JOHANNESBURG
Outside the parking garage on Von Brandis Street, the situation had gone from bad to worse. The police, unable or unwilling to hold back the mob any longer, had been overrun by hundreds of screaming men and women, a great many of whom had focused their rage on the crippled Toyota and the two men trapped inside. The truck was surrounded on all sides, and it was being rocked violently from side to side. The doors and windows were being kicked and beaten with bats, metal chair legs, and bare hands, but so far the heavily armored exterior had managed to withstand the furious assault.
In the front passenger seat, Alex Whysall was working frantically to repair the radio, even though he suspected the problem was not with the unit itself. The engine wouldn’t start, which wasn’t surprising in and of itself, given the force of the explosion beneath the vehicle. But it wasn’t even trying to turn over, indicating that the battery was probably out of commission. Although the battery itself was surrounded by additional steel plating, it was possible that the explosion had severed the cables. This would explain why they couldn’t communicate with the other vehicles in the motorcade, as the radio drew its power directly from the battery. Though Whysall had tried to reach the other vehicles using his portable radio, it didn’t have the necessary range. In short, they were completely cut off from the rest of the team.
The only thing they still had working for them was the helicopter, which Whysall could see hovering southwest of their position and more or less directly over Kerk Street. He assumed it was reporting everything to Ryan Kealey, the head of the PSD, but Whysall had no way of signaling that they were okay. Stupidly, he had lent his cell phone to another man on the detail earlier in the day, and he’d forgotten to get it back. He only hoped that someone was on the way to get them out, and soon. It wouldn’t be long before the mob found a way into the vehicle, and once that happened, they would not be able to defend themselves for long.
At the intersection just north of the M2, the second disabled Land Cruiser was coming under heavy fire. Kealey had managed to find his 9mm, but he was folded awkwardly to the side, his head crammed against the passenger-side door. Tilting it up and to the right, he screamed for the men in the backseat to keep down, then looked over at Ramon Flores. The Honduran was slumped over the steering wheel, his thick arms limp at his sides.
Kealey could hear rounds pounding into the rear windshield now, but the bullet-resistant glass seemed to be holding. He knew it was specced to stop anything up to a 7.62mm rifle round. Anything heavier than that would pass right through, and a sustained assault from weapons of a lesser caliber would eventually have the same effect. Either way, they couldn’t just sit and wait for help to arrive; they had to move immediately.
The engine was still running. Kealey couldn’t tell if the truck was drivable or not, but there was only one way to find out. Shifting his weight onto the console between the seats, he leaned into Flores, twisted his body to the right, and jammed his left foot onto the brake. Reaching back awkwardly, he shifted the vehicle into reverse without looking, then moved his foot onto the accelerator. The truck lurched back and careened off an unseen object before it started to pick up speed. Kealey could hear men shouting outside, and he was vaguely aware of people diving out of the way, but he ignored all of it, just as he ignored the two men lying prone in the backseat. Looking over the shoulder rest of the driver’s seat, he swerved around two stationary vehicles, then swung the wheel hard to the left, whipping the truck back in the direction they had come from. The sudden maneuver brought the vehicle to a screeching halt.
In the rearview mirror, Kealey now had a clear view of two police Land Rovers, one of which had suffered obvious damage to the front end. The vehicles were white with blue stripes and lettering, and the light bars on both were flashing, though the sirens were off. They were parked about 30 meters away, and a quick count yielded six men. Four of them were already sprinting toward the damaged Blackwater SUV; two more were getting back into the Land Rovers, anticipating a possible chase. They were all wearing standard South African Police Service attire, and when Kealey saw the field dress uniforms, he endured a moment of doubt, even though he knew what he had to do. He shook it off, holstered his Beretta, and reached for the metal case tucked under his seat. Flipping the latches, he opened the lid to reveal the components of a Fabrique Nationale FNC Para.
Slumping low in the seat, he slapped the lower edge of the rearview mirror with the tips of his fingers, angling it so that he could see through the back windshield without exposing his upper body. Then, without taking his eyes off the approaching police officers, he put the assault rifle together by feel, sliding the bolt into the upper receiver before closing the upper and lower receivers into place with the front and rear pins. Locking the bolt to the rear, he slid one of the preloaded steel magazines into place, then let the bolt snap forward, chambering the first 5.56mm round.
A low groan to his right caught his attention, and Kealey snapped his head around, searching for the source. It took him a second to realize that Flores had regained consciousness, as the man was still slumped over the steering wheel. As Kealey stared at him, though, he groaned again and raised his head a few inches, a thin trickle of blood spilling out of his mouth and over his unshaven chin.
“Flores!” Kealey shouted.
The Honduran stirred but didn’t respond.
“Flores, wake up! Come on, wake the fuck up! We’ve got to move! Flores! ”
The driver wasn’t responding. Movement in his peripheral vision caught Kealey’s attention, and he turned his head to the right. Through the window behind the driver’s seat, directly above the prone figure of Jacob Zuma, Kealey could see two of the SAPS officers who had ambushed them. The Africans had closed to within 20 feet of the Land Cruiser. Both men had their assault rifles up in a firing stance, and one was shouting something that Kealey couldn’t decipher through the glass. The muzzles flashed, and the glass in the driver’s side door turned opaque. The sound of the shots followed a split second later, and even inside the vehicle, they were loud enough to prompt another panicked cry from the president’s chief of staff.
Kealey resumed shouting at Flores as the SAPS officers continued to fire on the vehicle, expending their 30-round magazines in a matter of seconds. Most of the rounds seemed to hit Flores’s window, which was partially pushed in from the force of the incoming fire. Kealey could see that it wouldn’t hold up for much longer, and he realized what their assailants were trying to do. By focusing their fire on that one part of the vehicle, they would be able to defeat the reinforced glass much faster than they would with sporadic fire to all the windows. It was a sound strategy, and it also offered the best chance of stopping the Toyota dead in its tracks, as the truck obviously wouldn’t be going anywhere once the driver was killed.
They were quickly running out of options, and there was no time left to think it over. Operating purely on instinct, Kealey grabbed Flores’s left shoulder and jerked him back in the seat. The Honduran’s head bounced off the headrest, but he stayed upright, the muscles in his face working as he tried to return from the brink of consciousness. Leaning over him, Kealey put the muzzle of his FNC to the driver’s side window and squeezed the trigger. A single round tore through the one-way resistant glass, penetrating the single flexible layer of Makroclear polycarbonate sheeting.
The muzzle blast was impossibly loud inside the Land Cruiser, and it worked where shouting had not. Flores came awake with a start, his eyes snapping open, his arms flying up in a purely defensive gesture. Before he could do anything else, Kealey jammed the muzzle of his rifle into the small hole he had shot through the glass, then twisted the barrel from side to side to work it through the tiny gap. When he had it all the way through, he leaned to the left, his shoulder pressed hard against the steering wheel, which was positioned on the right-hand side of the vehicle. He was unable to see his target’s specific position due to the damage the window had sustained, but aiming in the police officers’ general direction, he fired half a dozen rounds in rapid succession. By the time he squeezed the trigger for the last time, he was temporarily deafened by the force of the muzzle blast in the confined space.
He pulled back, jerking the barrel of the FNC free of the window. Flores was shouting at him, his face twisted in rage, pain, and confusion, but Kealey couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Pointing through the front windshield, he shouted for the other man to drive. As if to emphasize his point, the driver’s side window was suddenly hit with another burst of automatic fire, and Flores immediately slammed the truck into gear. It was more an instinctive reaction than a direct adherence to orders, but Kealey didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were moving out of the kill zone.
The front windshield was one of the few windows still intact, giving Kealey a good view of the road ahead. As the ringing in his ears began to subside, he pointed to an upcoming side street and shouted for Flores to turn. Incredibly, the Honduran actually followed the order, spinning the wheel hard to the right.
As the vehicle swerved, Kealey twisted in his seat to look through the rear window on the driver’s side. The top half of the window was clouded from the impact of incoming fire, but beneath that he could see the police officers running back to the Land Rovers, both of which had accelerated up to the officers’ position. Kealey was disappointed to see that he hadn’t managed to get lucky with one of his rounds. All four of the men outside the vehicles were still moving, though one appeared to be running with a lopsided gait, his free hand pressed to his left upper thigh, his dark face contorted in pain. As he watched them move, Kealey realized that they had fanned out to approach the Toyota. It was a smart tactical maneuver, as it made them less susceptible to incoming fire, but it also meant they had farther to go to get back to their own vehicles. Flores’s fast departure had given them a short head start, but they didn’t have more than twelve seconds lead time, and Kealey knew they would have to use it wisely.
They finished making the turn, and the view of the men abruptly gave way to a redbrick wall. The road they had turned onto was more like an alley than a side street. There was no sidewalk, and residential buildings rose up on either side, the walls crowding in on the narrow street. The asphalt was strewn with litter, discarded pallets of rotting wood, and other assorted debris, all of which served to impede their progress. There were pedestrians, as well, and as the Land Cruiser raced down the alley-Flores leaning on the horn the entire time-they pushed themselves flat against the walls to avoid the speeding SUV.
Flores was shouting questions, demanding some kind of explanation, but Kealey wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The point where the alley fed into the next street was partially blocked by the front end of an illegally parked car, and more vehicles were lined up on the far side of the street, parked bumper to bumper. He shot a glance at the rearview mirror, saw that it was still tilted down, and adjusted it quickly. The moment he did so, he saw the first of the two Land Rovers turning into the alley. The rear windows were down, and men were leaning bodily out the windows, trying to draw a bead on the lead vehicle. A few shots rang out. None of the rounds came close to striking the Land Cruiser, but even so, Kealey knew that they wouldn’t stop coming. By attacking Jacob Zuma’s motorcade, they had staked not only their careers but also their lives on the assassination attempt, and David Joubert was not in a position to protect them if they failed.
That last part was an assumption on Kealey’s part, but there was no question that they were completely loyal to their former chief. Whoever had planned the ambush had clearly decided that the only way to secure Joubert’s freedom was to kill Zuma, and given the prevailing attitude in the South African republic, Kealey decided it was a decent plan. With Zuma out of the way, his successor might be inclined to simply terminate the courtroom proceedings, or perhaps let them play out as a show of due process at work, and only then declare leniency once a verdict was reached.
A decent plan, yes. But it would succeed only if the policemen managed to get to his principal, and Kealey had no intention whatsoever of letting that happen.
Unfortunately, shaking them was easier said than done. The most obvious strategy would be to get to the government building in Marshalltown, but they would still be exposed as they moved from the truck to the building. The local police stations were also out, for obvious reasons. He knew there were probably better options, but the men chasing them undoubtedly knew the city better than he did, and he couldn’t afford to prolong the chase. Looking through the windshield, Kealey let his gaze linger on the illegally parked Peugeot at the end of the alley. With no time left to consider, he made his decision.
“Flores, hit that car. Hit it just forward of the wheel, then turn hard to the left. Stop once you’re past the alley, but make sure these guys”-he gestured over his shoulder to the following vehicles-“don’t have a visual on us. I’m getting out.”
“ What? You must be out of your-”
“Flores, just hit the fucking car,” Kealey shouted. “Do it!”
The Honduran swore viciously, and when the Peugeot was less than twenty meters away, he jerked the wheel hard to the right, aiming for the sedan’s front fender. The SUV’s heavy front grille was dead center with the front wheel on the Peugeot’s passenger side when they hit the stationary vehicle at forty miles per hour. Kealey flinched, closed his eyes, and braced himself at the moment of impact. He was thrown forward in his seat, but he traveled only eight inches before his body came to a sudden, jarring halt. The four-point seat belt snapped over his already bruised chest, driving the air from his lungs. The sound followed instantly; for some reason, the high-pitched explosion of glass seemed to drown out the earsplitting crump of the larger impact.
The Peugeot spun out of their path. The Toyota bounced to the left, then continued traveling forward. Kealey heard the men in the backseat shouting as they jumped the near curb. The vehicle’s sheer weight brought it down hard on its damaged suspension, and the vulnerable undercarriage scraped along the asphalt, throwing up a shower of orange sparks. Flores swore as he lost control, the Land Cruiser slewing hard to the right. Flores turned into the skid without touching the brake, and Kealey opened his eyes in time to see another car directly in front of them, a woman’s pale, frightened face behind the wheel.
They plowed into the vehicle with another violent explosion of metal and glass, driving it sideways over the cement and into the cars parked at the curb. People were scrambling for cover, covering their heads with their arms as the Land Cruiser shuddered to a halt, the engine all but giving out. The sudden quiet made the surrounding screams seem that much louder, but not for long. The 380-horse-power V-8 engine roared back to life as Flores jammed his foot onto the accelerator, simultaneously swinging the wheel hard to the left, turning it hand over hand. They lurched forward, the truck scraping against the woman’s mangled sedan with a tremendous squeal that was somehow worse than the sounds thrown up by the earlier impact. They had barely traveled another five meters when Kealey, having managed to catch his breath once again, gripped Flores’s shoulder and rasped, “Stop here.”
This time the Honduran didn’t bother to argue. He slammed on the brake, and the wheels locked up. They skidded to a halt a few seconds later. Kealey, having already removed his seat belt, immediately flung open the door. Clutching the FNC Para in his right hand, he stepped onto the glass-strewn pavement and shot a quick look back at the alley entrance. Over the screams, he could hear the steady whine of the approaching Land Rovers, but they had yet to hit the street. Better yet, the Peugeot they had hit at the mouth of the alley had spun into the street, effectively blocking the northbound traffic. He still had time.
Flinging a look over his shoulder, he said, “I’m leaving this door open. Drive forward another thirty feet and stop. Whatever you do, don’t let that door close, and don’t get out of the car. Their lives”-he jerked his thumb over his right shoulder, indicating the two African officials in the backseat-“depend on it. Understand?”
Flores nodded once, but Kealey didn’t see the gesture of acknowledgment; he was already on the move. As the Honduran drove on, Kealey crossed the street to the side opposite the alley, ignoring the screams and the accusing fingers leveled in his direction. Stopping in the middle of the southbound lane, he brought the FNC to his shoulder and fired a long burst into the side of a black BMW parked next to the alley. The shots had the intended effect; everyone who had been pointing and shouting at him a second earlier started to scream and scatter, running for their lives. Ironically, the fact that he had fired his weapon had worked to draw their attention away from him. The pedestrians were now focused entirely on one thing, namely, their own survival.
Turning, he ran for the line of parked cars, all of which were pressed to the curb in the southbound lane. There was no room to run between them, so sprinting forward, he jumped and slid across the hood of a battered blue Mercedes sedan, using the chrome bumper as a springboard. The instant his feet touched the sidewalk on the other side of the car, he kept moving, jogging north at a fast, steady pace. Normally, he would have walked to avoid suspicion, but the only way to blend in here was to run, as the chaos on the street was near total. The rifle in his right hand was pressed against his outer thigh, the muzzle depressed. The weapon was as far out of sight as he could get it. Up ahead, he could see the Land Cruiser to his left. It was stopped in the northbound lane, a cloud of steam pouring out from the crumpled hood. Thanks to the expedient roadblock Flores had created by hitting the parked Peugeot, there were no cars between the entrance to the alley and the Blackwater Land Cruiser.
Kealey didn’t know if the SAPS vehicles had emerged from the alley behind him, but he couldn’t risk turning to look. He wanted to peel off his long-sleeved polo, as he was wearing a different colored T-shirt underneath, and it might make him harder to spot if the police officers were smart enough to keep a roving eye on the scattering pedestrians. But removing the top layer of clothing would require taking his hands off his weapon, and he couldn’t risk having someone try to wrest it away from him. The chances of that happening were small, and he would easily be able to retrieve it from anyone who might try to take it, but the fight-even though it would be very short and one-sided-would draw the wrong kind of attention, which was any at all.
A better alternative presented itself a few seconds later. In their haste to flee the scene, some of the pedestrians had dropped their shopping bags, purses, and other assorted items. Kealey, scanning the debris at his feet, caught sight of a crumpled blue baseball cap. Without breaking stride, he leaned down, scooped it up, and put it on, pulling the brim low over his eyes.
The squeal of tires to his rear announced the arrival of the SAPS Land Rovers. Kealey lowered his head and tilted his chin to the right as the vehicles sped past on the left, screeching to a halt just 15 feet behind the Blackwater SUV. They didn’t seem to have noticed him, and he instantly quickened his pace, hoping to lessen the gap before they could act. He was 20 feet from the Land Rover bringing up the rear when the doors on both vehicles swung open, revealing the four police officers.
Once again, the drivers stayed in the trucks as the rest of the men clambered out to the pavement. Without a moment’s hesitation, they brought their weapons up and began unleashing a tremendous volume of fire on the rear windshield of the Toyota. Kealey, even though he was behind them, saw the exact moment they realized that the passenger-side door was hanging open. One man, presumably the leader, frantically waved a hand up and down in a chopping motion, the universal symbol for cease-fire. The automatic fire stopped a few seconds later, the sound echoing off the surrounding buildings, and the screams of panicked civilians once again dominated the chaotic scene.
Kealey was still running forward. His eyes were fixed on the men, all of whom were now looking to their left, searching for the man who had apparently fled the vehicle. As Kealey watched for a gap in the parked cars, a young woman ran toward him, screaming, clutching an infant child to her chest. Without really seeing her, he switched the rifle to his left hand and grabbed her arm with his right, swinging her around. Confused, the woman didn’t even try to resist as he propelled her a few steps forward, then shoved her in through the open door of a sidewalk cafe. As he turned away, Kealey thought he saw a group of hands pull the woman into the safety of the building, but he couldn’t be sure; he was already turning to reacquire his targets.
The four police officers were still searching the parked cars on the other side of the street. Clearly, they had decided that whoever had left the Blackwater vehicle had sought out the closest position of cover. It was the natural assumption to make, and Kealey had been counting on them to do just that. Now he approached unseen from the rear, but just as he was about to engage his first target, his earpiece came to life, jarring him out of the moment.
“Kealey, where the fuck are you?” It was Flores, and he was clearly panicked, the words coming out in an incomprehensible jumble of English and Spanish. “They’re right on top of us, and they’re armed to the fucking teeth. Estoy saliendo de aqui! Do you hear me? Si no puedo manejar en otra parte, yo saldre de este camion y-”
“Don’t move,” Kealey hissed. He was beside himself with rage, furious that the man had picked that crucial moment to distract him. “There’s nowhere to drive to, Flores, because the truck is blocked in, and if you get out of that vehicle right now, you’re a dead man. Do you understand me? They will kill you before your feet touch the ground, so don’t fucking move. ”
He didn’t hear the Honduran’s response, but he didn’t need to; it was just another barrage of scared threats and angry demands. Still, it was a distraction, and he yanked the Motorola receiver/transmitter out of his right ear. Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, he dismissed the idea of moving closer, deciding it would be better to use the parked cars as cover. Besides, he didn’t have time; the officers were already losing interest in the search, and one had stopped looking entirely. That particular officer was moving carefully toward the rear door on the driver’s side of the Land Cruiser. His weapon was at the ready, his body crouched below the bottom edge of the windows. He was doing his best to approach the Toyota unseen, and it seemed to be working; Kealey didn’t think that Flores had seen the man in his side mirror.
Kealey was just moving past a silver Ford Ikon, a delicatessen off to his right. Clearing the Ford’s front windshield, he stopped, straightened, and found his first target. The FNC wasn’t fitted with a telescopic sight, but at a distance of 20 feet, the iron sights were all he needed. The SAPS officer closest to the Land Cruiser was just putting his hand on the door handle when Kealey fired a three-round burst into the back of his head. As the man started to fall, Kealey swung the barrel smoothly to the left, picking out a second target. At the same time, he switched the FNC’s fire selector to single and squeezed the trigger.
Two rounds to the chest dropped the second police officer, who had just finished turning toward Kealey’s position. The third officer almost had time to get his weapon to his shoulder before Kealey’s first round entered the base of his throat, puncturing his trachea. He jerked the trigger of his R5 involuntarily, a dozen rounds tearing a jagged line in the concrete as he stumbled away. His left hand whipped up to the tiny hole in his throat, and as he backed into a Mercedes coupe, Kealey’s second round pierced his upper lip and blew out the back of his skull, showering the roof of the car with blood, fragments of bone, and brain tissue. The man spiraled to the ground. On the way down, his limp body tore the side mirror off the Mercedes. He landed on top of it, twitched once, and stopped moving.
Kealey was already moving for cover. The fourth police officer in the open had managed to dive over the trunk of a parked car and was now crouched behind the vehicle, firing in Kealey’s direction. It was panic fire, though, and it was aimed too high. With his back to the Ikon, Kealey could see the officer’s rounds punching into the front of the delicatessen, chipping the brick facade above the plate-glass windows. The angle, as well as the indiscriminate grouping of the shots, told Kealey that the man was probably firing over the hood of the car, which meant he had no idea where his rounds were going.
Taking the chance, Kealey spun to the right and stood, exposing his upper body. He snapped the FNC up to his shoulder, but it was just as he’d suspected. The fourth officer wasn’t visible, though his hands were. He was holding his R5 assault rifle over the hood of a red Fiesta, firing blindly across the street. Moving left, Kealey shifted his focus to the SAPS vehicles and saw that both drivers were still behind their respective wheels. Propping his elbows on the hood of an M-Class Mercedes, he sighted in on the driver of the lead SUV and prepared to fire.
Just as he acquired his target, the man flung open his door and started to climb out of the Land Rover. Since the steering wheel was on the right side, the officer was perfectly framed against his vehicle, and Kealey squeezed the trigger twice, both rounds striking the man in the center of his chest. A look of shock came over the driver’s face. He reached out to grab for the door, but his legs were already giving way. The police officer dropped to his knees, then fell face-first to the cement, his handgun clattering a few feet from his body. He did not move again.
The second Land Rover was already reversing, the light bar flashing blue on top of the vehicle. Kealey ignored the vehicle, though he caught a glimpse of the driver’s terrified face as the SUV hurtled past his position. Instead, he kept his sights fixed on the Ford Fiesta, which was parked 18 feet northwest of his position. The police officer crouched behind the vehicle had brought his weapon down, and Kealey could only assume he was reloading. Kealey had kept careful track of his own spent brass, and he knew that he had fired 23 of the 30 rounds in the FNC’s magazine, including the long burst he had fired to scatter the pedestrians. That left him with more than enough ammunition to finish the work he had started, as long as he used it carefully.
He was still waiting for the police officer behind the Fiesta to show himself when he spotted movement to his right. He turned to appraise the new threat and saw the driver’s side door on the Land Cruiser swing open. He swore under his breath as Flores climbed out of the vehicle, a Glock 19 in his right hand. The Honduran turned right and began edging carefully along the side of the truck, the Glock extended at arm’s length. His swarthy face was fixed in a strange expression, a combination of restrained fear and intense concentration.
Kealey watched the ex-Honduran soldier move with mounting rage and disbelief. He was tempted to shout out an order, to tell the man to get back into the vehicle, but some inner sense of self-preservation stopped him from doing so. He shot a glance at the Fiesta, but the police officer was still hidden from view. To Kealey’s left, the second Land Rover was still reversing at a high rate of speed, and he turned in time to see the driver attempt a desperate, near impossible turn. He was clearly trying to swing the SUV back into the alley, but he cut it far too short, and there was a loud bang as the rear end of the vehicle smashed into the corner of the residential building, tearing away part of the redbrick wall. The truck died instantly, and even at a distance Kealey could see the police officer struggling in vain to restart the engine.
It was an incredibly easy shot, more akin to murder than a fair exchange of gunfire, but Kealey hadn’t started this fight, and he wasn’t about to hesitate now. Standing up, he moved to the back of the Mercedes SUV and leaned around the corner. Bending his knees slightly, he braced his right shoulder against the Mercedes and fired a three-round burst into the front windshield of the incapacitated Land Rover. He saw the driver jerk in his seat, then slump to the right. It was clear that his rounds had hit their target, but he fired another short burst, anyway, just to be sure. As the echo died away, he heard Flores calling his name. He did not respond, not wanting to give away his position, although he realized his last shots had probably done just that. Instead, he continued moving around the back of the M-Class Mercedes, the retractable stock of his FNC tucked in tight to his right shoulder.
One round left, he thought. One round and a single target. So much for conserving ammunition. Leaning around the rear passenger-side fender, he quickly appraised the situation. Flores had already moved into the open and was walking slowly forward, his gun up as he searched for targets. Kealey immediately adjusted his aim to the left, searching for the last surviving police officer, but the man was way ahead of him. He had already straightened behind the red Fiesta and was rapidly bringing his R5 up to a firing position, the muzzle level with Flores’s chest. The Blackwater driver saw the threat and tried to swing his Glock to the right, his eyes opening wide, but he had already been caught out of position. Kealey, with a clear view of the whole scene, fired his last round as the SAPS officer pulled the trigger once. Kealey’s bullet hit the man in the right side of the head, killing him instantly, but not before the officer’s single round found its target. Flores jerked once with the impact, took a few stumbling steps forward, and dropped to the ground.
Kealey immediately left the cover of the Mercedes and started over to where the man had fallen. With a sense of relief, he decided that the Honduran had not suffered a serious wound, as he was already trying to sit up. His face was twisted in pain, and his left hand was pressed to his right shoulder. His unfired Glock was lying a few feet away.
Arriving on the run, Kealey crouched and pulled Flores’s hand away from the wound, ignoring the man’s halfhearted attempts to push him away. The powerful 5.56mm round had pierced the right side of his chest, just above the first rib and below the outer edge of the clavicle. Judging by the absence of blood, the round had missed the major arteries in the region, as well as all the internal organs, none of which were situated in that immediate area. Moving around to check the man’s back, Kealey found the exit wound, which was considerably larger than the hole in his chest. From the position alone, Kealey could tell that the round had driven through the center of Flores’s right scapula before it left his body. It wasn’t a fatal injury, but his earlier assumption had been wrong, as it was serious. The pain would be intense, and it would only get worse as the minutes passed. Flores had to get to a hospital immediately.
As the shock of the initial impact passed, the Honduran started to groan in pain. Kealey was already thinking about his next move. He looked around quickly, ignoring the distant wail of approaching sirens. Normally, the police backup would have arrived already, but the bulk of the city’s force seemed to be focused on the courthouse at Von Brandis and Kerk, as well as the surrounding streets. Given the ongoing riot outside the Johannesburg High Court, it wasn’t surprising that it had taken this long for backup to arrive on scene, and this realization led Kealey to another. If the SAPS officers who had ambushed them were originally assigned to stand post outside the courthouse, it would explain the ease with which they had obtained automatic weapons. And if they had drawn their R5s for the supposed purpose of crowd control, they had probably signed out some nonlethal deterrents as well-the same deterrents the policemen on Kerk Street should have been using the moment Whysall’s vehicle was hit outside the parking garage.
He looked over at the first police Land Rover, which was still idling directly behind the Land Cruiser. The door nearest to him was hanging open, and the driver’s corpse was lying facedown a few feet away. Rivulets of dark red blood were running out from under his chest, trickling down the gentle slope of the street. Looking the dead man over, Kealey took note of his outfit. It was standard SAPS winter attire: black tactical boots, gray field trousers, and a navy jacket over a gray short-sleeve shirt, the collar pulled outside of the jacket. A navy baseball cap bearing the SAPS gold star was lying next to the man’s head, and his weapon-a standard-issue USP-9-was resting a few inches from his still right hand. There was nothing to suggest that he was anything other than a regular officer in the South African Police Service, except…
Except the handgun, Kealey realized. The USP-9 isn’t standard issue. So if these men aren’t regular SAPS officers, who are they?
The moment this question entered his mind, Kealey jogged over to take a closer look. Picking up the weapon, he saw that he had been right; it was a Heckler amp; Koch USP-9. The powerful 9mm handgun had been adopted by the SAPS Special Task Force a few years earlier, and that told him all he needed to know. The STF was an elite division within the South African Police Service. It was roughly equivalent to the SWAT team in a major U.S. city, such as New York or Los Angeles, only the STF was far more selective. In a police force numbering 130,000 officers across the country, less than 100 were active members of the venerable “Task Mag” units. For this reason alone, Kealey doubted that all six officers were assigned to the STF, but either way, the link would account for the heavy firepower the would-be assassins had brought to bear.
The police sirens were drawing closer. Turning his head to his right, Kealey saw flashing lights in the near distance. Over the sound of the two-tone sirens, he heard doors slamming shut and men shouting, and he realized the arriving officers had decided to proceed on foot, as the road to the north was blocked by abandoned cars. He assumed the occupants had fled when the shooting started, but unfortunately, the accidental roadblock-as convenient as it was-wouldn’t do much to slow the new arrivals down. Even on foot, Kealey knew it wouldn’t take them long to get to the Land Cruiser, which was parked no more than 200 meters from the officers’ current location. Accounting for the cars blocking the way, he decided that he and the others had about fifty seconds to leave the scene. Checking his watch, he marked the time and started to move.
Jogging round to the back of the Land Rover, he popped the rear door and did a quick visual inventory. The cargo area was full of clothes, both civilian and police issue, as well as six boxes of ammunition, four spent magazines, a spare tire, and a fully loaded tactical vest bearing the SAPS departmental seal. Grabbing the vest, he squeezed each of the closed compartments, searching for the cylindrical shape of a CS riot control grenade. The fourth pouch felt right, and he ripped open the Velcro flap to check the contents. Two grenades were inside. He pulled the first one out to read the markings and saw that it was what he was looking for. Shoving one grenade into each of his pockets, he moved around the side of the vehicle and ran up to the rear door of the Land Cruiser. He tried the door and swore when he found it locked. Rather than try to convince the men inside to open it, he ran around the ruined front grille of the SUV to the passenger-side door, which was still hanging ajar. Hitting the automatic locks, he took two steps to his right and lifted the handle.
The South African president was still lying prone in the backseat, as was his aide, Steve Oliphant. Both men raised their heads cautiously when Kealey opened the door. They seemed stunned to find him standing there.
Fixing his gaze on the senior man, Kealey said, “Sir, we’ve got to move. It isn’t safe here… We have to change vehicles right now.”
The man’s mouth fell open, but nothing came out, and Kealey didn’t have time to argue. Reaching in, he grabbed Jacob Zuma with two hands, then pulled him bodily out of the vehicle. The man seemed too stunned to react, but Oliphant immediately began shouting in protest. He reached out and tried to grab Kealey’s arm, commanding him to release the older man. Ignoring him, Kealey gripped Zuma’s arm and guided him gently but firmly back to the Land Rover. He had just pushed him into the backseat when the aide arrived on the run, his face a mask of indignant rage. Before he could say a word, Kealey gripped the lapels of his jacket, turned to the right, and shoved him up against the side of the SUV.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Oliphant sputtered. He tried to pull Kealey’s hands away, but he didn’t have the strength or leverage. “Get your hands off me! You have no right to-”
“Shut the fuck up! We have to get out of here. What don’t you understand about that?”
The aide twisted his head to the right, toward the sound of the sirens. “We don’t have to go anywhere,” he protested angrily. “The police are coming. We should stay here and-”
“The police did this! ” Kealey shouted, sweeping an arm to his right to indicate the surrounding devastation. He tried to remember that the man had been doing his best to keep his head down for the past ten minutes, but it was hard to excuse this level of ignorance.
Oliphant fell silent and gradually stopped struggling as he took in the scene, his mouth agape.
“Don’t you get it? It was the police who attacked us!” The African’s mouth worked silently, but he had nothing to say, and Kealey took advantage of the dead air, knowing it wouldn’t last for long. “Look, you were right about one thing,” he conceded quickly. “More are coming, but we can’t wait to see if they’re on our side or not, so stop arguing and get in the vehicle. We’re leaving. Now. ”
Kealey released his grasp on the man’s suit jacket, and this time Oliphant did as he was told. Without another word, he slid into the backseat next to his boss. Shutting the door after them, Kealey turned and sprinted the short distance back to Flores. The Honduran was still lying where he had fallen, blood streaming out from under his injured shoulder. At first, Kealey was afraid the man had lost consciousness. If he had, it would make his next task all but impossible. As he crossed the last few feet, though, he saw that Flores was still awake, if only just.
“Come on,” Kealey urged, crouching next to him.
The man’s eyes cracked open, but he didn’t respond.
“ Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.” Kealey slid his right arm under Flores’s left, then gripped the man’s limp left hand with his, lifting him into a sitting position. “Ready?”
The Honduran nodded weakly. The slight movement caused sweat to drip from his face to his long-sleeved shirt, which was already soaked in blood and perspiration.
“Okay,” Kealey said. “One, two…”
On three, he straightened his legs and heaved the man to his feet. It took all his strength; Flores had six inches and nearly 80 pounds on him. To complicate matters, the Honduran was already weak from shock incurred by blood loss. He made an effort to stumble forward without assistance, but even so, Kealey was forced to bear much of his weight for the short walk back to the Land Rover.
The rear cargo door was still in the elevated position. Turning to his left, Kealey did what he could to position the man’s right thigh with the rear bumper, then pushed back and up, shoving the injured man into the cluttered cargo area. He would have preferred to put him in the front passenger seat, but it would be difficult to maneuver the large man into the tighter space, and time was no longer a luxury. As Kealey slammed the cargo door shut and moved around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, he was confronted with this fact in the plainest possible terms. The closest police officer was clearly visible to the north, not more than 40 meters from where Kealey was standing, and two more were just a few steps behind. All three had their service weapons drawn. The lead officer was shouting a series of instructions in his direction, but Kealey couldn’t hear what he was saying over the blast of the sirens, not that he particularly cared.
Realizing they would reach the Land Rover before he could reverse back to the alley, Kealey reached into his right pocket and withdrew one of the CS grenades. Stepping over the body of the Special Task Force officer he had killed a few minutes earlier, he moved behind the driver’s side door. Crouching below the line of the window, he flipped off the grenade’s thumb-clip safety, then pulled out the main cotter pin. Taking a single step back, he heaved the grenade over the door, aiming for a spot approximately 10 feet in front of the approaching police officers. Without waiting to see where it landed, he slid behind the wheel and closed the door.
Once inside the vehicle, he didn’t waste any time. Oblivious to Flores’s groans of pain in the back, he checked the glove compartment quickly, searching for a street map. As he rifled through the paperwork, he listened with one ear to the Tait digital radio mounted between the seats, which was already set to the appropriate channel. The responding officers were relaying information back and forth in a rapid, convoluted blend of English and Afrikaans. Straining to pick some information out of the frantic four-way exchange, he caught a few key words, but more importantly, he picked up on the anger and frustration in their voices. In his experience, the tension could mean only one thing-the second wave of SAPS officers was still searching for a clear route to the Blackwater Land Cruiser. And if that was the case, the alley behind the Land Rover was probably still empty, which gave them at least one clear route of escape.
Giving up on the glove compartment, Kealey moved on to the second most likely location. Reaching up, he flipped down the overhead visor, and a folded map fell into his lap, along with a few torn envelopes and a handful of business cards. Unfolding the map, he spread the thin paper over the steering wheel and slid his finger down to the M2, searching for their last known position. Finding it, he studied the surrounding streets, trying to determine which route they had taken.
It was hard to be certain, given the speed with which it had all taken place, but he was reasonably sure that the initial ambush had occurred at the intersection of Goud and Main Street. That was six blocks east of the Carlton Center, which marked the eastern edge of Marshalltown. If he was right, and they had traveled three blocks north before swinging into the alley, that placed them…
Kealey traced the route with his finger and landed on End Street, directly below the M2 overpass. That had to be where they were now, he decided, and a quick glance at the side mirror proved him right; behind them, he could see the sweeping arch of the double-decker highway. The concrete artery was held up by a long row of massive supporting pillars curving gently to the southwest, but while the road was imposing in scale and height, it was dwarfed by the surrounding buildings, most of which were residential in nature and at least ten stories tall.
Satisfied that he had their current location nailed down, Kealey went back to the map and started searching for the nearest medical facility. He found it quickly enough; the MBS Hospital was located in the urban sprawl of Doornfontein, ten blocks to the north in Region 8. He took a few seconds to memorize the route, his eyes occasionally flicking up to the windshield. Then he mentally checked off a number of possible detours he could use if they happened to run into a police roadblock. The hospital was his first and most important destination. If he could get there, he would feel comfortable leaving not only Flores but also Zuma and Oliphant in the care of the physicians on duty. He knew that Zuma’s welfare was supposed to take precedence over everything, but he was not willing to abandon Whysall and Stiles to their fate outside the parking garage on Kerk Street. Not if there was something he could do to save their lives.
Looking back through the windshield, he saw that the grenade he had thrown forty seconds earlier had performed as expected, releasing a thick cloud of noxious gray-white smoke between their stolen Land Rover and the approaching police officers. He had been exposed to CS on several occasions, and he knew how unpleasant the effects could be. The officers unlucky enough to be in the vicinity would be suffering a number of symptoms. Their exposed skin would be burning; their noses would be clogged with mucus; their throats with bile and spit. There was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to open their eyes, let alone find their way to the place where the Land Cruiser was parked, directly in front of Kealey’s newly acquired vehicle.
The sight of the CS-laden smoke was reassuring, as was the fact that the responding officers had yet to find their way through it. He still had one grenade left, and if he could get to Whysall’s disabled vehicle in the next few minutes, he might still have a chance at dispersing the crowd long enough to get the two Blackwater contractors out of the area. It was a long shot, but better than nothing at all, and as the head of the detail, he owed it to them to try.
Pushing the map onto the passenger seat, he threw the Land Rover into reverse and looked over his shoulder. With both eyes fixed on the rear windshield, he hit the gas and the SUV jumped backward, accelerating quickly. The Peugeot they had hit a few minutes earlier was still blocking the northbound traffic, giving him a clear run to the alley entrance. The only problem was the second police Land Rover, which was backed into the brick wall at a strange angle, the driver dead behind the wheel. The space between the front end of the SUV and the abandoned cars in the southbound lane was miniscule, no more than seven feet across, and Kealey knew there was no way they would make it through. Still, he was left with no other option. Keeping his eyes fixed on the short gap, he pressed the accelerator to the floor.
With his attention focused on the rear windshield, he not only heard but saw Oliphant cry out before he heard the shot. Jerking his head to the right, he saw the fresh hole in the windshield just as another round punched through the weakened glass, burrowing into the top half of the passenger seat. When he saw where the second bullet had hit, Kealey couldn’t help but flash on the fact that he had nearly put Flores in that seat. He dismissed the thought just as quickly, and fighting every instinct he had, he turned away from the officers firing at the front of the vehicle. Instead, he focused on the rear windshield and the rapidly approaching gap.
A second before they reached the narrow space, Kealey realized he had badly misjudged the width. The gap was five feet across at most, and no matter how he hit it, they were going to collide with at least one of the stationary vehicles. Reacting instinctively, he cringed and reached over his chest with his left hand, his fingers grasping for the seat belt hanging loose at his right side. He had just managed to grip the material, his fist tightening around the expedient lifeline, when the impact came. The rear passenger side of the Land Rover hit the second truck, heaving them into the air. The rear wheels spun crazily as they sought for something solid to grab onto. Then the back end of the SUV came crashing down without warning, slamming Kealey back in his seat. They were still rolling backward when several more rounds passed through the windshield. The sound of incoming gunfire, more than anything else, shook Kealey out of his daze, and he reflexively hit the gas and turned the wheel to the left, swinging them out of the line of fire.
Now the second police vehicle was temporarily blocking the incoming fire, but it was also blocking their escape route. He backed hard into the vehicle, hitting it broadside, then pushed the accelerator to the floor, driving it sideways. Having created enough room to maneuver, he shifted the truck into drive, pressed down on the accelerator, and swerved to the right. Once they were back in the alley, he immediately slowed to a crawl and shot a glance over his shoulder, ignoring the people running ahead of the vehicle, away from the scene of the massacre.
“Is everyone okay?” he demanded. “Is anyone hit?”
Steve Oliphant shakily raised his head, then sat up. He was in a daze, too confused to immediately respond, but looking him over, Kealey didn’t see anything to indicate that he had been injured.
Pointing at Jacob Zuma’s prostrate form on the floor behind the front seats, Kealey said, “Check him. Make sure he’s okay.”
As Oliphant complied, Kealey called back to Flores, but there was no response, and he realized that the Honduran couldn’t have come through the last collision uninjured, as he had been closest to the point of impact. He would have been thrown all over the place. If he had not already been unconscious when the crash occurred, he almost certainly was now, and that was the best-case scenario. The worst didn’t bear thinking about.
Oliphant was saying something, and it took Kealey a second to decipher the words. When he did, his mounting despair was replaced by a surge of relief; Zuma had made it through unscathed. “Okay,” he said. “We’re getting out of here. Get low and stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
Oliphant nodded and immediately slid to the floor, cramming his body into the narrow space between the seats. Apparently, he was done arguing. Zuma had raised his head to respond to his aide, but now he lowered it once again. Kealey could hear them moving around, though he didn’t see them respond to his order as he hit the gas and fumbled for the Motorola receiver/transmitter he had pulled out of his ear a few minutes earlier. Pushing it back into place, he immediately heard the frantic speech of Jeff Venora, the pilot of the Blackwater helicopter. He cut in without hesitation, and the pilot came back a split second later, his voice laced with anger and barely contained panic.
“Kealey, goddamn it, where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to raise you for-”
“Just tell me what’s happening,” Kealey snapped. “Save the theatrics.”
There was a brief pause, and Kealey could sense the other man biting back his instinctive reply. “The vehicle is still intact, but the situation is only getting worse. I don’t know how much longer they can hold out, over.”
“Any word from Whysall or Stiles?”
“Negative…Their radio must have been knocked out in the attack, over.”
“Okay…” Kealey thought for a second as they hit the end of the alley. Swinging the wheel right, he ran through the route in his mind as the SAPS Land Rover shot north on Banket Street, the speedometer nosing up to sixty kilometers per hour. The hospital was now eight blocks away, and from there it was a five-minute run to the courthouse. “Just stay in position, Air One. I’m coming to get them out.”
“You’re what?” The disbelief in the pilot’s voice was plain. “You must be crazy. They’re surrounded on all sides… You’ll never even reach the vehicle, let alone get them out.”
“I’m coming to get them,” Kealey repeated. He didn’t bother to acknowledge Venora’s words, even though deep down, he knew the man was probably right. Regardless of the odds stacked against him, he had to try. “Just stay where you are. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”