by Tony Park
To his credit, the Russian did not scream or moan after that first yelp, and this, despite the man’s stupidity at not seeking cover when Hess had originally instructed him to, helped stop the man’s stocks from falling any lower. Hess leopard-crawled to the Russian, keeping his rifle out of the dust in the crooks of his outstretched arms.
Major Vassily Orlov was wounded, in the leg, and it hurt like the devil. Orlov was no longer a major in the Spetsnaz, the Russian Army’s elite special forces, but he still liked people to address him by his former rank. It lent an air of legitimacy, he thought, to his business dealings, and reminded those who traded with him that he was not some Moscow street punk or a common pimp.
He was wounded, but he had no intention of dying in the wilds of Mozambique. Orlov had too much money to die like some ragged third-world rebel from a wound inflicted by a rifle manufactured in his own country. He had paid the Namibian, Hess, a small fortune to get him here, but, as Hess knew, he would forfeit the substantial amount still owing if he failed to get Orlov his trophy, or if the Russian died in the process. One thing Orlov had learned in his new career as a businessman was that one could always trust in the power of money. Ideologies, regimes, politicians all came and went, but no one turned his back on cash.
Orlov’s new safari trousers were ruined. They were olive green, with detachable lower leg sections that zipped off to leave knee-length shorts. Above them he wore his old Spetsnaz camouflaged smock. He acknowledged Hess’s concerns about being seen in military attire in the African bush, but countered them by stating the obvious – that there would be trouble if they were seen, whatever they were wearing. Like many old soldiers, Orlov was faintly superstitious and he had worn this same smock on every operation he had been involved in. He regarded it as his good luck talisman.
Judging by the wound, it was probably a ricochet that had hit him in the lower leg. The bullet had glanced off a rock, perhaps, and ploughed into his right calf. Orlov gingerly touched the skin around the entry wound, a neat round hole ringed with dark burnt flesh. He winced as he touched his shinbone. The bullet had hit the bone and, its force nearly spent, had tumbled to rest higher up the calf, near the knee. He knew he was in shock and that the pain would soon come in earnest.
He pressed down on the entry wound, using his palm to staunch the oozing blood. The wound was a bad one because the bullet was still inside him, but Orlov doubted it was life threatening.
He had been shot once before, in Afghanistan, by a sniper, but that was in the upper arm and the bullet had passed cleanly through. His men had caught the sniper later – he was little more than a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with a wispy moustache and beginnings of a beard. Orlov’s men had wounded him in a short firefight and managed to capture him – the Mujahideen would never surrender of their own accord. They dragged the wounded teenager into the village square by his long, filthy hair. Orlov shot him in the head in front of his wailing family and the rest of the village.
He sat with his back to a tree, legs spread wide and his rifle resting on his good leg. The gunfire had stopped now and he wondered about the elephant. The animal had been every bit as magnificent as Hess had described it. Orlov had hunted ever since he could remember. His father had taught him to follow tracks, both in snow and on bare ground. They had started with deer and, eventually, graduated to bear. Later in life Orlov had several opportunities to indulge in the ultimate hunt, man against man, in the service of his country.
In Afghanistan, in addition to his military duties, he had begun his business career, starting with hashish and graduating to heroin. He would never indulge in the drugs himself, although some of his men and even his fellow officers had. The vast profits to be made, and the growing lack of confidence he had in his country’s rulers as a result of the war, had turned him from soldier to entrepreneur. Now his business interests reached far and wide, across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa. Orlov was an importer and exporter – drugs, cars, women, girls, boys, art, animals, weapons, diamonds were all commodities that had passed profitably through his hands. He wanted for nothing in terms of material goods and women, but what he missed was the thrill, the danger and the rewards of his days as a soldier.
An interest in diamonds had brought him to Africa and he had indulged his passion for hunting at the same time. He soon tired, however, of a succession of professional guides who treated him either as a dolt or a cash cow. He had been offered paltry trophies – drugged cats or ancient animals on their last legs. During a trip to Miami in Florida, however, a Cuban businessman, another former army officer and a fellow shooter now living as an exile in the United States, had recommended someone to him. A special hunter who knew what discerning clients wanted and how to circumvent certain regulations, if that was what was needed to satisfy his customers. Ironically, the Cuban believed he may have even fought against the man, who had served as an officer in the South African Defence Force, in Angola.
Orlov was redecorating his dacha in the countryside outside of St Petersburg and wanted an African big-game theme. He could have bought the trophies he had in mind, but he would never be satisfied with other men’s prizes. He had arranged a meeting with Hess during his very next business trip to South Africa and, from the outset, had been impressed with the man. Orlov thought the hunter was a cold individual, who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Perfect.
Hess knelt before Orlov now, not the slightest emotion clouding his face as he ran his fingers along the Russian’s wounded leg. ‘It has hit the bone – it may be fractured,’ he said brusquely. ‘Exit wound?’
‘Nyet,’ Orlov replied.
Hess drew a hunting knife from a pouch on his belt and quickly sliced open the bloodstained detachable lower half of the trouser leg. Next he took Orlov’s rifle from his lap and ripped the combat field dressing from the wooden stock, where he had taped it prior to their setting off from his lodge across the border. Hess carried an identical dressing taped to his own rifle, but, as in combat, he used the casualty’s dressing to treat him. He tore open the waterproof packet with his teeth, unfolded the big sterile pad, and pressed it over the wound. He wrapped the long bandage tapes from the dressing around Orlov’s calf and tied it off.
From the bush where his shots had fallen, Mike Williams heard a man cry out in pain, but in a language he couldn’t place. Not English, not Portuguese, not Afrikaans. It didn’t matter.
The elephant burst from the bush onto the open track, not thirty metres from where Carlos and Mike crouched, near the fallen Fernando. It was definitely a bull – Mike could tell from the shape of its oversized, rounded, knobbly head. Females, he had learned, have angular, sharply defined foreheads. This one stood as tall as a house and as wide as a battle tank. His legs looked like the scarred grey trunks of the leadwood. The yellowed ivory tusks, each the length of a grown man, curved inwards until they almost met.
Enraged, rather than scared by the sound of the gunfire, the elephant turned and faced the diminutive figures. Mike had learned that normally when an elephant wants to scare an intruder away it flaps its ears out wide and raises its trunk in the air to make itself look as big and as scary as possible. When an elephant means business and is about to charge, it puts its ears back and tucks its trunk in down between its tusks. Which is what the old bull did now.
Mike swivelled and pointed the AK-47 at the elephant, which began its charge. Puffs of dust exploded from the track with each mighty footfall. Mike looked again at Carlos and saw he was still ahead of him, to the right, and out of his line of sight. He pulled the butt of the rifle hard into his shoulder, took a breath and sighted along the barrel, aiming at the massive skull. He doubted the head shots would kill the bull, but hoped they would slow the animal down before it reached Carlos.
He squeezed the trigger. There was one shot, which raised a tiny puff of grey dust on the mighty skull, then the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.
‘Fuck! Run, Carlos!’
Carlos look
ed at Mike and smiled. He was silhouetted black against the oncoming cloud of elephant dust as he turned to face the beast. Ahead of him, on the edge of the track, was the landmine he had uncovered but had not had time to disarm. His armoured vest lay in the dirt beside him, where he had placed it just moments before.
He pressed his arms against his sides, as if bracing himself, clenched both fists and fell forward, onto the mine, so that his stomach struck the pressure plate.
The explosion sent up a cloud of dust to more than match the elephant’s wake and set Mike’s ears ringing. Carlos was thrown back into the air, almost upright again, as though he had just belly-flopped onto a trampoline. He fell once more and landed on his side.
The elephant stopped dead – his charge had not yet gained enough momentum to carry him forward onto Carlos’s writhing body. He shook his mighty head, flapped his big ears like ragged flags, and turned and fled into the bush. As he swung around, Mike saw the puckered red and white hole in his side. He assumed the wound had been made by the same weapon that killed Fernando. Fresh blood formed a black stripe down the animal’s dusty grey flank.
Mike stood and ran back up the track to the Nissan, bending at the waist to make himself a smaller target, in case the marksman was still watching. There was nothing he could do for Carlos without a first aid kit. As he ran he snapped the magazine from the AK-47 and confirmed that he was indeed out of ammunition.
At last he made it to the Nissan and fired up the engine. The 4WD bounced and juddered along the narrow track, as he floored the accelerator. The sides of the vehicle brushed against the white tape marking the cleared corridor and eventually a strand caught on the front bumper. The tape snapped as a stake was pulled out of the ground and Mike prayed the wheels wouldn’t set off another mine. He stopped the truck as close as he dared to Carlos.
The mine had been designed to blow off a foot or a hand, not to kill. When a man falls on his belly on a landmine and it tears him open and shreds his vital organs, however, that man is going to die.
But the mine hadn’t killed Carlos outright. He bit into his lower lip to keep himself steady and die like a man. When he opened his mouth to speak, Mike saw the bright blood well from the teeth marks in his lip.
‘Don’t touch me, Michael,’ he warned between ragged breaths.
Mike could smell the blood and the stench from Carlos’s perforated bowel and he knew the man was right about the danger, but still he tore frantically at the field dressing. He opened the big white pad and placed it on Carlos’s abdomen. The dressing barely covered the ragged hole. The pumping blood soaked Mike’s arms to his elbows. The dying man’s intestines were visible and Mike had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.
‘Shut up, Carlos, you’ll be OK. We’ll get you to Isabella.’ Mike remembered being taught to reassure the patient during his army first aid training. He thought it sounded as ridiculous in real life as it had in the classroom. ‘Carlos, for God’s sake, hang on, mate,’ he cried.
He cradled the African’s head in his lap and grasped his right hand, holding tight. Carlos’s whole body shuddered and Mike looked skywards. He leaned back, slumped against the front wheel of the four-wheel drive, utterly exhausted and soaked with the blood of his dead friend.
Mike sat there for what seemed like a long time, but it was really only a couple of minutes, maybe less. He was stirred from his stupor by the sound of the heavy rifle booming again somewhere in the distance. The noise was farther away than before. It was followed a few seconds later by the pop-pop-pop of a burst of fire from another AK-47. He realised there were now two weapons in the area, and men who were not afraid to kill.
The adrenaline that had coursed through him just a few moments before was now seeping away, leaving his limbs heavy and tired. Mike folded the rear seat of the Nissan forward, dragged Carlos and Fernando into the vehicle as quickly as he could, then hauled himself behind the steering wheel. His hands were covered in blood and when he wiped the sweat from his forehead it left a sticky smear. He started the Nissan and reversed up the track, trying not to look at the dead men as he navigated his way back to the main road. Once there he turned right, following the railway line south towards Maputo, nearly five hundred kilometres away.
Some of the flies that had already started to settle on the bodies now hovered around him. Mike felt a clutch of them sucking the blood and sweat from his forehead and pointlessly slapped at them as he drove. After a few kilometres he pulled over, wiped his face clean as best as he could, and fumbled for the cigarettes in the top pocket of his bloodstained camouflage shirt. He lit one with shaking hands.
The flies could still smell death on him. So could he, as he drove on into the blinding heat of the day.
Orlov opened his mouth to speak, but he was stopped short by another gunshot, quickly followed by a muffled explosion from the same direction as the earlier shots from the AK-47.
‘The elephant,’ Hess said. ‘Must have hit a landmine. The tracks in this part of the country are littered with them.’
‘Go and get it for me. Finish it off,’ Orlov said. Despite his pain, the Russian forced a thin smile under his grey-flecked bushy black moustache. ‘Or you can kiss the rest of your damned money goodbye.’
Hess nodded. If the Russian died and he couldn’t get the rest of his money, at least he would have the ivory. The cost of the helicopter had already been covered by the advance payment, so he would not be out of pocket. He stood and motioned to his servant, a tall African man in smart olive drab fatigues who hovered nearby. ‘Klaus, tell that little Mozambican monkey to start earning his money as a tracker and find the elephant for us. He can walk in front of us in case there are any more mines, but don’t tell him that.’ Klaus, whose smooth, broad ebony face marked him as a member of Namibia’s Ovambo tribe, had been Hess’s tracker and gun bearer for many years.
Klaus’s allegiance to Hess dated back to his role as a trusted subordinate during the war of liberation in South West Africa. His unflinching loyalty to the white man had paid off over the years, but while he was wealthy by black African standards, he could never show his face among his own tribe again if he wanted to live to enjoy his wealth. Klaus passed on the orders to the wiry Mozambican tracker. Next, he laid down his AK-47, unstrapped two short axes from side loops on the rucksack he wore and gave one to the tracker. The bright, razor-sharp edge of the axe glittered in the sunlight as the tracker held it close to his eye for a momentary inspection.
While Klaus shrugged back into his rucksack, Hess undid the Velcro fastening of a black pouch on his belt and extracted a compact black GPS unit which fitted neatly in the palm of his hand. He pointed the device towards the sky, switched it on and waited for the receiver to pinpoint their position. When the latitude and longitude flashed up a couple of minutes later, Hess pushed the button labelled ‘mark’ and scrolled through the alpha-numeric display until the letter O for ‘Orlov’ appeared, naming the spot after his wounded client, and entering it in the GPS unit’s memory.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ Hess said humourlessly. ‘I’ll call in the helicopter once we’ve finished off the elephant. If we can’t find it, we’ll get it from the air.’
Orlov nodded and tightened his grip on his rifle.
Hess and Klaus set off, with the middle-aged Mozambican tracker, dressed in tattered cut-off denim jeans and a torn brown T-shirt, leading the way. The tracker paused every dozen or so steps to sniff the air, listen, and check the earth and trees around them for fresh signs of the elephant.
The tracker was leading them away from the direction in which they had heard the explosion and the last of the firing. Hess was aware of not having addressed the problem of potential witnesses, but the elephant had to be his first priority. The tracker held up a hand and all three of them dropped to a crouch. The Mozambican had kept them downwind, and the elephant, now thoroughly disoriented, had wandered into a natural clearing. Perfect, thought Hess, and raised his rifle.
It had been many
years since old Skukuza had heard the terrible sound of thunder this close, but he recognised it as the sound of death. The louder noise, the explosion, had thoroughly confused him, though, and he blinked and rubbed his eyes with the tip of his trunk to clear the dirt that had been thrown up by the blast. He shook his big, knobbly head to try to free himself of the pain and looked for another target to vent his rage on. But there was nothing around him and his world was slowly turning a foggy grey.
Hess was behind and to the left of the huge beast. He instinctively aimed for a spot level with the elephant’s left eye, behind the ear, just forward of the vertical line where its front left leg joined the fat grey body. The hunter smiled as he pulled the trigger, knowing the heavy lead bullet would find the elephant’s brain. The rifle boomed and the elephant turned towards them and took a few last valiant steps. Hess stood his ground. The beast sagged forward, onto his front knees, and then toppled sideways, raising an immense cloud of dust, as his back legs gave way. Hess motioned the two Africans forward. There was no way he was going to leave his footprints close to the carcass.
Klaus stepped into the clearing and fired a four-round burst from his AK-47 into the animal’s belly to make sure it was dead. Then he knelt and picked up the spent bullet casings from the dust. He waved for the tracker to join him. Hess left them to the work of removing the tusks, confident that Klaus would ensure the long, curved ivory was not damaged.
Hess strode back through the bush, quickly but carefully retracing his steps to avoid any stray mines in the area. As he walked he lifted the walkie-talkie that hung from a strap at his side and spoke into the mouthpiece.
‘Eagle, this is Leopard,’ he repeated twice into the radio. Their call signs, Eagle for the helicopter and Leopard for the ground party, had been Orlov’s idea. Since the Russian was paying the bills, Hess indulged his unnecessary romanticism.
