by Tony Park
Something electrical was shorting. He caught the odour of burning plastic. ‘Retief,’ he croaked.
There was no answer from the pilot next to him.
‘Retief!’ He shook the pilot, then placed two fingers on his neck. No pulse. ‘Shit.’
He fumbled with the buckle for the pilot’s harness and dragged him free of the wreckage. He rolled the younger man onto his back and started CPR.
‘Come on.’ Graham moved from breaths to compressions, but got no response. Retief was dead. He heard voices. They were men, speaking Portuguese, calling to each other.
Graham shivered. It was the poachers. The ground crew from the lodge would be coming by vehicle. The men who had downed the helicopter would not want to leave any witnesses. He reached into his shirt for the pistol, pulled it out, and ejected the magazine. His wild gunfire had left just three rounds.
He went back to the wreckage of the helicopter and hurriedly searched the rear compartment, snatching up the only other weapon he could find: his dart gun. The other pistol must have fallen out of the helicopter during the crash.
Graham did a quick check of Retief’s shirt and shorts, but the pilot had no more ammunition. Graham looked down at Retief and crossed himself, then limped away from the helicopter.
When he reached a clump of thorn trees he dropped to his knees and wriggled into the dry undergrowth.
Three men armed with AK-47s came into view, moving with the professionalism of soldiers on patrol. Graham guessed that the other men, those carrying the tusks and the tools they had used to remove them, must have carried on towards their base or destination, leaving the armed men to investigate the crash.
The first gunman searched the helicopter, including Retief’s body, and after helping himself to the pilot’s wallet, called his comrades forward. They talked to each other in Portuguese as they ferreted around the crash site.
One poacher, an older man with tight curls of grey hair, circled the wreckage, his eyes on the ground searching for spoor. He called to the others. The youngest-looking man in the group, perhaps still a teenager, joined him, while the third stayed by the helicopter.
The youth looked at the tracks the older man was pointing out and then both looked up, following the trail towards where Graham lay. The old man put his hand on the younger one’s arm to caution him, but the youth shook off the touch and started heading Graham’s way.
Graham was a hundred metres or more from the wreckage, too far for an accurate pistol shot. He picked up the Dan-Inject dart gun he had been about to use on the baby elephant, took aim through the telescopic sight and centred the crosshairs on the young man heading his way.
The youth paused, then pointed directly at Graham and yelled something over his shoulder, in Portuguese, to the older man. The boy raised his rifle and started to take aim.
Graham pulled the trigger. The dart flew true, and the young man fell. Graham changed weapons as the other two men, calling to each other, raised their assault rifles and opened fire.
The elder of the group hung back, but the man who had been checking out the downed helicopter ran forward. Graham stood, wrapped his left hand around his right and fired a shot at the man coming towards him, aiming for the centre mass of his body. The man fell backwards and lay unmoving. Graham dived for the ground and rolled, then crawled for the cover of a fallen tree.
The old poacher fired a wild burst of three rounds from his AK-47 then turned and ran.
Graham fired his last two bullets at the fleeing man, but neither shot found its mark. He stayed in cover until the man was out of sight.
He stood, dusted himself off and walked to the young man he had darted. The boy was immobilised, but still conscious. He blinked twice.
Graham knew he should draw up a syringe of naltrexone, the same drug that paramedics administered to heroin addicts who had overdosed, to reverse the effects of the dart. His tackle box was somewhere in the wreckage.
He jogged to the helicopter and paused, briefly, to look at Retief’s body. In the back of the helicopter he found his tackle box full of drugs, but it had come open on impact and phials, syringes and ampoules were scattered everywhere. By the time he had found and drawn up a syringe of naltrexone, and made it back to the poacher, the young man was dead.
*
Kerry and Lawrence pulled up at the reception office of Ukuphila Wildlife Orphanage, near Hoedspruit.
Kerry walked into the thatch-roofed building which was painted a similar khaki hue to the bush she’d been passing through all day. She was tired, but pleased to be at her destination. Except there was no one at the reception desk. She rang a bell on the counter. As well as housing a variety of birds, animals and reptiles, Ukuphila’s grounds also included a dozen two-person accommodation units. Kerry saw a whiteboard behind the counters that bore the heading Chalets. Next to the numbers one to twelve were various surnames. Oddly, hers wasn’t there; perhaps, she mused, the board had yet to be updated.
Lawrence came in behind her, pulling her wheelie bag.
A portly lady walked slowly through a doorway from a back office. ‘Hello, how are you?’
‘I’m Kerry Maxwell. I’m here for the month-long volunteer program with Dr Baird.’
The woman seemed miffed at something. ‘Ah, but Dr Baird, he is not here today.’
Lawrence and the woman exchanged what seemed like extended words of greeting in their language and Kerry wondered if she should have been more polite, instead of coming straight to the point.
‘Can you tell me when he’ll be arriving?’ Kerry asked.
The woman shrugged.
Kerry looked back at Lawrence, but he just smiled. Kerry took a deep breath to still her growing impatience. ‘OK. Perhaps I can check in to my room and you could let me know when Dr Baird arrives.’
‘Your name?’
Kerry took a deep breath. ‘Maxwell.’
The woman clicked a computer mouse and looked at the monitor.
‘There is no one by that name booked with us.’
Kerry leaned over the reception counter. ‘Let me see.’
The woman frowned at her, but turned the monitor slowly her way.
Kerry scanned the names. ‘I’m not here. You look busy.’
‘We are fully booked. There is a wedding happening tomorrow.’
‘You mean you don’t have any accommodation for me?’ She felt her heart rate start to rise. ‘I sent my money to Dr Baird and he confirmed my booking.’
‘Dr Baird, he is not here.’
Kerry felt a panic attack coming on.
*
Graham Baird drank slowly but steadily all the way to the town of Massingir.
Juan had picked him up and taken the bodies of Retief Potgeiter and the two poachers Graham had killed back to his lodge, where they had collected Graham’s Land Rover. Graham followed the lodge owner on the drive to town where they would have to report to the Mozambican police. Graham wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable bureaucratic marathon that would ensue, so he worked his way steadily through a sixpack of warm Dois M beers as he drove in order to prepare himself and to steady his nerves.
Massingir was dominated by the dam of the same name, a low but five-kilometre-long wall that held the Olifants River in check for a while on its journey from South Africa into Mozambique.
The town had sprung up around the dam and was, year by year, eating up more of the surrounding bushland. There were high hopes that one day tourists would flock to the lake created by the dam to fish and view game, but for now a good deal of the money that paid for the newer houses and the four-by-fours that honked and bumped their way around Massingir came from poaching.
A Mozambican poacher could make well in excess of the country’s average annual income from the proceeds of shooting one rhino across the border in the Kruger Park, while the kingpins who supplied the animals’ horns to the Vietnamese middlemen were akin to local royalty.
Graham crumpled an empty beer can and tossed it
on the floor of the passenger side of his Land Rover, where it clanged against the first three. He had a nice buzz on, though it wouldn’t be enough to see him through the day.
Juan led the way past market stalls that were selling tomatoes and second-hand clothes donated by well-meaning do-gooders overseas, and pulled up outside the town’s police station.
Graham parked behind him and got out.
‘Stay here, for now, my friend,’ Juan said, then went inside.
Three police officers filtered out of their bunker with Juan. They clustered around the bakkie loaded with the bodies of the dead poachers. Retief was wrapped in a green waterproof poncho in the rear of Graham’s Land Rover.
The policemen chatted among themselves, one took notes, and a couple took pictures with cheap Nokia phones. They came to Graham and the one who seemed to be in charge started berating him.
‘He says you are to be charged,’ Juan said.
‘Then tell him I am very sorry for any offence I have caused to the peace-loving people of Mozambique, but now is the time for me to go back across the border to South Africa.’
Juan did some translating. ‘The officer says this is not possible, for now.’
It was hot. Sweat streamed down Graham’s face and he thought it could be the beers evaporating from him. He felt light-headed.
The senior policeman was taking notes now, still speaking only in Portuguese.
Juan looked Graham in the eyes. ‘He says one of the men you killed was the little brother of a local politician, Fidel Costa.’
‘Hah!’ Graham said. ‘You know as well as I do he’s the biggest criminal in town, and supposedly the local rhino poaching kingpin. What are they charging me with, manslaughter?’
Juan shook his head, his expression grim. ‘Murder.’
Chapter 3
Kerry was fuming. With no accommodation available at the Ukuphila Wildlife Orphanage, Lawrence had driven her to the only place in Hoedspruit he could think of that would have a room available.
She was in a place called Raptor’s Lodge, a collection of self-contained accommodation units on the edge of the Raptor’s View wildlife estate, a housing development set in the bush and populated with animals as well as people. It would have been very pleasant if she didn’t feel like a landlocked castaway.
Her Australian mobile phone was picking up a roaming signal. She tried the Ukuphila number for the third time that afternoon and Thandi – she was now on first-name terms with the receptionist – answered.
‘Is there any more news about where Dr Baird is, when he’ll be coming back?’
‘Ah, I have some bad news and some good news answers for you.’
Kerry sighed. ‘Good news first, please, Thandi. I need some.’
‘The good news is that I have found your booking. The problem is that we were not expecting you until this time next month. I think this is Dr Baird’s mistake. He can be – how should I say – less than attentive to detail, particularly after lunch. I also now know where Dr Baird is. His friend, Juan, the lodge owner he was visiting in Mozambique, called just now.’
‘And?’
‘And that is the other news – the bad news. Dr Baird is in prison in Mozambique.’
Kerry plonked herself down in one of the cane chairs in the small lounge room of her unit. ‘Where? What’s he done?’
‘Ah, he is in Massingir, in Mozambique. He has been charged with murder.’
Kerry was speechless. How could this be happening to her? She took a deep breath and tried to think straight. Kerry realised she had so far only been thinking about herself.
‘What was Dr Baird doing in Mozambique?’ she asked Thandi.
‘He was trying to save a baby elephant whose mother had been killed by poachers. Dr Baird’s helicopter was shot down by poachers. The pilot died in the crash and Dr Baird was involved in a gun battle with the criminals.’ Thandi relayed the news in the same tone as she might have if Dr Baird was stuck in traffic.
Kerry felt like she’d been physically floored for the second time in as many minutes. Here she was worried about her ruined holiday while a man who put his life on the line to save Africa’s wildlife was rotting in a third-world prison.
‘Do you have a number for this Juan guy?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Give it to me, please.’ Kerry scribbled down the number. ‘Thanks, Thandi.’
Kerry dialled the number and a man answered in what she assumed was Portuguese. She introduced herself and explained who she was.
‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear about your predicament,’ Juan said. ‘I wish I could tell you Graham will be out of prison soon, but the justice system in my country moves very slowly. I’m doing what I can behind the scenes.’
‘Does Dr Baird have a lawyer?’
‘Alas, no,’ Juan said. ‘I’m not sure I can find a good lawyer to represent him and, anyway, I know from my own dealings with my friend Graham that he is not a wealthy man. I usually end up covering his bar bill. However, I’m also having cash flow problems. I’m going to ask the police if Graham can perhaps pay a fine – what you might call a bribe – but even if they agree I’m not sure where we would raise the money if it is expensive. For a murder charge it is likely to be extortionate.’
‘I’m a lawyer,’ Kerry said.
‘You are?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then perhaps you could . . .’
The call ended. Kerry called Juan again but there was no answer, just a recorded message in Portuguese, repeated in English, telling her that the phone user was out of range or not in contact. She made five more attempts to call Juan, but could not get through.
‘Damn.’ Kerry felt helpless, but she was not only concerned for herself. A man was in trouble and needed legal help. She phoned Ukuphila again. ‘Hello, Thandi?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you know where I can rent a car to drive to Mozambique?’
*
The rum was at room temperature, which was to say, close to boiling.
The cell smelled of old sweat and recent urine and the odours, like Graham himself, were ripening in the stifling October heat. Juan had smuggled in a bottle of Tipo Tinto, home-brewed rum sold in old plastic Coca-Cola bottles. The spirit was like sandpaper going down, but it was the only thing keeping him half-sane, as in half-drunk.
Graham willed himself to be patient. Juan would be pulling strings in the provincial government offices. It would just take time; Africa time.
A cockroach scuttled from out of the drain hole in the stained sink in the corner of the cell, looked around, twitched its antennae, then retreated.
‘Wise move, China.’ Graham raised his bottle to the departing bug. ‘The sewer’s cleaner. Probably smells better, as well.’
Graham heard voices speaking Portuguese. Keys rattled in the lock and a warder opened the door. ‘Come.’
He stood, his nose rankling at his own odour, and followed the policeman down a corridor with stained walls. They went into an office. A policeman sat at a battered wooden desk, his white shirt straining at the buttons over his corpulent belly. The man smoked while he perused a handwritten file. He looked up.
‘Doctor Baird,’ said the seated officer.
‘Sit,’ said the warder. ‘I will make the translation.’
The officer, older and clearly more senior, spoke in Portuguese, his words as sluggish as the blades on the ancient desk fan that squeaked as they failed to make headway against the humidity.
‘This is Capitão Alfredo. He says you are in big trouble.’
‘Don’t worry. Tell him I’m innocent.’
The younger officer translated and Captain Alfredo regarded him through heavy, sleepy lids. ‘Guilty,’ the captain said in English.
‘I want a lawyer,’ Graham said.
The captain stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, listened to the translator, then shook his head. He spoke again.
‘The captain, he says there is no
need for a lawyer, or a trial. He says he is able to deal with this matter with a fine.’
Graham nodded. He’d expected, hoped, this might be the case. His number one priority was to get out of this stinking place and back to South Africa, not clear his name in the eyes of the Mozambican justice system. ‘Ask him how much.’
There was a discussion between the two officers.
‘Five thousand,’ the warder said.
‘Meticais. Sure, no problem.’ Graham didn’t even bother bargaining. The price was too good to be true.
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘Rand?’
‘No, US dollars,’ said the warder.
‘What!’ Graham didn’t have anything like that much money. ‘That’s criminal. My life’s not worth that.’
‘The captain takes offence at your words.’
‘Well, tell him some more words from me. How about he . . .’
Captain Alfredo held up a hand and spoke low and slow to the translator.
‘The captain says you would be wise to consider paying this fine. He says there are other men in Massingir who might want to come and visit you.’ The warder moved behind Graham and grabbed his upper arm, motioning for him to stand. It was time for him to go back to his cell. ‘You would not like these visitors.’
Chapter 4
Kerry left Letaba Camp in the Kruger Park at dawn, just as the security gates opened. At the four-way stop she turned right, to the north.
She gripped the steering wheel of her rented Corolla hard and her eyes swept left and right, looking for elephant or other game that might suddenly jump out from the mopane trees into her path.
Off to her right a herd of buffalo, perhaps two or three hundred of them, were plodding, single file, towards a concrete trough at a man-made waterhole fed by a windmill-driven pump. She slowed, but didn’t stop to take a picture. Yesterday she’d been in a kind of limbo, heading from the Kruger Park’s Orpen entrance gate north to Letaba Camp.
On her afternoon drive through the reserve, at a sedate pace dictated by the speed limit, she had almost convinced herself not to go to Mozambique, and rather just enjoy the spectacular wildlife and scenery around her. The countryside from Orpen to Satara, the first camp she’d stopped at, was sparse and open and she’d been treated to a sighting of a cheetah. She had watched, barely daring to breathe, as the cat had stalked an impala, then showed itself and gave chase. Puffs of red dust had erupted like mini explosions, signalling where the cheetah’s paws hit the ground. It had turned, dramatically, using its long tail as a rudder, and made a desperate lunge for the impala, but the lucky antelope had got away.
