Zambezi

by Tony Park

  ‘You need a hand, Jed?’ McCubbin asked. The captain and the snatch team were disappearing over the brow of the barren hill.

  ‘No thanks, Mac. Won’t be but a minute,’ he said. ‘Don’t dick around now.’

  Jed half ran and half slid down the face of the dry slope. He cut right and started to climb again, then moved forwards once more until he was within a hundred paces of the compound’s tower.

  Someone shouted. Jed could see a big man with a white beard climbing the inner steps to the compound wall. He couldn’t be sure from this distance, but he looked like one of the four men they had been sent to capture or kill. Intelligence said they were Al Qaeda, Arabs who had crossed over from Pakistan with a couple of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles which they planned to use against Coalition aircraft.

  Jed pulled the safety pin from the rocket-launcher and flipped up the crude sights. He squinted through the aperture. He could see the Dooshka and one of the bodies of the two men he had killed.

  The white-bearded man came into view as he swung the machine-gun around. Jed realised he was silhouetted on the slope, casting a telltale shadow on the ground from the moon’s illumination.

  The first rounds from the machine-gun brought up geysers of dirt in front of him. He pressed down on the launcher’s firing mechanism and the rocket screamed from its tube. A cloud of dust erupted behind Jed from the back blast. He dropped to his knees and watched the projectile find its mark. The explosion lit up the compound, and the timber roof of the guard tower disappeared in a thousand splinters.

  Jed tossed away the used launcher and ran back up the hill.

  He paused on the other side of the crest and punched in the pre-set waypoint for the emergency helicopter extraction zone on his wristwatch GPS. He started jogging again, following the illuminated arrow on the display. He ran for three minutes, until the GPS told him he was only two hundred metres away Gunfire once again ripped apart the night. AK-47s, two probably. An M4 was returning fire. Dead ahead. Shit.

  Jed heard the clatter of approaching rotors. There would be an AH64 Apache attack helicopter escorting the big Chinook. He cautiously crested another rise and instantly saw the cause of the problem. There was a Toyota Land Cruiser parked in the middle of the track. Two men were out of the vehicle, lying on their bellies and firing at the fleeing Americans.

  Jed brought his M4 into his shoulder, lased the first man with his night-aiming device and fired.

  The man writhed on the ground, wounded but not dead. The Chinook was coming in fast, unaware of the gunfight below. Why hadn’t McCubbin warned them? The answer was plain a couple of seconds later. Murphy and Kirby came into view from behind a boulder, dragging the radioman between them.

  Mac’s feet dug twin furrows in the powdery dirt.

  Just as Jed took a sight picture on the second man the Chinook started its descent. The downwash of the giant twin rotors stirred up a dust storm that obscured the terrorist from view. Jed unsnapped a small pouch on the front of his combat vest and pulled out a grenade. He’d never pulled a grenade pin with his teeth, but he had his rifle in his other hand and there was nothing else for it. He was glad none of the others could see him as he extracted the pin – he’d never live it down. He spat the pin out and lobbed the deadly orb in the direction he had last seen the enemy rifleman.

  The sight and sound of the explosion were all but lost in the cacophony of noise and dust generated by the huge transport helicopter. The snatch team were dragging Mac and his heavy pack onto the rear ramp of the Chinook. The captain was already aboard by the look of it. The fat rear wheels of the machine were barely touching the ground.

  Jed saw Luke scramble aboard, two crewmen in bulbous helmets and tan flight suits reaching for him. Jed sprinted for the helicopter and saw one of the crewmen waving to him. Luke was standing on the ramp now, waving as well, urging him on.

  From his left, above the din of the screaming engines and the thwop of the blades, Jed heard the unmistakable pop of AK-47 fire. The bullets found their mark, stitching a line of holes in the helicopter’s metal skin. One of the crewmen held his helmet mike close to his mouth and the machine started to rise. Jed dived for the ramp and managed to get his torso on board as the chopper lifted off, his legs kicking in the air as he tried to find purchase.

  The gunman fired again. The door gunner positioned at the Chinook’s front hatch returned fire with his M60. Luke was down on one knee, grabbing at Jed’s combat vest, trying to pull him aboard. The helicopter rocked to the right and suddenly Luke slipped. Jed watched in horror as the young man fell past him, his arms windmilling. He dropped three metres to the ground and landed on his back. Jed looked up at the crewman, but the man just shook his head and screamed something the Green Beret could not hear.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Jed said, and let go of the ramp. He fell, maybe five metres now as the chopper was still rising. It was a heavy fall, but he rolled over, unhurt. He had dropped his rifle and couldn’t see where it had fallen. He crawled to Luke, who was still lying on his back, and drew a nine-millimetre automatic pistol from inside his combat vest as he moved.

  ‘Luke! Talk to me!’

  The reporter coughed and tried to sit up, but the fall had winded him.

  ‘Steady, son. Anything broken?’ Jed yelled over the engine noise.

  The Chinook was still rising, the door gunner firing blind into the night. Jed hoped the fool didn’t cap them by mistake. The AK man had stopped firing.

  ‘Don’t think so …’ Luke spluttered.

  Jed helped the young man to his feet, then reached into a pouch of his vest and pulled out a batterypowered strobe light. He flicked it on. The flashing infra-red beacon was invisible to the naked eye but would be easily picked out by the pilots and crewmen through their night-vision goggles.

  There was a noise like a buzz saw fifty metres off to his left. Jed heard the sound of lead tearing into metal. The Apache had let rip on the Land Cruiser with its thirty-millimetre chain gun in a long swooping pass. The gas tank caught and the vehicle erupted in an incandescent orange fireball that lit the surrounding hills.

  Jed looked up and saw the Chinook swinging around again. There was no sign or sound of the enemy rifleman. He waved the strobe above his head. The Chinook came back around and Jed shielded his eyes from the stinging dust it stirred up. His other arm was wrapped around Luke, supporting him.

  The Chinook blocked out the night sky and the moon with its dust and its fat-bellied green bulk as it descended once more. As the edge of the lowered ramp neared the ground, Jed pushed Luke into waiting arms.

  One of the crewmen who dragged Luke aboard was wide-mouthed for a split second. In the next instant he was thrown backwards into the bowels of the chopper. Jed turned and saw the enemy rifleman not twenty metres away. The man stepped from behind his rock and swung the barrel of the AK towards him.

  Even though it was dark and the air was thick with dust, Jed saw the man’s face clearly and was struck by his piercing eyes. Jed was quicker than the gunman. He raised his arm instinctively and fired two shots. A double tap. Both rounds hit the man in the chest and he pitched backwards.

  Jed felt hands on his shoulders, dragging him back. He didn’t resist. He landed on his backside on the helicopter’s cargo ramp, feet still dangling in space as the Chinook rose like a big, noisy elevator.

  It was over. He shook his head. More action in the last ten minutes of his last patrol than in the rest of his six-month tour of duty. In a few days he would be finished with Afghanistan and reunited with his daughter. He closed his eyes and tried to think of Miranda, and not of the wide-eyed look on the face of the man he had just killed.

  Zambia

  Hassan bin Zayid put down his chilled Mosi Lager and reached for the remote. He turned up the volume on the television set in the lodge’s bar. He was alone in the cool, dark retreat. The staff had returned to their compound for lunch and he had no guests at the moment. It was CNN, something about Afghanistan.


  The announcer said: ‘Five known Al Qaeda terrorists were killed yesterday in a raid on their hide-out in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. US military sources said the men, all natives of unspecified Arabic countries outside Afghanistan, were in the process of shipping antiaircraft missiles deeper into the country for use against Coalition aircraft. Two American servicemen were injured in the shoot-out but are said to be recovering. CNN’s Mike Porter has more, from Bagram, Afghanistan …’

  The report continued with file vision of the rugged mountains and desolate plains of the warravaged country, then the reporter threw back to the studio announcer, who said: ‘Thanks, Mike. We’re going to go now to the Pentagon, where senior US Army officer General Donald Calvert, who until recently commanded the Coalition forces in Afghanistan, is holding a live press conference.’

  The vision cut to a shot of a man with a bristly grey crewcut and the lined face of one who has spent years outdoors. Silver parachutist’s wings and myriad colourful medal ribbons stood out in stark contrast to the dull green of his uniform tunic. On his right shoulder was the yellow embroidered shield of the First Cavalry Division with its black bar and horse’s head. On his left, the blue dragon’s head of the 18th Airborne Corps. He stood at a podium, a map of Afghanistan on the plasma-screen television behind and to one side of him.

  A reporter off-camera asked: ‘General Calvert, a few months ago you were the commander of Coalition forces in Afghanistan. When you left you were, quote, “confident we had disrupted Al Qaeda’s ability to mount major offensive operations inside Afghanistan”. What’s gone wrong since you left and do you stand by your earlier comments?’

  The general smiled, leaned a little closer to the microphone in front of him and said: ‘Stu, what we’ve seen in the last few days is proof positive that we are making headway against terrorism.

  Acting on accurate, timely intelligence, our Special Forces soldiers were able to intercept this band of killers and their deadly hardware and prevent a missile attack from taking place. Call me oldfashioned, but I’d rate that a pretty good success.’

  Another reporter said: ‘Rachel Wise from the Post, General. On another matter, now that your retirement from the military has been announced there’s been a flurry of speculation about what you will be doing next.’

  Again the easy smile. ‘Well, Rachel, right now I’m still an officer in the US Army. My future’s my business, for now, but the first thing I’m going to do when I finish up here is go on a safari holiday.

  Now, if there are no more questions about Afghanistan …?’

  Hassan hoped Miranda’s father hadn’t been involved in the attack, or been one of those injured.

  The raid had occurred near Pakistan. Iqbal was in Karachi, studying at an Islamic university. He was nowhere near the border, thank God.

  Hassan pushed aside his half-drunk beer and strode across the polished stone floor of the bar to his private office. Next to his computer a portable satellite phone sat in its desk charger. He picked it up and started to scroll through the saved names, glancing at the silver-framed photo beside the charger. Taken ten years earlier, on the day of his graduation from Cambridge University, it showed him in academic robes, smiling broadly, his darkly handsome father in a western business suit. Iqbal, his twin brother, stood on the other side of their father, wearing a kansu, the traditional loose-fitting white robe of the Zanzibari-Omani man. A year after the photo was taken, Hassan senior had succumbed to lung cancer.

  Hassan found the number and pressed the dial button. The feeling of unease, a mixture of guilt and dread, started to spread through him once more. He changed his mind and pushed the cancel button before the phone on the other end started to ring. It was nothing, he told himself again.

  He put on Ray-Ban sunglasses and a New York Yankees baseball cap as protection against the glare and heat of the African sun and walked along the riverside track to the enclosures.

  ‘Hello, Maggie,’ he said fondly.

  The cheetah, the eldest of his breeding females, responded to his voice, got up and walked to the gate. Hassan opened it; Maggie made no move to escape. Instead she rubbed her flank against his leg like an overgrown household cat. ‘How are your babies today, beautiful?’

  He walked to the shade of the apple-ring acacia inside the enclosure, drawn by a series of highpitched squeaks.

  The cat’s latest litter of five strong, healthy cubs turned their tiny faces to him. The little balls of fluff knew his scent as well as their mother’s. He picked one up and stroked it. Another clawed at the fabric of his tan trousers, while a third tried to trip him up by attacking the laces of his kudu-leather boots.

  One day these cheetahs would take their rightful place in the Zambezi Valley, patrolling the riverine forests and floodplains of the great river. He had helped save Maggie, and a few other heirs to the natural paradise that bordered his own private game reserve, from extinction.

  Hassan bin Zayid also thought himself an heir to the valley. His family had made their fortune in this part of Africa hundreds of years earlier. His people, on his father’s side, were Omanis. Great traders and seafarers, they had left the Arabian Gulf and followed the east coast of Africa in search of exotic animals, spices and the most valuable cargo of all – slaves.

  Hassan certainly did not think of Juma or his other staff as slaves, just as loyal paid servants, but his ancestors had not been as benevolent. They had forged deeper and deeper into the forests and savannas of central and southern Africa, spreading Islam as they went and returning to their bases at Zanzibar and Bagamoyo with dhows crammed with live cargo.

  He thought of the news item he had just seen. The war against terror, as the Americans called it, had touched many more countries than Afghanistan and Iraq. His ancestral homeland of Oman had lined up with the Americans, the oil-rich state providing land for US bases. The place of his birth, Zanzibar, had seen a drop in tourist numbers because world events and his family’s fortunes had suffered as a result.

  Hassan found himself missing Zanzibar less and less and spending more time at his game reserve in Zambia with every trip. He loved the island where he had been born, with its azure waters, white sands and heady aroma of cloves and other spices. But the paradise he had known as a child was changing, and not for the better. Each year hotels encroached a little more on the beaches. Even now, with tourist numbers down it seemed to him there were still more European faces than Arabs or Africans on the streets of Stone Town, and that dance music and hip-hop were drowning out the gentle melodies of his own people.

  Of course, he didn’t mind the presence of tourists when it came to the monetary aspect – they had made him and his family extremely wealthy over the years. Since the demise of the trade in slaves, ivory and, more recently, rhino horn, the bin Zayid family had made their living from the development and running of hotels on Zanzibar and the Tanzanian mainland. Hassan liked to think of himself as a progressive man. He didn’t hate westerners and, although he had been raised a Muslim, he did not follow all the rules of his father’s religion. Neither had his father, for that matter. Hassan had inherited from him a weakness for malt whisky and a fondness for women with golden hair.

  He thought for the hundredth time that day of Miranda, just across the Zambezi from him. He would send the boat for her tonight, to her camp on the Zimbabwean side of the river. They would dine and share a bottle or two of fine wine from his cellar. There were so many things he wanted to discuss with her, but they could wait until after they had made love. He had fallen under her spell so quickly and completely that it still amazed him. He, the millionaire bachelor, with a string of sexual conquests to rival a Hollywood leading man, had found himself ensnared by her beauty, her wit and their shared love of Africa’s precious wildlife. There were still, however, so many things he needed to clear up with her.

  ‘Boss, excuse me.’ It was Juma, returned from lunch. He strode down the pathway, carrying the satellite phone. The African was no
t given to smiling, but his face looked more solemn than ever.

  ‘There was a telephone call for you. The caller wouldn’t wait, but I have a message.’

  ‘What is it?’ Hassan asked as he gently laid the cheetah cub back amongst its siblings.

  ‘I am sorry, boss, with all my heart, but there has been a death.’

  *

  South Africa

  Panthera Leo. The African lion. This one was a beauty. She guessed his weight at close to a hundred and ninety kilograms – nearly four hundred and twenty pounds where she came from. A big boy.

  Professor Christine Wallis flipped open a cheap photo album and leafed through the pages until she found Nelson. To a casual observer the pages and pages of digital photo prints would have all looked the same. All big, tawny lions. Nelson was a little easier to distinguish from the rest because, like his namesake, British admiral Horatio Nelson, he was a one-eyed warrior.

  His disability had not affected his ability to fornicate and fight – the king of beast’s two top, and pretty much only, duties in life. Chris put down the album and made some notes in her journal, recording Nelson’s condition – good – and activity – nil.

  The lion yawned, baring yellowed fangs the length and girth of a man’s finger. He curled his long pink tongue. It was roughened, like a domestic cat’s, and made for flaying the skin off a dead animal.

  Chris was three metres away from Nelson, but the predator paid her no mind. The shape of the fourwheel drive she was sitting in was as familiar to him as the striped zebra, or the fearsome bulk of an elephant. Nelson lowered his head, rolled onto his back, wriggled a little to dislodge an annoying tick, then sat up.

  Chris took up her camera, focused tight on Nelson’s sleepy face and snapped off three frames in succession, getting a better, closer shot of his scarred face. He blinked lazily at the whirr of the camera’s motor wind. He’d heard that sound his whole life. He was all power, Chris thought. The top of the food chain, irresistible to the six females in his pride, respected by his dozen children and feared by his enemies. He was the reason why she was living in South Africa’s Kruger National Park instead of her other home town in Virginia, USA.