Xenophobia (18 page)

One, two and then three bullets struck silently on the windshield, high and to the left above Elvis. Cracks ran through the glass like spider webs. Elvis hit the brakes hard as he turned to follow the Hummer. Bower thought he’d been hit by the gunfire. She was surprised by how suddenly and quietly the bullet holes appeared. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but a lethal blow landing without warning, without any pomp and ceremony, didn’t seem right.

As they raced down the alley, she turned toward him.

“I’m OK,” he snapped as her fingers poised by his shoulder ready to help. Elvis never took his eyes off the alley. There were holes behind him, marking where the incoming rounds had punched through the sheet metal and into the rear of the cab. The canvas lining on the outside of his helmet had been torn in a sharp, horizontal line, marking where one of the bullets had grazed the Kevlar.

“I’m fine,” he growled.

For Bower, the realization of how close they’d come to disaster was terrifying.

“Indirect fire,” Elvis barked. “Unlucky stray. Goddamn, what a stupid, fucked up way to go out, not even on the end of accurate fire. Shit.”

He seemed to be angry with himself, which confused Bower.

Jameson was on the radio to Bosco. He must have known Elvis was fine and had already rolled on to the next issue, whereas Bower was caught in the moment, reeling from what had happened.

She bounced uncomfortably in her seat as they darted down the alleyway. Women held their children back as the Hummer and truck raced by just inches away. Dogs scampered for cover. They crossed a main road and continued on down the alleyway. They were traveling too fast. As they hit the curb, leading up back into the alley, Bower found herself propelled in the air, almost hitting the roof.

“Can the Pakis render support?” Jameson cried into the radio.

“Negative,” Bosco replied. “They’re holed-up. They’re not going to risk troops before the push to the airfield. We’re on our own.”

“
Fuck
,” Jameson replied, his knuckles white as he gripped the radio.

“Left 50 meters. We’re no more than four miles out.”

They turned onto a dual highway with a low medium strip in the center of the road. People walked along pushing hand-carts, moving with no particular sense of urgency, staring at them in wonderment as they sped by.

Bower was relieved to hear they were heading in the right direction, cutting down the distance to their destination. It had felt like they were going in circles. All the buildings looked the same: drab sandy brown facades stained by the desert. At the frantic speed they were traveling her body felt as rattled as her confidence.

The two-vehicle convoy drove past a park. There were no trees. Dead grass covered a small hill. Heat waves shimmered in the bright sunlight. A set of swings and a slide sat side-by-side on the dry, dusty ground. Beyond the swings lay a burnt-out tank with its right track blown off. Kids crawled under and around the tank, having no interest in the swings. They were pointing their fingers, firing at each other.

Black smudges marred the ground sporadically throughout the park, as though someone had spilled oil, but Bower knew better. The odd skeletal frame of an alien pod’s umbrella lay in the scorching sun. The pods themselves were gone, having melted like snow in summer.

Further along the road they raced past a hospital. Bullet holes scarred the five-story building. There was no movement from inside, at least no obvious movement. Most of the windows were broken.

Bower felt a pang of guilt. She knew what was happening within those walls. The lack of regular, consistent power, poor hygiene, limited supplies and an absurd workload would have rendered the hospital no better than those of the American civil war. Surgery would be little more than butchery. So much misery; so little that could be done. That hospital represented everything that was wrong with Africa: good intentions overwhelmed by the cruelty of man. She’d seen it before, countless times throughout Africa. Anyone with injuries that warranted hospitalization fared no better than a condemned man on death row.

“Coming up on the markets,” came the call over the radio, and the vehicles backed off, slowing as they turned into a broad, open square. A sea of heads spread out before them, marking hundreds if not thousands of people in what amounted to little more than a dusty field. Makeshift stalls struggled feebly to shade buyers and sellers. Horses, cows, goats and pigs were penned up in absurdly small stalls, looking languid in the heat. Leafy vegetables wilted in the sun. Flies buzzed in swarms around those stalls selling raw fish and freshly slaughtered meat. The noise of people bartering overwhelmed the sound of the truck engine.

The Hummer slowed to a crawl as a sea of Africans swarmed around them, trying to sell them produce. They called out, holding up live chickens by their feet, holding melons, pumpkins and gourds.

Elvis was busy turning people away from his door while trying not to run down any one foolish enough to scoot between the vehicles. Kids called out, asking for candy. Women held up ornate garments and golden jewelry, all calling for attention.

Bosco was on the radio.

“Smithy wants to know if you want her to fire a burst over their heads to get them to clear out.”

“Negative,” Jameson replied. “We’d cause a stampede. Just keep rolling slowly forward.”

Bosco kept hitting his horn, honking at the throng that lay before them. A couple of kids climbed up on the sidesteps of the truck, hitching a ride. They were harmless. Bower could see they were showing off, putting on an exhibition for their friends. They smiled, revealing crooked, yellowed teeth and unrelenting joy. They weren’t wearing any shirts. Their skinny arms looked anemic, but that didn’t both them, they’d found Americans.

“Come on, kid,” Elvis said. “Let someone else on the ride.”

Bower couldn’t believe him. Elvis was encouraging them. Sure enough, that kid of eight or nine hopped down, only to be replaced by another in his early teens. The teen cheered, holding onto the window frame as he stood on the running board. He pumped his free arm in the air.

It took almost twenty minutes to clear the market. As they approached the far side of the market the crowd seemed to understand they were departing and peeled away, allowing them to leave.

“Can you believe that?” Bower asked.

“That’s the thing about Africa,” Jameson replied. “They’re not that different to us. We just think they are. They love, they hate, they cry, they make mistakes. They’re human, just as we are.”

Bower was genuinely surprised by Jameson’s attitude. She’d only ever seen soldiers as hired muscle, mindless thugs that happened to be on her side rather than the other guy’s side, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Her few days with the Rangers had shown her a different side to the army. They were doing a job, a nasty job no man would ever wish on another, but one that needed to be done regardless, and yet they too were human.

The Hummer and truck weaved around the edge of the market and moved back onto the quiet streets.

“Is it just me?” Elvis asked. “Or was that surreal? It’s like everyone in the whole goddamn city was in there. Out here, it’s a ghost town again.”

“I don’t like ghosts,” Jameson replied. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

A few minutes later Bosco cut in over the radio. “Left in 150 meters. UN compound should be in the following city block.”

Kids ran down one of the alleys, playing with each other. They were wearing sky-blue Kevlar helmets with the white UN logo on the side. Bower doubted that was a good sign.

The two vehicles turned into a broad avenue running straight for several miles through the deadpan eastern side of the city. In the distance, colored fabrics billowed out from the rooftops, sweeping down across the road like curtains and broad streamers.

“What the fuck is that?” Elvis asked. “A parachute?”

“Too many colors. A hot-air balloon, perhaps?” Bower added, her mind casting back to the gentle fields of England for a moment.

The fabric had a purple tinge with hints of scarlet, emerald and a golden yellow hue depending on the way sunlight played on the windswept material. Sections ballooned up on the rooftops, catching a breeze that never made it to ground level.

“Too big,” Jameson said.

What had initially looked like power-lines crisscrossing the street suddenly resolved into a vast network of tentacles strewn on the rooftops lining the avenue.

“They brought one of those things down,” Jameson added, with no need to explain himself further. Bower breathed deeply.

“
Fuck
,” Elvis said.

Silently, Bower agreed with him.

A burnt-out armored personnel carrier sat to one side, its tires reduced to hardened piles of black rubber. Dark stains marred the dirt, dried blood from bodies long since dragged away, at least she hoped they were remnants of some forgotten conflict. In a couple of places the blood looked fresh. The smell of cordite hung in the air.

A sense of heartache struck Bower. There was a disdain for life in war-torn Africa, where the price of a life was less than the bullets that felled a man.

At the end of the block, a torn UN flag flew above a battle-scarred walled compound. Billows of what she presumed were alien skin flapped in the breeze easily a quarter of a mile beyond.

“Hi Honey, I’m home,” Elvis said in his distinct southern drawl. No one laughed.

“No troops,” Jameson said, leaning forward and looking at the factory walls on one side and the rooftops across the road. “Why no sentries?”

“Look at that fucker,” Elvis replied, pointing at the dead alien creature. “It’s a goddamn scarecrow. Who the hell’s gonna wanna attack them with that Mo-Fo hanging there. God knows what was in its belly.”

Jameson ignored him, grabbing the radio just as the Hummer turned to enter the courtyard. “Hold there, Bosco. Something’s not right.”

“I’ve seen this movie,” Elvis continued. “Fucking face-huggers and acid-spitting aliens. We go in there, we’re screwed. I hate this shit.”

Bower could see Jameson was shutting Elvis out, trying to think on his feet. Jameson wasn’t worried about aliens, he was worried about an all-too-human ambush, and Bower felt it too. The Hummer was half-way through the entrance to the factory courtyard. She watched as the lightly-armored Hummer reversed out, clipping a power pole on the blind side of the vehicle.

“Get us out of here,” Jameson yelled at Elvis.

Elvis was already hitting reverse, twisting his body sideways as he peered at the side mirror. The whine of the engine hit fever pitch as the truck raced backwards in reverse gear.

“Bus,” yelled Elvis, hitting the brakes and twisting hard on the wheel, sending the vehicle sliding to one side. At first, Bower didn’t know what he meant, but then she felt their truck collide with a large vehicle behind them. The jolt passed through her as a wave, rattling her bones. In the wing mirror, she could see a burning bus blocking the road behind them, having been pushed in place by rebels on foot. Their AK-47s were shouldered as they heaved the barricade in place.

Smithy opened up with the SAW mounted on the Hummer. From the angle, Bower could see she was firing on someone on a rooftop to their right. Plastic shell casings danced across the road.

“Go forward. Go forward,” Jameson screamed into the radio.

A trail of smoke sailed down the road, skimming past their truck and exploding against the bus behind them. Suddenly, the smell in the air was one of soot, that of burning rubber. The sound of automatic gun fire broke around them like thunder.

The hood of the Hummer exploded in a flash of flames. A fireball arose, but the Hummer raced on, swerving wildly as it passed the entrance to the UN compound. A trail of smoke raced from a darkened window on the first floor, out across the street and down toward the Hummer.

Bower watched in horror as the Hummer lifted off the ground with the force of the explosion. The vehicle flipped onto one side in a blinding flash and skidded to a halt, barring their path.

For a second, Bower thought Elvis was going to ram the Hummer to push it out of the way, but he rode the truck up over the curb and drove half on the sidewalk as Jameson fired his M4 out the open window. Whereas before she’d thought the gunfire was loud, now it was deafening, the shock from each round reverberated through the cabin so much so she couldn’t hear what Elvis was saying. He was yelling, of that she was sure, but his words were indistinct, just a blur in the confusion. Smoke trails cut through the air followed by explosions tearing up the sidewalk.

Bower felt the rear of the truck slide out from beneath them before she registered the sound of the explosion and the wave of heat emanating from a rocket blast. The truck skidded through the intersection in front of the UN compound.

Jameson was out of the truck. How he’d moved so fast Bower wasn’t sure, but his door was open and she could see him standing there, his legs spread slightly apart on the dusty road, firing short bursts in various directions.

Bower went to move toward him when a hand grabbed the collar of her vest and dragged her backwards out of the cab of the truck. Bower struggled not to fall to the ground, grabbing with her hands to steady herself as she slid out of the door to the street below. Elvis had his M4 cradled so the butt of the rifle sat in the crook of his arm. Like Jameson, he was firing short bursts, just one or two shots in one direction and then another. With his other hand he kept a firm grip on her collar, holding her head down so she couldn’t see all that was going on. He was protecting her, she understood that, but with a ruthless amount of force. The stiff panels of her Kevlar vest made it awkward to move, digging into her hips.

Elvis herded her toward the back of the truck where black smoke billowed into the air.

Jameson had come around the front of the truck. She could see him firing one way while Elvis fired the other.

Elvis shoved her down against the back of the burning truck, using what little cover he had. Bower could feel the radiant heat of the flames lashing at her cheeks. Bullets whipped past.