Zambezi

by Tony Park

  ‘Maybe they figured it wasn’t worth the risk,’ Jed said, but he doubted his own words.

  The policeman helped Jed change the ruined wheel for the spare. Once they were finished, Jed reprimed the fuel filter. ‘Try the ignition now,’ he said to the officer. The engine rattled to life.

  The commander of the riot squad, a sergeant, emerged from the bush, followed by the German shepherd and its handler. The rest of the policemen lounged in the shade of a tree, smoking cigarettes and drinking from their water bottles.

  ‘It was one man only,’ the sergeant said, removing his cap and wiping the sweat from his brow.

  ‘The dog wanted to follow the trail, but I think this man is long gone. He used this to puncture your tyre.’ He showed Jed the home-made caltrop.

  Jed fingered the nail-studded piece of timber. He got the feeling the riot squad’s hearts were not really in their job. To be honest, the thrill had worn off for him too. Now that the adrenaline rush brought on by his potentially deadly game of tag had dissipated, Jed just wanted to get on the road again. ‘Thanks for trying anyway, Officer.’

  ‘This ambush technique is not all that unusual, I am afraid to tell you,’ the sergeant said. ‘Out here these criminals think they can get away with anything.’

  ‘Somebody told me to be careful in Zambia. Said the place was full of criminals.’

  The sergeant laughed. ‘Ah, yes, that is true. But it’s not as bad as Zimbabwe.’

  Jed smiled. He took the tyre lever and knocked out the remaining shards of glass from the rear window before stowing the iron bar with the ruined rear wheel rim in the back of the Land Rover. He would have some explaining to do when he got the vehicle back to Harare. It seemed an age since he had picked the truck up. Now, at last, his mission was nearly over. In a day or so he would be on an aircraft, sipping Scotch, watching in-flight movies and thinking about the next posting in his military career.

  Jed got into his vehicle and followed the policeman who had first come to his rescue to a police camp. Except for the charge counter and the presence of a few bored-looking uniformed cops, the station was unlike any other Jed had ever seen. It was a mud-brick building with a tin roof and, judging by the old-fashioned hurricane lanterns on the counter, no electricity. Somewhere out back goats bleated and hens clucked. The policeman took out three forms and two pieces of well-worn carbon paper and rolled them into a manual typewriter that reminded Jed of one he had seen in the Smithsonian in Washington. It was a long, slow business, filling in the details of what had happened, but Jed knew he would need an investigation report to get him off the hook with the car-rental company.

  He didn’t get to Chirundu until four in the afternoon and then had to queue behind a long line of coach passengers. He cursed his timing.

  ‘Did you enjoy your stay in our country?’ the immigration clerk asked when Jed finally presented himself at the counter in the airless building. The man thumbed through the pages of his passport.

  ‘I met a very unhelpful man who hunts other men for a living, then I was ambushed and shot at by someone who was trying to kill me. The beer was quite nice, though.’

  The man smiled politely. ‘Ah, yes, the beer is good in Zambia. Do you have a cigarette for me?’

  ‘No.’

  The man frowned and thudded the stamp into the passport.

  Jed crossed a new bridge over the Zambezi. A party of tourists was pushing off from Chirundu in six Native American-style canoes. He supposed they were headed downriver to Mana Pools National Park. He thought of Christine, of the taste of her mouth, and the rest of her. When he came to an intersection that led to Mana Pools one way and Kariba the other, he was half tempted to turn left and go look for her. However, he had a plane to catch and a life to get on with. His leave was almost up.

  As it was, he would arrive back at Fort Bragg jet-lagged and with no time at home to decompress.

  That was OK. He figured the sooner he immersed himself in work the better. It would help him deal with the loss of Miranda. Also, he wanted to talk to some people about that job in Virginia.

  He wondered if the CIA really was his bag. The Agency had been recruiting ex-military people in droves since September 11 and he knew that even if he didn’t leave the Army and apply for a job as a spook, they might second him in any case. Better, he reasoned, to go across with spy pay and conditions than do all that dirty work on a master sergeant’s wage.

  It was odd, but when he had mentioned the prospect of CIA work to Chris, she had hardly raised an eyebrow. That was peculiar, given what his buddy in personnel back at Fort Bragg had told him about her background. They both had a lot to discuss next time they met – if there was a next time. A picture of her straddling him, her breasts swinging enticingly in front of his eyes, filled his mind. He smiled. She was pretty, sexy as hell, great in bed, intelligent and mysterious. There would be a next time.

  The road snaked up and out of the Valley and the last of the sun’s rays were slanting hard through the Land Rover’s side windows when Jed finally reached the top of the escarpment. He checked his watch and did the calculation. He would be lucky to make Harare by midnight, and the thought of driving through the African night and then trying to negotiate a strange city in the dark did not appeal to him. Besides, he was beat after his eventful day. A road sign told him he was at a place called Makuti. Of greater interest was the next billboard, which pointed to a motel. That would do just fine.

  Jed rose early the next morning and drove the Land Rover down to the filling station in front of the Makuti Motel.

  ‘Do you sell Cokes here?’ he asked the attendant.

  ‘In the shop,’ the man said, gesturing with a thumb.

  Inside the kiosk Jed bought a Coke in a glass bottle and a chicken pie for breakfast. The shopkeeper told him he wanted the bottle back, so Jed stood outside to consume the pie and soft drink. He brushed some flaky pastry from his beard and with his hand shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun. A young white man carrying a tattered daypack was walking up the hill from the Kariba turn-off towards the gas station. Jed vaguely recalled seeing a person sitting under the road sign pointing towards Kariba. He walked back inside and handed over his empty bottle.

  ‘That man has been awake since five o’clock. He wants a lift to Kariba,’ the shopkeeper said, pointing out the window. ‘He has been trying for two hours with no luck. I think it is because of the way he looks.’

  ‘Well, he’s still out of luck. I’m headed for Harare.’

  Jed returned to his Land Rover, got in and started the engine.

  ‘Hey!’ called the young man.

  ‘I’m headed south, sorry,’ Jed yelled over the noise of his engine. He saw the guy was young, bedraggled, with an unkempt goatee beard, stubble and dirty clothes. He wasn’t surprised the kid had failed to get a lift. He looked like a bum. Jed put the car in first and started to roll forwards.

  ‘It’s you! Hey! Jed Banks!’

  Jed looked back over his shoulder at the sound of his name. He was at the edge of the gas station’s driveway, waiting for a lorry to pass. He gave the young man a closer look.

  ‘Goddamn reporter,’ he said under his breath, shaking his head. He recalled the message on his cell phone, the Australian accent. It was the kid he had met in Afghanistan. The one who nearly got him killed and the one who had been pestering Patti. Part of Jed wanted to stop and be hospitable, but the rest of him wanted to get away from Africa, from the questions that would yet again dredge up the horror of Miranda’s death. Jed floored the accelerator and pulled out onto the highway.

  Jed looked in his rear-view mirror. The kid was running down the blacktop after him, waving his arms like a madman. This was embarrassing. He knew reporters could be tenacious, but this was a joke. The damned fool was going to get himself killed carrying on like this. Jed stopped the truck.

  ‘I told you, I’m headed south, not to Kariba. And I don’t want to be interviewed about Miranda, Afghanistan or any other da
mn thing,’ Jed said as Luke arrived, panting, by his window.

  Luke coughed and grabbed the door handle on Jed’s side, in case he made to leave again. He fought to regain his breath.

  ‘What is it, kid?’

  ‘Miranda …’ he gasped.

  Jed stomped on the clutch and rammed the gear-stick back into first. ‘I fucking told you, Scarborough. I’m not going to -’

  ‘No, wait… She’s alive.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Miranda’s alive, Jed.’

  Chapter 20

  Jed’s heart raced, but he could hardly comprehend the news. If this was some ploy by the reporter to make him stop and spill his guts, he swore he would kill the man and leave his body by the side of the road for the hyenas.

  As he turned the Land Rover around and headed back to the filling station, he said to Luke, ‘I swear to God, I’ll gut you if you’re lying to me, kid.’

  Luke nodded. ‘Stop so I can get my backpack. We can talk here.’

  ‘OK.’ Jed ran a hand through his fair, sweat-dampened hair. He had a million questions, but he held back. He would not play into the kid’s hands. He would listen to what he had to say first.

  Luke picked up his backpack and Jed parked the Land Rover under a tree behind the gas station.

  He killed the engine. ‘OK. Shoot.’

  ‘I wanted to thank you, first, for what you did for me in Afghanistan,’ Luke began.

  ‘Cut the crap. We can swap war stories later.’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’

  ‘My daughter’s remains were found in the belly of an adult male lion, shot here last week. If this is some kind of con, I’ll —’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, kill me. Look, do you want to know what I found, what I saw, or not?’

  Jed nodded. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I was in Zanzibar a few days ago. I was trying to track down a guy, the brother of the man you killed in Afghanistan, in fact.’

  Jed shrugged. He had left Afghanistan too soon after the firefight to read the after-action reports.

  He had no wish to know the name of the man he had shot.

  ‘Who told you his name?’ Jed asked.

  ‘Centcom released it a few days afterwards. It was Iqbal bin Zayid. He was in all the newspapers. Didn’t you see the stories?’

  ‘Bin Zayid?’ The name hit him like a punch in the chest and a terrible feeling of dread swept over him. He hadn’t seen any news reports of the action he’d been involved in. He was too busy catching military transports to the States and then flying to Africa.

  ‘Yeah, bin Zayid. Anyway, his brother -’

  ‘Hassan.’

  ‘How did you know the brother’s name? You didn’t even know the name of the dead guy until a couple of seconds ago.’

  ‘We’ll get to what I have to say soon enough. Keep going. You haven’t told me anything I want to know yet,’ Jed said, stone-faced.

  ‘Anyway, I tried to track down this Hassan bin Zayid. A millionaire businessman, up to his arse in hotels and money, but he proved very hard to find. I was given the run-around by his office and then, by chance, I got a lead and found out where he kept his boat. A cruiser. Real flashy.’

  ‘What about my daughter?’ Jed interrupted.

  ‘I think she was on board bin Zayid’s boat.’

  ‘You think?’ Jed said. ‘I need more than think.’ There was no vehemence in his words, though, for a half-dozen different explanations were already forming in his mind. He let the reporter continue.

  ‘I saw a woman on the boat, with Hassan bin Zayid. They kissed. She was dressed up to the nines. Attractive, blonde, young.’ She was more than attractive, she was a knockout, Luke recalled, but he reminded himself he was probably talking to her father.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I took her picture. Bin Zayid must have seen me – I was on another boat. Later that evening I was mugged by a guy I’m certain was sent by bin Zayid. He smashed my camera and destroyed the memory card inside it. Then he tried to kill me.’

  ‘To kill you?’ Jed suddenly thought of his own near-death experience on the dusty road out of Zambia. Too many possibilities and impossibilities clouded his mind.

  ‘Yeah, but I fought him off. I… I killed him, in fact.’

  Jed was surprised. He looked at Scarborough again, saw the red eyes, the dishevelled state of his hair and clothes, the dark stains under his fingernails. Dried blood. Luke was staring out over the tree-covered African hills. Jed had seen that look in men’s eyes before. He knew the kid had been to a bad place and was revisiting it in his mind. Jed had been there himself a few times lately.

  ‘It’s OK, kid. Keep talking.’

  ‘I couldn’t work out why the guy tried to waste me just for taking a picture. I mean, Christ, nobody ever tried to kill me for doing my job.’

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ Jed said. ‘What makes you think the girl you saw was Miranda? You’ve never met her before and I didn’t have a picture of her the night we met in Afghanistan, when you were asking about her.’

  ‘I know, I know. Well, bin Zayid also set me up, big time. Planted a load of heroin in my room and sent the cops around to pick me up. I guess the idea was to discredit me first so when my body showed up no one would worry too much. I had no idea who the woman was. But later on, after it was over and I was trying to get off Zanzibar, I found an international newspaper. There was a story on your daughter’s death in it and a picture of her. I’m sure it was her I saw on the boat and that’s why bin Zayid tried to kill me.’

  ‘Slow down. How did my daughter’s picture get in a newspaper?’

  ‘It was a file picture taken by her local paper when she first set off for Africa. I passed on her name to some colleagues in the States and they tracked down the picture. But that doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘The fuck it doesn’t.’ Jed was angry at the way the reporter thought he could ignore the wishes of a grieving family and publish his daughter’s picture despite the fact Patti had wanted it kept private.

  This wasn’t the time to lose it, though. ‘How can we be absolutely sure it was her? You said your camera and pictures were destroyed by the mugger.’ Jed wanted so much to believe the odious specimen in front of him, but did not want to raise his own hopes.

  ‘I can’t. Only you can. I had a couple of shots on a second memory card which the guy I killed never got his hands on. I can show them to you and you can tell me if it’s her or not.’

  ‘OK then, let’s see them.’

  ‘We need a digital camera or, better still, a computer to download the pictures onto. My laptop and all my other gear was in my hotel room in Zanzibar. The police have it all now.’

  Jed nodded. If what he was saying was true, Scarborough was on the run and had crossed several international borders in order to get this information to him. His attitude towards the younger man softened. ‘I know where we can find a computer.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A friend of mine, working in Mana Pools National Park. We can be there in a few hours. That’s if she hasn’t left already’ A friend? He realised he suddenly needed to ask Chris Wallis a whole lot more questions.

  ‘Cool,’ Luke said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Jed tried to collect his thoughts. There were several explanations, ranging from innocent to evil, for how Miranda could have turned up alive on Hassan bin Zayid’s boat. The first, and most benign, was that the whole thing had been a terrible mistake and she had left for a holiday with her rich Arab boyfriend and neglected to tell anyone she was going. That did not sound like Miranda. News of her death had been reported around the world and, surely, once she learned of it she would have contacted her mother and, presumably, the authorities in Zimbabwe to set the record straight. Maybe they had been out of touch with the news media? A more sinister scenario was that bin Zayid, unlike Jed, had made the connection between his family and hers. Had he kidnapped her in order to wreak revenge on Jed for killing his brother? But how would the guy know who had
shot Iqbal bin Zayid?

  ‘Was my name mentioned in the stories about Iqbal bin Zayid’s death?’ Jed asked Luke, as he started the engine.

  ‘No. The public affairs people stopped using the full names of American servicemen in stories in order to protect their security.’

  Jed remembered reading the new policy. The CIA had learned that Al Qaeda operatives were trying to identify the addresses of soldiers serving in Afghanistan, possibly with a view to targeting their families. It was also why troops serving in the terrorists’ former base country had to burn the return addresses on letters and packages sent to them. Afghans had been seen rummaging through the trash dump early on in the campaign looking for old mail and, in the States, terrorist sympathisers combed local and national newspapers looking for servicemen’s names and home towns. If a soldier had an uncommon surname it needed little more than an internet search or a telephone book to find out where his or her family lived.

  ‘But,’ Luke added, sheepishly, ‘I did name you as Master Sergeant Jed in the story I filed.’

  Jed nodded, angry, but resigned to the ways of the new media-driven defence force. If Miranda had mentioned his Christian name to bin Zayid, and that he was serving in Afghanistan, it would have been possible for him to make a connection, but there were a lot of Jeds in the Army.

  Luke took a deep breath. ‘Um, I also mentioned in the story you had a daughter working on lion research in Zimbabwe.’

  ‘Tell me you didn’t,’ Jed said.

  ‘I’m afraid I did.’

  That did it. If bin Zayid had seen Luke’s story he would have known immediately that Jed was the man who had killed his brother. Sinister pieces started to fall into place. The surly reception he’d received at bin Zayid’s safari lodge; the attempt on his life. Had he stumbled too early into a kidnap plot?

  ‘You said when you saw her on the boat she was dressed up and they kissed?’

  ‘That’s right. She didn’t look like she was there against her will, Jed.’

  Jed swore to himself again. There were still too many questions and not enough answers. He needed to see these pictures. If it was her, he had to see Hassan bin Zayid immediately – and screw the efforts of the man’s flunkies to head him off. If it came to another visit across the border, he would take some additional muscle with him. Jed braked at the driveway of the filling station, then switched on his right-hand indicator and headed down the hill towards Kariba.