by Tony Park
Mike took the left fork in the road onto the A6, towards Bulawayo. The countryside was hot and flat – dry red dirt and low scrubby bush – tough country in which only goats seemed to thrive, and they were doing a good job of denuding what vegetation was left. He honked the horn as they overtook a donkey-drawn cart made of rough planks on top of the rear axle and wheels of a scrapped motor car. The skinny young boy on the reins waved at the truck and lashed the back of his two donkeys with a wicked-looking whip.
‘Tough life here if you’re a donkey,’ Sarah said, shaking her head.
‘Tough life if you’re a human,’ Mike said. ‘People are doing it hard here, no doubt about it. A lot of the other overland companies have stopped driving through Zimbabwe because of all the bad press about violence, farm invasions, fuel shortages and various other economic and political problems. But I still love the place.’
‘Good for you, but are we safe here?’ Sarah asked.
‘The political violence, intimidation and oppression is real, but it’s also carefully targeted against opponents of the government and minorities. The average Zimbabwean, black, white or coloured, is friendly and welcoming to tourists. I’ve never encountered any aggro on my previous trips.’
The countryside started to change as they drove north, moving from the arid, flat low veldt into rolling hills with more trees and prominent granite koppies. They passed game reserves surrounded by high electric fences, cattle and sheep ranches, and the one-street one-horse country towns of Mazunga, Makado and West Nicholson. A big open-cast mine at a place called Colleen Bawn was well advanced in the job of dismantling a hill.
Mike knew that Orlov and Hess had a good lead on them and that the men appeared to have no plan to stop on the way to Bulawayo. There were so few cars on the road, thanks to the intermittent fuel shortages and recent price hikes, that Mike was sure he would have noticed their hired South African vehicle easily if they had stopped for some reason.
‘We’ll stop here for the night,’ Mike said to Sarah, as they entered the outskirts of Bulawayo. ‘This place reminds me of a large Australian country town. Our streets are the same – wide enough to turn a bullock cart – and you often see the same jacaranda trees.’
They stayed in a tranquil walled campsite with manicured green lawns, at the back of a sprawling single-storey house in leafy Hillside, Bulawayo’s nicest suburb. The next morning Sarah pestered Mike to go and look for Orlov and Hess, who, according to their immigration entry declaration, were staying at the Bulawayo Holiday Inn. Sarah had spotted the conspicuous mini sky-scraper that was the hotel.
‘I don’t think they’ll have got up to much between here and the border,’ Mike said to Sarah outside the TM supermarket in Hillside as they unloaded bags of groceries from a shopping trolley into the storage boxes under the cab of the truck.
Mike reached in his pocket for a crumpled Zimbabwean five-hundred-dollar bill and tipped the uniformed security guard, who had been hanging around the vehicle expectantly. The man touched the peak of his cap and smiled, even though the note was barely enough to buy a drink.
‘You should have gone with the rest of the crew to the Matopos,’ Mike said to Sarah.
The other passengers had opted for an early morning safari in open-top vehicles to the nearby national park. The Matopos, he had explained on the trip up, was a collection of granite hills topped by impressive stacks of boulders precariously balanced by nature. Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, was buried there and the caves and outcrops in the hills were alive with bushman paintings of hunting scenes and wild animals.
‘What did you do with the gun, by the way?’ Sarah asked as they drove back to the campsite from the supermarket.
‘I sealed it in plastic and stowed it in a tin of grease in the tool box at the back.’
‘Hard to get to in an emergency,’ she said.
‘Hard for the cops or customs officers to find when we cross a border,’ he replied. Mike had no wish to declare the pistol and wondered what he would do when they entered a national park. By law, he knew he should surrender the weapon when they entered a national park in South Africa or Zimbabwe and that, in the latter country, rangers have the authority to shoot on sight any armed person they come across in a park. ‘Anyway, I’m not planning on using it,’ he said.
They struck their tents and packed up after the rest of the passengers returned from the game drive. The others were excited about having spotted some rhino, but Sarah and Mike were both looking for different game from now on.
‘If you want a real story, take a look over there,’ Mike said to Sarah as they drove out of the Bulawayo city limits on the road to Victoria Falls. On their left, in what once had been an open field, half-a-dozen bare-chested black men sweated in the midday sun, swinging picks down into the rocky bare earth.
‘What are they digging?’ she asked, shielding her eyes from the glare as Mike geared down, slowing the truck a little.
‘Graves. That’s the new cemetery. The old one’s full, thanks to AIDS.’ He pointed out row upon row of fresh graves, topped by nothing more than mounds of rocky red soil.
‘But where are all the headstones, the flowers?’
‘The funeral industry’s the only one that’s growing in Zimbabwe these days, but no one can keep pace with the growth. You’ll see as we travel some more, there are roadside undertakers selling coffins springing up everywhere. In Harare it’s getting hard to find your way around town because the undertakers are stealing the metal road signs to melt them down to make coffin handles.’
‘Amazing.’
‘More than amazing. It’s a nightmare. It’s almost like living in the time of the black plague, in Europe, in the Middle Ages.’
‘You talk like it’s personal.’
He thought of Carlos, choosing a quick death instead of the alternative. ‘It is.’
The scenery on the drive from Bulawayo to Hwange National Park turned to rolling tree-covered hills as they passed through forestry estates. Road signs warned drivers to keep watch for antelope and elephant, which moved freely through this part of the country.
They stopped for fuel at a restaurant and service station called the Halfway House, midway between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. As the attendant topped up the tank and Mike’s passengers bought ice creams and Cokes, a brand-new white Toyota Land Cruiser flashed by without stopping.
Sarah trotted down the service station driveway, Coke in hand, and raised her free hand to shield the sun from her eyes as she watched the fast disappearing white speck. ‘Did you see that?’ she said breathlessly, as she strode back towards Mike. ‘Jo’burg plates. That’s got to be them.’
‘Could be,’ Mike said. He felt his chest tighten. He wasn’t sure whether it was fear or anticipation, but he knew that he would have to confront those men somehow, somewhere. What he would do when he met them and if he was able to link them to Isabella’s death, he wasn’t sure. His mind turned to the can of grease in the tool box.
‘I like to think of Hwange as the grandmother of all African national parks,’ Mike said to Sarah as they walked along a sandy track from the camp ground to a complex of old buildings housing the park’s offices, restaurant, shop and bar.
‘Why as a granny?’ Sarah asked.
‘A bit decrepit, old-fashioned, but worth making the effort to visit. This place doesn’t have the same concentration of game as Kruger, but it can surprise you. I’ve driven for days and seen nothing but elephant and trees, then come across three leopard in the space of half an hour.’
‘Where are we, by the way? I haven’t looked at the map today.’
‘We’re in the north-western corner of Zimbabwe. Hwange’s western boundary is the Botswana border. Up north it’s about a hundred kilometres from the top of the park to Victoria Falls and the Zambezi. Zambia’s on the other side of the river.’
Mike thought the park’s facilities, accommodation, roads and shower blocks all resembled a grandmother’s house. Clean, where
the broom can reach, lovingly cared for as far as a tight budget will allow, but looking a little tatty and outdated. There was a musty air about the camps and their official buildings, like an open-air museum of the late 1960s and early ’70s. The camp reception areas were decorated with fading black-and-white photos of strapping white men with sideburns, shorts and long socks watching on while their trusty black foot soldiers hog-tied captured rhino. The once-glossy public relations photos of the various camps showed ruddy-faced men and women with big hair lounging outside newly whitewashed lodges. In the car spaces were big cars with even bigger tailfins. The clock seemed to have stopped around the mid 1970s, when war took hold of the country and the poachers moved in virtually unchecked.
Still, the park and its wildlife had survived – just. Mike had seen rhino there but they were few and heavily guarded. Unlike most of Kruger, Hwange was not fenced. Animals, particularly the park’s tens of thousands of elephants, were free to migrate to and from neighbouring Botswana, and also into the hunting concessions which bordered parts of the park.
Mike knew it was in one of these private hunting concessions that Vassily Orlov would start his international killing spree. He had driven past the lodges before, or rather, past the turn-offs to the lodges. They were very private concerns and there was no chance of him lumbering ten or twenty kilometres up a private road in a bright yellow truck on the pretext of asking for directions.
‘Why can’t we go and visit the hunting lodge where Hess and Orlov are staying? We could say we wanted some information about a hunting trip,’ Sarah asked.
Mike was more than a little disconcerted that Sarah was apparently able to read his mind. He shook his head in reply to her question. Sarah and Mike took a seat at an outdoor table on the lawn in front of the Waterbuck Arms, the pub and restaurant at Hwange’s main rest camp. Mike had finished driving for the day, the dome tents were up in the camping ground, everyone had had lunch and it was time for his first beer. The waiter, dressed in a loud African-print shirt which reminded Mike of a 1970s cushion cover, set a dew-coated green bottle of Zambezi Lager and a white-frosted beer glass down in front of him. Sarah was sticking to Coke, in a glass with a slice of lemon.
‘You should go on a game drive this afternoon. Everyone else is,’ Mike said, then sipped the deliciously chilled beer.
‘Don’t try to get rid of me. Let’s go find this lodge,’ she said doggedly.
‘The lodge is on the northern border of the park. That’s over a hundred and fifty kilometres from here and, besides, we can’t take the truck through the middle of the park.’ Because of its weight, the Bedford attracted a ridiculously high entrance fee in Zimbabwe’s national parks if they wanted to use the park’s internal roads. Rian wouldn’t spring for the fees, so game viewing was courtesy of a fleet of obsolete ex-Rhodesian army Land Rovers and converted Japanese pick-ups driven by enterprising African locals, some of whom were ex-rangers.
‘So we’ll have to wait until Victoria Falls,’ Sarah said. She looked disappointed.
Mike nodded. He savoured both the beer and the thought of revenge.
‘This place has a life and a noise of its own,’ Mike said to Sarah as they crested a hill and caught sight of the town of Victoria Falls.
Clouds of mist made the Zambezi look like a bushfire from a distance.
‘You can buy every kind of high here, from dope to bungee jumping, white-water rafting, parachuting, microlighting, joy-flighting, even elephant rides.’
In his mind, Mike mulled over an action plan for the two and a half days they would spend in the town. For the passengers the plot was simple: two days of free time for action and a half day to recover from the hangover that always followed the second night. Among the many Generation X-rated attractions the place offered were dance clubs and all-night bars.
Mike reckoned they were now a day ahead of the hunters. Theron had copied the addresses of their accommodation down from their entry cards, but there were no dates. If hunting was the purpose of their trip, Mike guessed they would stay at least a couple of nights in the lodge listed on the card. It wouldn’t be too hard to find out from the hotel in Victoria Falls when they were due to arrive – probably in the next day or two, sometime during his group’s stay.
The air was hot and sticky as the overlander rolled into the business district, down the hill towards the falls themselves and their home for the night, the Municipal Campground.
‘The place we’re staying at is about as appealing as it sounds,’ Mike said to Sarah. ‘A patch of dirt set in the middle of the turf of a couple of hundred petty criminals.’
‘Look,’ he said, addressing the rest of the crew as they pulled to a halt inside the camping ground, ‘Victoria Falls is a fun town, especially when you’ve been on the road for a while, but keep your wits about you. If you buy dope, don’t tell me about it, and don’t get sold garden herbs. Remember, we’re crossing a border in a couple of days and I don’t want to get busted for smuggling dagga, OK? Also, keep your valuables locked in the back of the truck. It’s free time while we’re here, and I’d like to get out for a look around as well, so if anyone wants to volunteer to watch the truck for a couple of hours in the next two days, that’d be great. Any questions?’
‘Where’s the party?’ Linda asked.
‘Three, two, one, bungee!’ yelled a tall dreadlocked New Zealander.
George screamed as he reluctantly tumbled forward in a week-kneed approximation of a swan dive from the bridge one hundred and ten metres above the churning, rock-strewn Zambezi River. Somewhere below, in a chasm downriver, Mel, Linda, Kylie, Sam, Jane and Julie were hurtling down a raging river in an inflatable boat.
Sarah sidled up to Mike, who was staring out over the iron railing of the road and rail bridge that linked Zimbabwe with Zambia.
‘You don’t go in for this adrenaline-junkie stuff?’ she asked.
‘I’ve had enough thrills in my life,’ he said.
‘What, driving a truck full of spotty backpackers around Africa?’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘Is that it, the Victoria Falls Hotel?’ she asked, pointing across to the sprawling two-storey building on the other side of the chasm.
‘That’s it. The grand old lady of the falls. The place to stay here,’ Mike replied. Now part of an international hotel chain, the opulent colonial relic was certainly one of the most expensive places to stay in the area.
‘What are we waiting for?’ she asked.
‘We need a plan, in case they’re there. Let’s talk.’
Sarah insisted on showering and changing first, and by the end of the long walk up the hill from the border crossing to the camping ground Mike needed a cold shower as well. As Sarah headed for the ladies with her shower bag and towel he wandered over to Nigel, who was sitting on a fold-out chair, reading a book under Nelson’s roll-out canvas awning.
‘How’s it?’ Mike asked him.
‘You’re starting to sound like a local,’ Nigel said without a trace of humour.
‘All quiet on the western front?’
‘I’m glad to have a bit of time by myself. Some of these people are getting on my nerves.’
Mike bit his tongue. ‘Fine. Not interested in throwing yourself off a bridge or seeing the bottom of the Zambezi?’
‘You wish,’ he said, and smiled. ‘So, is she going to do you over in that story of hers?’ Nigel asked, gesturing with a flick of his head to Sarah, who had just disappeared into the shower block.
‘We’ve got a good working relationship going now,’ Mike said.
‘What does that mean? Are you screwing her as well?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know. I saw her, Jane, go into the truck that night. I heard you as well. I’d have thought there were rules against that sort of thing.’ Nigel shook his head as he spoke.
‘I’m going for a shower, Nigel.’
*
Sarah and Mike emerged from opposite end
s of the men’s and women’s shower block at the same time.
‘Je-sus,’ he said, and gave a low whistle.
‘If that’s your idea of a compliment, you need to work on your vocabulary,’ she said.
‘No, I mean, yes, it is, but . . .’ He thought she looked extraordinarily beautiful, and that was the problem. He’d left her as just another backpacker with uncombed hair, sweat-stained T-shirt and baggy shorts and rafter sandals. She stood there now with blonde hair blow-dried and brushed, and make-up that accentuated her high cheekbones and enhanced her large blue eyes, and soft, full-painted lips.
Her unisex traveller’s outfit had been exchanged for a low-cut little black dress with spaghetti string shoulder straps that showed off her cleavage and smooth legs. Her only jewellery was a thin gold necklace and a single gold bangle. On her feet were a pair of black dress sandals with just enough heel to pass for evening wear. Her toenails were painted silver and, for the first time, he noticed a little silver ring with a heart on the second toe of her right foot, which he thought looked very sexy. She also carried her expensive Canon camera in its case, slung over her bare shoulder.
‘Don’t you think you’re just a tad overdressed?’ he ventured, and immediately regretted it.
‘Bloody hell. It’s a five-star hotel, not some dosshouse,’ she countered, her cheeks turning pink through the make-up. ‘How am I supposed to get talking to an organised crime boss, who’s probably a millionaire, if I’m dressed like a nineteen-year-old hippie?’
Sarah had expressed a willingness to try to engage the Russian if they saw him. Mike was sure she would have no trouble attracting the man’s eye.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said reluctantly. He had changed into lightweight khaki trousers and his cleanest polo shirt, the closest he ever got to formal wear in Africa.
