An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  ‘Hopefully it looks worse than it is,’ said the man with his hand on Natangwe’s wound.

  ‘And you are?’ Brand asked.

  ‘Professor Dorset Sutton,’ the older man said.

  ‘Hudson Brand.’

  ‘Brand? H. Brand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the same name as the man we uncovered at a dig site near Etosha National Park.’

  ‘Long story. Right now, we need to do something about Natangwe and Emma here. They need proper medical care. Matthew?’

  Allchurch jogged to him, carrying the small first-aid kit from the Unimog. ‘This is all we’ve got.’

  Brand unzipped the kit, but the dressings in it were more for minor cuts and burns.

  ‘I’ll check inside the Dakota,’ Matthew said. ‘There might be a better kit in there, even if it’s old.’ Matthew disappeared into the dark hole of the open cargo door.

  Sonja arrived at the crash site, breathing hard, but then put her hand on her mouth in horror as she saw her daughter lying on the ground. Stirling had freed the Amarok and arrived just after her. Sonja sprinted to Emma, dropping to both knees.

  Brand went to Stirling. ‘Have you got a decent first-aid kit?’

  ‘I never head into the bush without one.’ He went to the back of his bakkie and came out with a military medic’s bulky field pack.

  Sonja cradled her daughter’s head in her lap. ‘Emma! My baby, talk to me.’

  ‘Sonja,’ Brand interrupted. ‘This young guy . . .’

  ‘Natangwe,’ Alex said.

  ‘Yeah, Natangwe. He’s hit real bad. How are your medic’s skills?’

  Sonja was wide-eyed. ‘Brand, this is my daughter.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Brand said. ‘She’s unconscious, but her airways, breathing and circulation are fine. It might just be concussion.’

  ‘Just concussion? She’s been fucking shot in the head, Brand.’

  ‘Sonja, I know she’s your daughter but there’s nothing we can do for her right now.’ He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. ‘Natangwe, here, however, is bleeding out. He’s going to die unless we do something soon.’

  Sonja, still holding Emma’s head, looked across at Natangwe, who groaned in pain. His eyes were heavily lidded and he looked like he might pass out at any second.

  ‘Get out of the way, both of you,’ Sonja said to Brand and Sutton.

  Brand shifted himself to one side and Sonja gently laid Emma’s head in the sand. ‘Watch her,’ she snapped at Alex. He took her position.

  Sonja moved to Natangwe, brushed Sutton’s hand out of the way and put her knee on Natangwe’s groin, near where his wounded leg met his body. She put her weight on him.

  Brand lifted the bloody shirt and took another peek at the wound. ‘Pressure on the artery has slowed the bleeding right down.’

  ‘We need a new, better dressing.’

  ‘Coming,’ Stirling called. He dropped his medical pack next to Sonja and unzipped it. ‘Some serious dressings here.’

  Brand moved in and sorted through the bag. He ripped open a bulky padded wound dressing and quickly replaced the sodden shirt with it. He tied it tight.

  ‘Natangwe, can you hear me?’

  He blinked up at Sonja. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know you’re hurting, but I need you to press down here, on your groin, where my knee is, as hard as you can. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She put her hand on his body and pressed down. ‘Harder, Natangwe.’

  ‘Here, I’ll do it,’ Alex said.

  Sonja wiped her bloody hands on her shirt and looked at Brand. She raised her eyes and Brand knew exactly what she was trying to communicate. Natangwe would be dead soon if they didn’t get him to a surgeon.

  ‘We have to get him to a doctor,’ Brand said. ‘Stirling, where’s the nearest town?’

  ‘Wilfriedstein,’ Stirling said. ‘The Castle hotel there will know where the nearest doctor is.’

  ‘Andre,’ Alex said, pointing with a jab of his thumb, ‘the dead guy over there had a satellite phone.’

  ‘Get it,’ Sonja said.

  Alex went to Andre and patted down his body and found the phone. He punched some buttons. ‘Scheisse.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sonja asked.

  ‘He put a security lock on it. I can’t get it working.’

  ‘Mum?’ a faint voice said.

  Alex, Brand and Sonja turned in unison.

  ‘She’s awake!’ Sutton cried out. ‘Thank God, she’s awake.’

  Sonja and Brand knelt either side of Emma and Sonja lowered her head and kissed her daughter. ‘Can you see me, my girl?’

  Emma blinked a few times. ‘Yes. My head. Ow, my fucking head.’

  Sonja coughed, choking back what looked to Brand like a mix of tears and laughter.

  ‘Mum, you’ve gone blonde.’

  Sonja took a breath to still herself, but didn’t seem able to speak.

  ‘How did you find us, Mum?’

  Sonja exhaled. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ She hugged Emma, holding her close to her breast. ‘I’m just so glad you’re alive. We have to get out of here.’

  ‘How’s Natangwe?’ Emma asked.

  ‘We need to get him to a doctor, as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Mum,’ Emma winced as she touched her head wound, ‘there are people coming for the stuff from the aircraft. They’re on the way. The others were waiting for them and they were just about . . . they were just about to . . .’

  Emma started crying and Sonja hugged her. Brand noticed the two partially dug holes and the shovels. He could tell exactly what had happened – at least he thought he could. Now that he could afford to shift his attention from the casualties he noticed the legs of a second dead man protruding from the Land Cruiser. He stood and walked to the first body, bending to confirm he was dead by checking his pulse. The man was his age or a bit older, his complexion fair. Brand thought of the blond-haired man who had tried to kill him on board the Dakota that night.

  The man in the vehicle had been shot between the eyes. ‘Natangwe do this?’

  ‘No.’ Brand turned. It was Sutton, the professor, who spoke. ‘Emma got them both. She’s a bloody heroine. Deserves a medal for bravery, she saved us all. They were going to kill us.’

  Sonja looked up at the professor, as did Emma, who cuffed the tears from her eyes.

  Sutton looked at Emma. ‘I’m so sorry, for being so beastly to you on the dig, and since then. It’s my way. I’m a silly old fool, drunk on my own power and standing. You’ve shown me the meaning of real courage, Emma. I was sitting there, praying we wouldn’t die, and you and Natangwe put your lives on the line for all of us.’

  ‘I killed them, Mum,’ Emma said softly. ‘But Natangwe’s the hero, he saved my life.’

  Brand saw the way Sonja hugged her daughter tightly. ‘You did the right thing. But really, we must leave now.’

  ‘Andre and Sebastian,’ Sutton said, gesturing to the dead men, ‘didn’t load their vehicles because they knew someone was coming to pick up the cargo. They were going to use their trucks to get away. Emma’s right. I fear whoever is coming to collect is on their way now.’

  ‘All right,’ said Brand, taking charge, giving Sonja time to comfort Emma. ‘Professor, you’ll drive one of the four-by-fours, the other we’ll disable.’

  Stirling had moved to the cargo crates and was prising open the lid of one of the wooden boxes in the unwrapped bundle with a discarded shovel. ‘Hudson, this is rhino horn,’ he said. ‘Masses of it.’

  ‘I figured it might have been ivory at the time; no one was that het up about horns in those days. The guys shipping it wouldn’t have imagined what it would be worth today.’

  ‘No,’ Dorset chimed in, ‘but they know now,
which was why they were prepared to kill for it. We can’t leave it here, to be picked up by Horsman’s partners.’

  ‘Andre Horsman?’ Brand asked.

  ‘Yes, that was the man’s name,’ Dorset said.

  ‘I met him once. A long time ago.’

  ‘Andre?’ Matthew said, overhearing them.

  Brand nodded. Matthew walked quickly to the dead body on the sand, which he had so far avoided or not looked at closely. He stood over Horsman. ‘He was the commander of my son’s squadron,’ he said quietly, almost to himself. ‘I thought he was my friend. He was using me, all this time, waiting to see if one day my efforts to find Gareth would pay off – for him.’

  ‘It looks that way,’ Brand said. ‘He knew I was still alive, but he never came after me. I was on the front line for the rest of the war, far from him. If he checked up on me, which I’m sure he would have from time to time, he would have worked out pretty quickly I was too poor to have ever found his missing cargo.’

  ‘Then he sends me to you,’ Matthew said, ‘to get you to come here with me, so he could get us both in the same place.’

  ‘And kill us,’ Brand said.

  ‘All of us,’ Sonja reminded them. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Brand, I don’t give a fuck about all this rhino horn. What do you want to do with it?’

  Stirling picked up the box he’d been inspecting and tossed it into the back of the still-open rear of the Amarok. ‘We’re taking it with us.’

  ‘Why not burn it?’ Allchurch said. ‘The cursed stuff killed my son.’

  ‘Shoot, I didn’t think, Matthew,’ Brand said. ‘When I sent you inside the aircraft, did you . . . was Gareth in there?’

  ‘No,’ Matthew said. ‘There’s a body in there, a skeleton, but I checked the identity discs. It was the pilot, Danie Bester. I know his parents. I’m afraid there’s no sign of Gareth.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Allchurch looked up, his face animated. ‘No, don’t be. I’ve been thinking about what Sonja said, about the man her uncle picked up on the salt road. We don’t know who it was. It could have been Gareth.’

  ‘Possible, I guess,’ said Brand without conviction.

  Stirling was working up a sweat, tossing boxes into the back of the truck.

  ‘You sure you want to take all this stuff?’ Brand said.

  ‘We can’t leave it here to be stolen, and it will take too long to burn it. Also, if we can hand it over to the Namibian authorities it will be great PR, showing how they’ve stopped all this falling into the wrong hands.’

  ‘As long as your PR stunt doesn’t cost Natangwe his life,’ Sonja weighed in. ‘You’ve got until we’ve loaded Natangwe, then we’re going. You can catch up to us if you need to, you’ll travel faster than the Unimog, but you’ll have to take your chances.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Sutton said to Stirling. ‘I don’t want these criminal bastards getting a cent from the defenceless creatures that were killed for this horn, even if they are long dead.’

  Alex had fetched a blanket from the Unimog campervan and together he, Emma, Sonja and Brand gently slid Natangwe onto it and then lifted him. They eased him into the camper, which was equipped with two single beds, and made him as comfortable as they could.

  Alex took a seat on the bed across from Natangwe. ‘I will ride with him, if that is all right.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sonja said. ‘Just keep pressure on his artery. He’s lost a hell of a lot of blood.’

  Brand looked out the door of the camper. Stirling and Sutton were still tossing crates of rhino horn into any spare piece of space in the Amarok. They had filled the luggage area and were stacking boxes on the rear seat and floor of the double cab.

  ‘Move it,’ Brand barked. He’d seen good men die, Sonja’s husband among them, over this stupid stuff, and he had no intention of losing Natangwe because Stirling wanted to stage a bonfire of his own in Windhoek or hand over the horn to the authorities at a press conference so he could garner more support for his rhino conservation NGO.

  Sonja climbed down from the truck and strode past Brand and the others to the Land Cruiser. She leaned into the back of the vehicle, where the other dead guy was. Brand didn’t know what she was doing – perhaps searching his pockets for ID or other intelligence. He busied himself by dragging the body of Andre Horsman under the canvas awning. When Sonja finished what she was doing she backed out of the Land Cruiser and walked past Brand with not so much as a goodbye, then climbed back up into her vehicle. ‘Leave this vehicle, it’s got no spare wheel, take the Hilux instead,’ she ordered them.

  The Unimog started with a puff of black smoke and Sonja drove off, heading east towards the closest town, Wilfriedstein. It would be cross-country driving most of the way, a hard journey, but it was their best chance of getting away from whoever was coming to collect the horn, and of getting Natangwe to medical care.

  Brand got in the Hilux with Matthew while Stirling and Sutton, kindred spirits for the moment at least, were still loading boxes of horn into the Amarok, though there was still an intact bundle left. Brand kept an eye on his rear view mirror and saw, with some satisfaction, the other two moving off before he lost sight of them. They had abandoned the final bundle load of horn, still wrapped for airdrop from the Dakota all those years ago.

  The desert stretched out in front of them. Brand thought about the attack on them on the Andoni Plains. ‘Matthew, keep an eye out above. They used a chopper once before to try to get us, so they’ve got the money to hire another one.’

  *

  Irina sat in the co-pilot’s seat next to Swanevelder. They flew low, nap-of-the-earth the pilot called it, less than a hundred feet above the undulating contours of the inhospitable land below them.

  When Swanevelder had returned from the lodge the Russian seamen had boarded the helicopter, this time all armed and dressed in an assortment of green and camouflage bush clothing that Mikhail had sourced for them in advance. Ironically, given the trade she was in, Irina had plans to start her own anti-poaching patrols on the game farm and had bought uniforms and military-style combat vests for her future force. She envisaged a day when she would breed her own rhinos to supply the Asian market, either covertly or overtly if the authorities ever decided to legalise the trade in rhino horn. When Swanevelder had asked Irina where Miro was she had replied, simply, that it was a day when casualties could be expected.

  Swanevelder checked his GPS. ‘Coming up to your coordinates.’

  Irina scanned the emptiness in front of her, seeing nothing at first.

  ‘There,’ said the pilot, pointing dead ahead. ‘See the glint? Sun reflecting off metal.’

  ‘Circle,’ she ordered him. ‘There were supposed to be two vehicles; I see only one.’

  They flew around the crash site and Irina knew immediately that something was wrong. There were no people milling around, no signal from Andre or his sidekick, Sebastian Lord. ‘Put down a hundred metres away. We’ll walk in.’

  When her troops were out Irina formed them into a skirmish line either side of her and, rifles up and at the ready, they advanced on the crashed aircraft while Swanevelder kept the chopper’s engine and rotors turning.

  ‘Andre!’ Irina called, but there was no answer.

  ‘Check the inside of the aircraft and the vehicle,’ she ordered the men closest to her. ‘The rest of you keep a lookout.’

  ‘Irina Petrovna,’ Mikhail called from the vehicle. ‘Come, see this.’ Irina flicked the safety catch on her rifle to safe, assured at least there was no danger to her. Under the awning attached to the Land Cruiser was the body of her South African partner, Andre Horsman. ‘Look inside.’

  Irina stuck her head in the back. It was already starting to reek of flesh putrefying under a desert sun. The body of Sebastian Lord was propped up. A piece of cardboard nestled in his lap. Painted on it in dried bl
ood were the words: You’re next. SK.

  ‘Ah!’ Irina walked out into the open, flicked her safety catch to automatic and emptied the magazine of her AK-47 into the air in one long burst. Her men burst from the crippled aircraft or ran for cover until they worked out it was just her venting her rage.

  When she had no more bullets and the rifle hung loose at her side, smoking, while a pile of hot brass lay at her feet, Yuri summoned the courage to come to her. ‘Irina Petrovna, there is only one container of rhino horn left. They must have taken the others.’

  ‘There are tracks leading east,’ Mikhail said, pointing to the blurred furrows in the sand that led away into the dunes. ‘They will be easy to follow from the air.’

  ‘We must catch them,’ Irina said.

  Mikhail pointed to the remaining bundle of rhino horn. ‘What about those?’

  ‘We’ll get them on the way back. How long ago did they leave?’

  Mikhail looked around and sniffed the air. ‘Bodies decompose fast in this heat, but I would say these men were killed this morning.’

  ‘Back to the chopper, everyone!’ Irina waved both hands, including her rifle, above her head, and Swanevelder gave her a thumbs-up out of the window, signalling it was safe for them to approach.

  Once back on board Irina pointed out the tracks in the sand to the pilot. ‘Follow them.’

  ‘They won’t get away from us,’ the pilot assured her.

  Irina clenched her teeth for a moment, then nodded. ‘They had better not.’

  Chapter 32

  They drove out of the Skeleton Coast National Park and back into the northwest of the Palmwag Conservancy, the landscape changing from dunes to rocky desert.

  Using a combination of memory, the GPS and dead reckoning, Stirling directed Sonja towards the Hoanib River and finally, to his relief as much as hers, they found the dry watercourse. If they followed the Hoanib east it would take them to a turn-off to the remote outpost of Wilfriedstein, between Sesfontein and Purros.

  ‘I think we’re losing Natangwe, Mum,’ Emma called from the back of the camper. ‘He’s really weak.’