by Tony Park
‘Relax, Vassily,’ Hess said as the Russian joined him at the table. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’
Orlov didn’t need anyone to tell him to relax, but he accepted Hess’s offer. ‘Yes, thank you, Karl. A scotch.’
Hess nodded and walked to the bar. Orlov noticed three women, all of them slim and attractive, enter the departure hall. One of them had short dark hair, and carried a notebook and an expensive camera. He didn’t get a good look at her face, as she disappeared through a door that read ‘Private, National Airports Corporation Staff Only’, which struck him as odd. The other two women walked towards the bar.
Both women were blonde, one slightly older than the other. They might have been related, he thought. He was mildly jealous when the elder of the pair struck up a conversation with Hess.
Hess saw the two women approaching in the mirror behind the bar as he waited for the elderly African barman to finish serving a man at the far end. The barman finally arrived, but looked to the two women to take their order, even though Hess had been waiting first. Hess bridled at the man’s inefficiency, if that’s what it really was.
‘Gin and tonic and a Bloody Mary, please,’ the older of the two women said in an English accent. ‘Oh, sorry, I think you were first,’ she said, noticing Hess standing nearby.
‘No, it’s fine, carry on,’ Hess said.
‘Thanks.’ The woman fumbled in a daypack and produced a packet of cigarettes. To the barman, she said, ‘Do you sell matches?’
‘No, sorry, madam, we have run out,’ the barman said as he reached for two glasses.
Hess noted the woman’s obvious annoyance. ‘Please, allow me,’ he said, and pulled a gold lighter from his shirt pocket and struck the flint. The woman leaned close enough for him to smell cheap perfume.
‘Ta,’ she said, exhaling smoke. ‘You really are quite the gentleman, a change from the company we’ve been keeping lately!’
She smiled, and Hess had the distinct and vaguely discomforting feeling that she was looking him over as she waited for the barman to finish pouring their drinks. The younger of the two women peered around the older and stole a look at Hess as well.
‘My pleasure,’ he said, pocketing the lighter. ‘You haven’t had an enjoyable experience in Africa?’
‘Hardly,’ said the older woman with disgust.
The younger of the pair leaned around again and said to Hess, ‘We were shot at last night!’
‘You don’t say. Where was that?’ Hess asked, raising his eyebrows in genuine surprise.
‘Zim-bloody-babwe on Lake bloody Kariba somewhere,’ said the older woman.
‘Amazing. Who would shoot at a couple of pretty ladies like you two?’
Hess noted that the older woman smiled at the compliment. ‘A couple of hunters – one of them a mafia boss, no less! It’s a long story,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a couple of hours until my plane leaves,’ Hess said. He thought quickly. He could not introduce the women to Orlov, whose Russian accent was too thick to mask. He ordered a beer for himself and invited the women to join him.
‘Yeah, why not,’ the mature woman said. ‘Grab us a table, Julie.’
As they seated themselves around the small table, Hess caught Orlov’s look of confused indignation from across the room. He dismissed his employer with a curt shake of his head. Hess reopened the conversation. ‘So, who was shooting at you?’
‘Well,’ the younger one, Julie, began, ‘they weren’t actually shooting at us, they were shooting at our tour guide.’
‘Your tour guide?’ Hess prompted, sipping his drink.
‘Yeah, there’s these two guys, right, a Russian and a German – a Namibian, actually – and they were in this national park trying to poach a rhino. Where are you from, Mr . . . ?’
‘Swanepoel, but call me Piet. I’m from South Africa.’
‘Anyway, our tour guide knows these guys because they killed his girlfriend and so he was recruited by the South African Police to try and track them down and –’
‘Bloody dangerous stuff, if you ask me,’ the older woman said, smiling. ‘I’m Jane, by the way, and this is Julie.’
Bloody dangerous indeed, thought Hess as he said, ‘You’re sisters, right?’
Sarah had been told to expect a fax from The Times’s foreign desk when she arrived at the airport and, after being shunted from one airport official to another, finally discovered that her fax was waiting for her in the National Airports Corporation office in the departure hall. She found the office as soon as she, Jane and Julie emerged from customs and immigration.
An overweight female secretary handed the fax to her when she entered the office and introduced herself. Nicholas had been nice enough to send her a proof of the story, which had already been placed, on page one. The story was below the fold, on the bottom half of the page, and there was white space around it where other breaking stories would be placed as the day wore on, but she had made it. Front page of The Times, with her by-line.
On the cover sheet of the fax were a couple of questions Nicholas needed answers to in order to sell the idea of a follow-up story and a possible weekend feature to the news editor. There were also orders for her to report at the offices of The Times as soon as she landed. Nicholas had spoken to her magazine editor and her freelance assignment was confirmed. Sarah was ecstatic.
‘You work for The Times?’ asked the secretary. ‘That is very impressive.’
Sarah didn’t explain she was only working as a freelance journalist. Instead, she said, ‘May I please use your fax machine to send a reply?’
‘I shouldn’t really allow you to send an overseas fax without authority, but I’m sure we can make an exception just this once,’ she replied with a conspiratorial wink.
Sarah wrote down the answers Nicholas needed on a blank sheet of A4 paper, and then placed it in the machine and dialled the number. There was a portable radio on the bookshelf behind the secretary’s desk and Sarah strained to hear the last of the news while the machine attempted to bridge two continents. To her relief there had been no mention of a shooting or possible poaching incident in Zimbabwe. She would have hated to be scooped.
The news finished and the announcer switched to the weather: ‘The first heavy rains of the season are expected within the next twenty-four hours, with storms forecast for the Lusaka area and the eastern part of the country, including Petauke and Chipata . . .’
Checking her watch, she saw it had been nearly half an hour since she parted company with Jane and Julie Muir. She didn’t relish spending any more time than she absolutely had to with the pair. It was an embarrassing situation, to say the least. She and Jane had slept with the same man and she was surprised how jealous she suddenly felt. Thinking about Mike also made her sad again, but she was determined to let nothing get in the way of the next, enormous, step in her career. When she thought of what she was doing in those terms, however, she felt miserable all over again.
She rationalised her feelings away, though, as she watched the paper click slowly through the fax machine. She would have left Africa at the end of the overland trip anyhow, and she and Mike would probably never see each other again. The previous night had been the best sex she had experienced in a long time, fuelled as it was by the incredible excitement and danger that preceded it. As she thought of Mike again, with his big hands and mature, muscled body, she found herself feeling both aroused and, once more, depressed that she was leaving him behind.
Nicholas Charters, the assistant foreign desk editor who was sticking his neck out to help her make the jump from second-rate magazine to national newspaper, paled, literally, in comparison with the bronzed Australian tour guide. She had met Nicholas at a party and they had dated a couple of times. He was intelligent, and tall, but he had a weedy build and his skin was so white he sometimes looked anaemic. When he had dropped her home after an expensive dinner at a French restaurant and asked if he could come upstairs for coffee, she had to say no. She felt no p
hysical attraction to him at all. He never asked her out again, and Sarah thought he had been childish and arrogant in his expectations so early in their friendship. She wondered if his newfound interest in her career would manifest itself in other ways. She would cross that unpleasant bridge when she came to it, she told herself.
The fax transmission was completed and the secretary was standing behind her desk now, jacket on and handbag in hand. ‘I’m sorry, but it is time for me to go home now. I must close the office. I hope that is not a problem,’ she said.
‘No, I understand completely. Thank you so much for your help. I must get back to my friends, anyway,’ Sarah said. Except they weren’t her friends and she didn’t want to spend the next two hours making small talk with them.
Sarah was shown out, and she and the secretary said their farewells. Sarah shook her head when she saw that Jane and Julie Muir were entertaining a man at their table. She didn’t regard herself as a prude – she’d had a couple of one-night stands with handsome strangers in her time – but Jane Muir seemed to have turned the come-on into an art form.
She reluctantly walked across the polished linoleum floor of the departure hall towards the bar. The man the Muir girls were chatting up had his back to her. Sarah noticed he had wavy blond hair and was solidly built.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered. She slowed her pace and raised a hand to her mouth.
The man turned his head slightly as he addressed a comment to Julie, showing a little of his profile. Sarah took in the tanned skin and the aquiline nose, and froze. She scanned the rest of the hall until she found who she was looking for. Vassily Orlov sat at a table at the far end of the bar’s lounge area, by himself, glancing at Karl Hess and Jane and Julie Muir over the top of a magazine he was clearly not reading.
Panic rooted Sarah’s feet to the floor. A loudspeaker crackled to life and an African woman announced something about a flight to Johannesburg. She looked around and saw the secretary starting to disappear through the door that led back downstairs to customs and immigration. Sarah took a deep breath and walked as quickly as she could without attracting attention to herself. When she was out of sight of the bar area, she broke into a run.
‘Thank God I caught you,’ she gushed.
The African woman looked startled at first but then smiled when she recognised Sarah. ‘You gave me a fright.’
‘This is terribly important. I can’t find my friends and I must speak to them urgently, can you take me to someone who can page them for me?’
The woman nodded and led Sarah back downstairs to another office near the customs and immigration desks.
‘Will Mrs Jane-i Muir and Miss Julie Muir please report to the customs desk immediately,’ said the deep African voice over the loudspeaker. The announcer repeated the message once more.
‘Mum, that was us!’ Julie said.
Jane looked at the three empty gin-and-tonic glasses in front of her and giggled. ‘Sorry, Piet,’ she said, using Hess’s alias. ‘Duty calls. Don’t go away, though, I’ll be back,’ she added, reaching under the table and patting his knee with her hand.
Hess nodded, pleased for an excuse to be rid of the two women now he had learned all he was going to. He had the distinct feeling that if he stayed any longer he would end up being dragged off to a dark corner of the terminal and sexually assaulted by the older woman. The younger one, too, seemed to be openly flirting with him as if in competition with her mother, which Hess found disgusting.
The women hurriedly drained the last of their drinks and teetered off towards the stairway that led to the customs desks. Hess beckoned Orlov over as soon as they were on the stairs and out of sight.
‘Hello, you get called too?’ Jane Muir asked when she saw Sarah standing near a vacant customs desk.
‘Jane, come here,’ Sarah said, leading Jane and Julie to one side of the narrow passageway where they could talk in relative privacy. ‘What were you talking to that man about?’
Jane bridled at the question and a red flush coloured her cheeks. ‘What’s it to you, nosy?’
‘Jane, stop it. Listen to me! That man you were chatting up –’
‘Chatting up! How dare you, you snooty bitch!’ Jane huffed.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Sarah said, holding up her hands in apology. ‘That man you were talking to is Karl Hess. He’s one of the poachers who was doing all the shooting last night!’
‘No, he was a South African . . . Pete something or other,’ Julie chimed in, in her mother’s defence.
‘That’s just an act. I’ve met him before and I’ll never forget his face,’ Sarah insisted.
‘Neither will I,’ said Jane, nudging Julie with an elbow.
‘Jane, listen. This is very serious. What have you told him?’
Jane stared at Sarah in silence for a few moments. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Sarah nodded. ‘Well, I haven’t told him anything he doesn’t already know,’ she went on defensively, ‘only that Mike knows who he is and that the cops are on their tail.’
‘Oh Christ,’ Sarah said, touching a palm to her forehead. This was a bloody nightmare.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’ Jane said, and started biting her thumbnail.
‘Did you tell them we were on an overland truck? Who Mike was working for?’
Jane looked at the floor.
‘Shit,’ Sarah said.
Behind them, Sarah heard the clump of heavy male feet on the staircase. She looked around and saw the legs of two men appearing. She recognised their voices immediately.
‘Stay cool,’ she whispered hurriedly to Jane and Julie. She fished a baseball cap from her daypack and jammed it on her head. Sarah walked a few paces closer to the staircase, away from Jane and Julie, and turned to face the wall, pretending to look for something else in her pack as she eavesdropped on the men’s conversation.
‘Karl, let’s go. Let’s board our flights and get out of here,’ the Russian said in his heavily accented English. The two men had halted midway down the last flight of stairs. Sarah could hear them clearly, but could not see their faces.
‘Vassily, the man knows too much. You are going back to Russia. I live on this continent, remember?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ the Russian asked.
‘I’ll get Klaus to round up the men from last night and meet us in Lusaka tomorrow. The man will not get far in that relic of a truck he drives. The woman said the tour group is heading for South Luangwa National Park. They won’t make it there tonight and we will catch them on the road tomorrow.’
‘And air support?’ Orlov was still vacillating, but at the same time he felt a growing sense of electric excitement pulsing through his body.
‘I’ll call the helicopter pilot again and tell him to stay in Zambia and that the mission is back on again. He doesn’t need to know what we’re hunting, though.’
‘It’s a risky plan, Karl.’
Hess laughed out loud. ‘Of course it’s risky. It’s also why you keep coming back, isn’t it? It’s the ultimate trophy, Vassily, and this one I might let you have!’
There was a moment’s silence, as if the Russian were weighing his options one last time. Then Sarah heard the footsteps start again and the men continuing on their way downstairs. She turned as Hess and Orlov passed her, neither man noticing the woman behind them.
The colour had drained from Jane Muir’s face, for she, too, had heard their conversation.
‘Bye-bye,’ Jane said shakily as she brushed past Hess.
Hess stopped, and put a hand on Orlov’s forearm to check his pace. The two women from the overlander truck were starting to walk up the stairs again. There was a third woman behind them who had averted her face as she passed the men.
‘What is it, Karl?’ Orlov asked.
‘There’s something about her,’ Hess said.
‘Who?’
‘That woman, with the short dark hair.’
‘Come, Karl. If we are going to catch that truck
we must hurry.’
Hess knew Orlov was right. There were too many loose ends on this job. He could stay and check out the woman who had joined the other two, perhaps learn some more information, or he could get some payback from the man who had ruined this latest safari.
‘OK, let’s go,’ he said to Orlov. ‘She’s not important.’
‘Jane, we’ve got to do something!’ Sarah said, once they were back in the departure hall.
‘That was them . . . the killers,’ Jane murmured in comprehending horror.
‘We’ve got to get after them,’ Sarah said.
‘You’ve got to be joking! Come on, Julie, let’s get back upstairs.’
‘Jane, help me, we’ve got to stop them. You heard what they said. They’re after Mike. These people don’t take prisoners, Jane, they kill all their witnesses!’
‘I know, and that’s why my daughter and I are getting on that bloody plane as soon as it’s called.’ Jane led Julie by the hand to the stairway.
Sarah watched them, not knowing what to do. She could call the police, but it would take an hour to explain the whole story to them. Besides, she had no proof that Hess and Orlov had committed a crime.
‘Shit!’ she said aloud. Then she had an idea. She followed Jane and Julie up the steps, taking them two at a time.
The hall was much fuller now, thronged with passengers waiting for the flight to London. Some of the African women wore brightly coloured traditional wraparound dresses and turbans, others smart casual European clothes. Well-heeled tourists in uniform beige and khaki waddled the length of the hall carrying bulky camera bags, searching for last-minute souvenirs and duty-free gifts. A baby cried noisily, not quite drowning out a group of hard-looking sunburned miners in short sleeves and jeans who were drinking at the bar.
At the end of the crowded hall Sarah saw a pay-phone on the wall. She bought a phone card from the bar and fished the creased sheet of paper with Mike’s contact numbers from her bag. She made the call and tapped impatiently on the wall of the booth while she waited for a connection. At last there was an answer, but her heart sank as she heard Mike’s voice on his recorded voice mail message.
