For several long seconds, the icon on the phone span around as it tried to communicate with the satellite, eventually an Indian-sounding man answered and asked what number she wanted.
‘Dr Samhiri Patel, London School of Environmental Science, King’s College,’ she said, estimating that it was sometime in the afternoon in the UK, and hoping Samhiri would still be at the college.
She was the only person she could think of that wouldn’t ask too many questions and would do as Suzanna asked, namely contact every embassy, conservation group and media outlet to alert them to what was going on.
Another long second passed as the operator searched for the number. ‘I can only find the college’s main switchboard number,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to put you through?’
‘Yes! Quickly!’
Following a brief ring, somebody answered with a cheery, ‘King’s College, London. How may I help?’
‘Samhiri Patel,’ Suzanna snapped. ‘Quickly, it is an emergency.’
The phone rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
‘Samhiri Patel,’ said a familiar voice on the line.
‘Samhiri thank God. It’s Suzanna Howard ... no, just listen, I really need your help. I’m in Papua New...’
The line went dead.
Suzanna turned and saw Kruger, one hand around Yates’ neck, the other holding the broken aerial wire to the phone. His eyes were slits, his face dark, his lips bared back.
‘Bring them with me!’ he ordered, as several Papuans ran in bearing rifles.
Neither she nor Yates said anything as the Papuans frogmarched them out behind Kruger. She was scared. The thought that they’d be marched into the bush and shot had crossed her mind, and only when they fetched up at a prefabricated equipment shed and Kruger unlocked it, did she find her tongue again, releasing a volley of expletives as she and Yates were thrust inside.
‘I provide you with food and accommodation, and this is how you repay me!’ Kruger snarled, standing with his hands on his hips in the doorway. ‘Let’s see how you enjoy no air-conditioning or lighting for a few days.’ He nodded to one of the Papuans. ‘Search them!’
The Papuan found the lighter as he went through her pockets. He handed it Kruger who smirked at it.
‘I know how much you enjoy starting fires, but I think it’s best I keep this, for your own safety.’ He pointed to the piles of wooden crates stacked against the wall. Each one had a label on it reading: Warning High Explosive!
The Papuan then rummaged through Yates’ pocket and handed Kruger a small bottle.
‘No, please, I need them,’ Yates protested, trying to snatch the container back from Kruger who pushed him away and studied it.
‘Tramadol! Oh dear, looks like somebody has a bit of a problem.’ He shook the pills and grinned. ‘I guess it’s going to be a long night for you.’
He chuckled and slammed the door, plunging the pair into darkness.
Tanner didn’t mind the heat. It was no worse than Africa. However, once out of Port Moresby, the humidity was stifling.
Everything about Papua New Guinea felt alien to him—the food, people, their language, and the terrain.
As Franks piloted them away from the city to the mountain valley where Kruger’s mine lay, Tanner could smell the jungle below. He hoped the mine lay in clearer ground. He was too old to go hacking his way through thick undergrowth. He was a hunter, at home on the savannahs and grasslands of Africa, not thick, tropical bush.
He still didn’t know what he was meant to be hunting. The pilot, Franks, had said very little, insisting that Kruger would explain all when they got to the camp. The sight of the dim lights flickering under the shadow of the mountains didn’t come soon enough. After a sixteen-hour flight from Johannesburg, and a further three hours in the helicopter, Tanner was done in.
By the time Franks landed the thing, Tanner virtually fell out, his back and joints aching, his backside numb, his head swimming with fatigue and tiredness. Worse, he felt isolated, a man far from home. However, those feeling soon evaporated when Kruger strode to meet him, hand thrust before him and Tanner heard that booming, clipped Afrikaner accent.
‘My good friend, it has been a long time,’ Kruger said, pumping Tanner’s hand.
‘So, this is where you have been hiding,’ Tanner said, glancing around the camp. ‘Hardly Sandton, is it?’
The camp was far removed from South Africa’s richest district consisting of tents and prefabricated huts, but as long as there was a soft bed and a hot meal, Tanner didn’t care.
‘Just trying to earn a living,’ Kruger said, clapping an arm around Tanner’s shoulder. ‘And how are you, my old friend?’
‘Getting too old for all this travelling.’
Kruger nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you to come out here if it wasn’t urgent.’
Tanner squinted at him. ‘Then you best tell me all about it.’
He leaned into the chopper to collect his bags, but Kruger steered him away with an arm around his shoulder. ‘Let Franks sort out your luggage. Come, let us have a drink and you can tell me about Africa—it’ll be just like old times.’
He clapped Tanner on the shoulder again and led him across the camp. On the way, Tanner smelled burning and spied a smouldering awning, which a few local workers continued to douse with water.
‘Trouble?’ he asked.
Kruger screwed up his face. ‘Just a couple of conservation types, nothing I can’t handle.’
‘Pity,’ Tanner said. ‘I wouldn’t mind putting a bullet into one of those hypocrites.’
He’d had his own run-ins with conservationists in his time. Animal rights activists had all but put an end to his career. Big game hunting was no longer de riguere thanks to the handwringing of the animal cruelty brigade. It meant nothing to them that hunters, like Tanner, had done more to preserve and protect the wildlife in Africa than anybody else on the planet, protecting game and driving off poachers.
‘So what is it that you want me to sort for you?’ he asked, as they reached Kruger’s hut.
‘I think we’d better have that drink before I tell you.’ Kruger’s face darkened. ‘I think you’ll need it when you hear what I have to say.’
Chapter 16
Tanner had settled into Kruger’s cabin with a bowl of hot stew and a bottle of half-decent bourbon. They spent an hour, perhaps longer, regaling about Africa, talking of old times, of better times, when Franks came in with his guns and baggage and Tanner decided enough was enough.
He placed his glass on Kruger’s desk and looked at both men in turn. ‘Isn’t it time somebody explained to me why I’ve been dragged a quarter of the way around the globe?’
After swapping glances with Franks, Kruger swung his legs from where they had been resting on his desk and leaned forward.
‘I’ve lost some men,’ he said grimly. ‘Two young geologists, a couple of my best diggers and four or five local men.’
‘There’s also been some foreign researchers killed in the bush,’ Franks added.
‘By what?’ Tanner asked, leaning forward, eyes quizzical. ‘No big game in these parts.’
‘We thought it was a crocodile,’ Kruger said. ‘But now we’re not so sure.’
‘Go on,’ Tanner said.
Kruger waved his hand to Franks. ‘Tell him what you saw.’
Franks looked nervous. He swiped his hat off his head and scrunched it up on his lap. ‘It’s hard to describe. It looked a bit like a croc or gator, but it was bigger, sort of taller. At one point, I remember it stood on its hind legs, like a grizzly does.’
‘Crocodiles cannot rear up nor can alligators,’ Tanner said.
‘I’m just telling it like I remember.’
‘Go on, Franks,’ Kruger said.
‘Not much else to add, other than it was fast. Powerful too.’
‘And you have no idea what it was?’ Tanner asked.
Franks shook his head. ‘Man, if I knew what i
t was, I’d tell you, but I ain’t seen nothing like it in all my years.’
‘Any ideas?’ Kruger asked, eyes fixed on Tanner.
Tanner shook his head. ‘Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve encountered before. You sure it wasn’t a big cat, a leopard perhaps?’
Franks shook his head. ‘No, it had scales and a tongue, like a snake’s, you know ...’ He flicked out two fingers.
Tanner sat back and chewed at his lip, his dentures slipping in his mouth. ‘Anybody else see it?’
Franks glowered at him. ‘Hey, you sayin’ I’m making it up!’
Kruger raised his hands. ‘Nobody’s saying anything of the sort. There is somebody else who saw it. Reckons she knows what it is too.’
Who?’
Kruger sucked air through his teeth. ‘She’s sort of a hostile witness. One of them conservationists I was telling you about. She reckons it was some sort of big lizard.’
‘A lizard!’
Kruger nodded. ‘She figures it was some sort of species that was thought extinct. Mega ...mega-something or other.’
Tanner opened his gun case and peered down at the Rigby Mauser. ‘Well, I guess I don’t need to know exactly what it is, just how to track and kill it. Do you reckon this chit knows how I can find it?’
‘She’s a zoologist,’ Kruger said. ‘Reckon she’ll know more than anybody else around here.’
‘Then she might be useful. Where is she?’
‘Locked in one of the equipment sheds.’
‘So you don’t reckon she’ll be forthcoming with assistance?’
Kruger’s mouth curled up into a thin-lipped smile. ‘Oh, I reckon I might be able to persuade her.’
The hut was made of thick wooden panels, except the door, which was metal rimmed. During the night, it wasn’t too bad, cool even, and Suzanna and Yates managed to get some sleep. However, as soon as the sun broke the horizon, its rays squeezing through the cracks around the door, their prison quickly turned into a sweatbox.
‘How long do you think they’ll keep us in here?’ Yates asked, his voice a croak, his body trembling.
Even through the dim light coming through the bottom of the door, she could see he was sweating profusely. While she knew about his drug problem, she hadn’t suspected he had relapsed until Kruger took the pills from him. It was understandable, really, considering what they had been through, but it meant she could no longer rely on him.
‘Don’t worry, I’m going to get us out of here,’ she said, scrabbling around in the dark. She forced the door with her shoulder, but it was sturdy and unmovable.
‘Just leave it,’ Yates snapped, his words a little slurred. ‘Haven’t you done enough already? All of this is your fault! We could have just laid low, but oh no, you had to kick off again.’
She knew it was the withdrawal talking, but she rounded on him, pointing her jagged fingernail at him in the dim light. ‘And let them destroy an entire ecosystem, and probably a species. Your problem, Henry, is that you just want a quiet life. You aren’t prepared to put your neck on the line.’
‘My neck is on the line now, thanks to you.’
He started sobbing and she knew she’d gone too far. He may have been tall and handsome, but he was vulnerable and hurting. He was also right, partly. She was impetuous, rash, acted before she thought, but if she didn’t, who would?
She squatted down next to him and placed her arm around his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into all this, but I’m going to make things right. I’m going to get us out of here.’
‘Even if you could, where would we go?’ His voice was thick with tears. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’
‘We’ll find a village, follow a waterway. Anything is better than dying of thirst in here.’
She slowly released him, leaving him to his self-pity and scrabbled around some more in the dark.
Other than the boxes of explosives, the hut contained very little—a few old and dirty overalls, a couple of containers containing chemicals judging by the label, but no tools, nothing to help.
She banged on the door, but it was solid in construction, at least an inch and a half thick and was set in a metal frame, making battering their way out impossible. The walls too, while wooden, were solidly built, and even a sledgehammer would have had trouble getting through.
She scrambled around some more and realised the hut had no concrete floor but had simply been erected on the ground. She crawled to the back of the hut and clawed at the dirt, shovelling it away from the prefabricated wall.
After a few minutes of digging, a shaft of light appeared. She clawed away more and more dirt, enough to peer underneath and see outside.
‘Quick, help me,’ she said. ‘We can dig our way out.’
Yates didn’t move. Not at first, but eventually he shuffled closer, and when she started clawing at the dirt, he copied her and the pair burrowed away like a couple of rabbits, until the rattle of a chain being pulled back, caused them both to scramble back to the middle of the hut.
The door opened, the meagre morning light intense enough to cause both of them to shield their eyes, so she didn’t see Kruger, but heard his voice.
‘And how are our guests this morning?’
Suzanna remained sheepish, shuffling forward a little so Kruger wouldn’t notice the hole they’d been digging.
Kruger snapped his fingers. ‘Get her up.’
Franks walked in and grabbed Suzanna, who squirmed and kicked but found her arm bent round her back.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she squealed.
‘On a little trip,’ Kruger said as Franks half-carried her outside. ‘Believe it or not, we need your help.’
‘You’re going to get no help from me,’ she spat, but Kruger just grinned.
They bundled her towards Franks’ helicopter, where stood a white-haired old man, stick thin but with a face like an antique saddle. He had long canvas case on his back and he looked derisorily at Suzanna as Franks pushed her towards him.
‘Is this her?’ the old man asked.
‘Yup,’ Kruger said. ‘Dr Suzanna Howard, may I introduce Mr Roger Tanner. You and he are going on a little hunting trip.’
‘You can’t make me!’
‘Can’t I?’ Kruger leaned close. It was early morning, yet she could still smell whiskey on his breath. ‘If you don’t play ball, your strung-out friend will end up in a shallow grave in the bush.’
She glared at him and spoke through her incisors. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘It’s your choice,’ he said. ‘The lizards or Henry.’
She said nothing.
‘Put her in the chopper.’
Chapter 17
Kruger watched the helicopter take off. Once it was over the tree line and disappearing into the rising sun, he marched to his hut where Loudon was standing outside, more bad news written across his face.
‘Another couple of workers have run off this morning,’ he said, scurrying into the hut after Kruger. ‘And after the fire last night, I’m sure they won’t be the last.’
Kruger punched the wall. ‘Damn it!’
He poured a drink and walked to the window, staring at the open mine in the distance, where the excavators and trommels kicked up plumes of dust. Activity had slowed. He’d lost his best diggers and all his geologists. His company men. White faces. Loudon could crack the whip when he wanted to, but the locals knew he was one of them. They didn’t fear him, not like they did the Westerners, the white devils. What he needed was another white overseer, like Taylor or Bud. Christ, when they said jump, the locals damn well leapt. Yet with Franks out in the chopper, he was running out of pale faces.
And then he had an idea.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of Tramadol he’d taken from Yates. ‘Go get the kid out of the shed. Bring him to me.’
As despicable as Suzanna found Franks, she had to admit, he knew how to fly. Either he’d been a crop duster back in the states, or had mili
tary experience, because they buzzed across the valley floor over the tree canopy, the leaves only inches below the chopper’s skis.
‘How far is this excavation site?’ Tanner shouted, above the thud, thud, thud of the rotors.
‘In the valley, a couple of clicks after this rise,’ Franks said. ‘The bush thins out over there, turns into scrubland and long grass mainly.’
‘Good,’ shouted Tanner, ‘because I can’t see squat through these trees.’
They continued on, Suzanna’s resentful silence only broken by the occasional deep intake of breath as they skimmed the forest, the skis hitting leaves, or small flocks of birds of paradise narrowly missing the cockpit canopy.
As they neared the mountains and hills, the thick jungle cleared to the more broken country of plains, steppes and boulder-strewn hills, and eventually, in the middle of it all, cut into the wilderness as if an enormous rectangular piece of turf had been removed, the abandoned excavation site hove into view.
‘Is this it?’ Tanner asked, as Franks hovered above.
‘Yes,’ Franks said, grimly, his eyes focussed below.
Suzanna could make out the machinery and wheel barrows, the sluice pools and a few discarded helmets and other detritus, but thankfully no bodies, the dead men presumably having been devoured or carried away by carrion.
‘You want me to put her down?’ Franks asked, as Tanner peered into a pair of binoculars and scoured the site.
‘No, we’ll have no chance of following any tracks in that long grass.’ He looked behind at Suzanna. ‘Okay, princess, this is where you earn your keep. These ... animals. If they’re reptilian, they’ll hang out where? Water?’
She said nothing, just glared at the old man, who glared back, his eyes dark, narrow, intense.
‘You’d better answer the gentleman, missy,’ Franks said. ‘Unless you want your boyfriend to be feeding the crows before we get back.’
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