Both men fall. Xola picks up his gun before he looks at the person he collided with. When he sees that it’s a CIT guard who’s reaching for the pistol tucked in his bulletproof vest, Xola instinctively fires two bullets towards him. The guard drops flat on the floor but Xola sees no blood on him. He assumes that he hit the guard on the bulletproof vest and aims at his head to ensure the guard doesn’t wake up and kill him. Before he pulls the trigger, Xola sees another CIT guard aim an R5 rifle at him.

Time seems to freeze and allow Xola to calculate that he can’t change aim and shoot the R5-carrying guard fast enough to save himself. He accepts his death, feeling like it’s been a long time coming anyway. But suddenly the R5 guard’s head jerks to the side, blood spurting out of his temple as he falls limply. The guard Xola is only aiming at pulls out his pistol and gets shot too, not by Xola.

“Don’t move! Don’t move!” The man who shot both the guards steps into Xola’s line of vision, aiming an AK-47 at another guard who’s in the back of the CIT truck with its door open. The guard doesn’t listen, he tries to close the door and earns himself AK-47 rounds to the chest and head too.

“Cops!” screams another man, running towards the truck for cover, as gunshots drum behind him. “One van! They’ve just shot Sphe! How are we gonna get out of here?”

Xola, still where he fell, hears bullets zing past him. He knows that whatever this is, he’s now part of it, since he has a gun in his hand and has just shot a CIT guard. There’s a dot of happiness inside him from knowing he wasn’t the one who killed the guard. He ducks for cover, joining the two strangers by the truck.

“Who are you?” asks the man who saved Xola’s life. He’s wearing an Orlando Pirates jersey and his face is hidden by a cap and a surgical mask.

“I’m…” Xola doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know these men. He doesn’t know what their plan was and how he affected it by accidentally running into that guard and shooting him. He’s not even sure if he’s awake or dreaming this.

“Can you drive?” asks the other man, who is wearing a blue puffer jacket.

Xola nods.

“Great.” Puffer Jacket pulls out the magazine on his AK-47, which looks older than Orlando Pirates’ AK-47. He confirms that the magazine is loaded and sticks it back in. “Let us do the shooting, you get us a car and get us out of here.”

Gunshots get louder. Xola is suddenly alone by the truck. He wants to take time and process what is happening but his experience has taught him that being slow in these situations gets you killed. He sprints down the parking lot, hijacks a red Mercedes Benz from a big-bellied man, and returns to his now accomplices who’ve shot down the two officers who were helping the CIT guards. They load the cash in the car.

“Who’s this?” a balaclava-wearing man who wasn’t with Xola by the truck says, when he enters the Mercedes.

“I don’t know,” replies Orlando Pirates. “He came out of nowhere and shot the first guard right as I was about to, and he’s now driving for us.”

“Are we taking him with us?”

“It’s up to him.” Orlando Pirates taps Xola on the arm and points at an abandoned BP garage, which is 10 km away from the mall. “Enter here and go to the back.”

Tell us: Who do you think these men are, and do you think they’ll get away?