reacted first. The one who was ready.
The man’s face dropped and a frown knitted his thick eyebrows together — and he hesitated, not immediately computing anything, not recognizing Flynn, not even beginning to understand why a white man was outside his door. By that time it was far too late for him.
Flynn, by contrast, reacted instantly.
He was bigger, stronger and much fitter than the guy, who himself wasn’t small and unfit by any means.
Flynn’s left hand shot out, grabbed the man’s shirt at his chest and in the same movement brought up the Glock and rammed the muzzle of the bulbous silencer into the soft under part of the man’s wide chin.
He did not waste time with words.
He went for action, brutal force, speed.
He forced the man back into the premises, knocking him off balance, running him backwards on his heels.
Behind the door was a hallway of sorts. Three doors off. Using what little intelligence he had gathered from his short external inspection of the front of the building, Flynn thought the door to the left could be a living room of some sort. The one directly ahead was a kitchen — Flynn had glimpsed a sink beyond the open door — and the one on the right could be a bedroom. The one that concerned him in these opening seconds was the one to his left, because that was the one which was lit up.
Flynn powered the man backwards, then jerked him to the left and ran him into this room, which had no door to it.
With a massive heave, Flynn pistoned out his left arm and let go of the man’s shirt. He staggered, tripped and landed on his backside.
Flynn took in the rest of the scenario. To his left a man lounged on a huge, dirty beanbag. This man had a bandage around his left bicep, his arm in a sling. This was the one Boone had managed to shoot on the quayside.
Next to him, on the remnants of a battered armchair, was another man, a cup of something in his hand, which he spilled as Flynn came in through the door. This was the second, uninjured gun man.
On the right, sitting primly on a dining chair, was the smartly besuited Aleef.
The man in the armchair threw his cup aside and started to rise — his right hand picking up the revolver that was lying on the chair arm.
The Glock came around. Flynn fired twice at the man’s body mass. Two shots, quick succession, double-taps. They struck him perfectly, less than an inch apart, entering his heart, left and right ventricle, shredding the organ, the power of the impact smacking him back in the chair.
The beanbag man scrambled across the floor towards the AK47 propped up against the wall by an electric radiator. Flynn swivelled less than forty-five degrees, fired again. The man was side-on to him, his body mass a smaller target, so Flynn shot him in the side of the head, a temple shot, again a double-tap that entered the left side and exited at a downward angle, making a hole about as big as a drinks coaster. He jerked sideways, dead.
Flynn came around. The man he had forced into the room was lying on his side, his legs drawn up to his chest in a tight foetal position, cowering and whimpering.
Aleef, on the dining chair, had not moved. Flynn jerked the Glock at him, causing him to wince, dread on his face as he braced himself for the inevitable death that was coming. But Flynn swung the gun back around to the man on the floor and aimed.
‘No, no,’ he pleaded, his hands palm out.
Flynn shot him twice.
Then he turned to Aleef. ‘Are you armed?’ Aleef shook his head. ‘Get up.’
He stood, legs wobbling, and looked at Flynn, but then his eye line flickered slightly over Flynn’s shoulder. He tried to disguise this, but Flynn saw it, recognized it for what it was, dropped a shoulder, spun round and was faced with the horrific sight of another man coming for him with a double-handed hold on a panga, the broad-bladed, deadly African machete. It was a weapon originally designed for use in sugar fields or for clearing jungles. More recently it had become a lethal weapon, responsible for thousands of horrific deaths and punishment amputations on the continent.
What made it even worse was the appearance of the man who was brandishing the weapon. His face was horribly disfigured, burned and melted, and Flynn knew this was the man who had been caught up in the explosion caused by Boone’s bullet exploding a fuel barrel that the man had been seeking cover behind. He had been blown into the creek where Flynn assumed he had perished. Clearly he had survived, obviously to be deformed for the rest of his life.
The panga was held high and was slicing down at Flynn. Had it caught him before he’d turned, his head would have been sliced cleanly open.
But Flynn had caught Aleef’s look, turned, leapt backwards as the panga came down and just missed him, leaving the burned man wide open for a millisecond, an opportunity that Flynn did not miss.
He shot him in the chest. The shot was hurried, and Flynn shot slightly high, the bullet breaking the man’s collar bone and spinning him away like a top. The second shot was even higher and removed most of the left side of his face.
Flynn stood there for a moment, controlling his breathing, then he looked at Aleef, who emitted a little squeak.
Flynn stepped over the dead men at his feet and gestured for Aleef to go ahead of him out of the door. Flynn came up behind him, slammed him up against the wall and frisked him quickly, expertly, getting close to the man, inhaling the cheap aftershave of which he stank.
‘You’re a very bad man,’ Flynn breathed into Aleef’s ear.
‘I’m just a businessman. Who are you, what is this?’
‘Who else is here?’ Flynn demanded, ignoring Aleef.
‘No one.’
Flynn jammed the barrel of the Glock hard into Aleef’s spine at the small of his back. ‘Truth?’
‘Honestly.’
Flynn gripped Aleef’s jacket collar and steered him out of the room into the hallway. He checked the room to the left, found a basic kitchen and a bathroom/toilet beyond. Then he manhandled Aleef into the next room, directly opposite the living room.
It was empty.
Flynn switched on the light with the butt of the Glock, a low wattage bulb dangling from a frayed length of wire in the middle of the ceiling.
A thin single size mattress was on the floor in one corner of the room with a grimy, bloodstained sheet covering it. Flynn glanced around quickly and saw a small pile of bloody bandages and dressings discarded in another corner, flies buzzing around them. In another corner was clothing, a rolled up shirt and trousers and a pair of sandals. Next to the mattress was a plastic tray containing some crockery and cutlery, and next to that was a metal frame on wheels that held up an empty saline drip bag. Two other empty drip bags were in a bin, together with syringes and their packages. There was also a hessian prayer mat on the floor.
Flynn computed all this, putting together everything he knew and had witnessed, everything he’d read.
‘Where is he?’ Flynn asked Aleef.
‘Who?’ Aleef responded innocently.
Flynn buried the muzzle of the Glock into Aleef’s spine.
‘You know who.’
‘I… don’t know… I don’t know what you’re talking about
… look, please allow me to go… I don’t know what this is about. I haven’t done anything.’
Flynn backed off a step then brutally side-footed the back of Aleef’s right knee, causing the leg to fold and the man to drop on to his knees with a cry. Flynn pressed the gun into the back of Aleef’s head.
‘I said where is he?’
‘Gone… he’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I don’t know, sir, I don’t know,’ Aleef wailed.
