by Tony Park
Michelle looked over her shoulder again, entered his tent proper and zipped the door closed. She sat down on his sturdy green plastic foot locker as he buckled his belt and pulled on a green T-shirt that hugged every ripple of his torso.
‘Are you all right today?’ he asked, prompted by her silence. He sat down on his cot and began lacing his leather and nylon combat boots, but looked up to await her answer.
She fiddled with the hem of her sleeveless khaki bush shirt.
He stood and sat down beside her, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I can get you out today, Michelle. I’ll get Caesar to take you back to the airport when he arrives with the Englishman.’
‘No, no, I don’t want out, Shane. It’s just that it’s hard for me to keep up the pretence, you know? Fletcher came to my tent last night, and . . .’
‘Did he hurt you?’ Anger flared in Shane’s dark eyes.
‘No. He never would.’
She felt worse than ever now, and wished she hadn’t said a word. ‘We didn’t sleep together, Shane.’
He pressed her to him and kissed away the salty streaks. ‘It’s okay, Michelle. Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Nothing happened. I think he wants to marry me.’
‘If all goes well we’ll be out of here tomorrow. I’ll treat us to the best room in the best hotel in Goma.’
‘Funny, he said the same thing to me last night. I’m worried he might come after us, once we’ve got what we need.’
‘I won’t let that happen.’
She saw the steel in him now, in his cold stare, in the set of his jaw, in his clenched fists. ‘We agreed, Shane. You can’t kill him in cold blood. If you do, you’re no better than him.’
‘You suggested, I never agreed,’ he firmly reminded her. ‘But if everything goes well, he won’t be bothering us.’
‘Where will we go?’
He looked away, either pondering, or avoiding her. She wasn’t sure which. She regretted the words as soon as she had said them. Had she assumed that they were inextricably intertwined now? A couple? He was a man, and no doubt prey to the same fear of commitment that most of his kind suffered.
‘I don’t care, as long as we’re together,’ he said.
31
The clear patch on the slope of the hill had probably once been a small subsistence farm. Now overgrown with a tangle of long grass and creeping vines, it was a step away from being overtaken once more by the encroaching jungle. For now, it would do just fine as a killing zone, Fletcher thought.
‘Contact. Target moving west, over.’ Gizenga’s voice confirmed all was ready. Fletcher acknowledged the tally-ho call. Gizenga had told him that the target’s weapon was empty. Fletcher had an AK 47 magazine half full of bullets hidden in one of the pouches of his vest, which he would plant on the body when he moved forward, as usual, ahead of the clients, to check the man was dead or incapacitated. This would add some verisimilitude to the production.
Fletcher looked across at the Americans, gasping and sweating despite the fact that they had only walked for a little over two hours. Even Vincent, the youngest and fittest of the group by far, was panting. Too much time behind a desk, Fletcher guessed. He wondered briefly what the boy’s future would be, in the dark world of organised crime. Despite what he now did for a living, Fletcher considered Anthony and his ‘crew’ little better than the poachers he had once genuinely hunted. He smiled at Vincent, who replied with a pained thumbs-up.
‘Okay. Find a good firing position. Colonel Gizenga says his men are hot on the heels of the leader of the poaching gang,’ Fletcher told the assembled gangsters.
He moved along the line of men, kneeling or lying on the edge of the forest, sweat cooling on the darkened backs of their shirts, eyes blinking as they scanned the sunny clearing. ‘Move a little more behind the tree, Sal,’ he whispered. ‘Eddy, you might want to find a tree or a log, that anthill won’t stop a 7.62 round.’
They adjusted themselves, fidgeting like raw recruits. Fletcher sighed inwardly. This lot couldn’t even stay still without making noise. ‘You should see him any second now, over,’ Gizenga confirmed. Fletcher scanned the opposing tree line, across the grass, and picked up the moving figure just as Patrice nodded to him.
‘Here he comes,’ Fletcher hissed to each of them, moving stealthily along behind them.
‘Vincent gets first shot, okay?’ Anthony reminded all of them, though he, too, peered intently into the scope of his rifle.
Fletcher knelt beside Vincent, who lay on his belly, his AR-15 assault rifle pulled tight into his shoulder. It was the semi-automatic civilian version of the venerable M-16, the rifle Vincent had trained on and used in the Marine Corps in Iraq. Fletcher had every confidence that the boy would do well. Still, one never knew when it came to taking a life, as opposed to shooting on the rifle range. ‘Steady, son,’ he said reassuringly, patting the young man on the shoulder. Vincent glanced up at him, and Fletcher rethought his earlier optimism. He looked deathly pale now.
Fletcher could see the target’s head and shoulders above the grass. The African paused to listen and smell the air. Obviously the man knew he was being followed, but he was unaware of what was in front of him. The target swivelled a second later, realising that he was cut off from moving downhill, around the clearing. He looked to his right and must have seen a shadow moving in the tree line at the top end of the grassland. There was no option for him other than to move through the long grass, which he did at a run. Fletcher recognised him as one of the unarmed bearers from the bush meat poaching party. An old man, with tight, frizzy grey curls. Fletcher saw his mouth was open, wide and pink, as he gasped for air under the sun’s furious might.
‘Ready?’
Vincent nodded.
‘In your own time . . .’
The first shot rang out, but Fletcher knew immediately that things had gone wrong. Vincent yelled, ‘Fuck!’ as a bullet slammed into the trunk of the tree inches from his face. He slithered backwards on his belly, face buried in leaf mulch.
‘Hey, what was —’ Anthony’s cry was cut short by a noise like fast-tearing paper and the ping and whiz of a bullet ricocheting off the rock he was about to lean on as he scrambled to his knees. A shard of stone flew off and nicked his arm. ‘I’m fucking hit!’
Another gunshot echoed and Fletcher felt twigs and bark rain down on his head. He looked angrily across the clearing. The target had paused and dropped to the ground, out of sight in the long grass.
‘Stay still!’ Fletcher ordered. ‘Nobody move. It’s a sniper!’
‘Bullshit,’ Sal swore, and started to stand. ‘Come on, Vincent, let’s —’ The bullets were ending conversations before they could begin. Sal screamed as his rifle was snatched out of his hand, as though grasped by an invisible bull whip and flung to one side. He shook his hand at the pain caused by the vibration of the gunshot. The expensive hunting firearm lay useless in the mud, its polished wooden stock shattered by a bullet.
‘Two rifles – one silenced, and one AK,’ Fletcher said, assessing the enemy’s strength as he changed fire positions and dropped to one knee behind a once mighty fallen tree. ‘Green one, we’re taking fire, report! If it’s your men firing, tell them to bloody well stop, over!’ he barked into the radio.
‘Negative, negative,’ Gizenga replied. ‘We are also being shot at. I thought it was your men, so I ordered my troops to go to ground!’
Amidst the chaos and the shouting of the panicked Americans, Fletcher saw the target rise to his feet and start running, on a south-westerly course that would take him away from the hunters’ rifles. ‘No way,’ he said to himself. He looked across at his clients and confirmed that all of them had their heads down. Anthony was almost crying from the pain of the little cut on his arm; Sal had his head in his hands; Eddy was lying behind a rock, and Vincent lay on his back, looking up at Fletcher, eyes wide with fear. Fletcher stood and brought the scarred stock of his old .375 up to his shoulder.
He took aim at the running African, but the man dropped in the grass before he could fire. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Niner, this is Taipan, over.’ In contrast to the pandemonium all around him, Shane’s voice in his radio earpiece was as calm as if the man had just asked him to pass the salt at the dinner table.
Fletcher had other things to worry about at the moment, and just hoped Shane wasn’t going to add to his troubles. ‘Taipan, Niner, go, over.’
‘Niner, we’ve got a contact down south. We’re tailing one man armed with an old Lee Enfield. He looks like a bona fide poacher to me. I’m going to give his Lordship the green light, over.’
Thank heavens, Fletcher thought. At least one thing had gone right today. ‘Affirmative, Taipan. Take the shot. Things are going to shit up here, man.’
‘I can break contact if you need help, over.’
‘No. Just get it done. We’re going to have to pull out of here, some-one’s shooting at us, over.’
‘Roger, Niner. We heard some automatic weapons fire earlier. Could be those Rwandan Hutus the army’s chasing. I’d bug out quick if I were you.’
‘Affirmative,’ Fletcher said. It was the only thing he could do. Of their target, there was no sight, and another two rounds cracked over Eddy’s head, giving him no choice. ‘Patrice, give us some covering fire to the south. That looks like where it’s coming from. The rest of you, let’s move it!’
Ironically, the job of bandaging Anthony’s arm fell to Michelle, who was ready and waiting with the first-aid kit when the Landcruiser disgorged its cargo of cursing, yabbering, angry white hunters.
‘Ow,’ he yelped as she applied a generous squirt of iodine to the wound. ‘Look, Michelle, I want to say that I was out of line with what happened last time. I didn’t know you and Fletcher was hooked up, okay?’
‘Sure,’ she said, pressing hard on the ends of the dressing to make sure it stayed in place and hurt him some more. ‘Sounds like it could have gone better out there today. I heard you guys bumped into an armed poacher.’
‘An army of them, more like,’ Anthony said, rolling down his sleeve. ‘We was lucky to get out of there alive.’
‘Will you go back to the States now?’ she taunted. ‘Surely you just came here to hunt big game, not get involved in the war on poaching.’
He looked at her quizzically, as if trying to work out whether she knew what Fletcher really did. She imagined Anthony thought it was strange that Fletcher could have a girlfriend who was completely unaware of what really went on during the specialised safaris. ‘Nah. Don’t let the bastards get you down, I say.’
‘Good for you,’ she said, rinsing her hands in a bowl of water perched on a canvas camping stool.
Michelle could hear, but not see, Fletcher dressing down one of the Congolese camp attendants. Something about no toilet paper in the latrine and no soap in the guest tents. The Americans had complained. She could tell his anger stemmed from much more than that, though. She smiled to herself.
‘What happened?’ she asked when he walked into view, acknowledging her on his way to the cottage. He paused – almost reluctantly, she thought – to recount the afternoon’s events.
‘You seem more disappointed by the fact that the poacher got away than the fact that you were all nearly killed.’
His mouth pursed into a frown, then he turned and walked on. The big green Land Rover chugged around the bend of the dirt track and pulled up in the clearing. Shane and the Englishman got out, followed by Caesar.
‘Hello there,’ the new arrival said, as Fletcher ran a hand through his hair, forced a smile and strode across to meet him. ‘Will Delancy.’
They shook hands. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be with you today. Come join us in the bar. How did it go, anyway?’ Fletcher asked.
‘Absolutely first-rate! Couldn’t have been better. Your bird dog here is worth his weight in diamonds. We bagged one!’
Anthony and the others drifted across to the cottage from their tents to hear the Englishman’s tale, and perfunctory introductions were made. Shane, Michelle noticed, hung back from the crowd that had clustered around Delancy, smoking a cigarette in silence on the front step. She crept from her tent around the back of the cottage, where she could eavesdrop on the conversation inside without being seen. She peeked through a side window, behind the bar, her face hidden by a pot plant on the windowsill.
‘You lucky son of a bitch,’ Sal growled good-naturedly. ‘Tell us about it.’
‘Well, we were patrolling – I suppose that’s what you’d call it? And all of sudden Shane and his gun bearer go to ground. I nearly ran into them. Bird watching at the time, of all things!’
With his bright orange hair, pasty white face and narrow beaked nose, he looked almost clown-like, Michelle thought, and his gestures and accent were those of an upper-crust wastrel. ‘Then Shane points at this chap and low and behold, he sees us and freezes.’
‘Who got him?’ Vincent asked.
‘Old Shane had his rifle up and ready but, ever the gentleman, he let me have first go. One’s reflexes get pretty sharp from shooting pheasant. Before I knew it, bingo, one dead poacher!’
‘Shit. No way,’ Vincent said.
‘Well done,’ Fletcher said. ‘What happened to the body?’
Shane had moved forward, unseen, and spoke up from behind Eddy. ‘We checked him out, but then we heard voices and movement up ahead. It sounded like there were more of them, or maybe some of those militiamen. I didn’t want to risk hanging around, and it would have slowed us down to carry him out.’
‘Hmmm,’ Fletcher said. In his hunts in the Congo so far, Michelle, guessed, there had always been Gizenga and his henchmen around to get rid of the evidence.
‘I’ve got some pictures, if you’d like to see!’ Delancy piped up.
‘Fletcher normally don’t let people take pictures,’ Anthony said.
‘That’s right, Will. I’ll have to ask you to delete them before you leave here, but I’m very interested in seeing them first,’ Fletcher said.
‘Of course. Mum’s the word and all that,’ the Englishman said. ‘Here you go.’ He pulled a small digital camera from one of the pockets of his tan safari jacket and brought up a series of images on the tiny screen at the back of the device. Michelle couldn’t see them from her vantage point, but the Americans gave her a running commentary.
‘Shit, look at that exit wound,’ Vincent said.
‘Looks like you musta got him near the heart,’ Sal said. ‘Blood everywhere.’
‘Right through it, old boy,’ Delancy confirmed. ‘Look at this one. You can see the entry wound on the front of his chest.’
‘His face is a mess, though,’ Anthony said. ‘Who did that?’
Delancy looked over his shoulder at Shane. ‘Shane saw the body moving – must have been the death throes, I suppose – and made certain of things as he approached the bugger.’
Fletcher looked from the pictures across to Shane, who said nothing. Michelle saw the cold, hard look on the face of the man she had very nearly fallen in love with, and felt a shiver run down her spine.
‘Show me where you were,’ Fletcher said to Shane, taking him away from the others and leading him to the map on the wall of the bar, while the Americans urged Delancy to run his macabre mini slide show again.
Shane lit a second cigarette with the butt of the first, tossed the dead one outside, and bent to peer at the map. ‘Right here,’ he said. ‘Where you sent us, about a klick in from the road. It was a good call.’
Fletcher said, ‘You didn’t hear the contact we had?’
Shane shook his head. ‘Couldn’t have. Too far away. But I heard automatic gunfire early on, to the east. There’s definitely no shortage of people with guns out in the jungle at the moment. It must be the army taking on the Hutus. I heard a chopper as well.’
‘Probably one of the UN helicopters. They’re working with the Congolese Army to try to drive out the Rwandan rebels, back across the border.’<
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‘Maybe you should call things off. It’s not worth losing a client. Sounds like you ran into some of those militia guys. They’re on the run and they’re desperate.’
It was nearly dusk and Patrice was handing out frothing beers and tumblers full of Scotch and Coke. ‘To tomorrow’s hunt!’ Anthony bellowed, raising his glass to clink against William Delancy’s beer bottle.
‘Tally-ho!’ Delancy responded.
Michelle circled around the back of the cottage when she saw Shane and Fletcher slip outside. She wanted to hear their conversation.
‘What do you make of Delancy?’ Fletcher asked.
‘He’s an idiot. But he’s a pretty good shot. Why?’
‘I spoke to Chuck on the satellite phone this afternoon,’ Fletcher said, looking back at the glow coming from the generator-operated lights in the cottage, ‘he was uncomfortable that I’d taken a booking without his personal recommendation.’
‘Fuck him,’ Shane said.
Fletcher laughed. ‘My sentiments exactly, though I expressed it differently. I told Chuck that Delancy was recommended by one of his friends.’
‘What did Chuck say?’
‘He said he’d check him out himself.’
‘Wise move,’ Shane said. ‘When’s Chuck arriving?’
‘Ten tomorrow morning. We’ll all be out on safari, so detail Caesar to pick him up from the airport. Michelle can babysit him here until we get back. Feed him some crap about her research.’
Michelle frowned at Fletcher’s dismissive tone – had he been playing her all along, only interested in her research for what it would buy him? Also, she didn’t relish spending any more time than she had to with Chuck, who gave her the creeps.
‘Do you want me to take Delancy out again tomorrow?’ Shane asked.
Fletcher nodded back towards the bar. ‘No, they’re all getting along famously in there today. I’m sure we can get Anthony and his crew to agree that we can all go out together. I want you to make sure that we don’t miss our target. He’s the last one Gizenga’s got in captivity. If we cock this one up it’ll be back to searching for real poachers.’
