Red Earth

by Tony Park

  When the man was finished his call Nia asked him if she could borrow his phone, as she was out of credit.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ the man said.

  ‘I’ll give you five hundred rand for one, maybe two calls.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Serious,’ she said and pulled the cash from her pocket.

  The man grinned and handed her his phone and moved away out of earshot, counting his money.

  She sat where he had been, her bum on the back rest of the park bench, and held the phone up, waving it around until she got a three-bar signal. The first number she called was directory assistance, and she asked for the number of Roger Green in Rosebank, Johannesburg. The number was sent to her a few seconds later.

  Nia held up a finger to the man, who was watching her. ‘One more call.’

  She dialled, hoping that Roger was home – it was a Sunday after all – and that she didn’t get his wife. She was in luck.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Roger, it’s Nia Carras, the helicopter pilot, from Durban. I’m not sure if you remember me.’

  He lowered his voice to a terse whisper immediately. ‘What are you doing calling me at home?’

  ‘I need help.’

  ‘I’m hanging up.’

  ‘Please, Roger, it’s important, life and death even.’

  There was a pause on the end of the line. ‘I’m not going to give you money, if that’s what you want.’

  She was annoyed that he thought she might be trying some amateurish blackmailing scheme, but then she reflected that they hardly knew each other. ‘Relax, Roger, I don’t want your money, I just need some help. It’s important, life and death, for what it’s worth.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve got two numbers, Roger, which I think might be for a bank account. The first one’s very long, with two letters at the start, and the second has only six digits. If I read it to you, can you take it down and see if you can make any sense of it?’

  The line was quiet again while he thought. ‘Is this legal? I’m not sure I can help.’

  ‘Don’t be a wimp, Roger. Look, if you had any genuine feelings for me then I would hope that you might help me with this. It really is very important. People are willing to kill for this number. A child’s life is at risk because of it.’

  ‘Sounds like this isn’t a joke. OK, what’s the first number, the one with the letters?’

  Nia checked the screen of Mike’s phone and read him the first number.

  ‘OK, got it. I can’t talk long,’ he whispered.

  ‘Wife nearby?’

  ‘Do you want to mock me or do you want the information?’ he said, still in a hushed voice.

  ‘Sorry,’ Nia said.

  ‘It’s an IBAN, an international bank account number. It’s Swiss – you can tell that from the letters “C” and “H” at the start. The other digits identify the bank and the account.’

  Nia smiled. They were right, it was a foreign account. ‘Can you tell me where in Switzerland the bank is, and its name?’

  ‘I’ll check online and SMS you the name and address.’

  ‘Can anybody access an account like this?’

  ‘The Swiss are famous for their discretion, as you probably know. They don’t put people through the hoops when it comes to accessing the account, but as well as the number there is always some other form of identification needed, of course.’

  ‘What sort of identification?’

  ‘A password, or another number.’

  ‘Like a PIN?’

  ‘Yes, pretty much the same system, only it would be more complex than a four-digit PIN. It could be the other number you have there – six digits would be too short for another account number.’

  ‘Is it like a normal account? I mean, could I log on to the internet to check what’s in it?’

  Roger gave a small laugh. ‘No. With all this cloak and dagger and life and death stuff you mentioned I’m guessing this is a numbered account, the most private kind. I’m assuming it contains money that someone wants to hide?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Nia said.

  ‘Criminals and even semi-legit businesspeople who want to avoid paying tax use these accounts because there’s no paper trail or electronic records that police can access. Typically these accounts are based on personal contact. You could call the bank and try giving them the passcode number and see what they say, but they’re usually not even keen on telephone exchanges. I’ll include a contact number in my message to you once I look up the bank and its address.’

  ‘Roger, thank you for this. I can’t tell you how important it is to me.’

  ‘Important enough to have a drink with me next time you’re in Johannesburg or I’m in Durban on business?’

  She had to smile. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘Thank you, Roger, and goodbye.’

  ‘Nia …’

  She was in a hurry to get back to Mike, but Roger’s tone had softened. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you my situation.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything, but yes, you should have.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Nia ended the call. She waited on the bench, keeping the phone in signal range for a little longer. The phone beeped and vibrated. Roger’s message said: Grunelius Bank, Geneva, followed by a phone number and address.

  ‘Switzerland,’ she said to herself as she walked back to the bungalow.

  Chapter 29

  Jed, Franklin and Chris Mitchell pored over a map of southern Africa in the officers’ mess of the Natal Mounted Rifles in Durban.

  Chris Mitchell traced a line from Mkhuze Game Reserve northwards. ‘We would have picked them up if they’d tried to cross into Swaziland or Mozambique at any of the recognised border crossings.’

  Jed stroked his beard. ‘That frontier’s as porous as a mosquito net, boss.’

  Chris nodded. ‘Agreed, but we know the kid, Themba, is wounded, and they’ll all be tired.’

  They had missed Suzanne Fessey at Dr Boyd Qualtrough’s farm, and the South African police had found a white Toyota Land Cruiser burned out on a side road off the N2 north of Umhlanga Rocks a few hours ago. The colour and model matched that of a vehicle that several eyewitnesses had seen leaving Qualtrough’s place. Egil Paulsen, meanwhile, had been found dead in Mkhuze Game Reserve.

  The American presence in South Africa was ramping up by the hour. Communications experts from the warship in the harbour had come ashore and installed a bank of computers in the mess. The picture of a white-bearded, ruddy-faced man was on a widescreen plasma television that had just been mounted on the wall. ‘Qualtrough, another American citizen,’ Jed said. ‘His death just makes this an even bigger story for the folks back at home, as if the loss of the ambassador and her secret service guys wasn’t enough.’

  ‘What do we know about Qualtrough?’ Chris asked. He’d been on a conference call to the US for the past hour and they were bringing him up to speed as well as trying to deduce where the fugitives might be headed.

  ‘Good friends with Dunn, judging by their Facebook pages,’ Jed said.

  ‘Damn,’ Chris said. ‘Fessey is ahead of us and we can’t catch three kids and a female chopper pilot?’

  They all looked to each other. Tempers were fraying.

  ‘All right,’ Chris said. ‘Let’s move on, but to where, I don’t know. What we do know is that thanks to the late Dr Qualtrough, Fessey is down to one sidekick. She’s in a new vehicle, though we don’t know the make and model, and Dunn, Carras and the kids are in the wind somewhere in Africa.’

  Jed’s phone rang. It was a liaison officer in the South African Police Service. He took notes then ended the call. ‘More news, and it’s good,’ he said to
Franklin and Chris. ‘An eagle-eyed police officer at the Kruger National Park’s Phalaborwa gate called his superiors after he got the South African equivalent of an all-points bulletin about our targets. He saw a white man and woman in a car with two black teenagers and a baby checking into the park. Didn’t think to question them further at the time, but realised who they were once he got the alert.’

  ‘At least someone’s doing their job. Do we know where they were headed?’ Chris asked.

  Jed went to the map pinned to the wall and located the green strip that marked the national park. ‘A place called Shimuwini. I know it; I took my wife and youngest there last year. It’s a bushveld camp, quiet place in the north of the park.’

  ‘They’re headed north,’ Chris said. ‘Zimbabwe?’

  ‘Or maybe Mozambique,’ Jed ventured. ‘At the north of Kruger there’s a place called Crooks’ Corner on the Limpopo River where South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe all meet. Ivory poachers used to hop from one country to another to escape prosecution.’

  Chris nodded.

  ‘The South African police are putting up roadblocks on the way to the Beitbridge border crossing into Zimbabwe and the entry points to Botswana to the west, in case they head that way. They’ve also alerted their people at the Giryondo and Pafuri crossings into Mozambique from Kruger.’

  Jed studied the map. ‘They’re too conspicuous to keep travelling as a group, and Dunn will guess that the borders will be closed. Besides, the teenagers wouldn’t be carrying passports. They’re going to cross illegally, on foot, through the bush. We’ve got to get them before they leave the Kruger Park.’

  Chris looked at him. ‘Then get on your way. And don’t come back empty-handed.’

  *

  Mike ran the backs of his fingers lightly down Nia’s spine. She rolled over.

  ‘Sorry I woke you,’ he said.

  ‘No, I was already up. I’m too wired. What time is it?’

  ‘Four am,’ he said.

  They’d had sundowner drinks by the river, the kids with Coca Cola. Afterwards Mike had braaied steaks and Nia had made a salad. It was a deceptively relaxing evening. When Themba and Lerato had gone to their rooms Mike and Nia had sat up for a while, discussing their next move.

  Eventually, she had looked him in the eye, taken his big hand in hers, stood, and led him to their bedroom. Mike had pushed the two single beds together and they had made love, slowly, then fallen asleep.

  It was still dark outside. ‘Do you want to go back to sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I want you.’

  She reached for him and drew her to him, hugging him with a strength he found surprising. He squeezed her back. ‘I want you, too.’ He kissed her cheek and then her lips.

  Nia relaxed her embrace then put a palm on his chest and motioned for him to move onto his back. She climbed on him, straddling his body, and eased herself down. Mike looked up at her, quietly and silently in awe of her beauty and the feel of her body. She felt almost weightless on him as she moved, slowly at first, gradually increasing the tempo.

  ‘You’re not going to have a heart attack on me, are you?’

  ‘Not if you keep doing all the work.’

  ‘Huh!’ She bent forward and kissed him. He arched his back, sliding even deeper into her.

  They made love silently, so as not to disturb the children. Nia rode him harder, faster, and when he felt himself getting closer he put his hands on her hips, slowing her to a stop. He pulled her to his chest and rolled on top of her. He started to move inside her again, slowly, looking into her eyes. He could feel her respond, opening herself up to him, so he could go even deeper inside her. Moving faster, he felt himself swell. She smiled at him then pulled him towards her and kissed him, hard, and he came inside her.

  They dropped back into the sheets, exhausted, and kissed.

  A minute later the alarm on his phone went off. He sighed, kissed Nia again then went to the shower. She joined him and scrubbed his back. He soaped her, but this was not the time for more sex. They had to be ready to go as soon as the camp gates opened, which at this time of year, early October, was five thirty.

  Nia made toast and coffee for all of them. Lerato fed the baby with food they had bought on the road and Themba helped Mike pack the car for the trip.

  The sky was turning pink as the attendant Nia had borrowed the phone from opened the gate for them. They headed north.

  They saw elephant and a big herd of three hundred or more buffalo, but Mike kept his speed steady at the maximum, fifty kilometres per hour. They were not here to sightsee.

  They stopped in at Shingwedzi Camp for a toilet break and to stretch their legs. Nia bought more coffee and Cokes from the camp shop and then Mike hustled them back into the car and they set off again. The day was warming – it was always hotter this far north in the park – and Mike kept his speed up. Eventually, several hours after they had set off, they reached the turnoff to the road to Crooks’ Corner.

  Mike drove Nia’s little hatchback slowly down a dirt road that was signposted on a cairn with a red and white no entry sign until the track petered out. ‘Let’s get some branches and cover the car.’

  When they had finished camouflaging the Golf, Mike shouldered the heaviest pack. Nia carried the baby on her back, in a wrap that Lerato tied for her. Lerato took the pack with food in it.

  Mike led the way, his rifle up and across his body, his senses alert for game, especially lonely old buffalos, and guided them through a shade forest of fever trees that gave way to a line of thick bush growing on the edge of the flood plain. They emerged to find the wide, open, sandy expanse of the Limpopo riverbed. A fish eagle called its haunting cry and Mike raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare as he found it in the sky.

  ‘Looks quiet.’

  ‘The river’s a lot narrower than I thought it would be,’ Nia said.

  The water flowed along the bank on the Zimbabwean side, a couple of hundred metres across from where they stood. ‘Let’s go,’ Mike said.

  They trudged through the thick sand of the riverbed, sweating in the sun without the benefit of trees above them. Lerato stumbled, but was able to get back to her feet without assistance. Mike continually scanned left and right. The biggest risk for them here was that a military or national parks anti-poaching patrol might appear. On the other side of the river the first swathe of land was designated for hunting, so there was also the chance they might bump into a shooting party.

  There was no fence on either side of the river that marked the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants crossed the Limpopo from Zimbabwe every year, some of them through the national park.

  They came to the water’s edge and Mike strode on, not bothering to take his boots off. The river here was only about twenty metres wide, and no deeper than his knees. The others, seeing it was safe, followed him. A hundred metres to his right, where the river widened, he saw the silhouette of a crocodile, but the water was clear and cool where they crossed and Mike could see there was no danger, at least not from reptiles.

  ‘Welcome to Zimbabwe,’ he said to Nia as he held out his hand and helped her scramble up the steep sandy bank.

  Once they were all up Mike led them deeper into the new country. There had been fires here and the landscape was blackened. In places fallen tree trunks still smoked.

  ‘It’s like a wasteland.’

  ‘In places like this, on the edge of national parks, poachers sometimes deliberately set fires at the end of the dry season,’ Mike said.

  ‘Doesn’t that scare the animals away?’ Nia asked.

  ‘The small stuff, what’s left of it on this side of the border, will take flight, but when the first rains of summer come the fresh green grass shoots are too much for the buffalo, impala and other grazers on the Kruger side of the river to resist.’r />
  ‘Bastards.’

  They trudged on. The sun was up and the remnant heat from the fire and the lack of shade added to their discomfort. They were all sweating and making hard work of their walk in the sand. They came to a dry riverbed and Mike called a rest break under a tree that had escaped the worst of the blaze.

  Lerato gave the baby a drink.

  ‘How’s the little guy holding up?’ Mike asked.

  Lerato looked up at him. ‘He’s hot and tired, like the rest of us, but he’s a good baby.’

  ‘I know he is. And you’re a good carer.’

  They set off again and Mike kept an eye on the sky for helicopters or search planes. All he saw was a pair of white-backed vultures, lazily circling, trying to catch a thermal to help lift their heavy bodies skywards. Some people might have worried at such a sight, but these were his birds, his totem, and it pleased him to see them.

  After forty-five minutes of trudging they came to a road, which had probably been where the fire was set. On the other side the bush was unburned: long, dry golden grass studded with thorny acacias. They sat down again in the shade.

  ‘What now?’ Nia asked.

  ‘To our east,’ Mike pointed, ‘is the Mozambican border. To the west, if we follow the road and hook around to the right, we’ll come to some Shangaan villages. We could walk northeast, through what’s known as the Sengwe Corridor, but it’s a long hike through the bush. We’ll start running into big game, especially elephant, and they’re nervous and sometimes aggressive here – they’ve been hunted and poached for decades. I say we wait for a lift.’

  ‘Are there many cars here?’ Themba asked. ‘It looks quiet.’

  ‘There are smugglers, sneaking goods into Zimbabwe from Mozambique to avoid customs duty, and bringing people to the border where they can cross illegally into South Africa. I’m counting on flagging down someone who won’t ask too many questions.’

  They sat in the grass, resting, and Nia edged her hand closer to his. Mike covered it with his own. It was good to have her by his side, though he had trouble imagining what a future with her might look like.