Prey

by L. A. Larkin

  ‘I want you,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you. Fuck me as you cut me,’ she says.

  Samuel sits back on his haunches, frowning. Exactly what she had intended.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Cut me again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Thigh, but not too deep. You want me alive, don’t you?’

  ‘You like this?’ Part incredulous, part hopeful.

  ‘I feel everything. It’s terrifying and amazing,’ she replies. ‘Take off my jeans and fuck me as you do it.’

  ‘I… don’t…’

  ‘I don’t care. Do it.’

  Wolfe sees the tremor in his hands as he lays the scalpel on the floor and fumbles with her jeans’ button, then the zip. He slides them down her thighs and leaves them bunched above her boots. He uses the scalpel to cut her panties away. It takes all her willpower not to cringe.

  ‘We’re not so different, Samuel. Do you see that?’ she says. ‘Let me hold you.’ Samuel hesitates. But she senses the balance of power shifting. ‘At least one arm. Let me touch you.’

  Samuel severs the plastic tie around her right wrist, then, leaving the scalpel on the table out of reach, he tugs off his jeans and underwear, kicking them aside. Then he pulls her down so she’s flat on the floor, her left arm still tied above her to the now open oven door.

  ‘I knew you were special,’ he murmurs.

  She kisses him again. It’s all she can do to stop herself vomiting in his mouth. She bends her knees, so her boots are close to her bottom. She doesn’t have long. Her free hand finds the tongue of her boot.

  Samuel lies on top of her, crushing her. Her stomach wound is agony and her blood is slippery between them. He fumbles with his dick.

  Wolfe plunges the blade into his back, aiming for his kidney.

  88

  Wolfe rips the blade from Samuel’s back and stabs again. His body jerks and he grunts. She’s missed her mark. If she’d hit a kidney, he’d be dead. Wolfe pulls her legs into her chest, stomach muscles screaming, then kicks out at his chest with every ounce of her remaining strength. Her kick propels Samuel backwards and onto the floor. He roars, yanks the knife – still embedded in his back – out, and flings it away.

  Samuel battles to get up. Staggers towards the table. Grabs a machete. Limps towards her.

  She has nothing to defend herself with, and one arm is still cuffed.

  Samuel collapses to his knees. But he has the strength to raise the machete above his head. She throws a punch up and into his throat with every ounce of panic, terror and rage she has. Samuel falls to the side, making sucking, gasping sounds. She’s crushed his throat.

  Wolfe rips the machete from his hand, uses it to cut the plastic tie holding her, and stands up on unsteady feet.

  Samuel’s face is puce, swollen. He’s suffocating. His end is near.

  All Wolfe feels is incandescent, destructive hatred.

  It tightens her muscles. It empowers her. Like an ice addict, she feels unstoppable. She wants to tear him limb from limb. She wants him to feel the pain he’s inflicted on her. And on others.

  ‘You evil piece of shit,’ she shrieks, raising the machete above her head.

  Out of the corner of her eye she sees Casburn’s hand move. His eyes flutter. He’s watching. She hesitates, then slams the machete down, slicing clean through Samuel’s wrist, just a few seconds before he finally dies.

  89

  Casburn drifts in and out of consciousness, his skin grey and clammy. Wolfe searches for a First Aid kit. Finds one. Finds clean tea towels. Uses a couple against Casburn’s chest. Bandages them in place. She daren’t take the boot off his injured foot so she uses a tablecloth wound around and around the boot to compress the wound. Every move is agony for her.

  Wolfe covers the open wound on her arm with a large sticking plaster and then uses a couple on her stomach where he cut her. She swallows some painkillers. Her torturer is dead, his face bloated, his body twisted, his eyes bulging. Even in death, they seem to watch her.

  In his jeans, she finds his mobile phone. It’s switched on. She doesn’t know Hannah’s number or anyone’s on the reserve. She dials emergency services, asks for an air ambulance, explains as best she can their location.

  ‘Two gunshot wounds. Chest and foot. He’s lost a lot of blood. Semi-conscious. He’s hardly breathing. Please hurry.’

  They tell her it could take thirty minutes to reach her and to use car headlights to illuminate a flat and open area for the chopper to land. She thanks them. But thirty minutes is too long.

  She needs more immediate assistance. Racing from the hut, she dives into the pick-up’s cabin. Grabs the two-way radio and calls for help, trying every frequency. Just when she is about to give up, a man named Kwende answers.

  ‘I am Poaching Patrol. Who is this?’

  Wolfe explains who and where she is.

  ‘Hannah tell us to search for you,’ Kwende says. ‘I will be with you very soon.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘We will bring torches and guide the helicopter. Soon it will be sunrise. It will be okay, Miss Wolfe.’

  ‘Wait! Can you contact Henry Clarke?’

  ‘Yes. He is searching for you.’

  ‘Tell him we need his helicopter. The air ambulance will take too long. We need him to fly Casburn to hospital.’

  ‘I will tell him this. But he went to sector three. Far away.’

  ‘Ask him anyway, please.’

  ‘I will do this.’

  All Wolfe can do now is wait and try to keep Casburn conscious. Maybe Clarke can reach them quicker than the air ambulance?

  ‘Never thought I’d be doing this,’ Wolfe mutters. She sits cross-legged next to Casburn and gently holds his hand. ‘Dan, can you hear me? It’s Olivia. Medics are on their way. You’ll be fine. Just stay with me.’

  He gives her hand a squeeze. ‘I won’t… make it.’

  ‘You listen to me, Dan Casburn. You’re a soldier. A survivor. You are not going to die. Dan?’ Casburn opens his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t think…’ his voice fades, ‘…it would be like this.’

  ‘You’re not going to die. You’re going to be around for years, annoying the fuck out of me.’

  The edges of his mouth crease into a weak smile. ‘I’m cold. So cold.’

  Wolfe lies on her side next to him, her body touching his. She gently lifts his head, so it lies in the crook of her shoulder. She holds him close, her limbs wrapped around him.

  ‘He’s gone, Dan. He won’t hurt anyone ever again.’ No response.

  Wolfe lifts her head. Puts her hand against his lips. She feels no breath.

  ‘Dan?’

  90

  Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe

  Henry Clarke’s flight plan says he is taking a tourist named Kate Parks from Rustenburg to Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe for a day’s safari, returning that night. He’s taking a big risk.

  ‘How long before the authorities realise we’re not at Hwange?’ Wolfe says into her headphones’ mouthpiece.

  ‘Not sure. By this afternoon they’ll know something’s wrong.’

  ‘Thank you for doing this, Henry.’

  Clarke flicks her a worried look. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’

  Wolfe touches the bruise on her swollen cheekbone. ‘I have to be.’

  The cuts to her arm and her lower abdomen have been cleaned, stitched, and dressed.

  ‘It’s only temporary,’ the paramedic who treated her had said. ‘We need to get you to hospital.’

  Instead, she had talked him into injecting a local anaesthetic into her arm and abdomen. ‘Just a few hours, then I’ll take myself off to hospital. I have to find who’s responsible for this.’

  ‘They were right,’ Clarke says. ‘You should have gone to hospital. Your wounds could get infected.’

  She doesn’t know whether it’s exhaustion, shock or the local anaesthetic, but Wolfe shakes
her head, struggling to think clearly. At least the pain is being kept at bay. Her mind turns to Casburn.

  Clarke looks her way, sees the worry on her face. ‘He’s at the best hospital. They’ll look after him.’

  She nods. Wolfe is in fresh clothes, has repacked her go-bag, added binoculars, and carries Casburn’s pistol.

  ‘Are you sure about the location?’ Clarke asks.

  Far beneath them is the bridge spanning the Limpopo River, which marks the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

  ‘Yes. Ponnappa doesn’t make mistakes.’

  ‘Ponnappa?’ Clarke asks.

  ‘A British cybercrime expert. Just before he died, Samuel received a call from a Zimbabwean number. Turns out it’s a 162,000-hectare private reserve about halfway between Thuli and Bulawayo in Matabeleland South. It was bought four years ago by a company registered in the Cayman Islands.’ Wolfe looks at her watch. ‘Let’s hope he’s still there.’

  ‘And you think whoever made that call runs the poaching syndicate?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then he’ll be heavily guarded. And Matabeleland South is a poor district. The people are starving and angry. It’s very dangerous for a white woman.’ He glances at her.

  ‘I know about the atrocities under Mugabe, Henry. But I have to do this.’

  Wolfe lies flat on her belly in the tall grass as Clarke’s chopper flies away. She is on the outside of a tall, electrified fence, five miles from the property’s main homestead – a twelve-bedroom mansion – and four miles from the private runway and aircraft hangar. From where she lies she can’t see any security cameras on the fence.

  She sets off at a good pace, following the fence line. She wants to reach the house. Inside the fence, the land is flat and parched savannah. Nowhere to hide. She won’t enter until she has some cover: she hopes the numerous buildings surrounding the mansion will give her that. The terrain gets increasingly rocky, the grass and low scrub punctuated by boulders which slows her progress. Every now and again she passes a sign, ‘Private Property. Armed Patrols.’

  Wolfe stops to take a drink and checks Google Maps. She wipes the perspiration from her forehead. On the other side of the fence are a wind-operated water pump and a man-made reservoir with concrete edges. A pride of lions lies listlessly in the shade nearby. The reservoir allows her to confirm her location. She’s around half a mile from the hangar.

  Wolfe ups the pace. Inside the compound, a wooden bridge spans a dried-up riverbed. It’s the first road she’s seen. The land rises. Through the metal mesh she can see the end of a runway and, shimmering in the distance, a collection of buildings hovers into view. She keeps going until she can see the hangar clearly.

  Wolfe crouches down between boulders in the shade of a baobab. She retrieves a pair of binoculars and a small digital video camera from her pack. A Cessna approaches, the buzz like an angry hornet. She records its arrival and zooms in on the ID number painted on its fuselage. It lands with a slight hop and then taxis to the hangar. A door opens, steps unfurl. A man descends in a cream suit and pale blue shirt: the mayor of Johannesburg. He’s followed by his wife, in a blue and white floral pattern dress. It’s the third and final passenger who causes Wolfe to blanch. Dressed in black, it is none other than the grieving widow, Funani Ximba.

  Why didn’t I see that coming?

  Wolfe guesses the mayor makes sure the authorities don’t look too closely at the syndicate’s activities, and Funani is no doubt just as involved as her late husband in laundering the proceeds. The trio head for a waiting Jeep. They are welcomed by a stocky man in khaki with a protruding belly, straw-coloured receding hair and a darker moustache – Terry Blunt.

  A second, larger plane approaches soon after. A glistening G650 Gulfstream. It glides to a landing on the runway, the tyres producing a passing puff of blue smoke as they first touch the runway. The Gulfstream’s door gracefully rotates out and down, the stairs folding toward the tarmac. After a few moments, a man in dark grey suit steps out and looks around – probably the protection detail. He’s followed by a tall, grey-haired man in a navy-blue suit. Wolfe almost drops the camera. Harold Sackville, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  Something dark and cold slides against her temple.

  ‘Do not move.’

  Wolfe freezes. The camera is pulled from her hand, her arms dragged behind her and cuffed. She winces.

  ‘Please, I’m wounded,’ Wolfe says.

  Some distance away, men are shouting. Her captor leans over her, his mouth close to her ear.

  ‘Do not say my name, Olivia. You do not know me. Do as I say, and I will help you escape.’

  91

  He hauls Wolfe up to standing and holds her close.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she begins. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Over here!’ her captor shouts. Two men in khaki uniforms zig-zag through the boulders towards them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Wolfe says. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Dmitry!’ calls one of the men.

  ‘Dmitry?’ she echoes.

  Vitaly Yushkov is dressed in the same khaki uniform as the soldiers. He works for the criminal syndicate? The very syndicate that sent Samuel after her and butchered Thusago?

  ‘I warned you,’ his voice is hushed. ‘You should have left.’

  ‘You work for him?’ Her lip curls in contempt.

  The soldiers are almost upon them. Her survival instinct kicks in. Wolfe lifts her boot and slams it down hard on Yushkov’s foot. He takes her in a bear-hug she cannot break.

  ‘Say nothing,’ he whispers.

  All the fight drains out of her. Has he been lying all this time? Is he Vitaly or Dmitry?

  Wolfe instantly recognises the man she stands before. His sugar business, which started in Vietnam and is now the largest producer, refiner and wholesaler in all of Asia, is worth billions. But he is much better known as the Bill Gates of Asia, giving millions to charitable causes all over the world. His photos have appeared on the front cover of Fortune magazine. Wolfe remembers the article well; it hailed him as a ‘mega-philanthropist’, but included images from an ostentatious apartment on the Upper East Side facing Central Park. The juxtaposition had jarred. Wolfe has no doubt his substantial net worth is not all derived from sugar. Maybe not even mostly. The illegal trade in rhino horn is extremely lucrative.

  Tan Nguyen, aged forty-two, is seated at a desk in a sand-coloured linen suit and white shirt, open at the neck. She can’t help but notice two huge rhino horns next to his iPad Pro. Nguyen watches her arrival through round, heavy-lidded, hazel eyes. His dark hair is cut short, which emphasises his pronounced widow’s peak.

  Yushkov stands behind Wolfe, her arms still bound. He hasn’t said a word since they got in the Jeep.

  ‘It’s good to meet the famous Tan Nguyen,’ Wolfe says. ‘I must admit, I had no idea you were the syndicate leader.’

  Nguyen nods once. ‘Olivia Wolfe, it is an honour to meet you, although your timing is a little inconvenient.’ His eyes move from hers to Yushkov’s. ‘Dmitry, leave us. Wait outside the door. I will need you again.’

  Yushkov goes. The heavy door clicks shut. She looks up at the arched ceiling, at the dark green shutters and the cream, gold and green paintwork.

  ‘This reminds me of the Central Post Office in Ho Chi Minh City.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Many years ago.’

  ‘My sources tell me you killed Samuel. A knife in the back?’

  ‘It was him or me.’

  ‘I congratulate you. Many have tried before you. You truly are a remarkable woman.’

  ‘May I sit?’ Wolfe asks.

  ‘In a moment.’ Nguyen gets up, his movements graceful as if he were practising Tai Chi. ‘Walk with me. I have something to show you.’ They begin walking the length of the room. ‘Samuel disobeyed me. I wanted you brought to me unharmed.’ He glances at her face. ‘That bruise will take several days to heal. He cut you too, didn’
t he?’

  ‘You know he did. You were watching the live feed.’

  He inclines his head in assent. ‘I will have Anna look after you. My doctor.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I insist.’ He points to a bull elephant head with enormous tusks mounted on the wall. ‘Magnificent, isn’t he?’

  ‘More so when he was alive,’ she says.

  ‘I disagree.’ He gestures to the animal heads stuck on the walls. ‘I killed every one of these myself.’

  To her left is a whole leopard, stuffed, teeth bared. Further along, a West African black rhino. A Sumatran tiger’s head and hide decorates the floor, and a whole cheetah, its limbs outstretched as if in mid run, seems to guard a door at the end of the long room.

  ‘So, this is where you run your poaching operations?’ she asks.

  ‘I have people who run my African business.’

  ‘Terry Blunt?’

  He inclines his head in such a way that it is neither a confirmation nor a denial.

  ‘And Harold Sackville?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ve made things difficult for Harold. He’s here, in fact. Sadly, this will be his last meeting. Harold will resign from the cabinet this week. Family reasons. Someone will take his place.’

  They have reached the end of the long room. Before them are huge cherrywood doors with ornate bronze handles. On the wall to their right is a keypad and an eye scanner.

  Nguyen continues, ‘Your attempt to turn Samuel’s followers against us will fail. We’re seeing to that even as we speak.’

  The matter-of-factness of the statement is chilling.

  ‘Why poach rhinos? Your sugar business is booming. You’re rich, respected, famous. So why butcher these endangered animals?’

  ‘Respect. Influence. Power. Not just businessmen. Rival syndicates. Politicians. Governments. I can buy anyone, anywhere. Even you, Miss Wolfe.’