passing the pickup on the opposite side to the gunman. This time Victor didn’t miss.
Blood splashed on the inside of the Toyota’s windshield.
The pick-up lurched to the side, out of control, smashing side to side into a semitruck, crushing the Russian passenger before he could pull himself back inside.
The Toyota rebounded off the semi, swerving erratically, going onto two wheels, flipped once, twice, sliding down the highway on its roof, the flattened body of the Russian gunman hanging limply through the window.
Victor dodged around the oncoming traffic and left the pickup spinning slowly in his rear-view.
He breathed deeply and concentrated on the road ahead and where it would take him. For now it was over. The road was wide, empty, heading north to Kenya, just twenty miles to the border. There was no way he could risk going back for the assassin’s target. By the time he got back to the hotel it would be swarming with the authorities as well as Russians. Plus, the guy would be long gone by now anyway. Victor would have to use what he’d found from Olympus to continue his hunt, go through the paperwork. Do it the broker’s way. He kept the needle at sixty.
A vehicle appeared in his rear-view, fighting to get through the traffic bottlenecked by the crashed pick- up.
The Land Rover.
Victor pushed down on the accelerator pedal, and in seconds the Land Rover had disappeared into the blur behind him. All Victor had to do was keep the accelerator down, and, by the time the assassin had negotiated his way out of the tailback, Victor would be too far gone to catch.
He pictured droplets of water bouncing off dead eyes.
The muscles in Victor’s jaw flexed, his gaze hardened, and he eased his foot on the accelerator. The needle swung counterclockwise to thirty. Ten seconds went by, then twenty, and Victor saw a dark speck in his mirror appear, growing larger, clearer, closer. Good.
He took the next exit off the highway, again easing the pressure on the accelerator, drawing the assassin nearer. The street he turned into was wide, lined with one-storey houses made from cinderblocks and roofed with corrugated tin or seaweed thatch. Power cables hung low across the road. Graffiti was scrawled along the walls.
The Land Rover followed seconds later. Through the rear-view Victor’s eyes locked with Reed’s. Victor saw hatred in his gaze and knew the assassin saw hatred returned.
Victor accelerated and skidded round the next corner, back end sliding out. He fought the wheel as the Jeep pulled right, driver’s side grinding against a line of parked cars, denting a fender, crushing lights.
He veered back into the centre of the road. He was on a narrow, dusty street, flanked by shanties. There were no turnings visible. In the distance the shanties thinned out into lush savanna. Old row boats sat upturned along one side of the road, bottoms cracked and warped from the sun. Behind him, the Land Rover was close enough for him to see the assassin’s weapon raised.
Victor heard the abrasive pop of unsuppressed gunfire. New holes appeared in the windshield. A bullet tore a chunk from the dash, and Victor drove evasively, swerving left and right. The firing stopped, and in the rear-view Victor saw his attacker had both hands back on the wheel.
The Land Rover rammed into him from behind, jolting Victor in his seat. A few seconds later another impact forced the Jeep to the right, and before Victor recovered the Land Rover sped forwards, coming up alongside him so that both vehicles occupied all available road, thick dust clouding behind them.
Reed had one hand on the wheel, the other firing the Glock, eyes flicking between Victor and the road. Victor returned fire when he could — eight rounds left, six, four — but the angle was bad, he couldn’t get a good shot.
He didn’t have the ammunition to waste, so he dropped the Browning into his lap and swung the wheel to the right, slamming sideways into the Land Rover. Metal shrieked. Bullets raked the Jeep.
Victor pulled to the left and then back right, hitting the Land Rover hard, then again, and again. The firing ceased. Victor stared into the assassin’s unblinking eyes.
Both vehicles sped down the road, door to door. Victor’s arms were locked on the steering wheel, muscles taut, teeth clenched, gaze alternating back and forth between the road ahead and his enemy.
Victor waited until the assassin had his gun back up to fire and then released the accelerator, dropping back sharply, Jeep scraping alongside the Land Rover. Rounds punctured the hood. Steam hissed through the holes.
Victor swerved right, moving directly behind the Land Rover. He controlled the wheel with his left hand, took the Browning in his right, and fired his last four rounds, straight through his own windshield. Two holes appeared in the Land Rover’s rear bumper, dust blew out from the road, but the fourth bullet hit its mark.
The driver’s side rear tyre exploded.
The Land Rover swayed erratically, spun around, kicking up dust, going onto two wheels for a second before tipping and rolling off the road and into the brush.
Victor discarded the empty Browning and took the pressure off of the accelerator. The Jeep didn’t slow down. It started to shake, steam pouring from the engine. Victor tried the brake, but the acceleration was locked. The brakes squealed, brake dust clouding from the wheels, but the Jeep was still doing fifty. Smoke spewed out from under the hood. Followed by flames. He hurtled toward a T-intersection, going too fast to take the corner. The hood blew open, covering the windshield.
He tried to guess the corner and swerved to the right, the Jeep shooting off the road and into the vegetation. He wrestled with the wheel, unable to see with the hood up, travelling fast, tall grasses and trees rushing past the door windows.
Victor jerked in his seat as the Jeep’s suspension fought the uneven ground. Without warning the earth seemed to smooth out perfectly for an instant until the Jeep tipped forward and Victor realized he was falling just before everything went black.
CHAPTER 77
17:34 EAT
Alvarez used the truck for support to help himself stand back up. His right arm swung uselessly at his side. Blood stained his shirt and made it cling to his skin. With the pain and the nausea Alvarez didn’t have the energy to collect the Beretta from where it had skidded under the truck, but, one hand held against his head, a cut above his left eyebrow, he saw Sykes approaching it.
Sykes knelt down and picked up the gun.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sykes asked him.
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
Sykes didn’t answer. He wiped the dust from the Beretta with his T-shirt. Alvarez watched.
Dalweg rounded the back of the truck, limping, his left calf red with blood from where the bullet had grazed his flesh. He held the Uzi casually in one hand.
‘Unlucky shithead,’ he said to Alvarez. ‘Got you with my last round.’
Dalweg’s face was a bloody and swollen mess. He walked up to Alvarez and hit him in the stomach with the butt of the Uzi. Alvarez sank to his knees and Dalweg smirked.
‘Now we’re even,’ he said. He looked to Sykes. ‘Who the hell is this guy?’
‘He’s agency,’ Sykes explained. ‘It’s a long story.’
It took a few seconds before Alvarez had stopped coughing enough to see the barrel of the Beretta aimed straight at his face.
Alvarez’s eyes locked on Sykes’s. ‘You don’t want to do this, man.’
‘Well, I am doing it,’ Sykes said. ‘And don’t blame me. You didn’t have to come here; you didn’t have to get involved.’
‘Yes I did.’
‘Then you don’t leave me much choice.’
‘You know what’s in that truck?’ Alvarez asked, looking first at Sykes and then at Dalweg.
Dalweg spat blood out from his mouth.
