Free Red Earth by Tony Park Page A

him.
    Joseph, however, still had his gun hand up and he blasted away. Vusi had to sidestep to avoid being hit by the falling driver, and the fraction of a second this took gave Joseph the chance to steady his aim. He fired again.
    *
    Nia watched the scene unfolding below her in horror. It was over in a matter of seconds.
    She saw the fat man fall, then another middle-aged man with a gun emerged from his hiding spot at the front of the taxi. He, too, fell in the exchange of gunfire and lay as still as the driver in the blood-stained grass.
    Nia hit the redial button on her phone, which was connected to her Bose headset via bluetooth.
    â€˜I’m about ten minutes away,’ the vulture man said without preamble.
    â€˜Hurry, there are people shooting at each other here.’
    â€˜You OK?’
    â€˜No, I’m not OK . There are two men down here. A taxi pulled up next to the Fortuner. The hijacker got spooked or something. This is out of control.’
    â€˜I’m coming as fast as I can.’
    â€˜Can you make a call for me?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Call for an ambulance. Two people down, and it’s not over.’
    The gunman backed away from the minibus, towards the Toyota. A younger man, no more than a gangly boy in a school uniform, Nia saw, climbed out of the taxi and ran past the gunman to the Fortuner. She had to do something to stop more bloodshed below.
    Nia lowered the collective, pushing the Robinson into a fast dive. She banked hard to the right and used the pedal to pull the tail around in a tight descending turn, keeping the crime scene on her right. The fuel warning light flashed on and off. That was the effect of the aviation gas sloshing in the tanks. When she levelled out the light went out, but she was dangerously close to minimum fuel. The gunman was not threatening the schoolboy; in fact, he was turning his attention and anger on her – he had spotted the chopper.
    The gunman looked up at her and she could see the wild look in his eyes. The man raised his pistol and Nia saw it buck in his hand. Metal pinged on metal somewhere on the helicopter. Nia climbed out of the turn and the warning light flashed again.
    Orbiting out of pistol range she saw the gunman run back to the taxi. He was yelling something back over his shoulder, apparently telling the boy to rip some possessions from the back seat of the Fortuner, which he began to do. Nia saw household goods, an iron, a cardboard box of plates and other crockery that fell apart and spilled its contents on the grass, blankets and clothes on hangers.
    Nia tightened her turn, raising the collective lever to increase the power and use the torque of the main rotor to help her around. She was acutely aware of the risk of the engine flaming out because of a lack of fuel and started mentally preparing herself for a low level auto-rotation, an emergency landing.
    The next time she saw the boy in the school uniform he had a military-style rifle in his hands with a curved magazine – she recognised it immediately as an AK-47.
    She knew of pilots who’d been shot at, but she could hardly believe it had just happened to her. Her heart had begun to beat painfully in her chest. If it wasn’t for the child in the Fortuner she would have been long gone from here.
    The man with the pistol climbed into the taxi again and this time emerged with a teenage girl in a school uniform. She struggled against him, but he grabbed her and frogmarched her to the Toyota, holding the pistol up to her head, high enough for Nia to see.
    The gunman appeared to order the girl and boy into the front of the Toyota while he took the cleared seat in the rear, and the doors slammed.
    At the same time, someone inside the minibus taxi had taken the driver’s seat and the bus was backing down the red earth road at high speed, jinking left and right as the driver fought to keep control.
    Nia flicked the radio to the police emergency frequency again and