by Matt Rogers
32
As he stepped onto the interior’s concrete flooring he heard a truck engine roar into life up the back of the warehouse. The noise resonated off the walls, clearly audible despite King’s impaired hearing. He zigzagged through a maze of steel and wood, dodging supplies and vehicles, unsure as to where he was headed but determined to reach it before Reed could escape.
He wouldn’t get another opportunity to catch the man.
He knew that.
Even though the temperature had dropped rapidly as night set in, the warehouse contained most of the day’s scorching heat, packing the humidity into a cubic space the size of an aircraft hangar. The sweat poured off his frame as he hurried through the narrow aisles, leeched from his pores by a combination of stress and overheating. Faint echoes drifted over the towering pallets, coming from behind him.
A handful of the workers had entered the warehouse.
The next moment, gunshots tore across the back of the warehouse, packing the distinctive punch of an M45 pistol.
Reed, firing more shots.
Dropping more guards, in all likelihood.
King quickened his pace, giving the AK-47 in his hands a preliminary check as he ran. Everything seemed in order — when he pulled the trigger, the gun would fire. That was all he needed. His gaze instinctively drifted to his broken wrist, hanging by his side, already swelling beyond recognition. He stomached a grimace and tried to force the injury from his mind entirely.
The more he dwelled on it, the faster it would incapacitate him.
He sensed a break in the maze of supplies ahead and surged forward, drawing closer to the source of the massive engine.
When he burst out into a vast stretch of open flooring, his heart leapt into his throat.
A gargantuan haul truck ordinarily reserved for quarries and mining activities bore down on him, only a few feet away. He caught one glimpse of the massive wheels — designed for off-highway use, at least fifteen feet tall on their own — and threw himself back into the aisle, tumbling head-over-heels in an attempt to avoid being flattened by the steaming behemoth.
He couldn’t believe his eyes as he rolled to a stop and watched the structure-on-wheels tear past.
It came close to touching the roof of the warehouse — King found it hard to believe that a vehicle so large existed. He caught sight of an inscription on the side, reading Liebherr T 282B.
The make and model.
Now he understood the reason for the deafening roar — such an enormous vehicle couldn’t possibly run on less than three-thousand horsepower. He imagined the size of the engine under the hood and blanched at the ramifications of the discovery.
He had no doubt Reed rested in the cabin, sitting comfortably at least twenty feet above-ground. Somehow, he’d discovered the existence of the ultra-class haul truck and planned accordingly. Reed’s furious tirade gave King the impression that the man had planned to commandeer the vehicle with the workers’ blessing, impersonating one of the port officials.
Now, he was forced to leave the complex against resistance.
King wondered how Reed planned to do it.
Then he stepped back out into the open rear of the warehouse as the Liebherr truck screamed past and the blood drained from his face.
There was no exit back here — just three towering walls made of corrugated metal.
And Reed was heading straight for one of them.
‘Oh my God,’ King whispered.
Despite every fibre of his being convincing him to flee, he took off at a sprint after the dump truck.
A colossal impact was imminent, and it would be his only opportunity to gain ground on Reed.
Seconds earlier, as the haul truck had roared down on him, he’d seen an entire metal staircase fixed to the grille, trailing up to the cabin a couple of dozen feet above ground level. He needed to skirt around to the front of the truck when it slowed, hurl himself onto the staircase without getting mown down by the massive wheels, and then make it to the cabin without Reed gunning him down as he ascended the front of the vehicle.
Simple.
He ignored his natural instincts and picked up speed as the haul truck simply smashed through the side of the warehouse.
Metal screamed and twisted and buckled and tore.
Sparks flew.
An engine the size of a semi-trailer screamed in protest.
The Liebherr stalled momentarily, then the full weight of a dump truck the size of a building caught up to the stalemate and tore straight through the side of the warehouse in an explosion of noise.
King’s heartbeat pounded in his ears as he ran, pushing himself as fast as his legs would allow. All around him, the warehouse uttered horrifying wails of protest as its structures failed. With an entire wall demolished by the impact, the supports had begun to fail.
King heard the roof groan far above his head, and he almost froze in shock.
‘Oh, fuck,’ he muttered, barely able to breathe due to the panic in his chest.
He ran with everything he had, letting go of the Kalashnikov in the terror and pumping his arms like pistons, letting the weapon dangle from his shoulder. At six-foot-three, with long limbs that lent him all kinds of conveniences in unarmed combat, his athleticism kicked in and he flew across the open space.
Just in time.
The warehouse came toppling down in a literal barrage of sound and fury, assaulting his senses all at once. He followed the haul truck out of the hole it had created in the wall, closing in on the rear of the vehicle. The roof groaned and dropped and crashed into the ground a second later, hitting him with a blast of air that hurled him forward, almost taking him off his feet.
Somehow, someway, he kept his balance.
Racing alongside the haul truck at a furious pace, he sensed himself gaining ground as the Liebherr reeled from its collision with the side of the warehouse. It had broken through, but the carnage had halted its momentum.
King didn’t stop.
He didn’t hesitate when gunfire ripped across the complex, bullets ricocheting off the side of the haul truck as stray workers unloaded at the fleeing vehicle.
He made it to the front of the Liebherr, fully aware that it would accelerate in seconds.
His legs fatiguing fast, he launched off the concrete and slammed into the bottom step, almost fainting from the stress. If he missed, he’d tumble into the wake of the charging vehicle and one of the tyres would turn his internal organs to mush with barely a shred of effort.
The screaming engine numbed his mind, its cylinders roaring through the grille only a few feet from his ears. He tuned the thunderous noise out and scrambled up the steps, taking them two at a time, fighting to stay balanced as the haul truck picked up speed again and the hot night air whipped against him.
He burst out onto a spacious landing a moment later, careening into full view of the driver’s cabin. He noticed all the tinted windows facing him and ducked instinctively, dropping out of the line of sight in case Reed had anticipated his arrival.
The man certainly had.
In fact, he’d capitalised on King’s weaknesses in expert fashion.
As King dropped low, he noticed a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to meet the oncoming charge, but was helpless to prevent what came next. He noticed one of the doors connecting to the main cabin hanging open, swinging on its hinges. Then Reed crashed into him, bundling him up against the steel railing, raining down strikes with brutal accuracy.
King realised that the man must have exhausted all his ammunition in the quest to commandeer the haul truck, and now he was forced to rely on his bare hands.
Reed got the job done regardless.
A fist crashed into King’s stomach, doubling him over, then an elbow hit him so hard in the jaw he thought teeth would detach from their gums. He stumbled away, reeling, and Reed took the opportunity to smash an open palm into the bridge of King’s nose, turning his face numb and blurring his vision.
King fumbled desperately for the AK-47 hanging off his shoulder but Reed battered it away, slamming a front kick into King’s chest with enough force to send him crumbling into one of the rails.
Reed charged.
King saw the man coming and sliced out of the way at the last second, narrowly avoiding a clothesline that would have sent him tumbling over the railing to the ground thirty feet below. He lurched unsteadily across the landing, barely able to keep his legs underneath him. The Liebherr had begun to drift to the right with no-one behind the wheel. The haul truck barrelled down a vast aisle of the warehouse complex, with nothing to prevent its mad charge for freedom. But a few moments more of uncontrollable travel and they would find themselves buried in the side of a warehouse, surrounded by workers, outgunned and outnumbered.
King realised he would die if that occurred, but he didn’t care.
Reed would too.
That was all that mattered.
Reed sensed the urgency of the situation and surged forward, turning into a twisting side kick that slammed home in King’s mid-section. He had been on the back foot ever since the first blow had taken him by surprise. Combat worked like that — a single slip-up could spell absolute disaster, from which there was no recovery against a relentless assault.
He had made mistakes.
Reed had experience.
That was all it took.
Struggling to breathe, struggling to see, struggling to keep his balance, he lurched into range and Reed snatched him two-handed by the collar and hauled him over the railing.
King pitched head-first off the landing and fell twenty feet to the concrete below.
33
A straight fall would have killed him, pulverising internal organs and either stopping his heart on the spot or leaving him to the mercy of the armed workers in the complex.
He managed everything possible to minimise the impact of the fall, tucking his chin to his chest and rotating once in the air, so that he would roll along whatever surface he impacted. His vision had blurred with such ferocity that he had no idea what would come next. He closed his eyes, braced for the shock of a lifetime, and hoped for the best.
He hit something several feet above the concrete floor of the complex, bringing his momentum to a halt a half-second sooner and perhaps saving his life. It wasn’t steel or concrete he’d hit, or he would have broken a dozen bones at once and paralysed himself instantaneously. Instead a hollow thud sounded as he rolled along the chain of upper back muscles and splinters flew in every direction at once.
Wood.
He’d landed on one of the stacks of pallets. Out of control, he lost his grip on the Kalashnikov rifle as he snatched for a handhold and it tumbled away. Searing agony blasted him as every ounce of breath left his lungs, his internal organs rattled by the sudden halt. He twisted once and sprawled straight off the side of the tower, silently praying that there wouldn’t be too much of a second drop.
He wasn’t sure if his body would be able to handle it.
He hit another surface — this one concrete — much harder, battering him with the force of a thousand invisible fists dropping on him simultaneously. He gasped and rolled to a halt and spat blood onto the dusty ground between his hands.
He devolved into an uncontrollable burst of coughing.
He breathed deep, rolled over onto his back, and stared up at the night sky, in disbelief that he had survived.
Then again, it didn’t mean much.
He was hurt badly, bruised and battered by the two impacts — one after the other in relentless succession. Now that he had come to a stop, the pain started to set in, threatening to overwhelm him and drag him down into unconsciousness before he could take another breath. He turned his head to one side and stared at the fifteen-foot stack of wooden pallets that he’d fallen off. If it hadn’t been there, he would have plummeted straight to the concrete and almost certainly met his demise.
He whispered a silent thank-you through bloody teeth and levered himself upright to get a look at Reed’s next move.
The bulky stone walls fencing the complex in were sturdy as all hell, and there was little chance the Liebherr would fit through the front gate. Its steel bars would do little to prevent the ultra-class haul truck from simply plowing through the fortification, but King couldn’t see a way around the perimeter wall.
Evidently, Reed could.
He elected to charge straight through it.
Unsuppressed gunfire roared across the complex, the never-ending streams of automatic weapon reports sounding similar to a grotesque popcorn machine spitting out kernels at a rapid pace. The shots rang harmlessly off the haul truck — now that King could take his time and study the Liebherr from a distance, he estimated the truck had to weigh well over a million pounds. It grumbled along, unfazed by the gunfire, Reed having safely returned to the driver’s cabin after hurling King over the guardrail.
King watched in abject horror as the Liebherr thundered straight into the front gate — and the concrete walls on either side. An audible boom resonated through the complex, like a thousand thunderclaps at once. King grimaced as chunks of rock flew in all directions. The front of the haul truck lifted up from the sheer force of the impact — he could only imagine the carnage that would be unfolding closer to the gate.
From two hundred feet away, it looked like all hell had broken loose.
A new thought roared into the forefront of King’s mind now that he had time to catch his breath.
What’s in the truck?
From his position, he had a clear view of the haul truck’s rear as it rumbled steadily out of the compound, bullets ringing off its gargantuan hull. The haul bed itself, usually reserved for three-hundred or more tons of mining payload, hovered ominously on top of the main chassis, towering far above the cabin. King would have no idea what it contained unless he could see the bed from a vantage point above. At close to fifty feet above ground at its peak, he doubted he’d get the chance anytime soon. The lip of the haul bed masked any sign of its contents.
It must have been damn important though, because Reed had risked his life to escape.
King couldn’t imagine the man could cover much ground with the Liebherr. In war-torn Somalia, the vehicle would attract the attention of everyone in the country, a tantalising target for an attack. Reed would spend the next week fending off armed bandits unless he transitioned its payload across to some other kind of vehicle.
With that thought in the back of his mind, King ignored his nerve endings screaming for relief and sprung to his feet, laser-focused on pursuit.
He could catch Reed.
There was still hope.
As the Liebherr disappeared into the lawless lands around the complex, a new wave of gunfire started up. This barrage originated from somewhere in the darkness, muzzle flares lighting up the night. King hesitated, unsure what it meant.
There was only one way to find out.
He heard the steady rumbling of an approaching vehicle and turned to see a truck speeding along the aisle, set to pass him by at any moment. It had no trailer attached — simply consisting of the tractor unit and an extra set of wheels — which lent it the convenience of speed.
It was in pursuit of Reed’s Liebherr.
King darted out into the centre of the aisle, waving his arms frantically from side to side in an attempt to flag down the truck. The driver had no intention of stopping, but King gave him little choice. He had nothing on his person to distinguish himself from an ordinary worker, so the driver refrained from getting suspicious. Instead he shouted obscenities out the open driver’s window as he stamped on the brakes and the semi-tractor slowed to a crawl to prevent running King down.
As soon as it had decreased speed, King darted out of the way and vaulted onto the driver’s step.
‘Out,’ he barked through the open window.
The driver — a bony man in a faded singlet with hollow, sunken eyeballs — barked a vicious barb at him in
Somali. He waved a Kalashnikov barrel in King’s face.
‘Okay,’ King muttered. ‘My way, then.’
He slapped the gun away, heaved the door open, and hurled the man out onto the concrete, the veins in his good arm pumping as he utilised full exertion. The guy was made of skin and bone and flew out of his seat accordingly, offering little resistance to King’s wrenching motion.
King tossed the weapon he’d relieved the man of — another AK-47 — into the passenger’s seat and stamped on the accelerator as he swung into the space the driver had occupied moments earlier.
He felt the surge in the pit of his stomach as the tractor unit charged forward.
‘Coming, buddy,’ he muttered through blood-stained teeth.
You’re losing your mind, a quiet voice said in the back of his head.
He didn’t care. It was easily the most volatile situation he’d found himself in, trumping Tijuana and Guatemala. He was headed out into a hostile wasteland to pursue a vehicle at least five or six times the size of the truck he sat in. If Reed wanted to go on the offensive, he simply had to turn around and crush King’s truck like a child’s plaything.
But King would give chase all the same, for there wasn’t an ounce of quit in his body.
With his broken wrist throbbing and the skin across his upper back bruising and his nostrils bleeding and his ribcage aching, he sped out of the complex after Reed and the payload.
34
He didn’t make it far.
The semi-tractor bounced and jolted over the sea of rubble created in the wake of Reed’s mad charge through the perimeter wall. King spotted the twisted, mangled front gate lying a few dozen feet away from its original position — he swung the big truck around the roadblock and veered back onto a dirt trail leading away from the compound, back to the outskirts of Afgooye.
He spotted Reed’s ultra-class haul truck a hundred feet in the distance, already enveloped by the night. From a distance, the murky scale of the vehicle boggled the mind. It looked like a floating island rumbling into the darkness. King managed a wry smile in smug satisfaction, assured that he could match the Liebherr’s pace until he figured out a way to get Reed out of the cabin.
