Red Earth

by Tony Park

  The feed to Nia’s headset went dead as Swanepoel pulled the phone cord out of the socket.

  Nia pulled off her headphones. ‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing? We’ve got an engine problem here. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!’

  The man didn’t move. He also took off his headset and looked at her with his pale, creepy eyes.

  ‘I said, get out of my helicopter, I’m shutting down.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to take off now and we’re going to fly over the national park.’

  Nia started to reach into her pocket to pull her iPhone out.

  Swanepoel’s hand went into his open jacket. Nia was stopped by the cold, hard steel of the barrel of a pistol, which the man pressed painfully into the side of her head. ‘Fly.’

  Chapter 15

  Jed Banks drove as fast as he could, weaving through the Durban traffic.

  Across the road from the giant Moses Mabhida Stadium, built for the FIFA World Cup, he turned into Isaiah Ntshangase Road and stopped at the gates to the headquarters of the Natal Mounted Rifles.

  Mike knew the depot well; he had spent part of his national service there. The NMR, as they were also known, was an army reserve unit of the South African National Defence Force. An impressive collection of battle tanks dating from the Second World War to the Border War in Angola were arrayed around the parade ground. Two men in uniform asked Jed for ID; one was a South African soldier in Kevlar helmet and body armour, carrying an R5. It wasn’t normal to see a trooper in full battle kit on the gate, but what was even more out of the ordinary was the US Marine standing next to him in camouflage fatigues and a similar suit of armour, and carrying an M4 assault rifle.

  The American nodded to Jed and told the South African soldier to let them pass. Mike noted the scowl on the face of the African, whose authority had just been usurped by a foreigner, but that display was nothing compared to what awaited them on the parade ground ahead.

  Mike would have felt bothered for his countrymen about the way the Americans seemed to be riding roughshod over their hosts but he, like Jed and Franklin, was in too much of a hurry to care about protocol.

  A grey MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter decked out in the stars and markings of the US Navy squatted malevolently in the car park. More American and South African military personnel shifted aluminium trunks from the chopper into the NMR headquarters. The building itself, like the tanks around it, dated from another era; it had once been the terminal building for Durban’s original airport which was long gone.

  ‘This is the command centre for the operation to find the people who assassinated our ambassador,’ Jed said as they quickly got out of the car and strode across the parade ground.

  ‘Looks more like the foothold of an invasion,’ Mike replied dryly.

  Jed looked at him, unsmiling. ‘We don’t mess around when someone kills one of our own.’

  The Sea Hawk’s engine was whining to life and the blades began turning as the crewman, attached to the helicopter by an umbilical communications cord, motioned for them to move forward and take a seat in the back.

  Once inside the helicopter, the crewman, who had also climbed aboard, slid a green vinyl dive bag across the floor to Jed. The crewman then took up position behind a swivel-mounted machine gun and they lifted off.

  Jed unzipped the bag, took out a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun and passed a second to Franklin.

  ‘What about me?’ Mike yelled over the noise of the engine.

  Jed reached into the pocket of his jacket and drew out the nine-millimetre pistol he had taken from Mike. He handed it to him. ‘We’ll handle things on the ground. You hang back.’

  ‘You’re it?’ Mike asked. ‘Where’s the rest of the cavalry?’

  ‘This chopper’s from the visiting destroyer in Durban harbour. There’s a SEAL team – Navy special forces – inbound, as well as FBI investigators on their way from the States and people from half a dozen other agencies. However, the South Africans are sensitive about the US military charging around their country. We’ve only got clearance to fly this helicopter on “familiarisation” flights, so for now, yes, we’re “it”.’

  Mike had no intention of getting involved in a gunfight, but he did feel a knot in his stomach. He was worried for Nia. He felt responsible for her being drawn into this situation. The fact that the call he had made to her on the way to the base had been cut off so abruptly filled him with dread. It must have shown on his face, because Jed reached over and grabbed Mike’s shoulder. ‘She’ll be OK.’

  Mike nodded. He didn’t know why the American would think he needed that kind of reassurance. Franklin and Jed had grilled him enough to know that he had no personal connection to Nia – at least not formally – but the truth was that she was there because of him.

  ‘You’ll have to guide the pilot in when we get closer,’ Jed said to him.

  Mike nodded. ‘OK. But can’t you track Nia’s chopper?’

  ‘We’re trying to.’ Jed made his way between the armed men to the two pilots and put on a spare headset. He leaned back to Mike a minute later.

  ‘Air traffic control at Richards Bay hasn’t heard from her.’

  ‘Does that mean she hasn’t taken off?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jed said.

  Mike found himself warming to the CIA man. ‘I’m surprised you can even pronounce “Hluhluwe”, not many tourists know the “hl” is pronounced like the double “L” in Welsh names.’

  ‘I’m not a tourist any more. I’ve worked in Africa since 2005,’ he said. ‘My daughter from my first marriage was working as a lion researcher in Zimbabwe and that’s what brought me here. I ended up back in the States, but not for long. I met my second wife in Africa and she also loves it here.’

  ‘What does your wife do?’ Mike asked, out of courtesy.

  ‘She teaches, at an international school near where we live.’

  ‘Which country?’ Mike asked.

  ‘That’s classified.’ Jed laughed. ‘Our son’s eleven. His mom teaches him, which is kind of cool and kind of weird.’

  Mike smiled. He wondered what it might be like to start over, to try and do better with a marriage and a family than he’d done the first time. ‘You look like you’re proud of both of them.’

  ‘I am,’ Jed said. ‘I truly am.’

  Mike saw that Jed meant it. ‘What part did Suzanne Fessey play in the assassination of your politician?’

  Jed seemed to consider the question, shouted over the engine noise. ‘Maybe a lot, maybe nothing, but the fact she’d packed up her house in Hillcrest and that she was on the run, apparently without her husband, means we think it’s maybe a lot.’

  ‘Who’s her husband?’

  ‘Now that, my friend,’ said Jed, ‘is definitely classified, although I can tell you he is missing, believed obliterated.’

  Mike looked out the window of the Sea Hawk. The US ambassador to South Africa, he thought, would have been a relatively easy target, by American standards, for a suicide bomber. He’d read somewhere that she liked to get out and about, and South Africa would not have been considered as dangerous for US diplomats as, say, Kenya or other parts of East and North Africa. Below him the rich greens of his homeland flashed by. He longed to be out in the bush, searching for vulture nests.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Jed asked him.

  Mike thought about the question. ‘That I’d rather spend time with vultures than people.’

  Jed nodded. ‘Any day. Do you have a favourite?’

  Mike was a little taken aback by the question. ‘The lappet-faced.’

  ‘The can-opener.’

  ‘You know your vultures?’ Mike said, unable to hide his surprise.

  ‘The lappet-faced is the largest of the vultures; he has the biggest beak and opens up the carcass for the rest of
the birds to feed. My daughter taught me that.’

  There it was again, Mike noted, the sense of pride Jed had for his daughter. Mike had let his own family down and Jed’s wholesomeness, despite his work, almost irked him. ‘Well, she was right.’

  Mike was always happy to talk about vultures, but the co-pilot of the Sea Hawk looked over his shoulder at that point and beckoned to him. Mike stood and gripped the back of the pilots’ seats. The man who had beckoned him forward handed him a headset.

  ‘Afternoon, mister,’ said the co-pilot. ‘I sincerely hope you know where we’re going, because I’ve never been here and I have no idea.’

  Mike looked through the cockpit windscreen and soon got his bearings. The Somkhele mine was ahead of them and off to the left. ‘It’s not far from here,’ he said into the microphone attached to the headset.

  ‘Hold on,’ said the pilot. ‘Got ’em on radar. She’s airborne, over the southern half of the park.’

  Mike didn’t know whether to feel relieved or more worried. If Nia was flying that could mean that all was fine and she was working with bona fide local police officers or, as Jed had theorised, she had been kidnapped by possible terrorists and forced to take off despite Mike’s warning.

  ‘Can you call her?’ he asked the pilot.

  The pilot turned back briefly to look at Jed, who was also on a headset.

  ‘’Fraid not,’ Jed said. ‘We don’t want to tip off whoever is in the chopper with Miss Carras that we’re tailing them.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mike said.

  ‘How far?’ Jed asked the pilot.

  Mike was staring through the cockpit windscreen and he recognised the border of the park below, where the land changed from beaten, overgrazed farmland to the rolling grassy hills and acacias of iMfolozi.

  ‘About ten klicks,’ said the pilot.

  ‘Get in a little closer, but stay out of visual range,’ Jed said. ‘Track them by radar and let’s see if they start losing altitude. That’ll tell us if they’ve found the kids.’

  ‘Are the South African police in on this as well?’ Mike asked over the intercom. ‘Have you got local ground support?’

  ‘They’re on their way. The local cops are worried about your Sergeant Khumalo,’ Jed said. ‘Our people at the Natal Mounted Rifles have a South African Police Service liaison officer feeding us information. But for now it’s just us, and we’re going to catch these people.’

  ‘You still haven’t said exactly who “these people” are.’

  ‘All you need to know is that they’re the bad guys and we’re the good guys,’ Jed said.

  Mike shook his head exasperatedly. He knew life was never that cut and dried.

  ‘Besides,’ Jed added, ‘it’s their ground element I’m interested in. That’s where we’ll find Suzanne Fessey and the people she’s working with.’

  ‘There’s a road coming up ahead,’ said the pilot.

  ‘That’s the road to Mpila Camp,’ Mike said.

  ‘Also leads to the Nyalazi Gate, right?’ Jed asked.

  Mike nodded.

  ‘Those kids have an AK-47. They might just shoot their way out,’ Franklin said.

  ‘We’re not talking about Bonnie and Clyde here,’ Mike said. ‘Anyway, I thought you were more interested in finding Suzanne Fessey and her crew than the runaway kids.’

  ‘We find Suzanne’s baby before we find her, then that will give us leverage over her,’ Jed said.

  Mike had formed the opinion that, for a spy, Jed was a decent enough guy, but a remark like that reminded Mike of who he was dealing with; or, rather, who had taken him into de facto custody and along for the ride.

  *

  Nia was flying with no headset on. It felt unnatural not to have contact with the outside world, but the man with the pistol was wary of her sending a distress call. He had the gun pointed at her, only glancing away every now and then to scan the veldt below.

  She was working a grid pattern, at his instruction. He had a cell phone in his left hand and was using it periodically to check in with the people on the ground.

  Nia was desperately trying to think of some way to fool the man, or to sabotage his attempts to find the children. When she had tried slowly increasing her airspeed, to make it harder to search, he had put the barrel to her head again and told her to slow down to her normal cruising speed.

  When she began climbing, he tapped the altimeter. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid enough to shoot me in the head while I’m flying,’ she had replied.

  ‘I don’t have to shoot you in the head.’ Nia had started when he’d rested the tip of his pistol between her legs. He moved the barrel from the apex of her legs slowly down over the seat until the weapon was pointed at the floor of the helicopter. Nia had screamed when he pulled the trigger.

  It had taken all her willpower to regain her self-control after that moment. The man had mocked her with his grin, sitting back in his seat, but the neat round hole in the floor, which she glanced at again now, reminded her that she was dealing with a cruel man with brains.

  ‘Are you going to kill me, when this is over, when you have what you want?’ she asked him.

  He shrugged. ‘Probably not – at least not if you help us, and you don’t try anything foolish like you did before. The South African police will have our names and our photos by now. You can’t hurt me, but I can most certainly hurt you. If you want to fly your helicopter into the ground, that is your prerogative; some may call you a heroine for taking me with you, but you won’t stop us all. The others are in two cars, and they’ll be smart enough to park away from each other, so you couldn’t kill all of us even if you tried.’

  Nia hadn’t, in fact, thought of flying her helicopter into a carload of whatever these people were, but she was creepily intrigued at how the man beside her was mulling over the various options of a planned suicide.

  ‘We’re just trying to rescue a child,’ he continued as he searched the ground below.

  ‘Then why in God’s name didn’t you just leave it up to the real police?’

  ‘You ask too many questions. Just fly, find the kids, and we’ll go and you’ll live.’

  So Nia flew, scanning the bush below for the trio of missing young people. If she did see them and the man didn’t then she would give no sign of having located them. Whoever they were and for whatever reason they had taken the infant, Nia had the distinct feeling that they would die a horrible death.

  She glanced at the man with the gun and he smiled back at her. As much as she wanted to believe him, she knew he would kill her as soon as he was finished with her.

  *

  Lerato watched Themba cooking the crocodile tail while she nursed the baby in the shade of a tree. Mercifully the infant was sleeping.

  She had felt quite proud of herself, killing the crocodile, and now she found that something as simple as the smell of cooking meat could lift her spirits a little. She told herself they would be out of this mess soon. But the boy she had trusted would be out of her life too. She could still barely believe that Themba was the kind of man who held up people and stole their cars.

  Themba looked to the sky. ‘Listen.’

  ‘Shush, you’ll wake the baby.’

  ‘Quick.’ Themba kicked dirt over the fire. ‘We must hide.’

  ‘You’re ruining the meat,’ Lerato said. ‘You’ve got sand all over it.’ As if on cue, the baby woke and started crying. ‘Now see what you’ve done.’

  He ignored her and pointed to the sky. ‘Helicopter.’

  He had made the fire under a stout Natal mahogany tree; the leafy foliage protected them from the sun and would filter the smoke, making it harder to see from the air, but if the chopper flew directly over them, a sharp-eyed pilot would spot them.

  Lerato set the crying b
aby down in the grass. She’d had enough. ‘I’m going to run out there and wave at it. They’re probably searching for us.’

  ‘Wait,’ Themba said. ‘Be quiet.’

  Lerato was taken aback at the tone in his voice, but she sullenly complied.

  Themba fetched the binoculars and focused on the dark speck against the clear blue sky. ‘It’s the same one as yesterday, the red car-tracker.’

  ‘They’ve got the car, so they’re looking for us.’ Lerato started to move out of the shade of the tree.

  Themba chased after her and caught her by the arm.

  ‘Hey, let go of me.’

  ‘Come back under cover. Yes, they are looking for us, but it’s not their job.’

  Lerato wriggled in his grip. ‘The police might be using their helicopter to come find us.’

  ‘It could be those men who tried to kill us, Lerato. They’re not with the police. They’re murderers.’

  ‘You don’t know that, Themba. They might just be the uncles of the child or friends of the mom or whatever. You’re not making sense.’

  Themba looked stricken. ‘Lerato, please listen. There is something else going on here. Most moms don’t have hand grenades, AK-47s and rhino horns in their cars. These people are bad. They’re criminals.’

  ‘We are the ones acting like criminals. You’re a criminal, Themba.’

  The helicopter was almost overhead. Themba let go of Lerato’s arm and raised the binoculars to his eyes again. Lerato saw that the aircraft was coming right towards them, and it was low. Through the branches and leaves above she could make out the pilot, the same woman as the day before. There was a man in the passenger seat next to the woman and all Lerato registered of the man was a shock of bright white hair.

  She didn’t try to hide her anger. ‘OK, Themba, what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re moving.’

  Lerato was smart enough to know she wouldn’t last long in the bush by herself, but she hated the sound of those two words.