‘Find out where the turnoff to the river is,’ I shouted back. ‘Get what you can out of Francis and his wife about Bayutu and any other settlements nearby. Francis mentioned something about Médecins Sans Frontières. They’re operating in the area. And while you’re at it, see if someone else here can drive this rig.’
Rutherford signed WILCO as I reached across to get a hand on the tarpaulin framework.
‘And when we stop,’ I told him, looking back, ‘jump off. We’ve got a job to do.’
Using the framework to keep my balance, I walked down toward the front cabin along the top of the metal sides of the load tray, the only space not taken by Francis’s people. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Leila still with the baby in her arms and she was rocking it back and forth, totally engrossed, having finally met her match in the needy department. Peanut was teaching a girl of around six to play scissors paper rock, and losing, apparently unperturbed by our current situation — maybe he was completely unaware of it. Twenny was also engaged with Francis’s people, re-tying a bandage around a man’s head, assisted by Boink. I couldn’t see Ryder or Ayesha tucked away in the opposite corner behind the cabin, as the press of bodies obscured them. I suspected the crack Ryder had received on the head was worse than he let on, but there was not a lot anyone could do about it except provide some comfort, and Ayesha had put her hand up for that.
When I got to a point behind the cabin, I reached for my Ka-bar and made a long vertical slit in the tarpaulin. A moment later I was through it, out in the open air and being swatted by the trees and bushes trying to reclaim the road. We crested the hill and the Dong quickly picked up speed heading down the other side. I ducked under a loop of liana that would have taken my head off if I hadn’t seen it at the last second, pulled open the passenger door and leaped inside.
‘Fuck, boss!’ yelled West, taken by surprise, his M9 pointed at my ribs. ‘You scared the living crap out of me.’ He lowered it. ‘What’s up?’
‘Stopped by to borrow a cup of sugar, but I’ll settle for the mortar if you don’t have any.’
‘What’s happening back there?’
‘The folks on our tail are two hundred meters behind and closing. We need to give them something to think about. What have we got left?’
West tapped the container on the floorboards and said, ‘Two frag grenades, lots of smoke. Eleven mags for the M4s between us. And the two M49s.’
In other words, we were down to the dregs.
‘Let me off then give me another hundred meters of clearance and pull over. Show me how to fuse the 49s.’
West hesitated. ‘If you miss, you risk getting isolated and cut off. I’m the one who knows how to use it. You should stay on the truck.’
I didn’t see it the same way. I’d made the deal with Francis for his assistance, which included the burden of getting his people to safety. If any dick was going to get hung out in this shooting gallery, it was going to be mine. ‘We can draw straws to see who’ll be stupid next time,’ I told him.
West was set to continue the discussion, but the urgency he saw in my face changed his mind. So he hurriedly produced the remaining two rounds of HE from a pouch on the floorboards and fused one of them while I looked on.
‘Make sure the base plate has a secure bed,’ he said. ‘And keep the barrel as steady as you can. The further the distance to target, the more chance you have of missing it. This round has a lethal radius of around twenty-five meters. So, while close is easier to hit, too close and it’ll be raining Vin Cooper.’
An RPG round streaked through the bush and boomed against a tree trunk fifty meters ahead and well wide — another random shot. Smoking shards of hot metal clipped off several branches that crashed into the scrub below.
Cassidy brought the truck to a sliding halt and screams of fright could be heard behind us.
West looped the pack strap containing the spare round over my head and neck, and held the mortar barrel toward me.
‘Fuck them up the ass, Major,’ Cassidy said.
‘You Army guys…’ I said as I opened the door and dropped onto the ground through the leaves of something fleshy and wet. Spines jagged into my skin the length of my arm and broke off.
‘Son of a bitch,’ I cursed as the passenger door slammed shut. There were pinpricks of blood up and down my arm. West threw me a wave as the Dong accelerated down the hill, the African faces floating in the darkness under the tarpaulin. Rutherford was standing on the opposite side of the road. Scoping the area, I found what I was looking for almost instantly — a large tree with a broad root system close to the road, with plenty of leafy cover to keep us well hidden. The crest was maybe seventy-five meters back up the hill to my left. Our DF had already disappeared around a slight bend fifty meters to my right.
‘They’re close,’ said Rutherford, the enemy vehicle’s engine laboring noisily just behind the crest.
I ran five meters to the tree and jammed the mortar’s base plate against a smooth buttress of roots.
‘Hold the barrel up,’ I told the Scot.
‘Got it,’ he said.
I took the round from the pouch, checked that it was the correct one, and double-checked that it was fused for an impact strike. Satisfied, I cocked the trigger then loaded the round, fins first, down the business end of the barrel and let it drop, turning my face away at the last instant just in case the round decided to launch anyway. It didn’t.
‘Aim at the road around ten meters beneath the crest of the hill,’ I told Rutherford. ‘If we screw it up and they stay nice and still for us, we’ve got a second chance,’ I added, patting the backup round in the pouch as the truck lurched over the crest, blowing clouds of smoke. A man hung out the passenger door with an RPG. Several more soldiers rested their RPGs and assault rifles on the roof of the cab, the tarpaulin having been removed from the framework over the load area. They had a lot of firepower and were obviously keen to use it.
‘On a count of three,’ I said, grasping the mortar’s trigger close to the bottom end of the barrel. ‘Three, two, one…’
I squeezed the trigger and finched involuntarily as the barrel jumped with a loud bang. Shards of hot material blew back on us as the shell flew from the muzzle. I glanced up in time to see the round skip off the road just under the vehicle’s front axle. A massive boom followed and the back of the truck lifted high off the road as if held there by a giant hand. The radiator dug into the road and the vehicle teetered there almost vertical as it slid forward, carried by its own momentum, pushing a wave of mud. The men standing in the bed area were catapulted over the front cabin. They landed on the road and were almost instantly run over by the truck sliding along on its nose. And all of it was heading straight for Rutherford and me. We dived for cover as the Dong ploughed off the road and smashed against the tree shielding us with a sickening crunch of metal against unyielding hardwood. rifles, grenade launchers, ammunition and men were thrown high into the air and came down all around us, crashing through the bush. A man who landed quite close screamed as he came down. An emphatic meeting with the earth silenced him briefly before he started groaning.
I looked at Rutherford. Both of us had come through okay but the mortar barrel wasn’t so lucky, having been crushed beneath a couple of tons of wrecked Dong on the other side of the tree.
A few feet away from Rutherford, one of Lissouba’s men reached slowly, painfully, for the rifle beside him. Rutherford stood, kicked it beyond his reach, turned the man over and saw that the left side of his face was completely crushed inward from eyebrow to chin.
‘Persistent fucking sods,’ he observed, kneeling over the man.