to his prisoner to check the bonds and saw they were still locked. He looked ahead out of the windscreen. In the light from the headlights he could see the road they were travelling was long and straight with hills ahead. In the far distance a glow on the horizon. Lights from the prison. Not much longer. Maybe five more kilometres.
He detected a strange sound which wasn’t part of the ambulance. As he listened it got closer and closer, then was suddenly very loud. He saw the ambulance crew leaning forward and looking into and up in a door mirror each. The policeman was about to rush into the cab when he realised what the sound was, as a Russian Kamov Ka-50 ’Black shark’ attack helicopter flew low over the convoy. It kept pace with the ambulance for a few moments and then accelerated ahead over the lead police car, gained five hundred feet and flew over the approaching hills.
In the lead jeep the officer in charge was telephoning through to the barracks they’d not long left. There had been no mention of air support on his itinery. It would be typical of General Ben Rashid Al-Din to do this without telling anyone and for a moment he dreaded questioning the General.
The girl on the end of the telephone said.
“Hold please while I put you through to the General.”
The officer swallowed hard and then replied.
“No. Forget it. I don’t want the General disturbed.”
He rang off.
‘It must be above board‘ he said to himself but also out loud.
“That helicopter must also be heading for the prison sir,” his driver said.
“Yes,” the officer replied, “It might not necessarily be for us but it must be for the prison. There’s not much else out here. Just nomads and ruins.”
He glanced back at his chained prisoner who just stared at the floor.
The convoy entered the hills. The road winding and twisting as it climbed. The lead police car pulling away from the much heavier ambulance. The road became a double bend as the hills closed in on both sides. As the lead police car moved further ahead while maintaining its original speed a searchlight suddenly beamed on dazzling the driver as it picked up the police car. The Kamov helicopter was hovering twenty feet above the road in the narrow pass. The noise from its engine deafening. The driver of the police car put his arm up in front of his eyes, blinded by the intense light as the twin 23MM cannons on the Kamov spluttered into life. The bullets tore up the road as they raced towards their target. The cars headlights disappeared first in a shower of glass as both front tyres burst and bullets slammed into the two policemen inside the car killing them both instantly. Flames were pouring out from the bonnet and front wheel arches of the car as it exploded. The explosion throwing it twenty feet into the air. The helicopter some distance away jinked as the police car crashed down onto the road completely ablaze.
The ambulance rounded the bend and the whole convoy screeched to a stop. The helicopter flew over the vehicles and turned side on to the tail police car and destroyed it with a single anti-tank missile. Now the narrow pass was completely blocked.
The soldiers in the jeeps jumped out and took cover behind the ambulance the one vehicle they guessed would not be attacked. Inside the lead jeep the political prisoner was frantically pulling on his chains anchored to the floor. Not sure if this attack was to free him.
Another anti-tank missile hit the last jeep and it exploded into the air and came down on its roof.
The soldiers opened fire at the helicopter and it lifted and moved out of range.
“Cease fire,” the officer shouted, “They’re not going to attack the ambulance.”
There was a burst of gunfire from the surrounding hillside and the man next to him dropped dead. The officer swung around. He saw dark shapes descending on them.
“They’re on the hillside!”
His men opened fire on the hillsides as the men descending took cover behind scrub and rocks.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!”
The guns fell silent.
“You have attacked Tunisian national forces. This is a deliberate act of terrorism. Throw down your weapons and give yourselves up.”
The hillside waited in total silence. The whirring of the rotor blades near. Then a voice from the hill.
“It is you who is surrounded. Throw down your weapons. No one else will be harmed.”