The Prey

by Tony Park

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Luis said. They finished their coffee and ordered a second as Luis treated his overfed cousin and himself to omelettes. Luis was eager to get on the road, but manners insisted he stay a while and chat, now that the business was concluded. His cousin had done well out of him, but Luis could not complain. He was on the path to salvaging what remained of his life.

  When they had finished Luis took his package in its innocuous shopping bag and boarded another chapa, which took him south, across the broad floodplain of the Limpopo River.

  At Macia, he left the chapa and crossed the EN 1 and joined a throng of people waiting under a sign that pointed to the Limpopo Transfrontier Park. The park was an extension of South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and the road led back to the country that Luis had for so long dreamed of escaping.

  Soon enough a minibus taxi arrived and Luis was jammed into the chapa with too many other passengers. The road inland took them through vast sugarcane fields, irrigated with a canal built by the Portuguese. Here and there white-painted farm villas with asbestos roof tiles painted to look like terracotta harked back to a colonial era that had not existed for nearly forty years but whose presence was still pervasive.

  The commercial farms gave way to bush and small villages. It was dry, inhospitable country where people eked out a meagre subsistence. He opened the map Alfredo had drawn for him and saw they were approaching the village where the Swede and his team were drilling a new well. He got out in the village, outside a cellphone tower surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire.

  Luis took out his cellphone, marvelling that he could pick up a four-bar cellphone signal in a place where people could barely feed themselves or find enough clean water to drink. He dialled the number Alfredo had given him.

  ‘Hello, Anders speaking!’

  ‘Good morning, sir, how are you?’ Luis said in English. ‘You do not know me, but I would like to enquire about hiring your drilling rig for three days.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your drilling rig, sir. I would like to rent it from you.’

  ‘What? You want to rent the rig. No, of course not. This is for the village water project, not for anyone to come along and use for his own purpose. This rig has been paid for by the people of Sweden.’

  ‘I see,’ said Luis. It was the answer he was expecting. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  Luis walked across the street to a small roadside spaza store and looked inside, greeting the skinny female proprietor. There was not much produce – some warm bottles of coke, Sunlight Soap, packets of biscuits, tinned pilchards and some brightly patterned cloth wraps. To the surprise of the woman, he bought one of the wraps. ‘Mama, where are the white people drilling for water?’ he asked in Tsonga.

  She gestured with her hand to a track that ran from the road, behind her, into the bush. ‘One kilometre.’

  Luis thanked her and as he walked down the road he bit into the seam of the wrap, snapping the fibres, and then tore off a long strip. He tossed the remainder of the cloth into the bush. Luis had rarely seen television in his life, usually only when passing the front of an Incredible Connection or Dion store in South Africa when he had been a legal mine worker. He had never owned a television. When he had studied, in Russia, he had been befriended by a female engineering student from the Ukraine. As well as taking him to her bed, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl liked to take him to see illegal American movies. She was not as committed to socialism as he was back then, but he had been too entranced by the things she did under the heavy bedcovers, keeping both of them more than warm in the process, to object to being exposed to decadent imperialist images. One of the films they had seen was a western and he remembered it now as he tied the remnant of the wrap around his neck and adjusted it so that it covered his mouth and nose, like a stagecoach robber.

  He heard the tucker-tucker of the generator, the whine of the compressor and the shriek of the drill as he walked down the dusty track between the thornbushes. He reached into the plastic bag and took out the pistol and a magazine of bullets. He stuffed the spare ammunition into the pocket of his jeans and pulled back the Tokarev’s slide. The brass casing of the first of the bullets in the full magazine glinted in the sunlight and Luis released the slide to chamber the round. He held the pistol loose at his side, remembering the scenes of the cowboys drawing their guns for a shootout at the end of the film.

  Luis’s feet sent up puffs of dust as he walked into the clearing. A tall fair-skinned man in a yellow hard hat and ear muffs sat on a seat on the drill rig, operating it. Mozambican labourers carried lengths of drill rods.

  One of the local men saw the strange figure emerging from the heat haze, face masked, pistol rising. He yelled to the white man, who shook his head, unable to understand what the man was saying, and too intent on the job at hand.

  The din roused Luis. As much as he’d hated his time underground as a zama zama he missed the noises of the mine, the ceaseless exploration and harvesting of the earth that had defined his life. He knew economies, businesses, governments and people depended on what men dug from the ground. Some opposed it, others lived for it and by it, but no one on earth could exist without the rocks and minerals people like him brought to the surface.

  Luis walked up to the rig and finally the Swede saw him. He took off his clear protective glasses, as if that might change what he was seeing. Luis pointed the Tokarev at the man’s face, not three metres away. The noise of the rig was almost deafening this close, without ear protection, and the sudden silence, when the Swede shut it down, also seemed to make his eardrums throb.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked the big white man in singsong accented English. His labourers were edging away from the confrontation. Luis doubted they would interfere.

  ‘Good morning, sir. I would like to hire your drill rig.’

  The man’s face creased in concentration. ‘Ah, you are the one who called me on the telephone.’

  ‘I need your drill rig.’

  The man climbed down from his machine. He towered over Luis and seemed unafraid of the gun. Luis wondered if his appearance, with his brightly patterned mask, was not threatening enough.

  ‘I told you, this has been paid for by the people of Sweden. It is not for you to go drilling for your own water. Put the gun down and we can negotiate.’

  Luis lowered the pistol and the man took another step towards him, sensing he had won his way. Luis squeezed the trigger twice and put two bullets into the dirt less than a metre in front of the man. The blond giant stopped as if on the edge of a precipice. ‘On your knees and put your hands on your head, please.’

  The man complied and Luis called to one of the labourers, who he had glimpsed hiding behind a stout tree. ‘Come here or I will kill your boss!’

  Both men in overalls emerged from hiding. ‘Tie his hands and feet.’

  The men found some rope on the rig and did as Luis ordered. ‘Now get the rig ready for transport. Quickly.’ While the men worked, Luis stood guard over the Swede. He checked the bonds and made sure they were secure.

  ‘What do you want with my drill rig? There will be water for all once we are finished. Please do not hurt my men.’

  Luis ignored the question but was pleased the white man cared for his labourers. Luis grabbed the collar of the man’s shirt and eased him forwards. ‘I will send someone from the village to find you. Do not try and follow me, or I will kill these two men, understand?’

  The man nodded his head. Luis kept him covered, in the sparse shade of a denuded thorn tree, while the rig was packed, then he motioned the men to get into the cab of the truck and told one to start the engine and drive. They left the Swede covered in a layer of dust, but otherwise unharmed.

  ‘Where are we going, baba?’ the driver asked.

  ‘A place I know. A place I have not been for many years. There are ghosts there. Do not force me to make you join them.’

  *

  Chris Loubser waited on a bench under the
high-vaulted thatched roof of the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport terminal. He had seen the SA Airlink Embraer land and watched the doors for the appearance of a man he had only met once, but whose name was instantly known to anyone in mining circles. Jan Stein had left South Africa for Australia, like so many of his countrymen, and had worked his way to the top of Global Resources. Like Cameron McMurtrie he had served in the elite recces during the bush war, but whereas Cameron ruled by engendering respect, Jan ran his company through a mix of fear and force. He had sacked senior managers on the spot for failing to perform and stared down angry strikers underground. His aggressive, take-no-prisoner style of expansion had earned him criticism from environmental groups and would, Chris thought, be his demise.

  Tertia had wanted to open a bottle of champagne over breakfast, but Chris had told her he could not leave his CEO stranded at the airport. Coetzee had ordered him to collect Jan. ‘Besides, I need to tell him your news, about the owl,’ he had said to her.

  ‘I’d like to give the story to the media first,’ she had said.

  Chris had disagreed. ‘Let’s give him the chance to voluntarily withdraw the Lion Plains project first. If he refuses, or tries something drastic like maybe sending someone in to shoot the owls, then we’ll be able to publicly destroy him in the media. I’ll know what he’s up to. I’m still part of the inner circle there.’

  She had reluctantly agreed with him, and sent him on his way with a kiss and a promise that she would be waiting for him, whenever he was ready to finally show his true colours and leave the company.

  Chris wiped his palms on his pants as the swing doors to the arrivals area opened and Stein strode out wheeling his carry-on bag.

  ‘Loubser?’

  The man still had the bearing of the special forces officer he’d once been: tall, straight-backed, steel grey short hair and hard dark eyes. ‘Ja. Yes, sir. Howzit?’ Chris didn’t really know how to address him.

  ‘You want me to say lekker after a fourteen-hour flight to Joburg and then a two-hour delay waiting to fly out here?’ Chris offered to take his bag, but the man shook his head. ‘Let’s just get to the mine, OK?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Chris opened the door to the mine bakkie and Jan put his bag in the rear and got into the front passenger seat. For the first fifteen minutes of the drive back through White River then along the R40 to Nelspruit the CEO was silent, checking his BlackBerry for emails and sending replies.

  When Jan put away his phone Chris knew he had to summon up the courage to tell him the news. ‘I’ve been to see Tertia Venter again.’

  ‘Hmph. What does that woman want to have us executed for now?’

  He wanted to tell him, there and then, that he quit and that he could stick his earth-raping company up his corporate arse. But Tertia had told him to stay silent about their relationship a little longer. ‘There’s been a discovery at Lion Plains.’

  Jan looked out the window. ‘What do you mean “a discovery”?’

  Chris swallowed. ‘A pel’s fishing owl, boss. Three of them, in fact.’

  Jan waved a hand. ‘Ag, you’re being taken for a fool. There are none of those birds on that property. They’ve only ever been spotted along the Sabie River, and Lion Plains doesn’t have any river frontage, only tributaries. Venter lists all the birds seen on Lion Plains on her website and there’s no mention of a pel’s. If there was she’d have said so. Twitchers from around the world would come to see them.’

  ‘I know,’ Chris nodded, ‘but they’re there. She showed me, boss, last night. The birds must have just moved in.’

  Jan closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. ‘Fok. What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Do? The only thing I can do. She’s going to put a submission in to the department and she is going to say that I also witnessed the breeding pair and their chick. I can’t lie, boss.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to.’

  Chris glanced across at Stein every now and then, but it appeared the man had drifted off to sleep. He was surprised. He wondered if the CEO even grasped the significance of the birds.

  Stein opened his eyes and rubbed his face and looked around them as they crossed the N4 and began the climb into the pass that led to Barberton on the other side of the mountains.

  ‘Boss, you do know the significance of finding a breeding pair of pel’s fishing owls and a chick on Lion Plains?’

  ‘I’m not an idiot. The pel’s is on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list. Finding them on the site of our mine puts an end to the project, assuming it’s true.’

  ‘Yes, boss. Sorry, boss.’

  ‘We can’t fight the law and this will sink us once Tertia takes it to the media, as she undoubtedly will. Besides, I’ve got bigger things to worry about. Are there any updates from the Zambian police about Cameron’s and Kylie’s deaths?’

  ‘No, boss. The last I heard was that the bodies of the pilot and the passengers, two males and one female, had been flown by helicopter to Lusaka. They’re apparently burned beyond recognition so the identities will have to be confirmed by dental records.’

  ‘And the mine’s still closed?’

  ‘Yes, boss. The department of minerals and resources is getting an independent firm in to do another round of monitoring. The union is saying it’s too dangerous for its members to go underground, and they’ve also pointed out that the zama zamas have returned to the mine and are spreading the word around Barberton that they own Eureka now and that any miner who does report for work is liable to be killed. There was blasting going on last night.’

  ‘It sounds totally lawless,’ Jan said.

  Chris didn’t know what to say. The CEO was right. They had lost control of Eureka and Coetzee was not the man to take it back. Chris almost felt sorry for the company. Its African operations and plans for expansion were falling like a straw house in the wind. And the big bad lion, Wellington Shumba, had been released by the police and was reportedly back underground, back in charge of his subterranean fiefdom.

  ‘Have you spoken to Cameron’s wife? I heard she was back in town.’

  Chris licked his lips. So much had been happening he had forgotten to brief Jan on the latest news. ‘The local police found Cameron’s bakkie at the bottom of a gorge below their house in the mountains. Tania was killed. There was reportedly an empty bottle of gin in the car. His daughter’s run off to Johannesburg.’

  Jan pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger. ‘How did it ever end up like this?’ He looked up and across at Chris. ‘Have you got any more bad news for me?’

  To hell with it, Chris thought. It was time for him to start acting like a man, and to stop taking orders from Tertia. If they were going to live together as man and wife then he needed to start making some decisions for himself. He had hated his time in the mine, the working underground, being part of something that degraded the environment, the criminal intent of a company that wanted to destroy a piece of the finest wildlife reserve in Africa.

  Nature had provided Tertia with the trump card she needed. There had been no need, after all, for the lying and deceit and his double dealing with Global Resources. He felt sullied by the way he’d gone about things. He should have had the courage to resign when he first learned the company had been granted a lease to mine on Lion Plains. He should have joined Tertia then, publicly, and fought a clean, open fight. God had surely been on their side, placing a family of the endangered pel’s fishing owl on the very spot where Global Resources wanted to start blasting.

  ‘I quit.’

  30

  Luis kept to the back roads, heading north again. He knew he would have to rejoin the EN 1 at some stage, to take him back towards his hometown of Inhambane. By then the Swede would have been released by someone from the village.

  His cellphone rang. Keeping his pistol pointed at the driver, he pulled the phone from his pocket. ‘Ola?’

  ‘Hello,
cousin, how are you?’ Alfredo asked.

  ‘Fine, and you? Do you have news for me?’

  ‘I had a call from that Swedish man I told you about. He reported that his drilling rig was stolen by an armed bandit. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Luis?’

  ‘Ah, no.’

  ‘I thought not. I have taken his complaint and will have to notify all of the traffic police in the province to keep an eye out for this drilling rig, but the radios are not working too well today, and it is a miracle that I can get a line even now to talk to you, cousin.’

  ‘How long, Alfredo, do you think these poor communications will keep you from reporting the theft of this drill rig?’

  ‘A day, perhaps two.’

  ‘Two would be better,’ Luis said.

  ‘Two it is, then, cousin. Please let me know if you see this drill rig. The people of the village do need their water.’

  ‘They will have it soon.’

  Luis ended the call as they reached the tarmac road. After the bumping of corrugations on the gravel road the smooth black surface of the national highway was soothing. Luis told the driver to watch his speed when they came to each village, as he knew there was a good chance they would pass traffic policemen and their speed cameras. ‘You will not be harmed if you do as I say,’ he reassured his two press-ganged workers.

  As they cruised north, making good time on the tar road, Luis’s thoughts drifted back twenty-six years earlier, to the day when he had fled from the advancing Renamo rebels and failed to kill the man with the crucifix.

  *

  When Luis came to he blinked at the strong sunlight.

  The glare was momentarily blocked by a face. Around the man’s neck was the silver cross. It was the Renamo soldier whose life Luis had spared. Luis tried to speak, but his mouth was parched.

  The man with the cross shot out a hand and slapped Luis hard across the face. Luis put his hand to his cheek and it came away wet and sticky. His head throbbed and as he gingerly touched his scalp he felt a furrow creased along his temple. His neck and the collar of his shirt were also soaked in blood. The young man, eyes wide with bravado now, yelled out to a colleague. ‘Come, I have shot the dog who was fleeing.’