An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  Sebastian was the danger now, but when Emma tried to take aim at him she saw that Natangwe was in the way, blocking her shot. Natangwe launched himself into the Land Cruiser through the open rear door.

  A gun fired and Natangwe toppled backwards out of the Toyota. Alex was starting to stand, but now he risked getting in the way of Emma’s shot. ‘Get down, Alex!’

  She saw him look back at her and realise that she would be able to get the first shot off. He dived forward in the sand, holding the AK up so it was in front of him when he hit the deck.

  Emma could see Sebastian clearly. He was shifting his aim towards her. God, I thought I wanted him. Emma squeezed the trigger. There was a noise like two claps of thunder and then everything went black.

  Chapter 30

  ‘Now that’s a truck,’ Stirling Smith said as they pulled up behind a converted Mercedes Unimog four-wheel drive lorry fitted with a camper on its back. A young couple had flagged them down. They looked relieved as they walked towards the Land Rover.

  ‘Let me handle this,’ Sonja said. ‘We need that truck.’

  ‘OK.’

  Ten kilometres short of the point where Sonja’s Uncle Udo had picked up the injured airman the pastor’s Land Rover, being driven by Brand ahead of them, had started to slow down. Brand put on his hazard lights and pulled over to the left and stopped.

  Sonja stopped behind him and got out. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Brand popped the bonnet. ‘It’s gone into “limp home” mode and the temperature gauge just red-lined.’

  Sonja lifted the bonnet and saw the problem immediately. A fine jet of coolant was escaping from a hose. Stirling and Brand joined her and she pointed out the problem. ‘It must have been nicked by a bullet fragment or some bodywork when the guy in the chopper was strafing us.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘Keep the radiator water reservoir topped up and try to find a replacement.’

  ‘Out here?’

  Stirling’s scepticism had been well founded, and Sonja was just as surprised and relieved as he was when they saw the Unimog, although it appeared this vehicle was in trouble as well.

  ‘Hello,’ said the young man by the Unimog. He was sunburnt, wearing a headscarf instead of a broad-brimmed sunhat, and shorts and a tie-dyed T-shirt. His female partner wore harem pants and a tank top. ‘I am sorry, my English is not so perfect.’

  ‘Sprechen Sie Deutsch?’ Sonja asked.

  ‘Ja, ja,’ he said with relief.

  Sonja spoke with the man for a couple of minutes in German, with his girlfriend or wife, hands on hips, interrupting every now and then, unable to control her anger.

  Brand, who had been behind them in the slow-moving Land Rover caught up and lowered his window. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘They’ve run out of diesel,’ Sonja said.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Brand asked.

  ‘Check out the girlfriend,’ Sonja said out of the side of her mouth. ‘She’s been telling him to fill up since Swakopmund.’ The woman continued to berate her partner in German.

  ‘I’d laugh if that kind of mistake wasn’t so serious out here. Too bad. We could have used that truck.’

  ‘We’re taking it,’ Sonja said.

  In German, she told the young man that she wanted to arrange a swap, her Land Rover for his Unimog. She would use the spare jerry cans on the Land Rover and Stirling’s Amarok to put fuel in the truck’s tank and the young couple would take the Land Rover back to Swakopmund, slowly, topping up the radiator as they went, and Sonja would return the Unimog when she was finished with it.

  The young man erupted in an angry outburst, his girlfriend following suit.

  ‘I take it that didn’t go down too well?’ Brand said when the red-faced couple had exhausted themselves.

  Sonja looked at him and raised her eyebrows. ‘It was always going to come to this.’ She reached behind her, pulled her pistol from her pants and pointed it at the young man. In German, she told the couple to offload their personal valuables from the truck.

  The woman started wailing and Sonja tried to soothe her. ‘Stirling, Hudson, get the fuel cans down and tip the diesel into the Unimog’s tank.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’ Brand said.

  Sonja kept an eye on the couple as they unloaded their belongings from the Unimog and stacked them near the Land Rover. The woman was still sobbing, and Sonja assured her that as long as they did what she asked no one would be hurt and she would bring their truck back to them in one piece. She mentioned, too, that she was on a mission to rescue her daughter.

  The woman was angry, and told Sonja through her tears that their life savings had gone into the campervan. She swore she would contact the police as soon as she got to Swakopmund.

  ‘Get on the ground, face down,’ Sonja ordered the couple.

  ‘Are you going to kill us?’ the man asked.

  ‘No, not unless you’re stupid. Hands on the back of your heads.’

  When they had complied Sonja put her pistol back in her shorts and took out her notebook. She wrote the name, address and phone number of her Aunt Ursula on a piece of paper, ripped it out and knelt and forced it into the young man’s hands.

  ‘Stand up. That’s the details of my aunt in Swakopmund. Unlike me, she’s nice. She’ll put you up if you tell her what happened. She won’t be surprised, but she’ll confirm I’m borrowing your truck to rescue my daughter. Drive the Land Rover slowly, and keep an eye on the temperature gauge. There’s enough fuel in the tank to get you to Henties Bay at least, if not Swakopmund. You can fill up there.’

  The men had finished refuelling the truck and Matthew Allchurch, with his one good hand, had dragged their personal equipment and bag of weapons from the Land Rover. The other two loaded the Unimog and Sonja climbed up into the cab. It took a few goes to start the engine, with Brand under the bonnet hand-priming the empty fuel system, but eventually the big engine coughed to life with a belch of black smoke.

  ‘Go see my aunt. She’ll take care of you until I get back,’ Sonja called as she left the Unimog and got into the Amarok with Stirling. Brand and Allchurch climbed up into the camper.

  Sonja watched the countdown of kilometres until they reached the point mentioned in her uncle’s diary. They stopped. It was an empty stretch of road flanked by the angry Atlantic on the left and a windswept sandy plain rising to dunes studded with dry grass to her right.

  She had no way of knowing if Udo’s coordinates had been correct – it must have been little more than a guess on his part in any case – but she had nothing else to go on. Sonja turned ninety degrees to the right and watched the GPS to confirm she was heading due east. The survivor of the Dakota crash would have headed due west to the coast, so this was the best she could do. Stirling gunned the Amarok’s engine and released the clutch.

  In the wing mirror she could see Brand and Allchurch turn off the road and follow them. She had no idea how far inland the aircraft would have crashed. Also, she was acutely aware that if Uncle Udo had been slightly off in his calculations they might miss the crash site completely, even though they might pass very close to it.

  As they approached the slope of the first dune Stirling stopped and engaged the low-range setting on the gearbox. He took off in second, building up speed and momentum before the gradient increased. To her satisfaction the Amarok ploughed on, taking the incline in its stride. However, when they crested the top of the dune she saw it was just the first of a seemingly unending series of sand ridges that stretched to the horizon and probably beyond.

  They stopped an hour later. It was becoming oppressively hot. Sonja got out of the truck and walked back to the Unimog, where Brand had also alighted and was spreading a map out on the sand.

  Brand pointed at a spot on the map. ‘I put us here.’

  Sonja agreed, but knowing where t
hey were didn’t bring them any closer to finding Emma. ‘About fifteen kilometres inland. That’s still a long walk for a wounded man, through this kind of country.’

  Sonja lifted the binoculars hanging around her neck to her eyes. The landscape around her was beyond harsh; it was cruel. It looked like nothing could survive here, though Sonja knew from the lessons of her youth that these empty sands did contain life, and that myriad small creatures gleaned enough water from the freezing mists that rolled in each evening to survive. Emma could be alive out here somewhere; she must be alive.

  As well as seeing nothing she could hear nothing except the susurration of the wind shifting the sand.

  ‘With the fuel we put into the Unimog I estimate we can make it as far as Wilfriedstein,’ Brand said, drawing her attention back to the map. ‘I led a safari there once, in search of the desert elephants. There’s fuel there and a mock castle that was built by a crazy German guy as his farmhouse years ago; it’s been turned into a bed and breakfast. It’s a good place to stay.’

  ‘If we don’t find Emma and the others we can refuel there and resume the search.’

  ‘Perhaps we can organise an air search?’ Stirling suggested. When Sonja didn’t reply, he went on, ‘Sonn, we can’t go on covering things up from the police.’

  Sonja frowned. The fact that he was right didn’t stop him from irking her. She knew that the smart thing, the ‘normal’ thing to do would be to go to the Namibian police and explain her fears to them, based on the attacks that had been made on her and the others. However, given her record in the country, Sonja suspected she would probably be arrested on the spot.

  ‘We’d have to convince them Emma was in trouble in any case,’ Brand said, ‘and who knows if they’d even have a chopper or an aircraft available to mount a search. Best we deal with this ourselves.’

  ‘Brand’s right,’ Sonja said. ‘We have to keep looking. Mount up and let’s –’

  A sharp sound like a bullwhip being cracked made Sonja stop and put her hand up. There was nothing in nature in this environment that made that sound.

  ‘What was that?’ Allchurch began.

  ‘Quiet!’ Sonja strained to hear another sound, and her heart lurched when it came. Three shots, in rapid succession. She pointed. ‘That way. Slightly northeast.’

  Brand nodded. ‘Agreed. Let’s get there, now.’

  ‘I need a gun,’ Matthew said.

  Sonja spared him a brief appraisal, then nodded her head. ‘On the move.’

  Sonja went to the driver’s side of Stirling’s vehicle. ‘Stirling, get in the back and open the green bag. Get the weapons ready.’

  Stirling nodded and Sonja got in the front, started the engine, and swung in an arc towards where the sound had come from. She cared nothing for his cursing as she floored the accelerator and screamed down the side of one dune to give her the momentum to tackle the next. In between being thrown about the cab Stirling readied their arsenal, slapping magazines into the rifles. Even if he didn’t have the stomach to kill a man she knew he could handle firearms, thanks to his training and experience as a safari guide.

  Brand, on the other hand, would be with her, at her side, when she went into battle. The sound of the bullets terrified her, not because she felt they posed a threat to her own safety but because of what might have happened already. She could think of only one scenario in which gunshots were being fired at the crash site. Whoever had kidnapped Emma and the others had no further use for them.

  Sonja tried to get her head around the tactical situation. She pulled the pistol from her belt and set it on the dashboard where it could be easily reached. She couldn’t drive into the middle of an ambush, yet whoever was firing would hear the noise of their vehicles coming a long way off. Sonja pounded the steering wheel.

  ‘What is it?’ Stirling asked from the rear seat. ‘Sonja, are you OK?’

  She wanted to scream at him, No I am not fucking OK, I think my daughter might have just been executed. She was so scared she couldn’t think straight.

  Stirling put his hand on her shoulder and gripped it. ‘Sonja, let me take over.’

  She looked at him, blinking. Without asking she did as he said. Sonja stopped and got out.

  ‘Get your rifle,’ he said to her.

  She reached into the back of the truck. The smooth wood and the warm, slightly oily feel of the metal parts helped calm her. This was the tool of her trade. It would either save Emma or avenge her. Sonja was smart enough to know that all the killing she had done since Sam’s death had not brought him back, nor even helped quell her grief, but nor had it hurt. She removed the magazine, checked it, replaced it and yanked back the cocking handle. The metallic chatter was the soundtrack to her life. This was how she prepared for work. She felt her fear settle and her eyes focus. Sonja got back in and Stirling set off.

  ‘There’s a big dune coming up,’ Stirling said.

  ‘I see it.’

  ‘I’ll drop you at the base. You’ll have to walk up.’

  Sonja nodded. ‘I understand.’

  It was how she would have planned it, although she would have had to order Stirling to drive towards where the guns had been firing. She would have put him in harm’s way, but instead he was volunteering to do it himself.

  ‘If you see them from the crest of the dune, stop there, Stirling. Don’t get too close to them.’

  Stirling looked at her. ‘I’ll do what I have to, Sonja. You can move off to one side and wait at the top of the dune and pick them off from up there.’

  Stirling had taken the initiative, but he was no warrior. Given the nature of the terrain there would be open ground that she would have to cover, and whether she went on foot or in one of the vehicles she would be exposed to fire.

  ‘No, Stirling. That would be a good plan if we were approaching in darkness, but we have to drive straight there. I’ll drive and let you out and you can wait for me to get to the crash site.’

  Stirling shook his head. ‘No. I’m in this.’

  He had shown his mettle, through his words at least. Across the rush of the wind Sonja heard the pop-pop of more gunfire. ‘Faster, Stirling, faster!’

  Sonja looked back and saw that the Unimog was catching up to them, accelerating to keep pace with Stirling as he rushed downhill then attacked the slope of the next big dune. Sonja wrapped her hand around the pistol grip of her assault rifle. She checked behind her again and noticed that Brand and Allchurch had swapped places and Brand was sitting on the sill of the passenger-side window. He had his rifle out of sight, but Sonja knew it would be ready.

  As they crested the dune Sonja took in the scene below her. There, stark and surprising in the nothingness of the desert, was the broken carcass of a wrecked Douglas DC-3 Dakota. There were two four-wheel drives and a number of stacked crates, but what concerned her most was the clutch of people, two men crouched around what looked like another one or two people lying on the sand in the shade of a Toyota Land Cruiser.

  Off to one side was another man, who, judging by the broken puppet angle of his arms and legs, was clearly dead.

  ‘No!’

  Stirling, startled by Sonja’s cry, mistimed a gear change and the Amarok stalled.

  ‘Get this thing moving!’ she screamed at him.

  Chapter 31

  Brand told Matthew to swing out from behind the stalled Amarok and they raced down the dune. Brand had his rifle at the ready.

  However, as they approached the wrecked aircraft Brand could see there was no apparent threat. In fact, one of the men was waving them in. ‘Hurry, Matthew.’

  When they reached the crash Brand got out and assessed the scene. There was a young woman, who from her features and the hair not covered by a blood-soaked bandage was clearly Sonja’s daughter. He glanced up at the crest of the dune; having lost momentum Stirling had sunk in the sand and was trying
to free himself. Sonja was out of the vehicle and running down the dune.

  A young white man, bare-chested, came towards him. ‘We need help, please. We have two people injured and need to get them to a hospital.’

  ‘Alex Bahler?’

  The man looked surprised. ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ Brand said. He knelt between the two casualties. ‘This guy’s losing too much blood.’ He lifted a shirt soaked wet and red, clearly Alex’s, that had been pressed against the man’s thigh, and blood welled up rapidly. Brand replaced it. ‘Shit, femoral artery’s been nicked. I need an extra hand here.’

  An older man, bushy white hair protruding from under a floppy bush hat, knelt beside him. ‘Let me help.’

  ‘Put your hand on this shirt, here, keep the pressure on his artery.’

  ‘Got it,’ the man said, as Brand removed his hand.

  ‘What’s this kid’s name?’ Brand asked.

  ‘Natangwe,’ said the man.

  Brand lightly slapped the wounded man on the cheek. ‘Natangwe, Natangwe? Can you hear me?’

  Natangwe opened his eyes.

  ‘Talk to me, man. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can,’ he said weakly.

  ‘You’re going to be OK, buddy. We’re going to get you out of here.’ Brand knew it was important to reassure the patient, but he felt less than confident of his words. He looked to the other casualty, Sonja’s daughter. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Alex. Brand saw the pain in his eyes as the man took the woman’s limp hand. ‘She is breathing, but unconscious. The bullet didn’t enter her skull.’

  Brand put his fingers to Emma’s neck and checked her pulse, which was strong and even. Her breathing was regular, as Alex had said. He peeled the bandage away from her head. Like all head wounds it had bled profusely, soaking the bandage, but the bleeding had all but stopped now. She had been lucky; the bullet had grazed her temple, though there was no way of telling yet what damage had been done. She was still out cold.