An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Allchurch asked from the passenger seat.

  Brand looked straight ahead. ‘I’m wondering why I’m still alive, specifically why the people who planned that mission your son was on let me live.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t know you were alive,’ Allchurch replied. ‘You said yourself you put your dog tags on Venter’s body and then disappeared from your old job and joined 32 Battalion.’

  ‘That’s true, but I contacted my superiors in Langley, over the head of the local station chief, a guy called Brett Martin, as soon as I could after surviving the jump from the Dakota. They told me Martin had filed a report on me and I’d been terminated from the agency, and that they were sending people to get me. They never did. I fought in 32 under my own name, and I haven’t tried to hide my identity since then. Hell, I’m easy to find – you contacted me through the website for my safari business and a couple of my cases have made the press here in Africa.’

  Allchurch exhaled. ‘So you think your immediate supervisor, this Martin fellow, was guilty, involved in the illegal smuggling of valuable goods out of Angola?’

  Brand shrugged. ‘Could be. I never really got on with Martin, and he pronounced me guilty without even hearing my side of the story. As it was, he died a few weeks later in a grenade attack on his office in Namibia. Maybe he fell foul of his business partner. I’ve thought that could have been the mystery guy on board the Dakota.’

  ‘Perhaps the trail to you ended when the Dakota crashed.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Brand instinctively patted his top left breast pocket for the pack of cigarettes that wasn’t there.

  They were quiet for a while as the rented Jeep ate up the kilometres. They passed through the regional towns of Okahandja and Otjiwarongo. Brand kept a close eye on his rear view mirror.

  Allchurch looked out to his left, over the bush-covered plains. Occasionally they passed a camelthorn tree, nurtured to maturity by water trapped in the drainage line on the side of the road. Tall barbed-wire fences marked the boundaries of game farms. ‘This country is beautiful. Wild. Do you think if there’s anyone left alive who knew what was on board the Dakota that they’ll come looking for it, now that the discovery of the body has been in the news?’

  ‘I’d bet my shirt on it, and that’s about all I’ve got at the moment.’ Brand glanced in the mirror yet again.

  Allchurch leaned over to Brand’s side of the car and looked at the dashboard. ‘Hey, I don’t want to sound like an old woman, but aren’t you travelling a bit too fast?’

  Brand glanced down and saw the speedometer needle creep above the one hundred and forty kilometre per hour mark. ‘Not a bit.’ He pushed his foot down a little harder and checked the mirror again.

  ‘What are you up to, Hudson?’ Allchurch asked, his voice raising an octave.

  ‘Sorry, don’t mean to alarm you.’ Brand moved his toe to the brake and the Jeep bled off speed until the needle was hovering around eighty. He looked in the mirror again. ‘There’s a town coming up, Outjo; nice little place. We’re going to stop there.’

  ‘All right,’ Matthew said, ‘and then you can tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Probably nothing.’

  Outjo had the feeling of a town trapped in time, somewhere around the mid-eighties, Hudson thought. There were a couple of cafes and curio shops to serve the tourist traffic on its way to and from Etosha, and delis, bakeries and supermarkets for the locals and surrounding farmers. It had a feeling of general orderliness. He’d passed through similar towns in the old days, but this part of the country had been spared the worst of the war, which was mostly fought in Owamboland, or further north in Angola. After being kicked out of his CIA liaison role in Angola he’d spent most of his time based in the far north of Namibia, in the Caprivi Strip area at Buffalo Base, 32 Battalion’s headquarters on the banks of the Okavango River. From there he and the Angolan soldiers under his command crossed the border into Angola on lightning-fast, hard-hitting raids. He was there for the last big battle of the war, at Cuito Cuanavale, where the South Africans, including his battalion, went head to head with the Cubans and their allies in a battle the likes of which the continent of Africa hadn’t seen since the Second World War. Brand still shuddered when he remembered the smell of blood, the rumble of tanks, the screech of artillery shells overhead and the terror of Cuban MiGs raining ordnance from above.

  Brand slowed, casting an eye over the shop fronts, then pulled into a service station. An attendant came over and Brand got out of the vehicle and opened the fuel cap.

  ‘Say, do you know where the Portuguese bakery is around here?’ he asked the attendant.

  ‘Yes, just down the road, take the first left and it is on your right.’

  ‘Much obliged.’ Brand paid the man, got back in and drove out of the service station.

  ‘We’re going the way we came,’ Allchurch said.

  ‘I need to visit a bakery.’

  ‘You’re hungry?’

  ‘I know the baker, an old friend.’

  Brand took the turn and saw the O Portuga Bakery on the right. He made a U-turn and pulled up outside it. Brand turned to Allchurch. ‘Wait in the car. I won’t be long. I’ll bring you a custard tart – this guy makes the best ones this side of Lisbon.’

  Inside there was an African woman serving and in the rear of the shop, seated at a wooden desk staring at a computer was an enormous, swarthy man. Brand thought the kitchen chair he was sitting on was in danger of collapsing at any minute.

  ‘Ola, Joao.’

  The man raised bushy grey eyebrows and looked over the top of the screen.

  ‘You never could keep your eyes off porn for long, could you, you disgusting bastard. Only difference now is you get it online instead of in those Scandinavian volleyball magazines.’

  The man made two fat fists and pushed them down on the desktop as he struggled to get up. His fierce scowl suddenly softened, though, and his mouth split into a beaming grin under his ashen Viva Zapata moustache.

  ‘Hudson Brand?’

  ‘The very same. How you been, Joao?’

  The man came around the counter and engulfed Brand in a bear hug. Brand felt his ribs giving way from his sternum. ‘My God, I can’t believe it’s you, after all this time, you useless Yankee prick.’

  ‘Let me go, you stink of garlic.’

  Joao dropped Brand then nearly winded him with a slap on the back. ‘Come out the back. We must drink brandy.’

  ‘No beer?’

  ‘Breakfast is over.’ Joao led Brand through the bakery, past hot ovens and a young man kneading dough. They emerged into a small courtyard with a home bar in one corner under a thatched roof. There was a bottle already on the table and Joao took a glass from behind the bar and half-filled it. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  Brand clinked glasses with him. ‘How’s the bakery business?’

  Joao shrugged. ‘It’s OK. People need bread. It’s better than the old days.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ Brand took a sip.

  Joao drank half his glass then narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you want, Hudson?’

  ‘I can’t just look up an old war buddy?’

  ‘I don’t see you for thirty years and you walk into my bakery. Shit always followed you, Hudson.’

  Brand didn’t have time for chit chat. ‘I need a piece.’

  ‘What makes you think I deal in guns?’

  ‘You always loved guns. Even if you’re not dealing, you’ll still have a collection stashed away somewhere.’

  The baker raised his bushy eyebrows again. ‘You going to kill someone?’

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that, but I’m going to be doing some digging into the old days. Some people aren’t going to like what I might find.’

  ‘CIA shit?’

  ‘Something like that.’ />
  ‘I like it here, Hudson. It’s a nice country – overly bureaucratic – but the SWAPO guys leave us in peace. I employ Angolans, illegals mostly, but the government turns a blind eye. I don’t want trouble.’

  Brand nodded. ‘I understand. Sell me something untraceable. No one will know it came from you.’

  Joao stared at him across the table for a few seconds and Hudson almost believed the old Portuguese army officer who he’d fought alongside in 32 Battalion really had gone completely legit. Joao had been ruthless in battle, but he was devoted to his Angolan foot-soldiers and Brand wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them had worked for him in the bakery. ‘Wait here.’

  Joao disappeared out the back gate of the courtyard, and after a few minutes returned and set a long green canvas safari bag down on the table with a loud clunk. He unzipped it.

  Brand whistled through his teeth. ‘Where the hell did you get an Uzi?’

  ‘You want paperwork and service history you’ve come to the wrong baker.’

  ‘Understood.’ Brand picked up the stubby Israeli submachine gun and pulled back the slide. It was clean and lightly oiled, in good condition. Also in the bag were a couple of nine-millimetre Glocks and a Russian-made Tokarev.

  Brand placed the Uzi to one side and checked out a Glock. ‘I’ll take this one, plus a couple of spare mags for each of them.’

  ‘Five hundred,’ Joao said.

  ‘Namibian dollars?’

  The other man laughed. ‘Funny guy. US dollars.’

  ‘For crying in a bucket, Joao, I’m probably not going to make that much money on this case.’

  Joao reached for the pistol. ‘Then give it back. I heard you were a private investigator. I thought you’d be licensed to carry your own gun.’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d need it in Namibia, I heard it was a peaceable country, and I had to leave South Africa in a hurry.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  Brand looked over his shoulder, through the bakery. He could just make out Allchurch, leaning against the Jeep and talking on his phone. ‘You remember how sometimes we’d be in the bush, in Angola, and everything would go quiet; the birds would stop singing and even the damn flies would quit buzzing?’

  Joao nodded.

  ‘I got it now.’

  The Portuguese ran a hand over his moustache. ‘OK, four hundred for the Glock and the Uzi, and I’ll toss in the ammo and some spare mags for free.’

  Brand pulled out his wallet and counted the cash. It almost tapped him out, but Allchurch seemed to have plenty of money. The two men shook hands and Joao wrapped a meaty arm around Hudson. ‘Stay safe, brother.’ He put the Uzi in an oversized shopping bag.

  Brand tucked the Glock into the waistband of his cargo pants and covered it with his shirt. He went out through the bakery and got into the Jeep.

  Allchurch closed his door. ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘Not bread.’

  They drove through Outjo and the C38 opened up ahead of them, long and straight. Four kilometres out of town Brand caught the glint of sunlight on a windscreen, off to his left down a gravelled farm road. As he flashed past the turnoff he saw a black BMW X5. He reached around to the small of his back and pulled out the Glock. Steering with his knees, he racked the pistol then placed it on the seat between his thighs.

  ‘What the hell is that for? Is that what you were buying in the bakery?’

  Brand focused on the rear view mirror. Allchurch looked over his shoulder. ‘Are we being followed? Is that what this is all about?’

  Brand floored the accelerator, pushing the speedometer up to one hundred and fifty. He glanced at Allchurch, whose face was looking pale. ‘He’s catching up to us,’ Brand said. ‘Open the bag.’

  ‘Shit. Who could it be?’ Allchurch pulled out the submachine gun. His eyes widened.

  Brand grimaced. ‘Could just be some local thug who tailed us out of the airport car park, maybe waiting for a good place to take us down.’

  ‘This is Namibia, not Johannesburg. These are the people from your past, aren’t they?’ Allchurch asked.

  Brand felt bad that the lawyer might become a target on account of his own past, but Allchurch was the one who’d dragged him to Namibia. ‘You knew this could get messy after your air force friend told you about what was going on with Gareth’s flight, and after you heard my story. You want out? I’ll turn around and outrun these guys and take you back to Joao, the baker. He’ll look after you until you can get a lift to Windhoek and fly back to Cape Town.’

  Allchurch looked over his shoulder again, then back at Hudson. ‘No. I’ve come here to find out what happened to Gareth. If whoever’s following us sees you as a threat then they know something. I’m in if you are.’

  ‘All right, then load a mag in the Uzi and cock it.’ The BMW was looming close in the mirror. ‘OK. We can’t outrun him, but we can out-drive him. Hold on.’

  ‘What?’

  Allchurch let out an involuntary scream as Hudson swerved off the tarred road onto the gravel verge. As the Jeep bled off speed the BMW shot past them. Hudson swung the wheel hard to the left and headed away from the highway and into the grassy veld studded with bushy blackthorn acacias. The two of them bucked in their seats as the Jeep bounced over the uneven terrain. The vehicle was all-wheel drive, but it wasn’t designed for serious off-roading, and hummocks and rocks scraped noisily on the undercarriage as Brand weaved between the stunted thorny trees.

  Hudson looked around and saw that the BMW had stopped and made a U-turn. The driver hurtled back to where they had left the road and pulled off onto the verge.

  ‘This is far enough. If we go further we might do some serious damage to this thing. Lie low and let me do the talking.’ Brand stopped the car in the shade of a tree and got out, the Glock in his hand. He took up position on the far side of the Jeep from where the BMW had stopped, about a hundred metres away.

  Allchurch ignored him and got out. He crouched beside Brand, cradling the Uzi. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

  Brand watched the other vehicle intently as he spoke. ‘This is a long shot for a pistol, but we’ve got some cover and they’re in the open.’

  The two front doors of the BMW opened simultaneously and two white men got out. The car was pointed towards Brand and the men were obscured from view behind the opened doors. ‘Stay right where you are and raise your hands where I can see them,’ Brand yelled.

  ‘You want to see our hands?’ the driver yelled.

  ‘You heard me, smart man.’ Brand had his pistol trained on the driver’s side door.

  ‘No problem.’

  Both men raised their arms at the same time, lightning fast. ‘Get down,’ Brand said to Allchurch as he squeezed off two quick shots then pushed the other man to the ground with a hand on his shoulder. A dozen bullets raked the Jeep, punching a line of holes in its silver bodywork.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  Brand moved to the rear of the SUV and popped off another two shots. He was answered with two fierce bursts of fire. ‘They’ve both got AK-47s.’

  ‘I thought you said we’d be out of their range,’ Allchurch said.

  ‘Of a pistol, yes, but not Russian assault rifles.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Brand yelled at the top of his voice.

  He was answered with two more bursts.

  Brand scooped up a handful of dirt, held it up and let it trickle through his palm.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Allchurch said.

  Brand nodded. ‘Checking the wind. It’s in our favour.’ He motioned with his left hand for Allchurch to lean back, then raised his right and shot a hole in the lower left-hand-side rear panel of the Jeep. Petrol jetted from the ruptured fuel tank in a fast, steady stream. Brand reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter he alway
s carried with him, even since he’d given up smoking. He ripped up a handful of dry grass, flicked the Zippo and held the flame to the kindling. ‘When this goes off, run for it. Head away from the road for a hundred metres or so then cut north, parallel to the road. I’ll be close behind you.’

  Brand risked a look around the edge of the Jeep and saw one of the men moving while his buddy covered him. The stationary gunman fired a burst which stitched the Jeep.

  ‘Ready?’ Brand said.

  Allchurch paused, looked into Brand’s eyes, then nodded. They both rose to a sprinter’s crouch and when Hudson tossed the burning grass into the pool of gasoline they both took off. As fast as they were, Brand felt the heat from the whoosh scorch the skin on his back through his safari shirt. ‘Run, Matthew!’

  Satisfied his client was not holding back, Brand peeled off to his right, sooner than Matthew, and cut a wide circle through the scrubby thorn trees back towards the road. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw heat haze rippling up through the air from the burning Jeep and fire sweeping through the grass and undergrowth at a rapid pace, towards the road.

  The gunmen were shouting to each other and had both now left their car. Brand saw one of them, through the rising curtain of smoke, sprinting back towards the parked BMW. It was exactly what Brand had been hoping for; the grass fire might not have been an inferno, but if it reached the car it would destroy it, leaving the hit men without wheels.

  Brand reached a cluster of head-height trees at the edge of the cleared grassy verge on the side of the highway. When the man who had gone to save the BMW broke from the bushveld Brand was ready for him, kneeling in an ambush position with his Glock extended, his left hand cupping his right. As soon as the man got to the driver’s door and stopped moving Brand fired. The Jeep, now engulfed by fire, exploded behind him, covering the noise of gunfire. His first shot punched a hole in the man’s chest, the second went through his throat. Brand was on his feet, running, before the gunman had hit the ground.