Chapter 5

 

After more than an hour of picking their way up, down, and around the rocky foothills that led back to the clinic, Dmitry brought the SUV to a stop.

They had come to a narrow, rocky, incline that was strewn with boulders. To the left were boulders and a steep, jagged incline down. To the right, not three feet from the windows, was a steep cliff wall that went straight up for at least two hundred feet.

“There it is,” Stan said, pointing ahead.

Through the windshield, Elaine could actually see the tents and buildings of the clinic, on top of a hill that was perhaps a mile away.

Stan was still in a lot of pain. He cursed under his breath as Dmitry slowly moved forward again.

“This is hardest part,” Dmitry said, barely maneuvering the jeep in between two boulders. It reminded Elaine of the time he had navigated his little Lada in between the trees in the forest near the airport in Moscow, trying to escape from the Russian mafia.

There was suddenly a loud thud—something smashed down onto the SUV’s hood.

When Elaine saw it, she screamed.

Rohaan’s severed head.

It tumbled against the window, the lifeless, pale face pressed against the glass, the eyes rolled up, only the whites showing.

“Bozhe moi!” Dmitry cried.

In the next instant, bullets began smacking into both the front and rear windows.

“Get down!” Stan screamed.

Elaine ducked and quickly shrugged the AK-47 off her shoulders, then cautiously raised her head, chambering a bullet.

One big man on horseback was trotting towards them, firing off rounds from a rifle.

When she looked out the back window, she saw another man on horseback doing the same. Both of them were in camouflaged robes and headscarves, only their eyes and noses showing.

Janjaweed.

“Give me a gun!” Stan yelled.

Elaine hesitated.

“You want all of us to die?” he snapped. “Give me a damn gun!”

She unzipped her windbreaker pocket took out the Glock, handing him the rifle—he was right, without his help they didn’t stand a chance.

Dmitry had dived down across the front seat. He had already retrieved the Sig Sauer from the glove compartment.

The bulletproof front and rear windows had already taken so many hits they were impossible to see through now, with each slug creating a white, circular spiderweb fracture. The bumpers and grille and fenders were thumping with each new bullet impact.

Stan pushed the button to lower his window.

Elaine and Dmitry lowered theirs as well.

Stan cautiously leaned his head just enough to see around the edge of the window frame, and he looked up at the top of the cliff.

He started firing the rifle and said, “I think there are only two of them...goddam Janjaweed!”

Elaine stuck the Glock out her window and caught sight of the one that was shooting from behind. He was galloping away now, riding close along the cliff wall. She fired off two rounds but both missed, the rocks ahead of him puffing dust as the bullets whizzed past him.

Elaine looked up at the cliff that the SUV was squeezed up against. At the top, she glimpsed a third man on horseback. He was dressed in the same robes and headscarves as the other two, but his attire was perfectly white. He had a long white beard. He looked down at her. He didn’t appear to be armed, and he stood oddly still, just watching.

The man suddenly pulled back on the reins. Both he and his horse disappeared from view.

The mounted tribesman in front of the SUV had slowed but was still firing off one round after another. He paused, swapping magazines.

Looking pissed off, Dmitry leaned his head out the side front window and fired off a few shots with the Sig.

“Be careful!” Elaine said.

“He very big man,” Dmitry said. “Easy target.”

The man did look huge, now galloping far out of range. He then slowed and turned his horse around, taking shelter behind a boulder, his rifle raised in the air. His head was still visible over the top of the rock. He looked like he was grinning at them. He lowered the rifle and fired again, two more rounds hitting the front window. It had taken so many impacts it looked like it was about to cave in, bits of glass falling on Dmitry.

Dmitry let out a roar and started smashing the windshield with the butt of his pistol, clearing the glass away. Then he slid over into the driver’s seat and put the vehicle in gear.

“I run janja-beech down!” he bellowed, and yanked the wheel to the left, slamming his huge foot down on the accelerator.

“No!” Elaine screamed, but the next thing she knew the SUV had gone off the path and was half sliding and half rolling down the rocky incline. She hugged the headrest of the front seat—for a horrifying second it seemed like the heavy vehicle was about to flip over...but somehow Dmitry kept it upright, expertly twisting the wheel back and forth. The car stabilized and they accelerated faster and faster down the hill.

The huge man on horseback had veered away and was now galloping his horse hard in the opposite direction, glancing over his shoulder, now looking scared.

Rohaan’s head was still on the hood, leaning against the piece of the whitish, shattered windshield that remained. It rolled over, partially coming into view, the dead man’s greasy brown hair blowing in the wind. Dmitry angrily knocked it away with the pistol, screaming something in Russian that Elaine didn’t understand. She glimpsed it spinning and bouncing down the hill to the right.

Now the SUV was going more than fifty kph. Stan leaned out his window and fired off a few shots from the rifle. Elaine raised her pistol and fired off a couple of rounds herself through the wide-open windshield.

They were closing fast on the rider, who did not look so cocky anymore. He tried to steer his horse into another cluster of boulders for protection, but the horse skittered.

Elaine fired off two more shots. Miraculously, even with her bad aim, one of them hit the man in the shoulder. His body twisted violently to one side and he tumbled off the horse, the animal galloping away.

Dmitry gunned the gas pedal even harder, swerving towards him. He staggered to his feet and raised the gun to fire at them.

Elaine ducked.

The poor bastard never had a chance to pull the trigger again. The SUV shook from the impact of his body.

Elaine glimpsed the robed figure flying into the air, end over end, and as Dmitry swerved left to avoid the boulders, she saw it slam into the dirt, as limp as a rag doll.

The SUV skidded to a stop.

Elaine scrambled into the rear of the vehicle and began knocking out the back window, which was about to cave in, too.

Stan was grunting, crawling back across the rearmost seat to join her, dragging his injured leg behind him, the rifle in his hands.

As soon as Elaine got the rear window clear of the shattered glass, she saw the other Janjaweed galloping towards them, firing again, screaming in Arabic.

“Get down!” she shouted, and both Stan and Dmitry ducked just in time. A couple of bullets whizzed through the SUV’s interior, right past their heads, and out through the gaping hole where the front window used to be.

Stan aimed the rifle out the rear window frame, peering over the edge.

Closed one eye.

Aimed at the charging warrior.

Pulled the trigger.

The first shot knocked the man right off his horse, the same way Elaine’s first shot had when they had been attacked yesterday.

The tribesman hit the dirt, dragged forward by the horse with one foot caught in the stirrup, and then he lay still.

The next instant, the barrel of the AK-47 was shoved under Elaine’s chin.

“Drop the fucking gun,” Stan said.

She swallowed, the rifle sight digging into her neck.

“Drop the gun!” he shouted.

She let the Glock fall out of her hand.

Over his shoulder, he said to Dmitry. “You, too, Russky, or I’ll blow her goddam head off.”