by Tony Park
They had just completed the fourth pick-up of tusks on this trip – the ninth in total. There was one to go.
Joost leaned closer to him and yelled, ‘Give me your pack – I’ve got to move it!’
‘I need the stuff in there!’ Alex shouted back.
The flight engineer shook his head. ‘We’re going to be nearly full after the next pick-up. Let me stow it in the rear. It’ll be safe.’ The helicopter started to bank.
He was right – there was barely enough room for Alex, his men and the two security guards as it was, and there was still one more load of tusks to come on board. Nevertheless, he could not risk handing over the pack. Joost grabbed the bag but Alex held tight.
‘Give me the bag, please sir!’
Alex wavered and was about to comply, thinking he could get to the backpack when they next touched down and the flight engineer was busy manhandling ivory, but then Joost reached across with his other hand and accidentally grabbed a nylon tab attached to a zip. As he pulled, the flap came undone, exposing the butt of an R5 assault rifle.
The flight engineer stared at the weapon, his mind trying to process the information his eyes were sending him. The public relations team were military people, but why would they be carrying weapons with them as well as cameras? He reached for the press-to-talk switch clipped to the front of his flying suit.
Alex jerked the bag violently back towards himself, pulling Joost off balance. As the man fell towards him, Alex shot his right fist up hard and fast, punching the man in the Adam’s apple. He lurched backwards, reaching for his neck with one hand.
Alex reached behind his back and pulled the Glock from the holster under his shirt. He leaned forward and grabbed the leads connecting the press switch to Joost’s helmet, put his foot on the man’s chest to hold him on the deck and ripped the cables free.
Novak and Kufa had needed no orders to spring into action, or warning that the plan’s timing had suddenly been brought forward. Novak king-hit the black airman in the face, bringing forth a spurt of blood from his nose, while Kufa had the white man covered with his pistol, which he’d been wearing in a shoulder holster under his camouflage shirt. The African airman dropped his head between his knees, blood pulsing through his fingers, while Kobus dragged the men’s R5s from under their seats. Novak moved to Alex’s side and covered the flight engineer, still lying on his back. He was alive, though breathing was clearly a difficult task for him, for he was bright red in the face.
As Alex spun around he saw Petrice, the copilot, looking over her shoulder. She was open-mouthed with shock at the scene unfolding behind her. Alex had been scanning the helicopter cockpit instrumentation during the flight and had identified what he thought was the radio, judging by an illuminated display of numbers that looked like a radio frequency. He hadn’t confirmed it with Kobus yet, but he prayed he was right as he raised his pistol and fired a bullet into it.
The Oryx banked sickeningly to the left as the pilot flinched away from the noise of the gunshot – still brutal even over the whine of the engines – and the shower of sparks that erupted from the console in front of him. Alex grabbed the rear of the pilot’s seat and thrust the barrel of his pistol up under the colonel’s chin to reinforce the point that the machine was now under new management.
Alex motioned to Kobus, who passed him his headphones. Awkwardly, Alex put on the headset one-handed.
‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday . . .’ he heard Petrice saying. That meant the internal intercom was still working, but was the woman’s message being transmitted to anyone else?
‘Shut up or your colonel dies,’ Alex said to her.
Petrice looked at him, wide-eyed, and nodded.
‘Who the devil are you?’ the pilot asked.
‘None of your business. Give her control of the aircraft. I want her flying, not you.’ Alex pushed the pistol harder into his throat. The pilot gave a slight nod and told Petrice to take over.
The helicopter lurched.
‘Steady, Petrice. You’re doing fine.’
Alex reached around and undid the zip of the colonel’s flying suit enough for him to get his hand in and pull out the man’s concealed pistol. ‘Just keep flying straight and level,’ he said to Petrice. ‘I want to hear if the Mayday message is acknowledged. If you say a word without me telling you to, this man dies. Understood?’
Alex saw the copilot start to form a word with her lips, then think better of it. She nodded her head instead.
‘Clever girl. Hush now while we listen.’
A few seconds later Alex heard a burst of static, then Captain Steyn’s voice. ‘Tiger One-Three, I say again, pick-up five is ready. Acknowledge?’
‘Tiger One-Three this is ops, I say again, pick-up is ready, Acknowledge?’
‘Acknowledge his message,’ Alex said.
‘Ops this is Tiger One-Three, affirmative, over,’ Petrice said, her voice quavering a little.
Alex held a finger to his mouth, telling her to say no more. She stayed silent and kept the chopper straight and level. Alex glanced back quickly over his shoulder and saw that Kufa and Novak had the two airmen on their knees, their hands fastened behind their backs with plastic cable ties. He looked back to the pilots.
‘Tiger One-Three, this is ops. Assume you will return to base to get the comms problem sorted. Nothing heard this end, out.’
Alex nodded to himself. His bullet in the radio had cost the helicopter the ability to transmit messages, but they were still able to receive. It was a lucky shot.
Alex pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it to the pilot. ‘Program this waypoint into your on-board GPS, colonel.’ He had to press the barrel of the pistol even harder into the man’s neck to make him obey.
Once the colonel had entered the figures, Alex told Petrice to change course and head to the new destination. Kobus was standing beside Alex now, looking over his shoulder at the cockpit instrumentation. The Oryx banked to starboard, heading north-east. When Alex looked at him, Kobus nodded that the copilot was following the new course.
‘When we get to that point you’ll see a white Toyota Land Cruiser in a small clearing. You will land next to the vehicle and you two, the flight engineer, and the two airmen who were supposed to provide your security will get out. The cruiser will be disabled, but you can sit inside it for protection against animals and the sun. There is water in the vehicle. Your location will be given to the relevant authorities in due course. Do you understand what I have just told you?’
The pilot nodded, as did Petrice.
‘Good. No one needs to get hurt. Do as ordered and all will be well.’
‘Get up, out of your seat now, please, Colonel.’ The man unbuckled his safety harness, unplugged his intercom leads and clambered out of his seat. Alex saw his face was scarlet with fury as he obeyed. Kobus quickly took his place and pulled on the bulbous flight helmet that Alex took from the colonel, while Novak covered him with an R5. Kufa tied the pilot’s hands and had him kneel on the deck of the cargo compartment, next to Joost, who now seemed to be breathing easier, even though his face mirrored his superior’s hate-filled rage.
Kobus’s eyes and fingers roamed the instrument panel as he identified the myriad switches and readouts. Next he transferred his hands to the cyclic and collective controls, resting them there while the copilot flew the machine, ghosting her movements in order to get a feel for the helicopter.
Petrice turned to look at Alex, her mouth opening and closing, pantomiming speech. Alex nodded.
‘This is a terrible thing you’re doing. Profiting from the death of all those elephants,’ she said into the boom microphone extending from her helmet.
‘This is a terrible day,’ Alex agreed. ‘Now just fly the bloody helicopter and shut up.’
They crossed the snaking N’wanetsi River and Alex saw the white of the Land Cruiser starkly visible from far off. As they approached, Heinrich, Kevin and Henri emerged from the vehicle.
‘Ste
ady now, no heroics. Think of your commanding officer and your crew,’ Alex said to Petrice. He felt bad about manipulating the young woman, but he was concerned that if he’d left the senior pilot in charge the man might have done something rash – perhaps even deliberately crashing the helicopter to thwart their plan. He trusted that Petrice would do as ordered because she was younger and less experienced than the combat-hardened colonel.
As the helicopter slowed and began to descend, Kevin disappeared back inside the truck and popped the bonnet. Heinrich opened it fully, reached inside and yanked out a handful of leads, which he held aloft, grinning, as the Oryx touched down.
‘OK?’ Alex asked Kobus.
‘I’ve got it,’ Kobus nodded.
‘Treat her kindly,’ Petrice said.
‘She’s more responsive than the Russian beasts I usually fly, but I’ve got the hang of her.’
Alex slumped forward as something or someone fell hard against his back.
He rolled to one side and Kufa slipped by him and landed on his side between the two pilots’ seats.
The colonel had broken free after Novak hauled him to his feet and launched himself forward, head-butting Kufa and knocking him backwards into Alex.
‘Go, Joost, now!’ the pilot yelled. The flight engineer then leapt out through the cargo hatch before Novak could strike him with the swinging butt of his R5. Unable to steady himself with his hands, Joost pitched face-first into the dirt as soon as he touched the ground, but scrambled up to his knees, then feet.
Novak raised his rifle to his shoulder instinctively, to fire on the man, but the colonel charged him, knocking him to one side as he fired. The bullet missed its mark.
Petrice hauled on the controls and the Oryx rose again into the air. Ten metres off the ground she banked viciously to port in an aggressive move that almost had the rotor tips scraping on the dirt. Novak slid out of the cargo hatch and landed hard in the bare dirt of the abandoned quarry site a few metres below.
Heinrich, Henri and Kevin were running back to the shelter of the Land Cruiser, away from the crazily jinking aircraft dancing above them.
Kobus was frantically trying to regain control of the aircraft, but all he was succeeding in doing was overcorrecting Petrice’s manoeuvres, which made the ride even rougher for those in the back.
Kufa had a hand on each of the pilots’ seats and was dragging himself up to meet the two air force security guards, who had been left on board and had now gained the courage to stand and rush forwards. Alex regained his balance, raised his pistol, aimed at the nearest man’s thigh and fired. The man dropped to the floor and his companion either fell or decided to drop to the other man’s side. The colonel had fallen onto his back thanks to Petrice’s flying, and as he tried to stand Alex planted an army boot hard on his chest, pinning him down. He pointed the pistol between the colonel’s blue eyes but saw no fear there.
He swivelled at the waist and pushed the gun into the back of Petrice’s neck. ‘Take your hands off those controls. Now. Kobus, take control of this helicopter,’ he said through the intercom.
Alex felt the Oryx wobble and lurch a couple more times as control was transferred, but Kobus soon had her hovering steadily, and brought her back to terra firma with only a slight bump.
A flick of his pistol hand was all Alex needed to get Petrice to unbuckle and ease herself out through the cargo hatch.
Novak was standing at the opening ready to lift down the wounded airman, and Heinrich and Henri took charge of the other security officer. Kevin had run into the bush after Joost and had been easily able to catch the flight engineer, who was more used to flying across the hot thorny bushveld than running through it. He had him covered at gunpoint in the swirling dust of the makeshift landing zone.
Alex unclipped a green canvas bag emblazoned with a red cross from a bulkhead in the helicopter and tossed it out, so that it landed at the feet of the uninjured airman. He grabbed the colonel by one arm, lifted him to his feet then gave him a shove in the small of his back.
‘You put the lives of those under your command at risk for nothing,’ he yelled at the colonel as the man climbed down from the helicopter, slowly and with dignity, finally surrendering his machine.
The pilot stopped and turned, looking back up at Alex crouched in the open hatchway. ‘I think you probably would have done the same thing.’
Alex couldn’t stop the hint of a smile from curling the corners of his lips. ‘That man’s not badly wounded, but bandage him and keep him inside the vehicle, in the shade. Someone will be with you in the hour.’
The pilot nodded, turned and walked away towards the Land Cruiser.
Alex ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. ‘Let’s get moving.’
The rest of his men climbed aboard the helicopter and Alex followed. He sat in the open cargo hatch, an R5 across his lap, watching the stranded air force personnel milling about the Land Cruiser as the helicopter climbed skyward.
It had a been a close call. He didn’t want anyone killed on this operation, which he still hoped would be his last. He stared out at the brown bush racing beneath his boots and breathed deeply, waiting for the adrenaline to subside. What would have happened if Novak had shot and killed the flight engineer; or if the colonel’s near-suicidal antics had led to the death of Petrice, or one of the two airmen who were supposed to have been providing security? He had aimed for the airman’s leg, with the intention of wounding him not killing him, but Alex knew that if his aim had been even slightly off he might have nicked the man’s femoral artery and he could have bled to death in minutes.
Risks.
It was what had driven him as a pirate. As much as his need for cash and building materials, he knew he was a junkie, still addicted to the rush his body was now recovering from. He stripped off his gloves and flexed the two remaining fingers on his left hand. The air crew would be able to provide a good description of him, Kufa, Novak, and Kobus, but it would be a little thing, like his disability, that would narrow the search inexorably to him.
The injury had never hampered him from doing anything – apart from typing or playing the piano with more than one finger – but it had ended his military career. He had been bitter at first, but later he’d realised that if he hadn’t been injured in Afghanistan then he might never have fulfilled what he had believed had been his destiny since his family had fled Mozambique.
He needed Africa. It was as much of a drug as combat action or crime. He looked eastwards over the horizon. The country of his birth, his home, was out there, not twenty kilometres distant. He would reclaim his birthright. He would commit no more crimes. He would live out his days, sated with the simple joys of living on this continent that was as beautiful as it was ugly, as peaceful as it was battle-scarred, as healing as it was deadly.
‘Alex!’ Novak tapped his shoulder and passed him the spare headset.
He put the headphones on and Kobus told him Steyn had just radioed them with a new message.
‘He says that another herd of twenty-three elephants was spotted by the national parks helicopter a little while ago heading for a waterhole near Frank Cole’s team. The parks helo had to return to Skukuza to refuel. Steyn wants us to find the herd and drive them towards Frank’s team. He can’t get to them by vehicle as the bush is too thick.’
Alex scratched his chin. He wanted the ivory Cole had already harvested from the elephants he’d shot that morning. If they drove the herd onto his guns, Cole and most of his hunters would be busy shooting. He might only leave a couple of labourers to load the ready tusks.
‘Let’s do it.’ He explained what was going on to the rest of his crew.
Kobus found the elephants without any trouble. They were strung out in single file, walking across a wide-open grassy vlei. Ahead of them was an expanse of mopane trees that stretched on towards the Lebombo Mountains and the border with Mozambique. Frank would want them to make the herd turn left and move down the vlei, instead of heading for the wat
erhole in the middle of the floodplain and then disappearing into the thick mopane beyond to feed. At the far left-hand end the grassy expanse gave way to thinner scrubland. Frank’s team, according to Kobus’s reckoning, was about two kilometres in that direction.
‘Concentrate on the big cow at the front,’ Alex said. He knew the rest of the herd would take its cue from the matriarch.
Alex climbed into the copilot’s seat and found a pair of binoculars in a pouch on the side. He focused on the elephant as they circled the vlei. She was enormous, and sported a pair of long, curved yellowed tusks, each nearly the length of a man’s body.
27
Not many things frightened her, but today she was scared.
It had been many years since she’d heard the clatter and whine of the machine that close above her. It swarmed around her like a huge angry bee. While she could fend off an attack by a pride of lions with her trumpet-blast scream and a flick of her mighty trunk, she hated bees.
She turned her face to the sun and spread her ears wide, then raised her trunk to sniff the air and scare it with her silhouette. She caught the oily stench of it, but it wasn’t scared by her display.
She’d heard the popping in the distance earlier. It was something else she associated with the coming of the noisy flying beast. After the noise had died, in those years gone by, she had visited the bones of the others. She had sniffed them, rolled them with her huge padded feet and mourned for them. She had learned, from an early age, to associate those noises with death.
Her mother had taken her and her brothers and sisters and aunties on a tiring, arduous journey. Death had plagued them at every step and the popping and the clattering had filled most days of her early years. Her mother had taken them across the wide open grass and swamplands where she’d been born into a strange land.
