An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  Sonja was feeling good, and at the moment the realisation dawned on her the guilt pounced, like a waiting predator. She should have been here with Sam and Emma. The dying faces of the Vietnamese she had killed flashed into her vision and she had to grip the steering wheel tightly to stop the tremor from taking over her body.

  ‘Get a fucking grip, Kurtz,’ she said aloud, and lifted a hand off the wheel and smashed it back down.

  She exhaled. Ahead, Brand had slowed, and Sonja used the simple process of lifting her foot from the accelerator and changing down through the gears to bring her back to the here and now. What is he stopping for? I want to see my daughter.

  A brown arm poked out of the driver’s side and Brand waved her forward. She checked behind her and eased the Landy to the right, so that she pulled up beside him. Instantly she saw her, a lioness, her huge muscles expanding and contracting as she slunk across the road. Behind her dawdled four tiny cubs. One stopped in the middle of the road and stared straight up at Sonja. The little cat’s golden eyes found a chink in the scar tissue around her heart. She sighed. ‘Go on, move along.’ As if heeding her command the cub ran off, desperate to catch up with its mother.

  The next two little ones played a game designed by mother nature to teach them to hunt: one tackled the other on the road and the cub on the receiving end, a brother perhaps, slapped back with a paw that would one day be the size of a dessert plate. The final cub squeaked and joined in the play chase briefly before they all caught up with their mother, the little ones immediately swallowed by the long grass. Sonja watched the lioness’s shoulders rippling under fur the same golden colour as the environment she hunted in. Perfect killer, perfect mother. At least I got one out of two right, Sonja thought with no false modesty.

  Perhaps inspired by the lion sighting Brand later took a turnoff to the left, towards Okerfontein. Sonja grimaced. ‘Bloody sightseeing.’ The loop road would add time and distance to their drive. Sonja’s impatience, however, softened when they came across a black rhinoceros. She thought again of Stirling Smith. Sonja had been hard on him, perhaps no harder than he deserved, but maybe she ought not to hold grudges for so long. Stirling’s heart was in the right place, helping to conserve endangered desert rhino.

  What, she wondered, would her life have been like if she had stayed with Stirling and lived out her days as his partner? They would probably have managed a string of safari camps and, one day, sick of pampering spoiled rich foreign tourists, given it all up for the seclusion of a conservation job, living in the middle of nowhere on canned baked beans and two-minute noodles.

  Pah. No, she had made the right decision, even though it had cost her the love of a good man and a large chunk of her soul. Sonja’s had been a life lived to the fullest. She had been a good soldier and a better contractor – a mercenary, Stirling had called her. She didn’t like the word; it had Rambo connotations. She was a professional, most often protecting rather than shooting, but when she had to use the tools of her job, be it an American-made M4 or a trusty Soviet Kalashnikov, she did so with professionalism and skill. She had nothing to cry over, but the bodies and the wounds she had seen in her life had left her a different person, not a better one.

  With Sam she had hit the jackpot; he’d been funny, sensitive, rich, and a wildlife lover. Sonja thought about Hudson Brand in the vehicle ahead of her. He was attractive, clearly loved Africa’s wildlife – with the zealot of a convert as Sam had – yet there was more to him. There was a hardness in those dark eyes, a reflection of her own. He knew what it was like to fire a rifle in anger, to see comrades fall, and to wake in the middle of the night with the same tortured dreams she had.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked the empty interior of her dusty Land Rover. ‘And where are you taking me?’

  They followed the edge of the pan for a while then returned to the main wide road that led to Namutoni Camp. Sonja remembered it from her childhood, the whitewashed German colonial fort like something out of Beau Geste, the neatly manicured lawns and its oasis-like swimming pool. She followed the men into the camp and got out with them at reception, grateful to stretch her legs.

  ‘How about those lions?’ Brand said.

  ‘How about my daughter?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m just going to check the directions with the people here at reception.’

  Brand went inside. Matthew Allchurch sat in their borrowed truck, with the passenger-side door open. Sonja went to him. ‘What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to find your son’s body?’

  He looked up at her, blinking in the strong Namibian sunlight. ‘You’re nothing if not direct.’

  ‘I try not to waste time with small talk.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, cradling his bandaged hand in his good one, ‘I suppose you’re right. Also, I want to know what he was doing on his last flight, and why.’

  ‘You suspect he was doing something illegal, perhaps immoral?’

  Allchurch gritted his teeth, perhaps in pain, perhaps in annoyance at her inference. Either way she didn’t care. ‘I know my son. He wouldn’t deliberately break the law, nor the conventions of warfare.’

  She scoffed. ‘You’d be surprised what men are capable of in wartime. “I was only following orders” is an excuse to unleash the barbarian that lives within.’

  ‘What about you?’ he asked, seeming to gain a moment of satisfaction, or confidence, in turning the tables on her. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never done something you regretted?’

  Sonja shrugged. She could see the faces of many, not all, of the men she had killed, and a female suicide bomber in Iraq, into whose head she had put four bullets before the woman had time to press the detonator. ‘I sleep all right.’

  ‘Not from what I heard last night.’

  ‘Touché,’ she said. ‘I hope you find your son, and find out that he was a good man, but be prepared for the worst.’

  He licked his lips and reached for a water bottle. ‘Thank you.’

  Brand came out of the office and strode across to them, quickly.

  ‘Found out where they are?’ Sonja asked.

  ‘No. They’re gone.’

  Chapter 20

  Sonja Kurtz stood by the excavated grave in the middle of the grassy plain with her hands on her hips, feet apart, and death in her eyes. ‘Don’t just stand there daydreaming, we need to get moving.’

  Brand was beginning to regret bringing her along. He didn’t want to have to wrangle with this wildcat now that she was angry. He looked around, trying to remember that night nearly thirty years ago when he had nearly died.

  There had been a full moon, and all he recalled was the flatness of the landscape. The Andoni Plain hadn’t changed any since then. He remembered walking, the shock making him shiver, his wounds bleeding, until he collapsed by the main road several hours later.

  ‘Brand, are you listening to me?’

  He ignored her, although he knew she was right; standing here was not helping. He looked again around the site, hoping fresh clues might jump out at him, but his mind was too full of the past and how close he’d come to death in that bizarre fall through the sky.

  Kurtz was a good tracker, as it turned out. She’d talked briefly of spending part of her childhood in the bush in Botswana, and she must have learned a thing or two then. She had already identified the shoe prints of six people, five men and a woman – her daughter.

  ‘Emma told me in a message there was a young African man working with her on the dig, and her supervisor, a Professor Sutton. She also mentioned meeting a lion researcher, another man. Two others, men not wearing boots or takkies like the other four, were also here.’

  Brand shook himself out of his reverie and looked at Matthew Allchurch. ‘Any idea who else would be interested in the discovery of this body?’

  ‘Police maybe?’

  ‘No sign of them here.’ Sonja cast about, still
scanning the sandy soil. ‘So who are our two mystery men?’

  Allchurch took out his phone and inspected the screen. ‘No signal here.’

  ‘Who were you going to call?’ Sonja asked him.

  ‘Horsman?’ Brand asked.

  Allchurch nodded.

  ‘Who’s Horsman?’ Sonja asked. Hudson filled her in.

  ‘He’s as obsessed with finding Gareth’s aircraft as I am,’ Matthew said.

  Sonja looked down at the ground then up at Matthew. ‘Is he well off?’

  ‘Very. Import-export business and a big share portfolio. He lives in a mansion in Constantia.’

  ‘Likes his shoes?’ Sonja asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact he does. He has them hand-made somewhere in Italy.’

  ‘Wears loafers, stands about five-ten or five-eleven?’

  ‘Yes, I’d say he’s a shade under six foot.’

  ‘He was here,’ Sonja said. ‘Question is, where did he go, with my daughter and the others?’

  ‘I only saw him the day before yesterday,’ Allchurch said, ‘in Cape Town. I had a feeling he might try to find Gareth’s aircraft, though he said nothing to me about flying up here.’

  ‘He must have caught a flight earlier than ours,’ Brand said.

  Allchurch shook his head. ‘No, he’s got his own aircraft.’

  Sonja looked around again. ‘Well, he didn’t land here.’

  ‘Ondangwa,’ Brand said. ‘It’s not far.’

  Sonja nodded. ‘I know it. They will have his flight plan. Who’s the other guy, his private pilot?’

  ‘No,’ Matthew said. ‘He’s a qualified pilot and he flies himself, but he often travels with his business partner, his nephew, a guy called Sebastian. They’re like father and son.’

  ‘Who wears dressy riding boots, like those Australian R.M. Williams?’ asked Sonja.

  Allchurch thought a moment. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How the heck did you pick those tracks?’ Brand asked Sonja.

  ‘Sam had them; he did a documentary in Australia years ago. He loved those boots.’

  Brand rubbed his jaw with his thumb and forefinger and saw Sonja look to the horizon. Time to move on. ‘We’re jumping to a lot of conclusions here, folks, like that Horsman has taken everyone from the dig on a joy flight.’

  ‘To search for Gareth’s Dakota,’ Allchurch said.

  ‘I don’t care where they’ve gone, or how,’ Sonja said. ‘I’m going to find my daughter.’ She marched to the Land Rover and was about to get in when she stopped and cocked an ear. ‘Hear that?’

  Brand’s hearing was good; it had to be living as a trails guide leading walking safaris in the African bush, but Kurtz’s was better. It took him a couple more seconds. ‘Chopper.’

  ‘I don’t hear anything,’ Matthew said.

  Sonja shielded her eyes with her right hand and looked east, then north. ‘It’s not coming from inside the park. Look, there it is.’

  Brand caught sight of the distant speck. Sonja started to open the door of her truck, but stopped. Brand kept his eye on the aircraft. It was coming towards them low and fast. He thought of the ambush on the roadside, and the men who had tried to kill them. ‘Get in your vehicle and drive, as fast as you can,’ he said to Sonja.

  ‘Why? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘Just drive.’ Brand ushered Allchurch into Joao’s Isuzu bakkie. The older man had gone pale again.

  ‘You don’t think it’s the same people, do you?’ Allchurch said, the panic raising the pitch of his voice.

  ‘Same people as who?’ Sonja persisted.

  Brand opened the driver’s door and got in. ‘People who tried to kill us yesterday. Drive!’

  Brand turned on the ignition and put the bakkie in gear. ‘Dammit!’ Kurtz had reached into her vehicle and was now standing with what looked like a nine-millimetre pistol in her hand. He took out the Uzi the Portuguese baker had given him and placed it in his lap.

  ‘Make me a smokescreen,’ she yelled to him.

  Brand knew the smartest course of action might be to drive as fast as he could back to the national park’s gate. But Kurtz was just standing there, like an ice maiden. ‘For crying in a bucket,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Allchurch asked. ‘Let’s just get the hell out of here.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Brand dropped the clutch and put his foot flat to the floor on the accelerator. As he did so he turned the wheel hard to the right. The Isuzu began to spin in circles, the rear sliding in the loose sandy ground. Immediately a tornado of dust began to rise into the clear blue sky, obscuring both vehicles. Through the dust, though, Brand caught a glimpse of Sonja doing something at the front of the Land Rover, then climbing up onto the four-by-four’s roof.

  ‘She’s crazy,’ Brand said.

  Brand looked out of the window and up into the sky. He could see the helicopter hovering, and sitting in the door was a man with a rifle. Brand kept the smokescreen going, hoping Kurtz knew what she was doing. Above the whine of the vehicle’s engine he heard the pop-pop of gunshots.

  Matthew was gripping the arm rest of the passenger-side door, a look of sheer terror on his face. ‘I don’t want to get shot again!’

  ‘Me neither,’ Brand said. A bullet tore through the roof of the Isuzu. Matthew screamed. Lucky shot, Brand thought, but it would only be a matter of time before their luck ran out. There was no cover for kilometres around them and if they tried to make a run for it the helicopter would simply track them until the gunman hit both of them through the roof. Brand looked around him but couldn’t see Kurtz through the dust storm he had created. He had no idea what she was up to. ‘I’ve got to take a shot at these guys and we need cover.’

  Brand stopped the Isuzu and, before their natural smokescreen could settle, he ordered Allchurch out. ‘Get underneath. You’ll be safer there. It’ll be harder for the bullets to penetrate.’

  Allchurch yelped with pain as he bumped his injured hand while shimmying under the vehicle. Brand made sure the other man was safely under and was about to start sliding himself under when he saw a flash of headlights. Sonja jumped down out of her Land Rover. ‘Get under my truck, now.’

  ‘Why?’ Brand asked.

  ‘Just shut up and do as I say.’

  Brand wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, but another speculative burst of fire through the dust brought this argument rapidly to a head. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Draw their fire, make them use up some of their ammo.’

  ‘No way,’ he said. ‘Stay with us, we’ll make a stand.’

  ‘General Custer made one of those and went down in history as a loser. Be ready to open fire on the chopper from the driver’s side of the Landy. Both of you stay on that side under the vehicle. Got it?’

  Brand nodded. Sonja strode through the settling dust to the Isuzu, climbed in and started the engine. Matthew squealed from underneath, but Sonja simply drove off, leaving him ashen, his eyes wide in his face through a mask of dust. ‘Driver’s side!’ she yelled out the window.

  Brand grabbed him by the arm and half lifted, half dragged him to the Land Rover. ‘Come on. Let’s do as she says.’

  ‘Like we have a choice,’ Allchurch coughed.

  As the two of them crawled under the bigger four-by-four Brand noticed for the first time a coil of rope and metal cable stuffed under the nose of the vehicle. He had no idea what Sonja had been up to while he had been making the dust screen, but he had a feeling he was about to find out – if she survived the next five minutes.

  From his vantage point under the driver’s seat he could see the bakkie bouncing across the plain at high speed, lurching as it hit uneven ground. Like a lion or a leopard the helicopter pilot and gunman had been unable to resist the lure of running prey. The chopper had swung away from the dissipating c
loud and was now bearing down on the Isuzu.

  ‘Gutsy lady,’ Allchurch said. He was huddled so close to Brand they were almost touching.

  ‘Yup.’ Brand saw the line of bullets bringing up fountains of dust on either side of the Isuzu as Sonja zigzagged. It would only be a matter of time, he realised, before the gunman and the pilot steadied themselves, anticipated her next swerve, and put a bullet through the engine, or Sonja herself.

  ‘She’s coming back,’ Allchurch said, and Brand could see he was right. Sonja tracked a wide arc around the plain and began heading towards them. ‘I thought she was leading them away from us.’

  The opposite, Brand realised. He craned his neck and watched the Isuzu flash past the front of the Land Rover, about fifty metres away. Allchurch rolled over behind him to follow Sonja’s high-speed progress. The chatter of gunfire was almost unceasing, stopping only to allow the gunman to reload.

  About thirty rounds, Brand counted. He reckoned it was a military assault rifle, probably, like the two goons who had taken them on previously had used. Someone did not want him and Allchurch in Namibia.

  Brand continued counting bullets while Matthew gave a running commentary. ‘She’s heading away from us again,’ Matthew said, but the note of his relief in his voice didn’t last long. ‘Oh, no, she’s turning, coming towards us now on the other side.’

  Brand checked that the Uzi was cocked and ready.

  ‘My God, Hudson, she’s coming right for us!’

  ‘Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine,’ Brand counted as the bullets pinged into the Isuzu and thudded into the ground closer and closer to their hiding place.

  ‘Shit, she’s going to hit us!’ Brand felt Allchurch snuggle into his back, and he, too, braced for impact.

  With a bang and a screech of metal the Isuzu T-boned the Land Rover, hitting it at right angles. Allchurch screamed. Brand coughed dust. The collision would have looked serious from the air, as it had from Matthew’s point of view, but Sonja had hit the brakes at the last minute. Another bullet clanged into the stricken bakkie. Brand saw the shadow of the helicopter pass over them, and dust and grit from the rotors’ downwash sprayed in under the Land Rover. The pilot was flying low.