Zambezi

by Tony Park

  Hassan saw Juma clutch his neck and stagger. He fired another two silenced shots before the American bodyguard could regain his footing and aim again. One missed, but the other drilled through the man’s belly. The agent sank to his knees and dropped his pistol, clutching his stomach with both hands.

  The speedboat, which had still been travelling under its own momentum, thudded into the aircraft and Hassan leaped aboard. The agent coughed blood down the front of his bush shirt and slumped to one side in a vain attempt to reach his pistol, which had landed just out of reach, on the wing. Bin Zayid straightened his arm and fired one shot between the American’s eyes. The man’s head snapped back and struck the aircraft’s skin with a dull clang.

  ‘General Donald Calvert, come out and you will live,’ Hassan called into the aircraft. The man whose face he had seen at the copilot’s window was no longer in the cockpit.

  Juma stepped onto the wing, covering his employer with his assault rifle. His neck and the collar of his green shirt were drenched in blood, but he seemed alert and ready for action.

  Unless the pilot had lied to them, Hassan assumed that the second secret service agent was one of the dead men he had referred to. The general, he presumed, had scuttled into the main cabin of the aircraft. The danger was that the old soldier was right now searching for a weapon of some sort.

  ‘General Calvert? I’ll give you ten seconds to surrender. After that I will torch this aircraft. You may stay where you are if you wish. My mission will still be accomplished if you die here.’

  From his position on the wing, Hassan fired two shots at random through the skin of the rear cabin.

  Lieutenant General Donald Calvert, once the commander of nearly nine thousand Coalition soldiers engaged in the global war against terrorism, cowered on the carpeted floor of the cabin, his cheek sticky from the spilled blood and brains of his dead bodyguard.

  ‘God have mercy on me, and on you, Stu,’ he whispered to himself. His hands groped inside the dead agent’s sports jacket. He’d taken part in many conflicts in his thirty-five years in the military, but he hadn’t touched a dead man, hadn’t smelled the metallic stench of copious amounts of fresh blood, since he was a young platoon commander in Vietnam. He’d survived the North Vietnamese Army’s rocket and mortar attacks, been wounded when his signalman had lost a leg to a landmine, and faced down massed infantry attacks when a firebase he’d been defending had nearly been overrun. He held two Bronze Stars and a Silver Star, all for valour. He would not let this pissant African terrorist get the better of him. The history books would show he went down fighting, or killed a terrorist and lived. A win-win scenario either way, but he wasn’t ready to die yet. He cursed himself for not keeping his hunting rifle with him in the cabin of the Comanche, but consoled himself with the realisation that Wardley would have a weapon on him. His fingers found the nylon holster under the agent’s stiffening arm. Calvert swore a silent oath. Empty. Wozak must have taken Wardley’s pistol.

  The general weighed his choices. He could be burned to death or he could give himself up. Never in his life had he known the shame of surrender, but there was still a chance while he drew breath. When the time was right, he would kill one or both of these men, even if it meant his own death.

  ‘Get the gasoline and the flares. Douse the aircraft. We’ll burn him alive,’ Hassan said to Juma.

  The African did as ordered, unscrewing the cap from the metal can and tipping a third of the contents into the cockpit.

  ‘Smell the gas, General. I’m going to burn the aircraft now. I’m happy for you to die inside it. The choice is yours. Come with me and you will live,’ Hassan taunted. ‘Give me a flare,’ he said. He took the cylinder from Juma, pulled the cap off and placed it on the bottom of the tube. A sharp tap with the heel of his hand would send the incendiary flying into the aircraft.

  ‘I’m coming out,’ Calvert said. His voice betrayed him, escaping as a whimper.

  ‘Very sensible, General. Three seconds only. One … two …’

  Calvert held his empty hands before him as he emerged at a crouch from the cockpit.

  ‘On your knees, hands behind your back.’ The politeness was gone.

  Calvert knelt on the wing and Juma tied his wrist bitingly tight with a length of plastic cable.

  ‘Up!’ Hassan commanded. He pulled the once powerful man up by his bound wrists, gaining satisfaction from the little yelp he emitted as his shoulders took the strain. He put a foot on Calvert’s rear and kicked him forwards, headfirst, into the boat. Calvert landed hard and groaned aloud in pain.

  Hassan tossed the can of gasoline into the carcass of the aeroplane, picked up the flare and punched the firing pin in the cap into the base of the cylinder, igniting the projectile inside.

  Incandescent red light glowed through the portholes and the spilled gasoline ignited with a crump. He stepped onto the boat and pushed away from the burning wreck. On the far side of the wing he noticed a ripple in the water’s surface, then the momentary appearance of one and then two pairs of beady eyes reflected in the glow of the flames. The crocodiles had been drawn by the scent of blood.

  Hassan started the engine in neutral and let the big outboard idle.

  ‘How bad is your wound?’ he asked Juma.

  The African felt the side of his neck. ‘He nicked me. It is nothing.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Calvert asked.

  ‘Telling you would ruin the surprise.’ To Juma, Hassan said, ‘Gag him.’

  Juma picked up a roll of black duct tape, tore off a strip and sealed their prisoner’s lips. Calvert stared hard into the African henchman’s face as though he were committing every feature, every blemish, to memory.

  Hassan thrust the engine throttle forwards and the bow leaped into the air as the boat cleaved the Zambezi. They raced back towards the hunting camp on the Zambian side. Hassan cast a glance over his shoulder. The red glow of the flare was still bright inside the aircraft and flames were now licking out of melted windows, scorching and blackening the once white exterior. The aircraft seemed to jump out of the water a little as pieces of metal burst from the port wing. The noise of the explosion followed a split second later. The fire had spread to the fuel tank in the wing and a greasy black mushroom cloud stained the clear sky over the water.

  Hassan looked back up the river and turned the steering wheel hard to starboard to avoid a pod of curious hippos. The big beasts had raised their little eyes and waggling ears from the water, curious about the cause of the noise. Hassan’s evasive move caused the general to roll to one side and bang his head on the gunwale of the boat.

  ‘Sorry,’ bin Zayid said, smiling.

  He pushed the throttle wide open and moved close to the high undercut banks on the Zambian shore. There were still no other boats or aircraft in sight, but they would come soon enough. Wylde, and possibly some of the other land-holders, would have already mounted a rescue, and the Italian doctors at the hospital in Chirundu would have been told to stay at work. He guessed a Zambian air force helicopter would soon be on its way.

  However, night would settle on the Zambezi in a couple of hours and Hassan bin Zayid was already within sight of his secluded camp. No one else except Juma knew the details of this phase of the plan. As far as the other staff at his lodge knew, their employer was still away in Zanzibar on business. In time, people would come to his lodge and ask questions -it was only natural that as an Arab and a Muslim he would attract attention – but by then he would be long gone.

  Chapter 22

  Tell me what was going on between my daughter and Hassan bin Zayid,’ Jed demanded. He stood next to the driver’s door of Chris’s Land Rover as she turned off the engine. His face was clouded with barely suppressed rage.

  ‘What?’ she asked, as she switched off the Land Rover’s headlights.

  She got out of the vehicle and tried to brush past him. He put an arm either side of her and rested his hands on the warm hood of the truck. Her face was white
. She held a portable satellite phone loose in her right hand and stared out into the gathering gloom of the night. She didn’t seem to have heard a word he had said.

  ‘My daughter, goddamn it! What the fuck were you and she up to here? The truth, Chris, all of it.’

  ‘Jed, I can’t do this right now. Something else has come up.’

  ‘What else? What can be more important than finding out what happened to my daughter? She’s alive, Chris.’

  ‘Alive?’ She doubted it very much.

  ‘I’ve got an Australian journalist inside who’s got a picture of her with Hassan bin Zayid in Zanzibar taken only a couple of days ago. Now I want you to level with me and tell me what kind of game you two were running up here.’

  ‘Jed, like I said, something else has come up. Get out of my way. I’ve got to go upstairs and pack.’

  He continued to block her, even though she gripped his forearm with one hand. ‘No way Answers first. And what are you packing for? I thought you were gone for a week. Why are you back so soon?’

  She closed her eyes in frustration. ‘Jed, I can’t explain right now. But I have to pack some things and go somewhere. Something terrible has happened.’

  ‘Yes, Christine something very terrible has happened. My daughter has been kidnapped by an Arab and is still alive somewhere in Africa.’

  ‘Jed, an airplane crashed somewhere near here in the Zambezi River less than two hours ago. There are Americans on board and they need help. I’ve got to get out there and find the crash scene. I’ve got to get equipment, a boat and first-aid gear. This is serious.’

  Now Jed was confused. ‘How do you know, did you see it crash?’

  ‘I got a call on my satphone. I was about to cross the border at Chirundu. Please get out of my way, Jed. I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Work? You’re a zoologist, aren’t you? What use is a scientist on a search and rescue mission?’

  ‘Jed, I’ve got to get my things, please let me …’

  He reached behind him and pulled an automatic pistol from the small of his back, where he’d tucked it into his jeans. ‘Got to go get this, huh?’

  She looked at the Glock in his big hand. He held it close to her face. ‘What’s this, Professor? The serial number of this pistol seems to have been filed off. Tut-tut, Chris. I know you had a pistol, but is this an illegal weapon, or was it issued like this?’

  ‘You’ve been going through my things.’

  ‘So, what do you need, Chris? This, or maybe your military tacsat radio and your night-vision goggles. Is it a rescue mission you’re going on or a search and destroy?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, yes you do. Teaching job in Virginia, my ass. Where, at Langley?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Chris. You’re CIA, right?’

  She said nothing, just stared hard into his eyes. ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘You’re a spook, aren’t you?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Jed. What was that about a journalist inside?’

  Jed took a step closer to her, so close now his chest was almost brushing her breasts. The smell of her threatened his resolve. He took a breath, through his mouth. ‘I made a call. Checked you out with an old friend at the 82nd.’

  ‘Been spying on me?’

  ‘Spying? Well, that’s rich, lady. You told me you were a clerk in personnel during your time in the Army.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but you left out the bit about transferring to C2. Military Intelligence, Chris. That part slip your mind?’

  ‘It’s none of your business what I did in the Army’ she said, unable to meet his accusatory stare any more.

  He reached out and grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning her face towards him. ‘Look me in the eye and say my daughter was not involved in any intelligence work up here.’

  Chris closed her eyes again. ‘Jed, we’re wasting time, here. There could be people dead out there in the river. Americans. I’ve got nothing more to say to you right now.’

  ‘Was having sex with me part of the plan, Chris?’

  She shook her face free of his grip, drew back her arm and slapped him hard across the face.

  He was taken aback by the force of the blow but didn’t flinch. He wasn’t ready to let up on her just yet. ‘You couldn’t stall me at Johannesburg with that planted magazine of ammunition, couldn’t stop me from coming here and investigating. So what was plan B, Chris? Give me a good time and send me away with a smile on my face and a spring in my step?’

  Tears welled in her eyes. For a moment Jed felt his resolve weaken. ‘If that’s what you think, then -’

  ‘What I think doesn’t matter. I’m tired of trying to figure you out, to second-guess you.’ He held the pistol in front of her face again. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘Protection,’ she whispered.

  ‘My ass. No serial number, Chris, like the rest of your gear. I worked with Company guys – and women – in Afghanistan. Now, give me the truth or you’re going nowhere. One way or another you’re going to tell me about my daughter.’

  Jed could see she was angry, was weighing up the need to get moving with the need for secrecy.

  ‘All right,’ she hissed. ‘Yes, I’m CIA, a non-official cover agent. There, I’ve said it. I used my degree in zoology as a cover for fieldwork in Africa and Asia and ended up head of the Africa desk back at Langley I retired from the Agency in 2000 to do my PhD and get into animal research full-time – turned out I liked my cover a lot more than my real job. After September 11, though, they came looking for me and I volunteered again. A lot of us came back after that.’

  He nodded. It was the same in the Army. Plenty of guys had gone back onto active duty after the horror of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. ‘So where does Miranda fit in?’

  ‘She was a volunteer on a research program I was running. She’d also been assessed by the Agency as possible career trainee material. I was told to watch her, talk to her, and initially recruit her as a civilian asset. The idea was to put her on the payroll if she did well.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. An asset? So you sent her to this place to do your dirty work.’

  ‘There were legitimate reasons for sending her, both from a wildlife conservation point of view and for intelligence-gathering reasons.’

  ‘What’s the connection with bin Zayid? Did you send her up here to spy on him?’

  ‘That’s a crude way of putting it…’

  ‘I’m a fucking crude guy when I want to be, Chris.’

  ‘We’ve been monitoring Islamic fundamentalist groups and certain individuals in east and southern Africa since the bombings of the embassies a few years ago in Kenya and Tanzania. He came up on our radar because of his brother.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about his brother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I killed him in Afghanistan, apparently.’

  ‘You what? This is too weird. When did you find all this out?’

  ‘A little while ago, from my reporter buddy inside. As usual they seem to know more than you spooks or the intel people.’ His remark was not as glib as it seemed. More than once in the tactical operations centre in Bagram he’d seen a room full of staff officers glued to CNN to find out the latest about some incident or other. Nothing beat real-time news, and some reporters were as good as or better than intelligence analysts at putting together the pieces of a complex puzzle.

  Chris let the insult slide. ‘We were looking for some terrorist suspects that I believed were based in Zimbabwe. I figured Hassan bin Zayid had the money and motive to be the cell’s financial backer.’

  Jed took a pace back, easing the physical and psychological pressure on her, and lowered the gun.

  He rubbed his eyes. ‘So you set my daughter up to get friendly with him.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Jed. Not what you think.’

 
‘Not what I think! How the hell do you know what I think? The ranger up at Marongora said they were kissing, Chris. Was that all? Did she fall in love with the fucking target?’

  ‘We don’t use the honey trap, Jed. That was for the Russians, and James Bond. Miranda wasn’t sent up here to sleep with bin Zayid. But I’m not sure what her feelings for him were – and that’s the truth. I had my suspicions, but she wouldn’t give anything away when she last came to see me. You found out about her trip down to South Africa a couple of weeks ago. It was a debriefing, both on her lion research work and on what she’d found out about bin Zayid.’

  ‘And what did she find out about him?’

  ‘Her assessment was that he was clean. He espoused no fundamentalist Islamic beliefs; he drank alcohol and liked to party; he had had relationships with western women in the past; he seemed genuinely shocked by September 11 and generally had a pro-western outlook on life and politics,’

  Chris explained. ‘There was one other thing …’

  ‘What?’

  She looked as though she were weighing up whether or not to tell him. ‘Miranda got hold of bin Zayid’s brother’s phone number. I heard Langley was putting an EW trace on him.’

  ‘Jesus. So it was probably information gained by Miranda that helped the electronic warfare guys pinpoint Iqbal bin Zayid’s terrorist cell and the surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan.’ The revelation stunned him for a second. He didn’t know whether to feel proud of Miranda, angry at Chris, or to blame himself for the chain of events that was unfolding before his eyes. The dread pumped through him like snake venom.

  ‘It’s no one’s fault, Jed. Don’t waste time trying to pin this on someone. Miranda did a job I assigned her and did it well. She also got pictures of two other men who passed through bin Zayid’s place. They were subsequently identified as terrorists and terminated.’