At five o’clock, Crys repeated her shouting routine, but again there was no response. Worse than that, she heard no voices of people heading home. She was beginning to think she was completely isolated.
She took another can, marked it, and threw it through another window. The glass shattered first time, and she heard the can clatter to the ground outside. She waited, counting the minutes, but again she heard nothing.
When another hour passed with no response and no sounds from outside, she decided that the windows couldn’t overlook an outside road – that all her efforts had been in vain.
She sat and stared at the broken window, her mind frozen. She had nothing to work with.
What else could she do?
As she was about to eat another can of vegetables, an idea came to her: A fire.
Her first thought was to short out the power point, but she abandoned that immediately. It would just trip the circuit breaker – that was exactly what they were for. Then she thought about the reading lamp and had an idea.
It seemed farfetched and she almost discarded it at once. But she had nothing to lose. She grabbed the flattened mango box she’d been using as a mat and cut out the thinnest strips of cardboard she could with the can opener. Then she pulled off some slightly larger pieces. She took an empty can and stuffed it full of the strips with the thinnest on top.
Now came the tricky part. She went over to the desk and checked that the desk light actually worked. Next, she unscrewed the bulb and tapped it gently with one of the cans. After a couple of hits, the glass broke. She peered inside.
Is the filament still intact? She smiled when she saw that it was – just what she’d hoped.
She screwed the bulb back into the lamp. Then she poured some of the liquid left in the paraffin bottle into the bulb until it just covered the filament.
Shielding her eyes and mouthing a silent prayer, she flipped the switch.
Yes!
The paraffin was burning, and she felt the first glimmer of hope.
Carefully, she fed a few cardboard strips into the flames until she had a little bonfire going. Then she held the can full of strips over the fire until it burst into flames. When it was burning well, she threw it at one of the broken windows, but missed, and the burning strips fell all over the floor.
Keep trying! she told herself. The plan was good.
She opened another can, making sure the lid remained fixed to the can. She threw out the contents and built up another little fire, closing the lid far enough to prevent the strips from falling out.
She threw the can at the window and this time she succeeded. Now all she could do was wonder what was on the other side. Would someone notice? Would it set light to something, which would attract attention? She was back to waiting.
Nothing happened for what seemed like forever. She couldn’t sit still and paced the room, wondering if she should throw another fire can through a different window.
And then, she smelled smoke. Something was burning.
Perhaps her luck had finally turned. Surely a fire would attract somebody’s attention. It had better, because she’d run out of ideas…
Another few minutes passed, and smoke started coming in through the broken windows. Whatever was outside had started to burn fiercely. With every second, the smoke grew thicker and drifted inside in bigger clouds. It smelled toxic, choking. Crys hadn’t thought about that possibility.
She was going to have to get out of there, and quickly. Before she suffocated!
She walked around the room shouting as loudly as she could – through both doors and up at the windows, but still there was no response.
The smoke continued to pour in, and she started to cough uncontrollably. Her lungs began to hurt and it was hard to shout, so she beat on the doors with one of the cans. No response. She was terrified now that the whole place would burn down.
She tried not to think of how that would feel…
She was taking shallow breaths through her nose, but the smoke was getting worse.
Get down on the floor.
She lay in front of the door to boss man’s office and started to suck air from the gap at the bottom. It was a little better. But the room was getting hotter and hotter.
She was beginning to panic.
Suddenly she was deafened by a fire alarm. It was so loud she had to hold her ears.
She jumped up and tried to shout again, but the smoke was too much, and she was drowned out by the alarm. She collapsed to the floor and sucked at the tiny draught of fresh air coming under the door.
Úm ma ni bát ni hồng. Úm ma ni bát ni hồng.
She concentrated on slowing her metabolism by breathing slowly and shallowly. She needed to keep calm…
And then she heard sirens. Soon there would be people around the building. It took all her discipline not to jump up again. She knew she had to preserve her strength and wait.
Only when the sirens had stopped and the alarm was silenced, and she could hear voices above the crackle of the flames outside, did she start shouting and banging on the door to the boss man’s office with her can.
‘Help me,’ she screamed in Vietnamese. ‘Here. Here. Help!’
There was no response, and she was struggling to breath.
‘Help!’ she choked. ‘Help me, please.’
Her head was swimming, and she could hardly breathe at all now.
Bang, bang, bang. Her thuds were slow and weak against the door.
Then she could hear voices in the office. ‘Over there,’ someone shouted.
The door handle rattled. ‘It’s locked.’
She managed a final bang but everything was going black. Her eyelids were heavy. It felt like she was drowning.
‘Break it down! Quick!’ The voices seemed far away.
There was a crash against the door. Then another and another. She dragged herself away from it and the small source of air she had left. Then the door burst open. She opened her eyes to see a figure standing above her.
‘Here,’ he shouted. ‘A woman.’ She heard him ask in Vietnamese if she was okay. His voice seemed to come from miles away.
She raised her head and nodded weakly. ‘Cảm ơn. Cảm ơn,’ she managed, no longer caring who knew she could speak the language.
‘We need to get out,’ he said and grabbed her injured arm. She gasped, sucked in a lungful of smoke then doubled over coughing. He pulled her through the door.
As they went through the boss man’s office, she spotted her bag on the desk — her camera and cell phone were there too.
‘My stuff…’ she gasped, pointing. ‘There…’
The man grabbed her bag and threw in the phone and camera.
Out on the street, she sank to her knees, shaking, and gasping for breath. The outside air seemed like cool water.
‘Are you all right?’ she heard a man ask in English.
She managed to raise her head to look at him.
It was Donald from End Extinction.
‘What … what are you doing…?’ she rasped.
‘I’ll tell you later. We need to get out of here. Can you walk?’
She nodded. ‘I … I think so…’
He helped her to her feet. ‘Okay. Lean on me.’
Then he put his arm around her shoulders, grabbed her backpack and began to lead her away, back along the street she had originally come down several hours earlier. When they reached the corner, she turned and looked back at the flames engulfing the building.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We must keep moving. We’re still in danger here.’
An hour later, Crys was sitting in Søren Willandsen’s office at End Extinction, a glass of water in her hand and a blanket around her shoulders. The stink of smoke was everywhere. She was saturated with it.
‘How did you know I was in that building?’ she asked Donald. Her voice was scratchy, but she no longer felt dizzy.
‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘I followed you in the morning, when you
trailed that shopkeeper, but when you reached the warehouse area, I lost you. I couldn’t go into each building and ask if they’d seen a Vietnamese woman who spoke English. So I walked around, hoping I would see you leave. But I didn’t.’
‘Didn’t you see Joe, the shopkeeper, leave with several other men?’ she asked swallowing more water.
‘No. I couldn’t be everywhere; I must have missed them.’
‘And then the fire?’
‘When the building went up in flames, I was nearby. I watched the firemen. Then I heard one of them shouting that there was a woman trapped inside. I had to check whether it was you.’
‘Thank you. I guess I’m lucky the fire alarm worked and the fire department is efficient.’
‘You see why we were following you now,’ Søren said. ‘And you led us to people we didn’t know. Did you learn any more about the rumours you told us about?’
Crys looked at him. He hadn’t asked how she was. He’d simply watched as Donald took care of her.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment. Crys recalled how he’d told her a few days earlier not to trust anyone, and decided to take him at his word.
‘No. Joe seemed upset when I asked him about it. That’s when he booted me out of the shop. I ended up following him this morning to see if I could find out more. But they spotted me and thought I was spying – which I was, I guess. That’s why they locked me up. There was a man in charge, but I don’t know his name. And four or five others. All Vietnamese.’
‘And they didn’t say anything about South Africa or a big operation?’
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to share what she’d heard – not yet, anyhow.
‘That’s too bad,’ Søren said. ‘You went through a lot and didn’t get anything in return.’
Crys just nodded.
‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.
‘I’m getting out of here. Maybe go home. It’ll be safer writing my article there than here or in South Africa. I just want to be a journalist again.’
Søren stood up. ‘Well I look forward to reading your piece when it comes out,’ he said. ‘But, if you hear anything more, please let us know.’
‘Of course,’ she lied.
Crys didn’t know who to trust anymore.
Donald wanted to accompany her back to her hotel, but she refused. She wanted to move quickly. She remembered that she’d told Joe where she was staying and definitely didn’t want to meet him again. So, back in her room, she showered the smoke out of her hair and off her skin, dumped her ruined clothes, then packed up her things and checked out as quickly as possible.
She jumped into the first cab at the hotel entrance, then had the driver drop her off several miles away, around the corner from another hotel. She dashed inside, looking up and down the street, terrified that Joe or his colleagues were following her, but she saw nothing.
Fortunately, the hotel wasn’t full, so she checked in and immediately called Nigel in Geneva.
He was shocked by the story of what had happened.
‘You’re lucky to get out alive.’
‘I was lucky. I thought I was going to suffocate or be burned to death.’
He quizzed her some more about her experience, and then asked, ‘Did you pick up any useful information?’
‘Two things,’ she replied. ‘First, in a passing comment, the boss man said it was too difficult to kill a lot of rhinos. Joe said pretty much the same thing earlier. So, I think they must have something else planned. My guess is they’re going to attack and steal a stockpile of horns somewhere. Or maybe three stockpiles…’
‘That makes complete sense,’ Nigel said. ‘It’s probably Kruger itself. There are several stockpiles there from rhinos that have died naturally. There must be hundreds of horns in those…’ He paused, and Crys wondered what he was thinking. ‘And the second thing?’ he asked.
‘When they locked me in that room, the boss man told one of his men to get me food and water for a week. Then he said they would deal with me when they returned from South Africa. So, whatever is happening is going to happen in the next few days. That ties up with what I overheard from Pockface too. It’s all pointing in the same direction.’
‘I need to tell Dinh all this. Perhaps he can help from the Vietnam side. We have to move quickly…’
Nigel was quiet for a few more moments.
‘This is very helpful, Crys,’ he said in a businesslike tone. ‘Thank you. I think I can take it from here. I’ll go to South Africa myself, contact the South African authorities, and see if I can persuade them to set up ambushes at all of their storage sites in Kruger. That should surprise your friends.’
Crys lay back on the bed. At last someone was taking action. It made all her trials and tribulations worth it. ‘Great idea,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to leave tomorrow if we want to be there when it all goes down.’
‘You can’t come, Crys. If anyone spots you – your Portuguese friends or your new friends from Vietnam – they’ll abort the operation.’
Crys sat up again. She had to go back to South Africa. She had to find out how this all linked with Michael. She hadn’t been nearly killed for nothing… ‘But—’
‘No buts, Crys,’ Nigel interrupted. ‘We can’t afford for this to go wrong. Either come here to Geneva and wait for me to return, or go back to Duluth and write your story. I’ll arrange for my receptionist to take you to my flat if you want to use it.’
Crys stood up. ‘Dammit Nigel, it’s my story! I haven’t come all this way to sit quietly and wait!’
‘Crys, I’m telling you, you’ll only get in the way.’
Get in the way?
Crys was ready to explode, but she ground her teeth instead. She could tell this was going nowhere. She wasn’t going to change his mind.
‘Okay, Nigel,’ she said. ‘I understand. I’ll think about where to go. Thanks for the Geneva offer.’
‘Good decision. I’ll see you in a week.’
That’s what he thought!
Crys’s blood was boiling. She threw the phone onto the bed.
Stay away from South Africa with everything that was happening?
There was no way she was going to hang around in Geneva and write her story. What was going to occur in South Africa was her story, and she was going to write it. She was going to find out the truth about Michael, whatever it took. She didn’t need Nigel or his damned permission.
She retrieved the phone and called a local travel agent, asking to be put on the first flight to Johannesburg.
‘There’s an Emirates flight this evening at 11:55, arriving at 16:30 tomorrow, local time,’ the agent told her.
She looked at her watch. She had time to pack, check out, and have dinner, and still be at the airport two hours before take-off.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said. ‘I’ll check in at the airport.’
Her adrenaline was flowing again. She was going back to Africa and perhaps the biggest story of her life.
PART 5
South Africa
Chapter 31
As soon as Crys had checked into the airport hotel in Johannesburg, she phoned Tshukudu. There was no time to lose. If she and Nigel were right, the strike on the rhino-horn storage facilities was only forty-eight hours away.
She wanted to tell the Malans what was going on, and, if possible, get their help. She also hoped to find out whether Johannes had any information about where the stockpiles might be because she wanted to be there when it all went down.
She was relieved that it was Johannes who answered – she found him easier to speak to than Anton, who always seemed a bit abrupt and offhand. Somehow, she’d rubbed him up the wrong way when they’d first met.
‘Johannes, it’s Crys.’
‘Crys. Where are you? What’s going on? You just disappeared … I was worried. The police said you’d left the country without permission.’
‘I’ve just flown into Johannesburg from Ho Chi Min City. There’
s lots to tell.’
For the next ten minutes she recounted what had happened after she left South Africa. It was only when she’d finished that Johannes spoke.
‘Honest, Crys, you know how to get yourself into trouble.’
She couldn’t deny that. ‘True, but right now the important thing is what’s about to happen here.’
‘What you’re saying is that you think this Vietnamese gang is going to attack rhino-horn storage facilities, probably in Kruger?’
‘Yes, exactly. But it’s just a guess, based on various things I heard. I’m pretty confident that the target is rhino horns, not live rhinos. That’s essentially what the boss man who held me said. I’m less confident that the facilities are in Kruger, though. But logically you would think it has the most horns, given its size, right?’
It was a few moments before he answered. She wanted to squeeze it out of him.
‘You could be onto something, Crys. We do know that they hold a lot of horn in stockpiles there. My father knows more about it than I do. He’s been in this area a long time and has a lot of friends, but I don’t think he knows where the sites are. And if he does, he doesn’t tell anyone. And certainly not me.’ He paused, and Crys wondered what he was thinking. ‘But he did tell me there are three main stores.’
Crys felt a thrill of excitement.
‘Three is exactly the number Pockface said – three. So, they could be going to attack the sites simultaneously.’
Now Crys was more confident than ever that Kruger was the target. Was this what Michael had discovered?
‘Do the people there know about what you’ve just told me?’ Johannes asked.
‘I assume so. When I spoke to Nigel Wood yesterday from Vietnam, that’s what he was going to do as soon as we hung up – contact the authorities and tell them Kruger was the likely location. Then he was going to fly to South Africa right away.’
Dead of Night Page 26
