The Cull

by Tony Park

  ‘No.’

  ‘Later?’ he said.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Hazyview. I’ll be back at Khaya Ngala later today.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Sonja, I want to talk about us, but I also need to ask you some questions, important ones, about the two guys you and your operator, Tema I think her name is, killed on the road to Mkhuhlu.’

  ‘I really don’t have time for this.’ Sonja wondered, however, what Brand’s interest was in the shooting. He was a private investigator. She immediately felt protective of Tema. ‘It was a righteous shooting. Leave it.’

  ‘I’m sure it was. I’d appreciate your take on some stuff that’s come up, though.’

  The blades of Julianne Clyde-Smith’s helicopter were turning and the others had overtaken her and were climbing in. Mario had a set of expensive golf clubs over his shoulder, which he stowed in the rear of the helicopter then boarded.

  Brand persisted. ‘I’m in Hazyview now. Maybe we can meet somewhere. Tell me where you’re going to be. We can get a coffee, or a drink.’

  Paterson waved to her and gave her a beseeching thumbs-up. She returned the gesture. It was time to go, but the image of Hudson laughing and flirting with the woman at the hotel wouldn’t disappear. ‘What happened to your other drinking buddy?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Red hair, short skirt.’

  ‘What? Oh, I can explain . . .’

  ‘Save it.’ She ended the call, boarded and strapped herself in as they lifted off. Below them the thorny bushveld of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve soon gave way to the barren earth and well-grazed fields of the populated area outside of the protected wildlife zone. Ahead of them, in the distance, was the more densely populated area of Mkhuhlu, where the men had been killed.

  Things were moving fast, maybe too fast, but Sonja felt a calm descend over her. What Hudson had or hadn’t done with other women was the least of her concerns now – they had a target and they were going to war.

  Chapter 9

  Hudson Brand watched the helicopter come in low, from the east, and settle somewhere behind where he was having coffee in the outdoor dining area of the golf club.

  Out on the course was his client for the day, Antonio Cuna.

  ‘They tell me you are the best safari guide in the lowveld and that you speak Portuguese,’ Cuna had said to him after shaking his hand in the cool, thatch-roofed arrivals hall of Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport in the hills behind White River.

  ‘Well, you got the second part right,’ a bemused Hudson had replied.

  Cuna was, like himself, part African and part Portuguese. Tracey Mahoney occasionally paired him with visitors from across the border seeking a day or two in the Kruger Park, or foreign tourists who wanted a daytrip to the Mozambican capital, Maputo, as an add-on to their South African safari holiday.

  ‘You asked for me?’ Hudson had asked him in Portuguese.

  ‘Sim. A colleague of mine was on one of your tours once,’ the man had continued, also in Portuguese. ‘He spoke highly of you, and my English is not good. I thought that after my game of golf you might drive me back to the airport through the Kruger Park and show me some wildlife.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Hudson could see the man had money, by the fit and labels of his clothes and the expensive clubs he’d brought with him – and now he knew it was all for a daytrip to play golf, and maybe do some business.

  He was right about the business, but he now doubted it was legit.

  Hudson took the compact Zeiss binoculars he always carried with him from the breast pocket of his khaki shirt and trained them on Antonio Cuna and his golfing partner, who were about to tee off from the third hole. With the Mozambican was James ‘King Jim’ Ndlovu, an ex-colonel in the South African Police Service, who had been stood down on suspicion of corruption. The King had once been in charge of the station at Hazyview, and the word was he was a major player in rhino horn trafficking and poaching. He’d been stopped at a tollbooth on the N4, after a tip-off, and was found to be carrying a couple of million rand in a suitcase in the trunk of his SUV. The Hawks, South Africa’s elite crime squad, hadn’t had enough to send King Jim away, and he was politically connected, but he wasn’t going to get his old job back any time soon.

  On the hole behind Antonio and King Jim was an interesting couple. He wore dark glasses and a cap, his thick salt and pepper hair, mostly pepper, protruding from underneath. His arms were muscled and he walked with the upright bearing of a man who’d spent time in uniform, perhaps also police or military. On his arm, when she wasn’t hacking the fairway or the green, was an attractive African girl in high-waisted shorts and a pink tank top.

  The pair had come from the direction in which the helicopter had landed and Hudson wondered whether the man, like Cuna, might also be from Mozambique. There was no racial segregation, officially, in the new South Africa, but in reality mixed race couples were not an everyday sight yet. In Mozambique and other ex-Portuguese colonies it was much more common; he was living proof of that. Hudson swung his binoculars to the caddy who stood a few paces behind the couple. He was being anything but frivolous, scanning the grounds around them, and continually moving his eyes to the two men playing ahead of them.

  As well as the golfers on the course there were three families enjoying an outing, their kids playing near the restaurant, and a handful of people were lounging by the resort’s pool.

  Hudson lifted his binoculars again and scanned the golf course. On the far side he picked up movement and re-focused. There was someone walking. It was a woman. She wore a green cap, khaki bush shirt and camouflage trousers. It was fairly typical safari gear these days, but Hudson’s job required him to be an observer.

  Sonja.

  He shifted his gaze to the two men. Cuna had just teed off, and while King Jim was setting his ball the Mozambican was talking. Hudson noticed that Antonio had his hand up to his mouth, but he was definitely speaking because James was nodding his head.

  ‘Why don’t you want anyone lip-reading?’ Hudson asked himself aloud.

  He drained his coffee, got up and walked through the restaurant back to the car park where he’d left Tracey’s Fortuner with its African Safari Adventures magnetic sign on the side. He unlocked it, opened the boot and took out his camera bag. He brought it with him, habitually, whenever he did a transfer, in case he came across a spectacular wildlife sighting in the Kruger Park or the Sabi Sand. If his clients at the time didn’t mind him snapping a few frames, then Hudson liked to indulge his passion for photography.

  He returned to his seat. He hefted his Canon digital SLR camera and took aim. He used a Sigma 50–500 millimetre zoom lens. He couldn’t afford a long-range Canon lens, but this one was versatile and useful for wildlife photography – and surveillance. He scanned the tree line on the edge of the course and saw Sonja again, still walking. He extended the lens to its full reach and the shutter release whirred.

  Hudson lifted the camera again and zeroed in on the trio playing golf. The caddy now mimicked Sonja, lifting his fingers to his ear. They were talking, in radio contact. The caddy said something and the black and white couple stopped pretending to have fun and looked back, talking to the younger man.

  When Hudson panned, using the magnification of his zoom lens in lieu of his binoculars, he couldn’t find Sonja. The walking path around the course was empty of people. She had gone to ground.

  From the car park behind him Hudson heard a vehicle engine revved hard and the squeal of brakes that needed new linings. There was shouting and the slap of boots on a polished concrete floor.

  Hudson left his camera and made for a stone pillar supporting the terrace roof and ducked behind it.

  Three men, each wearing a balaclava and armed with an AK-47, burst
out onto the restaurant terrace. ‘Everybody down.’

  People screamed.

  The man who had given the order pointed his rifle at a family. ‘Quiet, no noise or I’ll shoot you all.’

  The terrified patrons dropped to the ground.

  ‘No one look up, no one say a word. Everything will be fine.’

  Hudson had dropped to his belly, and as he leopard-crawled along the grass, using his knees and one elbow to propel himself into a bed of flowers, he reached under his shirt to the pancake holster on his hip with his right hand and drew out his Colt .45 pistol.

  ‘Heads down everyone, that’s the way,’ said one of the gunmen.

  Hudson peered through the petals as he buried himself deeper in the garden. The man who was talking was moving slowly around the guests, some of whom were whimpering. He paused beside one woman, bent, opened her handbag and took out her purse.

  Hudson slowly reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out his phone. He looked at the screen and selected the Messages icon, then scrolled through the list until he found the last time he had tried to contact Sonja.

  *

  Sonja felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

  Two men, AKs, coming your way.

  The message was from Hudson Brand. That surprised her. Slowly, she raised her head. Antonio Cuna and a man Ezekial had informed her was a former local police commander, King Jim someone, were not more than four metres from where she lay in the thick riverine bush, at the edge of the putting green on the fourth hole. At last the men had come close enough for her to hear what they were saying to each other.

  Sonja had no idea how Hudson Brand knew where she was or what he could see, but she slowly looked around. A low rise obscured her view of the lodge and its restaurant-cum-clubhouse.

  Their targets were so close Sonja couldn’t risk speaking into her radio. Instead, she forwarded Hudson’s message to Tema’s mobile phone.

  ‘Antonio, my heart is heavy,’ King Jim was saying.

  The Mozambican was hunched over his putter, taking a practice swing, the club’s head a few centimetres from his ball. He didn’t look up. ‘Why?’

  ‘You have betrayed me.’

  Cuna stopped his club, mid-swing. Sonja watched as he slowly turned to the bigger man. King Jim’s build and belly spoke of a life of profit and excess, but Sonja also saw the power in the ex-cop’s big hands, his broad shoulders.

  ‘I hear you have been talking to the South African police about me,’ continued King Jim, ‘how you planned to plant some horn in my house. Added to that, if that were not bad enough, you bring more police, more soldiers to my backyard by trying to shoot down a fucking helicopter. Man, are you crazy?’

  Cuna straightened. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked in his accented English.

  ‘And you bring assassins with you, to try and ambush me on a golf course?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man in the sunglasses and cap with the cute girlfriend and the muscle-bound caddy on the hole behind us.’ King Jim turned and gestured to Mario, Tema and Ezekial with his left hand. His right went under the Polo windcheater he wore, to a shoulder holster under his arm.

  Sonja cursed to herself. Either King Jim had been expecting an ambush, or to be tailed, or Sonja’s team had been too obvious. To make matters worse Sonja saw, over the mound, two men moving, rifles coming up to their shoulders.

  ‘Tema, get down, two tangos to your right, AKs. Take cover,’ Sonja said into her radio; despite the risk she had to give her people warning.

  As King Jim raised his pistol Antonio swung his golf club faster than a cobra striking, and the bigger man screamed and staggered as the club connected with the side of his head and he dropped his gun. Then the gunfire started.

  The men with the AK-47s stopped and turned outwards, away from each other. One fired at Cuna, who just had time to drop and grab King Jim’s pistol and roll off the grassy mound, towards Sonja. King Jim came to, crawled away, then stood and looked around, dazed.

  Cuna opened up and King Jim’s body danced before he hit the ground again.

  This wasn’t Sonja’s fight, but her people were under fire. She could see Ezekial lying on the ground, frantically pulling clubs from Julianne Clyde-Smith’s golf bag. The young man’s pride had been hurt when Sonja told him he would be undercover as Mario and Tema’s caddy, but a smile had returned to his face when Sonja told him he would be packing her LM5 assault rifle among the clubs. Tema and Mario had drawn their pistols, but the man with the AK targeting them was forcing them to lie low as he advanced from tree to tree.

  Sonja had a clear shot at the gunman’s back. She stood, wrapped her left hand around her right and fired twice. It was a long-range shot, but at least one round found its mark and the hit man pitched forward. She saw Mario get up and move forward.

  By standing, however, Sonja had exposed herself to the other rifleman, and Antonio Cuna. The man with the AK-47 shifted his aim to her, but Sonja was quicker, pivoting and pumping four rounds at him. He dropped to the grass, but Sonja couldn’t tell if she had hit him. Cuna crawled towards the stand of trees in which she was taking cover, once more crouching behind a tree.

  Sonja held up her pistol and pointed it at the Mozambican. He raised his gun as well.

  ‘Who are you? Police?’ he asked.

  ‘Security.’ They were in a stand-off, pistols pointed at each other, but it didn’t last. The surviving man with the AK-47 stood and ran at them, firing on the run.

  Sonja and Antonio turned their guns on the running man in unison and their combined firepower was too much for him. His bullets went high and wide as their shots brought him down.

  Her phone rang and Sonja fished it out of her pocket, one-handed. ‘Hudson? Kind of got my hands full here.’

  ‘There’s one more coming your way.’ He was puffing as if he was running while talking. ‘The third guy was holding up people in the clubhouse, but he’s outflanking you now, coming in from the south end of the course, any minute. I’m on my way.’

  Sonja looked in the direction Hudson had indicated and Antonio raised his head at the same time. A rifle fired and Cuna fell backwards. Sonja crawled to him. Blood was frothing out of a hole in his chest. She placed a hand against the wound.

  ‘Lie still, your lung’s been punctured. You’ve got a sucking chest wound.’

  He looked up at her, eyes wide. ‘Help . . .’ he croaked.

  ‘You ordered the killing of Sam Chapman, the American wildlife documentary maker?’

  The man stared at her.

  Sonja moved her red-soaked hand and the blood started bubbling again. He groped for the wound, but she knelt on his arm.

  ‘Help me . . .’

  ‘Tell me what happened. I’ll save you if you give me the truth. You’ll be arrested, but you can probably buy your way out.’

  ‘You . . . you’re Chapman’s woman. You killed Tran, the Vietnamese.’

  ‘What of it?’ Sonja looked up, scanning the tree line. The man who had shot Cuna would be getting close.

  ‘He . . . he . . . was not . . .’

  ‘Wasn’t what?’

  Sonja glanced up and saw a face and the business end of an AK-47. She ducked as the man fired. Sonja raised her hand and fired twice, then her pistol was empty.

  ‘Shit.’ Sonja reloaded, and while the action was as instinctive to her as brushing her teeth, in the less than two seconds it took, the gunman had stood and charged towards her. He fired first and she dived and rolled behind a tree. Bullets tore into the foliage above her head. She readied herself to meet him, but then heard the sound of a different weapon firing, a double tap.

  Sonja popped up and saw that the man was face down on the ground. Someone had shot him.

  Breathing hard, she walked to the man, kicked him, and saw he was dead. She went back to Cu
na and dropped so that her right knee was on his chest. He screamed in pain.

  ‘Shut up, you fucking wimp.’ She rested the barrel of her pistol between his eyes. ‘What were you trying to say to me before, about Tran.’

  His mouth curled up at the edges. ‘Tran wasn’t the man who ordered the death of Sam Chapman, your man, he wasn’t even a boss. You and that journalist who went after him got your facts wrong.’

  He was taunting her. The young investigative reporter who was helping her had been caught by Tran’s people and tortured and killed. She had taken out Tran, but the journalist’s death had taken any satisfaction she might have otherwise gained from her revenge mission. ‘Who was in charge, who gave the order to kill my man?’

  Cuna coughed and blood ran over his lips. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Then tell me who it was.’

  He gave a weak shrug. ‘If I tell you, I will be a dead man.’

  ‘All right.’ She tightened her finger around the trigger. ‘I’ll save them the time.’

  ‘Sonja!’

  She didn’t take her eyes off Cuna. She recognised Hudson’s voice behind her but didn’t turn to look at him. ‘Go away, Brand.’

  ‘What’s with the “Brand” again? Don’t kill that man, Sonja.’

  ‘Get lost, Hudson, this is none of your business.’

  Cuna stared back at her. She willed him to make a move, to try and overpower her, so she would have an excuse to shoot him.

  Hudson’s shadow fell over them. ‘This man needs a doctor, Sonja.’

  ‘He needs to talk sense to me right now or I’m going to kill him.’

  Cuna’s eyes went to Hudson.

  ‘I’d do as the lady suggests and tell her what she wants to know,’ Hudson said to him.

  There was the sound of sirens, getting closer. Cuna looked back to Sonja. She knelt harder on his chest and he screamed in agony.