‘It wasn’t my idea for Kelvin to quit,’ Josh protested. ‘But now he has, there’s no need for me to go back to Iron Fist on my own.’
‘Your father thinks the training with Sergeant Kasula will do you both good, and so do I. Seatbelts done up please, the pair of you!’ Nan instructed as she put the key in the ignition. ‘That includes you, young man!’
Josh pulled a face. ‘I’m always “young man” when you’re cross with me,’ he said under his breath. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
Nan Fulton eyed him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You didn’t tell me until today that Kelvin had quit the course. Now, do as I say and do up your seatbelt.’
‘Yes, Nan,’ sighed Josh. He’d planned to slump down in the seat so that none of his schoolmates saw him in his grandmother’s car on the way to Kelvin’s place. Now, as he clicked the seatbelt in place, he felt like a prisoner on display for the whole world to see.
‘Ranger Lucky, can you ask Colonel Zuba’s men to untie our hands?’ Koinet pleaded. All six of the captive rangers sat crammed together in the back of the bumping Land Rover. ‘It is so uncomfortable. You speak with Colonel Zuba all the time. Tell him that I will not try to run away if he unties me.’
‘Hush, child,’ old Julius said wearily. ‘Bear this like a man, as Ranger Lucky bears it, as we all bear it.’
‘I am not a man,’ Koinet replied sourly. ‘I am only a boy.’
‘And boys have to grow up pretty quickly,’ Lucky remarked, ‘especially in this part of the world.’
Koinet lapsed into a morose silence as the Land Rover drove on.
In the early hours of the morning, Zuba’s convoy came to a halt. The canvas cover on the back of the Land Rover was thrown back.
‘Out!’ commanded one of the guards gruffly, and Lucky and his fellow rangers stiffly clambered out.
The vehicles had stopped beside an expanse of water that, in the light of the rising moon, stretched to the horizon. Lucky had made it his business to lodge a map of Tanzania firmly in his mind when he’d started work in this country, and he knew that this must be Lake Victoria. There was a small village here, lit by oil torches that stretched along the edge of a narrow beach. A single, spindly jetty jutted out into the flat water. Tied to it was an old blue ex-military landing craft with faded Tanzanian Army markings. A number of small wooden boats were also moored to the jetty and drawn up on the beach either side of it.
Men from the village came to meet Zuba and his rebel band, and Lucky watched as they shook hands with Zuba and Chawinga and embraced them. There were smiles all around, but as the conversation continued, Lucky could see that the village men had quickly become unhappy. An argument broke out between Zuba and one of the headmen from the village.
‘What are they arguing about, Julius?’ Lucky asked. He and his rangers stood on the sand with their guards, watching them closely.
‘I don’t know,’ Julius replied. ‘We are too far away for me to hear clearly.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was about money,’ Lucky said half to himself. ‘The locals were expecting a payout for their help, but Zuba has run out of money.’
Julius nodded. ‘That sounds right to me.’
As they continued to watch, they saw Zuba angrily turn to one of his men. Taking the soldier’s AK-47 from the man’s hands, Zuba directed it toward the nearest livestock compound and fired. The burst of gunfire chopped down a section of fence, sprayed red earth into the air and felled several of the cows penned inside the compound. Zuba’s older soldiers thought this was hilarious and roared with laughter.
In this part of the world, a man’s wealth was determined by how many cattle he owned, and in the wake of Zuba’s callous action, the headman and those with him put their hands to their heads, dropped to their knees and wailed. As Zuba stood smiling his smug smile, the headman, his hands clasped together as if he were praying, begged Zuba not to harm any more of the village livestock. Zuba helped the man to his feet and resumed their previous conversation. This time, the headman nodded agreeably, and soon beckoned a young villager to join them.
Zuba handed the AK-47 to the startled young man and pointed to the wooden boat tied to the jetty. ‘Shoot, my friend.’
Zuba seemed to be perfectly aware that the villager could turn the gun on him, but with Zuba’s soldiers training their weapons on the men cowering in front of the rebel leader, he also knew that the young man would not make such a fatal mistake. Reluctantly, the young man held the assault rifle close against his right side as he aimed at the boat. He had clearly never used an AK-47 before. Lucky reckoned he had probably never fired a gun in his life.
‘Shoot! Shoot!’ Zuba urged, slapping the youth on the back.
The young man pulled the trigger, letting off a burst of fire. Bullets splashed into the water in front of the boat, but none hit its target.
Zuba’s smiled disappeared in a flash. Fiercely, menacingly, he issued the youth with an order. ‘I command you to fire at the boat!’
The youth fired again, this time riddling the boat with bullets. This brought a delighted cheer from the older rebel troops.
Zuba, satisfied, yanked the rifle from the villager’s hands and handed it back to its owner. The boat, meanwhile, slowly sank at its moorings. Zuba then took a document from his tunic pocket and handed it to the young man, giving him detailed instructions. The young man nodded gravely, then, taking the document with him, ran to the beach. Lucky and the rangers watched as he pushed one of the small boats through the low breaking waves and out into deeper water.
Climbing into the boat, the young man took a seat in the stern, his weight sending the bow into the air. Starting the boat’s small outboard motor, he turned the boat around, and with the engine buzzing like a mosquito, he headed out onto the lake and turned east.
‘What is he doing, I wonder,’ said Julius.
‘Mwanza lies to the east,’ said Lucky. ‘I reckon he’s delivering a message for Zuba.’ He had a pretty good idea what that message was. The document that Zuba handed to the messenger had looked very much to Lucky like the letter he’d earlier written at Zuba’s command – a letter which stated that Lucky and his rangers would be released unharmed when a ransom of one million dollars was paid.
Now Chawinga came toward the prisoners, beckoning them. ‘Come to the jetty, all of you.’
‘Where are you taking us now?’ Lucky demanded. One of the guards pushed him forward.
‘We are all going for a little boat ride,’ Chawinga replied with a chuckle.
Major Jinko stood on the Canberra’s bridge to watch the Heron make a night landing. Away to the north, with its navigation lights winking, the Heron banked tightly and made its final approach to Canberra. The big ship, with the Julius Nyere scudding along at its side, had reversed its course once it drew level with the border between Tanzania and Kenya, and was now steaming south along the Tanzanian coast, with Pemba Island on its left. The rays from the rising moon lit a golden path across a calm Indian Ocean. On the Canberra’s flight deck, lines of small lights, which looked like precise rows of fireflies, marked out the UAV’s flight path.
Although Herons weren’t designed for landing on ships, Jinko had kept the Bluey over northwest Tanzania, between Leboo and the Burundi border, for as long as he could. He had been hoping to find a trace of Colonel Zuba and Lucky. Jinko had only given his approval for the drone to return to the ship when its fuel gauge indicated that it must come back to refuel – or crash. Hour after hour, the Heron’s cameras had scoured the landscape of northwest Tanzania. When darkness fell, its infrared camera had been switched on. Yet, while the UAV had spotted plenty of Tanzanians on the ground, none had looked like the people Jinko was looking for.
He watched as the Heron made a perfect landing, piloted remotely from the operations centre. Like ants converging on food, deck crew swarmed around the UAV, and it was soon wheeled to the nearest deck lift.
‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ said Lieutena
nt Commander Lockhart, from beside Major Jinko.
‘I know,’ Jinko replied with a sigh, turning from the angled bridge window. ‘I got it wrong. I let Zuba outfox us. You know, I don’t think he went west after all. That was the easy option.’
‘So, where is he?’
‘He could have gone south, back into the game reserve. Or east, toward Mount Kilimanjaro. Or north toward Lake Victoria. From here on, I think I’m going to have to rely on gut instinct to track down Colonel Zuba.’
‘Gut instinct?’ Lockhart smirked. ‘Very scientific. And what does your gut tell you, Major?’
Jinko rubbed his chin. ‘North. My gut says he went north. Toward the lake.’
The battered blue landing craft carried Zuba’s little army, complete with Land Rovers and trail bikes, to a small island in Lake Victoria. The long, narrow island, about the size of three tennis courts placed end to end, rose up to a small hillock that reached twenty metres at its highest. This, and other neighbouring islands, formed part of a national park. There were a few scattered trees as well as several huts that had been illegally built by the lake fisherman to provide shelter during storms. With no permanent residents, the island was deserted when the landing craft arrived and disgorged its passengers.
Zuba’s men quickly hid their vehicles under the trees, covering them with green camouflage netting taken from the Tanzanian Army and peppering it with branches. Once this was done, most of the rebel soldiers set about casting string baited with pieces of goat meat into the lake. The captives were assigned to one of the fishermen’s huts, and as the surrounding waters of the lake acted like a wall, Zuba allowed them to sit outside and watch the soldiers attempt to fish.
‘What are you trying to catch?’ Lucky called to Chawinga, who stood close by with a line in his hand.
‘Nile perch,’ replied Zuba’s deputy, looking around at Lucky. ‘This a nice fish, with very tasty white flesh.’ He smiled, revealing gaps in his teeth. ‘When you catch one, that is. These fish, they don’t like goat meat as much as we do.’
Chawinga was right, the fish didn’t bite. When the sun began to set, he gave up on trying to catch perch for dinner and lit a cooking fire. Two large iron pots hung on a metal bar over the flames. One pot contained a stew made from the last of the goat meat, which would feed Zuba, Chawinga and one or two favoured soldiers. For the rest, Chawinga prepared the RAT’s staple of bean soup.
The prisoners were made to sit and eat their dinner on one side of the cooking fire, while Zuba’s men did the same on the other side. Zuba, Chawinga, and Tonkei and Sirum – the two older men who usually guarded the prisoners – sat together in a separate group, eating goat stew. A new recruit and an older boy soldier watched over Lucky and his rangers, with AK-47s cradled uncomfortably in their hands.
‘What’s your name, son?’ Lucky asked the recruit standing guard. When the boy failed to reply, Lucky smiled. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. No one is going to harm you. What’s your name?’
‘It is Legeny, sir,’ the boy replied in a faint voice, before looking away.
‘You should not call him “sir”!’ the other youth admonished.
The boy only shrugged in response to this.
‘Where are you from, Legeny?’ Lucky asked. ‘Which village?’
‘Mdinga,’ the boy replied.
‘And how old are you?’
‘Eleven, sir.’
‘Would you like to go home to your mother, Legeny, and stop being a soldier?’
Legeny nodded, and seemed close to bursting into tears. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You should not talk with him, Legeny!’ the older boy said angrily. ‘Be quiet.’ Coming closer, he took the youngster roughly by the arm and dragged him away, forcing him to sit by the water, where he cradled his AK-47 in his lap and cried quietly to himself.
When the older guard was not looking, Lucky managed to catch Legeny’s eye and smiled at him. Legeny wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and shyly smiled back. Quickly, he turned away so that his older comrade didn’t see the smile.
Ben, Caesar and their party landed back at Leboo by Seahawk. Lieutenant Roy’s men had set up a tented camp inside one of the village goat compounds, which was surrounded by a wooden palisade protecting them from lions and hyenas roaming in the night. The Tanzanian soldiers had been joined in the cramped encampment by the GRRR men. And here, sitting around a camp fire, with bemused village goats pressing in around them, Ben, Baz, Chris and Sergeant Simma reported the outcome of their Dar es Salaam trip to the entire team.
‘So, how did you hit the jackpot on the docks?’ Charlie asked Ben. As he spoke, Charlie removed one of his Zoomers to check the knee mechanism. None of the other GRRR men as much as blinked at the sight, but the eyes of half-a-dozen astonished Tanzanian soldiers stood out on stalks.
‘We just kept searching, and had almost called it a day when we discovered the ivory in the last container we opened,’ Ben replied, ruffling his EDD’s neck. ‘Isn’t that right, Caesar? You found it in the last one.’
At the mention of his name, Caesar’s tail began to wag.
‘And what happened to the ivory shipment, Fulton?’ asked Duke Hazard. He was lying back with his hands behind his head, chewing gum.
Ben grinned. ‘We burned the entire load right there on the dock.’
Baz chuckled. ‘That’ll send Zuba a message.’
‘But will he get the message?’ asked Tim McHenry.
At this, Lieutenant Roy spoke up. ‘As soon as I heard of Sergeant Fulton’s success, I radioed my superiors. The destruction of Zuba’s ivory shipment will be reported in the news broadcasts of Tanzanian Government radio in the morning.’
‘Assuming Zuba hears it, will he believe it?’ said McHenry.
‘Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t,’ Charlie remarked. ‘It’s enough to put doubt in his mind and make him worry about where his next dollar is coming from. We’re priming him for a meeting with our Japanese ivory merchant.’ He glanced across the firelight at Toushi Harada. ‘Right, Toushi?’
‘I hope that I can meet your expectations, Sergeant Grover,’ said Toushi. ‘I have never before been involved in undercover work.’
‘There’s a first time for everything, mate,’ said Baz. ‘You’ll be great.’
Mrs Isabella Corbett opened the door to find Nan, Josh and Maddie standing before her. ‘Hello there,’ she said, smiling warmly in recognition.
‘Who’s at the door, Bella?’ came the gruff voice of her husband.
‘It’s Mrs Fulton, with Josh and Maddie,’ Mrs Corbett called back over her shoulder.
This brought an alarmed response from Mr Corbett. ‘I’m not here!’ he shouted, before slamming the bedroom door.
Now it was Nan’s turn to smile. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Kelvin. I’m afraid that –’
‘I know – he didn’t turn up for the course with Josh and Sergeant Kasula today. Kelvin wasn’t even sly enough to pretend he was still doing the course. He just wouldn’t get out of bed this morning, claiming he was sick. I am a nurse, Mrs Fulton, and it was as obvious as the nose on my face that my son was not sick. But he still refused to get out of bed.’
‘We did have an agreement, Mrs Corbett,’ said Nan.
Kelvin’s mother nodded. ‘And we still do. Kelvin will be at the next class, don’t you worry.’
‘Good, and so will Josh. Right?’ Nan put her hand on Josh’s shoulder.
‘Yes, Nan,’ Josh replied with a sigh.
‘Good on you, Joshie,’ said Maddie, proud of her brother.
In Sunday’s early morning light, Captain Chawinga led the RAT in a marching drill along the beach. To Lucky and the other prisoners, the drill was so slack it was laughable. The existing soldiers had only a rudimentary idea of how to march in step, while none of the seven new recruits seemed to know his left foot from his right. Worse still, several of them would turn the wrong way every time Chawinga gave the line of marchers the order to face in the opposite dir
ection.
Zuba himself was to be found sitting out of the sun, beneath a tree, with his transistor radio held up to his ear.
‘No!’ he suddenly cried in disbelief. Zuba had just heard a news story that had chilled him to his core. According to the BBC, the Tanzanian Government was reporting that a large ivory shipment – believed to have come from ivory-poaching revolutionary Abraham Zuba – had been discovered and destroyed on the dock at Dar es Salaam. ‘No! No! No!’ Zuba raged. Jumping to his feet, he threw down his radio and agitatedly paced back and forth, muttering to himself.
Seeing this, Chawinga dismissed his troops and came hurrying over to Zuba. ‘Colonel, what is the matter?’
Zuba stopped his pacing. ‘Chawinga, the BBC – it says that our last ivory shipment was intercepted and destroyed!’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘This is the first time that one of our shipments has been found. Someone must have betrayed us. We are ruined!’
Chawinga nodded, taking in the news calmly. ‘Do you believe the BBC? They could have made it up.’
‘The BBC never lies, Chawinga,’ Zuba returned, his eyes ablaze. ‘Never! Do you realise what this means? We will have no money. No money! We will have to hunt elephants again. But that will take months – the hunting, the shipping, the waiting for payment from China. How will the Revolutionary Army of Tanzania survive in the meantime?’
‘We should check with our contact at the docks, Colonel. We should check with Mr Zhu, just to make sure there is no mistake.’
‘A mistake?’ This thought seemed to calm Zuba. ‘Yes. Do that, Chawinga. Contact Mr Zhu – at once.’
Chawinga hurried away to get on the RAT’s VHF radio. As he did, Zuba noticed for the first time that Lucky and the other prisoners had been witness to all this. Sliding the pistol from the holster on his hip, he strode angrily toward the group of seated prisoners.
‘Get them inside their hut!’ he ordered the guards, waving the pistol around as he spoke. ‘No more privileges for them. No more privileges!’
Operation Pink Elephant Page 11
