At just that moment, just as the unfamiliar shade of serenity began to flow over him, a shot echoed through the valley.
Then another bang, louder, higher pitched. The sound danced among the rocks for a moment then died. Clay tensed, scanned the tree line in a three-sixty-degree arc. No one. Silence. He glanced at his watch. Just gone two. The first shot was definitely Koevoet’s Beretta. The second was a big charge, high velocity. Clay sprang to his feet, sprinted towards the base of the ridge.
He made it to the top about ten minutes later, quads screaming, chest heaving. He’d heard nothing since the two shots, just the jackhammering of his heart, the rail of his breathing, the loose rock tumbling behind him.
Crowbar was sitting with his back up against a slab of weathered rhyolite, hand pressed over a bloodied compress bandage that covered his lower abdomen. He opened his eyes as Clay approached. ‘Kak, Straker,’ he growled. ‘Bastard surprised me. Fokken stupid.’ Crowbar raised his hand and pointed towards the back slope. ‘That way.’
Clay pulled out the Beretta, sprinted to a break in the slope and scanned the valley. No movement. Nothing. Clay ran back, crouched at Crowbar’s side. ‘Let me look.’
‘I’m good,’ said Crowbar. ‘He had a Dragunov, if you can fokken believe it. Must have been one of Medved’s people. Surprised each other.’ Crowbar pointed to the edge of the slope. ‘He came up right there. I was side on. The round passed right through, didn’t open up.’ He pulled the compress away from his gut, looked down. A trough about three inches long had been sliced across his belly. The wound oozed blood. Crowbar tugged at the roll of fat that covered his midsection, stifled a laugh, winced. ‘Fokken asshole did me a favour, ja. Wanted to get rid of this anyway.’
‘Jesus, Koevoet, hold still,’ said Clay, fishing in Crowbar’s pack. He pulled out a fresh compress, gauze, disinfectant. ‘We’re going to have to get you sewn up, broer. Can you walk?’
‘Unless you’ve got a Puma handy,’ grunted Crowbar.
‘No Puma.’
‘Then ja. Guess I’ll have to.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘Didn’t see anyone else.’
‘Rania?’ Clay doused the wound with antiseptic.
Crowbar winced, shook his head.
‘Did you get a look at the guy?’
Crowbar shook his head again.
‘Did you hit him?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Easy shot from here for that Dragunov.’
‘Good thing I came along to look after you, soutpiele.’
Clay ripped open a new compress with his teeth, spat out the paper and pushed it down onto the wound. ‘Who’s looking after whom right now, oom?’
Crowbar pushed him away. ‘Fok that, Straker. Go after the bastard. He can’t be far, lugging that bloody great commie sniper rifle.’
‘No way, Koevoet. Now hold still, for Christ’s sake.’
‘If that bastard has Rania…’ Crowbar tailed off. ‘Look, it’s just a clip. I’m good. Just don’t forget to come back for me, ja?’
Clay pushed the compress down hard on the wound.
Crowbar grabbed his wrist, held it tight. ‘Go.’
Clay knelt a moment, looking into Koevoet’s eyes. He knew that look. Clay stood, pulled out his Glock. ‘Okay, oom. You win. Stay put.’
32
Twelve Years of Silence
Clay stood at the edge of the backslope and scanned the place where Crowbar’s assailant had stood. Bootscuff marks in the loose, rocky soil. A brass shell casing, 7.62mm, long, fresh. And there, like moss blooming on rock, a spray of blood, viscous red drops scattered over the burnished stone, more footmarks leading downslope. Clay looked back at Crowbar, gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Spoor, oom. Blood trail.’
‘Short little draadtrekker. I knew I’d hit him. Go get the fucker.’
Clay reached down, touched a drop of blood onto his finger tip, raised it to his nose, inhaled the scent. He’d grown up doing this, on the veldt as a boy with his father and uncle, tracking the prey on foot, a springbok or a kudu, hours and sometimes days, the old way. Make the kill, eat the heart.
And then in Angola with Crowbar and the Battalion he’d tracked and killed human beings.
Clay checked his watch and started down the slope. Twenty minutes now since he’d heard the shots. Moving over rough country like this, carrying a heavy weapon, a strong, fit man might cover two, maybe three kilometres in that time. Judging by the amount of blood on the trail, he was also carrying a 9mm slug inside him somewhere. Clay guessed the guy had maybe a kilometre head start on him, not much more.
He moved quickly through the trees, following the increasingly ragged trail to the break in slope, then east into a valley bottom dense with black pine and remnant Cyprus cedar. Clay could tell from the scuffing of the footmarks that the man was struggling. There was quite a bit of blood. Inside the thicket it was dark and cool, the ground underfoot moss, stones, fallen rotwood. He could hear the trickling of water, smell the humic freshness of cedar. Visibility dropped in the undergrowth. Clay slowed, crouched low, moved in short bursts to cover, wary now. If the man had sensed he was being followed, he might turn, face his pursuer. Ahead, beside a moss-covered boulder, a flash of white on the ground. Clay moved forward, crouched. A paper bandage package, smeared with blood, still wet. Boot marks in the soft ground, moving away down-stream. He was close. Clay waited a moment, listened, but all he could hear was the sway of the treetops in the mountain breeze. He checked the round in the Beretta’s chamber then kept moving.
About two hundred metres along the valley, the trail cut sharply upslope. Clay could see gouges in the moss where the man had slipped, deep imprints where he’d used the butt-stock of the Dragunov as a crutch. Blood hung in semi-coagulated droplets from the tips of pine needles. Up above, the torn yellow rock of the old mine road. Clay had walked this road once, about three years ago. He knew now that the guy was making for the northeastern approach, the terminus of the old mine rail line, only about a kilometre and a half away. That’s where he would have left his vehicle. Clay looked at his watch. Almost an hour now since he’d left Koevoet. The guy was moving fast.
Clay scrambled up the slope towards the mine road. He’d just reached the frayed edge of the cut, was picking his way through the rusted boulders piled on the valley side of the road, fragments of ancient oceanic crust, when the tree behind him splintered, a twisting, snapping sound. He flinched, pure reflex as the second sound came, a high-pitched crack that echoed down the valley. Clay dropped to the ground, pushing himself into the rock as more rounds sent shards of wehrlite and gabbro zinging through the air around him. Then quiet. Clay stayed absolutely still. From the report of the rifle, the same one he’d heard back at the pits, he guessed a range of four hundred metres, off to the right, towards the terminus. He’d been lucky. At that range, the Dragunov was deadly accurate. But tired, breathing hard, bleeding, it would have been a difficult shot.
Clay waited a few seconds, backed away into the valley then started off at a run. He contoured the valley side about ten metres below the road, moving quickly through the trees. He guessed the sniper would be on the move again, heading towards his vehicle.
Clay had gone about three hundred metres through the trees when the valley started to shallow noticeably. He was nearing the flats, an area where four valleys met, where the mining company had chosen to build the camp and the ore-crushing plant. Derelict now, equipment dismantled, roads blocked by berms of earth, it was part of Cyprus’s two-thousand-year-old legacy of copper and gold extraction, forgotten, rarely visited. Clay knew that, from this point, the road flattened out, swept around to the east in a long arc towards the camp. He kept moving, faster now, sprinting over the increasingly dry, stony ground as the wooded valley gave way to the open scrubland and dry pine of the flats. He had a clear view of the road now, tracking along the convex side of the curve. There was no spoor, no trail to follow. It was a footrace.
Clay sprinted across the open ground, still paralleling the road, between stunted scrub oak and the occasional tall, fire-scarred pine. At any moment he expected to feel the impact of a bullet, hear the sound of gunfire. And then, there on the road, not far from the berm and the old tin sheds, about two hundred metres away, a man in dark trousers and shirt. The guy was powerfully built, stocky, ran with an uneven gait, a limp, as if his left leg was strapped, held straight. Clay could see the man’s left arm dangling, the white bandage tied up high near the shoulder. He carried the Dragunov in his right hand.
Clay stopped, chambered a round. He was closing. The man was almost to the sheds now, the earthen berm blocking the road. Clay called out. The man stopped, turned, stood facing him, chest heaving. A hundred metres separated them. Not more. Clay raised the Beretta, steadied it on his stump, took aim.
It was Zdravko Todorov.
‘Where is Rania, asshole?’ Clay shouted.
Zdravko smiled, flipped open the rifle’s bipod, lowered it to the ground. ‘Dead, motherfucker. Just like you gonna be.’
The words hit Clay like a spray of shrapnel, all that they meant flooding his brain at once, an overload of pain. He started walking towards Zdravko. His heart banged like a cannon.
‘You lie’ he screamed, framing the target in the handgun’s sight. It was a tough shot. He was still too far away.
Zdravko looked back over his shoulder to the berm, no more than a few paces away. Clay knew the only way Zdravko could fire the Dragunov one-handed was from the prone position. The rifle was there at his feet, ready to go.
‘Your friend too, motherfucker,’ screamed Zdravko. ‘I paint message for you, on wall. Did you get?’
Clay staggered, kept walking towards Zdravko, gun raised.
Zdravko raised his good arm. ‘Did you a favour, Straker,’ he called in his thick, Slavic accent. ‘You should be thanking me. For his parents so sad, yes? Now they don’t worry.’
There it was, so clear now. Zdravko had known since Yemen about Eben. As head of security for Petro-Tex, where Clay had worked as a contractor, Zdravko had undoubtedly been going through his letters, hacking into his computer. He’d murdered Eben in his hospital bed, killed his parents too. And now Rania. No, Clay refused to believe it. A wave of grief poured through him, regret, a roaring cascade that filled his head, drowning out Zdravko’s words. Clay bent double, vision blurring. He could feel the turn coming on, could already see the red periphery closing in, the nausea rising inside him like a five-day fever. He swayed, tried to breathe, stumbled to the ground. Shit no. Not now.
The Dragunov barked; something tickled the back of his neck, an insect crawling there. Clay raised the Beretta towards the sound, fired once, twice, again. Cordite stung the air. He blinked hard, wiped his eyes with his stump, looked up through the dust. Zdravko was up now, running towards the berm, carrying the Dragunov by its handle. Clay pushed himself up onto one knee, raised his weapon and took aim. Zdravko was no more than a blur, wavering, fragmenting. Clay took two deep breaths. Slowly, his vision cleared. The screaming in his ears dulled. Zdravko was at the top of the berm now, his dark shape silhouetted against the tin shed beyond. Clay fired. Zdravko disappeared.
Clay scrambled to his feet, steadied himself, started running. He was almost at the berm when he heard a car engine start, rev. Then the sound of tyres spinning in gravel, stone pelting metal. He reached the top of the berm just as Zdravko’s car sped away in a cloud of road dust.
By the time he reached the ridge-top it was almost dark.
Crowbar was where he’d left him. As Clay approached he scowled. ‘I heard shooting,’ he said, his voice weak. ‘Did you get the asshole?’
Clay shook his head. ‘It was Todorov. He said Rania was dead.’
Crowbar closed his eyes, exhaled. ‘Bullshit, seun. He’s fucking with you.’ He was pale, shivering.
‘Let me look at you, oom.’ Clay knelt beside him, pulling back the blood-soaked compress. The wound had opened up, bloomed like a flower. There was a lot of blood. Clay gave him water, pulled his fleece shell jacket from his pack and put it over his commander’s chest and shoulders. ‘You’re not going to make it all the way back to the car like this,’ he said. ‘I’m going to sew you, run you an IV.’
Koevoet’s eyes fluttered, opened. He nodded. ‘Fokken stupid salt-dick,’ he grunted. ‘You never even asked me why I slugged you at the turtle doctor’s place.’
Clay fumbled in his pack and pulled out his headlamp, strapped it over his head, switched it on and opened the medical kit. ‘I know why you did it. Besides, I deserved it.’
Crowbar shook his head, grunted. ‘You are one screwed-up individual, Straker.’
Clay ignored this, closed his mind and focused on what he had to do. He washed his hands in antiseptic, doused the wound, found the suture kit, threaded the needle. ‘Lie back, oom,’ he said. ‘You need to stretch out.’
Crowbar didn’t even flinch as the needle pierced his skin. Clay sewed, big ugly stitches, twelve in all, one for every year of silence. After the sewing he covered the whole thing with an adhesive suture, applied a clean compress and wrapped it all in place, winding the gauze around Koevoet’s midsection and tying it off. He laid Crowbar back down, set his pack under his head and ran him an IV.
Crowbar closed his eyes. ‘It was proof, Straker. That’s why I…’
‘Rest now, oom. Tomorrow, we walk.’
33
Honoris Crux
It was a long way out.
They rose early, before the sun. Clay kicked out the fire he’d kept burning all night to warm Crowbar, wedged himself under the big man’s shoulder, helped him up and started walking.
By the time they reached the old mining road the sun was over the mountains and the cold was gone. They walked through a stand of gnarled pines, the trees here tall, wide at the base, somehow protected from centuries of cutting. A gust of wind blew down through the valley and Clay could hear the sound of it in the treetops. He stopped, steadied himself against Crowbar’s weight and looked up. High above, the crowns of the pines swayed like mourners in the wind and the charred black trunks groaned and creaked and the air was filled with the smell of burning and pine sap as shadow branches danced on their upturned faces and over the dry haematite gravel under their boots. They kept going.
After a while, Crowbar pulled up and sat on the bench of dirt on the upslope side of the old mining track. He was breathing heavily. ‘This turtle woman,’ he asked pulling out his water bottle and taking three gulps. ‘She married?’
‘Divorced.’
Crowbar grunted and handed Clay the bottle. ‘Kids?’
‘A boy.’ Clay drank.
‘It didn’t seem like much, that place we wrecked.’
‘Her life’s work.’
Crowbar sat there with the pine shadow moving over him, the sun streaming between the patches of grey coolness, his hand pushed down on the compress, his fingers red with the blood. After a couple of minutes he looked up at Clay and said: ‘I needed to do that job to get Medved’s trust. That’s why I did it.’
Clay said nothing.
‘Didn’t seem like much.’
It never does. ‘Shut up and walk, oom.’
It took them another hour to climb the back ridge that led to the western approach, the two of them bumping along like some semi-articulated vehicle, the sun hot now in a clear sky. The Pajero was still another two hours away.
When they reached the ridge line, Crowbar sat on a spur of rock and looked out across the next valley. ‘Not much of a life, is it?’
Clay said nothing.
‘This business we do.’
‘Not, we, Koevoet.’
‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Never leaves you.’
This was a conversation Clay did not want to have. ‘Let’s ontrek.’
Crowbar didn’t move, just sat gazing out over the deep green of the cedars, the browned oxides of barren ridges and rock slides, the silver clumps of oa
k. ‘No life for a family,’ he said.
Clay laced his good arm under his friend’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet. ‘There is always a choice,’ he said.
Crowbar grunted as he got to his feet. ‘We’re doing a job in Angola right now. Fighting UNITA, if you can believe it. Helping the now-legitimate government of Angola, same bastards we spent ten years fighting.’
Clay shook his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ UNITA, supposedly their allies during the war, had turned out to be the worst of the lot.
‘I’m going there when this is done,’ said Crowbar. ‘You should join us. Get some payback.’
‘Shut up and walk, oom.’
They made the Pajero just as the sun reached its zenith, Crowbar sweating and cursing his way over the last kilometre as a few of the stitches Clay had put in broke open.
It was nearly dark when they rolled up to Hope’s place. Clay helped Crowbar from the car to Hope’s front door. She greeted them in an elegant, high-necked, knee-length turquoise dress that set off her eyes. Her hair was up and a pair of silver filigree earrings shone at her neck. Her smile turned to a frown at the sight of Crowbar’s blood-stained midriff.
‘My God,’ she said, holding the door. ‘Bring him here, lie him down.’ She led them through to a spare bedroom just off the main hallway. ‘What happened?’
‘It wasn’t Rania,’ grunted Crowbar.
‘Your friend has a penchant for the obvious,’ Hope said to Clay. ‘Is he alright?’
‘The bullet grazed him, went right through. He’s lost blood.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Do you know a good doctor? One who won’t ask questions?’ asked Clay, lying Crowbar on the bed. ‘Hot water would be good. Towels. Maybe some food.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll call the doctor now.’ Hope disappeared into the other room.
‘Straker.’ Crowbar reached out for him.
Evolution of Fear Page 22
