“This is the army?” said Danny.
Abul shrugged. It was impossible to know who was stopping them. The reason, though, was easy to predict — they wanted money.
“I see six,” said Boston, who was looking behind them. “I think we can make it past them.”
Danny leaned forward, trying to see beyond the truck in the road. It was blocking most but not all of the highway. There was a deep ditch to the left. They might make it past, he thought, but they might also fall into the ditch and tumble over. The road curved to the right a short distance beyond the army truck, and there was no way to see what might be there.
“What are these guys going to ask for?” Danny asked Abul.
“Money.”
“What if we shoot them?” said Boston.
“Bad, bad. They have many guns. Plus, the army will not be happy.”
“Stop the bus,” said Danny.
The driver hit the brake.
“Keep the engine running. Be ready to leave. You think you can get around the truck?”
Abul looked at the space. It might be possible, but it would be very tight. “A chance,” he said.
“If I say go, you go,” said Danny. “No argument.”
“What are we doin’, Cap?” asked Boston.
“Playing it by ear,” said Danny.
Outside, the soldiers surrounded the bus. The two men who’d held up their hands pounded on the door, yelling.
“He wants us to come out,” said Abul.
“That, we’re not doing.”
Danny slipped across the aisle and sat in the first row. Removing his pistol from his belt, he flicked off the safety and held it behind his back.
“Open the door and tell him we’re scientists,” he told Abul. “Poor scientists. We don’t have any money.”
Abul glanced at his passenger nervously. “They will just take some money and leave,” he said.
“If we let them do that, they’ll see us as easy marks,” said Danny. “They’ll hit us again and again.”
Abul disagreed. But rather than telling Danny that directly, he told him he didn’t understand what he said. “My English not good.”
“They’ll rob us again and again,” said Boston. “And then probably kill us.”
“You can’t get away from them,” said Abul. “If tonight you escape, tomorrow they will come.”
“Tomorrow will take care of itself,” said Danny.
The soldiers pounded on the door again.
“Go ahead and open it,” said Danny.
Abul put his hand on the handle and pulled it toward him. Robbery was a simple cost of business here; resisting was foolish.
“Out!” shouted the leader of the small band of soldiers. He’d been in the Sudanese army for five years. He was nineteen.
“Tell him,” said Danny.
“My passengers are scientists,” said Abul in Arabic. “Poor men.”
“We will see their papers!” yelled the leader. He pointed his M-16 at the driver. “And they will pay for our troubles.”
“They only want to see your papers,” Abul told Danny. “And a small bribe will make things right.”
“How small?” asked Danny.
Abul asked the gunman how much the inspection might cost. The soldier replied that it was impossible to say beforehand.
“There are only two men, and they are very poor,” said Abul.
The number displeased the soldier. Ordinarily a bus like this would carry at least a dozen foreigners and yield a good amount of loot. Ten U.S. dollars would feed his men for a month; a hundred would give them a new store of ammunition, which was starting to run low.
“Tell them to come out,” he told the driver.
“He wants you to come out,” Abul told Danny.
“We’re not coming out. If he wants his money, he’s coming in,” said Danny.
Abul turned back toward the door, not sure what to tell the soldier. But the man saved him the trouble, bounding up the steps angrily. In the Sudan, the gun was law, and best obeyed quickly.
Danny coiled his body as the bus rocked.
“First one is mine,” he muttered to Boston as the Sudanese leader came onto the bus.
The soldier raised his rifle and shouted angrily. Then he fired a three-shot burst through the roof of the vehicle to show he meant business.
As he started to lower the rifle, something hit him in the side of the head, sharp and hard — Danny’s fist.
Danny pounded the soldier’s temple so hard that he cracked the skull. With his left hand he grabbed the soldier by the scruff of the neck and threw him face first to the floor, scrambling on top of him as his rifle flew down.
“Go! Go! Go!” yelled Boston. “Past the truck! Past the truck!”
Abul needed no urging. He stomped on the gas as the soldier’s companion raised his gun. The bus leapt forward. The right fender scraped against the side of the troop truck as Abul fought to keep it on the road.
One of the soldiers leapt onto the back of the bus. Boston turned and fired, pumping three bullets into the door. The man fell off, dead.
Abul jerked the bus onto the road behind the truck, barely keeping it upright as the shoulder gave way on the left. He let off the gas and cranked the wheel desperately, staying with the curve. A man ran at the bus from the side, and Abul lowered his head, hunching over the wheel and praying to Allah to deliver them.
Behind him, Danny quickly frisked the soldier, tossing away a pistol and a grenade, along with two magazines for the M-16. Now that he was on the floor, the man looked small and almost frail. His rib bones poked through his uniform shirt.
“Up,” Danny ordered.
The soldier didn’t understand. Danny grabbed his shirt and threw him into a seat. Fear gave way to resignation on his face. The man prepared himself to die.
“You’re a lieutenant?” said Danny incredulously, noticing the metal pins on the man’s brown fatigue collar.
The soldier didn’t understand.
“Ask him his name,” Danny told the bus driver.
Abul was too busy driving to translate.
“Hey, Abul, who is this guy?” Danny said.
The soldier turned and spat blood to the floor. He worked his tongue around his teeth, trying to see if any had been broken. He’d been shot once when he was seventeen; the punch in the face felt worse.
“Stop the bus,” said Danny after they’d gone almost a mile from the other soldiers.
Abul did so, his foot heavy on the brake. His hands were shaking.
“Ask him his name and his unit,” Danny told the driver.
“What is your name?” said Abul from his seat.
The soldier didn’t answer the question, merely staring at Danny. Never in his life would he have expected a robbery victim to act this way, especially a westerner. It was impossible; the man, he decided, must be a devil.
“Open the back door, Boston,” said Danny.
“What are you going to do, Colonel?”
“Get rid of him. He’s of no use to us.”
“You must kill him,” said Abul. He jumped up from his seat. “Shoot him. Shoot him.”
“I don’t think so,” said Danny.
