The body made landfall a short distance to the medic’s front, landing in a heap like a gift-wrapped present from God. Reilly advanced with his weapon raised to the sound of a low, primordial groan from the man who was somehow, astonishingly, still alive.
Usman Mokhammed was on his back, one arm coated in blood, a gunshot wound on the opposite shoulder. The splintered fragments of a broken femur emerged from his left thigh—as a patient his wounds would have been a nightmare to treat, and Reilly was glad he wouldn’t have to.
Reilly came to a stop a few feet away as Usman’s eyelids fluttered open, an attempt to speak eliciting a bloody froth that ran down the side of his face. Broken rib must have punctured a lung, Reilly thought as he addressed the terrorist leader.
“Huh,” the medic said idly. “You really do have a beard.”
He fired two rounds into Usman’s sternum, then a third shot to his face.
The subsonic jacketed hollow points thwacked off the stone beneath Usman’s body, pools of blood spreading as Reilly transmitted, “I got Usman. For real this time. He has a beard and everything.”
Ian ran up from behind, stopping beside him with a look of stunned disbelief.
Reilly said, “See? He has a beard.”
A sound overhead caused both men to look up—David had arrived at the south wall, looking down at them from thirty feet as his voice came over their earpieces.
“Doc, Angel, meet me on the high ground. Cancer, we’ll pick you up on the western edge of the canyon. We’ve got to get the hell out of these mountains.”
Worthy leaned out the media van’s open passenger window, directing his gaze backward as he called out, “Another five meters, straight back.”
Tolu obeyed, reversing the van up the perilously steep slope as Worthy continued, “Three meters...two...one...stop.”
That final command was redundant for both men—just before Tolu came to a full halt, they heard tree limbs scraping against the van’s sides and roof. Even if the trail weren’t getting too steep for the van to reverse up—which it was, rapidly—the path had now narrowed to a point where it was traversable only by foot or dirt bike.
Tolu cranked the parking brake and looked to Worthy with an expression a half-step removed from blind fear.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we wait. Leave the engine running,” Worthy said, keying his radio to transmit. “All right, fellas, I got the van in position about two hundred meters west of Checkpoint One on the Objective South trail. We can’t push any farther back.”
David’s reply was spoken with all the feverish intensity of a man running for his life, which at this point he most certainly was.
“We’re five, maybe six minutes out. Be ready to haul ass, and make the call now. We can hear motorcycles coming down the mountain—I think they’re going to hit Gwoza.”
“Got it,” Worthy confirmed, pulling out a local cell phone and hitting the speed dial.
A deep Nigerian voice answered, “Who is this?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Mamman, this is Jake Brady from the Garrett News team. Listen, we got a tip about the hostage exchange and tried to film it from the high ground. We’re going to be driving back into town from the mountains in the same van you saw yesterday—it’s just our team, so please do not shoot us.”
The army officer’s response was spat with incredulous disdain. “How could you be so stupid?”
Undeterred, Worthy continued, “There’s something else, sir. We can hear motorcycles coming down the mountain, and think there may be an attack on the way. Recommend you strengthen your defenses on the east side of Gwoza immediately.”
“I strengthened my defenses there,” Mamman shot back, “as soon as I heard gunfire and explosions in the hills. But I suppose you know nothing about that.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, sir, but we heard them too. We’ll be on our way in the next few minutes. I repeat, the white media van you saw yesterday, coming down the trail next to the Government Day Secondary School. Again, please do not shoot us.”
Worthy could hear shouting in the background as Mamman said, “Goodbye, Mr. Brady.”
The call ended, leaving Worthy to wonder whether Mamman would inform his men or leave their arrival up to fate. And regrettably, at the present moment it didn’t matter much either way—Worthy had more pressing matters to attend to.
He clambered into the back of the van, transmitting, “Battalion commander is tracking our arrival.”
“Two minutes out,” came David’s breathless reply. “Have the cargo doors open and make sure Tolu is ready to fucking floor it. Sounds like the motorcycles are getting close.”
Reilly added, “So many motorcycles...it sounds like a biker rally up here.”
“Copy,” Worthy replied, “going off comms.”
He pulled out his earpieces, stripped off his tactical vest and boots, then began the frenzied choreography of changing into his pre-staged set of civilian clothes. The problem with the team’s cover as reporters for Garrett News, he thought, was that they couldn’t exactly pop out of the van in full combat regalia when they reached Gwoza, if they reached Gwoza at all.
Once he’d completed the transition and pulled his boots back on, Worthy pocketed two magazines from his kit, snatched his rifle, and opened the rear cargo doors. He scanned the woods on either side of the trail before kneeling at the rear of the van.
Tolu called back, “Wahala dey-o?”
“Yeah,” Worthy replied without averting his gaze, “we’ve definitely got a problem. The boys will be here any minute, but so will Boko Haram. When I tell you to go—and not one second sooner—I need you to drive this thing down the hill like you just stole it.”
“I am ready, Mr. Worthy.”
“I know you are, Tolu. I know you are, but—”
Worthy ended his sentence abruptly, hearing his first indication of the team’s approach—hammering footfalls from up the trail, a noise that preceded his first visual by a full ten seconds.
But what a visual it was.
Reilly was in the lead, the huge medic sweating as much as a human being possibly could. His face was beet red, weapon held in one hand as he charged forward, locking eyes with Worthy and shouting, “Get out of the way!”
And while Worthy started to move toward the passenger seat, he was momentarily awestruck by the file of men following Reilly down the trail. David was second in line, almost at Reilly’s heels as he gasped for breath. Behind him was Ian, looking over his shoulder like the Mongolian horde was at his heels, which, in a sense, it was. Cancer appeared the most composed of the group, and even he was running with his eyes laser focused on the ground before him, as if a trip and fall now could be the difference between life and death.
Above it all, even amid the sounds of their trampling steps as they careened down the trail, Worthy could hear dirt bikes approaching.
His reverie was broken by Reilly, whose shrill cry took on an uncharacteristically high pitch as he repeated, “I said GET OUT OF THE WAY!”