by Tony Park
‘Really?’ Jeff said.
‘I think so,’ Sannie said. ‘A shaft has to be dug and reinforced with concrete, and the tunnel-boring machine is then lowered into it. At the other end another shaft has to be constructed so that they can lift the boring machine out.’
‘That’s it,’ Mia said. ‘They must have removed the machine when they built the underground hide and upgraded the waterhole at Leopard Springs. With the COVID lockdown no one would have noticed.’
‘So, where’s the machine now?’ Jeff asked. ‘And who owns a thing like that?’
Sannie had an immediate thought about the second question the young Canadian had asked. Her friend Elizabeth Oosthuizen’s husband, Piet, had the contract for construction of the school, lodge and ‘infrastructure’ to benefit the people of Killarney.
‘The best place to hide a tunnelling machine is back underground,’ Mia said.
Jeff nodded. ‘You could be right.’
‘There’s a new big empty concrete swimming pool by the new hotel,’ Mia said.
Sannie had just been thinking exactly the same thing. The abandoned hotel development would have been the perfect location to start drilling a new tunnel. It also made some sense that the tunnel operators would blow up the school to block and hide the entrance to one tunnel if they knew they had another one to fall back on. Elizabeth’s husband had supposedly run off with his secretary – but what if he’d been working underground all this time? And if so, was Elizabeth involved?
‘We need to check in the other direction,’ Sannie said, ‘now that we know no one will be coming from this end. Mia, how far do you think it is to Killarney from here?’
‘Maybe a kilometre, as the crow flies.’
‘Or as the mole burrows,’ Jeff said.
They retraced their steps and passed under the open manhole cover near the termite mound, heading west, towards the perimeter of the reserve and Killarney. About fifty metres along, Jeff stopped.
‘A locker,’ he said.
Sannie closed up to him and saw that recessed into a cut-out section of the concrete pipe was a double-door metal storage locker. Jeff opened it and Sannie winced, half-fearing a booby trap might go off.
‘First-aid kit, flashlight, water. These guys are organised,’ Jeff said.
Sannie had to agree. Jeff unclipped the battery-powered torch, switched it on and moved off again, leading the way.
‘Let me go ahead,’ Sannie said, pushing past Mia.
Jeff shook his head. ‘I’m not going to put a woman at risk while I hang back.’
‘This is no time for misplaced gallantry, or chauvinism,’ Sannie said.
Mia put a hand on the captain’s shoulder. Sannie looked back at her and their eyes met. ‘We need you alive.’
‘Better to save the battery on your phone, Captain.’ Jeff carried on, the light of his torch bouncing off the smooth, curved walls. Sannie saw that an electrical cable ran the length of the tunnel above their heads and at intervals there were lights encased in protective metal cages. Jeff was right, the builders and operators of this criminal enterprise were well organised.
Jeff stopped and held up a hand.
Sannie closed up to him. ‘What is it?’
He put a finger to his lips and waited a few seconds. ‘I heard a voice, I’m sure of it. A woman’s, or a girl’s.’
‘That could be one of the missing children,’ Sannie said. ‘Everybody stay cool, keep the noise down. We may be outnumbered, certainly outgunned.’
‘Shine the light on the floor here, please, Jeff,’ Mia said softly. He moved the beam. ‘There’s blood here, fresh.’
Sannie took a closer look. ‘That rhino was scalped to the bone. Perhaps the horn and skin brushed the wall here.’
Mia looked down again. ‘Blood on his shoes as well. So, he’s ahead of us.’ She carried on then stopped at a plastic box, like an electrical wiring junction on the wall, with an offshoot of cable running from the central line above. She stepped closer to take a look.
‘Careful,’ Sannie said.
The box had a sliding cover. Mia opened, it, gingerly, and saw a tiny green light on a smaller black box. ‘What is this? It looks almost like an internet thing?’
Sannie took out her phone.
‘It is. There’s bloody wi-fi down here,’ she confirmed. ‘The network is called “Tom”.’ The detective bit her lower lip. Everything was reminding her of Tom, today, it seemed. Then something occurred to her, and she held up a hand. ‘Wait. My husband’s favourite movie was The Great Escape, an old war film, about all these guys who escape from a Nazi prisoner of war camp.’
‘I’m not sure I know it,’ Mia said.
‘Before your time. But it was based on a true story – the POWs who escaped dug three different tunnels from the camp. They named the tunnels Tom, Dick and Harry.’
‘You think it’s the same here?’ Mia asked.
Sannie shrugged. ‘Could be. It also means whoever is in charge here saw the film, and is arrogant enough to call his tunnels whatever he likes in the knowledge no one will ever find out what he’s up to. It supports the theory that there’s another tunnel – maybe even two more.’
‘Great white male,’ Mia said, softly.
‘What?’
‘Private joke,’ Mia said. ‘The wi-fi extender makes sense. There’s no signal in the reserve, but if they’ve placed these gadgets all through the tunnel – or tunnels – the poachers can communicate with each other about rhinos, anti-poaching patrols and all that sort of thing underground. Password-protected, I’m guessing?’
Sannie checked her phone and tapped on the network, showing Mia the screen. ‘Afraid so.’
‘OK,’ Mia said, ‘do we push on or go back topside and call for the cavalry?’
Sannie put her phone back in her pocket. ‘We don’t know what’s ahead. There could be booby traps, armed poachers. Also, we have to assume that the end of the tunnel under the schoolhouse was blocked by the explosion. As we haven’t seen anyone coming this way it’s logical to assume that if there is a second – or even third – tunnel coming from Killarney, then there might also be tunnels linking each of the main lines. It’s too risky for us all to blunder about underground. We need help.’
‘We’re with you, Captain, whatever you want us to do,’ Mia said. Jeff nodded in agreement.
Sannie took a deep breath. Any decision she made now could cost the lives of innocents – or her own – but she had a duty to do, especially if one or both of the remaining missing girls was alive down here somewhere.
‘Jeff, if it was one of the girls you heard ahead, then that’s my responsibility,’ Sannie said. ‘You two, backtrack and get out of the tunnel. Drive as fast as you can to somewhere with a reliable signal or use the Land Rover’s radio to call Sean and get him to relay as much information as he can to the police. I’m going to carry on.’
‘You sure, Captain?’ Jeff said.
‘I’m not sure about anything, but I can’t put you two at risk. The best thing you can do for me is to get me some backup. Now.’
‘OK. You should take this,’ said Jeff, handing Sannie the torch.
‘Good luck,’ Mia said.
Chapter 26
Sannie moved as fast as she dared, pistol up and torch held out to one side. Her arm soon began aching from holding the torch at an unnatural angle, but she had been trained to adopt this position when entering darkened buildings – the theory was that an armed assailant would aim for the light, and therefore not her body. Moving alone in an underground tunnel, she figured she needed every advantage she could muster.
The uniform smoothness of the concrete tube that encased her was broken after four hundred paces. Playing the light of the torch upward, she saw that a hole had been cut in the roof of the tunnel. Cautiously she moved below the opening and took a quick glan
ce. It was a shaft, leading above ground, with ladder rungs in the wall of the vertical escape chute. She was about to holster her pistol and start climbing, hoping that if she broke through the entrance above she might find a phone signal, when she heard voices.
Sannie switched off the torch. Jeff had been right. She heard the sound again, echoing along the tunnel from the direction in which she had been heading, so it was not Mia or Jeff. The words were indistinct, but she felt she had to carry on. At least, she thought, now that she had found the exit shaft she had an additional escape route.
*
‘You know, in a way, it’s almost disappointing,’ Jeff said, as he and Mia walked through the tunnel.
‘What?’
‘That the tunnel was discovered,’ he said. ‘It was almost beginning to seem as though the poachers’ muthi really was working.’
‘Jeff, you don’t really –’ Mia began.
‘No, no. I never thought people could really make themselves invisible, but the power of suggestion is a strong thing. It was almost as if you and Bongani and the other trackers, even the dogs, had lost the ability to track poachers because something was messing with your minds.’
She thought about that proposition and realised that there was probably a grain of truth in it. For now, though, she had a concrete explanation about how a man, perhaps several men, acting in cooperation with each other and some decoys, had been able to miraculously vanish from the Vulture system radars and leave no trace for the trackers or dogs to follow up. She wondered if coopting Julianne’s pilot had also been part of the elaborate decoy strategy, to give the rangers someone to blame if the people behind this needed to protect their secret tunnel.
‘This whole set-up is unbelievable, even for Africa,’ Jeff continued.
‘Yes and no,’ Mia said. ‘Aren’t there tunnels under the border between Mexico and the US, for people-smuggling and drugs? Even here in South Africa we have illegal miners working underground in goldmines, like, every day, blasting away and digging.’
Jeff shrugged. ‘I guess you’re right.’
‘I’m worried,’ Mia said. ‘I’m starting to feel like we’ve been lured into a trap, Jeff, like we were drawn in here. The guy you saw has disappeared and you kept hearing voices. I wonder if there’s some hidden way out of here that we’ve missed, in the dark. It would make sense for them to have escape routes at various points, so they can get out if there’s a cave-in, or to evade us.’
‘Hmm. Yes.’
‘Jeff, let me take the lead, please.’
He quickened his pace. ‘No way, Mia.’ Jeff took out his phone, which also had a torch app, and turned it on.
He could be impetuous and pig-headed, Mia decided. But he was brave.
‘At least when we get above ground we’ll have the radio to call in some help,’ Jeff said.
‘Thank goodness.’ Mia hadn’t realised until just now how important it was and how much she took for granted the ability to communicate with others. ‘This has to be linked to the disappearance of the girls.’
‘You think so?’ he asked from the gloom ahead.
‘For sure. Where they went missing was just near where all the work was going on and that must have been the camouflage for the entry to the tunnel and whatever machines they were using.’
Jeff’s phone torch seemed to be getting weaker, or he was moving faster than he should. Mia had to quicken her pace to catch up with him.
‘Jeff, slow down.’
‘Hang on, I think I see . . .’
The beam of light was getting further and further away. Mia felt the darkness pursue her, then envelop her, like a predator chasing her down, consuming her. She didn’t dare scream, in case Jeff had seen someone.
She ran.
Mia carried the heavy rifle across her front, at the ready, but as she could not see where she was going, every now and then the tip of the barrel or the rubber cushion on the end of the butt grazed the smooth wall of the tunnel.
‘Jeff,’ she hissed.
Then the weak glow she was following disappeared.
Mia’s heart began to race and she felt the familiar rush of adrenaline powering her on, elevating her fear and anxiety levels. The walls felt closer with every step. She ran on, but she was becoming more and more disorientated. First her rifle and then her elbow collided, painfully, with the side wall. She tried to turn on the move, but tripped over her own feet and went down. Her knees, bare beneath her shorts, were skinned on the unforgiving floor and the rifle clattered away from her in the darkness as she reached out to stop her face from hitting the cement.
Mia took a breath. Her right palm and the knuckles of her left hand were now sticky and bloody as she crawled, pain shooting through her knees, and groped for the rifle in the dark.
Mia reasoned that she had made so much noise with her fall there was no point in staying quiet any longer. ‘Jeff, come back!’
Her hand came into contact with her rifle, and as she dragged it to her it clanged against the metal locker they had stopped at earlier. Mia hauled herself to her knees and felt up the door for the handle. She found it and opened it and fumbled inside, feeling for another torch.
She located the first-aid kit, lifted it, and underneath, her fingers went into a recess. She could make out another doorhandle, by touch. She turned it, and the whole wooden backboard of the locker swung out. A door.
‘Hey, Jeff?’
Mia felt in her pocket. She didn’t smoke, but she carried a cigarette lighter with her as part of her essential kit, in case she needed to make a fire. She lit it.
Beyond the hidden door, partially illuminated in the flame of the cigarette lighter, was another tunnel.
This one was narrower than the concrete tube she was in, and instead of being lined with concrete pipes it was braced with timber boards. The floor was bare earth.
‘Jeff!’
‘Stay back, Mia!’ he yelled, ‘there’s someone here!’
*
The shockwave from the explosion, which raced down the tunnel, sent Sannie sprawling onto her hands and knees first, and then flat on her face as a wall of dust and grit washed over her.
She coughed, dusted herself off, then stood. Sannie ran back up the tunnel in the direction from which she had come, towards Mia and Jeff. Had they set off a booby trap? she wondered. Were they still alive? Vaguely she recalled that she had heard and felt the twin thumps of two blasts going off, a split second apart.
Choking on dust, she made it to where she had discovered the exit shaft, only to find her way blocked by a landslide of shattered concrete and dirt. Someone had blown the shaft. There was only one way to go now and she had to hope she would find an alternative exit.
Sannie headed back through the tunnel towards Killarney, gun and torch at the ready. Counting off another four hundred paces she worked out she had probably passed under the perimeter fence. She decided to switch off her torch. She ran a hand along the smooth concrete wall to keep herself orientated.
Her right hand clanged against something metal. It was another cabinet, recessed into the curved wall, like the one near the termite mound opening where Jeff had found the torch.
Sannie moved on, and after another hundred and fifty paces she came to another wall of rubble. This, she realised, was the end of the line, where the school building had been blown up and had fallen down into the cavity below, blocking this end of the tunnel.
But she had heard voices.
Sannie turned and ran back to the cabinet. She switched on the torch and opened the double metal doors. Like the first cupboard that Jeff had discovered, this one had a first-aid kit and a torch clipped to a wooden backing board. There was also a five-litre plastic container. Looking at it, Sannie realised just how thirsty and hungry she was. She unscrewed the cap on the small jerry can and sniffed it, confirming it was water. She
gulped down several mouthfuls.
She went to remove the first-aid kit, hoping to find some sustenance in it, but when she grabbed it, she found it was fixed to the board at the top. Lifting it up, she found a hollow behind it, inside of which was another doorhandle. Sannie grabbed and turned the handle and opened the concealed door. Beyond, bathed in red light, was another tunnel, this one lined with timber.
Sannie felt a mix of relief – to have found a way out of this tunnel and that her theory about cross-tunnels was right – and fear about what she might find next. She wondered if the first locker, which Jeff had discovered, was also a hidden entrance to a cross tunnel. Someone, somewhere, in this network had the power to set off explosives at will. She was no expert on bomb-making, but she now wondered if instead of someone having a wireless remote-control device, like the one Sean had mentioned, the whole network might be hard wired, with detonators at various locations. Had all the entrances now been blown? she wondered. She ducked her head and stepped through.
If the main, concrete-lined thoroughfare had been running roughly east–west, then this excavation was heading north.
She put her torch in her pocket and carried on, pistol at the ready again.
Sannie came to another door, made of steel, on the left. It was half open. She kicked it all the way open, ducked back behind the doorframe and peered in. There was a single wooden bed with no mattress, just an old blanket. Sannie thought of the missing girls.
She went back into the hall and looked at the ground. In the weak red light she saw tracks – a bare foot and a boot sole.
She checked the screen of her phone, hoping that she might pick up a signal from above. There was nothing, though when she looked at the wi-fi networks again she saw that another connection had appeared. This one was also named after a man, ‘Dick’, and was stronger than ‘Tom’. Her theory about the naming of the tunnels had been right, though it gave her no sense of satisfaction. It simply meant there were more places for kidnappers and poachers to hide, or lie waiting in ambush.
