One militia man had started whooping, a demented, almost animalistic sound, and his howl had been taken up by the rest. The terrifying cacophony echoed through the cavern as they bayed for blood.
Eddie had no intention of letting them take any. A screaming man sprinted down the alley after him, AK in one hand and a machete waving in the other — only to tumble gracelessly to the ground as a bullet from the Yorkshireman’s own rifle blew a fist-sized chunk from his throat. ‘You can fuck off!’ he shouted.
But more were coming, and he didn’t have enough ammo to take them all down. He turned and raced after Nina and Howie. The two Americans had opened up a lead on him — but to his dismay his wife was now squandering it as she stopped in another little square, Howie continuing past her. ‘No, keep going!’ he yelled.
‘I’m not leaving you!’ she insisted.
‘Do we have to have this conversation every fucking time we get chased?’ he demanded. Like the first square, this had a large bowl to provide illumination at its centre, pots of oil around it.
‘Do you have to run so goddamn slow?’ she shot back, setting off again.
Eddie followed her to the crooked alley’s first turn — then crouched in an empty doorway, readying his weapon. The Insekt Posse charged into the square. He waited until the first man reached the bowl — then fired.
One of the pots shattered, oil spraying out… but it didn’t ignite.
‘Oh, arse,’ Eddie muttered. The other howling men raced through the square, guns coming up—
A second bullet smashed another pot — and this time the searing metal ignited its contents.
Fire gushed from the broken vessel, splashing over the spilled oil — which erupted into a wall of flame that swallowed the leading militia. They burst through its other side as human torches, the bloodlust of their screams turning to agony. The Insekt Posse behind them hurriedly halted.
Eddie rose, about to run after Nina. The fire had spread across the whole square. Nobody would be following him—
His satisfaction lasted barely a moment. Rather than turn back, the trapped militia climbed on to the roofs of the surrounding buildings. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ he growled, unleashing a couple of shots that sent two men crashing back on to their enraged companions, before racing away.
More gunshots from another alley: Fortune shooting at his own pursuers, and angry bursts of fire as they retaliated. But there was another sound over the thudding Kalashnikovs. The Mother of the Shamir’s subsonic hum was becoming a distinct, audible rumble.
And it was getting louder.
‘Eddie!’ Nina cried. ‘I can see the tunnel!’
‘Keep going, don’t stop for anything!’ A look back spurred him to run faster as he saw the mob leaping from roof to roof in pursuit.
He cleared the village. Ahead was the promised tunnel entrance, a black rectangle cut into the rock wall. Nina reached it, Howie ducking past as she stopped inside the low opening. The rest of the expedition members were heading for her, Fortune and Paris covering their rear.
Ziff had fallen behind the documentary crew, the elderly Israeli struggling to keep pace. He looked back. ‘Eddie! Behind you!’
Eddie glanced over his shoulder — and saw one of the Insekt Posse right on him. The tall youth let out a gleeful cry, swinging his machete at his prey—
A bullet whipped over the Englishman’s head to strike the sprinter in the face. The African fell.
Eddie looked ahead again to see Ziff standing on a rock, lowering his gun. ‘Thanks, Doc!’ he shouted. ‘But get down! Get to the—’
Bloody holes burst open across Ziff’s torso.
The Israeli tumbled to the ground. ‘David!’ screamed Nina.
Eddie spotted his shooter: Luaba. He stood on the last building at the village’s edge, swinging his smoking Kalashnikov towards the Yorkshireman—
Fortune and Paris both fired at him. The hulking Congolese dived flat. ‘Paris, go!’ Fortune shouted, heading for the fallen Ziff.
‘No, I’ll get him!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Cover me!’ He reached the rock, finding the Israeli sprawled behind it. Ziff was still alive, clutching at his stomach. ‘Doc! Stay with me, I’ll get you up.’
He hauled the other man over one shoulder, then clutched both their rifles by their straps and lumbered towards the tunnel mouth. Fortune kept firing, downing two more militia. ‘Eddie, I’m almost out!’ he warned.
Paris added his own firepower to his partner’s. More screams came from behind Eddie as he struggled onwards. But they were still massively outnumbered even with the Insekt Posse taking casualties — and rapidly running out of bullets.
Rivero reached the tunnel and bent down to enter it, closely followed by Lydia and Fisher. Inside, he switched on his camera’s spotlight to reveal that the drainage channel sloped downwards for some distance into the rock.
Eddie reached the opening. ‘Nina, help me!’ His wife took Ziff’s weight as he slid him from his shoulder.
Paris and Fortune, still firing, followed him into the tunnel mouth. ‘I’m out,’ the tall Congolese barked, discarding his empty AK.
‘Take one of these,’ Eddie said, dropping the rifles. Fortune collected one, checking the magazine and giving him an unhappy look when he saw how few bullets it contained. ‘Don’t think the other one’s any better.’
To everyone’s surprise, Fisher picked up the second Kalashnikov. ‘What’re you doing?’ Nina asked.
‘I want to fight,’ the director announced. ‘If these bastards are going to kill us, I want to take some of them down first!’
‘You know how to use a gun?’ Eddie asked dubiously as the group headed into the darkness.
‘Point, pull trigger, don’t hit your friends in the back,’ he replied, following Paris’s example by supporting his rifle’s foregrip in the crook of his right arm. ‘I did a documentary about doomsday preppers; they let me fire off a few rounds from an AR-15. Okay, a few dozen.’
‘More like a few hundred,’ said Lydia as she switched on a torch. ‘Rambo!’ Fisher managed a faint smile.
Fortune took up the rearguard position again with Paris. ‘They will reach the tunnel any second!’ he warned.
‘There’d better be a corner down there,’ Eddie shouted to those ahead. ‘Or we’ll be fish in a very narrow barrel!’
Rivero’s reply was both relieved and worried. ‘Yeah, there is — but it goes left and right! Which way do we take?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Nina protested as she realised the others were waiting for an answer from her. ‘It’s a drain, so whichever way goes down!’
‘They both look flat!’
‘Are you kidding me? Solomon, you asshole! Not you, David,’ she hastily added.
The wounded Israeli gave her a feeble laugh. ‘No offence taken. And after all we’ve been through, I’m reconsidering my opinion of the “great king”…’
Nina looked ahead. Howie had let Rivero and Lydia past to light the way. They were indeed approaching a fork in the tunnel. ‘Howie,’ she said, ‘you take David. I need to see where we’re going.’ Howie tucked the laptop under one arm and waited for her and Eddie to catch up—
A single gunshot from behind made everyone jump, the sound physically painful in the confined space. ‘They are at the top!’ said Fortune, grimacing at the noise of his AK.
Eddie took Howie’s rifle as the young man and Nina switched places, then the redhead scurried down the shaft. ‘Why didn’t they just shoot us already?’ asked Lydia as she caught up.
‘You’re complaining?’ said Rivero sarcastically.
‘For one thing, they’re all doped-up, so they’re not thinking straight,’ said Nina. ‘For another, I think they’d rather hack us to pieces for killing Mukobo.’