‘Not from Patrick Tshonga!’ cackled Moyo. ‘They are saying he is on the run from justice. He is a criminal, just like us!’
‘Mr Tshonga is a good man,’ Justus insisted. ‘I am sure that-’
The van had come to a grinding halt again and the rest of his words were lost in another angry blast of horns. People were shouting up at the front of the van. Their voices were suddenly cut short, and then came the deafening percussive blast of an automatic weapon fired just a few feet away.
Farayi looked up, her eyes wide in terror. Winifred Moyo screamed, while male voices shouted for help and demanded to be let out. A second later, their wish was granted. There was another shot, and the inside of the door lock flew into the van and clattered against the bare metal floor. Then the doors were flung wide.
Two men were standing there. One of them carried a strange-looking black gun. The other clasped a vicious-looking pair of bolt-cutters. They were wearing facemasks and gloves but their eyes – one set blue, the other an eerie, clear green – made it obvious that they were whites.
‘Please remain calm,’ the man with the bolt-cutters shouted.
Justus frowned. That voice was familiar.
‘You are quite safe. We are not, repeat not, going to hurt you. Just stay where you are and let us into the truck.’
The man with the bolt-cutters stepped up into the van while the other man covered him with the gun. Winifred Moyo was thrashing on the bench, desperately trying to wriggle free from her shackles. The man ignored her and went straight to Justus.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I’m getting you out of here.’
‘Car-’
Carver put a hand over Justus’s mouth. ‘Shh, no names.’ He pointed at the two youngsters. ‘Those your two?’
Justus nodded.
‘OK,’ Carver said.
He got to work with the bolt-cutters, snapping chains and setting the Iluko family free. They rushed to the end of the van and were helped out by the second man.
‘Thirty seconds!’ the second man called out, as Justus scrambled down on to the road. His voice sounded South African.
‘Coming,’ said Carver.
He looked around for the least panic-stricken face he could find: a middle-aged man with flecks of grey at his temples. Carver cut the chain that linked his leather-cuffed wrists then handed him the bolt-cutters. ‘Free yourself, then pass it on,’ he said. Then he too raced from the van.
83
As he blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dazzling sunshine after the darkness of the van, Justus took in a scene of total pandemonium. All around him, drivers had abandoned their vehicles. Cars were slewed across the road. Not far away, passengers were fighting to get off a bus. Pedestrians were running for the shelter of shops and offices, or huddling for cover behind parked cars. The reason for their fear was apparent: the four men positioned around the prison van.
Justus felt a hand grabbing his wrist and pulling it hard.
‘This way,’ said Carver, leading him round the side of the van.
In the front seats, the driver and guard were slumped forward, unconscious. A dart was sticking out of the driver’s neck, exactly like the ones Justus had seen being used to sedate wild game when he worked at the Stratten Reserve. Up ahead, a truck had blocked the van’s way, stopping just before a crossroads.
‘Get in,’ said Carver, gesturing at the passenger door of a large white four-wheel-drive.
‘Where are my children?’ asked Justus, fear in his voice as he looked around the interior of the car.
‘Don’t worry, they’re safe,’ Carver replied, getting in the front passenger seat.
Two of the gunmen got in the back, squeezing Justus between them. Up ahead, the truck began rumbling over the crossroads, oblivious to the traffic coming from either side, forcing its way through. Another vehicle pulled in behind it, a four-by-four like the one Justus was in, but with an extra row of seats. Justus could see Canaan and Farayi sitting in the middle row. He wanted to cry out to them but bit his tongue. They would not be able to hear and he did not want to seem ridiculous in the eyes of the men around him.
‘Let’s go,’ Carver told the driver, and they set off, taking the third place in line, the speed picking up as they followed the truck.
Now they were racing through the middle of Buweko, passing modern office blocks and grand old redbrick colonial buildings, faster and faster, amid the roar of engines and the almost continuous blare of the truck’s own klaxon up ahead as it urged everyone else on the road to make way.
They crossed two full city blocks, then five… ten… and then came the wail of a police siren. Justus twisted his head to see a police car come speeding out of a side street, almost losing control as it skidded round the corner, then gathering itself and chasing after them. A few seconds later, a second police car joined the chase.
One of the men next to Justus said, ‘Cover your ears.’
The man turned in his seat and pointed his gun back down the road. Then he fired a single thunderous shot and the rear wind-screen simply vanished as if it had never been. He rotated his head to ease his neck muscles, settled over the sights of his gun and pressed the trigger. As the noise crashed round the four-by-four, the drum magazine rotated, cartridges were spewed from the side of the gun and a gigantic hammer of flying lead hit the leading police car and obliterated it.
Justus had fought in a long and bloody war. He had witnessed more slaughter and destruction than any human being should have to face. But he had never seen anything like that before.
The police car seemed to stop dead in the road. The car behind went skidding into its rear. A policeman got out of the passenger seat and ran away with his hands in the air.
The gunman let him go. He stopped firing and slipped back down into his seat.
‘Damn!’ he said. ‘That was fun!’
84
Half a mile up the road, the downtown area gave way to a district of low-rise industrial units, warehouses and open lots. The two four-by-fours pulled into a gated builder’s yard on the corner of an intersection. Parkes’s men spilled out and greeted one another with high fives and whoops of triumph. Justus ran straight to his children.
Carver let them be for a few seconds – enough time for Justus to be certain that his kids were unharmed – then put a hand on his old comrade’s shoulder and said, ‘I need a word.’
‘Of course, of course!’ replied Justus. ‘I cannot believe that you came for us. I do not know how I can thank you.’
Carver grimaced. ‘Well, that’s the trouble. I do.’
‘Anything, just say it.’
‘I need you to let Canaan and Farayi go with Sonny Parkes over there. He’s going to get them safely out of the country. I know you want to go with them. If you say that’s what you’re going to do, I’ll understand. But I really need your help.’
The exuberance left Justus like the light from a bulb. ‘What do you want?’
‘Mabeki has Zalika Stratten again. I know, it’s like some kind of sick joke: losing her once is a misfortune, twice looks like carelessness. And I was careless. It’s my fault. But the fact is he’s got her, she’s in danger, and without you I have no chance of getting her back.’
