by Tony Park
The current was strong and the leaders were being swept downriver. They redoubled their efforts and began heading back upstream.
Around Sonja and Hudson engines were coming to life. By the time the brave or foolhardy first wildebeest had crossed the river, safe and sound, the safari vehicles had taken up strategic viewing positions either side of the animals’ exit point.
Hudson found them a position, on a rise, with just one other vehicle between them and the crossing point. A continuous stream of wildebeests was now galloping between the vehicles, the water flying from their bodies making a slippery black road in the otherwise powdery grey earth.
It was a spectacle that assaulted all the senses. The smell of the tightly packed bodies washed over them and the noise of their braying carried on the warm breeze from the other side of the river. Hooves pounded the ground as the wildebeests ran from their fears once they had scaled the embankment on the humans’ side.
Hudson opened the door of the Land Rover and climbed up on the bonnet of the truck. Sonja joined him and they sat on the roof, in the open with front-row grandstand seats to nature’s command performance.
‘They’re splitting,’ Sonja said.
The phalanx swimming against the tide was getting too wide for the exit point, and a splinter group had peeled off to the right of Hudson and Sonja.
‘They’ll never make it up there,’ Sonja said.
The bank they were heading for looked like a sheer vertical climb of several metres. Amazingly, a few seconds after they lost sight of the divergent herd, a shaggy head appeared to their right, hooves frantically pawing at the dirt and dry grass. A wildebeest hauled itself up over the edge.
‘Incredible,’ Hudson said. On the far bank the mass hysteria was having a similar effect in reverse. Rather than slipping and sliding down the washout to the first crossing point, animals were hurling themselves off the high bank and splashing noisily into the river, which was now churned brown from thousands of flailing legs.
A dazzle of zebra, the reasoning behind the collective noun now clearly apparent, broke from the dusty blue-grey mass of the wildebeest and galloped imperiously down to the water’s edge. When the zebra took to the waters they swam like thoroughbred horses in training, heads held high and calm as they easily outflanked and overtook the clumsy, struggling masses of wildebeest.
The animals that had been scaling the mini cliff near Hudson and Sonja found another gully, still steep but less sheer, and the first animal emerged not two metres from where Hudson and Sonja were perched on the Land Rover. The wildebeest looked up, clearly surprised to see the humans, and started to turn back.
‘Get down.’ Hudson took Sonja’s hand and eased her back down onto the hood of the Land Rover. They crouched so their silhouettes no longer broke the outline of the vehicle. The startled wildebeest was met by his comrades coming up the washout. He turned again and, not seeing the human heads bobbing around, charged past them. The next thing Hudson and Sonja saw was their own private stream of animals thundering past, almost within touching distance.
Sonja nuzzled into Hudson and he put an arm around her. He could feel her heart beating, as fast as his, as they watched the unending procession. The smell of wet hair and wild fear was thick in the air. Hundreds of hooves drummed the ground.
A third crossing point opened up and the pressure on the narrow inlet by their vehicle began to ease. Hudson checked his watch. Forty-five minutes after the spectacle had begun it ended, just as suddenly. Those animals that had crossed had moved off, though some stragglers were now calling quietly and grazing on grass as if nothing had happened. On the far bank of the river more wildebeest and zebra were arriving, but as none were in the water these newcomers were content to just mill about and feed on their side. The river was quiet again.
Sonja tilted her head and Hudson kissed her.
‘That was amazing; awesome in the true sense of the word, not as in how my daughter uses it.’
He laughed, and it was like a release. Scenes of the great migration crossing the Mara were usually accompanied by the river’s crocodiles indulging in their annual gluttonous feast. Hudson had been doing some mental arithmetic during the crossing, working out the time it took one animal to cross and the average number of animals in the river at any one time during the spectacle, which had taken forty-five minutes. ‘I’d say we just saw three thousand animals swim that river and not a single one of them was taken.’
Sonja beamed. ‘I know. I half expected to see a kill happen, but I’m so glad I didn’t.’
‘I know what you mean. I feel . . . I don’t know. I feel like giving them a round of applause.’
Sonja stood upright on the bonnet of the Land Rover, raised her hands in the air, turned to the grazing animals and started clapping. Tourists in the nearby two safari vehicles saw her and, after some puzzled looks, realised what she was doing and joined her in a standing ovation to nature.
Hudson did the same and they hugged. People whistled as they kissed.
The magic of the moment over, they climbed down, got back in the truck, and drove off towards their own private war.
*
The next day, Tema was on a boat, on Lake Tanganyika. There had been so many firsts in her life since she had joined the Leopards and then gone to work for Julianne Clyde-Smith that she had lost count of them.
Some of them, like flying for the first time and being in combat, had been frightening yet exciting, while others, like being in a speedboat bouncing across a vast inland body of fresh water, were simply terrifying. She held tight to the gunwale, her face grim.
‘Cheer up, this is fun,’ Mario yelled over the screaming engine.
‘For you, maybe.’
‘I miss the water,’ he said.
‘I’ve never been on a boat before. I don’t like it.’
He laughed, but it was no joking matter as far as Tema was concerned. She couldn’t wait to get to dry land.
For the sake of appearances, and in case Nikola Pesev had a reason to check up on them, Mario and Tema had flown to Mahale National Park the day before and spent the night at Julianne’s tented camp on the shores of the lake on the opposite side to Kipili, where they were heading now. They had shared a tent, notionally and in respect to their booking, but Mario had slept in the staff quarters, leaving Tema to soak up the luxury.
They didn’t go chimp trekking, the park’s flagship activity, but instead spent the day rehearsing their cover stories, as a newly married couple, and discussing how they would carry out their surveillance of Peves.
Tema felt queasy, but her spirits lifted a little when she saw a green fringe come into view on the horizon. Land. She felt an arm around her shoulders.
‘Hey!’
‘Relax,’ said Mario. ‘If someone’s watching from shore they’ll see a honeymoon couple, not two co-workers. We discussed this, remember?’
‘Sure.’ She knew that some touching would be part of their cover, and they had talked about it, but all the same it felt creepy when Mario snuggled just a little too close to her. He was handsome, she guessed, but he was also easily old enough to be her father. It was Ezekial she wanted. She’d been more acutely aware of her growing feelings for him since he had disappeared, and it pained her that he had run off before Sonja had the chance to tell him what she was really up to. Tema had sent him an SMS message saying where she was heading, to Kipili, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, although she had no idea where he was or if he had received the message.
The boatman eased off on his throttle and the craft returned to a more sedate pace as it settled on the glassy water. Other than the uncomfortable feeling of Mario’s flesh on hers, she started to feel a little better.
As they approached a concrete breakwater and jetty Tema saw a white man walk down from the single-storey, open-fronted building that looked like a lounge or dining area. He wore
a panama hat, and as the driver eased the boat into place she could see the man was their target, Nikola Pesev.
Why, she wondered, had the owner of the lodge come to greet them himself? Surely he would have had a manager or other staff member on duty?
Mario stood and stepped lithely off the boat. He held out a hand to Tema. She took it, gratefully this time, as her legs felt rubbery.
‘How do you do?’ Peves asked.
‘Hi.’ Mario introduced them by their assumed names and the two men shook hands. ‘This lovely young lady is my wife. Beauty by name and beauty by nature.’
‘Charmed,’ Peves said, touching the brim of his hat. ‘Welcome, I am Nikola.’
‘Have you worked here for long, Nikola?’ Mario asked, as a porter fetched their bags from the boat.
‘I’m the owner. I only just built this lodge last year. I was lucky to even get the land.’
‘Really?’ Mario asked.
‘Yes, someone else, another tourism operator, was desperate to buy some lake-front property with a decent beach. I was able to get in first.’
‘Who was the other operator?’ Tema asked.
‘Can we get a drink, please, Nikola?’ Mario asked, abruptly. Tema was miffed.
‘Um, of course, yes.’ Nikola called the waiter. ‘Moses will take your orders. If you’ll excuse me, I just have to go and check my emails. I must warn you that while our internet is free, it is satellite, so it takes a long time to download and send messages. I hope to see you later.’
Nikola left and after they had ordered Cokes Tema motioned Mario to come out to the balcony area. ‘Why did you cut me off like that?’
‘It’s all right,’ Mario said, too condescendingly for Tema’s liking, ‘we don’t want him to get too suspicious of us, by asking too many questions when we’ve only just arrived. We’re here for three days, remember, so we’ll give him enough time, enough rope, and he’ll eventually hang himself up, or the covert team will find the dirt on him.’
Tema huffed, but kept her emotions in check when the waiter arrived. Sonja and Hudson were to be the ‘covert team’ Mario had mentioned. Both had experience in undercover surveillance and what James Paterson referred to as the ‘black arts’. Hudson, it turned out, was an accomplished lock-pick, and Sonja had been trained in covert reconnaissance by the British Army.
If Tema and Mario couldn’t coax enough leads out of Nikola by conversing with him and eavesdropping then Sonja and Hudson would break in to his office, perhaps his accommodation, and search his computer and other digital and physical records. Paterson had brought an array of electrical surveillance gear with him from South Africa and he would be their technological quartermaster.
After they finished their drinks, the porter who had taken their bags returned to show them to their room. Tema and Mario followed him. Tema wondered how this would work. At Julianne’s Mahale camp Mario had slept in the staff quarters but now – to maintain their cover that they were honeymooners – they would have to stay in the same chalet. The thought made Tema feel anxious.
They walked along a white sandy track flanked with stones.
The village of Kipili was over the hill, beyond a campground, where Tema saw two South African–registered Land Rovers parked in the shade of a giant mango tree. The tourist occupants were having lunch. She saw that the registration plates ended in MP, Mpumalanga Province, her home. She felt a twinge in her heart, thinking of her mother and her daughter, back home, and for a moment she longed for her simpler, if poorer life.
Mario had told her, last night, of the pay rise he had negotiated with James for her. Her monthly wage would be more than she made in a year as a maid at Hippo Rock, and even her pay with the Leopards had been not much better. Mario told her that with the skills and experience she had amassed in her anti-poaching work she could potentially work overseas, as a contractor, just as he and Sonja had. She didn’t like the idea of being even further away from Shine, but the wages Mario had alluded to, all in US dollars, seemed like an incredible fortune. How, she wondered, had she ended up as a gun for hire?
The porter led them into a beachfront bungalow. It was beautiful. In the centre of the room was a king-sized bed. As honeymooners it would have been unusual to ask for separate beds. Mario had said he would sleep on the floor, or on a day bed and, luckily, there was one, overlooking the glittering waters of the lake through wide open sliding doors. A gentle breeze stirred the mosquito net hanging from a wooden frame beneath a ceiling fan.
‘It’s lovely,’ Tema said to the porter.
‘Yes, very good.’ Mario palmed the man a tip in Tanzanian shillings.
Tema looked around the beautiful room. How her life had changed; until recently, the only chance she would have had of entering a place like this would have been to clean it. The man left. Mario sat down in a wicker armchair.
‘Nice, yes?’ Tema said, filling the silence.
‘Yes.’
‘What do we do now?’
Mario winked. ‘You know what the porter is thinking we’re doing.’
‘Mario, please.’
He stood and Tema took a step backwards, towards the door.
‘Tema, relax. We just need to spend some time here, for the sake of appearances. I’m not going to hurt you.’
Just him saying that made her heart beat faster, and not in a good way. ‘All right, I’ll read.’
Mario moved a pace closer. ‘How about a drink? There’s sherry on the sideboard over there.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Then get me one.’
She looked at him. She was not his servant, though he was her superior in the team. It was not in her nature, nor her culture, to disobey.
‘Please.’
She exhaled. ‘Well, all right. I’m closer.’
Tema turned and went across the spacious, airy suite to the cabinet. Next to a small kettle and tea and coffee was a cut-glass decanter and two glasses. She righted one and poured the golden brown liquid into it. She had never tried sherry.
Tema started and spilled the sticky fluid as she felt his hands on her shoulders.
‘Stop, please.’
He kept his hands there, squeezing his fingers together, beginning to knead her shoulders. Tema was too scared to turn around. ‘Mario, please.’
‘Shush.’
She felt his warm breath on her neck; he had moved his head closer. ‘Tema, we’re friends, right? You don’t need to think of me as your commander always.’
She swallowed. ‘Sonja is our commander.’
‘Yes, but I’m second in charge, clearly. I’m the one who got you that lovely pay rise. Aren’t you grateful for that?’
She felt woozy.
Tema reached around, handing Mario the drink. He took one hand off her and she heard him slurp down the sherry. Then she heard a chink as he tossed the little glass onto the floor.
Her whole body tensed as he caressed her neck with the backs of his fingers. She felt a chill as he trailed his nails down over her collarbone, over her T-shirt, tracing the swell of her breast.
‘Please. No.’
‘Yes.’ His hand cupped her.
Tema was wearing high heels, impractical in the sand but part of her costume as the sexy young wife. She brought a foot up and raked her stiletto down Mario’s shin. As he cried out she jabbed her elbow back into his stomach.
‘Get off me.’
‘Ouch.’
She spun around and Mario swung at her. Tema did the opposite of what he expected, coming closer in to him, inside the arc of his slap. She grabbed his shirt front in her two hands and brought her knee up into his balls. Mario doubled over.
Tema pulled back, her body poised.
Mario groaned as he half stood and lunged at her. Tema was ready and, as Sonja had taught her, she stabbed his eyeballs with the firs
t two fingers of her right hand. Mario yelped like a dog.
‘Enough.’ He raised his hands.
Tema looked around. She picked up a lamp by its slender stand, and hoisted it like a war club. ‘Try something else and I’ll finish you off.’
Mario coughed. ‘No. Enough.’
‘Not quite.’
Tema swung the lamp and the shade fell off and the bulb exploded with a pop as the stand connected with Mario’s temple. She went to the door of the suite, opened it and ran out.
‘Tema!’
She didn’t turn back, even when he ordered her to stop and return. Instead, Tema carried on towards the bar and lounge area of the lodge.
‘Help me, help me,’ she cried.
Nikola Pesev came walking out of the lodge office. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My husband. I . . . I hate him,’ she sobbed.
Nikola opened his arms and Tema pressed herself against his chest. The tears that wet his shirt were real – she had been truly scared – but as the businessman’s arms folded around her, Tema smiled.
Chapter 22
Sonja knew things were not going well when she saw Mario’s cut and bruised face.
‘Where’s Tema?’
‘She’s with the target, staying in his house, since just after we arrived yesterday.’
‘She’s what?’
‘I tried to get friendly with her – to keep up our appearance as a honeymoon couple.’ He rubbed his eye. ‘She wasn’t in the mood.’
Sonja put her hands on her hips and sized him up. He didn’t seem to think he had done anything wrong, sexually harassing a subordinate. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mario.’
Hudson stood back, by the Land Rover. He was picking his teeth. He and Sonja were both filthy, covered in a layer of dust from the long, bumpy drive. They had stopped in a terrible hotel in a small town called Kibondo, near the UN refugee camps on the Burundian border that Nikola Pesev provided logistic support for.
