Dead Centre - Andy McNab [78]
‘We have to go, Mr Nick.’
He didn’t wait for my answer. He was already legging it towards the technical. I didn’t need to know what the fuck was going on. All I needed to know was that if he was running, then so was I.
7
THE CREWS WERE getting sparked up, but it wasn’t because they were scared. It was worse than that. They were almost hyperventilating with excitement.
I heard screams and wails from inside nearby buildings. The people who’d run back into their homes knew what was about to happen.
We jabbed down a series of narrow alleys. He was too busy yelling at his crews to pay any attention to me. None of them was taking cover.
The shadows from our left were lengthening, but I could still just about see what was happening in the gaps between buildings. There was around an hour until last light.
The crews were more sparked up by the minute. They hollered at each other and into their radios and mobiles. Whoever it was they were talking to, it was one big frenzy of khat, adrenalin and testosterone.
I had to shout over the din: ‘Awaale, what is happening?’
I’d ducked into a doorway on the left-hand side of the alley, for all the protection that was going to give me. I banged my back against a steel door that was well and truly bolted.
Awaale waffled away on his radio on the opposite side of it. He raised a hand to shut me up.
A technical that I hoped was ours stopped two blocks down, at the junction with what was left of a real road. Its gun pointed down the main drag left and started to pump out rounds.
Everybody jumped about and took up very bad fire positions on the crossroads. The whole world went noisy. The crews stuck their weapons round corners and brassed up who knew what. They were spraying half of Mogadishu.
Some of the lads darted across the road, firing from the hip. One tripped, lost a flip-flop, rolled, fired, got up and carried on running. The home team whooped and cheered. One even took a picture with his camera phone. I wondered if it would turn up on Facebook. Another couple of boys got into decent firing positions on the building corner, loosed off a burst each, then stopped and pulled out the Marlboros. They took a few drags, stuck their weapons round the corner again, and had another cabbie.
Fuck knows where the other two technicals had gone. With luck, they’d stayed close. I needed them to get me to wherever Tracy and the others were being held.
A guy with an RPG tube jumped off the back of the technical I could see. He stepped out into the open ground of the junction and fired, then came running back. Everyone else just watched and smoked. Why he couldn’t fire from cover, I wasn’t sure.
I heard a rumble, very close, followed by the rattle of a 12.7. I hoped it was one of ours.
Over to my half-left, a green tracer round bounced off the concrete and spun up into the air. I watched the propellant burn out. They were firing at something, but I didn’t have a clue what. The noise was deafening. Both the technicals opened up again. Another RPG whooshed away.
I ran across to Awaale. ‘We’ve got to go, mate. I’ve got people to see. We can’t make them wait for ever.’
He took no notice. Everyone was gobbing off on the radio, shouting and pointing at everybody else.
The second technical appeared. It drove up the road towards us, inches of clearance each side, braked and reversed back. The lad cracked off with the gun down one of the alleyways. Total fucking chaos. No one in control. Everyone was doing their own thing.
But we had incoming for sure. Strikes were tearing the rendering off the buildings around the junction.
There was another loud whoosh over to my far left. An RPG round piled straight up the main drag, passed the junction and kicked off into something further down. There was the mother of all explosions. A cloud of dust and debris plumed a couple of blocks away and rained down on the wriggly-tin roofs.
There were whoops of laughter.
‘Awaale, what the fuck are we doing?’
He looked at me like I was a madman.