Gangster State

from where the Bentley waited at the traffic light.
Then two men got out of the Audi. Both brandished handguns and
wore hoodies drawn over their heads. The car had tinted windows, but
Tshepo could make out the silhouette of a third man who remained
waiting behind the steering wheel.
The two men were young, Tshepo noticed. He thought that they
couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. Tshepo thought he could
hear the men exchange a few words in Zulu.
Later, as he replayed the scene in his head for the umpteenth time,
Tshepo would note that time didn’t freeze or slow down at all that day.
If the movies were anything to go by, action scenes were supposed to
unfold in slow motion. What he saw next, however, happened at a
frighteningly normal pace.
The two men walked towards the stationary Bentley. Wearing a grey
hoodie, the shorter of the two gunmen positioned himself in front of the
sleek sedan. His accomplice, a tall, slender man wearing a blue top,
stood right next to the driver’s window.
‘Open the door!’ Tshepo heard the taller man shout in English.
The Bentley driver understandably disobeyed the order.
The tall gunman then tried to break the Bentley’s window by
smashing it with his weapon, but he was unsuccessful.
The driver and sole occupant of the Bentley now clearly realised that
he would have to take drastic action if he wanted to live. He let the car
shoot forward, forcing the gunman in grey to hop out of the way. The
Bentley smashed into the car in front of it. The latter’s driver panicked
and sped off over the crossing, undeterred by the red robot.
The Bentley, however, failed to follow the other car over the crossing
to get away from the gunmen. The engine had either stalled or the