Engage the targets. Neutralise the threat.
The three soldiers leaped out of the wagon. Bowman and Mallet took up positions behind the front side doors, using them as cover. Behind them, Loader and Webb shielded themselves behind the two rear passenger doors. A brief glance at his six o’clock told Bowman that the Karatandan soldiers were still bottled up in the back of the Unimog. Awaiting orders from Major Mavinda, presumably.
In the next half-second the Boys opened fire on the Hilux. Rounds hammered against the pickup bonnet in a piercing din. Two rounds struck the windshield, spider-webbing the glass. Mavinda and his deputies made no attempt to debus. Illogical. But an instinct thing. We’re safer inside than out. Through the rear windshield Bowman glimpsed four heads ducking down as another vicious torrent of incoming rounds peppered the truck.
Four seconds had passed since the first shot had been fired.
Bowman held his weapon in a steady two-handed grip, the telescopic stock tucked against his right shoulder as he coolly lined up the holographic sight with Bandana. He aimed for the midriff. The best target. The percentage shot. Like buying tech stock. Obvious, but lucrative. A 5.56 × 45 mm round could do a serious amount of damage to a person’s torso. Enough to put Bandana and his mates out of the game.
The Boy was still spraying rounds at Hilux when Bowman pulled the trigger.
Two rounds flamed out of the muzzle in quick succession, thumping into Bandana’s upper chest. The lucky charms didn’t save him. His head snapped back and he did a kind of drunken pirouette before he dropped. Bowman plugged him twice more as his body belly-smacked against the blacktop.
A metre to the right, Portugal did the dead man’s dance as Mallet emptied three rounds into his stomach. The two other Boys panicked and ran towards the palace entrance. Rapidly reconsidering the power of their charms. A couple of muzzles flashed in Bowman’s peripheral vision as Loader and Webb gave them the double-tap treatment. Doing the business. Bullets thumped into Flip-Flops and Pinkie, tearing through their upper backs. The pair of them fell to the ground a few metres from the truck.
Seven seconds since the fight had started.
Four dead Boys.
Shadows flitted in and out of the trees studding the lawn at Bowman’s ten o’clock. More looters were scampering out of the palace, alerted by the sound of gunfire. They dashed out of side exits and windows, carrying strips of copper wire, light fittings and bits of furniture and laptops as they scuttled south across the compound. None of them appeared to be armed, but Bowman put an automatic burst down in their direction anyway. Sending a clear message. Stay away. The figures scurried through the gate and disappeared into the shadows.
Mallet shouted, ‘Move yourselves! Get inside! Find the family!’
The team broke forward. Casey picked herself off the ground and caught up with Bowman and Webb as they ran up the drive and past the carriage circle, making for the entrance. Mallet left them and darted over to the Hilux, bellowing orders at Major Mavinda. Shouting at him to get out and order his soldiers to throw up a cordon around the palace.
A warm salty breeze gusted in from the sea, whipping past Bowman as he bounded up the steps to the portico. Loader ran alongside his comrade, breathing hard. Webb and Casey were a couple of paces further back. Bowman could hear their equipment clinking as they raced past the dead Boys. The four soldiers ran past the columns and swept into the palace foyer. Weapons up, covering one another.
Bowman quickly orientated himself as he stepped into a marble-floored reception. There was a courtyard at the far end, he saw. Corridors to the left and right. The palace had been trashed by its latest visitors. Broken glass and spent jackets scattered the floor. Bullet holes studded the walls. Priceless artworks had been cut out of their frames. Other items had been discarded by the thieves in their haste to escape. Books, framed photographs, an ocean of paperwork, various trinkets. One or two wall lights still flickered. The remainder had been torn out of their sockets.
Bowman and Loader moved quickly across the reception, index fingers feathering triggers. They tacked right, moving down the corridor leading towards the banqueting room. Webb and Casey leaped up the stairs to clear the private quarters on the first floor. As Bowman moved down the corridor, he tried to recall the faces of the president’s family. His wife Christel, his three kids. His brother, Francis Seguma. His sister-in-law. Their twin daughters. He’d seen them pinned to the display board back in the Shed. Twenty-one hours ago. Another lifetime. Before the briefing with the Voice, the arrest in Monte Carlo.
His heart was beating frantically as he barged into the staff kitchen. He didn’t know what they would find inside the palace. But he feared it wasn’t going to be good news. The Machete Boys weren’t professional soldiers. They wouldn’t have risked ransacking the palace unless they were sure the fighting was over. And that could only mean one thing.
The rebels have already wiped out the family.
They’re dead.
They cleared each room rapidly, arcs swinging from left to right, looking for enemy targets and friendlies, moving with the speed and controlled aggression of elite operators. They checked the kitchen, the pantry, the banqueting room, the music room. Then they crossed the reception and cleared the offices and the grand meeting chamber on the south side of the ground floor.
Every room had been stripped bare of its valuables. Cupboards had been emptied. Drinks cabinets raided. Carpets ripped up. Furniture broken up or stolen. The looting parties had been extremely thorough. Anything they couldn’t take with them had been damaged or destroyed. But there was no sign of the family, or Mike Gregory, or the other members of the Presidential Guard.
There’s no one here. Just a
