order, was hidden under the driver's seat in the cab. It would take less than ten minutes to bolt it back in place and reconnect the wiring.
Back in his office Johnny settled to the monotony of his forms and ledgers. Once he glanced at his wristwatch and found that it was a few minutes before one o'clock, but wanted to finish the week's reports before knocking off for lunch. Of course, it was a temptation to go up to the house early. He liked to be with the children for a while before lunch, especially with his son, but he resisted the impulse and worked on conscientiously. Anyway he knew that Mavis would probably send the children down to fetch him soon. She liked to serve his lunch promptly.
He smiled in anticipation of their arrival as he heard a sound at the door and looked up.
The smile faded. A stranger stood in the doorway, a stocky man with bow legs, dressed in filthy rags. Both his hands were behind his back as though he was concealing something. Yes? Johnny asked shortly.
Who are you? What do you want? The man smiled. His skin was very dark with purple black highlights. When he smiled the scar that ran down one cheek pulled his mouth out of shape and the smile was malicious and humourless.
Johnny stood up from the desk and went towards him. What do you want?
he repeated, and the man in the doorway said, You! From behind his back he brought out an AK 47 rifle and lifted the barrel towards Johnny's belly.
Johnny was caught totally off guard in the centre of the room.
However, his recovery was almost instantaneous. His reflexes were those of a hunter and a soldier. The armoury door was ten paces to his left and he went for it.
The Parks weapons were kept in there. Through the door he could see the rack of firearms on the far wall. With despair turning his legs as heavy as concrete, Johnny realised that none of the weapons in the rack was loaded. That was his own strict safety rule. The ammunition was kept in the locked steel cupboard under the gun- rack.
All this passed through his mind as he leaped for the door.
From the corner of his eye he saw the scar-faced brigand swing the AK on to him and halfway across the room Johnny tumbled forward like an acrobat, ducking under the blast of automatic fire that swept across the room.
As he rolled smoothly to his feet he heard the- man curse and Johnny dived forward once more for the doorway. He realised that his assailant was food. He had seen that he was a killer in the practised way he handled the rifle. It was a miracle that he had been able to evade that first close-range volley.
The air was filled with a haze of plaster dust that the bullets had battered from the wall and Johnny dived through it, but he knew he was not going to make it. The man with the AK 47 was too good. He could not be fooled again. The shelter of the doorway was too far for Johnny to reach before the next burst came.
The clock in Johnny's head was running; he anticipated how long it would take for the man to recover his balance. The muzzle of the AK 47
always rode up uncontrollably in automatic fire; it would take him the major part of a second to bring it down, and line up for the second burst.
Johnny judged it finely and twisted his body violently aside, but he was a fraction late.
The gunman aimed low to compensate for the rise of the AK.
One bullet sliced through the flesh of Johnny's thigh, missing the bone, but the second cut through the lower curve of his buttock and smashed into the joint at the femur, shattering the head and the cup of bone of the pelvis.
The other three bullets of the burst flew wide as Johnny threw himself to one side. However, his left leg was gone and he fell against the door jamb and tried to hold himself from falling. His impetus sent him sliding sideways along the wall, and his fingernails screeched as they gouged the plaster. He ended up facing back into the room standing on one leg. His left leg hung from the shattered joint, and his arms were flung open like a crucifix as he tried to hold his balance.
Still smiling, the gunman clicked the rate-of-fire selector on to single-shot. He wanted to conserve ammunition. A single round cost him ten Zambian kwacha, and had to be carried hundreds of miles in his pack.
Each cartridge was precious, and the warden was maimed and completely at his mercy. One more bullet would be enough. Now, he said softly.
Now you die. And he shot Johnny Nzou in the stomach.
The bullet drove the breath from Johnny's lungs with an explosive exhalation. He was slammed hard against the wall and doubled over by the brutal force of the impact and then he toppled forward. Johnny had been hit before, during the war, but he had never received a full body strike and the shock of it was beyond his worst expectations. He was numbed from the waist down but his brain stayed clear, crystalline, as though the rush of adrenalin into his bloodstream had sharpened his perception to its limits.
Play dead! he thought, even as he was going down. His lower body was paralysed, but he forced his torso to relax. He hit the floor with the loose unresisting weight of a flour sack and did not move again.
His head was twisted to one side, his chest pressed to the cold cement floor. He lay still. He heard the gunman cross the floor, the rubber soles of the combat boots squeaking softly.
Then his boots entered Johnny's field of vision. They were dusty and worn almost through the uppers. He wore no socks and the stink of his feet was rancid and sour as he stood within inches of Johnny's face.
Johnny heard the metallic snick of the mechanism as the Zambian moved the rate-of-fire selector again, and then felt the cold hard touch of the muzzle against his temple as the man lined up for the coup de grace.
Don't move, Johnny steeled himself.
It was his last despairing hope.
He knew that the slightest movement must trigger the shot. He had to convince the gunman he was dead.
At that moment there was a burst of shouting from outside the room, and then a volley of automatic fire, followed by more shouting. The pressure of the rifle muzzle was lifted from Johnny's temple. The stinking boots turned away and retreated across the floor towards the doorway. Come on! Don't waste time! the scar-faced gunman yelled through the open door. Johnny knew enough of the northern Chinianja dialect to understand. Where are the trucks? We must get the ivory loaded! The Zambian ran out of the office leaving Johnny lying alone on the cement floor.
