The Cull

by Tony Park

  The Beechcraft bounced once, no reflection on Doug’s skill, and the engines whined as he slowed the aircraft. At the end of the strip he slewed her around and then raced back towards the shack that passed for a terminal. There were two Land Cruisers waiting.

  Julianne waited until Doug shut down the engines, then came through the cabin and opened the hatch. Sonja was at the bottom of the fold-out stairs.

  ‘Glad you could make it so quickly.’

  ‘How is . . . how are our people?’

  *

  Sonja looked at the rich woman. Her face was pale as she gripped the safety cords on either side of the stairs to steady herself.

  ‘Tema is alive. That’s all I know. We’ve got a lot to talk about,’ Sonja said, ‘but right now my priority is getting Tema off Peves’s boat and out of this country alive. There’s been no sign of Mario, and Peves would have boasted, I’m sure, if he’d killed him. Mario might have run off, though for all his faults he’s not one to hide from a fight.’

  ‘And James?’ Julianne said as they walked across the strip to a waiting Land Cruiser.

  ‘Fuck James.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Julianne said. ‘I don’t know what’s gone on here between you two, but his life is in grave danger, judging by what you told me.’

  ‘He has himself to blame.’

  ‘You’re being a little harsh, aren’t you?’

  Sonja paused before they reached the vehicles. Two of Peves’s men, their escorts, stood by the four-by-four. One had a pistol stuck in the waistband of his jeans. Sonja knew the other had an AK in the vehicle. She was angry enough to kill both of them, but she knew this would result in Paterson’s death for sure and most likely Tema’s as well. She forced herself to be calm.

  ‘You’ve been running a black ops hit squad. That’s illegal and immoral, but it wouldn’t have concerned me at all if you’d told me the truth up-front and given me the opportunity to opt out, and to stop Tema and Ezekial from getting dragged into this dangerous mess.’

  ‘I am doing nothing of the kind. I resent –’

  Sonja took a pace closer to the billionaire and poked her in the breastbone with her index finger. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You can’t talk that way, and if you touch me again I’ll have you arrested and charged with assault.’

  Sonja seethed. ‘You’ve been murdering people.’

  ‘And you’re a fine one to lecture me. You started a civil war a few years ago. How many innocents were killed in that?’

  ‘None in cold blood, to the best of my knowledge. Your attack dog Paterson’s been running his own private Phoenix Program, and when I get back to South Africa I’ll do everything I can to help the police with their investigations into the shooting of a man who is most likely innocent.’

  ‘You pulled the trigger on that one, I seem to recall,’ Julianne said, not backing down. ‘You’re a trained killer, a mercenary, persona non grata in your own home country of Namibia. James has a stellar reputation. The media will hang you out to dry.’

  Sonja recoiled. ‘You think you can scare me? You imagine I’m afraid of some journalists? I’ll gut you and make sure your body sinks in Lake Tanganyika if Tema dies.’

  Julianne tried to hold Sonja’s stare, but her lower lip started to quiver.

  ‘Get in the Land Cruiser.’

  Julianne got in, and Sonja climbed in beside her in the rear seat. Peves’s thugs got in the front and they set off down the short but rutted and potholed road to Kipili. Sonja looked at the other woman; they were of similar age, but had lived entirely different lives. Sonja was not poor, but she could not imagine the riches at Julianne Clyde-Smith’s disposal. She could have put her money into propping up the various African governments fighting the war on poaching, with varying degrees of commitment and success, but instead she had chosen to go it alone. Sonja didn’t know if it was Julianne or James running the assassination program, but Sonja noted that Julianne had not flat-out denied her allegations. She was feeling the guilt, unable to meet her eyes.

  ‘You should prepare yourself for the fact that Peves has said he will probably kill James, as payback,’ Sonja said.

  Julianne closed her eyes and swallowed. She gripped the driver’s seat in front of her and bowed her head, but said nothing.

  Sonja noted, again, the difference in Julianne’s reaction to Tema’s plight and James’s. She knew James much better, of course, but Sonja sensed there was something more. She reached out a hand and placed it on Julianne’s.

  ‘Whatever you think of me, I’m a woman, too,’ Sonja said.

  ‘He’s a friend, as well as an employee.’

  ‘A good friend?’

  Julianne nodded. ‘Yes. Is it possible to rescue him?’

  ‘I haven’t even seen him yet,’ Sonja said. ‘For all I know he’s already dead and Peves just said he was still alive in order to convince you to come and parlay with him.’

  Julianne stared into Sonja’s eyes. ‘Do you think I would not have come to try and save Tema’s life if it was just her in trouble?’

  ‘I think you would have sent people, a kidnap and ransom team, maybe money. I don’t think you would have come yourself, alone. That tells me one of two things: either you’re in love with James and would do anything to get him back, or you and he are as crooked as I think you are. Perhaps both.’

  Julianne sneered. ‘You know how many tens of thousands of bunny huggers and vigilantes alike call for the death penalty for wildlife poachers every day on Facebook? You know how many people value a rhino more than a human life?’

  ‘I do, but that doesn’t make unsanctioned executions right. There’s a difference between a lawful shoot-to-kill policy, like in Botswana and Zimbabwe where rangers can open fire on armed poachers before being shot at, and what you and James have been doing.’

  ‘Yes, the difference is we have targeted the headmen, kingpins, whatever you want to call them, who use poor illiterate people as cannon fodder and get fat on the profits while wiping out entire species. This had to be done, but I have never given an order to assassinate anyone, not ever.’

  Sonja shook her head. ‘When my partner was killed I wouldn’t have argued with you; I might even have volunteered to help, but you’ve created this mess by your indiscriminate program of killings. You’re going to have to be accountable for what you’ve done at some point in time.’

  ‘Your perspective on this is all wrong. Peves is the devil. He’s the head of the Scorpions.’

  ‘So it would appear.’ They crested a hill, and as the Land Cruiser bounced slowly down the access road, Lake Tanganyika danced in the sun, all the way to the horizon. ‘And now you’ve got to sit down with the devil and make a deal, to keep you both in business.’

  ‘I’m not going to let him continue destroying Africa’s wildlife.’

  ‘You’re going to stop this ridiculous operation of yours and leave it to the legitimate authorities. Peves thinks he can run rings around them, and in some countries he can, but he’s been rattled by what you and James were able to achieve, as reprehensible as it was.’

  ‘And if I don’t lay off him?’

  ‘He’ll release the video of Tema that I emailed you. She spilled enough after being tortured to get you in trouble.’

  Julianne sat back in her seat, her customary composure and aloofness returning. ‘I’ll have a battalion of lawyers and a division of PR people around the world working to counter what she said.’

  Sonja nodded. ‘I’m sure you will, but if this does just turn out to be a couple of news cycles of bad press, and if you discredit Tema, or if Peves kills her because you won’t play ball, then I’ll come for you.’

  Julianne looked her in the eye, but couldn’t hold her gaze, because deep down inside she must have known that Sonja meant every word of what she had just said.

  Chapter 28 />
  Nikola Pesev’s motor cruiser was visible from shore now. Mario sat in the shell of a half-built hut and scanned the area around the bay through binoculars.

  In the tiny village of Kipili the heat was keeping most people indoors. A skinny dog chased a goat; three boys kicked a soccer ball made of rags, plastic bags and rubber bands along the rutted dirt road that passed for a main street.

  A small green patrol boat, what passed for the Tanzanian navy or coastguard on this part of the lake, was moored in front of two buildings whose drab design and colour definitely marked them as military. A bare-chested sailor in camouflage pants slowly swabbed the deck. It was Sunday and nothing much of anything was happening.

  Two Land Cruisers sped through the village, blanketing the playing boys in dust. Mario quickly checked the vehicles and saw they were the same two that had left Peves’s lodge not long ago. Sonja was on board one of them. She, like Mario, had obviously survived the ambush that had netted his boss, James.

  Mario had befriended a young girl from the village and offered her fifty US dollars to have sex with him. She had agreed, but would not come to the lodge or his room. Mario had met her in a grove of mango trees just outside of the lodge boundary. He had been with her, in the shade of the trees, when he had heard the gunshots.

  It had soon become apparent that Sonja had been in a gunfight with Peves’s men, from Peves’s house, but that she had obviously come to some sort of truce with them as she had gone with them in one of the Land Cruisers. That was odd, as she was not the sort of woman who negotiated.

  Mario adjusted his binoculars. Nikola Pesev had a fishing boat as well as his pleasure cruiser, and there was an armed man standing guard on the concrete wharf and breakwater where the fishing boat was tied up. Another man had brought a tray of food from the kitchen earlier and was now alighting from the boat. Mario could see that there were two clean plates and two crushed Coca Cola cans. The men exchanged words and the guard pointed out to Peves’s cruiser, which had dropped anchor in the bay about two hundred metres from shore.

  Another armed man was now approaching the fishing boat. He passed the man carrying the empty plates, and then relieved the man who had been standing guard through the long hot morning. From the roster and the crockery, Mario reckoned James Paterson was still alive and being held captive on the fishing boat, with another guard watching him below deck.

  Mario focused on Peves’s cruiser out in the bay. He could see Nikola, as he had done before, moving about through the clear vinyl windows in the canvas coverings zipped closed around the boat. He wished he had a sniper rifle, but even if he did he noticed that Peves never stayed visible for more than a few seconds. There was no sign of Tema, but Mario thought she would still be on board following her daytrip, and was perhaps also a hostage.

  Peves was clearly the head of the Scorpions and needed to be killed; Paterson, Mario’s paymaster and commanding officer, had to be rescued. Although the undercover mission had been nothing short of a disaster, even a balls-up of this magnitude provided opportunities.

  Mario felt good, despite his broken nose and other cuts and bruises. He felt a clarity of purpose, a freedom to do what needed to be done.

  Training his gaze back on the lodge, Mario saw that the Land Cruisers had pulled up outside the reception area. He watched four armed men get out of the first vehicle. From the second vehicle Sonja, two more men and, surprisingly, Julianne Clyde-Smith alighted. They walked into the lodge, out of sight for a few seconds, then out the other side onto the wharf.

  The armed men stopped the women about twenty metres short of where the guarded fishing boat was tied up.

  Mario focused on Sonja. She held a pistol in her right hand and stayed close to Julianne, acting as her bodyguard. If Peves had wanted the two women dead it would have been done by now, albeit with some bloodshed. A minute later James Paterson emerged from below decks and was frogmarched onto the rear of the boat. He had his hands tied behind his back and was blindfolded. The man who had been standing guard on the dock also got onto the boat, and disappeared around the far side of the cabin.

  Mario saw Julianne raise a hand to her mouth.

  She was shocked. The little gesture confirmed what Mario had suspected: that their female supremo was soft on Paterson. She must have come to Kipili, Mario realised, to negotiate Paterson’s release.

  If he could eliminate Peves and his men, and free James, Julianne would be saved the ignominy of having to deal with these criminals. Mario would be the hero of the day and Julianne and James would reward him.

  The whine of an outboard motor made Mario shift his gaze again. He picked up a Zodiac inflatable boat churning a white arc in the water from the far side of the fishing boat. The guard who had been standing watch was at the controls of the rubber craft, which must have been tied to the other side of the boat on which Paterson was imprisoned.

  The armed men who had escorted Sonja and Julianne motioned them towards the Zodiac, which had pulled up at the end of the wharf. As Julianne climbed aboard she looked over her shoulder at the fishing boat, but her lover had already been taken below again.

  Mario assessed the situation. The odds against him, one currently unarmed man, were daunting. He needed help, but there was only one gunslinger who was hopefully still close enough to call on. The thought galled him at first, but the more he mulled it over in his mind the less repugnant it became.

  He took his mobile out of his shirt pocket and found the number he had saved at Julianne’s lodge at Kuria Hills, when James had insisted they all share their contact details before setting out on the mission. Mario hit the call button.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ Hudson Brand said into his phone.

  *

  Sonja sat at the rear of the Zodiac as it bounced at high speed across the bay. Julianne was in front of her, an armed man next to her; the driver sat amidships and two more goons sat on the inflated sides of the boat staring back at her. The fourth man from the escorting party had stayed on the dock to relieve the driver, so there were still two armed men guarding James.

  Sonja was as tense as a coiled spring, alert for ambush and ready to strike at any moment. Peves’s motor cruiser loomed. The man steering cut the engine to idling speed and they coasted up to the cruiser, which was much more luxuriously appointed than the fishing boat.

  A crewman, pistol tucked into his belt, caught a line thrown by the armed man next to Julianne and tied the Zodiac to the larger vessel. The first two gunmen climbed aboard and covered Julianne and Sonja as they made their way past the remaining guard and driver.

  Sonja held her pistol in two hands, braced and ready to open fire, as Julianne was helped aboard.

  Nikola Pesev came out onto the rear deck, a panama hat shading his face. He smiled and offered Julianne his hand, but she didn’t return the greeting.

  ‘Where is Tema?’ Julianne asked.

  ‘She’s alive, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Nikola said. He raised his hand to the brim of his hat. ‘Ms Kurtz; nice to see you, and thank you for keeping your side of the bargain.’

  Sonja raised her pistol and aimed it at Nikola’s head. His henchmen all turned their AK-47s on her.

  ‘Show me Tema or I’ll shoot.’

  ‘And you’ll be dead a split second later.’

  Sonja gave a small shrug. ‘So?’

  Nikola gave a nod and the crewman went below. They waited, all of them silent, until he returned, pushing Tema up the stairs ahead of him. She was handcuffed, but not gagged.

  Sonja saw that her eyes were bloodshot from crying and her lip was split. ‘Are you all right?’

  Tema focused on the deck. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look at me, Tema,’ Sonja ordered.

  She kept her eyes downcast. ‘I told him everything he wanted to know.’

  ‘You held out longer than most men – most people –
would. You’ve done nothing wrong. Did he . . .’

  Tema looked up. ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not an animal,’ Peves said.

  Julianne scoffed. ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘Take her below again,’ Peves said, and Tema was led away. ‘Ms Clyde-Smith, may I call you Jules?’

  ‘No. Julianne if you must.’

  ‘We are here to talk business. My man has prepared lunch. Please join me.’

  Julianne looked to Sonja.

  ‘I would prefer it if we ate alone,’ Nikola said. ‘I am sure there are some things we will discuss that you would not want made public.’

  ‘I have nothing to hide from Sonja. In fact, I want her to know the truth about what I’ve been doing.’

  ‘You and Paterson,’ Nikola said.

  ‘No, me. I take full responsibility for all of the actions carried out by the people who work for me. But Sonja comes into the meeting.’

  ‘Very well, then I will bring my most trusted man with me.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘This way, please.’ Peves led them inside the cabin, to the air-conditioned lounge. The polished wood table was set with salads and cold meats. There was French champagne and South African white wine on ice.

  A crewman in a starched white uniform pulled out their seats for them.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Nikola said. ‘I must admit, I didn’t know if you would, Julianne.’

  ‘You have two of my people hostage.’

  ‘And yet you do not call in the SAS? You, one of the richest women in the world, come alone, as I requested, with just Ms Kurtz, Sonja, your – how shall I put it – “go-between”?’

  ‘I work for Julianne,’ Sonja said.

  Peves put his hands together and brought the tips of his fingers up to his lips, then spoke. ‘If we are going to have this meeting, this discussion, this negotiation, then we must be honest. Forgive my impertinence, but I do not think you ladies are telling the truth here.’