Zambezi

by Tony Park

  ‘Hey, isn’t that the wrong way, man? I thought Mana Pools was to the left,’ Luke said.

  ‘It is. We’re going to pick up a friend first.’

  Jed strode into the shebeen in Nyamhunga township where he had first met Moses. The woman behind the bar screwed up her eyes to get a better look at him in the gloom.

  ‘Hey, I remember you, mister. I don’t want trouble in here again. You can please leave.’

  Jed held up his hands, palms out. ‘Relax, I’m just looking for someone.’

  ‘Moses?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah, he is a reformed man now,’ she said, then laughed. ‘Probably been to church this morning.’

  Again the cackle.

  ‘Can you give me his address?’

  ‘Sure why not. Tell him to come back – my profits have been down this past week.’

  Moses was standing on a rickety wooden ladder, replacing a shingle tile on the roof of a drearylooking house. The whitewash was peeling from the cheap cinderblock bricks and the lower third of the home’s façade was spray-painted a natural red-brown where last season’s rains had splashed up mud from the grassless yard. A small boy in ragged overalls with short-cropped curly hair and arms as thin as twigs craned his neck to watch the big man at work.

  Moses came down the ladder and wiped his hands on a grimy white singlet, then turned. ‘Jed! How are you? I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.’

  Jed opened the rusty gate and shook Moses’s hand. ‘I need help. Again. Miranda may still be alive. She may be in trouble.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll explain in the truck. Can you come?’

  Moses scratched his chin and looked back at the little boy A woman, young and pretty but tired in the eyes and mouth, walked from the house, drying her pink-palmed hands on a tea towel. ‘What is it, Moses?’

  ‘Miriam, this is Mr Banks. I told you about him.’

  The woman offered her hand. Jed was impatient but said, ‘How do you do, ma’am.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened, but this one came back from your trip a changed man,’ Miriam said.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your daughter. You have my deepest sympathies.’

  ‘Thanks, but that’s the point. I think she may still be alive, and I need Moses to help me look for her again.’

  The woman’s eyes widened. ‘I was never going to let this man out of my sight again, but if what you say is true …’

  ‘I’ll get my things,’ Moses said.

  ‘There isn’t any danger, is there?’ Miriam asked Jed as Moses disappeared inside the modest house.

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘He can’t afford to lose his licence as a guide, Mr Banks.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I pray you do. I wish you well.’

  Moses ran his fingers through the little boy’s short hair and kissed Miriam. ‘I will be back,’ he said.

  ‘I hope so, but I will believe it when I see it.’

  Jed introduced Moses to Luke and filled him in on the reporter’s findings as they drove. Moses listened to it all and, at the end, had no questions, just a statement.

  ‘If you go after this man, Hassan bin Zayid, it will not be straightforward for me to accompany you. I will not be able to cross into Zambia easily I’m not a licensed safari guide in that country – just another unwelcome Zimbabwean.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to break any laws, Moses.’

  ‘I will do what I can for you, Jed,’ he said.

  The three-hour drive to Mana Pools gave Jed a chance to brief Luke on what he had been up to during his investigations into Miranda’s disappearance.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Luke said, ‘is if Miranda is still alive, whose remains were found in the belly of the lion?’

  ‘That’s been puzzling me, too,’ Jed said. ‘There can’t have been another European woman killed in the area, not without it being reported.’

  ‘Why do you assume the remains belonged to a European woman?’ Moses asked from the back seat.

  Jed thought the guide had been dozing. ‘Because they were white.’

  Moses looked puzzled.

  ‘Any other white women gone missing in the Mana Pools area?’ Luke asked.

  ‘No, though one of the National Parks maids has gone missing. The word was that she had run off, maybe with some of Miranda’s things. But she was African.’

  ‘Black, you mean?’ Moses asked.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Jed said.

  ‘Well, you’re wrong,’ Moses said. ‘She was white.’

  ‘A European maid working for National Parks?’

  ‘No. When I was asking in the staff village about the maid, one of the rangers said she was musope.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Musope is the Shona word for albino. Her skin would have been whiter than yours. Much whiter, in fact.’

  Jed and Luke looked at each other. The only shred of physical evidence that Miranda was dead had suddenly been called into question. Jed’s excitement that his daughter could still be alive was tainted by his fear about what had become of her.

  ‘Surely the medical examiners would have been able to tell the difference?’ Luke said.

  ‘Tissue from the remains was being sent for DNA testing in South Africa. I’m supposed to get the final results – and pick up the remains for burial back in the States – when I get back to Harare,’ Jed said.

  ‘So we can’t tell for sure, just yet,’ Luke said.

  ‘Which is why I need to see those pictures you’re carrying,’ Jed said.

  When they stopped at the National Parks office to get their permits to enter Mana Pools National Park, the officer on duty remembered Jed.

  ‘Back so soon?’ he asked.

  ‘I need to see Professor Wallis again. It’s urgent. She hasn’t left the park yet, has she?’

  The man stamped their permits, handed them across the counter and said, ‘Ah, she has gone to Kariba.’

  ‘Kariba? Is she coming back?’

  ‘Yes, but she said she will be gone for four or five days.’

  ‘Shit.’ Jed ignored the look of shock on the ranger’s face. If Luke was right about Miranda he would have to track Chris down. He needed answers and couldn’t wait five days. They headed back outside to the Land Rover. ‘Let’s carry on,’ he said to the other two. There was nowhere else they could go that afternoon. He silently fumed for most of the remaining eighty kilometres into the park.

  ‘Leave me to check in with the warden,’ Moses said as they neared the turn-off to park headquarters. ‘You go on ahead. I’ll visit my friends in the staff village and see if there is any new gossip, then join you at the professor’s lodge later.’

  ‘Thanks, Moses.’ Jed stopped the Land Rover. The vehicle rocked as the big African got out.

  ‘Good guy to have on our side,’ Luke said as Jed drove off again.

  Jed slowed and looked at the Australian. ‘Our side? I don’t think so. Look, I appreciate you coming here with the news, but we’re in this mess mostly because of you and your kind. Anything I do as a result of this information is a matter for me and, if he can help, Moses. We’re not in this together as one big happy family, buddy.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Luke exploded. ‘You’d be on a bloody plane back home with some albino chick’s hand in a wooden box if I hadn’t shown up! Cut me some slack, man. OK, you saved my life in Afghanistan, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit all the time. What do you think I’m going to do – phone in reports on the hour to CNN?’

  ‘You tell me what you’re going to do.’

  ‘If Miranda’s alive, it’s news. I can’t ignore that and you can’t either.’

  Jed knew the boy was right. ‘So, what will you do, if we – I do find her alive?’

  ‘All I want is the chance to break the story A one-on-one interview if she’ll give it. Nothing more.

  If she says no,
I walk, but I want your word and hers that she won’t talk to any other journalists if she turns me down.’

  Jed thought about the proposition for a few seconds, then nodded. He supposed leaving the matter up to Miranda – if she were alive – was the fairest thing to do. However, he still felt angry at Luke for putting enough information in his article about the firefight in Afghanistan for Hassan bin Zayid to make the connection between Jed and Miranda. ‘Whether Miranda speaks to you or not, I want my name left out of your story Are we clear on that?’

  ‘Crystal,’ Luke said, turning away to stare out the window.

  The Zambezi shimmered in the golden rays of afternoon sun as they pulled up behind the lodge.

  ‘Nice spot,’ Luke remarked.

  Jed grunted. At this moment he cared nothing for the spectacular vista in front of him. He strode inside and took the stairs two at a time to the upstairs bedrooms. Luke trailed behind him.

  ‘Most of Chris’s gear is gone, but it looks like she’s left Miranda’s stuff.’ He wondered what had delayed Chris’s departure for South Africa and diverted her to Kariba.

  ‘Which one of these cases has the laptop?’ Luke asked.

  ‘I don’t know. They all look alike.’ They were confronted by a pile of aluminium transit cases.

  ‘They’ve all got these little padlocks on them.’ Luke fingered one of the small brass locks.

  Jed walked down the stairs and outside to the Land Rover. Behind the passenger’s seat was a canvas roll of tools. He undid it and took out a long-bladed screwdriver. Back in the room, he threaded the shaft of the screwdriver through the first of the locks and twisted. The padlock, which was more a visible deterrent than a serious security measure, popped open and Jed twisted the latches on the case. Chris must have had spare keys to each of the locks, Jed thought. He stared at the contents. It wasn’t a laptop computer.

  ‘What is all that stuff?’

  Jed didn’t say, but he recognised it all immediately State-of-the-art image intensification nightvision goggles, auto-focus binoculars that calculated range and heading through a light-up display, and a GPS unit. Expensive, sophisticated gear. Exactly the same makes and models as issued to United States Special Operations Forces – people like himself.

  ‘Just stuff for tracking and researching animals,’ he said, only realising the irony of his words as he spoke them. He hoped Luke didn’t catch on.

  ‘Oh,’ said Luke.

  Jed stuck the screwdriver in the lock of the second box. ‘You thirsty? I could really use a drink,’ he said to Luke, looking over his shoulder.

  ‘No, I can wait,’ he said.

  Jed didn’t want to make a big deal of his growing suspicions. The second lock popped as easily as the first. Inside the case was a dismantled tactical satellite antenna and an LST-5C radio. Not only did Chris and Miranda have satellite phones, they had a field-portable tacsat communications system capable of sending encoded burst transmissions of voice, pictures and video at high speed and high resolution.

  ‘What’s that? A radio?’ Luke said.

  ‘Must be for radio-tracking animals,’ Jed lied.

  He checked the outside of the case for any giveaway markings, bar codes or serial numbers. There were none. He directed his attention back to the first box and picked up the GPS unit. He directed it over. There was a dark space where a sticker might once have been, but no serial number or identifying marks on that, either. He felt sure people with expensive equipment in a poverty-stricken continent such as Africa would engrave or otherwise mark it in some way in case it was stolen. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He’d seen unmarked gear like this before. The third case yielded a new-looking Nikon digital SLR camera with a suite of lenses.

  ‘That’s professional quality gear,’ Luke said. ‘It’s pricey stuff.’

  Jed had used similar cameras on reconnaissance missions and didn’t need to be told that this was top-drawer equipment. The contents of this case alone were worth the same as a new car.

  ‘Hey, there’s a reader for camera memory cards. We’re almost in business,’ Luke said.

  Jed snapped the lid of the case closed. ‘Fourth time lucky,’ he said, shattering the lock on another case.

  ‘Bingo,’ Luke said. ‘Do you know her password?’

  Jed hadn’t thought of that. ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t use one.’ He carried the case downstairs and Luke followed. There was no electricity in the lodge, he remembered. ‘I wonder how she keeps the batteries charged?’

  ‘Probably has an inverter to run it off her car’s cigarette lighter. That’s what I do – or did – with mine.’

  Jed switched the computer on and they both stared at the start-up screens, impatient for the operating system to kick in.

  ‘Looks good so far,’ Jed said. They had not been prompted to enter a password. He scanned the desktop icons on the screen, making sure there was nothing sensitive the journalist would be tempted to click open. ‘No peeking at her files, OK?’ Jed would do his own checking after they had viewed the photos.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Luke, offended.

  ‘Over to you, kid.’

  Luke took Jed’s seat, acutely aware of the big American soldier leaning close over his shoulder.

  Outside he saw herons flying low up the river, heading for their evening roosts. He connected the memory-device reader to the computer. He took the card from his pocket and slid it into the reader.

  Luke double-clicked on the first of the picture icons that appeared in a box on the screen.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. The first image was badly out of focus. He could make out a man and woman standing on the bridge of a white boat, but that was it. No details of the faces were clear, although the woman was obviously blonde and slender. ‘I snapped these pretty quickly. I’m sure the others are better.’

  Luke closed the picture and put the cursor over the second icon. He licked beads of perspiration from his upper lip.

  ‘There! That’s better, what do you think?’ he said as the picture appeared.

  The detail of the man’s face was sharp. He had his head back, laughing at something the woman had said. She was half turned away from the camera, although most of the profile of her face was clear.

  ‘No. I can’t tell for sure, but I don’t think it’s her,’ Jed said. His voice was soft.

  ‘No way!’ Luke said. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If it was my daughter I’d know immediately. But she’s half turned away. Do you have a clearer shot?’

  Luke was mad, and confused. He’d nearly been murdered for these pictures, and he’d crossed two countries to get to Jed, but now his theory was crumbling. Why the set-up in Zanzibar if bin Zayid hadn’t been concerned with him seeing the girl on the boat? He began to feel sick with doubt. Maybe Hassan bin Zayid was simply playing around with another man’s woman. But, if so, was the threat of him being exposed serious enough for him to try to frame and murder an innocent journalist? No way.

  ‘I hope this one’s better,’ Luke said, bitter.

  The third picture flashed up on the screen. Bin Zayid was in profile now, but the woman had turned and was facing directly into the camera, smiling. Her features were perfectly focused.

  ‘I can zoom in, make the face bigger, if you like,’ Luke said. He did it without waiting for Jed’s answer.

  ‘It’s not her,’ Jed said. He turned and walked across the room, staring out at the majestically languid Zambezi which burned red with the last light of the dying sun.

  ‘What? Come on, take another look, man!’ Luke was livid. He had risked his life – and taken another man’s life – over these pictures. He pulled the newspaper from the torn daypack and fumbled through the pages to the story on Miranda’s death. Luke strode across the room and held the picture to Jed’s face. ‘Take another look. It’s her! The girl in the pictures is the same as the one in this newspaper!’

  Jed shrugged. ‘I think I know my own daughter.’

  ‘Bullsh
it. You hardly knew her. You told me yourself in Afghanistan. You spent most of your lives apart. She probably changed her hair or something since you last saw her.’

  Jed turned and gave the Australian a hard, cold stare. ‘Be careful what you say. I knew my daughter; you didn’t. She’s dead and I have to come to terms with that. I’m sorry you went to such trouble to get these pictures to me. I wanted to believe you. I really did. But it’s just not her.’

  ‘Well, where does that leave us?’ Luke pleaded.

  ‘Us? There is no us. Time to go back to where we belong. I’m sure the professor won’t mind if you stay here the night. You can hitch out tomorrow.’

  Luke felt utterly deflated. The American hadn’t even offered him a ride out of the park. He put his head in his hands and sat there as Jed walked outside into the gathering gloom. He felt like crying. It was partly the exhaustion, but he could also feel the greatest story of his life slipping slowly out of his grasp.

  Chapter 21

  It was a good site for the kill, Hassan bin Zayid told himself one more time. Everything was going to plan, but still his stomach churned. It was just nerves, he supposed. He had arrived at the dirt airstrip with time to spare. Juma had been waiting with the Land Rover and their kit, as planned.

  ‘Help me with these boxes,’ Hassan had said, pointing to the back of the Cessna. The engine ticked as it cooled down. The stillness and quiet assaulted Hassan’s ears after the noisy hours in the air.

  ‘The hole is dug, for the woman?’ he asked as they lifted the cheap coffin out of the plane.’

  ‘Yes. At the bush camp.’

  Good old Juma. Reliable and unquestioning as ever. But Hassan noticed the man was avoiding his eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I know you too well. What’s gone wrong, Juma?’