The Prey

by Tony Park

  The weak light of a battery-powered torch glowed briefly further down the tunnel. Luis took a box of matches from his overall pants pocket and lit a candle, then another. ‘Sit, please, Chris,’ Wellington said.

  As the Afrikaner sat down, they were joined by three other men, their faces and overalls encrusted with dried sweat and dust. Two wore helmets, the other did not. Wellington had long since grown accustomed to the smell of unwashed men, but he noted with wry amusement that Loubser was swallowing hard, almost gagging. All the men took seats on hand-carved wooden stools.

  ‘Nelson, Gideon, Wonderboy, meet Chris. These are my shift bosses. Gideon and Nelson are from Zimbabwe, while Wonderboy is from Lesotho. Welcome to our regular management meeting, Chris. Men, I will explain Chris’s role with us soon, but first we need to talk about production levels. Professor?’

  Luis picked up a school exercise book from the rockfall at his feet. Its cover was tattered and scuffed. He opened it and held it close to the nearest candle. Wellington made sure he sat out of the circle of light. It was fine for Loubser to take back the identities of the others, but not of him. None of the men who worked for him knew Wellington’s real identity, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Luis coughed, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Production for this month is fourteen kilograms of gold. This is up three hundred grams on last month, but still short of our average of sixteen kilograms over the previous six months. I have done the calculations as you asked, boss.’

  ‘Very good, Professor. Men, we have a problem, as you know. I have been working hard to recruit new blood for our organisation over the past eight months, not only to replace those of our brothers who have gone to God, but to increase production. And what do I find?’

  He let the silence hang heavy in the darkness. Someone shifted a foot. Wellington had a good idea who.

  ‘Professor, are you short of chemicals? Have your refining operations suffered in some way I am unaware of?’

  ‘No, boss,’ Luis said.

  ‘Nelson, Gideon, Wonderboy … are your shifts slacking off?’

  Wellington knew he was just a disembodied voice in the darkness. He smiled to himself as he saw Loubser peering into the blackness, trying to make him out.

  ‘No, boss,’ came the answers, almost in unison, but each strident, defensive.

  ‘So why are we producing less gold?’ He waited, imagining the nervous sweat rolling down one nose, falling between one pair of scuffed boots.

  ‘There was the rockfall,’ Nelson said, breaking the silence. ‘That cost us three days last month. And we have lost, what, thirteen men in the last three weeks to this illness.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the rockfall, and Chris is here to help us with the recent deaths. Hmmm.’ Attack was the best form of defence, so some people said. Wellington disagreed. If he’d been in Nelson’s shoes he would have maintained his silence, toughed it out. ‘But how does that account for the drop in production the month before that, or the fact that I added three extra men to your crew after the fall, to replace the two who were killed and increase your numbers, Nelson, my friend?’

  Nelson said nothing. All very well, Wellington thought, to go on the attack, but it did you no good if you were stupid. ‘Phineas?’

  Phineas emerged from the gloom and grabbed Nelson by the collar of his tattered overalls. The shift boss was bigger, a muscled, broad-shouldered man. He swung back his hand to cuff Phineas, but Wellington stilled him with the laser-like brightness of his miner’s lamp, suddenly switching it on, illuminating an AK-47’s barrel in the process.

  ‘Put him on the ground,’ Wellington said to them all.

  Nelson stood and tried to run, but the two other shift bosses and Phineas were on him, punching and kicking him to the ground, eventually pinning him. Luis, the Professor, stood back, and Loubser had fallen backwards off his stool in a bid to escape the melee. Luis picked up a candle that had fallen and snuffed itself out, and relit it.

  Wellington stood over Nelson now, the rifle pointed down at his face. ‘You should have been more discreet, Nelson. Phineas talks to the girls in the whorehouses in Emjindini as well, you know. He listens and he reports back to me. He knows of the boasts you’ve made of jewellery for pretty girls and a new BMW X5 for yourself – the one you’ve already ordered from the dealer, Nelson. Tsk, tsk. I don’t pay you that well, do I?’

  ‘I saved, boss. You’ve been too good to me.’

  ‘That I have,’ Wellington said. Then pointed the AK between Nelson’s eyes.

  ‘No! I swear it, on the lives of my children. I’ve stolen nothing, boss.’ His head thrashed from side to side. ‘It was one of them, not me. I tell the girls lies to make them like me. Every man does. Please, boss.’

  Wellington shook his head. ‘You’ve lied to me, and that is what hurts my soul so much, Nelson. And you, a countryman of mine; I almost hate to do this.’

  Wellington lowered his head, slowly moving the beam of light from his lamp down Nelson’s body, until its brightness shone on the man’s crotch, his face, hands and feet in the shadows. The barrel of the rifle tracked the same path. ‘Hold him.’

  ‘No!’

  Loubser screamed as the shot reverberated through the tunnel and all their eardrums. Nelson bawled and writhed and yelled for his mother as the blood pumped from where his penis and testicles had been.

  ‘Tie him,’ Wellington said, ‘and gag him.’

  Wonderboy let go of a hand and Phineas passed him a coil of rope. Nelson reached instinctively for his groin but Wonderboy grabbed his hand away and he and Gideon tied the man’s hands behind his back and stuffed a rag in his mouth. Nelson bucked and screamed with the pain as they moved to his legs.

  ‘Finish him off, please, boss. Have mercy.’ Luis crossed himself.

  ‘No.’

  *

  Kylie woke as the SAA flight attendant was moving down the aisle preparing for the landing. Kylie checked her watch, which she had set to South African time. It was five-thirty in the morning so they were already about an hour behind schedule, but she reckoned she still had plenty of time to make her connection.

  She looked out the window and caught her first sight of Africa as the sun came up. She thought it didn’t look all that different to Australia, Western Australia in particular, and wondered if that was why so many South Africans had settled in that part of the country, because of its physical resemblance to their homeland.

  The land was dry, and she knew from her reading this time of year was near the end of the long winter. Most rainfall fell in the summer months, from October through to March, yet still she’d expected Africa to be greener, more exotic. Instead the landscape was a camouflage patchwork of khakis and golds. She saw the ordered boundaries of farms, the circular tracks of giant irrigation pivots, and the vapour from a power station. Johannesburg itself looked like any other city from the air. As they banked Kylie could see the sun was emerging from a band of smoky haze that blanketed Johannesburg. The diffusion of light tinged the city gold.

  She retrieved her folder of papers from the pocket beside her. She had drifted off to sleep about two in the morning, Perth time. Her brain was crammed full of South Africa and so she flicked through the documents to another report relating to Africa, though this one was about Zambia. Global Resources had a geological survey team there which had been granted an exploration licence on the border of yet another national park, this time Kafue in Zambia. What was it with Global Resources and national parks? she wondered. It was as though Jan had thought, in for a penny in for a pound with his aggressive expansion strategy. She knew he was no greeny, but she wondered whether they might not be setting themselves up as a bigger target than necessary. Still, according to the report, apart from some traffic on some African news and travel websites the Kafue project hadn’t yet attracted as much interest as the planned coalmine near the Kruger Park in South Africa. Admittedly the Kruger mine – she admonished herself immediately for using what the media tra
iner would have called ‘poison’ words – admittedly the Mpumalanga mine, named after the province it would directly benefit, was far more advanced than the Zambia project. They might yet stir up a hornets’ nest of environmental activism in that country once the South African plan came to fruition.

  She and Cameron were due to fly to Zambia during this trip, to inspect a GR mine in the country’s copper belt region, and they would meet with the exploration team there. She skimmed through the Zambian report to the conclusions.

  The area currently subject to exploration is of marginal value to the Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA). Poaching has severely depleted game in this sector of the park; local people have logged the area extensively for firewood and building materials; there are two illegal goldmines (that we know of), and the area is infested with tsetse flies, making it the least visited part of the park by tourists and tour operators.

  Sounded like paradise, Kylie thought. Like the Mpumalanga project, this was marginal land that the government had legitimately identified as being worth exploiting for mineral resources for the greater good of the community. She read on.

  Global Resources has negotiated with the government a contribution levy per tonne which will be quarantined for payment to ZAWA to aid in conservation programs and rehabilitation of the national park.

  Kylie nodded to herself. People had to look past their own self-interest when it came to mines in controversial areas. Both of these projects, while unpopular with conservationists, would deliver jobs, income to the respective governments, economic spin-offs to local communities through local purchasing and wages, and contributions to help conserve wildlife areas of true value. She shut the folder.

  There was a bump as they touched down and Kylie saw dry grass flashing by. The aircraft taxied to its air bridge and once the seatbelt light was out Kylie filed out with the other business-class passengers.

  Through a chink in the expanding vinyl curtain that linked the air bridge to the aircraft came a beam of early morning light that made a hundred thousand tiny dust particles dance before her eyes. Then she smelled it. Rich earth, dried grass, the promise of rain, perhaps something not quite right somewhere out on the tarmac. It wasn’t the spice that hung in the air in Asia or the bone-dry nothingness of Australia, or the fossil fuels of America. It was something else. Africa.

  She was exhausted, and still had another flight to board, but the people at the mine would be in worse shape, and that’s where she needed to be now.

  7

  Cameron watched the Airlink Embraer jet aircraft taxi up to the terminal at Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport as he sipped a coffee in the Wimpy, upstairs in the terminal. The airport was set in the picturesque hills near White River and served the Kruger Park and Nelspruit, the nearby provincial capital.

  He shielded his eyes against the glare of the morning sun and searched the line of passengers emerging from the shimmering heat haze. Kylie strode across the tarmac. He drained his coffee cup, paid and walked downstairs to the arrivals area.

  He was waiting when Kylie emerged through the swinging doors from the baggage collection area. He’d seen her on the widescreen plasma during video conferences plenty of times, but she looked different in the flesh. Taller. Thinner. Better looking.

  ‘Howzit. Welcome to Nelspruit. Let me take your bags.’

  ‘I’m fine. I can manage,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘OK, let’s go.’

  He could have sent one of the drivers; he should have, probably, as he hated to be away from the mine in case word came through about Loubser. However, he knew it was important that she get the right impression about the mine and what was going on with the zama zamas. He didn’t want some oaf telling her they should poison all the illegal miners, or some African blabbing about how easy it was to bribe the security guards to get contraband underground and gold out. Also, he knew he had to work with Kylie Hamilton, even if she did have a reputation for being a ball breaker.

  He’d brought his mine bakkie, the Hilux. Juma, the Malawian gardener, had offered to wash it before he left, but Cameron had told him not to bother. He’d seen Jess off to school with a hug, then taken a long shower to drown his own tears. He couldn’t dwell on his own problems right now. He was tired, and he had forgotten to shave, but he didn’t care.

  Cameron got into the truck while Kylie hefted her bags up into the load bin at the back. If she wanted to do it all herself, let her. She got in and he drove off. The road took them past citrus and macadamia farms, back to the R40, which led to Nelspruit then Barberton on the other side of the mountains.

  Kylie shrugged out of the jacket she had been wearing on the aircraft and reached into the back seat to drape it over her daypack. ‘Is it always this hot here in winter?’

  ‘Yes. Except when it’s cold. Hotter underground.’

  ‘I’ve been underground.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Have you had any more news about the missing man?’

  ‘Chris Loubser is his name. No, nothing. But he has to still be alive. If he was dead the zama zamas would have taken his body to the shaft, so that it wouldn’t stink them out, and so that hopefully we wouldn’t go looking for them.’

  ‘I can’t believe that you have standard operating procedures with these men. They’re criminals.’

  He heard the slight against him in her voice. It didn’t matter to her that there were zama zamas in virtually every goldmine in South Africa. Because it didn’t happen in Australia, she couldn’t imagine it happening – or a manager allowing it to happen – in Africa. She would learn. Or maybe not. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t sound defensive or offensive to her. He kept his mouth shut. The drive was scenic enough, he thought, to occupy her for a while. They stayed on the R40, crossing the N4 motorway at Nelspruit then heading through the thickly vegetated ranges south of the city via a series of twisting passes that then led down into the De Kaap Valley.

  ‘You’ve brought in the police?’

  He clenched the wheel harder. That tone. It was like Tania criticising him for having to respond to a call-out at the mine and missing Jessica’s piano recital or her dance or whatever. He took a deep breath. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  The hell with it. ‘And like I tried to tell you on the video conference the other day, the buggers are completely bloody useless. They’re too scared to even investigate. Look, there’s a reason most zama zamas are arrested by mine security and that’s because the police don’t want any part of it. Hell, they’re probably being paid off by the gold dealers to look the other way as well.’

  She stared at him. If there was a veneer of civilisation between them it had already begun to split and peel like the laminate on his kitchen cupboards. ‘Yes, and there’s also a reason people are killed in battles with illegal miners – because mine security in this country shoots first and asks questions later.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ he said, glancing at her. He was tired and he knew he shouldn’t be getting into a fight with her. He should just let her do her seagull thing – fly in and shit all over them and fly home – and then go back to running his mine and trying to run his life. But he couldn’t keep quiet in the face of her know-it-all pontificating.

  ‘Is it?’ she said. ‘Explain to me why the zama zamas would kill two of your people and, presumably, capture one of them. I’ve read plenty of reports about clashes between mine security and your zama zamas, and the casualties happen when security goes looking for a fight.’

  Her eyes challenged him. They were a vivid emerald, something he hadn’t noticed on the TV screen in the video conferences. The word was she was a machine, and had no man and no personal life whatsoever. ‘So now you’re saying we should do nothing about them – not go after them in case someone gets killed or wounded?’

  ‘I’m saying that perhaps your security guard, Paulo Barrica, went looking for a fight when he should have been protecting your environmental officers.’

&nbs
p; Cameron indicated right and turned onto the mine access road, but pulled over onto the dusty verge before they reached the perimeter gates.

  ‘What? Why are we stopping?’

  He pointed his finger at her. ‘Paulo Barrica was a good man – one of the best security men I’ve ever employed. He never took a cent from the zama zamas and was helping me with an operation to catch some corrupt security guards at the mine. He was as honest as the day is long and, yes, he was a hard man, but if you’re going to point the finger at him for what happened you can get out of this car and walk, because until we know what happened I’m not going to be blaming anyone except myself for the death of those two men, and whatever’s happened to Chris.’

  Even as he said the words he knew he was digging his own grave, although part of him didn’t really care. Paulo was a hard man, which was why her words and her tone rankled so much – because she could be right. Ironically, if he’d sent Chris and Themba down with one of the lazier guards, one of the ones he and Paulo suspected of being corrupt, it was likely no one would have been killed or captured. A crooked guard would have avoided confrontation and perhaps even had a message delivered in advance to let the zama zamas know which madala side the environmental team would be visiting that day.

  Christ, Cameron thought, he was tired.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ she said in a softer voice, ‘you look like you could use some sleep.’

  He started the car again and pulled back onto the access road. ‘Could you sleep if you were me? If one of your men was still down there?’

  She looked at him, lips pursed. ‘No. I suppose not.’

  They drove to the checkpoint and the guard made Kylie get out of the car and sign in. Cameron could have just had the guard wave them through, but he’d made a point of telling the man on duty, on his way out to the airport to collect Kylie, to stop them on the way back in and have the white woman sign in. He wanted her to see that they took security seriously.