Captive_A High-octane And Gripping African Thriller

by Tony Park

  On the boy, Alexo.

  *

  Julio crept along the wooden walkway, disdainful of old-man Luiz’s dithering. He held the pistol grip of his AK-47 in his right hand and in his left he carried a Chinese-made hand grenade. Fidel had told them to not be afraid of using the grenades; the aim was to kill the veterinarian, not capture him.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ he said to the man behind him.

  Julio flattened his back against the wall of the illuminated accommodation unit. When he was next to the screen door he looked to his comrade, who nodded that he was ready.

  Julio cradled his rifle in the crook of his arm and pulled the pin from the grenade. It was harder to extract than he thought, and he remembered Fidel telling them that pulling the pin with your teeth only worked in Hollywood war movies.

  ‘One, two, three,’ he mouthed silently, then kicked open the door and tossed in the grenade.

  Julio was braced for the grenade to go off, but an explosion of black and white fur, snarling teeth and long claws erupted from inside. The man next to Julio yelped and tripped as the honey badger ran between his legs, snarling and swiping as it went. The gunman fell over and, with his finger on the trigger, accidentally loosed a burst of rounds that slammed into the wall beside Julio’s face and arced up into the overhanging thatch roof above him.

  The grenade detonated, and the shock wave knocked Julio backwards into the railing. He ignored the other man’s dangerous stupidity and charged into the room, now filled with smoke and shattered debris. He swung his torso right and raked the bathroom with gunfire, then carried on and emptied his magazine into the bedroom. There was no one in here, dead or alive.

  ‘Julio,’ said his number two from outside, ‘the white man is running!’

  Julio came out of the room, coughing. ‘Where?’

  ‘We just saw him, on the boardwalk. He had his hands up, not holding a gun of any sort.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Julio said. ‘You first. Hurry!’

  They gathered themselves and set off along the walkway.

  *

  Graham watched the men come. He had been up and down this path dozens of times in the last two days, scouting for vantage points and blind spots. He knew that when he rounded a bend he would not be visible from the accommodation unit he had left lit up, and which was now catching fire. The grenade blast had ignited the thatch roof.

  Graham had left the young man’s AK-47 under the table in the outdoor cooking area. After he ran from the men, empty-handed and in full view, he jumped over the walkway fence and made his way back, unseen, through the rocks to where the gun was stashed near the outdoor cooking area.

  He grabbed the rifle, lay down on his belly and waited.

  The men came into view, silhouetted by the blazing roof behind them. They had slowed, Graham noted, their bravery and keenness dissipating as they closed on him. There was no sign of the grey-haired commander.

  Graham took aim, lining the sights up on the centre mass of the man in the lead.

  The man’s young eyes must have caught a glimpse of flame glinting off the barrel of Graham’s rifle, or perhaps his pale skin or hair, for he brought his AK-47 up and pulled the trigger.

  Graham fired at the same time, but his weapon was steadier, resting on a low brick wall. Bullets flew over Graham’s head and ricocheted off granite behind him, but his rounds f lew true and the first man slipped and fell, dropping his gun.

  Graham kept his finger on the trigger, emptying the magazine into the tightly bunched group of men.

  Another two went down. The third turned and fled and was lost from sight as he disappeared through a glowing shower of embers from the burning roof.

  With no other poachers in sight Graham got up off the ground, changed magazines and cocked the weapon on the move. He relocated to a spot higher up in the rocks, overlooking the braai area, and with a better view of more of the walkway and deck.

  He looked down at the men he had shot; the adrenaline pumping through his body dispelled any feelings of remorse or fear. He had survived. The first man he had shot and one of the other two were motionless and silent, presumably dead, but the third was screaming in pain. His cries began to cut through Graham’s adrenaline haze. The man was talking in Portuguese, weeping and bellowing.

  Graham raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the man. The bloodlust subsided as quickly as it had risen. He was an animal doctor, but he could no more shoot a wounded man in cold blood than any other medico – or any decent human being – would have.

  There had been seven men. He had killed the first with the knife, now these two, plus one more seriously injured. That left three.

  Graham’s phone, set to silent, buzzed in his pocket. The only spot he’d previously had signal in the whole of Boulders Bush Lodge was on the deck outside the dining area, but being high up on the hill behind the camp he must have come into range again. He took out his phone and answered it in a whisper.

  ‘Graham, is that you, matey?’ a voice with an English accent asked.

  It took him a moment to place it. ‘Dave? Dave Corlett?’

  ‘Yes, how are you, Graham?’

  ‘I’m under attack.’

  ‘Bloody hell, then it’s for real?’

  ‘Whatever it is, yes, it’s very real. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the JOC, at Skukuza, on night watch; we had a tip-off from a Mozambican geezer that Boulders Camp was about to be hit by a gang of poachers.’

  ‘Well, your tip-off was correct. I’ve killed three and wounded one, three more on the loose.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Sit tight, Graham, a rapid reaction force of armed rangers is on their way to you by chopper and the police and army have been notified as well. Help is on its way. Are you injured?’

  ‘I’m fine for now, but not for long, I expect. Have one for me at the golf club, Dave.’

  ‘Will do, mate. Do you want me to stay on the line?’

  ‘No, I’ve got my hands full with –’

  A shot rang out and Graham heard it strike a rock nearby. Someone was probing, trying to get him to reveal his exact position by firing back. The wounded man continued to scream.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Graham, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. You said someone from Mozambique tipped you off. Who was it?’

  ‘Bloke called Costa. Fidel, like Castro. Turns out he’s some local politician, but a couple of the higher-ups here at headquarters said he’s also been implicated in rhino poaching.’

  ‘Thanks, Dave. Got to go.’ Graham ended the call and noticed that an SMS from Dave had also come through, giving him the same information.

  Graham checked his ammunition and wondered what the hell Costa was playing at. Had he called the authorities with a tip-off to establish an alibi? And if so, did Costa assume his men would have killed Graham and melted away before any reaction force arrived?

  Either way, he was still very much alive and a feeling that he wanted to stay that way was banishing his earlier feelings of despair and strengthening his resolve.

  ‘Come on you bastards,’ he whispered, ‘come and get me.’

  Chapter 32

  Luiz grabbed Armando by the arm and dragged him down amid the rocks where he was hiding with Batista. Armando was shaking and had been running away when Luiz stopped him.

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘Julio is dead,’ Armando blurted, ‘and Samora. Afonso is wounded. The white man is still alive.’

  They could hear Afonso bellowing and calling for help, for his mother. The screaming was unnerving Armando, and even Batista was alert now, and worried. Luiz needed to rally them, and finish this job.

  ‘He is one man. One old animal doctor. Who are you?’ He looked into each of their eyes, but they were struck dumb. ‘You are warriors!’

  Batista blinked, then nodded. ‘Sim.’

  Armando swallowed. ‘Tell us what to do, Luiz.’

  ‘Julio underestimated the man. He may be old,
and just a man who cares for dogs, but he knows how to shoot. We must treat him like we would a cornered lion. He is dangerous, but if we work together, he will die. We must be quick, though.’

  The two youngsters nodded.

  Luiz roused them and pulled them back. He pointed left and right, explaining to the men how he would outf lank Baird and trap him in the koppie.

  *

  Graham climbed down from his hilltop vantage point.

  It was the screaming from the wounded man. He could not handle it any longer.

  He dropped down onto the outdoor cooking area and, keeping watch with the dead man’s rifle swinging left and right, he jogged over to the casualty. Graham knelt by the man, who he now saw was, like the first he had killed, little more than a boy.

  The man had no strength to struggle as Graham slung his rifle and grabbed the youth under the shoulders. He dragged him along the walkway, across the deck where tourists would normally be enjoying a drink or an outdoor dinner, and into the internal dining area.

  Graham went to where he had left his backpack, behind the bar. He picked up the bottle of Klipdrift that he had brought with him from the Mopani shop, undid the top and took a long slug.

  Unzipping his backpack he took out rubber gloves, a couple of field dressings and scissors. He took the green canvas satchel bag from around the man’s torso and cut away his shirt. He saw the wound to the stomach. It was bad, but if the man was lucky Graham’s bullet might have missed enough of his vital organs for him to pull through.

  Graham drew up a syringe of a sedative drug and injected it into the man’s arm. That stilled him, and Graham applied a dressing and tied it tight. He took out a bag of saline and rigged up a drip that he hung from the bar top, then went to the glass sliding doors and cautiously stepped out onto the deck.

  An explosion sounded in the rocks high above him, where he’d been hiding before. They were trying to flush him out with a hand grenade. He ducked back, half-in and half-out of the dining room, training his rifle on the koppie and watching for silhouettes.

  Gunfire sounded and the plate glass next to him shattered. Graham fired up at the boulders then quickly moved inside to another window and dropped down out of sight.

  More glass rained into the room and bullets ricocheted around the interior.

  ‘You’ll kill your own bloody man!’

  He heard voices from the rocks, commands and acknowledgements. They were readying for a final assault. Graham crawled to the next window, popped his head up and saw a man making slow work of clambering over a large rock. He raised his AK-47 to his shoulder, took aim and fired twice. The man slumped, fell and slid, leaving a shiny wet trail on the stone surface.

  That left two of them.

  Graham saw another man moving amid the boulders. He shifted his aim and pulled the trigger, but the firing pin clicked on nothing. ‘Shit.’

  In the army they called it the dead man’s click, that sound that told you that the magazine was empty of bullets. Graham removed it, tossed it aside and fished in the canvas bag next to him. There was one magazine, which he quickly fitted. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the grenade he had taken from the man he had stabbed. He placed it next to him, ready to use.

  Bullets poured in through the window from which he had just been shooting.

  Graham heard a gurgling noise in between the firing and looked across to the wounded man. He was having a seizure, but as soon as the shaking had started it stopped.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  He crawled across to the man and saw that he had stopped breathing. He was so young. Graham set down his rifle and hand grenade on the cool tiled floor beside him, bent over the boy, cleared the airway and lowered his lips to the man’s mouth. From outside he heard the thump of feet on the walkway, but he continued alternating between breaths and compressions.

  The young man gasped and coughed and Graham put an ear to his mouth. He was breathing again. Graham looked up just as a figure appeared at the shattered remains of the sliding door, pointing a rifle at him.

  Graham started to raise his hands but Luiz, the old poacher, had already pulled the trigger.

  *

  Dave Corlett keyed the radio handset. ‘This is the JOC, over.’

  ‘Roger, over,’ said the leader of the reaction force of armed rangers, over the noise of the helicopter’s engines.

  ‘There is one man confirmed still at Boulders, Dr Graham Baird. Do you copy?’

  ‘Affirmative, JOC, Dr Baird. We’re approaching Boulders Camp now. There’s a fire down there and I can see one . . . two bodies, over.’

  Dave said a silent prayer. Graham was a curmudgeonly old bugger, but Dave wanted nothing more than to stand him a drink in the bar of the golf club again sometime. ‘Any sign of Baird, over?’

  ‘Negative.’

  Dave held his breath.

  ‘We’re circling the camp,’ the patrol leader radioed, ‘coming in to land now. There’s no sign of life here. Just bodies.’

  Chapter 33

  Kerry, Bruce, Tamara and Eli had risen early and driven north through the Kruger Park. Kerry was getting more worried with every hour that passed. She hadn’t been able to get through to Graham on his mobile phone. Eli had said the signal at the camp was bad, but Graham’s phone had been ringing, not just going straight to voicemail. He could, of course, simply be avoiding her – he had made it clear he had nothing more to say to her.

  Kerry’s mood turned even grimmer when they saw a pall of black smoke over where Boulders Camp would be, as they drove down the access road.

  When they arrived, an armed national parks ranger stopped them at the top of the driveway. ‘Sorry, no entry here,’ the man said.

  Kerry’s heart started pounding. There were two police bakkies and a black Range Rover parked behind Graham’s Land Rover, which was in one of the car spaces underneath the elevated dining area.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ Eli asked.

  ‘Captain Sannie van Rensburg, from Skukuza,’ the ranger said.

  ‘Can you please call her and tell her Eli Johnston is here?’

  The man shrugged and unclipped his radio and made the call. A few minutes later Sannie van Rensburg walked up the dirt road. They all got out of the car.

  ‘Eli, this is a crime scene,’ Sannie said after the greetings were exchanged.

  ‘Is Graham here?’ Kerry asked.

  Sannie frowned. ‘We know he was here, Kerry, but there is no sign of him or . . . of his body. We have our crime scene people on the way and they’ll be helping us investigate. Some of the parks rangers are following up some tracks and other signs.’

  ‘We’ve been driving for hours through the park,’ Tamara said. ‘Please can we at least use a bathroom?’

  ‘You could go in the bush,’ Sannie said.

  ‘Ag, not me. Please?’

  Sannie exhaled. ‘All right. I’ll get one of the rangers to take you to one of the accommodation units we’re not investigating. Come this way.’

  The policewoman led them past the cars and Kerry noticed the Animals Without Borders logo on the side of the Range Rover. ‘Is Sarah Hoyland here?’

  Sannie looked back at her. ‘The Australian woman, yes, she is. They’re here with the national parks PR people. Dr Baird was supposed to be at a media event in Skukuza, but for some reason he ended up here and the parks people were not happy because he brought a honey badger into the park and released it without authority. There’s an empty travel cage in the back of his truck.’

  ‘You said, “they”?’ Kerry said.

  ‘Your Miss Hoyland came with Fidel Costa. They travelled here from Skukuza like VIPs on one of the park’s helicopters with their PR people.’ Sannie made no attempt to hide her disgust at the news. ‘Costa’s driver arrived a short time ago with his car to take them onwards.’

  ‘My God,’ Kerry said. ‘Costa kidnapped me and tried to kill us!’

  ‘I know,’ Sannie said. ‘I don’t want you mak
ing a scene with him, Kerry. We need evidence if we are ever going to hope to charge him. You told me you didn’t see him after you were taken prisoner in Mozambique?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Kerry said. As a lawyer she had too much respect for the law to lie and try to place Fidel at the scene of her imprisonment. ‘I was with him, at the police station at Massingir – Graham had gone to deliver the officer in charge’s baby – and when I went outside Costa was nowhere to be seen and someone came up behind me, put a bag over my head and bundled me into a waiting four-by-four. I was held at his property, though. Eli confirmed it was his farm.’

  ‘I checked on that,’ Sannie said, ‘after I spoke to Graham. Costa’s clever. If he owns that farm where you were held – and we believe he does – it doesn’t show on any record; it’s in the name of his late wife’s parents. My colleagues in Mozambique say Costa’s places of residence are a villa in Massingir and another house in Maputo.’

  ‘But he tried to kill Graham at Ukuphila,’ Kerry said.

  ‘Graham told me the man with the security guard at Ukuphila was wearing a ski mask,’ Sannie said.

  Kerry fumed. ‘But Graham was sure it was him.’

  Sannie’s phone rang and she held up a hand to excuse herself and looked away.

  Exasperated, but seeing her chance, Kerry strode past the policewoman and jogged up the stairs to the deck and dining area of Boulders lodge. It looked like a war zone. Out on the open area in front of the lodge were two national parks helicopters. Kerry saw a couple of armed rangers patrolling the area, looking for tracks.

  ‘Hey!’ she heard the detective call from behind her.

  Kerry pressed on. There was a television cameraman and a well-dressed woman who Kerry took for a reporter interviewing Sarah Hoyland. Fidel Costa stood on one side of her and a man in national parks uniform stood on the other side.