The Red Die

by Alex MacBeth

  “Great,” said Tomlinson, scouring the horizon for a car. Abdalla walked out of the room, round the fence and down the road. Tomlinson caught up with the solemn park ranger and decided it would be a good opportunity to learn more about him. But Abdalla was not the type for making small talk and they walked back mainly in silence, only occasionally exchanging a few comments about impala and antelope grazing patterns. When they reached HQ at Section 1, Tomlinson invited Abdalla into his shack for a drink. “Do you have the good shit from over there?” he asked. “Only the best,” said Tomlinson, pointing to a bottle of Glenmorangie whisky.

  They found little to talk about at first. The second whisky allowed for a détente between them. Abdalla was the son of a farmer from near Mount Mulanje in Malawi, but from the town of Milange on the Mozambican side of the border. He had grown up in a tight-knit Christian community, farming manioc and corn and looking after his eight brothers and sisters. His father worked for a Portuguese carpenter for years and then made enough money to start a smaller competing crafts workshop of his own.

  Abdalla had grown up with animals everywhere: elephants fleeing the war, lions running from scorched fields; snakes ever on the prowl. When he was six he had found a parakeet, rescued it and nurtured it back to life in a purpose-made home sculpted out of a shoebox. The parakeet had later died. Twenty years later his wife also died, leaving him a child. “I still have that shoe box,” said Abdalla. “And I have my boy.” The glint of a smile appeared on his face. It seemed propelled by a soul trying to break free of its chains.

  Abdalla had practically moved his son out of their home to accommodate the two dozen snakes, dogs, cats, bush-babies, squirrels and birds that he housed in small boxes, cages or zinc huts. Tomlinson found he liked Abdalla. He was sincere and genuine but at the same time he could see that something was disturbing the young park ranger. Since Tomlinson had arrived he had the feeling that Abdalla had wanted to tell him something. “Is everything okay?” Tomlinson asked. “Everything is fine,” said Abdalla. “I am just tired after a very long day.” Abdalla excused himself and walked off.

  “What did you mean when you said it is the humans we should be careful of, not the animals?” Tomlinson shouted after him. “Boo,” replied Abdalla and disappeared into the darkness. When Tomlinson awoke later that night he thought he’d heard voices in the distance followed by a loud noise. But his dreams had been so vivid since he had arrived and there were loud noises everywhere and quite often, so Tomlinson thought little of the disturbance. When he awoke, he made himself coffee and sipped it in the rocking chair on his porch. He watched a park ranger he hadn’t met yet being chased by an enraged warthog across the horizon. Tomlinson questioned the manner in which the ranger approached the animal. A note addressed to him lay on his porch. He opened it and read it with his instant coffee:

  “Dear Chris,

  Forgot to mention yesterday that Abdalla would be leaving. His replacement will be Karimu.

  Until soon.

  Courage.

  Director João”

  Why wouldn’t Abdalla have mentioned he was leaving? The note explained the ranger’s mood the night before, thought Tomlinson. Something had been bothering him. The new ranger had clothes that didn’t fit him and looked ill at ease. He looked as if he had been teleported from a bar in the city to a game park. The man took off his thorn-covered hat and bowed awkwardly in Tomlinson’s direction. Tomlinson raised his cup and acknowledged the stranger.

  “I’m Karimu,” said the awkward park ranger, stumbling over a baobab root to reach the edge of Tomlinson’s porch.

  “Chris,” said Tomlinson stretching out his hand and then withdrawing it after leaving it dangling. “So you are the new park ranger?”

  Tomlinson could sense his question had fallen on deaf ears. He tried again in Portuguese. “You work here?” said Tomlinson continuing in the language. The man nodded and walked off, falling over a dead log. Tomlinson watched the man leave. He had looked afraid, his eyes always firmly on the ground, as if he was about to encounter some unknown animal that would bite him. Tomlinson had also noticed that Karimu had no whistle, no walkie-talkie or binoculars, all standard issue for park rangers. And where was Abdalla? Was it to do with the argument Tomlinson thought he had heard the night before?

  He walked to Abdalla’s house and found the door wide open. Nobody was at home. Abdalla’s tailor-made shoe-box-bird-house sat in a corner, beside the ranger’s binoculars, uniform and stunt gun. Why would he have left these treasured possessions behind, thought Tomlinson? The house itself confirmed the sense that Abdalla had left in a hurry. There were two plates of uneaten food on the table and the window in the bedroom was open. Something wasn’t right and Tomlinson intended to find out what, after he’d stopped by Section 2.

  When they had visited the repopulation centre the day before with the director and his men, Tomlinson had felt that Abdalla had been trying to tell him something. “This is a good place to see the animals,” Abdalla had repeated.

  Tomlinson reached the pole after a twenty-minute hike in the rising sun. He saw a small python en route and made a note of the area to look for a cove later. A family of orange baboons followed him in the trees above his head, screeching at him as he walked on the narrow path surrounded by tall grass.

  He reached the pole. What had Abdalla meant? “From here everything about the place is clear,” the ranger had said. What was clear? Tomlinson looked around for clues. The pole was cemented into the sand, around 150 metres from the main building that served as a centre for repopulation archives and research. Besides the pole, there was nothing but red earth, air and sky. Tomlinson sat down and racked his brain. Why had Abdalla stressed the importance of the pole? Maybe Tomlinson was confused. Perhaps he had just meant this was a good spot to see the animals. But Abdalla knew the park too well to suggest a barren area in the future repopulation zone would be a good place to see animals. Tomlinson spotted a small mound of stones that looked out of place in the distance. He reached it and lifted a large rock that covered smaller ones and dug into the pile.

  Jackpot!

  Buried among the pile of stones was a scruffy notebook. Diario was written across the cover. Tomlinson looked around to check he was alone and turned the first page.

  August 17, 2011, Nampula Wildlife Reserve

  “Arrived in park on the chapa from Nampula at 7am. What a sight. Lost for words. Assuadi doesn’t much like it but housing conditions and pay are good. Too tired to write more.”

  August 18, 2011

  “First day at work. Really excited to see the park. Director dropped off my kit and Assuadi’s school uniform.” Tomlinson felt excited to find how well his Portuguese lessons had paid off as he read on through the early days of Abdalla’s job. He could feel the ranger’s enthusiasm leaping off the page. Every sighting of an elephant was described. Every monitoring trip was warmly anticipated. “Will check on the cheeky river residents tomorrow. Can’t lose them to the upstream Lurio!” Tomlinson turned the page.

  “Today I saw an elephant whose tusk had been cut over night and I feel like cutting down the park fence, ripping up the law and crying when we can’t protect these beasts from their foes.” There was a photo of Abdalla beside the dead elephant. Tomlinson noticed that most entries were from Abdalla’s first few months. Thereafter they became increasingly sporadic and more paranoid in tone.

  Abdalla had developed an obsession with Section 3. “I spent the night staking out Section 3 again last night for unusual behaviour. Still no sight of animals.” Tomlinson continued to flick through dozens of pages of entries, mainly mundane posts about elephant counts, feeding trips and family life. Entries about Section 3 increasingly dominated towards the end of the journal. “Saw two cars driving into Section 3 last night.” It was an entry that kept repeating itself. The animals were nowhere to be found. Abdallah had just been monitoring people in the end. He had become obsessed with Section 3, disregarding his daily duties to study the hig
hly secretive Animal Psychology Centre (APC). “I now eat my dinner alone spying on APC. Only humans ever come in. Where are the animals?” Tomlinson read on with intrigue. “Section 3 filled with men in suits again,” read an entry towards the end of Abdalla’s diary. Another desperate entry: “Still not seen an animal go in or out. More lorries bringing strange equipment in at night.”

  Tomlinson closed the diary and put it in his pocket. He didn’t believe Director João’s note about Abdalla “needing to suddenly leave.” Abdalla had been sent away because he had trespassed the boundaries of his job, sure, but he had also uncovered some uncomfortable truths at Section 3: ivory smuggling, illegal hunting, fur poaching, all were plausible, thought Tomlinson. Many of the animals in the park were worth millions on the open market. Abdalla himself had told Tomlinson he’d received no shortage of requests from Malaysian and Chinese companies for lion parts or ivory.

  He decided he would go to Section 3 that same night and find out what was going on. He noticed his legs and hands were shaking. He washed himself with a small bucket shower, throwing water everywhere as he dripped a few drops on himself. He packed some sandwiches, a bottle of water and his spotlight and drove off across the park in the jeep. The sun was setting and a handful of sickly elephants were grazing down near the Matibani River, the water of which was a shade of black. He drove on past Section 2, past the baobab where the road narrows and on for another ten or so minutes. He parked the car in the bush off the road at a safe distance and waited. Night settled over the park and Tomlinson saw the security lights go up over Section 3. But no cars. Nothing could be heard but the sound of generator engines burning and lights flickering.

  The place was empty. There was nothing strange about the appearance of Section 3, except its size. It was a huge fenced-off complex, with countless warehouses, offices, loading areas and machines. The whole place was desolate, except for a smattering of armed guards. Why had Abdalla’s suspicions been aroused? What had he seen here? A baboon swung through the trees hoo-hooing, causing a mango fruit to plummet to the ground with a bang. Tomlinson waved his torch around wildly before steering himself back onto the road. He walked on the narrow path back towards the car and just as he came off the road and turned off his lights, two cars, large Toyota Landcruisers, entered Section 3. Tomlinson saw Director João exit one of the cars, followed by his usual crew. He waited for them all to enter the rooms with loud generators before driving back via a quieter shortcut off the main road. Why was João making secret visits to Section 3 at night?

  Tomlinson arrived back at Section 1 and parked the Jeep outside his veranda. The light in his living room was on, yet he distinctly remembered having left it off. He grabbed his stun gun from his pocket and walked cautiously up the steps. Peeping through the window, he could see a stranger’s feet on the sofa. Tomlinson grabbed a heavy pole and entered his home.

  He stared at the child in surprise, attempting to soften the sight of a foreign man holding an iron pole over his head. The boy said nothing. He sat on the sofa with his rucksack on his lap, still dressed in his school uniform. Tomlinson felt that he’d seen the boy with Abdalla. “You’re Assuadi, aren’t you?”

  The boy nodded, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground, empty eyes, full of sadness. He looked shaken and had been crying. His trousers were stained with blood around his knees as if he had fallen. He put his hands over his large eyes and looked at Tomlinson. “You hid?” said the latter, deciphering the boy’s mime. “From what?” The boy pointed two fingers in a gun shape at Tomlinson and pulled the trigger. “Who?” Tomlinson asked in Portuguese. “Who got shot?”

  The boy stared down at the ground, reluctant to answer and then he whispered, “Daddy“

  “They killed Abdalla?” Tomlinson blurted out instinctively, barely able to believe it. The boy broke into tears and Tomlinson held him for a while until he fell asleep. Tomlinson closed the curtains and laid the boy on the sofa.

  A child’s life was at stake and Tomlinson knew he had to make the right move. If he kept the child at Section 1, whoever made Abdalla disappear would soon find him and the child and ‘immobilise’ them both. If he went to the police, they might contact the park before Tomlinson had a chance to explain. Tomlinson racked his brain for an answer. What should he do?

  If someone had killed Assuadi’s father they’d be after the boy, Tomlinson reasoned. Tomlinson would have to take the child somewhere safe, but where? He was tempted to just let the boy run but he knew that his conscience would never forgive him. Anyone at the Department for Children’s Welfare could contact the park and have the child put back into danger. Who could he trust? He had trusted Abdalla, but now Abdalla was gone. Could he call the Director? What if the Director was involved? And the police? The police are corrupt, right? Tomlinson didn’t know who to turn to.

  The only solution was to drive far enough away, he resolved. He would make sure no one saw him. He would leave a note of his own, saying he was going to Nampula to get stock. Instead he would drive down to the coast.

  Tomlinson was on the road before dawn, with Assuadi asleep in the back of the Jeep. He stuck to the main road for the first two hours. But at a roadblock he faced awkward questions about the boy and turned onto a quieter road.

  As he drove past the lush wild greenery peppered with haphazard cornfields and plots of cassava, he began to doubt himself. Did he think he was suddenly Jason Bourne? “Zoologists make for unlikely heroes,” his professor at Oxford had told him. At the roadblock, the only visible danger they had encountered so far, Tomlinson had barely been able to contain the truth, sweating while clinging to his poorly prefabricated lie. What if the boy was lying? What if Abdalla was okay and Assuadi had just wanted to get away? Yet there was something indisputable about the boy’s shock. Tomlinson had heard gunfire that night, he was certain of it now.

  Something was happening in Section 3. He would make a missing person’s report at the next police station, where he would tell them about Section 3 and Assuadi. If they arrested him, so be it. If the director came to know, then it would be destiny. Tomlinson was not cut out for a fugitive’s life.

  He lasted precisely six hours and twenty-two minutes before pulling up at the old comando in Mossuril. The charred remains of a burnt out office were being rewired while two carpenters were busy mending the roof. Tomlinson approached a young man overseeing the works and asked what was happening. He thought they said, “We had a fire last week. An explosion gutted the place, so we’re having to rebuild from scratch“. But that hardly made sense so he felt he might have misheard it. “That wire has to pass through that hole,” said Samora, directing João and the local electrician to move to the side. “Sorry, I’ll be with you shortly,” said Samora to Tomlinson, instructing the two men threading wire to reconsider yet another installation path. Tomlinson stepped into the Jeep Safari and drove on. He had wanted to tell the young officer everything but it didn’t seem wise to blow his cover when he had carefully taken time to hide and leave no traces. He had called the Director before the first road black in Namialo to say he would be away for the weekend, possibly longer. He had said he needed to collect the rest of his things from airfreight and visit a former colleague outside the city. That way he wouldn’t have to be seen or have any story confirmed if anyone became suspicious. The Director had given him three day’s leave.

  Tomlinson checked into his hotel and walked to a quiet spot on the beach. The boy hadn’t spoken except to identify his father. He had refused everything to eat except Cadbury’s Cashew & Coconut Chocolate. Tomlinson promptly bought what was available of it at the local shop and they sat in silence on the beach. Tomlinson played with the flakes of sand in his hand, whilst the boy ate the rapidly melting chocolate. Tomlinson let the sand flow out of his hand, hoping his fears would disappear with the tiny grains into the beach. “Are we going back to the park?” Assuadi whispered.

  Tomlinson looked out at the calm ocean and shook his head. “Not for a while.” The two strange
rs watched the tide approach in silence, surrounded by dancing crabs. Tomlinson decided he would contact his country’s Foreign Office and file a report about the suspicious activity at the reserve. He had done a brief internship at the St James Street centre of British soft power in his final year at Oxford. Occasionally, he still exchanged cricket news with the man who had hired him. The World Bank and the World Wild Reserve Foundation (WWRF) had donated a combined €2 million to fund the repopulation programme at the Nampula Wildlife Reserve and Tomlinson had seen no evidence of successful repopulation. He felt it was his duty to inform the project stakeholders, and, if need be, the media. As Tomlinson watched Assuadi grieve, he made a promise to himself that Abdalla’s death would not be in vain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Podolski sat at his desk listlessly flicking through his emails until one caught his eye.

  “Problem in Eldorado. Urgent review of strategy required.”

  Mason and Stock had a considerable portfolio of interests in Africa and the company had recently started investing in Mozambique. The asset was small compared to others in the company’s past, but the terms of the present contract – thanks to efforts made by Bizu The Fixer on the ground – had been irresistible. Mozambique was the company’s new frontier project, ‘Eldorado.’ Initial projections alone suggested the investment would generate eighty per cent of the company’s future profits within two years.