by Tony Park
As well as seeing Tim and the rest of his team from time to time while doing his vulture monitoring, Mike and Tim had a shared past. They had served together on anti-poaching operations in this same area after Mike had left Operation Lock. Tim knew all about the young boy Mike had killed and knew well enough not to ever raise the matter.
‘We’ll set up a sentry post here,’ Shane said for Mike’s benefit. ‘Good view out over the valley, towards Mozambique. That’s where you think they’ll come from?’
Mike shrugged. ‘This woman, Fessey, could come from any direction. My guess, though, is that if she brings hired muscle they’ll have to come in from across the Mozambican border.’
Tim chewed a blade of yellow grass. ‘No shortage of guns over there.’
‘Why didn’t you take the baby and the other two kids to Harare?’ Shane asked.
Mike looked at the two ex-soldiers. ‘Because I want to end this, and for once I have the advantage: you two are here. Also, we’re out in the bush. This woman’s caused enough collateral damage.’
Shane gave a half-grin. ‘That bad, hey?’
‘You said she and her people deal in rhino horn?’ Tim asked.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Mike said. ‘We’ve found evidence they’ve been using the trade in horn out of KwaZulu-Natal’s parks to help finance their terrorist network. I’ve got some of the horn here, young Themba found it in the woman’s car. I can show you if you like.’
Tim shook his head. ‘I trust you, Mike. All right, this makes them our enemy as well.’
Mike was curious. ‘You wouldn’t take them on simply because of what they’ve done in South Africa, and around the rest of the world. Like I told Shane on the phone, these people are part of ISIS; they’re fanatics, the rhino horn is their way of part funding their operations.’
Tim gestured back towards the tented camp. ‘My boy Jordan fought those people in Afghanistan. He said he didn’t know who the bigger religious fanatics were: the Taliban and their supporters, or the Americans. I understand, in a strange way, killing for something like rhino horn. I don’t believe it has any magical medicinal powers, just like I’ve never cared for diamonds, but these are commodities, things worth money, and people will fight to take and protect these things. It seems, in its way, somehow more understandable than a fight over gods.’
They were all silent a moment.
‘Enough philosophy.’ Shane clapped Tim on the shoulder. ‘There are scared kids back in the camp whose lives are in danger and we’ve got the chance to take out a rhino horn trader. If these people can’t get their horn in South Africa they’ll just join the queue of people trying to rip it out of Zimbabwe. I’d say that’s a fight worth taking on both counts.’
‘Me too,’ said Tim.
They walked to the safari tents that made up the fly camp, a term for a semi-portable encampment, and found Lerato and Themba eating.
‘Sylvester and I fixed them some scoff, Dad,’ Jordan said. ‘Oscar’s standing watch.’
Tim surveyed the setup. ‘Good work, Jordie. Clean and check your weapons, all of you, and get some food for yourselves as well.’
‘Mike?’ Shane said, and beckoned to him with a nod to follow.
They went to Shane’s Land Rover and Shane opened the door and flipped a lever to make the back of the driver’s seat slump forward. He reached in and pulled out an assault rifle.
‘R5.’
Mike took the weapon from him. ‘I know it. Been a while since I handled one.’
Shane lowered his voice. ‘Tim told me a little about your time together here back in the day, hunting poachers. He didn’t give me details, but I know how the bad stuff can stay with a man. Are you good with this?’
Mike nodded.
‘Jordan, Sylvester, Oscar,’ Tim called. ‘We need some firing positions here. There’s fuck-all cover in this place.’
‘I found somewhere, Dad,’ Jordan said.
Mike and Shane walked over and joined the others. Jordan led them to the far right of the tents, where he showed them a deep hole, about three metres long, two wide and a metre and a half deep.
Tim put his hands on his hips. ‘Bloody plunge pool.’
Mike smiled. Tim had said it as though he couldn’t imagine how or why anyone would have need of a swimming pool out in the bush. He lived on a reserve where people paid up to a thousand dollars per person per night to dine on fine cuisine and view big game, while he, his son and his fellow rangers spent their nights patrolling, lying in ambush, and swatting mosquitos.
Shane moved away a short distance to where there was a pile of building materials, bags of cement, timber formwork and some corrugated sheeting. Gingerly, he lifted a sheet of metal with the tip of the barrel of his FN rifle. He jumped back a pace in obvious fright.
The others began laughing out loud.
‘What is it?’ Mike asked.
Tim wiped his eyes. ‘Our big bad hero of the Australian SAS is scared of snakes.’
‘It was just a lizard,’ Shane said, ‘thank fuck.’
‘I’ve seen this man run at an armed poacher, firing from the hip, but show him a boomslang and he near shits himself,’ Tim said.
The brief moment of mirth over, Tim marshalled his troops back to work. ‘Right, lads. This is our strong point, last line of defence. Stack those cement bags around the edge and leave gaps for your rifles.’
Sylvester, Oscar and Jordan lay down their weapons within easy reach, stripped off their shirts and got to work. Mike, Shane and Tim went into a huddle.
Shane looked to him. ‘Jordan and I know the sort of people we’re dealing with, Mike. We’re not leaving anything to chance.’
Themba approached them. ‘Mike, Lerato and the baby are resting in one of the tents. How can I help?’
‘Best if you stay with Lerato,’ Mike said.
‘But I would like a gun, as well.’
Mike looked to Shane. ‘What do you think?’
‘He’s young,’ Shane said.
‘He knows how to handle an AK. He’s a good student these days but he used to be a car thief,’ Mike said.
Themba looked pained at the revelation.
‘This is a fight we’re getting ready for, mate, not an algebra lesson,’ Shane said to Themba.
‘I am a man.’
Shane looked him up and down. ‘Getting close. You want a gun?’
Themba nodded.
‘Go over to the Landy, and have a look in the back under that green tarpaulin.’
Mike and Shane watched as Themba walked to the truck.
‘What’s in the back?’ Mike asked.
‘We came to you straight from the bush. We had a contact last night.’
Mike walked slowly after Themba. If he hadn’t known Themba’s background, the horrors he had already seen in his short life, he would have been worried about what sort of test Shane was putting him to. Men like Shane and the Penquitts had lived through the horrors of war, and the fight to save the rhino was not much different.
Themba went to the back of the truck, reached over the side wall and lifted the green tarpaulin. Mike heard the buzz of disturbed flies and Themba took an involuntary step back and put his hand to his mouth.
‘Two Mozambicans,’ Shane said quietly. ‘We killed them last night; they were tracking a rhino, and when we told them to drop their guns they opened fire on us. It was over quick.’
Themba straightened his body and seemed to compose himself. He went back to the side of the vehicle and once more lifted the cover. He bent over, reaching inside, and pulled out an AK-47. He came to Mike and Shane and, noticing blood on his fingers, transferred the rifle to his other hand while he wiped it off on his school pants. ‘Do you have magazines?’
‘In the Landy,’ Shane said evenly, ‘behind the seat. You’ll find a stack of them, still l
oaded.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Themba said.
‘Tough kid,’ Shane said to Mike.
‘He is.’
‘Sounds like he’ll need to be.’
Mike walked to the vehicle. A cloud of disturbed flies still hovered above the bodies, not willing to stray too far from their new hosts. Some settled onto eyes, into nostrils, others returned to the bullet wounds. I can do this, Mike told himself. These were men, not boys. They carried guns and would have killed the anti-poaching forces if given a chance.
It’s a war. It’s combat. Get over yourself.
Shane was beside him. ‘Mike? You OK?’
The trees around him were swirling and he saw pinpricks of light at the periphery of his vision. He smelled how the men, or one of them at least, had fouled himself. The bile rose in his throat. He closed his eyes, but saw the face of the sixteen-year-old he had shot. He’d had to load him onto a truck, after the killing was done. He heard the gunfire, the screams; they filled his head.
‘Mike?’ Themba echoed.
Mike staggered away from the truck, the dizziness taking over, amplifying the feeling of nausea. He stumbled to a tree and hugged its rough bark for support. The noise in his mind was deafening. There was another, animalistic sound all around him. After a few moments he realised that it was coming from him. Tears streamed from his eyes as he vomited.
He felt hands on him, heard the murmur of soothing voices through his own rage, but he didn’t want them, didn’t want their pity or their sympathy. He was weak, falling apart at a time when the children needed him to protect them, when Shane and the Penquitts needed another gun. This was not the time to unravel. This was not the time to let this tide of sorrow and shit swamp over his head and drown him. He had to hold it together.
But he could not.
He should never have let Nia go, he realised. She would not be safe, there was nothing he could do to protect the children, or himself. They would all be dead soon, and it was all his fault. He had failed them all; he had damned them all because of the child he had killed all those years ago.
Mike was aware of the others around him, but he stood and stumbled towards the nearest tent. Inside he found a canvas basin and splashed water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, disgusted.
‘Mike?’
He looked and saw Themba waiting by the opening. Mike sat down on a stretcher, his face in his hands.
‘Mike,’ Themba said again. ‘You’re a good man, Mike. Without you, I wouldn’t be here today, I’d be in prison or, worse, dead.’
He couldn’t look up at the boy, he was too ashamed. He felt the despair was shutting him down, as though it would cripple him, kill him. Any good he did was useless; he was damned, as sure as the rest of them were.
‘Mike, listen to me, please. You came for me, for Lerato and the baby. You found us in Mkhuze. You didn’t have to do that, you got me to your doctor friend.’
‘And he’s dead,’ Mike sobbed.
Themba put a hand on his shoulder. ‘He fought for us. He gave his life for us, Mike. You got us away from those people, from those crazy people. You could have just handed us to the police or the Americans and I’m worried what they would have done to us.’
Mike lifted his head and looked up at the boy. He had been a surly, angry criminal when Mike had met him, but now Themba was more of a man than he.
‘We all need help, Mike. I do, my sister does, we all do. You taught me that. It’s OK to reach out for help. You suggested once that you could find me someone to talk to, about my problems and my past, but I found that person. It was you.’
Mike drew a deep breath to try and still himself. He heard his own words, the ones Themba reminded him of, through the fog of his sorrow.
‘Mike, there are good men here. They will protect us. You can stay here, rest. I will take care of you.’
He swallowed and felt the tears well again, but this time not from sorrow but from sheer pride in the person Themba had become. He wiped his eyes.
‘Thank you.’ Mike took another breath and looked at Themba, seeing a man where there had been a boy. He had made a difference with Themba, and now he owed it to him to ensure he could live the life they had both envisioned for him. Themba was right, he did need to reach out for help. He would look for it, but for now he had a job to do. ‘I won’t let you down, Themba.’
Mike stood. Themba came to him. They hugged.
*
Nia ran to catch her flight.
She had queued impatiently behind a posse of American big game hunters, their pastime and professions clear from their camouflage clothes and small talk about their dental patients back home. Once through immigration and customs she had sprinted.
The light aircraft from Fish Eagle Lodge had been delayed at its second stop, another safari lodge where the guests were late arriving. Nia had been petrified she would miss the flight that she had booked online from Cassandra’s computer.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she wheezed at the flight attendant.
The woman forced a smile. Nia was, after all, at the pointy end of the aircraft, the only seat still vacant when she had booked. ‘No problem, Miss Carras, go right ahead.’
Once inside she averted her eyes from the accusatory stares of her fellow passengers and the captain announced the doors were ‘at last’ closed. Nia stowed the daypack she had bought in South Africa, her only luggage, in the bin overhead, then slumped into her seat.
A male attendant brought her a glass of champagne on a tray. ‘Don’t worry, we knew you were coming, we wouldn’t have left without you.’ He cast an eye over her filthy bush clothes. ‘Looks like you really have been on safari.’
She took a gulp of the sparkling wine as she watched the safety briefing. Mike and the kids were not safe, not in the slightest. Nia had the awful feeling that she had betrayed them, that they needed her.
With Mike, after their brushes with death, she had felt the overwhelming need to be with him, to be close to him, and she realised now that she thought about it that making love with him had possibly been the logical extension of that. But she felt more, now that she was away from him. It was like a piece of her was missing, amputated, and she felt the phantom pain of that missing element in her heart. It was palpable; so much so that she wanted to cry.
Chapter 33
Suzanne Fessey surveyed her five men. They were not ideal, dressed as they were in an assortment of charity clothes and faded military fatigues, but they would do. They were hard men, veterans of Mozambique’s civil war, rhino poachers.
She would have preferred to have kept Bilal alive and with her for longer, but, unlike her, he’d had no new identity stashed at Johannesburg airport. Still, for the sake of security and her mission, she would have had to dispose of Bilal eventually. Likewise, when these brigands had done their job they would not be left alive to talk about her.
Suzanne had trained herself to be adaptable and that was just as well, because a chain of misfortune had led her here to the Zimbabwean lowveld.
Egil had usually been based in Mozambique and had looked after their fundraising there, selling rhino horns on to a Vietnamese contact in that country’s embassy in Maputo. However, the diplomat had been busted and the ambassador was making an example of him by sending him home.
Suzanne sourced rhino horn from local poachers in South Africa, who shot them in KwaZulu-Natal’s game reserves. The horn came to Suzanne via a middle man, a devout Pakistani trader loyal to their cause. The poachers were always trying to squeeze more money out of the trader and had recently threatened to go to another buyer, Bandile Dlamini, who had put word out that he was in the market. Suzanne had passed on this intelligence to Egil who, through the Pakistani, had set up the meet with Dlamini in the Mtubatuba market.
Egil and his men had crossed into South Africa on the morning of the bombing wit
h the intention of collecting the latest consignment of horn direct from Suzanne – she had sent the trader to paradise to cover her tracks. The plan had been that Egil would do the deal with Dlamini then catch up with her at the Muzi border crossing back into Mozambique. He and his men, armed with their rifles and RPG that had been cached in northern KwaZulu-Natal for some time, were also there to provide firepower in case something went wrong. Indeed, just about everything had gone wrong after her car had been hijacked.
‘You have a weapon for me, Alberto?’ she said in Afrikaans to the man who stood in front of the other three.
‘Ja.’ He unslung a green kitbag from his shoulder, unzipped it and took out an AK-47 and two spare magazines.
Suzanne inspected the rifle and worked the cocking handle backwards and forwards. The action was smooth. These men were unkempt, but weapons were the tools of their trade and they clearly cared for them more than for themselves. She nodded and Alberto gave her a broken-toothed grin.
‘We’re not going hunting for rhino,’ she continued in Afrikaans. Alberto had worked on the mines in South Africa and he translated from that language to Portuguese for the benefit of his underlings.
‘What, then?’ His voice was gravelly.
‘Men.’
Alberto raised his eyebrows. ‘We are not murderers, but we are regularly fired upon by anti-poaching patrols. Sometimes they kill us, sometimes we kill them. I don’t think you can pay us enough to murder in cold blood.’
