The Cull

by Tony Park

  ‘Leading them straight to Lion Plains, which is behind on its security levies because it’s going out of business.’

  Sonja got up and walked across the bungalow’s floor to the window. She stood there, naked, looking out over the lake. ‘That looks like smoke, across the lake. Fire.’

  Hudson got out of bed and came up behind her, wrapping his arm around her body, drawing her to him. ‘It’s not smoke. Believe it or not, those black clouds are actually flies.’

  She turned her head to look up at him. ‘Serious?’

  ‘Yep. Lake flies. Millions of them. Fishermen on the lake have been known to be suffocated by those swarms, which fill their mouths and noses.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them.’ Sonja was tempted to add that choking on a swarm of flies was a terrible way to die, but there were few good ones. She knew. Even in this staggeringly beautiful corner of Africa, death and darkness were never far away.

  ‘I need to talk to Tema, and I want to learn more about exactly what Julianne and Paterson are up to. Tema and Ezekial don’t know what they’ve got themselves into and I don’t want them selling their souls for Julianne Clyde-Smith’s cash without understanding what that job will do to them.’

  ‘If Julianne is running a hit squad then Mario Machado’s the right man for the job,’ Hudson said. ‘What was it like working with him?’

  Sonja hoped her embarrassment didn’t show, but just in case she looked back out at the clouds of flies that were coalescing and moving along the lake like a mini storm front. ‘Professional, though I did notice he had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.’ She needed to change this conversation, or rather get back to the salient point. ‘I want to find Tema, and Clyde-Smith.’

  ‘Like I said, they’re in Tanzania.’

  Sonja gave him a half-grin. ‘Just across the border from Malawi. There’s a crossing near the northern tip of the lake. Fancy a road trip?’

  ‘With you? You bet.’

  Hudson kissed the back of her neck and she reached around behind him and pulled him even closer. She dug her fingers into his skin, which was still warm from being in bed.

  ‘It won’t be all play, Hudson.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have to leave right away, do we?’

  Chapter 16

  The rush of air into the back of the helicopter snatched at Tema’s green uniform shirt and adrenaline surged through her body as the Tanzania National Parks – TANAPA – ranger with them pointed to the four men running across the grassy plain below.

  Mario was up front in the co-pilot’s seat and he directed the pilot to sweep around the targets. Mario looked back at Tema, Ezekial and the ranger. They had been searching the Grumeti Game Reserve since the call for assistance had come to Julianne Clyde-Smith from the Fort Ikoma gate and ranger post southwest of Julianne’s camp in the Kuria Hills.

  Tema pictured the map Mario had shown her before they took off. The Serengeti National Park resembled, she thought, a muscleman holding up his left arm, bent at ninety degrees, viewed from the front. The Grumeti reserve, where private safari operators leased concessions from the Tanzanian government, was a narrow strip of land that ran across the bodybuilder’s bicep. The annual wildebeest migration was busy crossing this area and would re-enter the park at the imaginary man’s forearm. Julianne and her people had been scouting the reserve, looking for locations for a proposed new tented camp. At the same time, she, Mario and Ezekial had been working with the TANAPA people on anti-poaching patrols, searching for a gang of elephant ivory poachers who had been working in the area. Tema had thought that when Sonja left them in Zimbabwe that she would once more be out of a job, but Julianne had offered command of the team to Mario. Tema wasn’t happy Sonja had gone, but she needed the money that was still on offer.

  ‘We’ve got them. We’ll give them a chance to surrender,’ Mario yelled to them.

  Tema leaned out of the door hatch. She was surprised how much she had learned to love flying in such a short period of time. She followed Mario’s lead and cocked the AK-47 she had been issued. The TANAPA ranger in the middle, and Ezekial on the other side, did the same. Ezekial, she noticed with a glance, was still terrified of being airborne.

  She gave Ezekial a reassuring smile. She had gone home to her mother and Shine after being released from hospital. Ezekial had come to visit her every day. They had been out on a few dates and while they had kissed, many times, they had not had sex. Ezekial had made no secret of his desires, but Tema wanted to take things slower than she had with the first man she had slept with. He respected her wishes and told her he would wait as long as it took.

  The pilot came abreast of the fugitives, flaring the nose of the chopper to slow it to their running pace. The men had already ditched the four tusks they were carrying. At least two of them were armed, one with what looked like a hunting rifle, the other with an AK.

  Two of the men, the bearers, stopped and put their hands up.

  ‘They’re surrendering,’ Tema said.

  But then the man with the AK raised his rifle and fired a long burst at them.

  Tema’s training kicked in and she took aim and squeezed off three rounds. The pilot pulled up on the collective, causing her to miss. All the men started running again, though.

  ‘Go back, go back,’ Mario screamed into the intercom, but this pilot, a Tanzanian local, clearly had less stomach for the fight than Julianne’s regular pilot, Doug Pearse had when flying. ‘Turn around or I’ll have you fired!’

  Reluctantly the pilot wheeled around. Tema had heard that another flier had been killed by poachers recently so the man’s trepidation was understandable. She, too, felt the fear, but her desire to get the man who had just shot at them – at her – was stronger. She also wanted to get back into the fray.

  By the time they had circled around, the poachers had made it to a granite koppie a cluster of boulders studded with trees that stood out like an island in the sea of grass.

  ‘Shit,’ Mario said, ‘they could be hiding anywhere in there.’

  They circled a few times, all of them straining to see any sign of movement. Mario fired a few random shots into crevices, hoping to draw fire from the poachers or panic them into surrendering or running. It didn’t work.

  Mario looked over his shoulder again. ‘The only way to get these bastards is on foot. Are you game?’

  ‘I think we must return to Fort Ikoma, to get more men,’ the ranger said, over the noise of the engine.

  Ezekial looked to Tema. She spoke, loud and clear. ‘We go!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mario. He looked to the pilot. ‘Put us down. Orbit above us. You,’ he said to the ranger, ‘be ready to give us covering fire if these guys show themselves.’

  The ranger nodded and Ezekial swallowed bile and bravely winked at Tema. He was as ready for the fight as she was. She could see it in his eyes, and right then she saw the warrior in him and knew she wanted him to be her man, the father of her daughter, if he wanted them.

  Tema had been talking to Sonja by phone and instant message and she had been quietly watching Mario and their superiors, gathering intelligence for her former mentor. Sonja had ordered Tema to tell no one that she and Hudson were investigating Julianne Clyde-Smith’s dealings, but Tema thought it was now time to let Ezekial in on the secret. On the other hand, Sonja had drilled into her the need to follow orders.

  The pilot brought the chopper down, and when the skids were just a metre off the ground Tema, Mario and Ezekial jumped out. As Sonja had taught them, Tema and Ezekial took a couple of paces and dived into the grass, rifles out. The helicopter lifted off above them and peeled away.

  ‘Up,’ Mario yelled.

  They moved in bounds, one running while the other two covered him or her. Tema was moving slower than the men because of her healing bullet wound, but her heart was still pounding as the granite boulders loomed
larger in her vision. At any moment she expected to hear the pop-pop of an AK-47 or the deeper crack-thump of a heavy-calibre slug. She tried not to think of what they would do to her body, though she had already experienced firsthand what bullets could do.

  Tema had her rifle up, safety off and her finger outside the trigger guard. When they were twenty metres from the koppie Mario used hand signals to tell her to prop, to get down on one knee and cover him and Ezekial.

  She knew Mario was telling her to stay and keep watch because of her leg; nevertheless, she felt mildly cheated. Ezekial looked to her and grinned. This was scary, terrifying in fact, but they were so pumped up they were both enjoying themselves. Tema told herself that covering the men and watching for movement was just as important as the work they were doing.

  Tema scanned the shiny pinkish rocks. She caught sight of a flash of movement near the crest of the outcrop and trained her rifle left. She had taken up half the pressure on the trigger and almost squeezed all the way, until she saw the dainty little grey antelope that had leapt from one rock to another. It was a klipspringer – she knew from her studies that these little bucks had circular hooves that acted like suction cups to help them gain purchase on the rocks they liked to inhabit. The klipspringer looked down at her, apparently at ease, but as it rotated its head something else startled it and it took off, bounding from boulder to boulder.

  To the right of where the animal had been and in the direction where it had last looked, Tema saw another movement, the bobbing of a head. She moved slowly, at a crouch, through grass, until she had a better view of the far side of the boulder where she had seen the man.

  Tema took aim at the spot and waited. From the other side of the koppie Mario called out something to Ezekial. The head appeared again and Tema confirmed it was one of the armed men, the one with the hunting rifle. He would be the member of the gang who was responsible for actually killing the elephants. He was taking aim, at Mario or at Ezekial. Tema took a breath, steadied herself and exhaled partially. The back right rear of the man’s skull was in her sights. She squeezed the trigger.

  ‘Contact front,’ she yelled as she fired, the words rushing from her like a machine venting air. The man’s head was no longer visible. She heard a clatter and saw the rifle slide down over the smooth surface of a boulder and bounce down to the rock below.

  Tema was up now, racing to the foot of the little hill and scrabbling up the first rocks.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Mario called.

  ‘One tango down.’ Tema wanted to tell Mario that she was on the move, but she didn’t want to alert the poachers, as well. In xiTsonga she called out: ‘Ezekial, I’m climbing the rocks, cover me, but don’t advance.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ Ezekial called back.

  Tema was on her own now, climbing, and the adrenaline was charging her with what seemed like superhuman strength. Sonja had put the Leopards through a military-style obstacle course that she had ordered constructed, and one of the challenges was to walk along a set of high bars with cross rungs spread a metre or so apart. Sonja had told them that getting over this obstacle was all about confidence. Tema moved the way she had then, keeping her head and eyes up, looking ahead for targets, not down at her feet and ignoring the odd twinge of pain from her healing wound. She trusted her mind and body to work together and she stepped purposefully from rock to rock just as the klipspringer had, by instinct.

  She saw a man’s back flit past the gap between two boulders. Tema raised her rifle, but wasn’t quick enough. Also, she didn’t know if the man was the remaining one with the gun or one of the unarmed bearers. She forced herself forward. Now that she’d seen another of the poachers her feet started to feel heavy. Something inside her was telling her to duck down, to take cover, but Sonja had told her that at times like this she had to fall back on her training and her heart.

  ‘My heart?’ she had asked.

  ‘You have the heart of a hunter, of a leopard,’ Sonja had told her. ‘Listen to it, give in to it.’

  Tema felt, heard the beat, like a war drum that pushed her onwards. She jumped to the top of the next rock and looked down. A man scurried beneath her. He was unarmed, but she saw the fallen man’s rifle, on a granite ledge beneath her. The man scrambled over the slippery rocks.

  ‘Stop!’

  He froze and glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘I said stop.’

  Even though she was pointing a gun at him the man just sneered at her and kept crawling. Tema trained the barrel of her AK-47 on his back. When his hand touched the wooden stock of the hunting rifle she squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked twice and the man sprawled forward. He slid down the face of the rock, taking the rifle with him and leaving a long smear of blood.

  Tema didn’t feel anything, other than the need to move on, to finish the job. She hopped to the next rock, searching for a new target. Gunfire echoed around her and she dropped into a slide, down the long sloping face of a granite boulder.

  When her boots met firm ground again she looked left and right, searching for another target. She saw a movement and a man, startled by the noise behind him, turned and started to raise his arm as if bringing a weapon to bear.

  Tema brought the AK-47 to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. Instead of the first of the two shots, the double tap, that she’d intended to fire, she heard a sickening click. She was sure she was not out of ammunition so her rifle had jammed.

  Sonja had drilled the procedure for this into all of the Leopards countless times, on the rifle range and before their first patrol. Tema ducked behind the nearest rock, grasped the rifle’s cocking handle and pulled it back to find the source of the problem, either a double feed of two rounds into the chamber, or a dud round.

  Tema fully expected the man she had aimed at to run, or, worse, to open fire in her general direction. Instead, she heard an animalistic wail. When she peeked around the rock she was confronted with the sight of the looming bulk of one of the bearers. In his hand, held aloft, was a panga, a wicked-looking machete, and not the gun she had mistakenly thought he was carrying.

  Before Tema could shake free the misfed or damaged rounds, the man was on her. She held her AK up in two hands and the force of the downward blow of the machete clanging on the steel of her rifle jarred up her arms. She smelled the man’s body odour, saw the wild killer look in his jaundiced eyes.

  The man barrelled into her, pushing her against a rock. As he raised his hand to deliver another slashing stroke she sidestepped, reversed the AK-47 and rammed the steel butt plate up at the man’s jaw.

  She had only landed a glancing blow, but it was enough to snap his head back and stop his arm. Tema shook the rifle and frantically tried to chamber another round, but he came at her again, slashing wildly. The blade dinged on her barrel again and slid down the metal, digging into a finger on her left hand. She yelled with pain and let go of her weapon. The man seized his momentary advantage and pushed his bulk into her. He used his fist, clasped around the hilt of the panga, to punch her in the face.

  The father of Tema’s daughter had hit her, when she was pregnant, which was why she had left him and she felt the rage inside her rise and erupt out of her as her attacker’s foul breath washed over her. As Sonja had taught her, she let the adrenaline take care of the pain and allowed her supressed hatred to guide her. Controlled violence, that was what it was all about, Sonja had said.

  Tema brought her right knee up as hard and as fast as she could into the man’s groin, and when he started to double up she stabbed him with two fingers in his eyes. As he screamed she pushed harder and harder.

  As the man staggered and tried to back away from her, Tema grabbed her rifle with two hands again, this time with both at the barrel end, and swung the AK-47 around like a club in a wide arc. When she connected with the side of the groaning man’s head he dropped his panga and toppled over. He didn’t move.

 
; Tema stood there, over him, panting. She cleared her rifle, let the working parts fly forward and, for a second, aimed it at his head, her finger around the trigger.

  A burst of gunfire nearby made her look away from the unconscious poacher. She swung the gun around when she saw movement at the top of a rock, but lowered it a fraction of a second later.

  ‘Don’t shoot, it’s me,’ Ezekial said.

  ‘This one is out cold,’ she said.

  ‘So I see.’ Ezekial climbed over the rock and came to her. ‘You’re bleeding. Are you OK?’

  Tema looked at her hand. The cut was deep, but she felt no pain, not yet anyway. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘All the same, let me bandage it.’

  Tema stood there, physically shaking.

  Ezekial put his rifle down, pulled the field dressing from his chest pouch and wrapped the pad and bandage around her finger and hand. ‘I got one, as well.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Yes. He went down like a sack of mealie meal. It was the one with the AK-47. He got off a few shots at me, but I drilled him, one-time.’

  Mario appeared through a cleft, a handheld radio pressed to his ear. ‘Bring the chopper now. You don’t need to worry for your safety or your precious aircraft. We’ve got them all. I say again, the poachers are all dead. Out.’

  Tema heard the helicopter’s engine and looked up. It was circling around, coming towards them. The pilot hadn’t even been game to orbit above, offering them support from the ranger on board as Mario had directed. She was disgusted with his cowardice.

  Ezekial knelt by the unconscious bearer. ‘This one’s still alive, Mario, but he needs medical help.’

  ‘Move away from him,’ Mario said.