Carla had the layout in her mind’s eye, a bit like a chess game. It was extremely difficult for her pursuers to anticipate her escape route and get ahead of her. Her intention was to pick them off one by one, until they ran out of vehicles.
Having reached the dead center of town in the six vehicle wide main street, she headed south with probably all the pursuers following. Near the bottom of town, she turned east into a single width side street and watched trucks 3 and 4 go past, probably aiming to cut her off before she could get to the end of this street.
Truck 1 on her tail, followed by truck 2, started to turn into the street after her. Carla jammed on her brakes, reversing hard into the vulnerable radiator of truck 1, and a dense cloud of steam poured out. She kept the power on full and rammed that truck into the front wheel of truck 2, behind it.
Now she accelerated forward a short distance, turned north and stopped again, just around the corner out of sight. The front of truck 1, with the damaged radiator, eased out to see which way she had gone, and Carla reversed again, hard into the exposed front wheel.
The crumpled front wing now prevented truck 1 from steering or moving, and it was stuck partly across the road blocking truck 3, coming up fast behind Carla. There was truck 4 still unaccounted for and that probably went up the street parallel to truck 3, intending to cut off Carla, a street or two ahead.
With only one point of exit now available to Carla, she drove forward and then west, back into the main street. Truck 2 was still jammed in the entrance to the side street, steering immobilized as intended.
By now, she expected truck 4 to be heading west towards the main street, searching each cross-street for Carla as he went. She planned to lure the occupants into a fatal trap, but wondered how much more abuse the Land Cruiser could take. ‘Thank you Toyota for getting us this far, with all your design skill and sturdy engineering’ she thought.
She paused at the main street, waiting for truck 4 to spot her and resume the chase, hopefully there were no other pursuers of which she was unaware.
Truck 4 lurched out into the main street, tires squealing as it cornered hard on the dusty tarmac. They knew where she was, so someone was guiding them, most likely the occupants of truck 2.
Carla pulled out into the main street and headed south. Two streets down from where she had first turned in, she drove east. This side street was typically narrow but much shorter, opening out into a large square of open ground, with houses and streets around it.
Truck 4 followed close on her tail, firing low at her rear tires, as she entered the square. As she expected, this area was a dumping ground, with rubble and lots of dust, the precise ingredients she needed.
Turning in a tight circle at the center of the square, missing most of the rubble, she created a dust storm that hung in the still air, preventing anyone in truck 4 from seeing anything, including the rubble. Their truck became stranded when it drove straight onto the rubble mound.
Carla emerged from the dust and headed east again, only to come face to face with a police vehicle, about 100 meters ahead. She braked hard and tried to work out where she should go next, when a man riding a battered red trials motorcycle, drove out of a side street from the south and stopped, thus blocking the road.
***
From his right hand pocket he pulled out a small black pistol; it was affectionately referred to by Max as Carla’s popgun. Max aimed at the front of the police truck and fired a single round. There was a loud explosion as the front of the vehicle disintegrated in a ball of flame and shrapnel.
“Max!” yelled Carla, “Habib, it’s Max! Just in time to help us get out of here, but how on earth did he find us?”
Habib grinned excitedly, but wondered what it all meant.
Would this man from nowhere get them all safely out of this mess, or just Carla, and how? There was only room on the motorcycle for one more person.
Carla accelerated towards Max as he pulled away up a side street, continuing north. She followed him, wondering how he knew which way to go, the place must be swarming with police.
After several minutes of dodging up and along the streets in different directions, they emerged onto the road leading back to the prison.
Several miles later, they were in open country and free of pursuers, Max pulled over and stopped at the side of the road.
Carla also pulled in and leapt from the Land Cruiser, she rushed over to Max and hugged him with all her strength.
“Max! Oh, Max! I am so pleased to see you, how did you find us and how did you know where to go, to get us out?”
Max kissed Carla passionately and then he explained. “I just had to see you Carla, I have missed you so much.
“Sam told me you might be in trouble when I got here because he had lost contact with you. When a man answered your satellite phone it confirmed our fears.
“I was in the small plane up there” Max pointed up at a small black dot in the clear blue sky, now circling at 4000 feet.
“I saw you break through the road block near the prison. It just had to be you, no one else drives like that. After the pilot dropped me off, he guided me along your trail of wrecked vehicles and dust clouds.
“By the way, your little popgun can really pack a wallop, with the new munitions the manufacturer developed. It tore the whole front of that police truck.
“I thought you might have wanted me to bring it for you. I was a bit nervous at customs, but nothing shows up when the power pack is removed.”
He handed her the small, black ceramic automatic, and eight extended clips of ammunition, 40 shots per clip. The color coded and labelled clips indicated the particular features of the unconventional bullets. Carla slipped them into the pockets of her Burqa.
“Do you have Anita with you?” asked Max.
“Yes, but she is in a very poor state of health; she has been lying on the back seat, and I need to check her over before we do anything else.” Carla’s tone showed her concern.
They both went to the Land Cruiser and looked in the back.
“By the way, this is Habib,” introduced Carla. She patted the battered vehicle and exclaimed “this is his pride and joy. I will have to buy him a new one once we get to safety.”
Habib grinned like an idiot at the thought of a new vehicle and clumsily shook Max’s hand.
Anita groaned as Carla shook her gently by the shoulder.
“How are you feeling Anita?” asked Carla. “This is my best friend, Max Fortune,” she added.
She groaned again as she tried to sit up. “I think I have appendicitis,” Anita said, through clenched teeth.
Max and Carla looked at one other with great concern. There was no chance of medical help until they could get out of Afghanistan, they were officially on the run from the police, and goodness knows who else was after them.
“We will soon sort something out Anita” Max replied soothingly. “Lay back down. Carla, and I will put a plan together and get us all out to safety.”
They walked away from the Land Cruiser and beckoned Habib to come with them.
“What papers do you and Habib have?” Max asked. “Because we need to go through the border into Pakistan, and get out by boat from Karachi, which is at least 1000km as the crow flies. It is probably twice that by road and over the most terrible terrain.”
“We have no papers or money, just the clothes we stand in; everything we had was left at the hotel and we couldn’t get our belongings when we returned,” replied Carla.
“Just as I feared,” murmured Max. “Money is not a problem, but the passports and visas will be, I only have my own papers.”
The voice of the pilot, circling high above them warned Max through his earpiece that he was very low on fuel, and that a large number of vehicles were approaching from the town, also a few from the prison.
“Is there any chance you could land, to pick up a sick woman and take her to a hospital in Pakistan?” asked Max, hopefully.
“No chance at all, the vehicles closing on you would be there before I could land. I probably won’t get home on the fuel I have now, so good luck and goodbye” said the pilot as he flew off back towards his home.
“We have to move Carla, “said Max urgently. “ There are vehicles closing in from the town and the prison, we have about 5 minutes to vanish before they get here” he warned grimly. “There is no place to hide out here, and they would see the dust cloud, no matter which direction we take.
“First, we need to head east right past the prison, because that gives us the most options and there are fewer vehicles coming towards us from there.
“Once past the prison, we can decide which direction to travel. These are the options; go north to smaller settlements at the base of the Hindu Kush to hide for a while.
“Travel east on the A1, that also leads to other settlements and towns, over the mountains into Pakistan, and on to Karachi.
“The final choice is south, which is much the same, but we have a longer and harder journey.
“Carla, apart from your pop gun, do you have any other weapons?”
“An AK47, but it’s a Khyber; although new, it is an exceptionally poor copy and is probably more lethal to the user than the target. I don’t know yet how much ammo is left in the clip, but it is probably almost full.”
“Habib, have you ever used an AK47?” asked Max.
“No, but how hard can it be?” he replied in a somewhat Gung-Ho, indignant voice.
Max and Carla looked at each other knowingly.
“If we had the time and ammunition to spare, you would soon get the hang of it, but we don’t, so you will have to drive; I will do the shooting, if necessary,” explained Carla, hoping she had not injured his male ego with the rejection.
“You had better take the popgun and clips Max. I assume you will lead because they are not looking for a man on a motor bike, and with the element of surprise on your side you might clear the way for us.”
“Spot on Carla” replied Max as he pocketed the weapon and clips, and zoomed off on the motorcycle towards the still distant dust cloud to the east.
Habib followed as fast as he could, leaving a blinding dust cloud that would slow her pursuers slightly; still, they appeared to be in no great hurry, probably relying on the vehicles approaching from the prison to catch them because there was no other direction for the Land Cruiser to travel.
Carla smiled briefly as she passed the remains of the vehicles dragged to the roadside, following her first encounter.
Max was within sight of the two approaching vehicles from the prison, one was a Land Cruiser, and the other a pickup. A slight change of plan flashed through his mind.
He wobbled violently and braked hard. A moment later, the motorbike fell on its side, in the middle of the road with Max under it. Both approaching vehicles slewed to a halt, the drivers thought there might be an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) buried in the road.
As the following dust cloud caught up and settled around them, Max aimed and fired at the front of the pickup. The high explosive tip of the bullet ripped through the flimsy radiator, passed between the engine and wheel, then into the bulkhead, exploding in a fireball within the cab.
Seven men leapt from both vehicles and ran to the roadside for cover. Max picked off the four who had come from the Land Cruiser and ran across his field of view. The other three remained under cover of the vehicles.
As the events unfolded before her, Carla knew at once what she had to do.
“Habib, at the last possible moment veer off to the right, into those three men taking cover at the roadside, and don’t stop for anything; I will keep them pinned down. You are just about to get your new Land Cruiser.”
Habib beamed and floored the accelerator, as Carla leaned out of her window and fired at the three men, pinning them down with rapid single shots from the AK47.
He yanked the steering wheel to the right and ploughed into the dip alongside the road. At 60mph there was no stopping the vehicle, even with boulders the size of a car trunk. With an enormous CRUNCH and shrieking of torn metal, the engine and transmission ripped free; the body of the Cruiser rode up over the boulder, and made a pancake landing in the soft sand.
As the dust settled, Max ran towards the wreck and put down the two remaining men. The bullets passed through the soft bodies, but exploded like anti-tank mines under them, as the explosive tips struck the sand and stones. Blood and gore sprayed up in the air, damping down the dust around them.
Habib undid Carla’s seat belt, helping the dazed girl out of the metal shell that had once been his pride and joy, and into his new Land Cruiser.
It was love at first sight for Habib; it was so new and it still smelt factory fresh. Moments later, he ripped the number plates from the wreck, for fitting to his new vehicle at the earliest opportunity.
Max called Habib to help him move Anita.
Anita was uninjured, as she had been protected by the seats within the vehicle as she was thrown around, but the pain from her abdomen was excruciating. Max feared her appendix may have ruptured from the impact and if so, death from peritonitis was inevitable.
They gently laid her on the rear seat of the new vehicle.
As he kick started his motorbike Max shouted, “Habib, turn around and follow me past the prison. Go north to Hudkhel, we will try and hide out near the foot of the mountains. We may get medical help there as well,”
As Habib did a three-point turn in his new Cruiser, Max fired off ten shots at the fast approaching vehicles. The extremely high velocity bullets in the still hot air found their mark with devastating effect, and brought the convoy to a halt. The drivers must have thought they were under attack by RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and did not attempt to venture closer for a while.
Max soon overtook Habib and waved at Carla, smiling fondly as he passed; she was back to her usual self, angelic face with a full-of-mischief smile, and piercing blue eyes that missed nothing.
He also saw Habib, the lad was so chuffed with his new vehicle, he was grinning like a lottery winner receiving a $10 million check.
A few minutes later, they raced past the prison and then headed north; people on foot watched them hurtle by, and then ran for cover from the dust cloud.
In half an hour they arrived in Hudkhel, a small village with the usual huddle of small, flat roofed, mud brick rectangular buildings, but with wider streets than those in the bigger towns.