Predator. Wilbur Smith
two massive Kenworth T800s rolled up to the exit that led on to the right-hand lane of Route 190 and came to a stop, side by side, their fenders hanging over the edge of the blacktop, with the second Range Rover Sport on their tail. Anyone else who wanted to get out was going to have to wait.
Congo 5, the Audi Q7, had parked around the back of Bubba’s. Now a man got out of it, carrying a heavy black tube about five feet long. He positioned himself on the far side of the Q7’s bulky nose, went down on one knee and hefted the tube on to his shoulder. Then he pointed it east and raised it up to the sky.
In Houston a bored director cut away from the overhead shot. There was only so much screen time anyone could give to a shot of three motor vehicles driving along an unexciting stretch of highway. His last instructions to the cameraman were, ‘Let me know if you see anything interesting.’
At that moment, Janoris Hall saw the patrol car crest the brow of the hill. Traffic was light and there were no vehicles between him and them. That was perfect. ‘Wagons roll!’ Janoris called into his phone mike and the two dumper trucks eased out of the lot. They started lumbering down Route 190, one in either lane, barely doing thirty and completely blocking the westbound side of the highway. Congo 3, the Range Rover, moved forward and took its slot in the middle of the exit, right by the side of the road.
Now Janoris leaned down low and peered upwards through the windscreen. Yeah, there the helicopter was, hovering over the cars like a mama bird watching over her fledglings. ‘You see that, Bobby?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, man, just lining her up,’ came the reply.
‘Don’t go too soon, bro. Gotta let the dumpsters do their thing.’ Janoris looked up the road. The convoy was practically opposite him now. ‘Go Congo 3.’ The Range Rover slipped on to Route 190, staying in the outside lane, not going too fast. Behind it, the driver of the police patrol car signalled left and led the convoy into the inside lane. Congo 3 sped up to maintain position right next to the patrol car.
‘Go Congo 4, go Peterbilt,’ said Janoris, and the Porsche led the truck out on to the highway.
The helicopter was right above them now.
The patrol car driver had realized that the trucks up ahead were blocking his way. He turned on the flashing lights on his roof and hit the siren. The trucks didn’t budge. He was going to be right up their rear ends any second, so he slowed a little, forcing the minivan and the BearCat to lose momentum, too.
Up above, the cameraman’s eyes had been caught by the flashing light. He patched a message through to the TV news studio. ‘We got something happening here, coupla dump trucks blocking the way. The state troopers must be pissed, ’cause they’ve turned on the lights.’
‘OK, keep tabs on it, we’ll cut to you if anything happens.’
Then something happened. The cameraman muttered, ‘What the hell …?’ as the two trucks veered left, one behind the other. Then he shouted, ‘Are you getting this?’ as the lead Kenworth crossed the yellow centre line and stopped right across the oncoming, eastbound lanes. The second Kenworth curved around the far side of the lead truck, stopped, then began reversing back the way it had come to block the westbound carriageway on which the prison convoy was travelling.
Down behind Bubba’s, Bobby Z pulled the trigger on the FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile launcher that was resting on his right shoulder, launching a 22-pound missile that shot into the sky at more than twice the speed of sound. Its sensors locked into the exhaust pipes placed just above and to the rear of the chopper’s passenger compartment. Impact was less than a second later.
No one aboard the helicopter even knew that anyone had fired at them. They were all blown to pieces: alive and well one second, dead and gone the next.
The feed to Houston went dead. So no one in the studio or watching on TV ever saw what happened down on Route 190.
The patrol car driver figured he could lead the convoy past the trucks by slewing right and going down the grass verge. He assumed that the Range Rover driver was bound to hit the brakes when he saw a cop screaming across his front. But the Range Rover didn’t slow down. It stayed right where it was as the patrol car slammed against it and stayed there as sparks flew, metal ground against metal and the front panels of both vehicles crumpled.
Now both trucks were lined up diagonally across the highway, parallel with one another, but slightly apart.
The dumpsters began to lift, the tailgates swung open and rock-hard, abrasive rubble crashed down on to the road, forming an impenetrable roadblock and behind it a killing ground.
Congo 3’s driver, knowing what was about to happen, timed his move perfectly. He swung right, skimming past the Kenworth blocking his carriageway with inches – and milliseconds – to spare. The patrol car, trying to follow him, was hit by an avalanche of concrete, brick and stone and was sent spinning off the blacktop and smashing into the pine trees that grew just beyond the highway’s edge.
The driver of the minivan containing Johnny Congo was suddenly faced with a choice. He could crash into the truck, or the rubble. He slammed on the brakes, yanked the wheel to the right and went skidding broadsides into the raised, emptied trailer.
Inside the back of the minivan, the impact of the crash sent the guard hurtling across the compartment, just missing Johnny Congo as various parts of his anatomy smashed into the bench, the steel sides of the minivan and the metal grating across the windows.
Congo himself, not knowing what the snatch-plan was, but seeing that whatever was going to happen was happening now, had braced himself for the impact. His hands were gripping the chain that held him to the floor and his huge biceps were tensed. Even so, his arms were nearly ripped from their sockets as the crash happened and if his head hadn’t been tucked down by his knees it would have been knocked off by the guard’s flying body.
When the minivan finally came to rest, the guard was lying like a discarded toy, his limbs all askew on the minivan floor, still just breathing but completely helpless. As for Johnny Congo, he felt bruised, battered and almost torn in two. But that aside, he was fine.
Then he smelled gas vapours seeping into the back of the van and suddenly he was screaming, ‘Get me outta here!’ and shuffling across the compartment, away from the side that had hit the dumper truck. He was planning to holler as loud as he could and batter against the side of the van. But as he got to the side window and peered through it, his shouts stopped dead in his throat as he saw what was happening outside.
Burning debris from the helicopter had fallen to the earth like fiery boulders from a volcano. The main rotor assembly had cut a swathe through the pines. A severed head was bouncing along the road like a bowling ball. Small fires had broken out in half a dozen places and something big and very heavy had pretty well flattened the cabin of a massive truck that was blocking the highway behind the convoy, just like the two in front had done.
The BearCat had come to a halt with its flat, black fender and armour-plated nose almost touching the minivan. Behind it Congo could see a fancy white Porsche SUV. Someone was getting out of it carrying what looked like about eight inches of grey plastic piping, attached to four short, skinny legs. Behind the first guy, two more brothers were emerging from the Porsche. They were carrying mean-looking guns, with rotating drum magazines slung beneath them like old-fashioned Tommy guns. Yeah! thought Johnny Congo, that is more like it.
The Krakatoa is a very simple but brutally effective weapon. It consists of a short length of tubing, closed at one end by a plastic disc, held by a locking ring and filled with high-explosive RDX powder. A fuse wire runs through the plastic disc into the explosive powder.
At the other end of the tube, another locking ring holds a shallow copper cone, shaped like a Chinese coolie’s hat, whose point faces inwards, towards the RDX powder.
One of these weapons was placed on the ground, directly opposite the rear of the BearCat. The man who’d put it there stepped back a couple of paces, taking care not to stand directly behind the Krakatoa. He was holding a switch attached to the other end of the fuse wire. He pressed