Then I saw a shovel sitting unattended outside somebody’s hut. I took it and kept moving.
It was just past sunset, a time when everything looked tinted with blue, and sound carried. Maybe he heard me, because he turned around. I ducked out of sight, or at least I hoped so.
The huts along the footpath were packed in tightly. I wedged myself into a foot-wide gap between two of them. The walls on either side were crude mud-brick. They grated on my arms as I tried to push my way through and get the Tiger back in sight.
I had made it about halfway, when one of his young thugs stepped out into the alley.
He didn’t move. He just shouted something in Yoruban.
When I looked over my shoulder, Houston Rockets was at the other end of the alley. I could see the white of his grin but not his eyes in the dim half-light.
“It’s him,” he called out in a high-pitched voice, almost a giggle. “The American cop!”
Something slammed hard into the wall inside the hut. The entire hut buckled, and large chunks of dried mud fell into the alley.
“Again!” Houston Rockets yelled.
I realized what was happening—they meant to crush me in the narrow passageway.
The whole wall exploded then. Bricks and debris and dirt poured down on my head and shoulders.
I waded forward, took a hard swing, and struck the nearest punk with my shovel.
And then—I found myself face-to-face with the Tiger.
Chapter 92
“NOW YOU WILL die,” he said to me matter-of-factly, as if the deed were a foregone conclusion.
I didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth.
He looked incredibly calm, his eyes barely registering emotion as he reached forward and grabbed me by the arm and throat. My only thought was to hold on to the shovel, and to swing it if I got the chance.
He threw me back down the alley as easily as if I were a child. No, a child’s doll. I landed hard on splintering wood and plaster. Something sharp sliced into my back.
I registered Houston Rockets blocking the other escape route. There was nowhere for me to run.
The Tiger came charging at me. So I swung the shovel as hard as I could, going for the bastard’s knees.
The shovel head connected—not a home run, but maybe a double. The Tiger buckled, but he didn’t go down. Unbelievable. I’d hit him in the kneecaps and there he stood, glowering at me.
“That’s all you have?” he said.
It was as though he didn’t feel anything at all. So I raised the shovel again and struck his left arm. He must have been hurt, but he didn’t show it, his face revealing no more emotion than a wall of slate.
“Now—my turn,” he said. “Can you take a punch?”
Suddenly a floodlight hit my eyes. There were voices behind it. Who was there?
“Ne bouge pas!”
I heard footsteps scuffing on the dirt and the metallic rustle of guns. Suddenly, green-helmeted AU soldiers were in the alley with us, three of them.
“Laisse la tomber!” one of the soldiers yelled.
It took a second to realize I was just as much a suspect here as the Tiger. Or, worse—maybe I was the only suspect.
I dropped the shovel and didn’t wait for any more questions. “This man is wanted in the United States and Nigeria for murder. I’m a policeman.”