by Tony Park
‘Kerry, not here,’ said Sarah.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know where Dr Baird is,’ Costa said, his tone even. ‘Miss Maxwell, isn’t it?’
‘You know bloody well who I am. You kidnapped me and later tried to have me killed.’
‘Now, now, please don’t go making any unfounded allegations, Miss Maxwell, or –’
‘Kerry!’ Sannie called. ‘Come away.’
Kerry ignored her. ‘Or what, you’ll shoot me, Costa? Like you tried to kill Graham in Hoedspruit?’
‘What’s all this about?’ the reporter asked.
Kerry looked around her. She focused on the young man in national parks khaki. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m from South African National Parks public relations. Can I ask who you are?’
‘Ask him,’ she jabbed a finger at Fidel, ‘who he is. He’s the number one poaching kingpin in Mozambique. I can’t believe you even let him into your national park.’
Sarah took her elbow, but Kerry shrugged it off. ‘Kerry, listen to me. It was Fidel who alerted the national parks people that a hit squad was coming over the border to get Graham here.’
Kerry turned on Costa again. By now, Eli, Bruce and Tamara were arrayed in support behind her, the two groups facing each other down.
It was Bruce’s turn to poke a finger at Costa. ‘You’re fucking dead, mate.’
‘I won’t dignify such profanity and threats with a reply,’ Costa said to Bruce, ‘but if you make them again I will ask the police to intervene.’
‘Just try, mate.’
Sannie van Rensburg stepped between the warring parties. ‘Everybody calm down. No more threats.’
‘Thank you,’ Costa said to her.
Sannie turned on him. ‘Listen to me Mister Costa. I know who you are – half the South African Police Service knows who you are. You’d be well advised to keep quiet as well.’
‘Can someone tell me what’s going on here?’ asked the public relations man. ‘We brought this TV crew here to talk about the release of a honey badger, and the foiling of an attack on a national parks camp.’
Kerry was astounded. She looked around and saw an armed ranger kneeling by a man who lay wounded and bandaged beyond the shattered glass sliding door that led to a dining and bar area. ‘What happened in there?’
‘We found a medical bag inside with Graham Baird’s name on it. It looks like Graham treated that man, who is outfitted like a poacher. We found more bloodstains and drag marks. We think Graham’s been taken.’
Kerry put a hand on her forehead. She felt faint. She was sure Costa was behind all this, yet he was standing there, smiling, silently mocking them all. And Sarah was defending him.
‘Look at me,’ Kerry said to the cameraman. She pushed her way back into the shot. With a glance over her shoulder she saw Sannie standing on the outer rim of the action, not wanting to be filmed, hands on her hips. ‘Start rolling.’
‘No,’ Sarah said.
‘Yes!’
The journalist nodded to the cameraman.
‘This man,’ Kerry began, pointing behind her, ‘Fidel Costa, who has gone into business with the Animals Without Borders charity, is a murderer and a poacher.’
‘I will sue you,’ Costa said behind her.
‘Do your best,’ Bruce said. ‘She’s a lawyer, and a bloody good one.’
Sarah looked to Fidel. ‘I think we should go.’
He nodded and touched the brim of his Panama hat. ‘Miss Maxwell, it appears Sarah and I must leave. I look forward to meeting you again.’
Eli’s fist seemed to come from nowhere and Fidel’s head snapped back, his hat tumbling over the railing of the elevated walkway as he fell.
‘Nice one, Yank,’ Bruce said.
Kerry spun around. She was as shocked as the rest of them. The cameraman zoomed in on Costa, then panned to Eli.
‘Get up,’ Eli said to Costa, fists raised and ready to strike again.
Costa gingerly fingered his jaw. ‘Johnston, I know you.’
‘I know you do. Just make a move. Please.’
Sarah extended her hand to Fidel but, with his ego as bruised as his jaw, he brushed her offer away and got to his feet. He squared up to Eli, but kept his hands by his side. ‘I will see you, in Mozambique, some time.’
‘You can bet on it, buddy,’ Eli said. ‘Make sure you’re packing so it’ll be a fair fight.’
‘Bloody hell, enough with the machismo.’ Kerry looked to Sannie van Rensburg again. ‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’
Sannie stepped in. ‘Break it up.’
‘A bit late, aren’t you?’ Sarah said to Sannie.
Fidel brushed himself down and he and Sarah walked away from the group.
Kerry started to follow them, but van Rensburg put a hand on her arm. ‘Wait.’
‘What is it?’ Kerry said as Fidel and Sarah walked down the stairs from the deck to the car park below.
‘We’ve been watching Costa, and so have some dependable police in Mozambique. We’re building a case against him, Kerry. He’s not fooling anyone with this born-again bunny-hugger act of his. And as for that woman, Sarah . . .’
‘She’s just after money. The more money she bleeds from overseas donors, the bigger her cut is.’
‘We’re already worried in South Africa about horns from de-horned rhinos being smuggled to Asia and if they start cutting off horns in this proposed sanctuary in Mozambique, as they say they will, then it’s highly likely they’ll be smuggled out to places such as Vietnam.’
‘Yes,’ said Kerry, ‘and you need to see if there’s a link between Costa and the man who tried to rape and kill me.’
Sannie nodded. ‘But we must be careful, softly softly for now, hey?’
‘Yes, I understand. But where is Graham?’
*
Sarah got into the back of the Range Rover next to Fidel. The driver already had the engine running and the air conditioning was kicking in.
The heat was oppressive outside and the cool air chilled the nervous sweat on her body.
‘That was too close, with Kerry and the news crew, and now the television will have vision of Eli hitting you.’
‘I will sue him for assault.’
Sarah sighed. ‘I think you should just lay low.’
‘That is not in my nature, Sarah.’
More machismo, she thought. ‘What are we going to do about Kerry? She could go public in Australia, when she gets home, and cause some real shit for you, for us, internationally.’
Fidel faced her and looked into her eyes. ‘She almost met with an unfortunate accident here in South Africa when she got a flat tyre. Africa can be a dangerous place. Something else might happen to her, just like it happened to that arrogant security man from Kwangela, Michael Collins.’
Sarah said nothing. She was so close to seeing the biggest deal of her career working with NGOs come to fruition. The end justifies the means, she told herself, clasping her hands to still the tremor she had just noticed.
‘Our success in Mozambique, breeding and protecting rhinos, will speak for itself. She can be neutralised – one way or another, either drowned out by the positive PR you generate, or, as I say, something might happen to her.’
Sarah drew a deep breath. How had it come to this, she wondered, the two of them discussing hurting or killing people? Costa was becoming more and more open with her about his tactics. He was prepared to kill and to sell out his own men to see the deal went ahead. ‘She might be too scared to speak out.’
Fidel nodded. ‘I will see to it. It appears my senior man, Luiz, survived the counterattack by the national parks rangers. I could not see his body among the others.’
‘You set him up,’ Sarah said, ‘calling in the national parks anti-poaching rangers last night, even before Graham was dead.’
Fidel nodded. ‘It was not an easy decision for me to make, but Luiz is also opposed to me getting into bed with you, so to speak, for different reasons from the
others. I will have to deal with him as well.’
‘What about Eli Johnston?’ Sarah asked.
‘What about him?’
‘I’m exposed,’ Sarah said, ‘particularly if he works out that I stole his phone in Cape Town and found his email chain to Michael Collins.’
Fidel stroked his moustache. ‘Yes, I can see why you would be worried.’
‘Eli lost a lot of support over the incident at Kwangela. It’s going to take him a long time to rebuild his public image, and the cash flow to him and his rangers on the ground in Mozambique will be reduced to a trickle.’
‘Which will make him very vulnerable to attack, perhaps even an ambush,’ Fidel said.
Sarah nodded. The enormity of what she had set in motion, what might yet happen to Kerry and Eli hit her. She swallowed bile. Sarah knew Costa was crooked yet she had sought him and his money out nonetheless. She had chosen to believe his thin lies that it was not he who had tried to kill the others. Now, with their goal in sight, he had just about dropped all pretence. If she could get him on a digital voice recorder, explicitly admitting his part in the attempted murders and his future plans she could use it against him, or at the very least it would give her some insurance.
‘Where to, boss?’ the driver asked from the front seat.
‘Let’s take a drive through the park. I think we should make Nelspruit by evening. I’m sure we can find a nice hotel there. We’ll cross into Mozambique tomorrow.’
‘Sounds good. We need to get you out of South Africa for a while,’ Sarah said.
‘Agreed.’
‘I wonder what happened to Graham’s body?’ Sarah felt nauseous. Her former lover, an irascible pain in the arse at the best of times, was most likely dead. What have I done?
Fidel shrugged. ‘We will know once Luiz returns and gives me a debrief. Luiz has no way of knowing that it was me who alerted the parks staff. As I say, I will deal with him in time.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Sarah barely whispered. Her phone beeped. She took it out.
The message was from Graham Baird. Sarah’s heart lurched as she opened the SMS. Fidel’s driver began reversing up the long, narrow gravel driveway that led to Boulders Bush Lodge.
She read the words on the screen. Get out.
‘What is it?’ Fidel asked. ‘You look like you have just seen a ghost.’
Sarah reached for the door handle. Enough, she told herself.
The Range Rover exploded.
Chapter 34
Nsele sat on top of the granite boulder, looking down at the people on the viewing deck below.
He was not scared of humans. He had been around them all of his life, imprisoned for their entertainment. But he had learned that by and large they meant him no harm and they were a good source of food.
It was the same with the man lying in the shade of the rock. There was food beside his body, left in a bag, but Nsele had eaten all that. He sat on the rock, in the sun, watching the humans below. If no one put a braai on soon he might just have to eat the man lying beside him.
*
‘Check that ratel,’ Sannie van Rensburg said, shielding her eyes from the sun and pointing upwards.
‘That what?’ Kerry walked across the deck to where Sannie was standing.
‘Oh, the honey badger. We call it a ratel in Afrikaans.’
Kerry looked to where Sannie was pointing, in the rocks above the lodge, near the peak of the mound of boulders. The badger sat, as if basking, head resting on its paws, looking down at them.
‘I’ve never seen one as relaxed as that. Normally they’re trotting about looking for something, or someone, to kill,’ Sannie said. ‘I wonder if this is the one Dr Baird released.’
‘It must be Nsele, the one Sarah brought over from Australia. Funny that it’s hanging around.’
‘Tea?’ Bruce said, walking out of the gutted remains of the dining room and kitchen. ‘The gas stove survived the gunfire and explosions and I managed to get the kettle on.’ He handed them each a mug.
They were all waiting at the lodge for a crime scene investigation team to arrive, along with the coroner’s people. The rangers from the rapid reaction force had put out the fire that had engulfed the Range Rover and the people inside it. Kerry had been furious at Sarah and had wished Fidel Costa dead, but she was still shaking from the shock of witnessing three human beings incinerated before her eyes. Seeing the honey badger was a welcome relief.
Kerry took a sip of tea, then set her mug down, went to the railing and climbed over it.
‘What are you doing, kiddo?’ Bruce asked, his tone alarmed.
‘I’m going to climb up, see how close I can get to it and get a picture of it in its natural environment.’
‘Be careful,’ Bruce said. ‘Tammy told me those things can kill you by ripping your scrotum out.’
‘Well, lucky for me I don’t have one.’
Kerry started climbing. It was silly, she told herself, to be scrambling higher up over these often slippery boulders, heading towards an animal that did, in fact, have a reputation for ferocity.
But she didn’t care.
She paused, halfway up the koppie, to turn and look around her. The view over Africa was spectacular. On the horizon to the east, over the Lebombo Hills, dark clouds were coalescing. The breeze, easier to feel this high up, was coming from the same direction, and she caught the scent of rain.
The badger growled at her as she came closer, then ducked out of sight, retreating down the opposite slope of the rock on which it had been perched.
‘Where are you?’ Kerry was breathing hard by the time she got to where the animal had been. Cautiously, she peered over the top of the boulder.
The badger scampered away into the deep shadows as she saw a body lying there, shirt covered in blood, bandages soaked through; his stylishly cut grey hair, a few days’ stubble.
The face, though, looked at peace.
‘Graham!’ Kerry screamed.
*
Nurse Tamara Shepherd brought Graham back from the dead.
When Kerry discovered him he had stopped breathing, but his skin was still warm to the touch. Kerry had yelled for help and begun CPR. Tamara scrambled up the koppie and took over from her, and Graham started breathing again and came to.
‘Whoever dressed Graham’s gunshot wound knew what they were doing,’ Tamara said as Bruce, Eli and two rangers carefully lifted Graham onto a stretcher that had been found in the reaction force’s helicopter. Slowly and carefully they began the painstaking process of carrying Graham down the koppie, with Tamara walking next to them holding a plasma drip from the first aid pack that had been used to treat the wounded poacher.
Once they had made it down to the level of the lodge, Sannie van Rensburg stopped them. ‘I need to ask him some questions.’
Tamara’s expression was grim. ‘He was nearly dead. We need to get him to hospital by helicopter. The wounded poacher is stable, but he should go with Graham.’
‘All right,’ Sannie said.
Graham lifted a hand. ‘Wait.’
Sannie was on one side of him, Kerry on the other. Kerry was looking at the screen of Graham’s phone. ‘You tried to warn Sarah about the bomb?’
Graham nodded and the slight movement seemed to be an effort. ‘Grenade. Luiz . . . Costa’s man. He found me and took the grenade I had.’
‘The man who was sent to kill you, along with the others?’ Sannie asked.
‘Yes. He . . . he shot me, but couldn’t finish me off as I fell over the man I was treating, one of the poachers. How is he?’
‘He’s going to be OK,’ Tamara interjected. ‘You saved him.’
Graham coughed. ‘Before Luiz could kill me I told him what Dave Corlett said . . .’
Kerry looked to Sannie, who said: ‘Dave was the honorary ranger on duty at the JOC who took the message from Fidel Costa that there were men on the way to raid Boulders Camp.’
‘Fidel was telling the truth? He set up his
own men?’ Kerry asked.
‘Yes,’ Graham whispered. He cleared his throat. ‘Dave had tried me earlier – the signal is weak at the lodge – and I was able to show Luiz an SMS from him giving me the news about Fidel. Luiz knew then it wasn’t a bluff. He patched me up and dragged me up into the koppie. I didn’t see him again.’
Sannie looked over at the charred remains of the Range Rover and the blackened skeletons inside. ‘Luiz must have set a booby trap.’
‘Wedge or tie the grenade between the body and the chassis, next to the fuel tank,’ Eli said, ‘and tie some cord from the pin to the spoked wheel rim. As soon as the car starts to move and the wheels turn the pin is extracted and, well, ka-boom.’
‘I . . . came to . . . managed to get up and look over the rocks. I saw Sarah and Costa getting into the Rangie. I . . . I tried.’
‘It’s OK, Graham,’ Kerry said. ‘It’s not your fault.’
The helicopter’s engine was whining and the blades turning.
‘We need to get him on board,’ Tamara said.
Sannie nodded.
Kerry leaned over and, on impulse, kissed Graham on the lips.
Graham smiled and shifted his eyes to Tamara. ‘Can I stay here instead?’
Tamara shook her head. ‘No!’
The men carried Graham down the stairs and across to the waiting chopper.
Kerry held a hand to her eyes to ward off the cloud of dust and grit thrown out by the downwash, and watched as the helicopter lifted off, turned, lowered its nose and sped away.
Silence returned to the bush, though in the distance she heard the first rumble of thunder.
Kerry looked at the phone again, then turned her head at the touch of a hand on her shoulder.
‘He’s a tough old dog. He’ll pull through,’ Eli said.
The rangers had left them. Sannie van Rensburg had taken charge and was issuing new orders, for them to begin a new search, for the man who had booby-trapped the Range Rover.
Bruce and Tamara had sought shelter and shade inside the damaged lodge. Kerry and Eli were alone on the plain. An elephant, no doubt scared off by the earlier battles, was loitering in the tree line, waiting and watching for the right moment to come for a drink at the waterhole.
