by Tony Park
Hudson stopped outside the reception building and got out. There was no one around. He checked his watch: lunchtime. He walked past an office and through an open-walled bar to a bleached timber deck.
In front of him was a white sandy beach dotted with rocks and a few grass-thatched umbrellas. A banda, a simple structure of four poles supporting a bed-sized raised platform topped with a grass roof, held the only evidence of habitation – a brightly printed kanga, a woman’s wrap, a T-shirt and pair of shorts hanging over the railing around the platform.
Hudson walked down the stairs to the beach and kicked off his sandals. The white sand was warm and squeaky underfoot. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and saw a figure swimming, out near a small rocky outcrop in the lake.
As he walked towards the water’s edge the person turned towards shore. Fifty metres out, where the water obviously became too shallow to accommodate her powerful stroke, she stopped and stood, and Hudson felt like her hand was around his heart, giving it a little squeeze.
She mirrored his stance, shielding her eyes, and stood there, silhouetted against the water that shone a shimmery blue-grey under the sun’s glare. She was wearing a simple black bikini, her hair tied back in her trademark ponytail; sporty, sexy. Hudson kept walking until he was in the water up to his knees, where he stopped.
Sonja started walking again but also stopped, two metres from him, hands on her hips. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Brand?’
He smiled. ‘That’s one of the many things I like about you, Kurtz.’
‘What?’
‘Your manners.’
‘Am I supposed to just fall into your arms?’
He rubbed the stubble on his chin with two fingers. ‘Hmm, nice thought. A simple howzit would probably suffice.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘I have my sources.’
‘Emma’s the only person who knew where I was. And I told her not to tell anyone.’
Hudson had got on well with Sonja’s daughter in the short time he’d known her. ‘Don’t blame her, I told her that you were in danger.’
‘Am I?’
‘Maybe. You’re hiding.’
‘I don’t hide from anyone.’
‘Licking your wounds then, like a lioness.’
‘I trusted Julianne Clyde-Smith but she dropped me and my people into one firefight too many. I like being in control.’ Her mouth turned up, just a little, at one corner. He remembered that half-smile. He liked it. Also, while she maintained her pose, it seemed to him as though she had relaxed, just a little.
‘There’s stuff I want to talk to you about; the Scorpions, Julianne, but all that can wait.’
‘Are you here to apologise?’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong, Sonja.’
She stared him in the eye. ‘Did you sleep with Sannie van Rensburg, or that journalist woman, Appleton?’
‘No.’
‘OK.’
He didn’t know what he had expected, maybe for her to be madder at him, or not believe him, or turn him away. Maybe she’d had a change of heart.
‘So?’
‘So what?’ he asked.
‘What’s the other stuff you wanted to talk to me about?’
It was as close as he’d get to an apology from her for misunderstanding him, for walking out. He took the two steps needed to close the gap between them, took hold of her wrists and drew her arms around him until she relented, and held him properly.
She felt cool and wet against him as her body moulded into his, but her mouth was warm and inviting. It felt like coming home, a concept fairly unfamiliar to Hudson Brand. The long drive, the tedious border crossings, their fights mattered not at all.
Sonja wrinkled her nose. ‘You stink.’
He held her tighter then tried to pull her down, into the water. As he’d expected she threw him, like an unarmed combat instructor had done to him at Ranger School in the US Army, and he fell, laughing, into the clear fresh water of Lake Malawi.
He came up spluttering and reached for her again. Sonja took his hand and allowed herself to be dragged down into the water with him, where they embraced again and moved, in unison, kissing all the while, to where it was deep enough for them to float together, as one.
When they took a break from their kissing, he couldn’t tell how long it had been, she nuzzled into his neck as he looked down. The sunlight caught countless tiny grains of mica that glittered the colour of gold in pale sand sculpted into flawless tiny dune lines. They called it the Lake of Stars, but right now, with this strong-willed, slightly bruised woman in his arms, he was as close to paradise as he reckoned he’d ever get.
Sonja broke their embrace, eventually, and stood and led him out of the water, across the sand to the bungalow where she had been staying.
He walked in and saw her clothes and things scattered about the room. He missed that feminine clutter in the house where he lived.
They kissed again, moving in lock step to the bed. Hudson lay her down and looked at her, savouring the sight and the memory of her as he got out of his wet clothes. She undid her bikini top and he dropped to one knee. Those nipples.
He kissed one, gently sucking, revelling in the feel of it swelling under the touch of his tongue. Sonja wrapped her fingers in his hair and he moved to her other breast. Slowly, he kissed his way down her belly and she lifted her hips so he could slide her pants down. He climbed up onto the bed.
Hudson kissed the inside of her thighs, where the skin was so soft, and felt her fingers again urging him on. He’d missed her, missed this, and his body was yearning for hers.
Sonja positioned herself and guided him so that he was on his side next to her, she on her back, legs drawn up. They lay like that, staring into each other’s eyes, and she smiled.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’
He reached out and teased her nipple with his fingers as he moved, rhythmically in and out of her. She moved a hand between her legs and began stroking herself as he kept going. Hudson loved this feeling, so close to the edge but deliberately not tipping over, and felt, wished, it could go on like this for the rest of the day, the rest of the night, the rest of his life.
In time, though, her breathing changed, now coming in short gasps. He felt her body start to stiffen.
She closed her eyes, but her nods told him to keep going. He bucked his hips, faster now, and moved his fingers from her nipple so that he could wrap an arm around her as she shuddered to her climax with him inside her.
After catching her breath she opened her eyes, and looked to him again and nodded.
Hudson needed no urging. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the pure, primal need deep inside him. When he was done and his breathing had returned to something approaching normal he spooned her. He kissed the back of her neck.
‘I love you,’ he said, for the first time, not even thinking before saying the words.
‘Ja,’ she said. ‘Same.’
*
Sonja lay propped up on one elbow on the bed, the sheet half covering her. Hudson was on his back, lightly snoring. The afternoon sun was behind them, shining out onto the lake, turning it a silvery grey. The horizon blurred with the sky so that she could hardly tell where it was.
She didn’t know where this would go, with Hudson, but right now she had the very rare feeling of truly being in the moment, and not caring what was over the horizon, let alone where it was.
He stirred and blinked. ‘What time is it?’
‘Three.’
‘I’m sorry I fell asleep.’
She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. ‘It’s OK, you must have been tired from all the driving.’
‘A little . . . and the workout.’
‘Oh, yes, that was quite exhausting.’
He turned his head and kissed her fingers. The touch of his lips electrified her, all over again.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked.
‘I crossed illegally from Zimbabwe to Zambia, over the Zambezi River in a canoe I “borrowed”. I caught minibus taxis through Zambia to Luangwa Bridge and then hitched a lift with an English couple in a rented four-by-four. They left here yesterday. At the Zambian border, at Chipata, I told the immigration and customs people I’d lost my passport, but had another one – they let me go through and then I entered Malawi legally.’
‘You’re incredible.’
She waved her hand in dismissal. It wasn’t the first time she’d crossed a border illegally. ‘So tell me, what brought you all the way here, apart from what we just did – not that I’m complaining, mind you.’
‘You’re enough. But I’m also working an investigation and a lot of the questions I’m asking are leading me towards Julianne Clyde-Smith. I’m hoping you can help me.’
‘Go on.’
Hudson propped himself up on one elbow. ‘The poaching and the war against it is escalating in the Sabi Sand, Sonja. Since you’ve been away there have been four rhino killed on three different properties.’
She shrugged. ‘The battle’s a long way from being won. The poachers move from reserve to reserve, park to park.’
‘This is more than just cyclical. I’m convinced of it. The latest attacks all happened in properties bordering Khaya Ngala. Julianne Clyde-Smith has been talking tough in the media, locally and internationally, telling the world that she’s got a zero tolerance for poaching and how she’s staked her professional reputation on not losing another rhino.’
‘Big call, and a stupid one,’ Sonja said.
‘She’s using her tough stance on poaching as a marketing tool. In her interviews she’s talked about bringing in ex-military people to train locals and help them take the war to poachers, wherever she has lodges. The news of the shootout in Zimbabwe broke on Facebook and went viral. She hasn’t mentioned you by name, but she’s out there boasting about the body count. Julianne’s a public hero.’
Sonja thought about Hudson’s news; she’d deliberately stayed away from internet news sites and only used Facebook briefly to message Emma, to let her know she was alive and well. ‘Julianne’s waging an information war as well as using boots on the ground.’
‘Yes. She’s also announced she’s buying Lion Plains.’
‘They had a bad run of poaching incidents prior to my arrival in South Africa.’
‘Yep,’ Hudson said. ‘I went back through the stats on rhino poaching for the last couple of years. Lion Plains lost only two rhinos in that period until March this year. Their anti-poaching efforts seemed to be no better or worse than anyone else’s, but in the last six months they lost seven.’
Sonja nodded. ‘The Leopards were formed because of the spike in rhino killings in that area. We were having some success with aggressive patrolling.’
‘Yes.’ Hudson reached to the side table for a water bottle, which he offered to Sonja. She took it and had a sip and passed it back to him. ‘And then you came up against a full-scale incursion by poachers armed with an RPD light machine gun – unheard of up until now – and a gang that seemed intent on taking out your patrol and a national parks helicopter.’
Sonja had realised the attack on her all-female unit was unusual, weaponry included, but she hadn’t made the connection with the recent history of rhino losses in that part of the Sabi Sand reserve. ‘You think the Scorpions were targeting that lodge, and us, deliberately?’
‘I can’t say for sure,’ Hudson said, ‘but the numbers don’t stack up. They don’t have any more rhino in that part of the reserve than any other section, though now they have a heck of a lot fewer, and they were still being targeted.’
‘Were?’
‘I checked,’ Hudson took a swig from the water bottle, ‘not a single report of a rhino lost or contact with poachers since that night when your girls were killed. Contrast that to the last few months.’
Sonja thought about the situation she’d walked into when she’d taken on the role of training the Leopards. The owners of the Lion Plains lodge had made no secret of the fact that they were losing the battle against poaching and that the negative publicity they were receiving was affecting bookings. ‘No contacts with poachers since Julianne Clyde-Smith’s offer to buy the lodge was accepted.’
‘Bingo.’
Sonja slotted the pieces together in her mind. ‘So Julianne, what, protects her property like Fort Knox and to hell with her neighbours? She hasn’t lost any rhino in the last couple of years, has she?’
‘No. The word behind the scenes in the Sabi Sand is that Julianne is rubbing a lot of people up the wrong way. She doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a team player, and it’s not only Lion Plains that’s been losing rhinos. Remember, these animals are free ranging throughout the Sabi Sand, so if a neighbouring property loses a rhino then that’s an animal that won’t be wandering onto Julianne’s patch again.’
‘Even without Julianne’s help, the work the Leopards were doing and other security measures Lion Plains put in place were having an impact,’ Sonja said. ‘They told me that the publicity they were receiving, worldwide, by having an all-female unit in the field had actually boosted their bookings for a while, but they didn’t have the training to take the fight to the enemy. That’s why I was called in.’
‘How did Lion Plains find you?’
Sonja propped herself up against the bedhead with a pillow. ‘There’s an NGO in the UK that lines up ex-military people from overseas to mentor and train anti-poaching units. Friend of mine runs it.’
‘You and your Leopards could have driven up the purchase price of Lion Plains,’ Hudson said. ‘It was a basket case, poaching-wise, until you came along.’
‘So the best way to take me out of the picture was to give me a job. That way I couldn’t convince Lion Plains to carry on with the Leopards. Damn.’
‘I’m guessing, of course, but maybe she thought it was better to have you inside her tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.’
‘Crude, but accurate,’ Sonja said. ‘I feel used.’
Sonja thought about the chain of events since the night she and Tema and the others had been ambushed, the string of gunfights, and how they might be related, if they weren’t a series of one-off encounters. She’d been in actual war zones where she’d seen less action than she had since returning to Africa. ‘What do you know about the Scorpions?’
‘A little more than I did since the last time I saw you. Rosie gave me some info.’
Sonja felt herself bridle instantly at mention of the other woman’s name, though she realised she had no right to think badly of Hudson after what had happened between her and Mario. She regretted few things in her life, but that was one of them. While Hudson had been sleeping Sonja had toyed with the idea of telling him about Mario, but she didn’t want to hurt him. It had been her mistake and she would have to live with it. She chose to believe Hudson when he said that he had not, in fact, slept with Rosie or Sannie.
‘Ian Barton, Julianne’s lodge manager in Zimbabwe, filled me in some more.’
‘So,’ Hudson said after they had swapped notes on the shadowy poaching organisation, ‘Julianne Clyde-Smith is at war with the Scorpions and using you to spearhead her attack, but she may also be working a strategy that leaves some lodges or properties vulnerable to increased poaching, which she then uses to her advantage.’
Sonja had already come to the same hypothesis. ‘This is crazy. If it’s true, we have an internationally renowned businesswoman with more money than she knows what do with acting like a gangster, standing over people to break their family business when it doesn’t suit her. And at the very least, she put the lives
of my people at risk, not to mention mine,’ Sonja said. ‘I want to look her in the eye and find out why, exactly.’
‘There’s more news from home. Tema’s in Tanzania, along with Ezekial and Mario.’
‘What the hell are they doing there?’ Sonja had declared the unit disbanded and while she didn’t control the other members of the team she was surprised they seemed to have stayed together.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, but from what I can work out Julianne Clyde-Smith and her head of security James Paterson are up there as well.’
‘She’s got three lodges in Tanzania, I saw it in her glossy self-published coffee table book at Khaya Ngala.’
‘Yup, and guess what?’ Hudson said.
Sonja gritted her teeth, then said, ‘She’s shopping for more property.’
‘Yup.’
‘She’s called me half a dozen times this week, and emailed me, wanting to know where I am. I haven’t replied,’ Sonja said. ‘I was finished with her.’
‘Was?’
‘I don’t mind going into battle, but if someone’s putting me and my people in danger without telling me why I’m fighting, I get annoyed.’
Hudson half smiled. ‘I’ve seen you annoyed.’
She ignored his flippancy. ‘I was told we were being used to gather intelligence, by conducting close target reconnaissance missions and working undercover.’
‘And instead,’ Hudson said, completing her thought, ‘you and your people have been used in some anti-poaching version of Operation Phoenix. You know about that, right?’
Sonja nodded. ‘Your CIA used assassins during the Vietnam War to target Vietnamese civilians suspected of being high-level Viet Cong cadres and sympathisers. People were wrongly accused by informers who were looking to get even with them for whatever reason, and innocent people were killed.’
‘Yep,’ Hudson said. ‘Julianne’s playing with fire.’
What burned Sonja was that she had been used and that was unacceptable.
‘They’re working a strategy,’ Hudson said, also thinking aloud. ‘I’ve been talking to the security people in the Sabi Sand and some of the lodges. Julianne offers the services of Paterson and her anti-poaching people and helicopter to some lodges, but not to others. They’re funnelling the poaching gangs into corridors through the reserve –’