by Tony Park
But then they were down.
They bounced and rolled along the strip and the safari guide driving the Land Rover started up and came towards them. When they came to a halt Graham, doing his best to steady his hands, helped unstrap Kerry and took her hand as she climbed out.
The half-dozen tourists on the back of the truck, dressed in safari outfits and muffled against the chill morning air in scarves and beanies, broke into spontaneous applause.
‘Now that looked like a close call,’ said the guide.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Graham gruffly.
The guide asked his tracker, who sat on a seat perched on the front of the vehicle, to unpack the vehicle’s breakfast supplies.
Kerry stood in front of Graham and looked up into his eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said to her.
‘You saved my life, and my father’s.’
He reached out and put a hand on each of her shoulders. ‘And you came to Mozambique to try and save me.’
Kerry smiled. ‘Let’s call it quits.’
A champagne cork popped and the tourists cheered and gathered around them as Graham and Kerry hugged.
‘Welcome to Africa,’ he said to her.
Chapter 11
Nsele the honey badger’s life was dictated by routine, his horizons limited by grey concrete walls and a wire fence.
For twenty years he had been imprisoned in Australia, but that was not his home. He should have been living free under clear blue African skies. Nsele paced, up and down, up and down.
Soon it would be time to eat. Food was the only thing he had to look forward to.
That was his life, pacing and eating. Nsele’s captors were not unkind to him, but nor did they understand him. They did, however, have a healthy respect for him.
In fact, they feared him.
When the guard who fed him came to the prison, Nsele curled his lip. He would not cower before these people, even though they held him. He thought he could detect the scent of fear in the man who slid his food through a metal grate. The man backed away, a little too quickly. He was new. The more experienced warders gave him a wide berth.
While food was all he had to look forward to, there was one other thing that kept Nsele active, kept him engaged and kept him busy – the thought of escape.
He gnawed on a beef bone that was already starting to smell. Nsele didn’t care. He was tough and he had a gut that could digest just about anything.
This evening, however, something interesting happened. A brown snake, an Australian native, slithered in through the wire mesh fence. The reptile reared up at him, droplets of venom dripping from its wickedly long teeth. Nsele was not tall and the snake’s head was above him, poised to strike.
Nsele watched the snake. When he moved his head from side to side, so too did the horrible hissing mouth. Nsele stood his ground. He was afraid of nothing, no man, no beast, but this was perhaps the scariest thing he had seen, even during his two previous breakout attempts.
He had made it out of the place where they kept him, over the walls of the tiny space that passed as his exercise yard. During a fierce wind storm a branch from a eucalyptus tree had broken off in the gale and been blown into his prison. He had dragged and pushed the heavy limb, rolled it to the wall and, using all his strength, raised it until it was vertical. He’d then been able to use it as an improvised ladder to scale the wall.
However, as soon as he had climbed the first wall he had found himself confronted by the rest of the prison. He had run past inmates, as forlorn or as nasty as he was. They had called their taunts and their threats at him. He hadn’t understood these foreigners, of course, but he knew menace when he heard it.
Nsele had no idea where to go, but he’d followed his nose along a winding pathway towards what might have been the entrance. Like now it had been dark and there had been few lights, but he had good night vision. He had come to a gate and started climbing it, stretching, swinging and jumping to the next higher crossbar.
But then he had been spotted. A guard on night duty had seen him and rapped the bars of the gate with a stick, trying to scare him. When more guards were summoned he had led them on a merry chase around the rest of the prison, but they had cornered him eventually. He’d come at them like a tiny tornado, and although they’d finally managed to wrestle him down, he’d left more than one of them bleeding.
Nsele kept watching the snake, and it would have been hard for an observer to tell who was hypnotising whom. Their heads swayed in unison and Nsele stilled his fear, bided his time and waited.
Then Nsele struck.
He reached for the snake and pinned it down, narrowly avoiding the scrape of a fang. He rolled, to try and get behind the head, but the snake was quick as well. It wriggled and slithered under him and wrapped its long body around him, entangling him.
Nsele grabbed and, not having any sort of weapon, he used his teeth. He bit into the cool skin and chomped down, trying to draw blood.
The snake’s body convulsed and bucked, and its considerable strength pushed Nsele off balance. No sooner had he been able to get to his feet and try and gain purchase than he was on his back again. He shook and shimmied to try to loosen the reptile’s grasp. It was almost as if he was spinning around inside his own skin. Finally he broke free from its grip.
Far from done, the snake reared back its head and struck. This time Nsele had dodged when he should have weaved and he yelped as the fangs pierced his back, twin hypodermics shooting poison into his body.
But Nsele was not dead yet and it would take time for the venom to work its way through his bloodstream. The pain focused him, and Nsele used the split second that the snake’s fangs were still inside him to roll again and strike again himself. He grabbed that creature around its girth, between his jaws.
Nsele bit down with all his strength and shook his head from side to side. The snake’s body flailed in the night air and cracked like a whip.
The serpent went limp between his teeth; Nsele had broken its back.
Panting, he let the dead creature fall from his mouth then collapsed beside it. Nsele knew he should probably eat the snake, having killed it, and draw strength from its huge body.
Instead, however, he felt a numbness supplant the pain as his nervous system began to shut down. The ceaseless noise of the traffic and honking of horns from outside the prison’s walls began to dim.
At last, he heard silence, and felt at peace. His last thought was of the day he had been captured, in his home. Africa.
*
Sarah Hoyland sat at the desk that had been allocated to her in the Sydney office of the Animals Without Borders wildlife charity, opened her MacBook and checked her emails. The NGO operated out of a serviced office in North Sydney, an internal suite with no windows. It was important that potential donors she might bring to the office didn’t think the organisation had too much money.
Sarah’s digital inbox was full to overflowing. She’d been increasing her Facebook posts in the lead-up to some big announcements and the traffic was coming in, from people wanting to donate, offering to help, or just asking for more information. Other than the chief executive officer, Fiona Murray, who had started Animals Without Borders, Sarah was the only other person in the office who was paid for her work – the rest of the staff were volunteers. As a professional fundraiser Sarah’s job was to get more people from around the world and all walks of life to donate money to the cause. In addition to the hourly rate she charged Fiona for her expertise Sarah had negotiated a success fee in her contract – the more cash people handed over, the more money she received. She had also been brought in to raise the organisation’s profile in various African countries, especially South Africa.
That was the point of social media and public relations, of course – to garner support for the cause she also passionately believed in – but the more she did, the greater her workload became.
She sighed as she scrolled through the list
of messages, knowing that much of her afternoon would be spent in the office responding to all these people.
One message caught her eye. It was from Graham Baird. The time on the message showed that it had only been sent a few minutes earlier.
Sarah looked at her watch. There was an eight-hour time difference between east coast Australia and South Africa, which meant that it was about one in the morning in Hoedspruit.
Sarah shook her head. She opened the email and judged from the typos that Graham was probably drunk. He asked her how she was and apologised for not replying to her last four emails. His excuse made her heart lurch. He had been in prison in Mozambique.
Her last message to him had been angry, telling him to get his act together because she needed his input for the meetings she was having in Australia with the people from the New South Wales environment ministry and the Downunder Zoo, a private facility with an impressive collection of African wildlife in the state’s central west. She had a temper and she had been hard on him.
Sarah logged into Skype and saw that Graham was also online. She started a video call.
‘Howzit, Sarah,’ he said when his face came up on the screen. ‘Thanks to the marvels of modern communications technology you can now criticise me face to face.’ He took a drink from a big glass with a Kenyan Tusker Lager logo on it. The beverage inside wasn’t beer, however. Sarah knew Graham well enough to guess that it was probably a triple brandy and Coke.
‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have been so nasty if I’d known you were in prison. Which customer did you rob?’
Graham put a hand over his mouth to cover a mini belch. His cheeks were red and his forehead glistened with sweat. ‘I’ll have you know I risked my life to save a damsel in distress.’
‘Sure, sure,’ she said. ‘Seriously, are you all right?’
He waved a hand. ‘’Course I am. What do-gooding are you doing now?’
‘Well, if you’d read my emails you would know that things are on track to bring the sable antelope over, but there’s another animal the Downunder Zoo over here wants us to take home to Africa.’
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘A honey badger.’
Graham raised his eyebrows. ‘Serious?’
‘Very. It’s called Nsele.’
‘Zulu for honey badger,’ Graham said.
‘I know. Original, right? True to form it keeps escaping from its enclosure and its keepers are terrified of it. The fierce little bugger was bitten by a brown snake the other day, but he killed the snake, tried to eat it, fell into a coma then eventually woke up. Nsele’s popular with visitors, but he’s a headache. The zoo people privately can’t wait to get rid of it. They’ve all but said they want us to take it as a show of good faith, and, to be fair, something of a test case in moving animals from Australia to South Africa.’
‘It’s hardly an endangered animal,’ Graham said. ‘Anyway, how’s the weather there? It’s damn hot here, can’t wait for the rains to start.’
She was about to tell Graham about the rain when a figure moved into view behind him. It was a woman with dark hair, and wearing short pale blue pyjamas that showed off slender arms and legs.
The woman held up a glass of what looked like water. ‘Graham, do you have any ice?’
The accent was pure Australian twang.
Graham partially lowered the screen, and Sarah was left looking at the keyboard of Graham’s computer.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ the woman’s voice said from the background. The sound was still on.
‘Oh nothing, nothing at all. Just work.’
‘Um, sorry, again,’ the woman said. ‘This is kind of embarrassing. I’ll leave you to your privacy.’
‘Graham!’ Sarah yelled.
‘What?’
‘Who’s that woman?’
Graham burped, raising the screen again so that the room swung back into view, then waved a hand across his face. ‘That’s the one.’
‘Which one? You’re drunk.’
‘Am not. The one I rescued.’
‘The damsel?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s she doing at your house, half-dressed?’
‘She’s a volunteer – you should know, you sent her. And she’s mostly dressed. Pyjamas. In this weather it’s acceptable attire.’ He burped again.
‘Oh,’ Sarah nodded. ‘That’s Kerry Maxwell?’
‘Kerry-Anh Maxwell,’ Graham corrected.
Sarah told herself that if he was up to some hanky-panky with a volunteer he would have tried harder to hide it, or been more indignant. Instead he was smiling at her.
‘Graham . . .’
‘Sarah . . . If there had been anything going on here do you think I’d be so flippant?’ He moved his face closer to the screen and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. ‘Between you and me, she’s a bit of a cold fish. I think she might even bat for the other team.’
‘Why, because she hasn’t fallen for your charm?’
He looked over his shoulder, theatrically checking if the coast was clear, then leaned in close to the screen. ‘Vegetarian.’
He leaned back in his chair and laughed. Then, seeing the scowl on her face, he ran a hand down in front of his face, wiping away his smile. ‘Sorry. I’ll be good now.’
‘Hang on,’ Sarah said, ‘you said you had to rescue her? You’re not opening me up to a lawsuit are you, Graham Baird?’
‘No, no, no; storm in a teacup. The girl’s fine. So, what exactly do you want from me? I saw your email asking me to contact you.’
‘I’m bringing the honey badger to South Africa and I need you there to look after the animal and make sure it’s fit and well before we release it at a media event.’
‘Where’s Vergel with two “e”s? Isn’t he your celebrity vet?’ Graham said. ‘He can do all the checks on the honey badger for you, and be your talking head. He’s good at that.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘No, he can’t. He’s in hospital.’
‘Why?’
‘Vergel’s got malaria. He came down with it two days ago. He was shooting a documentary in Zimbabwe a couple of weeks ago, around Victoria Falls, and he reckons he picked it up there.’
Graham sat bolt upright and seemed instantly sober. ‘How is he, Sarah? Do the Aussies know what they’re doing?’
‘Relax, Graham, he’s in good hands and yes, they do know about the disease here. He was supposed to do some media interviews in Australia prior to us leaving with Nsele, but I’ve had to cancel all those. I really need you, and the coverage in South Africa, Graham.’
Graham nodded, though Sarah could see his face was pale. Graham of all people knew how serious malaria could be in its various forms and she felt a pang of sympathy for him. He forced a smile, though, trying no doubt to get back to his old drunken self. ‘Damn bad luck. No TV vet for the Aussies.’
Sarah ignored the sarcastic barb. Graham and Vergel Worth did not get on, even though they worked together often. Vergel had a reality TV show called Extreme Vet, which showcased his work with big game in Africa, and Sarah suspected Graham was jealous of Vergel’s success, wealth and good looks. Sarah had once had a fling with Vergel, before he had taken up his position as Animals Without Borders’ honorary vet, but he was married and they had agreed it had been a mistake. After it was well and truly over she had invited him to work for the charity. He was great for public relations and fundraising, a household name in much of the world, handsome, witty and an excellent vet.
‘Damn bad luck is right. He was going to be my keynote speaker at the Cape Town dinner.’
‘Yip, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ Graham took another long gulp of his drink.
A pop-up notification at the top right of Sarah’s screen caught her eye. It was a Facebook post, from Eli Johnston, another fine-looking specimen of a man. Sarah clicked on the link and her eyes must have widened considerably as she read the post.
‘Are you looking at dirty
pictures on the internet?’ Graham said.
‘Ha ha. I’m not like you, Graham. Did you know Eli Johnston was wounded in a gun battle in Mozambique?’ she asked.
‘Do I know?’ It was Graham’s turn to widen his bloodshot eyes. ‘I was there. Eli was supposed to be the ground element for my operation in Mozambique. Fidel Costa ambushed him and shot up Eli and some of his guys.’
‘Fidel Costa the politician? In a gunfight?’
Graham shook his head. ‘Oh, no, Costa’s too clever to be out in the bush pulling the trigger himself, but it was his men.’
‘That’s a relief,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll tell you later. Now what happened in Mozambique?’
He sighed. ‘I killed a couple of poachers, got thrown into prison and your earnest volunteer, who happens to be a lawyer, tried to get me out. In the process she became detained and I had to rescue her, with the help of Eli and the girl’s father.’
‘Graham!’
‘Calm down, Sarah.’
‘Don’t bloody tell me to calm down!’ She clicked on Eli’s Facebook post.
‘OK,’ she said, speed-reading. ‘Eli’s concentrated on the attack on his men – and himself – and mentioned an operation to free an innocent hostage taken by a poaching kingpin. My volunteer. Shit, Graham, what have you got me into?’
‘She’s fine. You just saw her. One of the men I killed was Costa’s brother. He was trying to lure me back to Mozambique by holding the girl hostage, but everyone’s fine now, sort of.’
‘Sort of, Graham?’ Sarah gripped the arms of her chair.
‘Eli’s probably left out our names so the authorities in South Africa or Moz don’t start asking questions. Costa has friends in high places in their government – it’s how he’s stayed out of prison even though everyone knows he’s guilty of rhino poaching – and he could make trouble for Kerry and her father Bruce, who entered the country illegally. As did I, of course. Between us we broke maybe a couple of dozen laws, which isn’t bad, even for Africa.’
