Captive_A High-octane And Gripping African Thriller

by Tony Park

  At Letaba Camp she had stayed in a rondavel, a round hut overlooking the wide sandy banks and glittering blue river of the same name. A dainty bushbuck, a milk chocolate brown antelope with white icing stripes, had walked up to her while she’d sat at a little table outside her chalet, beseeching her for a snack with its big glistening eyes. She’d seen signs warning tourists not to feed the animals, so she hadn’t.

  Over dinner at the camp restaurant, while she’d watched a big bull elephant drink, Kerry’s doubts had surfaced. She’d spent a restless night and, thanks to a mix of jetlag and apprehension, had woken at five, before her alarm went off.

  And now she was heading to her second African country in three days. Mozambique.

  The road she followed climbed up into the Lebombo Hills, which marked the physical barrier between South Africa and Mozambique, and eventually led her to the Giriyondo border post. The formalities on the Kruger side were painless, though slower once she drove through the short no-man’s land into Mozambique. There were forms to fill in, for her and her rental car, an expensive visa to purchase, and she had to produce documents and a letter from the hire company to prove she had permission to take the car out of South Africa.

  Kerry showed the customs officer on duty that she was bringing nothing into the country then set off through the Mozambican side of the reserve. Here there was less game but she drove through forests of towering mopane trees. She guessed that one side effect of the poaching that had plagued this part of Africa in decades past was a lack of megafauna, such as elephants, to thin out the vegetation. It seemed a sad irony that while the Kruger Park, according to Lawrence, had too many elephants, on this side of the border there seemed to be very few.

  Kerry passed through a village and an exit gate from the park and finally drove onto the low, curving wall of Massingir Dam. She took it slowly, and forced herself to breathe deeply and calm herself for whatever she might encounter next.

  Massingir itself burst her peace bubble. Children ran alongside her car, shouting and holding their hands to their mouths. The buildings looked ramshackle, either decaying old colonial edifices of brick and cement or shacks made of salvaged anything. Here and there were new structures with whitewashed walls and tin roofs, bureaucratic beneficiaries of foreign aid, but for the most part the residents and businesspeople of the town appeared to inhabit the south side of the poverty line.

  Though not everyone.

  A horn blared behind her and Kerry saw a black BMW X5 four-by-four in her mirror, flashing its lights at her and doing its best to mate with her rear bumper. She slowed and pulled over. The big car, with its dark tinted windows, roared past her.

  A little further down the road she saw a new Range Rover and, somewhat incongruously, a low-slung Audi Q5 parked next to it. A few people in this dusty corner of Africa clearly had money to burn.

  Kerry pulled over and checked her GPS, trying to find the police station. It was on Google Maps, but she couldn’t quite tell which street she was in. A banging on her window gave her a fright. It was a small boy. Kerry wound down the window.

  ‘Police. Er, Policia?’ she tried.

  The boy nodded. ‘Sim.’ He pointed to a road ahead and crooked his hand to the right.

  ‘Thank you. Obrigado.’ She recalled the Portuguese word for thank you from a trip to Macau long ago with her parents. She missed her mother, still, terribly. What would her father think of her being here, on her mission? she wondered. It would be better to tell him when she got back to Australia.

  The little boy was running after her as she drove off, doing his best to keep up with her, waving his hands. She wondered if she should have given him money.

  Kerry slowed again and saw a large building on her right. It was surrounded by a wire fence, and a man in a white shirt with what looked like police insignia sat on a wooden stool by a gate. He had an assault rifle cradled on his lap. Kerry swallowed hard.

  *

  ‘Visitor.’

  ‘What?’ Graham Baird blinked and coughed. The cheap rum had stripped his throat. He went to the steel door. When it opened he had to blink again. Standing in the gloomy, smelly corridor was a young woman in safari clothes. She had jet-black hair, almond-shaped eyes like a cat’s, and honey-coloured skin.

  ‘Dr Baird, I presume.’ She forced a smile at her own joke.

  ‘Howzit. Do I know you? I hope so.’

  ‘My name is Kerry-Anh Maxwell.’ The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘I was supposed to be staying with you right now at Ukuphila.’

  ‘You were?’ Graham scratched his head. Her accent sounded Australian, not quite what he’d expected. The penny dropped. ‘Oh. I thought you were due next month, or something like that. I’m supposed to be in Zimbabwe next week.’

  ‘Er, no, Dr Baird, I was supposed to be with you now, in South Africa. We can discuss all that later. I’m a lawyer, I’ve come to help you.’

  Graham burped and was slightly ashamed of the invisible wave of stale booze that washed over Kerry. ‘Well, Miss . . .?’

  ‘Maxwell.’

  ‘Miss Maxwell, I’m afraid there’s not much you can do for me. I can’t afford the bribe the cops here want to let me go, so I definitely can’t afford a lawyer.’

  She looked around the cell, and back at the warder, who was leaning on a wall in the corridor behind her. ‘I know you can’t afford legal representation; your friend Juan told me already. So what do you intend on doing?’

  He shrugged. ‘Wait. This is Africa; sometimes that’s all you can do. If you spoke to Juan then you probably already know he’s trying to pull some strings for me.’

  Kerry pursed her lips. ‘I don’t think you heard me. I’m here to represent you. I hear you killed a poacher.’

  ‘No, I killed two.’ Graham sighed. ‘Like most foreign volunteers you think you can change the world, but I don’t think you heard me, either. This is Africa.’

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘What’s that supposed to mean – that justice doesn’t count and that you don’t deserve a fair trial with legal representation?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  She stomped a foot.

  Graham laughed. ‘Did you just stomp your foot?’

  ‘Don’t mock me, Dr Baird.’

  ‘If I were you, Miss Maxwell –’

  ‘Kerry-Anh or Kerry for short.’

  ‘All right. If I were you, Kerry-Anne –’

  ‘It’s Anh, not Anne. It’s Vietnamese. Try Kerry if that’s too hard to pronounce.’

  ‘Well, Kerry, my advice to you is to go back across the border to South Africa and enjoy the rest of your holiday. Oh, and please don’t shoot any more of our rhinos on your way out of the country.’

  She strode across the cell to where he was sitting and raised her hand. Graham recoiled, but was too late. She slapped him, hard, on the face. The guard in the corridor chuckled.

  *

  Kerry stepped back. She was shocked and surprised, and embarrassed. She had never hit anyone in her life. She was amazed that this dishevelled man, who smelled of alcohol and acrid sweat, had got under her skin so quickly.

  But she was not sorry. ‘How dare you, you racist, arrogant, ungrateful criminal.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not a criminal.’ He rubbed his cheek. ‘Quite a right hook you’ve got there.’

  ‘You took my money. I was supposed to be spending a month with you, right now, helping you tend to injured wildlife.’

  ‘Sure. I’m the only injured wildlife here at the moment. I don’t think I would have survived a week with you, lady.’

  She looked down at him. ‘Can’t you be serious about anything?’

  ‘You want to come to Africa and save the cute little animals?’

  She bridled again. The man was impossible. ‘I want to do something. I want to help stop the slaughter.’

  He ran a hand through his lank, greasy, greying hair. ‘Well, I was part of the slaughter yesterday. I saw a good man die and I killed a couple of others. Tha
t serious enough for you?’

  Now she saw the pain in his eyes and wondered if the redness wasn’t just from the alcohol he’d been consuming.

  ‘Visiting is over,’ said the guard in the corridor. He walked into the cell and put his hand on Kerry’s elbow.

  She shook him off. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  ‘I’d listen to her, comrade,’ Baird said to the guard. ‘She’s dangerous.’

  Kerry started to leave, but turned back to the man on the concrete bed. ‘Dr Baird . . .’

  ‘Graham.’ His voice was softer now and his big frame sagged. ‘And I’m sorry, for what I said before.’

  ‘Thank you, for what you’re doing, trying to save wildlife.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. And do what I told you. Go back to South Africa. I’ll be all right. They’ll get sick of me here after a while, and if I’m not out of here by next week I’ll get your money back to you, somehow.’

  ‘I didn’t realise how traumatic all this must have been for you. I’ll get you released.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He lifted his hand in a half-wave and Kerry walked out of the cell.

  He was infuriating, she thought, but he had just been through a trauma. Kerry had come too far to give up just yet.

  Chapter 5

  Graham touched the skin on his face, which was still hot from her blow. She was something else, this Kerry Maxwell. He remembered the name now, from the email bookings. He hadn’t been sure at the time if the name was male or female. Now he knew.

  The guard opened his door. ‘You have visitors.’

  ‘Again? Tell that bloody lawyer woman to leave me alone.’ He meant it; he wanted her to go back to South Africa and forget him, not to mention the money he owed her.

  Two men walked in. They wore jeans and, despite the heat, leather bomber jackets that bulged under each of their left armpits.

  ‘Let me guess, you’re from the South African embassy, come to give me consular assistance and get me out of here?’

  ‘Leave,’ one of the men told the guard, who nodded and obeyed. The man closed the door. He was older than his companion, and although Graham had only caught a glimpse of the grey-haired poacher who had fled from the gunfight at the scene of the chopper crash, Graham was now sure this was the same man.

  The temperature climbed with the addition of two extra bodies in the cell, or perhaps, Graham thought, it was the sudden sense of fear that flooded his body.

  The two men stared down at him.

  ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

  They moved on him, but despite his age Graham hadn’t lost all the reflexes honed through years of rugby and the occasional pub fight. He took them by surprise, sucker-punching the younger one on the right, smashing his fist into the man’s nose. The man fell back, gasping with pain. The victory was short-lived, however, as the older man delivered two hard punches to Graham’s kidneys that made him stagger.

  Graham rounded on the man who had hit him, but his opponent was faster than his friend had been and ducked out of Graham’s reach. Graham charged at him, but before he could land a blow he felt a stab of pain at the back of his head. He fell to his knees, then dropped to all fours.

  He rolled to escape the kicking he was sure was coming, but when he looked up he saw that the older man had drawn a Tokarev pistol and was pointing it at him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Judge, jury and executioner. You killed the boss’s brother. The sentence is death.’

  ‘Costa.’

  The man smiled and raised his gun.

  ‘Hell,’ Graham said. He thought of the hearts he’d broken, the wife he’d lost, the men he had killed. So this was how it ended.

  The door to the cell swung open.

  All three of them looked around.

  The warder opened fire with a burst of Portuguese and gesticulated at the gun. Graham hoped he was telling the man to put the pistol away and not pull the trigger. Behind the guard was the senior officer who had interviewed Graham and asked for the bribe.

  The warder spoke in English. ‘The capitão asks if you are truly a doctor, as it says on the charge sheet.’

  ‘I am.’ Graham left out the bit about him being a veterinarian.

  ‘The captain’s wife, she is having a baby and there is trouble. You must come.’

  Graham couldn’t believe his luck. ‘All right.’

  The thugs who had been beating him protested, but the captain seemed to outrank the local poaching kingpin, at least here in the police lock-up.

  There was loud arguing in Portuguese, but Graham recognised the deep voice of the captain overruling the grey-haired man who the warder had called Luiz. Graham’s guard kept him inside the cell until the ruckus had ended, then propelled him down the corridor.

  Graham raised his cuffed wrists to his eyes as he stumbled outside into the bright African day. The rear door of a Toyota double-cab bakkie opened and Graham climbed in, sighing pleasurably at the relief the air conditioning offered him.

  The captain sped off. He spoke rapidly in Portuguese to Graham’s guard and turned briefly to glare at him from the driver’s seat.

  ‘The capitão, he say that if his baby or wife dies then he let those men kill you.’

  ‘Right,’ said Graham.

  *

  Kerry had found a place to stay, a small lodge with simple but clean chalets.

  The owners of the camp, an Afrikaner couple, were welcoming and friendly and tried to sell her on the idea of a birding or fishing cruise on Lake Massingir. She politely told them she had work to do.

  Kerry found that her mobile phone couldn’t pick up a roaming signal in Mozambique, but she was able to log on to the camp’s slow satellite internet to check her emails and Facebook. There was a message from her father, Bruce, saying he was worried he hadn’t heard from her and that he would check Skype each evening in the hope that she could call.

  She took a deep breath and opened Skype. Even though she was thirty-two she was the youngest child and her father still treated her like a baby. Kerry realised he had become even more protective of her since her mother had died.

  ‘Kerry. There you are.’

  It was good to see his face again and she waved at the screen. Her father was looking good; tanned, with his steel-grey hair neatly trimmed. He had been in a bad way after her mother had died, but he was working hard at getting on with his life. ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘How’s the safari going? Seen lots of animals?’

  She could see the relief in his face. She wondered if she should tell him where she was. ‘It’s been great. I’ve seen heaps.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Hey, I’ve known you all your life, kiddo, I can tell when something’s worrying you. You’ve got that look.’

  ‘What look?’ Damn, he always could see through her. ‘I’m in Mozambique, Dad.’

  ‘But what are you doing there? The itinerary you emailed me didn’t say anything about Mozam-bloody-bique; you’re supposed to be in some wildlife orphanage patting cheetahs or some shit like that.’

  His face was turning red. When her dad got cranky he started talking like a soldier again. Kerry had known this would happen. Still, she was a grown woman and she didn’t need her father’s permission to visit a different country. She could have lied to him but that wasn’t how they worked as a family. Quickly, before she backed out, Kerry told her father about Graham Baird and how she was hoping to represent him.

  Bruce raised his hands, palms up. ‘What the hell am I going to do with you, kiddo? You’re taking on some third-world legal system in a country where you’re not even licensed to practise law?’

  ‘Dad, I’ve got to go.’

  Just then the internet connection dropped out. Kerry had time to wave to her father, and then he was gone. He was right, of course, she was totally out of her jurisdiction, not to mention the fact that she was a tax lawyer and had never defended someone accused of a crime.

  The internet
connection returned, but she didn’t try to contact her father again on Skype. Instead, she sent him an email reassuring him she would be fine. She hoped she would be.

  Kerry still had Graham’s friend Juan’s mobile phone number, but when she tried it she found that once again she couldn’t get through. She looked up his lodge online and sent Juan an email saying she had seen Graham and would like to talk to Juan. She told him where she was staying and gave the number of the lodge, hoping he might have more luck calling from a landline, assuming he had one.

  Kerry gathered her bag and her car keys and decided to go back to the police station and find the man in charge.

  *

  Capitão Alfredo, the officer in charge of Massingir police station, hugged Graham and kissed him on both cheeks.

  Graham broke free of the captain’s sweaty embrace, walked out of the officer’s house and leaned against the wall. He exhaled and looked at his hands. They were washed, but still shaking. The baby, named Dina, was crying her healthy little lungs out inside. He absent-mindedly patted his shirt pocket.

  ‘Cigarette, yes?’ the captain said, appearing beside him and noticing the gesture. Graham nodded. ‘No, we have cigar. For baby!’

  ‘Sim,’ said Graham, using one of the few Portuguese words he knew. Before the captain returned to the house, Graham grabbed his arm. ‘Telephone? Please?’

  The captain hesitated, then smiled and pulled a mobile phone out of his uniform shirt pocket. He went inside.

  Graham’s brain had been addled by a good many substances over the years, but he prided himself on his ability to remember telephone numbers. He called Juan.

  ‘Graham? You’re lucky to get me. The phone signal has been down lately. Are you still in prison?’