The Outlaw (7 page)

"Just do it."

"You said in the video that we had twenty-four hours!"

"Kneel down!" screamed the outlaw.

Jake and Kas knelt.

Sor turned to his accomplice. "Kill them," he said.

The
delivery man took a clip of five rifle cartridges from his shirt pocket. He drew the bolt back to open the breech, top-loaded the clip, and pushed the bolt forward and down.

"If you kill us," stuttered Jake, "our government will send soldiers and planes. They will not rest until the Friends of the Poor are completely destroyed."

The delivery man raised the rifle to his shoulder.

"Please, no," said Kas. "Don't shoot." Her panda eyes were wide open, staring at the barrel of the rifle. She was hyperventilating, her nostrils flaring and collapsing with alarming speed. "I should have eaten the gold," she sobbed. "I should have eaten the gold."

Jake put an arm around his sister and closed his eyes tight. "Don't be daft," he whispered. "Everyone knows that eating gold is bad for you."

Please God,
he thought,
don't let this hurt.
A bluish glow meandered across the retinas of his closed eyes where the rising sun had made its impression.
Mungo Park died young too. Also from a gunshot wound. Came under fire at the Bussa Rapids. Nothing he could do. Died on the river he mapped.

Death was taking its time. Jake opened his eyes a fraction.

Sor's accomplice was still standing over them, but he had lowered the rifle slightly and was staring into the distance. Jake turned and saw a wisp of dust rising in the air behind a faraway dune. The sound of drumming reached his ears.

"
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
"murmured the delivery man.

"Never mind that," said Sor. "Kill the children, quickly."

The man with the rifle hesitated, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. "Hooves," he said.

He was not wrong. Up over the dune came a posse of horsemen, galloping hard with the sun on their backs and spraying sand on either side. The delivery man gripped his rifle and glanced at Sor for reassurance.

"Do it!" shouted Sor.

"I can't. We were told no witnesses."

Told by who?
thought Jake.
Who are they taking their orders from ?

There were five horses, matching one another stride for stride. They were about half a mile away and closing fast, their hooves like thunder on the morning air.

"Give me the rifle!" cried Sor. "You go and start the engine. Driving is all you're good for."

The delivery man handed over his weapon and hurried back to the van. Sor lifted an arm to wipe the perspiration from his eyes and raised the rifle to his right shoulder.

"Five witnesses," murmured Jake in French.

Sor scowled. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. It just seems like a lot of witnesses, that's all."

The outlaw stepped forward and cracked Jake around the head with the stock of the rifle. Then he raised the rifle to his shoulder, lined up the sight posts, and fired. Sand puffed up in front of the oncoming horsemen; the bullet had fallen short. He cycled the bolt and fired again—closer this time, but the horses charged on relentless without even breaking their stride.

Yakuuba Sor looked at the ambassador's children and back at the galloping horses. "I'll deal with you two later," he said. "Get in the van, both of you."

Jake and Kas scuttled to the van and jumped into the back. The vehicle revved loudly, its wheels spinning in the sand. Instead of slamming the doors behind his hostages, Sor climbed in behind them. He closed one door and propped the other one wide open with his foot.

"Give me space," said Sor. "Back against the partition, both of you."

The van lurched forward, accelerating fast across the white sand. Jake and his sister shuffled backward into the shadows, and as they did so, Jake noticed with surprise that the edges of Sor's spiderweb tattoo were smudged.
That's no tattoo,
he thought.
That's ink.

A deafening bang echoed inside the van, and a wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of Sor's rifle. Kas screamed and hugged her knees. Jake edged to one side until he could see the horses. On they came, undeterred by the gunshot, splitting the wind with their furious pace—two chestnuts, two blacks, and a copper-colored one. They were no more than a quarter of a mile away.

The outlaw fired again, and once again a puff of sand flew up right in front of the horses' feet. The riders responded by breaking their tight formation and fanning out across the wide expanse of sand.

"I can't look," said Kirsty. She had her fingers in her ears and her eyes tight shut.

"Fine," said Jake. "Just keep your head down."
Who are these horsemen?
he wondered.
They don't look like state police. Why should they risk their necks on behalf of foreigners?

One of the riders seemed to stretch out his hands toward the van. Something sang through the air and right into the van, pinging against the partition next to Jake's left arm. A stone. These five madmen were riding against a loaded rifle armed with nothing more dangerous than
slingshots.

Yakuuba Sor shoved another cartridge clip into the magazine, braced himself against the side of the van, and raised the rifle to his shoulder. Another small stone whizzed past, grazing his right ear. He bellowed in fury and fired off all five rounds one after another, the empty cartridges plinking onto the floor of the van.

The van drove up onto an expanse of flat rock and accelerated hard through the gears. The horses shortened their stride and began to fall behind, their hooves clattering weakly on the hard surface.

"What's going on?" said Kas.

"The horses don't like the rock," said Jake. "I think we're losing them."

When the rocky plateau came to an end, the van careered back down onto sand, and this time it was a soft, fine sand that sucked at the tires and made the engine scream. The van plowed the sand in low gear and plunged onward up a steep incline.

"Dunes!" Jake shouted. "Hang on tight, Kas!"

Around one, over the next. On every incline, a jumble of loose crates and stock cubes went slithering out of the open door of the van. On every dune crest the vehicle seemed to grow wings, airborne for a few heady, stomach-churning moments before landing with a slam and a metallic groan.

Jake heard the distant thud of hooves on sand, and suddenly there they were again, two blacks and two chestnuts, gaining fast about two dunes back, falling out of view and then rising again, surfing the desert waves with speed and poise.

The riders gripped their mounts with their knees and, as they got close, began once more to fire their slingshots. One stone after another fizzed through the air. Most were falling short, but a couple hit the door of the Nissan or ricocheted off the tailgate. Slowly but surely the shooters were finding their range again.

The outlaw loaded another clip into his rifle and returned fire as best he could, but only an expert marksman could have coped with this jolting thirty-mile-an-hour shootout.

"There were five horses a minute ago," said Kas. "What happened to the bay?"

"The what?"

"The bay—the copper-colored horse with the black mane and tail. There were five horses and now there are only four."

They soon had their answer. As the van hurled itself around the side of the next dune, the missing bay swung suddenly into view from behind the open door, racing at full gallop. Jake saw flared nostrils, the glint of a bit, and the taut rubber of a slingshot.

Sor did not even have time to gasp. A small, smooth stone hit him just above his right eye, and he slumped unconscious on the floor of the van.

The rider was only a boy—he looked about Jake's age. He was sitting high on the horse's neck like a race jockey. "
Waru ga!
" shouted the boy, gesturing wildly.

Jake crawled over to Sor and retrieved his phone from the outlaw's pocket.

"I think he's telling us to jump," said Kas. "He must be crazy."

"
Waru ga!
" repeated the boy rider.

"It'll be fine," said Jake. "Just keep your arms tight to your body and jump in the direction of travel."

"And you've jumped from a moving vehicle before, have you?"

Jake never had, but he had read a thing or two about how it was done. Earlier in the year, he had downloaded an SAS extreme survival manual onto his phone and read it during double algebra. So what he lacked in the quadratic equations department he made up for in survival know-how. He knew that if you are being chased by a crocodile, you should run in zigzags, and if you are performing an emergency tracheotomy, you should use a clean ballpoint pen, and if you have to jump from a moving vehicle, you should keep your arms tight to your body and roll—unless you want your limbs to snap like twigs.

"I'll go first," said Jake. "Just watch me and do what I do."

"Wait!" cried Kas. "We don't know anything about these boys. They could be even worse than Sor for all we know."

But Jake had already made up his mind. He stepped out onto the tailgate of the van, shut his eyes tight, tucked in his arms, and leaped.

Jake
felt a rush of warm air and then hit the sand at thirty miles an hour. The SAS extreme survival manual had mentioned nothing about how much the rolling would hurt. It was like turning somersaults on an industrial sander.

When he finally came to a stop and opened his eyes, the bay was standing over him, lustrous flanks heaving from the strenuous gallop. Her nostrils were flared, her eyes bright, her ears pricked. Mounted on her back was the African boy who had downed Yakuuba Sor. He had short straight hair and a long scar along one cheek. A slingshot dangled from his hand.

"
Salaam aleykum,
" said the boy.

Jake did not reply. He got to his feet and half ran, half hobbled to where his sister lay curled up on the sand. "Kas!" he cried. Her banquet dress was ripped and her bare elbows were bleeding. "Kas! Kas!"

"That's my name," she mumbled. "Don't wear it out."

Jake looked up. The delivery man must have seen them jump. He had turned the van around and was heading their way fast.

"Come on!" shouted Jake. "We need to get out of here."

The five horsemen—horseboys, rather, for not one of them looked older than sixteen—formed a protective circle around Jake and his sister, slingshots at the ready. As soon as the van came within range, they began to fire. A barrage of stones hit the windshield, cracking it in several places.

Two of the lads shuffled backward on their horses to make room for the extra riders. Jake helped his sister onto the back of one of the chestnuts. Then he leaped sideways onto the bay and braced himself for the off. The boys let loose a final volley of stones from their slingshots.

The van's windshield fractured into a mosaic of tiny shards, but the driver did not slow down. Instead he used his elbow to punch a hole in the shattered glass. The boys flicked their reins, and the horses shot off at a heart-stopping pace, jostling for position in their eagerness to flee from the oncoming vehicle. Fire in their bellies, they flared their nostrils, strained at their bits, and galloped into the heart of the wind.

Jake was as terrified as the horses, maybe more. His only experience of riding had been donkeys in Scarborough, but the crazed animal on which he now sat was more suited to a rodeo than a beach.

As the bay lunged forward, fast and wild, Jake was possessed of a quaking fear and a strong urge to jump off.
Calm down,
he told himself.
Calm down and concentrate.
As they picked up speed, he leaned back a little and lifted his left leg across the shimmering mane to straddle the bay properly. It felt more secure this way but also more uncomfortable. The bay was lean, and sitting astride her bony back was like perching on a banister. The saddle, a scratchy blanket folded double, did little to cushion the ride.

Behind Jake, the boy urged on his steed with loud guttural cries, handling the reins with a confidence that suggested many years of bareback riding. The other horses fanned out behind him, riding in a wide V formation. But the sandy terrain was giving way to rock, and here the horses were no match for the Nissan. It was already on the tail of the hindmost horse.

The frantic animal bucked and swerved to one side, an instant too late. The van's bumper clipped a trailing hoof and sent horse and rider sprawling onto the rocks. The rider only just managed to roll clear of the Nissan's tires.

The four remaining riders used their slingshots as whips to spur their horses on, and Jake clung tight to the horse's mane. The rock before them stretched to a distant horizon. Glancing over his shoulder, Jake saw the van close on the heels of the second chestnut—
Kas's horse!
The driver's lips were parted in a sadistic grin. He was going to show no mercy.

"
Gooruwol!
" cried the boy in front, gathering up the reins and pushing Jake forward onto the horse's neck. The animal jumped, and only when she was airborne did Jake see the reason why. They had come to a wadi—a dry riverbed, cutting unexpectedly across their path. One by one, the horses leaped, bunching up their muscles and powering off their back legs to clear the sandy chasm.

The Nissan could not leap. By the time the driver braked, it was already far too late. The van careered straight down into the wadi and crashed headfirst into the far bank. Its hood crumpled like an aluminum can, and the driver flew face first through the windshield. Steam hissed angrily from the radiator. Blood spattered the sand.

Jake took one look at the mangled body and his stomach lurched. The delivery man would not be making any deliveries next week. Maybe not ever. Of the van's other occupant, Yakuuba Sor, there was no sign.

With the chase over, the horses settled from their frenzied gallop into an insistent driving canter. Straining her head forward, the bay attacked the ground before her with magnificent long strides, her flanks slick with sweat, hot wind whistling in her nostrils. When they had put sufficient distance between themselves and the crash, they slowed to a gentle single-file walk. The horse that had fallen rejoined the group. Horse and rider were unhurt.