Black Horn (A Creasy novel Book 4)

by A. J. Quinnell

  Maxie stopped and looked around and then picked his spot. His arms were tired from the constant rhythm of planting Creasy’s spoor. He tossed the sticks and boots aside and worked quickly. He gathered bushes and, using the twine looped around his waist, tied them into the shape of a torso and a head of a size resembling Creasy. Then he built a fire and placed the dummy torso on the far side from their tracks. The fire blazed and Maxie crouched on his haunches beside the dummy, laid his rifle beside him, pulled a strip of biltong from his pouch and started to chew on it.

  Twenty minutes later, Karl Becker carefully circled the edge of the low hill and spotted the fire about a kilometre away. It was almost dark, and he chuckled inwardly as he took in the scene. There was a clump of bushes about a hundred metres between him and the fire. It made a perfect hide. He would wait for full darkness and then move in and make the kill. He looked again at the fire and at the two shadowy shapes sitting beyond it. He chuckled again. ‘Sitting ducks,’ he thought to himself, and moved away to his right, to come in exactly opposite the fire.

  Twenty minutes later, Maxie heard the fluttering wings of a bird, slightly in front and to his left. He knew that somebody was out there. The bird would have been roosting for the night and would not have flown unless disturbed. Of course, it could have been a hyena or a wild dog, but every instinct told him that it was a human hunter. He felt no concern. If Creasy had been in any way disabled during the past hour, he would have fired a shot to alert Maxie. The hunter out there was being hunted.

  Karl Becker reached a clump of bushes and gently eased his way through them. He had a good view of the fire and the two shadowy figures beyond it. He knew that the mercenary was bigger than the Selous Scout. The larger figure on the left had to be the mercenary. He eased his backside on to the soil and raised the rifle to his favourite position with his elbows resting on his knees. He decided that his targets were not such good bushmen as he had been told. They should have been sitting on opposite sides of the fire, watching each other’s back. He laid his cheek against the stock of the rifle and took aim.

  A casual but hard voice behind him said, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume.’

  Chapter 24

  Creasy threw him on to the fire. He screamed and twisted, and managed to roll away as a small burning branch slipped down his mottled green and brown shirt. He could not reach it because his thumbs had been tied behind his back and his ankles. He screamed again, rolling over and over, and eventually dislodged the burning twig. He lay gasping and whimpering, his face against the dirt.

  Creasy sat alone, chewing on a piece of biltong. Five minutes earlier, Maxie had melted into the dark bush to make sure that their would-be assassin had no back-up out there. He would be gone at least half an hour.

  Creasy took a careful gulp of water from his jerrycan, looked at the bound man and said, ‘When I ask you a question in future, I’m only going to do it once. If I don’t get an answer within ten seconds, I’ll toss you back on that fire. And if it’s not the right answer, you go back on anyway. Now, what’s your name?’

  Ten silent seconds passed and then Creasy began to rise.

  ‘Karl Becker!’ came the strangled reply.

  ‘Why were you trying to kill us?’

  Painfully Becker twisted over. His short hair was singed and his eyebrows and his left cheek black. He looked up at Creasy, drawing in short, shallow breaths. ‘I thought you were rhino poachers,’ he said, ‘There’s open licence on them.’

  Creasy sighed, stood up, walked two paces, picked him up by his shirt-front and the crotch of his shorts and threw him back on the fire.

  Maxie emerged into the firelight half an hour later. Creasy was hunched up, chewing on biltong. The other man was propped up against the thin trunk of mopani tree, five metres away. His chin was on his chest and he was sobbing. Creasy waved a piece of biltong at the sobbing man.

  ‘Karl Becker,’ he said. ‘Does the name ring a bell?’

  Maxie squatted down, pulled his water bottle from his satchel, took several gulps and said, ‘There’s a man called Rolph Becker who has a crocodile farm at Binga, not far from home. I believe he has a son.’

  ‘That’s him,’ Creasy said. He pointed at the rifle propped up against another mopani tree. ‘That’s an old sniper rifle. An Enfield. It even has the original sight and it’s 7.62 calibre. This prick used it to murder Carole Manners and Cliff Coppen.’

  ‘He confessed?’

  ‘Sure. After a little heat.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  Creasy sighed and said in a cold voice, ‘Because his daddy Rolph Becker told him to.’

  ‘Why?’

  Again Creasy sighed. ‘He says he doesn’t know. And I believe him. He likes killing people but he doesn’t like the heat.’

  Maxie nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘So, I guess we go and talk to Daddy.’

  ‘We do. How long?’

  Maxie glanced at his watch.

  ‘If we move now, we’ll reach Binga before dawn.’

  Creasy pushed himself to his feet and tossed the remains of his biltong into the fire. ‘Let’s go.’

  Chapter 25

  Michael pulled himself up off the floor of the passenger cab of the eight-ton Leyland truck and settled himself back into the passenger seat.

  They had just passed through the small village of Binga, which sat on the south-east shore of Lake Kariba. Being five o’clock in the morning, the streets had been empty, but still Michael had ducked out of sight as a precaution.

  He glanced at the driver’s wizened black face. He was so small that he had to sit on two large cushions to see over the wheel, but Michael had been impressed with his skill. They had driven for eleven hours, only stopping to urinate and refill the tank from jerrycans in the back. They carried a cargo of heavy fishing nets for the Kapenta contractors, together with boxes of canned meat for a Save the Children orphanage further down the road.

  ‘About another three k’s, baas,’ the driver said. ‘You’ll see the lights on a ridge on the left.’

  ‘Lights?’ Michael asked. ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘Oh, yes. That Becker has security lights on all the time. I’ve passed this road many times, usually at night. The big lights are always on. Maybe it’s since the war. This place was very dangerous. They used to come over the lake at night from Zambia. Becker was one of the few white men who stayed in this area during the bad times.’

  ‘Was he attacked?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Yes, baas, I think three times, but Becker had about fifteen Matabele. Very well armed with machine-guns and hand-grenades and everything. Very tough men. They fought off the freedom fighters each time and killed them.

  ‘What happened to them after the war?’

  ‘Well, there was no vengeance for the freedom fighters, because Comrade President Mugabe gave the orders for no vengeance after the war. But they did kill a lot of Matabele who did not accept the election result and went into the bush, but that’s finished now.’

  ‘What’s your tribe?’

  ‘I’m Shona, baas. From the north. The Matabele are tough, but we Shona are smart so we run the country.’

  Michael digested that while slipping a Dexedrine tablet into his mouth. He washed it down with a small sip from his water-bottle, then he asked, ‘What happened to Becker’s Matabele?’

  ‘They still work for him,’ the African answered. ‘But now they look after his crocodile farm and they look for eggs along the rivers and the banks.’

  ‘Dangerous work.’

  The little driver nodded. ‘But they are dangerous people, baas.’ He glanced behind him at the shelf of the cab. Michael’s small black rucksack lay beside the AK47 assault rifle and a Colt 1911. The driver turned his gaze back to the road, ‘I heard the story of you back in Harare, baas, I think you’re brave for one so young. I’d be careful what you’re doing with those people. That Becker is not a good man and his son is worse. He treats his Matabele good but the
other workers he treats bad.’

  ‘I’ll be careful. Do you think all the Matabele will be there?’

  The driver shook his head. ‘No. It’s the time of year to collect the eggs. Maybe half of them will be camping by the rivers and lake.’

  ‘Close by?’

  ‘No, baas. Far away. Maybe ten cigarettes’ drive.’ He turned his head and grinned. The little man was a chain-smoker, so it was fortunate that thanks to Zimbabwe’s huge tobacco production, cigarettes were very cheap. During the long night’s journey, whenever Michael had asked how long it would be until they reached the next town or village, the driver had always answered, ‘Three or five or eight cigarettes’, equating the distance with the number that he smoked before he arrived there. He had invariably been right and it kept Michael amused through the night. He calculated that ten cigarettes would come to at least eighty kilometres, maybe even a hundred. So half of Becker’s little army would not get back if any action started in the next few hours.

  ‘Do those Matabele still have those weapons?’ he asked.

  ‘Officially, no. The machine-guns and grenades were confiscated after Independence for sure.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because I collected them. My boss had the contract to pick up all the weapons from this area.’ He shook his head at the memory, ‘I was very frightened, jumping around on this rough road with a lorryload of guns, grenades, ammunitions and mines in the back of the trunk. But Mr N’Kuku Lovu gave me a big bonus.’

  With slight relief in his voice, Michael said, ‘So those Matabele are not armed now.’

  ‘For sure they’re armed. They will have hidden some of the weapons.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Pistols and maybe some AK47s. Also they’ll have some licensed rifles because it’s dangerous work, collecting crocodile eggs. But they will not have machine-guns or grenades.’ He pointed ahead and to his left. ‘There, you see the lights, baas. We will pass about one k from the house —’ He held up a smoking cigarette — ‘when I finish this one.’

  Michael was wearing black jeans, black boots, a black, long-sleeved shirt and a black knitted skull-cap. He reached behind him, pulled down a heavy flak jacket and struggled into it. From his shirt pocket, he pulled out two ten-dollar notes and put them on the seat between himself and the driver. Then he got a surprise. The driver glanced down at them, took one hand off the wheel, picked them up and dropped them into Michael’s lap.

  ‘Not needed, baas. Not for this job. My baas gave me a good bonus for this trip.’

  Michael picked up the notes and stuffed them back into his shirt pocket.

  The driver’s cigarette had burned down almost to his fingers. Michael looked up to his left. The bright lights were approaching. He reached behind him for the pistol, tucked it into the shoulder-holster and snapped down the restraining strap. He shifted forward on the seat and slung the AK47 behind him with the strap across his chest. Four spare magazines went into a pouch, hanging from the left side of his belt.

  ‘How far is the African compound from the house?’ he asked.

  The driver pointed. ‘There are two compounds. One for the Matabele and one for the others. You can see the lights of both of them. The Matabele are the nearest. That’s about half a k from the house. The compound of the other Africans is about one k away. If trouble starts, the other Africans will not get involved. They will stay in their huts with their heads down, holding on to their wives and children . . . they don’t get paid enough to worry about Becker’s white skin.’ He changed down a gear, touched the brake lightly and mashed his cigarette into the overfilled ashtray. ‘We’re coming to the place now, baas. There’s big trees and bushes on the left coming up. I go very slow. Good luck, baas.’

  Michael slapped him on the shoulder. The truck slowed to a walking pace and he opened the door and jumped down. Seconds later, he was in amongst the trees as the truck accelerated away.

  Chapter 26

  Karl Becker was not a happy man. His two captors had no perception of generosity when it came to dealing with someone who had tried to murder them. He had hobbled throughout the night with his thumbs tied behind his back and his ankles attached by a twenty-inch piece of twine. He had stumbled and fallen several times. They had held a water-bottle to his lips twice during the long march and only very briefly.

  For the first two hours, he had been building up a hatred, but then his mind turned to how it was possible that he had been trapped. He considered himself the best tracker in the country, black or white, but the two men strolling along behind him had picked him up like netting a butterfly. How could he not have seen the difference in the tracks when the ex-Selous Scout had started the stick walking? How did he miss the spoor of the man called Creasy when he had moved off the track and around behind him?

  Slowly the realisation crept into Karl Becker’s head that the two silent figures behind him were lethal. He recalled how the man Creasy had totally immobilised him by tying his thumbs behind his back with a single piece of twine, and then asked his first question, and how he himself had shown his arrogance by spitting in the man’s face and seconds later he had been sitting over the fire. He had never heard such a cold voice, not even in his father when he was angry. It had come at him as though sliding over ice cubes. After four hours he had begun to fear for his life. He knew that if he and his father ended up in court, his father’s powerful friends would be able to pull big strings to get them, if not a suspended sentence, at least a small stretch in jail. But as he stumbled along, he realised the two men behind him would not accept that.

  They were approaching the house at right-angles to the lake. It was about three kilometres away. The Matabele compound would be on their left. Karl Becker made a decision. When they were within a kilometre of the compound, he would scream out a warning.

  He had no chance. After half a kilometre the cold voice of Creasy told him to stop. A moment later, he felt hard hands gripping his shoulders, then his head was pulled back by his hair and a piece of cloth was forced into his mouth and tied tight behind his neck. The voice of the Selous Scout was whispering in his ear.

  ‘We don’t want any singsongs out here. If you try anything at all, you get a bullet in the back of the head.’

  The voice carried total conviction. Karl Becker felt a push and stumbled forward towards the house. He had no thoughts of trying to warn anybody. Now it was up to his father.

  They stopped about a kilometre from the house. Karl sank to his knees in exhaustion and then rolled over on to his side. The house was very visible under the security floodlights. He listened as the two men discussed their strategy.

  ‘Maybe we work our way around,’ Creasy said, ‘and cut off the electricity.’

  Maxie disagreed. ‘He’s a rich man. No doubt he’s got an emergency generator. There are plenty of power cuts in this area. That generator might automatically kick in. If not, somebody will come from the compound to start it up.’

  They squatted in silence for a couple of minutes, and then Creasy prodded Karl with his rifle and said, ‘Well. This is the only child. I guess we just walk up to the front door with the gun at the back of his head and ring the doorbell.’

  Another silence and then Maxie answered, ‘I don’t see why not. Let’s rig it up.’

  Roughly he pulled Karl to his feet. Then he unwrapped a length of twine from around his waist and threaded one end through the trigger guard of his rifle. The other end went round Karl’s neck. When the two ends were tied together, the muzzle of the rifle was held firmly at the back of Karl’s cranium.

  ‘Don’t jerk around,’ Maxie told him, ‘or your brains get dislodged . . . if you’ve got any.’

  They moved forward again, crossing the scrub very slowly.

  Michael picked them up as they entered the outer parabola of light. He immediately recognised Creasy’s shape and then Maxie’s. He took in the whole tableau and realised what was happening. His first instincts were to move do
wn and join them, but as he rose to his feet he remembered his training: always watch and wait. If you’re in the background, always stay in the background until you know what is going on.

  Michael flicked off the safety of the AK47 and squatted back on to his haunches. He watched as the trio moved around to the front of the house under the bright lights.

  In the large master bedroom of the house, Rolph Becker woke to the high-pitched buzz of the alarm set into the headrest of the bed. The transition from deep sleep to total awareness took less than five seconds. He flicked off the alarm, slid out of bed and padded to the curtained windows. Of course, it could be just a hyena or some other curious animal that had tripped the infra-red alarms surrounding the house, but as he parted the curtain half an inch, he saw his son, fifty metres away, with the rifle at the back of his head and the two men behind him. He paused only for a silent curse and then moved fast.

  Four times in rapid succession he pressed a button by the bedroom door. It connected to a buzzer in the Matabele compound and the four loud buzzes would indicate a total emergency. Then he was through the bedroom door and pulling down a rifle from the rack in the hall. He was dressed only in a brightly-coloured sarong. He leaned against the wall of the hall and waited. He had bought the chimes for the doorbell in Johannesburg four years ago. It had amused him and his visiting friends. Ten seconds later, when the bell was pushed outside, he listened to the opening bars of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto.