Boink stepped out from behind a bamboo stand and approached the passenger-side front door. I leaned out the opening in the door. ‘Anything?’ I asked him. ‘You’re good to go, man.’ ‘See you in around half an hour,’ I said. At least, we would if we weren’t all full of holes. I gestured at Francis. He rolled us forward at a creep, then left the cover of the forest and turned onto the road, heading up the incline. Around a hundred and fifty meters downhill, the trucks blasted by the Claymores were still nosed into the greenery. A trail of black smoke rose from the vehicles and climbed toward the lowering cloud base. Someone would turn up to investigate that. Francis accelerated up the hill, grinding through the gears, the wind roar as it blasted through the non-existent windshield building steadily. We drove through a swarm of unidentifed bugs that burst wetly against us like we were being spat on. The morning was steamy and my clothes were sticking to my skin, especially where the blood from my shoulder wound had dried.
