Blood Trail

by Tony Park

Sean found some military ammunition boxes and a toolbox with explosives, electrical components, a soldering iron and other specialist tools. ‘Explosives,’ Sean said. ‘This is like a Taliban bombmaker’s workshop.’

  Sean sat on a folding chair at the desk, working away after sorting through another two boxes filled with detonators, timing devices, garage door remotes, batteries, detonating cord and plastic explosives. He took out his Leatherman pocketknife and pliers combination tool.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Henk asked.

  ‘Working on a plan to get us out of here.’

  Henk kept searching around them. ‘Gas cooker, magazines, torch. One set of men’s overalls, but nothing to ID the guy.’

  Sean worked away for a few more minutes, then leaned back and surveyed his handiwork. ‘That should do it.’

  Henk looked over his shoulder. ‘That will get us out of here?’

  Sean nodded and held up the sixty centimetres of detonating cord, fuse and a striker, for use as a detonator. ‘Standard breaching charge; that should blow open that steel door upstairs and we can then find out who locked us in.’

  ‘The sangoma?’ Henk theorised.

  Sean shrugged. ‘Could be, though Benny thinks there’s still something interesting down here.’

  Benny had, indeed, been sniffing around impatiently while Sean worked.

  ‘Maybe she did come down here,’ Henk said, ‘then doubled back out before we arrived. She could have been hiding somewhere close by, then sprung the trap on us by locking us in.’

  Sean wondered if the criminal gang were busy blowing all the entrances to the tunnels to seal them in.

  ‘I’m going to set the charge, blow the door open, and then we can go get some help,’ Sean said to Henk. ‘Stay here, and get ready to take cover when I come back down the ladder.’

  ‘OK.’

  Sean put the breaching charge, a roll of duct tape and his Leatherman in his daypack, shrugged it on, and started climbing the metal rungs in the wall of the tunnel shaft. Near the top, however, the red lights under which he had been working abruptly went out.

  Next, from far away along the tunnel came a rumbling noise, like an engine starting up, followed by a hum which carried down the length of the concrete piping sections.

  ‘Shit, what was that, man?’ Henk said from the pitch darkness below.

  Benny growled.

  ‘Easy boy,’ Henk said.

  ‘Quiet, Henk,’ Sean called from above, having to raise his voice over the noise rolling down the tunnel. ‘Benny’s not scared of the dark, he’s picked up on something.’

  ‘Ja, I’m going to take a look. Do you think someone’s started up that tunnel-boring machine?’

  Sean looked down the shaft and saw a beam of light stab the dark.

  He silently cursed. It was the detective’s business if he wanted to head off into the dark like Rambo, but Sean could not blow the door unless he knew Henk was taking cover somewhere. Also, the policeman should have called him and Benny to provide backup. Better yet, Sean could have sent Benny into the tunnel first to sniff out any threat and, if necessary, attack.

  Sean was almost at the bottom of the rungs when he heard a loud clanging noise followed by a dull thud from down the tunnel where Henk had been heading.

  Benny looked alert, ears up, ready for action.

  ‘Soek, Benny.’

  His dog set off down the tunnel, searching and sniffing.

  Sean set foot on the tunnel floor and unslung his rifle. Cautiously, he headed towards the still-on torch, which was lying on the ground thirty or so metres down the concrete pipeline.

  As he got closer, he could see Henk, lying motionless. His outstretched gun hand was empty. Benny had given Henk a cursory sniff, but had moved on into the darkness.

  Sean knelt and put a hand to Henk’s neck. His pulse was strong and the detective was breathing. Sean used the torch to do a quick check and saw a nasty lump and abrasion on Henk’s temple – he’d been hit with something and was out cold.

  Sean started to get up, then felt the cold steel of a gun barrel digging into the back of his skull.

  ‘Drop your rifle and get out your handcuffs, and the cop’s,’ said the man standing behind him in the dark.

  *

  ‘Sean, this is Graham. I say again, do you copy, over?’

  Graham was doing his best to stay cool, just like Sean, the combat veteran, would have. Oscar, kneeling next to him, eyed him anxiously, sweat beading on his upper lip, his hands gripping his rifle tightly.

  They had heard two explosions, almost simultaneous, nearby, and from their vantage point on top of a small koppie they had seen a man with a rifle moving through the bush. They had begun following him and were still on his tracks. There was no one monitoring the Vulture system to track the poacher via camera or radar, just the two of them.

  ‘Where is Sean?’ Oscar whispered.

  Graham shrugged. How the fuck do I know? he wanted to yell at his friend and partner. Perhaps it was the unexplained disappearances of the mythical poacher, or the bomb blasts, but Graham was feeling truly rattled. ‘We can’t lose this oke, bru.’

  Oscar nodded and licked his lips. ‘I know. I wish I had some muthi.’

  Graham swallowed. ‘Me, as well.’

  Oscar stared at him, and then his face broke into a broad grin. ‘Did you just hear yourself, bru?’

  Graham shook his head. They were all going crazy. He was worried about Mia – her safety and the fact that she had been spending too much time with that drug-smoking hippy, Jeff.

  ‘Come,’ Oscar said. ‘We need to finish this guy, one time.’

  ‘Affirmative, bru,’ Graham said, doing his best to sound confident.

  They stood and started forward, covering each other as they moved in tactical bounds – one would advance while the other watched over him.

  As they ran through the bush the poacher’s tracks took them towards a dry riverbed. A purple-crested turaco gave its distinctive clucking call from one of the big leadwoods or jackalberrys that lined the bank. It was Graham’s turn to overtake Oscar.

  When Graham came to the edge of the sandy watercourse he realised he would need to quickly cross the open space, just like Sean had taught them. He looked back and checked that Oscar had a good position, behind a tree, from which to cover him. By Graham’s reckoning, the poacher was still maybe a hundred metres ahead of them, if he had kept to the same steady pace with which he had been patrolling.

  Graham had broken cover and started to jog through the sand when a figure dressed in black stepped from behind a bush on the other side of the spruit.

  ‘Graham!’

  Graham stopped dead in his tracks and raised his rifle, shocked and confused to hear his name.

  The man held an AK-47 in one hand, but raised his other and waved. The man’s face opened into a broad smile.

  ‘Alfred!’

  Graham looked over his shoulder and saw Oscar walking down the riverbank.

  Graham lowered his rifle. ‘What the hell are you doing here, man?’

  ‘Alfred, you had us worried,’ Oscar called, also holding his rifle loose by his side now.

  Alfred gave his deep signature laugh. ‘My brothers, I was driving my car and I saw this tsotsi running through the bush, so I carried on like I hadn’t seen him, then parked up and got out. I’m off duty, so I don’t have my radio, but I thought I could get him myself. I am following his tracks.’

  Graham exhaled loudly, some of the stress involuntarily escaping his body.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ Oscar asked Alfred.

  Graham noticed for the first time the old canvas satchel slung around Alfred’s neck, a dark stain purpling the faded khaki where something inside the bag was sticking out. ‘And why the AK-47?’

  Alfred grinned. ‘It’s the one w
e use for training. You know it. Sean’s always telling us how we need to know how to use enemy weapons as well as our own. I was taking it to the rifle range to do some shooting practice.’

  Oscar looked to Graham. Their eyes met.

  Graham saw the tomahawk stuffed into Alfred’s belt.

  Oscar started to raise his rifle, and while he was quicker than Graham, Alfred was faster than both of them and he flicked his Russian military assault rifle to full automatic and pulled the trigger.

  Oscar fell and Graham dived for the sand. Graham was aware of a bullet striking his upper body, but registered no pain. His chin dug into the coarse river sand, but he was able to slide his LM5 rifle into his shoulder as Alfred turned and ran. Graham stilled his breathing and took aim at the centre mass of Alfred’s back and squeezed the trigger twice, just as he had done in training so many times.

  Alfred pitched forward into the bush on the other side of the riverbank.

  Graham was on his feet in an instant, charging forward, rifle up. He ran up the loose soil of the stream bank and stopped, chest heaving, blood pounding in his ears as he stood over Alfred. He kicked the AK-47 away and used his foot to roll Alfred over. His comrade, a man he had considered a brother in arms, stared up at the sky through dead man’s eyes.

  With the threat neutralised, Graham ran back to his friend. Oscar was lying in the sand, clutching his stomach. Blood welled through his fingers.

  Graham got down on his knees and shrugged off his backpack. He reached for his radio, which was clipped to his chest pouches, and only then saw where he had been hit. One of Alfred’s bullets had smashed the radio and torn a furrow on the canvas of one of Graham’s pouches. He guessed he had been turning side on, diving for the sand as the bullet sliced its way across his equipment. He had, he realised, been a split second and a centimetre away from a bullet in the chest.

  Graham took out a wound dressing and eased Oscar’s hands away from his stomach. Oscar screamed.

  ‘Oscar, listen to me, bru. My radio’s finished and there’s no phone signal here. I’m going to have to carry you out.’ He unwrapped the bandage, placed it on Oscar’s wound and eased him over so he could tie it.

  ‘Leave me here, brother. You can move faster without me.’

  ‘True, that. But, hey, if I leave you here the hyenas and vultures will finish you off.’ He was only speaking half in jest. Also, Graham could not be sure Alfred had been alone in the bush.

  Graham picked up Oscar’s rifle and slung it around his neck, then sat Oscar up, took his arm and torso over his shoulder and lifted him up into a fireman’s carry. Holding his own rifle by the pistol grip in his right hand and steadying Oscar with his left, he set off, trudging through the sand, up the stream bank and into the bush, heading east towards Leopard Springs Lodge. The neighbouring property was much closer by foot than Kaya Nghala.

  ‘Hold on, bru, you’ll be fine.’ Graham felt a lump in his throat. He wished he could believe his own words.

  Chapter 28

  ‘Samantha.’ Sannie shook her head, trying once more to contain her rage, although she had already guessed it was her friend dressed in black, even before she removed the ski mask.

  Laura, once again on her feet, was back in Samantha’s grip. She swivelled her head to look into her captor’s face. ‘You were on the drive with us. I recognised your voice, anyway.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ Samantha said. ‘I thought as much, and as there was no other way for me to talk to Sannie than through you. I had to assume that it was time for the games to end.’

  Sannie breathed through her nose, teeth clenched as she looked at the phone again. There were two pictures on the screen, the first of Tommy, smiling and looking at the camera; the second, when Sannie swiped, showed Elizabeth next to Tommy, also grinning, and holding up his creative writing assignment with today’s date on it.

  ‘Elizabeth . . .?’ Sannie sneered.

  ‘In on it as well, I’m afraid,’ Samantha said. ‘Shame, so was Julianne’s handsome young helicopter pilot, who Liz was bonking. He was smuggling booze out of Kaya Nghala during lockdown, so we had enough on him to blackmail him into helping us. He was also our fall guy if the police started to get some idea about a tunnel, or how poachers were miraculously getting in and out of the reserve.’

  Sannie nodded slowly. ‘Yes, you had us fooled, for about five minutes.’

  Samantha sighed. ‘He didn’t have the stomach for kidnapping.’

  ‘So, what do you do now, kill me?’ Sannie asked. ‘Kill Laura now that she knows your identity?’

  Samantha shook her head. ‘I don’t want to do that, Sannie. You know me. I’m a hotelier, not a serial killer. The truth is, the last thing I want is for half a dozen people including two senior cops and the head of anti-poaching in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve to go missing, or show up half-eaten by hyenas. I don’t need a task force swarming all over Killarney and the reserve until they find our tunnels.’

  ‘Why did you do it, Sam?’

  ‘Why?’ Samantha’s cheeks turned red. ‘Why? The fucking virus, that’s why. The fucking government turned its back on the tourism industry. John and I put our life into that bloody hotel and the government pulled the pin on all the funding they promised. On top of that our business partner from the local community buggered off with his half of the grant money before we even had a chance to pay our suppliers. We were left with two kilometres of concrete piping to bring clean drinking water and a modern sewage system to the good people of Killarney and we got royally screwed. Don’t ask me why!’

  ‘I went to your fundraisers, Sam, to help support the honorary rangers and anti-poaching dog units. You seemed so passionate about saving rhinos. And now you turn out to be just another common poacher, a criminal.’

  Samantha sneered. ‘Don’t you lecture me, with your job and your government salary. My husband killed himself over this bloody pandemic. It took him from me, so I took a few rhinos – big deal – to keep the hotel we dreamed of afloat, to hold out the promise of hope for a hundred unemployed people in Killarney who’ll get a job there once the tourists start coming back. I’ll stop the poaching then. We’re already planning to open the tunnels one day as a tourism attraction, so people can walk into the hides in the reserve, all the way from our hotel, and schoolkids can visit from the basement of their own classroom.’

  ‘And you don’t think anyone will be suspicious of how you dug these tunnels without any planning permission?’

  ‘Hah,’ Samantha said. ‘This is Africa. I can buy any approval I need, once I’m solvent again, and with my good friend the head of the Skukuza endangered species unit, Captain Sannie van Rensburg, telling anyone who’ll listen what a good idea it is.’

  ‘Me?’ It dawned on Sannie what Samantha really wanted. ‘You want my soul.’

  ‘Spare me the moral indignation, Sannie. You won’t be the only corrupt cop in South Africa.’

  ‘And if I don’t? What, you’ll kill my son?’

  ‘No. I’ll have to kill you. Liz and I will make sure Tommy’s looked after.’

  Sannie balled her fists by her sides.

  ‘Better yet,’ Samantha continued, ‘you’ll go topside and quietly explain to Laura’s mom, Sue Barker, that if she agrees to invest in my hotel, as a twenty-five per cent partner, she’ll get Laura back, unharmed, and they, like you, will be sworn to secrecy. With the sort of money Sue has I won’t need to kill another rhino and we’ll be sitting on a goldmine. I’ll cut you in on a share of the hotel as well, somewhere for you and the kids to spend your holidays, in luxury.’

  ‘I don’t want your blood money,’ Sannie said.

  ‘Too late.’ Samantha smiled. ‘There will be two hundred thousand rand in your bank account in the morning and a rhino horn in your car boot later today. If I kill you, Sannie, your disappearance will be less likely to cause outrage when the police get a tip-off ab
out you being involved in the murky world of poaching. Shame, the kids will probably be affected, knowing their mom was actually a criminal, but such is life.’

  Samantha had given plenty of thought to this. Sannie had to play along, reluctantly, to buy herself and Laura some time. She had to hope that Mia and Jeff had survived the blasts and called for help.

  ‘All right. But I want Tommy released, now.’

  Samantha shook her head. ‘Not going to happen. Liz is going to take Tommy into the Kruger Park for a few days – you’re going to record a nice, neutral, loving, cheery WhatsApp message for Tommy – and then, as I mentioned, you’re going to make contact with Laura’s mom as though you’re now part of the kidnapping syndicate. Which, in effect, you are.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Sannie said as she thought about how she would disarm Samantha and, if necessary, kill her as soon as she could. She was thinking cooler now, more rational, though she knew she would not hesitate to kill her former friend if she had to.

  ‘There’s one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sannie asked Samantha.

  ‘We need to go find that other brat, Lilly.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ Sannie asked.

  ‘Shame, you shouldn’t ask questions like that. She was snooping around, probably looking for her friend, Thandi, who also found our little underground venture. Clearly, I should have spent more on security, but you really can’t trust anyone in this country any more, hey?’

  Sannie heard footsteps behind her and turned. Samantha, too, was looking past her, pointing her pistol down the tunnel.

  ‘It’s all right,’ came a voice from the gloom. ‘I have her, Samantha.’

  Virtuous Mathebula, the main sangoma of Killarney, stepped into the light, with a gun in one hand and a frightened Lilly Ndlovu in the other.

  *

  Clods of earth rained down on Mia, making her cough and splutter. Dirt filled her eyes and she had to stop after every few strikes with the shovel to clear her vision. Digging upward, she was discovering, was easier than digging a hole, but a hell of a lot messier.