He jumped up. The guard was closest to him, breaking out of his daze as he saw the prisoner move and standing clumsily, raising his gun—
Eddie grabbed his arm and wrenched it up behind his back as he fired. The bullet smacked against the door.
The sound shocked the governor back to life. He fumbled for his own holstered weapon, broad face contorted in panic and fury.
Eddie twisted the guard’s arm even harder, jamming the gun’s muzzle into his lower back — and his own index finger on top of his captive’s. Four shots burst gorily through the guard’s abdomen. Even mangled and smashed by their passage, the rounds still had enough force to tear into the governor’s flesh. He screamed, gun forgotten as he writhed in agony from the mortal wounds.
Pulling the gun from the dead guard’s hand, Eddie dropped the corpse and whirled to face Boodu. The Zimbabwean was on his hands and knees. Squinting in pain and disorientation, his gaze fell upon his machete, the ornate handle just inches away. He grabbed it—
Eddie’s foot stamped down on the blade.
Boodu looked up to find the smoking, blood-dripping gun pointed right at him. ‘All right, faceache,’ Eddie growled. ‘Let go.’ Boodu withdrew his hand and backed away. The Englishman bent to retrieve the machete. Outside, an alarm bell started ringing — just as another round of far-off thumps reached the prison. ‘Oh, and if I were you, I’d duck.’
Boodu shielded his head as another round of mortar shells struck their targets. These explosions were further away, but still enough to shake dust from the ceiling as guard towers were blasted into fragments and the prefabricated administration block blew apart, the remains collapsing on top of the prison staff inside.
Eddie jabbed Boodu with the machete. Another noise rose: the helicopter, its pilot desperately trying to take off. ‘Okay, get up. Get up!’ He gestured with the gun towards the broken door. ‘Move.’
Boodu had no choice but to obey, though his voice seethed with defiance. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Long term? Botswana. Short term,’ Eddie went on as the other man responded with confusion, ‘we’re going to do what I came here for — get Strutter. Lead the way.’
‘You can’t get out of here,’ Boodu spat as they exited the cell. Through the hole in the ceiling, they heard the Alouette’s roar as it left the ground. ‘The main gate is shut, and mortars won’t break it — I know, I attacked this place during the war. You need a tank. And you don’t have one.’
‘Let me worry about that,’ said Eddie. He prodded him again, far from gently, with the machete’s point. ‘Come on, shift your arse.’
Making an angry sound, Boodu stepped over the rubble littering the floor and moved down the passage, Eddie a few paces behind. Another explosion outside: a secondary detonation, one of the vehicles inside the compound. There would be a last round of shelling, then after that everything depended on getting the main gate open…
Frantic yelling and thumping came from a cell as they passed it, a man inside begging in the Shona language. Eddie checked the door, but it needed a key. Shit! He should have taken the set from the dead guard—
Another guard ran out from a junction ahead, gun in hand. He looked relieved to see Boodu — then realised that the militia leader was not alone and whipped up his pistol.
Eddie was quicker. A single shot, and the guard fell backwards, blood gushing from a bullet wound in his forehead.
Boodu spun, intending to take advantage of the distraction and tackle Eddie, but the Englishman had already brought the gun back to cover him. ‘Get his keys and open the cell,’ he ordered.
Boodu glared venomously at him, then after a moment a calculating expression formed on his face. ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’ he asked, more rhetorically than in concern. Cunning replaced calculation. ‘You can’t, can you? You need me alive.’
‘Not quite,’ said Eddie. ‘I want you alive, ’cause I’ll get paid extra.’
‘And you said you weren’t a mercenary any more,’ Boodu scoffed, before the implications of Eddie’s words sank in. ‘Paid? By who?’
‘Oh, just the people I got across the border last time I was here. And some other Zimbabweans who escaped.’ His voice hardened. ‘People who had to leave family behind. Family you got hold of. They’re pretty keen to see you again — on their terms.’ A flicker of genuine fear replaced arrogance in Boodu’s eyes. ‘Strutter’s the main reason I’m here, but giving you to them’s a bonus. But don’t get me wrong — if you try anything again, I’ll blow your fucking head off and give ’em what’s left of it in a carrier bag. Now open the door.’
Boodu did as he was told. The door swung open and a haggard man, face swollen with bruises, rushed out — only to retreat in fear when he saw who had released him.
‘It’s okay, come out,’ said Eddie, bringing his gun to the back of Boodu’s head to show the terrified prisoner that the balance of power had changed. He glanced into the cell and saw that the man was not alone; there were five others, all showing signs of recent beatings, in the cramped, sweltering space. He tossed the keys into the room. ‘Get everyone out, and be ready to run when you see the signal.’
‘What signal?’ a prisoner asked.
Eddie grinned. ‘You won’t miss it.’ He swatted Boodu with the machete as the men in the cell hesitantly emerged, as if expecting some cruel trick. ‘Keep moving.’
‘You are setting these traitors, these scum, free?’ Boodu hissed through clenched teeth. ‘You’ll die for this, Chase!’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Eddie replied with a shrug. ‘But first, let’s set another scumbag free and get Strutter, eh?’
Trying to mask his concern, Boodu continued down the passageway, Eddie behind him. More people were quickly released from other cells. Another series of explosions shook the old fort: the final mortar attack. If things were going to plan, the prison would now be in chaos, with communications and most of the defences smashed. The next phase — creating an escape route — should now be under way.
But while freeing Zimbabwean political prisoners would be a great humanitarian feat, it wasn’t why Eddie was there. Only one prisoner concerned him.
The man behind the steel door they had just reached.
Keeping Boodu at gunpoint, Eddie listened at the grille set into it, straining to make out anything over the clamour of alarm bells. That the opening was there at all spoke volumes. Torture chambers designed for the purpose of extracting information were generally soundproofed, the atrocities committed within witnessed only by the torturers and their victims. This, though, let everyone in the cells hear the screams. Another form of torture, more insidious, one that didn’t even require the abusers to lay a hand on their other victims.
Through the door, he heard muted gasping. Anything else was masked by the bells and his own less than perfect hearing, damaged by years of exposure to gunfire and explosions. ‘Open it,’ he muttered to Boodu.
The Zimbabwean glowered, but pushed the door open. ‘It’s Boodu,’ he announced.
There was no answer. Surprised, Boodu stepped cautiously into the chamber. Eddie followed a couple of steps behind. On the far side of the shadowed room he saw the man he had come to rescue: Johnny Strutter, an overweight Kenyan man in his forties. Strutter was shackled face-first against the wall, his bare back marked with savage weals and bleeding lines where he had been whipped. There was also a strong, sickly smell like scorched meat. Burn marks dotted across Strutter’s shoulders and upper back told Eddie that it wasn’t from a barbecue. A bench beside him was home to numerous instruments of torture, some of which had been demonstrated to — and upon — Eddie the previous day.