“They’re shooting at us,” he said, his voice strangled with panic.
“Does the sunroof open?” I asked.
“No.” Bibata shook her head, her eyes fixed on the smudge of the approaching car.
“I’m going to break it,” I said. “Keep us moving towards that car. Don’t slow down and don’t change your course no matter what they do. When I call to you, go around that car to the right, then pull in behind them, and slam on the brakes.”
Bibata gave no response.
“Repeat that,” I said.
“Drive at them,” said Bibata. “When you call, go around. Then stop.”
“Good. You can do it Bibata, don’t worry.”
I swivelled about in my seat and lifted my legs to the sunroof above me. The tinted perspex was old and cracked from years of exposure to the blistering sun. I rested the soles of my shoes against it, then kicked with all my force. The perspex flew upwards and disappeared. Alassane turned to watch it crash to the ground behind us.
I pulled the Makarov pistol from the holster, squeezed my shoulders through the narrow hole, and stood upright. I turned my eyes forward, gauging the distance to the approaching jeep. It was still travelling fast, probably assuming that we would correct our course. The driver was not concentrating. Then, with less than fifty metres between us, he realised we were driving straight towards him, and he did what I hoped, and slammed on his own brakes, skidding to the safety of the verge and producing an enormous cloud of dust.
“Now!” I called and felt the car beneath me swerve to the right as Bibata over-steered. I turned to face the blue car. It was still gaining on us. I raised the Makarov. A moment later I saw what I expected: an elbow and the form of a weapon poking through the passenger window.
I fired at them, but as I squeezed the trigger Bibata hit the brakes, and my shot went wide. Dust was billowing about me as I regained my balance. Found my target. Squeezed the trigger again. The front windscreen of the blue car shattered. But I realised it wasn’t the people in the car I needed to hit. That was a mistake. I had no idea how many of them there were, or how many weapons they had. I had to do something that would take care of all of them. And for that, I would need to wait until they were almost alongside us.
Our car shuddered to a standstill. I drew a breath, held it, raised the Makarov. The blue car disappeared behind the cloud of dust, but then suddenly it was upon us. The driver had not noticed we had pulled to the side or stopped. They came tearing towards us, and at the last moment noticed where we were. Their car wobbled. That was my moment. I squeezed the trigger. The Makarov was a few pips off: I caught the flash of the headlight bursting. Another squeeze on the trigger. The near front tyre flung a strip of rubber into the air.
They were travelling too fast. The sudden jerk on the steering wheel as the driver saw us, and the loss of the front tyre caused him to lose control. I saw the face of a man above the barrel of an AK-47, grimacing with ferocious concentration. The barrel was jerking. I felt the sudden searing pain of a bullet ripping the flesh of my arm, just below the shoulder.
Then they were past us, and the face of the man above the barrel was rising into the air. The car was rolling. There came a series of dreadful sounds. Metal crunching and scraping across the hard dust road. A moment later they had disappeared into the billowing dust.
I ducked back into the car. Bibata was staring at the place the blue car had disappeared. Alassane had wide eyes, his long arms holding him off his seat as if he was about to jump off the edge of a cliff. Bibata turned to me.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“It’s a scratch,” I said. “Turn around, and drive out of here.”
Bibata opened her mouth to protest, but Alassane shouted from the back seat, “Drive woman! Drive!”
Bibata shoved the car into reverse, went a little too far so that the rear wheels dropped into the ditch, then revved too much and scattered more gravel and dust as we leapt forwards and travelled back in the direction from which we had come.
Outside, sounds were rushing in to fill the space left by the cacophony of the crash. Voices, people calling out with panic.
“Is there somewhere we can go?” I asked.
“They were shooting at us,” said Alassane, as if he was still trying to figure out what had happened.
“We need to go somewhere,” I said. “To think. Reassess. Somewhere close, somewhere no one will think to look.”
“My grandmother,” said Bibata. “She is close.”
“Take us there,” I said.
Alassane’s eyes were on my arm. It looked worse than it was. The left sleeve of my shirt was peeling off like a loose flap of skin. The sleeve had soaked up the blood and was dripping onto my pants and the seat of the car.
“Fast as you can,” I said. “I need to clean up.”
“We must cancel,” said Alassane, his eyes still wide, his breathing shallow. He was in a state of panic.
“We don’t cancel,” I said. “We clean up the mess and take a few deep breaths. This is not over yet. It’s only just started.”
Five
The grandmother’s house was a small cube in a row of identical cubes on a tiny, dusty street. There were three rooms, the rear one a kitchen, with an open door onto a backyard which had a vegetable patch. Neat rows of lovingly nurtured vegetables.
Bibata’s grandmother was a smaller, wizened version of Bibata. Also made up of round shapes, with wide, friendly eyes above plump cheeks. She asked no questions, but boiled water for tea
