This was always Juma. In the mines, in the early days, it was, “This is how you swing a shovel, young Allyn. Turn at the hips, spare your back. Push the tram with short strides, spare your knees. Fuses, drills, the boss’s daughter . . . Here is how you survive, young Allyn.”
“Thank you. I’ll be fine. Why did you call? Did something go wrong in the park?”
Juma laughed, knowing what he would say but savoring it first, letting Allyn know this was going to be good.
“No. I have the rocket.”
“Intact?”
“Perfect. It’s American. A Hellfire. Very powerful. It will sell.”
“Good. What about the drone?”
“Wrecked. There’s something about it I wanted you to know. That is why I called.”
“Alright.”
“This may be outside my abilities, Allyn.”
Again, this was the man Allyn had known for so long. Big Juma did not go beyond his scope. He would never have been promoted to engineer in Rhodesia, no matter what he could do in the mines. Allyn had been the one to go onward. Juma never begrudged him that.
“What are you saying?”
“I brought a piece of it back with me, and I took pictures. I’ve identified it. It’s a Denel. South African.”
Allyn lowered the phone without intending to. His gaze locked on the spangled lake, a dark slate for him to figure out the stunning implications of what Juma had just told him.
A South African drone had been armed with an American missile.
How could this be?
When did the Americans and South Africans start collaborating on covert strikes? Had the two countries, old antagonists, new but cautious allies, made some secret pact? That would be an incredible event. Allyn had spent thirty years selling platinum, coal, and gems on global markets, he knew the relations and trade treaties of the entire developed world. The United States did not sell advanced tech missiles but to a handful of countries, only their closest cronies, and South Africa was not one of them, nor likely to be. America was the world’s most prolific remote control killer, and if South Africa was now involved in drone warfare alongside them, this was being done utterly out of the light of public scrutiny. It seemed inexplicable. Dodgy at best.
The Denel had flown off to do some nasty job somewhere out of sight, and for whatever reason—bad luck, most likely—one American rocket was still attached when it pranged into the Kruger.
Juma wasn’t just talking about the black market sale of a rocket that, as he’d said, had literally fallen into their hands in the bush. No. Their customer wasn’t going to be some shadowy nonstate actor with enough cash and bitterness to want this American-made weapon.
“Juma.”
“Yes, shamwari.”
“You’re talking about blackmail here. Aren’t you?”
“Perhaps. And.”
Allyn knew the next words but wanted Juma to say them. That way he could keep believing these were Juma’s schemes, not his own.
“And what?”
“A great deal of money.”
Without question. Governments spent untold millions making sure that what they meant to be hidden remained that way. A few million more would be nothing.
For that matter, so would a two-dollar bullet.
But there might be millions.
Should they do this? Could they?
Would it be blackmail to simply notify the South African government that their Yank missile and wrecked drone had been found in the middle of the Kruger and carried off for safekeeping? Why was this not a good thing, removing a dangerous item such as a live rocket lying about? Allyn assumed some violence had been done in the taking of the missile, but that could always be blamed on poachers, wild, untamable men. The rocket had been rescued from them and was in good hands; so was the secret. No need to stir up public mistrust over the incident, nothing to be gained from an international furor. A reward would be in order.
Allyn overlaid his thoughts on the dark, flat lake, assembling, machining, engineering the next moves.
He’d need lawyers, a fleet of them, to insulate him. Corporate shells and veils, maybe a high-priced former government official or retired general to play spokesman; he could buy either as required. His relationship with Juma might have to change, perhaps come to an end if enough scrutiny came their way. No problem there, with sufficient payment to ease the separation.
“This has to be handled very carefully. You know that.”
“Of course. That is why I called.”
“We’re going to kick a hornet’s nest.”
“Understood. What shall I do?”
“Nothing, Juma. Nothing. I will call you soon.”
“Alright, shamwari. Good-bye.”
Allyn opened his mouth to reply in kind. But the good-bye stuck on his tongue. He said instead, “Wait.”
Doubt checked him. Not over whether he could do this; he could, a hundred times over. He was canny enough, rich enough already. Allyn was a businessman, and this was, after all, a transaction, dicey and a bit treacherous but little else, and well worth the risk. No different than drilling a new shaft.
His hesitation rose from Juma’s question: What to do next? Who should Allyn call, hire, bribe? Who would he delegate? Who would handle this for him?
Juma held his end of the silence while Allyn measured and weighed. Allyn turned away from the quiet lake to carry the phone off the deck into his unlit house.
Standing in the vaulted great room, he lowered the phone to his side. Allyn felt the whore in his house more than Eva.
What would be his tools? Phones, cash, wariness.
As a young man, how well he could swing a pickax and a cricket bat had pleased him and made others proud. Those had been his tools then, and his tickets out. Those and Eva. From that young, marvelous time, he’d grown away from being an engineer into a corporate boss whom others would not even allow near the explosions in his own mines, explosions he’d set a thousand times. Over the decades—the years fell on a man so quickly, like a cave-in—he’d become ensconced, a boardroom miner. He’d embraced his work and held himself at arm’s length from his wife and child, who probably loved him.
This drone could be the richest strike of his life. For that, would he send someone else?
He turned a palm up to his face. He had not lost all his calluses.
Allyn brought the phone to his lips.
“Juma.”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
Chapter 15
LB squatted beside the ranger girl, fingers knit, and let her have a good cry. He didn’t pat her shoulder or mutter platitudes. The girl wept with anger, strength threaded through her grief, with fists balled.
Wally approached before she was done. He began to speak; LB waved the back of his hand. Let it wait a few seconds. Let her finish.
Promise snuffled into her wrist, swallowed hard, and brought her intense, black eyes up. She cleared her throat.
“Sorry.”
LB stood. He reached down a mitt to pull her up.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
She gritted her bright teeth in the starlight. Wally waited no more. He curled a finger for LB to follow, away from Promise. She took the cue and walked off into the dark to give them privacy.
“I talked with Torres.”
“Okay.”
“I gave her the sit rep. Told her we got nothing out here but a pistol. No explosives, no supplies, no transport. No Smokey.”
“What did she say?”
“They’re working out a plan.”
“Maybe they should’ve done that before we jumped.”
“She’ll get back to us.”
“What about Smokey?”
“They’re sending him. He’s on the way with explosives, weapons, and food. We stay put.”
“That means CIA had to fess up.”
“That’s my guess. I reckon the South Africans figured it was better to play ball and help u
s keep this quiet than make a stink.”
LB could only guess at the millions, billions of dollars that were going to be secretly appropriated, squirreled away into some US defense bill, to pay off the South Africans for keeping this snafu quiet. Far more games were played under the table between nations than on top of it.
“So Charley Mike.”
“Charley Mike.”
“And you didn’t talk her out of it?”
“You mean Major Torres?”
LB opened his mouth, but Wally cut him short.
“Don’t say it. No. I did not talk the major out of her orders.”
Wally spread his hands, the gesture asking, What do you want me to do?
LB mirrored Wally’s extended, frustrated arms.
“And how exactly are we supposed to do that? We got no idea who took the damn missile or where it went.”
“Torres says we hold in place until Smokey gets here.”
“Why? Who’s this guy?”
“At this point, you know what I know, LB.”
“Okay. Fine. We’re stuck out here. But you understand, I thought I’d been to the middle of nowhere before. I was wrong. That wasn’t it. This is.”
LB turned his back on Wally to survey their surroundings with a new disdain. He imagined fangs in every shadow, behind every shrub, sailing overhead, growling and snorting to each other.
He spoke into a deep night, which only appeared empty but was surely full and would just as certainly be long.
“I’m hungry.”
The girl ranger moved. If it was possible to be darker than the bush, she was. She’d been standing close and unseen. She made no sound but her voice.
“What does that mean? ‘Charley Mike’?”
LB turned to Wally.
“What do you think? Bring her in?”
Wally chewed his lip.
“She’s the only asset we got right now.”
“I agree.” LB addressed the girl, though it felt like speaking to a specter. “It means ‘continue mission.’ ”
“What is your mission?”
“Right now, we wait.”
“For what?”
“Someone’s coming.”
“Who?”
“We’ll find out.”
“What about the rocket? The men who took it?”
“Again, we’ve got to wait.”
“Will you go after them?”
“We’ll see. That’s enough for now, okay?”
LB turned on Wally for a moment’s acknowledgment. Wally shrugged, the best he could offer.
Promise floated closer, halting beside Wophule’s mound. She lowered her gaze, and the two white gleams of her eyes snuffed out.
When she spoke to LB, she seemed to have consulted her dead partner.
“I can feed you.”
LB took a step toward her, eager.
“You can? Hey, thank you.”
“It depends on your desire to eat.”
He thumped his stomach.
“I got desire.”
Wally piped up. “And water?”
“Yes.”
Wally nodded, resolved to obey their orders, obviously with no more than a sketch in mind of how to follow them.
“You’re a ranger. You know the area pretty well.”
“Better than pretty well.”
Wally walked to the drone. Opening his pack, he tossed the empty canteen to LB. Then he bent for his helmet and the night goggles.
“You take LB first. I’ll wait here.”
“And do what, Captain?”
Wally started to answer, but Promise cut him off.
“Guard the drone from more poachers? With your pistol, from desperate men? Or will you protect Wophule from animals?”
“That was my intention.”
“We will all go. There’s nothing you can do if the bush wants your drone or my partner.” The girl ranger pointed to the brightening east. “You won’t need your goggles. The moon is rising. It will be light enough soon.”
LB didn’t like the notion of leaving his NVGs behind.
“What if we run into something big?”
Promise shook her dark head, while LB tucked the night goggles into his pack.
“No matter how well you see the animals, they are far more aware of you.”
She indicated the pistol tucked in Wally’s belt.
“And that will stop nothing but me. Come.”
Promise led them far from the crash. For the first minutes of striding into the night, LB worried they might lose their way. But she made turns on and off paths that she seemed to know like highways, and it grew plain she was taking them somewhere. He followed, with Wally and the pistol in the rear.
Promise spoke over her shoulder, describing what she saw and heard, what LB was missing. She kept her voice hushed and seemed to savor playing guide. Either that or she was keeping LB distracted. Was he that plainly unnerved?
Many times they disturbed birds in the dark. Promise turned to murmur:
“That is a nightjar. Listen to his song. ‘Good Lord, deliver us.’ ”
She murmured later: “Hear him? A water thick-knee. He has a pleading, mournful chirp. Listen.”
The breeze wafted through a line of shrubs, making an unsettling rattle. The girl explained these were bushwillows, what in Afrikaans were called raasblaars, or noisy leaves, for the sound the leaves made when the wind shook them. She paused over dung heaps in the trails, big piles and black pellets. Quietly she explained how to tell giraffe dung from antelope, similar in appearance, both like brown pebbles, but the giraffe’s leavings came from higher and so were more scattered over the ground. She whispered the ways to tell a jackal’s howl from a wild dog’s yelp, a lion’s roar from a leopard’s bark. A stench of decay crossed their path; Promise described a springbok killed by cheetahs just two days ago a hundred meters north from where they trod.
“They still around? The cheetahs?”
Promise grinned, enjoying herself.
They left the game path, striding over a flat reach bordered on one side by elephant grass taller than LB’s head. Without glancing back, the girl pushed into the grass and disappeared. This was the second time she’d vanished, and she seemed able to do it anytime she wanted. LB sucked a deep, reluctant breath and parted the moon-gray wall of reeds. Wordlessly, Wally stepped in after him.
LB could not see the girl ahead or hear her for the grasses brushing against him. He only followed where she’d passed, in her wake of crushed and bent stalks. He assumed Wally was doing the same on his six.
LB trudged onward, invisible, unarmed, and uncomfortable. Just as he was about to say something, to call out, the blinding grasses thinned and ended. He emerged into a flat plain stretching beneath the pearly light. Twenty yards out, Promise made straight for the black cutout of a great, spreading tree. Near the fat trunk, stars and the low-slung moon reflected in frets off a pond.
Promise waited in the shaded sward beneath the tree. LB and Wally caught up. When they stepped into the deeper darkness, she was gone again. LB flapped his arms.
“How the fuck does she do that?”
Wally only laughed.
Promise reappeared, literally stepping out of the tree’s trunk, a great hollow LB had not seen. He poked her in the arm.
“Stop that.”
The girl ranger feigned ignorance, still reveling in treating LB and Wally, the Americans who’d dropped from the sky, like helpless orphans in the bush.
“This is a baobab tree. They are often hollow. I had to make sure nothing was inside.”
“Like what?”
“There’s no need to scare you further.”
Promise put a finger into LB’s burly chest in a challenging way, returning the poke he’d given her.
“So you are hungry?”
“Yeah?” His reply was a question.
“We will see.”
With that, Promise walked from under the tree. At the pond’s edge, she pulle
d her ranger’s tunic over her head to dip it into the water like a rag. She came back to the baobab naked from the waist up, unselfconscious, muscled, and small breasted. She plopped the sodden jersey on the grass and turned to LB.
“Give me a boost.”
LB hesitated, unsure where this was going, until she prodded him into linking his hands. The girl raised her boot into his mitts, and LB heaved her up to the lowest branch. The knobs of her spine, the dimples in her back, showed as she shinnied easily up into the tree. Sitting on the branch, Promise pointed.
“Go stand in the water.”
LB sensed that the girl was measuring him. Maybe she’d met no Americans before, maybe she was showing off, or maybe she was just bossy. He held his ground beneath her hanging boots and bare breasts. She jabbed her naked arm again at the pond.
“Do you want to get stung?”
Wally moved first. LB lingered, just long enough to shake a finger at her. She turned from him, pleased, and ascended the old tree. LB hustled the twenty yards to the rim of the water where Wally was already up to his knees. At first LB did not wade in; he imagined shadows withdrawing around the shore of the pond.
Slowly, Wally backed in until he was up to his waist.
“You know, these are called killer bees.”
“Jesus. Even the fucking bees in this place.”
LB almost slipped in the mud, then splashed into the pond. Warm water sloshed over his boots, above his knees, until he settled beside Wally. LB scanned the shore and the pond’s surface, he didn’t know for what.
“Piece of work, this girl.”
Wally nodded. “She’d make a good PJ.”
High in the dense, dark baobab, a branch shook. Leaves hissed as though a wind scissored through them. A papery thud hit the ground. LB bent at the knees to lower himself into the water, letting it rise past his belt. Wally had already ducked up to his neck.
A hum swirled at the base of the tree, surprisingly loud, then swelled to an angry buzz. LB dropped his knees into the muck, chin to the water, and had time to curse before the mad swarm, sounding like a sawmill in the air, tore across the water at him and Wally. LB dove under, eyes open. Wally thrashed, a bee had nailed him on the back before he could get down all the way. LB swam for deeper water, and with every stroke worried what he might meet.
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