An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  Brand snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it, the SABC news and online.’ Brand, like a couple of the more astute journalists who had covered the seizure, had been intrigued by the discovery of so many horns at one time. There hadn’t been fourteen rhinoceros poached in the whole of Namibia in the last few years, so the horns had to have come from some other source. There had been speculation that they might have been transited out of South Africa, or perhaps from some other government stockpile. That had happened close to where Brand lived, near the Kruger Park; some horns had been stolen from the secure vault of the provincial parks board’s offices. ‘I’d be interested in talking to him about that.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Sonja said. She was reluctant, it seemed, to talk more about her former boyfriend.

  As with before, he knew not to push it. Brand stood. ‘Like you said, we should hit the sack.’

  She stayed sitting, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the cordon of light. ‘I saw movement out there, just now.’

  Brand followed her line of sight and saw the slope-shouldered bulk of the hyena as it loped into view and headed straight for the water.

  ‘I love these things,’ Sonja said.

  The hyena, in Brand’s experience as a safari guide, rarely made it to guests’ top ten animals though he, like Sonja, had a soft spot for them. ‘They live in a matriarchal society where the highest ranked male in a clan is still subservient to the lowest female in the pecking order. They’re extremely efficient predators. I’ve no idea why you might like hyenas.’

  Sonja looked up at him and for a moment he thought he’d overstepped the mark, but then her eyes softened and her grimace cracked. She stood. ‘I like you, Brand.’

  She stood and exited the hide to the right, away from the walkway that led there. Curious, Brand got up and followed her outside. He found her, standing in the dark, out of the floodlight’s reach, staring up at the sky.

  ‘The stars are amazing here. I’d forgotten how clear the sky is; I used to lie on my back for hours as a child just staring at them, imagining . . .’

  Brand stood next to her and looked up as well. ‘Imagining space travel? Alien civilisations?’

  ‘A country without war.’

  He looked at her upturned face. There was just enough light to illuminate her features. They were strong, angular almost, but not unattractive. Before, in her grief and dishevelment, she had seemed fragile, but now that she had regained a semblance of normality – even if that normality was the guise of a trained killer – he found her confidence and sense of purpose attractive. Arousing.

  Sonja lowered her gaze and looked at him, almost as if just noticing him. ‘It was close today, with the chopper.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘You’ve been there, on the front line, on the edge of life and death. In Angola?’

  ‘And elsewhere.’ It wasn’t the time for war stories, though, he realised. If she was only just noticing him, as a man, then this was the first chance he’d had to look at her eyes. He was a sucker for eyes. Hers were beautiful. ‘Damn close.’

  ‘Exciting, wasn’t it.’ Her voice was low. He glanced down, saw the rise and fall of her chest, her bush shirt stretched across so that he could see the button straining against the stitched hole.

  Sonja might, Brand thought briefly, kill him if he was misreading this, but at the same time he didn’t care. He took the half step needed to close with her, a jolt of adrenaline firing out from his heart to the rest of his body like a car being jump-started. No, he told himself. He checked himself. She was on the rebound, still grieving over Sam Chapman.

  Before he could move away her mouth was on his. It was more a collision than an embrace. Her lips were crushed against his and he felt her hands move up under his jacket, her nails, though bitten to the quick, digging hard into the muscles of his back through his shirt. He’d thought she had looked like a tormented feral animal when they’d met, but now she was like a lioness, snarling, biting, almost demanding as he felt her hands on his belt buckle. There was no doubt where this was headed now.

  He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the ground, and while his hands were off her she undid his zip. Brand took her in his arms and kissed her hard. She ground herself against him, one leg hooked around him, and he felt the heat of her. She was breathing hard as he undid the button on her shorts and slipped a hand inside. She breathed in his ear. ‘Yes. Now. Quickly.’

  Brand lowered Sonja to the ground, on his discarded jacket, still kissing her as he wrenched her shorts down and over her legs. They were in the shadows, but otherwise exposed. The thought of someone coming to the hide for a late-night stroll both worried and excited him. Sonja seemed not to care. He pulled back from her and she clutched at him, raking his arms, then paused when he produced his wallet and the emergency condom he always carried.

  She grinned, pure lust in her eyes. ‘Boy scout?’

  ‘Bad boy.’

  She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled herself back up to him as he fumbled with the foil wrapper and rolled on the latex sheath, one-handed. She reached for him, taking him in her hand, spreading her legs wide. Sonja guided him and grunted as he started to push. He held back but she grabbed him, harder, and pulled him into her. Brand needed no more encouragement and he was overcome by the primeval need to fuck, or to forget, or both.

  Sonja kept kissing him, her tongue matching his thrusts, drawing him into her, taking his face in both hands one instant then digging the fingers of both hands into the flesh of his bottom the next, drawing him deeper into her body. Any thought of discovery vanished; he was consumed by her eyes, by the noises she made, by the taste and smell of her.

  Her cries became quicker, shorter, higher-pitched, almost out of character with the steely controlled warrior he’d seen that day. ‘Fuck, yes,’ she said, too loud, and he smothered her mouth with his own. She bit him, on the lip, almost in protest at his attempt to silence her. He tasted blood and she sucked on the wound. Brand felt her muscles squeezing him and it was more than he could take.

  Sonja locked her legs behind him and drew him in, even deeper than before, as her whole body clenched around his. He shuddered and held the violent, passionate kiss with her as he felt her gasps.

  He was exhausted, and when the shaking had stopped and their heartbeats slowed a notch he rolled off her, landing heavily in the cool sand and grass. Sonja lay her head on his chest, her breath still coming in short, hot bursts.

  Brand put an arm around her, but she shrugged him off, not resentfully, but gently.

  ‘We need to get up before someone sees us,’ Sonja said.

  ‘Now you think of that?’

  Sonja found her shorts and pulled them on, lifting her hips off his jacket so she could zip and button up. She got to her feet and looked around, then reached out a hand to him and he clasped it. ‘Come on, up you get, old man.’

  ‘Hey, go easy on the “old”,’ he said, though he felt every one of his considerable years right now.

  When they were both standing he took her in his arms again and kissed her. She pulled back a little and looked up at him, then raised a finger to his lips. ‘Shush, no talking now. I wouldn’t know what to say.’

  ‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’ He bent and collected his jacket, shook it, then held it out to her.

  ‘No, thanks, I’m still warm.’

  He smiled. When they walked back to the hide, and the light, he could see that her cheeks were flushed, and it made her look better, happier, healthier. He was pleased. Brand felt the night air chill the sweat on his back and he shrugged on his jacket. It was still warm from her, and he liked the idea of keeping her close to him, feeling her, a little longer.

  She walked ahead of him, leading the way from the hide to the chalet, not bothering with a torch. When they got back the unit was dark, Matthew having turned in. Brand opened the doo
r and switched on the light. He wasn’t one to feel awkward around women, but he knew Sonja was calling the shots this time.

  Sonja went to her door, put her hand on the handle and turned to him. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Alone.’

  He nodded. ‘Fine.’

  He walked towards the door of the room he was sharing with Matthew, but Sonja moved across the small living area to stop him. She put a hand on his chest. ‘Hudson . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  She looked up at him, and he looked into those eyes that he’d just devoured. ‘Thank you.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘What happened just then; I don’t know what it was, but it can’t distract us from the mission.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  She stood up on her toes and he bent his head and kissed her.

  ‘Get some sleep.’

  She left him and went into her room. He watched her through the open door. He wanted to go in there and lie down again with her on the bed, but he knew he needed to let her be. She couldn’t be forced; she would either come back to him or not, but she was right – for Sonja at least, the mission would always come first.

  Chapter 24

  They drove hard through the long, hot day, Sonja at the wheel most of the way, and when Brand took over she used her down time to sleep. She didn’t feel the need to while away the hours with small talk.

  Sonja was keyed up for the mission ahead. Although she didn’t really know their enemy, there was no doubt that someone or some organisation was out to stop Brand and Allchurch finding the missing aircraft, and, by association, she was marked for assassination as well. At least that was how it seemed, but not everything was adding up.

  They had, true to her plan, been the first vehicle out of Namutoni Camp when the gates opened at six in the morning. Sonja had taken them through the park at the maximum legal speed – she didn’t want to get caught by rangers or traffic cops for speeding inside a protected reserve with a Land Rover full of assault rifles, pistols, hand grenades and ammunition. Their stops had been few and brief, only for the call of nature and refuelling.

  Sonja watched her rear view mirror and scanned the air for tails, but if there were more hit men out there, they hadn’t zeroed in on them yet. They would be careful next time, she reasoned. Brand had outgunned them on the road between Windhoek and Etosha and she had brought down their helicopter – Namibia was a small country with a low crime rate and incidences like these would eventually come to the attention of the local police. Sonja couldn’t call in the cops even if she wanted to. They were on their own, but she was happy with that. Brand was a good man.

  And that was a problem.

  Perhaps she was aware of her feelings because she had been sober the evening before, at the Namutoni waterhole. I like you, Brand, she had said to him. It was a statement of fact, and she was sure, or at least she hoped, that he had read nothing more into it, but something told her he had, and that she had meant more than the mere words expressed.

  It was crazy, she thought, as she glanced at him in her peripheral vision. She had only just met the man, and he had brought down a world of hurt on her – nearly got her killed in fact. Sonja reached for the map and flitted her eyes between the road and the paper.

  ‘Here, let me navigate,’ Brand said in that deep voice of his, just a trace of southern United States drawl still evident. He wasn’t handsome in the clean-cut, chiselled way that Sam had been, but he was easy on the eye, if a little weather-beaten. He was a man who had been through hell, just as she had, and survived, but was still able to wink and smile every now and then. She thought that in him she saw, perhaps, hope for herself. He’d alluded to losing a woman in the Angolan war. Not losing, she reminded herself, more like having your heart cut out.

  ‘I’m just looking for the next turnoff is all,’ she said to him, not meaning to sound as petulant as it came out.

  ‘I reckon it’s about ten kilometres from here. Have you been to this part of Namibia before?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. This is new to me.’

  ‘Amazing landscape, what with all these flat-topped mesas and valleys. It reminds me a little of Monument Valley.’

  Sonja checked the mirror. Still no one behind them, and Allchurch was sleeping in the back seat. Matthew’s supposed ally, Andre Horsman, was shaping up as their principal enemy and, in Sonja’s book, that made him her number one target. If he had harmed Emma in any way there would be no mercenary’s gift for him; he would die slowly and painfully.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Brand asked her.

  ‘Killing people.’

  He chuckled, but she silenced him with a glare. ‘Lighten up.’

  She was offended. ‘Lighten up? You’re the one with the contract out on you – you and Matthew.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said.

  Brand had a sparse way of talking, as if he were a fisherman casting out a line, waiting for her to bite. ‘Thinking about what?’

  ‘If Horsman’s the Mister Big of this operation, I can understand him wanting to rub out me and Matthew. We both know almost as much about the missing aircraft as he does, and if he’s got a line on it, he wants us out of the way.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. He was stating the obvious.

  ‘But what about you? Why would he want to kill you as well? The guy you shot said he was told to wipe out everyone at the dig site, right?’

  Sonja nodded. ‘A vague order. What if we’d been escorted there by national parks officials or police? Would he have killed them as well?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Brand said. ‘I think that guy Viljoen might have kept something back.’

  Sonja thought about what Brand was saying. If he was right, if the gunman, Viljoen, had been told specifically to kill her, then there was more to this than met the eye. It also meant she had fucked up by not interrogating him in a more effective manner, and perhaps by killing him prematurely. ‘But why me?’

  In the back of the Land Rover, Matthew Allchurch awoke. ‘Sorry, was I snoring? Where are we?’

  Sonja checked the pastor’s satellite navigation device. ‘Close, ten minutes away from Palmwag Lodge.’

  ‘OK,’ Allchurch said.

  ‘Say,’ Brand said, looking over his shoulder, ‘your pal Horsman – you said he was into import-export.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. He brings in electronics from Asia, exports some South African specialty food products. There are South African shops around the world thanks to the diaspora.’

  ‘What part of Asia? Wouldn’t include Vietnam by any chance, would it?’

  Allchurch rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, I think so. I remember him talking about his last trip to the Orient; he went to Thailand and I’m pretty sure he said he was going to Ho Chi Minh City, or that he had been there.’

  Brand looked at Sonja. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘I am,’ she said. Brand clearly didn’t believe in coincidences, and neither did she.

  ‘You haven’t visited Vietnam lately, have you, Sonja?’

  Brand was teasing her, she thought, or perhaps just fishing. ‘Where I’ve been is none of your business, Brand.’

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Well, a friend of mine in the South African National Parks criminal investigation services told me a certain Vietnamese kingpin in the rhino trade had been assassinated recently.’

  ‘That so?’ Sonja tightened her grip on the Land Rover’s steering wheel. She checked the sat nav.

  ‘Yup. He asked me if I had any idea who might have been responsible. You know, people sometimes talk, especially people in the South African ex-military world, about taking the law into their own hands. Crime’s bad in SA, but the whole rhino poaching thing really seems to bring out the vigilante side in some folks.
’

  Sonja gritted her teeth. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘From what I read in an article by that author and journalist, Ross Coonan, the guy in Vietnam was probably going to be the end user of the rhino horn that was taken the night your husband was killed.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘That same Ross Coonan was also killed in Vietnam, same time as the kingpin.’

  Sonja was seething inside. The fact was that she did feel guilty about Coonan’s death, even though she told herself, time and time again, that she had given Ross the chance to pull out, several times. She thought about what Brand was saying. If Horsman was involved with the rhino horn trade then maybe his partners in Vietnam had called on him to take out a hit on her. That, however, would assume someone had already tracked her down. She had entered Namibia quietly and illegally so she didn’t see how that was possible, but another thought crossed her mind. If she was a target then so, too, was Emma; perhaps someone had located her daughter and knew that Sonja would come to Emma’s rescue if something happened to her.

  ‘You think they’re still after us?’ Brand asked her, breaking into her thoughts.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  Brand nodded. ‘I would. But hey, they must be running short of manpower now; we’ve taken out four of their guys.’

  ‘And a helicopter.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, and a helicopter.’

  ‘If this is a war, Brand, it’s only just beginning.’

  ‘Yup.’

  The GPS announced they were arriving at their destination, Palmwag Lodge, on the edge of the Palmwag Conservancy.

  They turned off the main gravel road and stopped at a thatch-roofed access gate, where they signed in.

  ‘What is this area?’ Allchurch asked from the back.

  ‘It’s a wildlife conservancy,’ Brand told him. ‘Back in the day this was all cattle land, but the Namibian government took it over and set it aside for wildlife. The local communities around the conservancy benefit from tourism here, and it’s a sanctuary for endangered animals such as the desert rhino, desert elephant and the desert lion.’