They were quickly running out of options, and there was no time left to think it over. Operating purely on instinct, Kealey grabbed Flores’s left shoulder and jerked him back in the seat. The Honduran’s head bounced off the headrest, but he stayed upright, the muscles in his face working as he tried to return from the brink of consciousness. Leaning over him, Kealey put the muzzle of his FNC to the driver’s side window and squeezed the trigger. A single round tore through the one-way resistant glass, penetrating the single flexible layer of Makroclear polycarbonate sheeting.
The muzzle blast was impossibly loud inside the Land Cruiser, and it worked where shouting had not. Flores came awake with a start, his eyes snapping open, his arms flying up in a purely defensive gesture. Before he could do anything else, Kealey jammed the muzzle of his rifle into the small hole he had shot through the glass, then twisted the barrel from side to side to work it through the tiny gap. When he had it all the way through, he leaned to the left, his shoulder pressed hard against the steering wheel, which was positioned on the right-hand side of the vehicle. He was unable to see his target’s specific position due to the damage the window had sustained, but aiming in the police officers’ general direction, he fired half a dozen rounds in rapid succession. By the time he squeezed the trigger for the last time, he was temporarily deafened by the force of the muzzle blast in the confined space.
He pulled back, jerking the barrel of the FNC free of the window. Flores was shouting at him, his face twisted in rage, pain, and confusion, but Kealey couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Pointing through the front windshield, he shouted for the other man to drive. As if to emphasize his point, the driver’s side window was suddenly hit with another burst of automatic fire, and Flores immediately slammed the truck into gear. It was more an instinctive reaction than a direct adherence to orders, but Kealey didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were moving out of the kill zone.
The front windshield was one of the few windows still intact, giving Kealey a good view of the road ahead. As the ringing in his ears began to subside, he pointed to an upcoming side street and shouted for Flores to turn. Incredibly, the Honduran actually followed the order, spinning the wheel hard to the right.
As the vehicle swerved, Kealey twisted in his seat to look through the rear window on the driver’s side. The top half of the window was clouded from the impact of incoming fire, but beneath that he could see the police officers running back to the Land Rovers, both of which had accelerated up to the officers’ position. Kealey was disappointed to see that he hadn’t managed to get lucky with one of his rounds. All four of the men outside the vehicles were still moving, though one appeared to be running with a lopsided gait, his free hand pressed to his left upper thigh, his dark face contorted in pain. As he watched them move, Kealey realized that they had fanned out to approach the Toyota. It was a smart tactical maneuver, as it made them less susceptible to incoming fire, but it also meant they had farther to go to get back to their own vehicles. Flores’s fast departure had given them a short head start, but they didn’t have more than twelve seconds lead time, and Kealey knew they would have to use it wisely.
They finished making the turn, and the view of the men abruptly gave way to a redbrick wall. The road they had turned onto was more like an alley than a side street. There was no sidewalk, and residential buildings rose up on either side, the walls crowding in on the narrow street. The asphalt was strewn with litter, discarded pallets of rotting wood, and other assorted debris, all of which served to impede their progress. There were pedestrians, as well, and as the Land Cruiser raced down the alley-Flores leaning on the horn the entire time-they pushed themselves flat against the walls to avoid the speeding SUV.
Flores was shouting questions, demanding some kind of explanation, but Kealey wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The point where the alley fed into the next street was partially blocked by the front end of an illegally parked car, and more vehicles were lined up on the far side of the street, parked bumper to bumper. He shot a glance at the rearview mirror, saw that it was still tilted down, and adjusted it quickly. The moment he did so, he saw the first of the two Land Rovers turning into the alley. The rear windows were down, and men were leaning bodily out the windows, trying to draw a bead on the lead vehicle. A few shots rang out. None of the rounds came close to striking the Land Cruiser, but even so, Kealey knew that they wouldn’t stop coming. By attacking Jacob Zuma’s motorcade, they had staked not only their careers but also their lives on the assassination attempt, and David Joubert was not in a position to protect them if they failed.
That last part was an assumption on Kealey’s part, but there was no question that they were completely loyal to their former chief. Whoever had planned the ambush had clearly decided that the only way to secure Joubert’s freedom was to kill Zuma, and given the prevailing attitude in the South African republic, Kealey decided it was a decent plan. With Zuma out of the way, his successor might be inclined to simply terminate the courtroom proceedings, or perhaps let them play out as a show of due process at work, and only then declare leniency once a verdict was reached.
A decent plan, yes. But it would succeed only if the policemen managed to get to his principal, and Kealey had no intention whatsoever of letting that happen.
Unfortunately, shaking them was easier said than done. The most obvious strategy would be to get to the government building in Marshalltown, but they would still be exposed as they moved from the truck to the building. The local police stations were also out, for obvious reasons. He knew there were probably better options, but the men chasing them undoubtedly knew the city better than he did, and he couldn’t afford to prolong the chase. Looking through the windshield, Kealey let his gaze linger on the illegally parked Peugeot at the end of the alley. With no time left to consider, he made his decision.
“Flores, hit that car. Hit it just forward of the wheel, then turn hard to the left. Stop once you’re past the alley, but make sure these guys”-he gestured over his shoulder to the following vehicles-“don’t have a visual on us. I’m getting out.”
“ What? You must be out of your-”
“Flores, just hit the fucking car,” Kealey shouted. “Do it!”
The Honduran swore viciously, and when the Peugeot was less than twenty meters away, he jerked the wheel hard to the right, aiming for the sedan’s front fender. The SUV’s heavy front grille was dead center with the front wheel on the Peugeot’s passenger side when they hit the stationary vehicle at forty miles per hour. Kealey flinched, closed his eyes, and braced himself at the moment of impact. He was thrown forward in his seat, but he traveled only eight inches before his body came to a sudden, jarring halt. The four-point seat belt snapped over his already bruised chest, driving the air from his lungs. The sound followed instantly; for some reason, the high-pitched explosion of glass seemed to drown out the earsplitting crump of the larger impact.
The Peugeot spun out of their path. The Toyota bounced to the left, then continued traveling forward. Kealey heard the men in the backseat shouting as they jumped the near curb. The vehicle’s sheer weight brought it down hard on its damaged suspension, and the vulnerable undercarriage scraped along the asphalt, throwing up a shower of orange sparks. Flores swore as he lost control, the Land Cruiser slewing hard to the right. Flores turned into the skid without touching the brake, and Kealey opened his eyes in time to see another car directly in front of them, a woman’s pale, frightened face behind the wheel.