forty-one

“Open fire!” Salem screamed and tossed the used rocket launcher out through the open side door. They were single-use weapons, and he was going to need the other one if they stayed here much longer. The scene not eighty yards away was now one of carnage, with a gaping hole in the front of the jail where the entrance had been. Part of the roof structure was caving in with the groaning sounds of a dying animal.

He had waited until the passenger had slapped the dash and shouted, “It’s her!” before throwing back the sliding side doors on both sides to reduce pressure damage inside the van and bringing the launcher up to his shoulder. He caught a glimpse through the sights of a woman with dark hair standing just inside the front entrance of the building with a cell phone clamped to her ear. He had just enough time to think how angry she looked, and actually not that much like her photo, before he calmly squeezed the trigger.

The woman had disappeared in the explosion.

He coughed and spat out the taste of propellant which now filled the van, and reached for the second launcher. On the face of it he’d used one rocket to take out one person, but he was experienced enough to know that there would be other casualties inside the structure. Those that had survived would be stunned and blinded by concussion and dust, and mounting any kind of pursuit would take a long time.

Especially if he fired the second rocket in through the hole.

As he took hold of the launcher, something bounced off the inside of the roof and struck him on the cheek. It was an ejected carbine case. The front seat passenger was spraying the area around the jail through his side window, screaming unintelligibly over the clatter of casings hitting the metalwork and windows like maddened insects, their bright brassy colour flickering in the light.

The driver went to push past the passenger to join him in hosing down the crippled building, but the Salem saw him and shouted, “What, are you crazy? Get us out of here now, you idiot!” He reached up and slapped the back of the driver’s head to gain his attention, then spun round as the bodywork close by his head blew apart under the impact of a heavy bullet. He swore and turned. An officer in police uniform was kneeling off to one side aiming shots at the van with a sidearm. He had blood on his face and his shirt was torn and covered in brick dust, but he was standing steady. Salem knew he was the main target and had only seconds left before the gun zeroed in on him.

He grabbed the carbine instead and fired three shots in quick succession. But his timing was thrown off as the driver took the van forward just as he pulled the trigger. The shots went wide, one clipping the officer’s shoulder and spinning him round. He dropped his gun but scooped it up with his other hand and resumed firing, letting off four shots that slammed into the rear door panels as the van tore away up the street.

They raced out of town heading east on the US 64, leaving behind the noise of fire alarms and a pall of smoke as part of the jail began to burn. There were no signs of pursuit, and Salem wondered how long that would last. By now phone calls and radio alerts would be going out all over the state, and armed response teams would be converging on the area and setting up road blocks.

“Five miles from here,” he said to the driver, “you will see a crossroads with three trees on the right. You can let me off there.”

“You’re a fool, you know that?” the driver said, fighting to get the maximum possible speed out of the van. “They will catch you before you have gone ten miles. Stay with us and we stand a better chance of getting away on the major highways. Once we get to Oklahoma City we can lose ourselves and the brotherhood will provide sanctuary.”

Salem ignored him. It was an argument he’d heard before when he’d first met up with these two men for the trip to Alva. He’d brought his own vehicle, an old pickup he’d acquired in a cheap car lot just outside Oklahoma City. It blended into this area like sand on a rock, and he’d left it parked in a turn-off along the US 64 where nobody would notice it. He planned on taking the network of back roads all the way south, and for the bales of straw he’d picked up along the way to be his cover. He had documents that would stand any scrutiny, and after months of attending night classes at the American School in Sana’a, Yemen, he could talk American English with sufficient ease to convince any cop in a hurry that he was an innocent seasonal farm worker doing his job.

These two, however, seemed to think that this van carried some kind of magic cloak that would take them all the way to Oklahoma City and beyond without being noticed. More fools them.

He checked the rear windows. Nothing yet. But it wouldn’t be long in coming. The one thing the Americans had going for them was organisation and response.

“Slow down,” he said to the driver, as the nearside front wheel slammed into a small pothole in the blacktop. “You’re driving too fast for this part of the country; you’ll end up getting us noticed or killing us.”

“Screw you,” the driver muttered, and pushed his foot down even harder. “My job is to get us out of here. Yours is to sit there and shut up!”

Salem waited. The driver was too pepped up on adrenaline to register what he was doing, but he wouldn’t have to stay in this death trap much longer. He peered through the windscreen at the road ahead. The turning was coming up fast. Too fast—and the driver showed no signs of slowing down.

“Here!” Salem said. “This is where you drop me.”

“We don’t have time,” the driver replied, and swept a hand off the wheel to gesture at the road behind. “For all we know they could be marshalling their forces to hunt us down. You’ll have to sit there and watch our backs.”

Salem sighed and put the tip of the Colt’s barrel against the driver’s neck. “Actually, you stupid pig, I don’t have to do anything. But I will blow your idiot head off if you don’t stop right now!”

The driver yelled in alarm and slammed on the brakes, sending the van into a snaking skid across the road before he wrestled it back under control. Seconds later he was bumping along the grass verge and pulling to a stop at an intersection.

The road they were on was little more than a track, but the one to the right was paved all the way. A clutch of trees stood nearby, just as Salem had said.

Salem jumped out still holding the Colt carbine pointed at the driver’s head. The passenger was staying very still, eyes glued to the front, but he didn’t trust either of them not to try and stop him the moment he turned his back. He wasn’t going to allow them the pleasure.

“Drive,” he commanded them. “And don’t stop until you are far away from here.”

The driver swore, then stamped on the gas and swung the wheel hard. But instead of continuing along the highway, he turned right and took the back road Salem had planned on using.

There was little he could do about it now, and on reflection it could play to his advantage. The van would be far more obvious out in the open country while he could lose himself pottering along at a steady pace, minding his own business.

He watched as the van disappeared in the distance, dragging with it a plume of dust that rose in the air and hung there like a giant flag. Once the police got helicopters in the air, that dust trail would stand out for miles.

He ran towards the trees, jumped into the pickup, and started the engine. He would take the 64 instead, then work his way south farther along. After all, what cop would suspect a farm hand in a fifteen-year-old, rusting pickup carrying a load of straw and time on his hands to be part of an attack on a county jail?

He was just sorry this junker didn’t have a radio. He’d always had a liking for country and western music.