Hunted

by Chris Ryan

  He tried hefting the bike up by its handlebars but managed to move it only centimetres. He let out a sigh of exasperation. He definitely didn't need to be stuck at a time like this.

  It took a moment for Hex to hear the animal approaching. At first, the silence after the roar of the bike was strange enough. Now he realized it wasn't silence.

  It was something moving, something large that crushed foliage. Its digestive system let out low rumbles like an oncoming underground train. An elephant? Hopefully it would turn tail and run away.

  He tried to shift the bike again. The back wheels inched down into the trench and the front wheels climbed. Just as soon as he had all four in contact, he'd be on his way.

  A great bellowing ripped through the silence. That was no elephant.

  Down the channel, something was racing towards him. It looked like a boulder, a rounded, greyish shape mottled with brown. Then it became a bulbous head with tiny ears, like the wing mirrors on a huge car. It had eyes like small polished marbles. A hippo.

  Hex remembered Li's remark, way back in the adventure race: if you block a hippo's way to the water it will charge. And he remembered the crocodile snapped in half. He had to get the bike out – now.

  With a roar that matched the hippo's for ferocity, Hex wrenched the heavy bike into the trench. It started to topple, sliding sideways down the bank. For a horrible moment he thought it would fall over, but it righted itself. Now all four wheels were on ground, but the machine was no longer facing out of the trench. It was facing along it.

  The hippo was close enough for Hex to see the whiskers on its broad top lip. There was only one direction he could go. He gunned the engine and powered down the trench.

  Enraged, the hippo gave chase. Hex's top speed was only fifty-six kph and the engine only 250 cc. Steering was an added complication – the bike bounced like a ball on the rough ground and it was a full-time job preventing it from turning over. The hippo was keeping up easily.

  Ahead he caught a glimpse of sandy beach and a ribbon of dark water. The hippo showed no sign of tiring. It was fuelled by fury. Hex broke out in a cold sweat. What if there were more of them waiting in the river?

  As he hit the water the bike lost speed dramatically and he nearly came off. He heard the heavy splash as the hippo followed.

  Hex's wheels started to leave the river bed. The current was trying to take him downstream. He pulled the handlebars round hard, revving and revving. The engine spluttered. If it stopped, the current would drag him away. He paddled like mad with his legs – anything to help the bike along.

  The hippo lunged towards him. Its mouth gaped open like a cavern. Hex glimpsed a sliver of tongue and vicious teeth.

  The engine coughed, then roared. The wheels caught and Hex shot out of the water. The hippo receded in a cloud of spray.

  Instantly his mind was back on the job. He had lost valuable minutes. Relief could wait until later. He checked his route on his palmtop GPS and accelerated towards the lodge.

  As he roared up to the entrance he saw the balloon, a silver and orange globe taking shape on the front lawn. Joe, Li, Amber and Paulo were silhouetted against the balloon by the flare from the burner. The envelope was growing in front of their eyes.

  The quad bike engine backfired and spluttered. Hex switched it off. The bike was covered with a crust of sand on the wet wheels and bodywork.

  Paulo strolled over to Hex with an accusing expression, but before he could say anything Hex interjected, 'If you need a bike, don't use this one.' He grinned weakly.

  'Hex, what on earth did you do to it?'

  Hex passed him the palmtop. The GPS screen was still loaded. The map showed a red cross. 'X marks the spot. Don't go there – at least not until they've landed.'

  A bleeping sound made them all jump to attention. 'It's Alex,' said Li.

  Amber had the phone. 'Yes?' She listened, then said, 'OK,' and cut the connection.

  'Well?' said Li.

  'Just his first thirty-minute check. Nothing's happened yet.'

  'The balloon's ready,' Joe told them.

  Amber was studying the sky. 'We'd better get up there now so that we're ready to roll when the plane comes in,' she said. 'Look at the clouds. There's a breeze going towards the landing strip and it's our best chance.'

  'Give me a moment and I'll get the equipment for the camcorder,' said Hex. He was running backwards as he spoke, then he turned and sprinted into the lodge.

  Gaston passed him coming out of the main entrance. He was carrying two large packs, which he laid on the base of the steps. 'You're going to have a lot of equipment so you'll only have room for two people,' he said. 'Amber, you'd better pilot the balloon. You've got a real feel for reading the wind. You're a natural.'

  'I'm happy to,' said Amber.

  'I'll take the quad bike to get Alex after the plane's come down,' said Paulo. 'If it still works,' he added, with a glance at Hex.

  Hex came out. 'One camcorder with recharged batteries, telephoto lens and night-vision adapter of my own design. It'll compensate automatically for lowering light levels. Don't worry about it – just film as normal.'

  'I'll have my hands full,' said Amber. 'Someone else had better come to do the filming.'

  Li took the camcorder from Hex. 'I'll do the filming.'

  Paulo was stunned. He tried to search Li's face, but it was a mask. Had she managed to sort out her problems? Or was she forcing herself to be brave, like she had forced herself to go up to that tree house on her own?

  'Good,' said Amber. 'It's better to have the two lightest people in the balloon.'

  'Try to get pictures of the buyers as well as the poachers,' said Paulo. 'Then we can nail them all.'

  Li nodded. 'Will do.'

  The balloon was now fully inflated, straining at its tethers.

  Gaston picked up the two packs. 'This is probably a silly question, but have you ever used a parachute? These are from when we used to have a plane here. I've checked them and they're fine. You'd better have them just in case.' He gave one to Amber and one to Li.

  Paulo watched Li intently as she strapped hers on. She caught his eye and shook her head: No, don't ask. It didn't stop him worrying.

  Amber shifted her shoulders to get comfortable with the bulky parachute on her back. She looked at Li adjusting the straps of hers. It was like a big rucksack. 'It's going to be a squash in the balloon with these on,' she muttered. 'I can see why we'll only get two of us in.'

  'Put these on too,' said Joe. He handed helmets to Li and Amber.

  The two girls climbed into the basket.

  'Be careful,' said Joe. 'Those poachers are nasty.'

  'We know,' said Amber. She smiled. 'This kind of thing is our job.'

  Li agreed. 'Yes, this is our job. Let's go.'

  24

  SILENT SPIES

  As Joe, Paulo, Hex and Gaston released the balloon, it rose quickly upwards. Within moments Amber and Li were three metres above the heads of their helpers.

  Amber immediately checked the direction. 'That's the wrong way, so I'm going to go a little higher . . .' She opened the regulator on the burner, her eye on the instruments. 'If we aim for those clouds we can hitch a ride west. Li, how's the zoom on that camera? Is it going to be close enough?'

  Li concentrated on the camcorder and nothing else. She deliberately avoided looking at the ground and zoomed in on a tree about four hundred metres away. The tree jumped close and came into focus. 'Yes, it seems good. But the closer we can get, the better.'

  'I'll do my best,' said Amber. 'I'm taking us up to a thermal that's going our way.' She cut the gas to the burner. The silence was sudden, total and surprising. Amber checked the compass. 'We're on course. Shouldn't be long before we've got the airstrip in sight.'

  Li relaxed a little. So far she felt OK. This was a job she had to do and her mind was totally focused on that.

  Amber was enjoying the silence and the view. The trees below them cast long shadows, making dra
matic streaks on the landscape. The sun slipped down to the rim of the horizon. 'Wow, what a place to watch the sunset. This is amazing, isn't it?' She spotted some animals and pointed to them. 'Look, there are some zebras hiding in the middle of that herd of wildebeest. They must be trying not to be seen. Not exactly inconspicuous, are they?'

  Li looked out. Panic sounded in her head like a tom-tom drum, but after a moment it subsided. She began to take in what she was seeing. In the midst of the chocolate-brown wildebeest were two vibrant striped coats. 'That's surreal,' she said. 'As though someone has set it up for an advert about standing out in the crowd.'

  'Take some film of it,' said Amber. 'It would make the cover of National Geographic.'

  Li started on a close-up of the zebra and panned out to the wildebeest around it. 'We could be award-winning wildlife photographers by day and secret agents by night,' she giggled. 'Better not use up all the batteries, though,' she added, and switched the camcorder off.

  'Hey, look,' said Amber. Her voice was a whisper.

  A black shape appeared out of the clouds, like an object surfacing from a lake. It became wheels, then an undercarriage, then the white belly of a light plane. The sound of its engines washed over them like a wave.

  'Is that them?' whispered Amber.

  Li put the camcorder to her eye and pointed it at the ground. 'I'll pretend to be filming animals,' she said, 'in case they can see us.'

  Amber kept an eye on the plane. It was losing height rapidly. 'Looks like it might be about to land,' she said.

  The balloon started drifting backwards, away from the plane. 'Darn,' said Amber. She opened the regulator. 'We've got caught in an air current. It's pushing us away. I'll have to get higher and hop on a current going back that way.'

  'Is it the backdraught from the plane?' asked Li, still pretending to film wildebeest.

  'I don't think so,' said Amber. 'A plane like that is too small to have much of an effect. It might be caused by the road, though; or the cleared area where the runway is.'

  The plane slipped down between the trees, heading for the landing strip. But the balloon seemed to be drifting further away, like a twig in a stream whirling helplessly in the wake of a passing boat.

  The mobile phone quivered in Li's pocket. She had set it to vibrate rather than ring, in case a call attracted attention. She put the phone to her ear. 'Yes?'

  It was Hex. 'Alex just called. The plane's coming in. It's going to land at the north end.'

  'We know,' said Li. 'We're trying to get over there but steering isn't that simple.'

  'Hey, we've got ballast,' said Amber. She was holding a sandbag. 'Let's throw these out – we'll rise faster.'

  Alex heard the plane before he saw it. For a while all he had been aware of was the dusk chorus of the animals and the ultrasonic squeaks of bats as they flocked to the long pods hanging from the sausage trees. Then the whine of the engine came as clear as day, getting lower and lower, like a descending scale on a piano. The plane was definitely coming down into the gap between the trees. He made his call to Hex then; the girls needed as much time as possible to get into position.

  The plane landed at the other end of the strip. By the time the white fuselage glided past Alex, it was almost at a standstill. The tips of the wings nearly grazed the trees. That pilot must be very good, he thought, to bring the plane in so precisely each time in such a tight space.

  Of more concern to Alex, though, the plane had stopped right opposite where he was hiding.

  Alex's mind raced. Should he try to get further away? No, that would definitely alert them. He was wearing camouflage, he was high up in a tree with a good covering of leaves and those dangling sausage things. He just had to stay still. He cursed that he hadn't got a camcorder. He would have had an excellent view.

  The plane had two occupants. One was the pilot. That figured: even if the buyer could fly, it was unlikely that he would have the kind of precision skills needed to land in a place like this.

  The cockpit door opened and a figure stepped out. In the dusk it was hard to see him clearly but his build was slight. He looked up and down the airfield and checked the time. His diamond-encrusted watch caught the last rays of sunlight.

  A vehicle was approaching. A Land Rover. Alex heard the handbrake rasp and the engine die. Two figures got out.

  Their faces were in shadow but Alex recognized them by the way they moved. They were two of the poachers who had threatened them that first morning. He could see the stubby silhouettes of AK-47s swinging from their shoulders.

  The poachers hefted a couple of sacks from the back seat of the Land Rover and walked towards the man who had climbed out of the plane.

  Alex wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they weren't speaking English. He caught the odd word, more a flavour of the language than the language itself. It sounded like French. Didn't Amber say that quite a lot of people in Zambia spoke pidgin French?

  The poachers handed over one of the sacks. The transaction was starting. Alex glanced up through the trees to the sky. He couldn't see whether the balloon was there or not. He hoped it was.

  Amber watched the compass. They were drifting east and they needed to go north. The burner was on, taking them higher. Then suddenly their direction changed. 'That's it,' she exclaimed, and stopped the burner. She peered down. 'We should be over the runway in about thirty seconds.'

  'I'm ready,' said Li. She was poised over the basket, the camcorder on pause and ready to film as soon as the poachers came into view.

  Amber was studying the trees. 'It's quite still down there. I reckon as soon as we're over the road we could go lower.'

  The runway appeared below them. The layout was so obvious from the air once they knew what it was; the trees widened like an avenue, split by the dusty ribbon of road. There was the plane, like a white cross in the middle. Tiny figures stood beside it, just visible in the gloom.

  Amber pulled the vent and let air out of the top of the balloon. They were going in.

  Li lost no time. She zoomed to maximum. The image appeared in monochrome as Hex's night-vision adapter kicked in. 'Two poachers,' she said quietly, 'with guns. One buyer – possibly oriental, as we suspected. Amber, how low can you go? I can't get their faces from here.'

  Amber pulled on the vent again. The balloon plummeted. Li felt panic squeezing her heart. She was falling. She saw Dina and the rock face, the horrible silent vision from her dreams. The camera started to shake in her hands.

  Amber closed the vent hurriedly. 'Sorry. Wind's a bit unpredictable between these trees.'

  Li took deep breaths. Sweat ran in cold rivulets down her back. Concentrate on filming, she told herself. Do the job. The balloon will be OK. Amber knows what she's doing.

  She steadied the camera on the rim of the basket and focused. She would be so very relieved when they were back on solid ground.

  She filmed the buyer taking a sack from one of the poachers. He tipped it out onto the ground. The contents looked like a pile of pale blocks. They became ivory, hollow like sections of a pipe, some pointed at the end, some still bearing dark shreds of flesh. The balloon was still drifting down.

  'Tell me when you've got enough,' whispered Amber. 'I daren't use the burner until we're finished because they might hear.'

  'I've got their faces now,' said Li. She filmed the man with the scar like a crater in the middle of his cheek. His skin looked grey in the monochrome night-vision filter. Then she got the paler man wearing the hyena tooth around his neck.

  Amber looked at the altimeter. They were at thirty metres. Even without the benefit of the zoom lens and the night-vision adapter, Amber had seen the black outlines of guns on the poachers' shoulders. The balloon was easily within firing range. She had her hand on the burner control, ready to lift the balloon out as soon as Li gave the word.

  Li seemed to read her thoughts. 'I just want them to hand over the money,' she said. 'Otherwise we don't get the buyer.'

  Now tha
t Li was intent on filming, her worries had disappeared. The buyer was squatting on the ground, packing the hacked-up tusks into the sack. Li filmed his expensive watch, flashing diamonds even in the dim evening light. She caught his crisp suit – probably linen, and most likely hand tailored. She made sure she filmed the pilot, dressed in a pale safari jacket and watching every moment of the transaction. Was he a bodyguard? He had a short, stubby pistol in a holster on his hip – no doubt to discourage the poachers in case they tried to keep the ivory as well as the money. She also got a clear shot of the plane's registration number. All good evidence.

  The buyer reached into his inside pocket. Li wanted to whoop with triumph. This was the moment. He took out a fat envelope and handed it to Hyena-tooth. The poacher ripped the envelope open and pulled out a wad of notes. Li filmed them as he flipped through the stack; they were hundred-dollar bills. The poacher nodded and folded the notes into the pocket of his combat trousers. Li had got it all.

  She switched off the power and put the lens cap on.

  Then Amber gave her the bad news: 'We're going to have to drift out. We're too low to use the burner. They'll hear and they'll see us.'

  Li nodded.

  Amber watched the instruments, her face a mask of concentration. She felt a gentle breeze on her face, but instead of taking them up, it carried them along the path of the runway.

  Below them, the buyer and the pilot were getting into the plane. The balloon drifted down even further.

  Li whispered to Amber, her voice urgent. 'They'll see us when they take off. We'll have to use the burner, while we've still got the element of surprise.'

  Amber tried to think of another solution but Li was right. The balloon wasn't going to get them out of trouble; it was taking them towards it.

  She fired the burner. It flared bright blue. The sound seemed recklessly loud.

  All four men on the ground looked up, shocked. The pilot whipped out his pistol. Both poachers swung their AK-47s into action and fired.

  Amber and Li ducked down inside the basket. Li looked up at the burner, flaring bright blue against the navy sky. 'Is it going as fast as it can?' she gasped.