up to a seating position.
I stood. ‘How about shoot? Can you do that too?’
‘Can’t guarantee I’ll hit anything.’
Then you’re in good company, I was tempted to say.
‘Skipper,’ said Rutherford, some urgency in his voice. ‘You might want to move it along here.’
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Francis pointing back up the road to where Dongs were cresting the rise and bearing down on us at an alarming rate.
‘Get back behind those barricades,’ I said. Ryder was struggling to move and Leila just sat beside him, staring up the road at the oncoming trucks, a deer in the headlights. Rutherford and Francis had already disappeared. I shouted through the tarpaulin. ‘Rutherford, get it going! I’m staying here. Stick with the plan.’
‘Got it!’ I heard him yell as I dragged Ryder back and pulled him over the sandbags.
‘Sorry, Vin,’ he said. I propped him up and put an M16 in his hands.
‘Just squeeze off a few rounds every now and then,’ I told him.
Leila, Boink and Ayesha joined us behind cover just as our truck sprang forward, causing everyone to lose their balance and fall over each other. The first enemy shots drilled into the sandbags as we untangled ourselves.
I swung the M4 off my wounded shoulder and winced at the movement. Nothing was broken, just a little ragged skin. I took aim at the truck jumping around in my sights and got off a few rounds, probably none of which found their mark.
The Dong in pursuit was gaining on us, but the rate at which it closed the distance slowed as Rutherford wrung what he could out of our engine and gearbox. The road was narrow. A man kept popping his head out the passenger window when the overhanging foliage allowed it, firing off a mag at us on full auto. Tracer indicated the volley flying high and wide. The road curved onto the valley floor near the village, onto land cleared of forest for agricultural purposes, and the one truck behind us became three, all bristling with soldiers hanging off them, bright points of light twinkling from their weapons as they fired into us. The air inside the truck began to fill with flying lead and tracer and particles of mud and water vapor, the incoming fury chewing up our sandbags.
I heard Leila and Ayesha screaming and tried to ignore it. I unhooked a couple of frag grenades from my webbing, removed the safety clips, pulled one pin and then the other, keeping a tight grip on the spoons. The first truck was maybe fifty meters behind us. I threw one grenade and the second a moment later — not hard, just with enough force that they cleared the back of our truck.
‘Frag out!’ I yelled, and counted five. The vehicles immediately behind rolled in front of the grenades at the instant they exploded, kicking up a pall of mud and water that was sucked into the Dong’s radiator grille. The front vehicle peeled off the road almost instantly, both front tires shredded, soldiers jumping from it as it began to roll onto its side. It toppled over completely and slid for a distance down a slight incline before coming to a steaming halt. The truck behind it kept more of a distance and men with machine guns hung out the front passenger door, lined us up and began emptying their hoppers into us. Our own back tires were shot out pretty much right away and Rutherford struggled to keep the Dong running true, the vehicle swaying precariously from side to side. But this was a double axle truck, which meant we had another set of wheels protected from the sharp shooters by the ragged remains of the rear-most set.