Silent kill, p.27
Silent Kill, page 27
part #1 of Extreme Series
Still fucking got it.
‘NOW!’ Pretorius roared. ‘GO! GO! GO!’
There was no time to lose. They raced towards the Lincoln, Pretorius in the lead, Bald matching him stride for stride now. Adrenalin was rushing through his bloodstream, pumping fresh blood into his weary legs. Less than three hundred metres from the grand prize. All they had to do was seize the President and force him to resign – then the country would be theirs.
Three of the Lincoln’s doors flipped open. Bodyguards clambered out: two from the front, one from the rear. They were dressed as if they had gone to Bodyguard University, from their broad shoulders and black tie, white shirt combos right down to the earpieces snaking down their trunk-like necks. And they were wielding Uzi submachine guns. The guy who’d debussed from the rear dived back inside the vehicle while his two mates crouched by the front wheel and started putting rounds down on Pretorius’s men. As bullets struck the road a metre ahead of him and glanced off the tarmac in a furious stream of lead, Pretorius darted for cover at the side of an ancient mosque on the left side of the road. Bald scrambled after him, along with Stegman and Deet. The four soldiers supporting them ducked to the side of a battered shop directly opposite the mosque.
The bodyguards opened fire again. Bald could feel the stopping power of the bullets in the way they quickly tore chunks out of the front of the shop. He lost count of the number of rounds discharged. The gunfire cut out. Silence blanketed the street like crisp snow. Stegman dropped to a knee and took aim. Then the others followed suit. The silence was shredded. Bullets pummelled the Lincoln. Round after incessant round, like a bunch of hammers raining down on a lead pipe. Bald glanced around the corner. Saw the bodyguards slide behind the Lincoln as bullets bounced off the bodywork and spider-webbed the rear window. There was a lull in the gunfire.
Bald shouted to Pretorius, ‘I don’t see the President. Where the fuck is he?’
Pretorius peeked out from behind cover. ‘I count only three doors open. He must still be in the back seat. Direct your aim away from the car. Repeat, away from the car.’
Bald nodded. Any rounds that fully pierced the bodywork would ricochet violently through the car, potentially killing the President.
‘Me and Harvey will give covering fire,’ Pretorius said. ‘You and Deet close in on the Lincoln, spring the President out of there. Ready?’
‘Let’s do it.’
Pretorius did a three-count. On three Bald and Deet broke out from cover with Pretorius and Stegman covering them at their seven o’clock. Keeping his chin tucked low to his chest, Bald scudded towards the petrol station. It was eighty metres away; the Lincoln a hundred and twenty metres further on. The pace they were going at, they’d get hammered before they even made it to the petrol station. Then Bodyguards Two and Three shot up and discharged their Uzis at the two soldiers darting towards them. Bald instinctively hit the deck. Deet landed at his nine. There were so many rounds raining down on his position that the ground around Bald seemed to crackle like fat in a frying pan. But they missed the target. The first problem with Uzis: they were notoriously inaccurate at ranges over a hundred metres.
Now Bald shifted to a kneeling firing stance, thumbing the fire selector from single shot to burst as he sighted Bodyguard One. The trigger felt good when he squeezed it, and a violent three-round burst hammered into the wheelbase, forcing Bodyguard One to crouch behind cover once more. At the same time Bodyguards Two and Three sighted their Uzis on Bald and unleashed a couple of quick bursts. Jackets spat out of the ejectors like coins from a fruit machine after hitting the jackpot. Rounds pelleted the ground six or seven inches ahead of the Scot. Deet unloaded a quick burst in return. The rounds missed but the bodyguards disappeared. Bald looked to his rear just in time to see Pretorius and Stegman bursting out of cover and breaking across exposed ground. Across the road, the four backup soldiers scuttled forward from the shop and moved into position behind a beat-up old Nissan Micra ten metres ahead and to the right.
Bald swung back to his twelve as Bodyguard Three put down six quick rounds on him. They landed short. In the next instant Bodyguards One and Two made a run for the petrol station. Why are they turning back towards us, Bald wondered, instead of getting as far away as possible? Didn’t make any sense. They were headed straight for trouble. Then he spotted a third man sandwiched between the two BGs. He wore dark shalwar trousers with a white kameez tunic over the top and a threadbare grey jacket. A round white Muslim prayer cap sat atop his head, decorated in green and gold.
‘That’s him!’ Pretorius shouted above the hollow echo and clang of gunfire as he drew alongside Bald and Deet. ‘That’s the President. I knew it.’
Up ahead Bodyguard Three raced after his comrades towards the petrol station, firing from the hip as he ran, keeping his attackers pinned down. Then he stopped. Dropped to one knee and fumbled with his Uzi. Just by observing the guy Bald knew he’d emptied his clip. The second problem with Uzis: they went through magazines like celebrities through coke. Now Bald brought his Colt Commando to bear. Sighted the bodyguard. Fired. His aim was true. It was better than true. It was gospel. It was the Ferrari of aims. Three bullets thudded into the guy’s neck. He fell away and died a lonely death in the middle of the road, pawing dumbly at his throat as blood fountained out of his trauma wound in a hot gush. From a certain angle it appeared as if he was vomiting blood. Bald took a weird satisfaction from sending the guy over to the dark side. A powerful sense of achievement. It was something only those who had been in a kill-or-be-killed situation could relate to – the preservation of your own life by the taking of someone else’s.
Bodyguards One and Two and the President had sought refuge behind three rusty old petrol pumps. Bald had a moment of dread that a round could hit the pumps and the petrol station would go up in flames. But then he noticed the weeds poking up through the concrete, the boarded-up windows, the vines hanging from the roof, and quickly realized that the place had been disused for a long time.
Pretorius got to his feet and shook Bald by the shoulder. His blood was up. Victory burned in his eyes.
‘Bastards are trapped,’ he said. ‘Let’s finish the job.’
‘Fucking aye.’
Bald sprang to his feet and pushed on, Pretorius in front. Deet and Stegman were putting down rounds on the pumps. Bullets blitzed the forecourt and struck the concrete pillars supporting the building. Fifty metres to the petrol station now. As he ran he worked out the number of rounds he’d expended so far. Eleven. That left him with nine in the clip. Plus the spare mag, twenty-nine rounds. Bald was forty-four metres from the petrol station when the bodyguards, realizing they were outnumbered and outgunned, were panicked into action. Wild sprays of 9mm cartridges thumped into the advancing party. There was a howl of pain as one of the soldiers breaking clear of the Nissan took a pair of bullets to the groin. He slumped to the ground, screaming at the top of his voice, hands clamped over the leaking wound.
Bald and Pretorius were forty metres from the petrol station now. Bodyguard Two reloaded and brassed up a second soldier at the Nissan. Two of the support soldiers were now dead. We’re down to six now, Bald thought. Those bodyguards are starting to take the piss.
Thirty-five metres away, Bodyguard Two turned his attention to Bald, arcing his sights across ninety degrees. The Uzi zeroed on Bald. The Scot dived to the ground. Then Pretorius shot to his feet and gave two quick pulls on the Beretta’s trigger. The semi-automatic pistol barked. Two bullets smacked into the nape of the bodyguard’s neck. His head snapped back; his arms jerked. He fell away as if somebody had taken a pair of garden shears to marionette strings. Pretorius lowered his pistol and pumped a fist in the air in celebration.
‘Yessssss!’
Seeing the tide of men swarming towards him, Bodyguard One panicked and turned to flee. He didn’t get far. Bald calmly lined the guy up with his Colt Commando and depressed the trigger. A three-round burst slammed into his spine. He jerked. Then he dropped. All three bodyguards had been wiped out. There was still no sign of the President, which meant he must be cowering behind the pumps.
Bald sprinted towards the petrol station. Pretorius powered a stride ahead of him, unable to contain his glee.
‘We’ve got him pinned down, John. There’s no escape. The President’s ours.’
Bald felt his heart beating like a snare drum. His muscles were juiced. He lived for this. Scraping by, keeping his head down, taking crap from the boss – that had never been John Bald’s way. He’d been programmed by the Regiment into a hard-as-fuck killing machine who sought comfort in the cold grip of a weapon and the look of raw fear in the eyes of his enemies. Not for him civvie street, with its slippery truths and half-hearted promises. Bald had forged his personality in the certainty of conflict, the black and white of life and death. In Pretorius, he’d found a kindred spirit. Finally he was back to doing what he did best: getting stuck in, fighting wars, slotting scum. It felt good to be back.
Pretorius slowed as he hit the forecourt. Stepped around the dead bodyguards, feet brushing aside spent niner jackets. The acrid smell of gunpowder wafted through the air. He reached the pumps.
‘Shit!’ he said.
Bald caught up with him. ‘What is it?’
The President wasn’t there.
‘Where is he?’ Bald asked.
Pretorius didn’t reply. Bald followed his gaze. Down the road leading from the palace to the corner of the main road. The road the Lincoln had scudded down. Bald spotted a figure in a grey jacket and a turban hat shuffling down that road. The President.
Hurrying back towards the palace.
Thirty-five
0916 hours.
They chased after the President. Big drops of rain spattered the road as the dark clouds that had massed out over the ocean began rolling inland. In the distance Bald could hear abrupt gunshots, the faint screams of terrified civvies. By the sounds of it the attack on the radio station was going to plan. Now they just had to corner the President. He was forty metres ahead, lumbering towards the palace.
‘Got to stop him,’ said Pretorius at Bald’s three o’clock. Deet was running behind him, with Stegman and the two backup soldiers.
‘What does it matter?’ Bald replied between thirsty gulps of air. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’
‘If the President retreats inside the palace compound, he’ll barricade himself in. We’ll have to fight our way to him. It’ll take time. Time we don’t have. The longer the President is still in power, the harder it’ll be to unseat him.’
Bald pushed on. Chest heaving. Heart thumping. Eighty metres ahead stood the palace, within a compound surrounded by a two-metre-high concrete wall. Above the gates there was a battered sign, like a in a Wild West frontier town. ‘PALAIS DE BEIT-SALAM,’ it read in colourful lettering. A sentry box stood at one side but there was nobody home. The gates were still open.
The sight of the palace sent a strange thrill running through Bald. They were going to do it, after all. He licked his lips with anticipation and powered on towards the President. He was so close to the money now he could almost smell it.
The President tripped on a crack in the pavement and fell on his face. Thirty metres from him now, Bald sighted the President down the barrel of his rifle as he struggled to his feet. He was half a second away from depressing the Colt trigger and watching the back of the President’s head explode when Pretorius thrust a hand out in front of the rifle barrel and blocked his view.
‘No, John! We take the President alive,’ he said. ‘Unless you’re happy being piss-poor.’
‘The fuck do you mean?’
‘All the millions Khalifa has siphoned off international aid packages – we need to know where he’s stashed it. Account numbers, passwords, assets. Without that stuff we’ll just be rulers of a Third World slum.’
Gritting his teeth, Bald reluctantly lowered his weapon. Pretorius had a point, he admitted. The Comoros had no natural resources to speak of; the islanders weren’t sitting on big oil reserves or mines overflowing with diamonds. The only money coming in was in the shape of relief aid from the international community. No doubt the President-slash-dictator took a kickback from each financial aid package and diverted the money into a secretive offshore account. Bald had seen for himself how guys like Khalifa milked the system. The luxury shops of Geneva were filled with former Third World dictators who were sitting on vast retirement funds courtesy of the IMF or the World Bank. If Bald got his hands on that kind of cash, he could truly live like a king.
Ahead of him, the President stumbled on. Twenty metres from the gates now.
‘Any news from Girard?’ Pretorius called out to Stegman.
‘Not a word, Mr Pretorius,’ the South African replied breathlessly.
Pretorius growled deep in his throat. ‘What’s taking him so fucking long? Girard should have seized the airport by now.’
No response. Bald sensed the mission slipping away from them. First the President legging it towards his compound. Now this business of the delay in the airport attack. He was pissed off. He hadn’t come all this way – killed a child in cold blood, been shot at and threatened – only to fall at the last hurdle. From somewhere deep inside, Bald found his second wind. He sprinted past Pretorius towards the palace gates, his hands chopping by his sides, legs kicking out aggressively like a runner on the home straight, the veins on his neck bulging like tensed rope. He closed in on the President as he ducked through the gates.
Bald was twelve metres behind his quarry as he himself raced into the compound. Through the middle of a lawn, some forty metres wide by twenty deep and broken up by palm trees, a stone-paved path led to steps at the front of the palace. The building itself was a drab whitewashed affair, tackily decorated with ornamental stonework and with a solid-looking walnut door intricately studded with gold, as the main entrance. At the foot of the steps, the Comorian national flag fluttered in the cool, damp breeze, the metal snag hooks clinking against the aluminium flagpole. Below the steps a Mitsubishi Triton pickup was parked, its bodywork painted in the livery of the Comoros Defence Force and on its flatbed a Soviet-manufactured NSV heavy machine gun mounted on a pintle tripod. For a moment Bald slowed his stride, wondering what the fuck an army pickup was doing here.
The President was just six metres ahead of Bald, lumbering the steps. Bald reached him in three big strides. Launched himself at him, wrapping his arms around his waist and rugby-tackling him to the ground. The President let out a pained groan as he hit the deck.
Bald pinned him to the ground until Pretorius and the rest of the team had joined him and he was satisfied there was nowhere for the President to run. Then he jumped to his feet, keeping his eyes on him. The man was clutching his windpipe and coughing violently as he rolled onto his back. Catching his breath, he looked up and warily surveyed the faces of the six men stood in a circle above him. Lighter-skinned than many of the locals Bald had seen, he had features that were distinctly Arabic. His eyes were small and black as prayer beads, his nose wide at the nostrils and slightly hooked. The white cap had tumbled from his head, revealing cropped grey hair. His hands trembled. On his face was a look of numb horror.
‘Who’ – the President struggled to form words, his lips quivering uncontrollably – ‘who are you?’
Pretorius dropped to one knee. Grinning at the President, he said, ‘I’m the man who just evicted you from office. I’m calling the shots now.’
Defiance flared in the other man’s eyes. ‘Impossible. I am the President of the Comoros, the Commander in Chief of the Defence Force. My men will never stand for this act of aggression. As a matter of fact, they’ll be here any minute.’ He folded his arms triumphantly across his chest. ‘I’ve already sent a message to my General.’
‘General Ben Said is dead,’ Pretorius replied flatly. ‘I’ve installed Colonel Rashidi as the new chief of staff. My forces have seized the radio station and are in the process of securing Prince Said Ibrahim airport.’ He said all this in a matter-of-fact tone, as if reading the small print on a contract. ‘It’s over, my friend. The country belongs to me now. You can surrender, or die. Choose wisely.’
The fire in the President’s eyes petered out. He gulped loudly.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he whispered.
‘Because I can,’ Pretorius replied in that same toneless voice. ‘Because I have the will to do it, and the means, and in this life that’s all you need. Now, here’s the thing. You’re going to cooperate and if you’re lucky, I might let you live. Or you can play hard and suffer a long and painful death. Not like your friend General Ben Said. He took a bullet to the head. Bang – nice and easy. So what’s it going to be?’
The President swallowed hard. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Where you keep your money.’
The President looked blankly at the soldiers. ‘Money?’ Then he understood, and spat out a cruel laugh. ‘You fucking idiots.’ His lips were cracked and flecked with spittle. ‘I don’t have a pot to piss in. They took it all away from me. Froze my assets.’
‘Who?’ Pretorius growled.
‘Who’d you think?’ The President sat upright. Knees pressed to the ground, his voice bolder now. ‘The Americans.’
Stegman took a step towards the President. ‘You’re lying.’
The President looked outraged. ‘It’s the truth. I swear I have nothing. I am but the humble reflection of my poor countrymen.’
Stegman choked on his khat. He turned to Pretorius, his eyebrows arched. ‘You’re not seriously buying this shit? He’s lying through his teeth.’
Pretorius said nothing. He calmly bent down and drew the Beretta pistol next to the President so that the receiver was level with his ear. Then he fired a shot. The bullet pinged off the stone steps. The President squealed in pain, rolling away as he pressed a hand to his ear. Pretorius stood upright, trained the Beretta on his forehead and said, ‘You have three seconds to start telling the truth.’
