Blood Trail

by Tony Park

  As the lioness closed on her a calmness washed over her, like an antidote to the adrenaline that had been coursing through her body.

  With each bound the distance between them rapidly reduced to nothing, but Mia sensed that she was protected.

  Bongani had his muthi, which she had tried, and she had the benefit of years of experience and training that told her that if she found herself in this position, she must stand still and do nothing.

  Mia could smell the lioness, see the bared fangs, and that one eye was fixed on her and nothing else. She was vaguely aware of movement beside and behind her, of Bongani perhaps using his body to shield Sara. If the lioness did pounce on her and kill her, then at least the other two would get away. That gave Mia an added sense of calm.

  It had all taken less than two seconds and Mia felt a mini sandstorm blast the skin on her legs, bare beneath her shorts. Almost absent-mindedly she looked down and marvelled at the sight and sensation of individual granules of dirt, tiny stones, and leaf litter pattering against her shins and upper thighs.

  The lioness had skidded to a halt, not more than two metres from her, her front paws digging into the ground to slow her and thereby sending up the dust storm.

  She growled at Mia again and this time, Mia felt and smelled the cat’s foul breath wash over her.

  Sara whimpered.

  Bongani had his face turned, unable to watch what must surely transpire next.

  ‘Go!’ Mia yelled at the lioness.

  The lioness drew herself up to her full height, shook her head, gave Mia one last glare, then turned and walked away.

  Mia exhaled. She kept her eyes on the cat as Bongani helped Sara to her feet. The lioness stopped, and Bongani started to raise his rifle again, but there was no need.

  The big cat started scratching the ground, a precursor to urinating, which she did a few seconds later, just as Mia knew she would.

  Yes, Mia thought.

  Chapter 19

  Sannie, hands on hips, surveyed the task force she had put together to search the entire village of Killarney by the light of the new day.

  There were four uniformed officers, two men and two women, and a pair of guys from the Kruger Park Stock Theft and Endangered Species unit there on the promise that their search might turn up a weapon used in the reserve or some rhino horn. There was also Sipho’s illegal reptile collection to deal with.

  ‘Be careful,’ Sannie said to them. ‘We’ve had people shot in cold blood here and let me remind you that this sort of thing usually does not happen here. This is not Joburg. This is Mpumalanga.’

  ‘What do we do about the snakes?’ one of the male officers asked.

  ‘You can work on loading them – safely – as long as someone else is with you. I don’t want anyone getting bitten in there and then passing out.’

  ‘And us, Captain?’ one of the two policewomen asked.

  ‘We continue going door to door, talking to people, trying to find out what is going on in this place. We’ve got two murders in as many days and three missing girls. Lockdown or no lockdown, virus or no virus, this sort of kak ends now. Got it?’

  There were nods and murmurs of assent.

  Sannie, along with the private security guards Graham and Oscar and their superior Sean Bourke, had made a start on questioning the local people the night before, but it had been difficult going, rousing angry people from their sleep. On top of that Sannie had needed to coordinate the crime scene technicians who complained about working overtime, having been called from the first scene, where Laura had disappeared and the body of the slain poacher had to be examined, to Killarney where Sipho and Richard had been gunned down. It was a long and trying night for all of them. Sannie had snatched an hour of sleep in her car and was running on adrenaline.

  ‘I’m going to talk to the village’s best-known sangoma, who lived where the two local girls were last seen,’ Sannie said.

  ‘You think umuthi is a factor in the killings?’ a male officer asked.

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’m not ruling it out. Some strange stuff has been happening around here lately and Sipho, the snake boy, was selling reptiles to some guys from Joburg for umuthi.’

  The female officer squared up to her. ‘I hope you are not insulting my traditional beliefs, Captain.’

  ‘No,’ Sannie said, ‘I am keeping an open mind because I have several parallel investigations going on here, and not enough resources to do my job. If anyone here does not want to be here and give one hundred per cent effort, then I need to know that now, and I will send them off to issue lockdown infringements.’ She looked to all of them, her eyes coming back to rest on the female officer. ‘Understood?’

  The woman looked down and mumbled: ‘Understood.’

  ‘Right,’ Sannie said. ‘Door to door, everyone. Something’s going on in this dorpie and it stinks. I know people here won’t want to talk to the police, but we’re talking about kids going missing, and locals being killed. Someone here will have had enough.’

  The officers split into their teams. Sannie walked through the settlement, ignoring the sullen looks of residents who, she knew, were feeling more like inmates than citizens these days. Her phone rang.

  ‘Van Rensburg.’

  ‘Henk here. Howzit, Sannie?’

  ‘Good, and you?’

  ‘Sannie, I’ve finally found that chopper pilot, Mike de Vries.’

  ‘Good work.’

  Henk had driven to the general aviation airfield at Nelspruit the previous evening, at Sannie’s request, expecting to find at least Julianne’s helicopter. Calling the after-hours number for the avionics company that was supposedly working on the chopper, Henk had learned that de Vries had never shown up.

  ‘The guy from North East Avionics called me an hour ago. He got a call from de Vries, who said he’d had to make a forced landing on some farm near Hazyview, but it was a false alarm or some such rubbish. And he was flying to Nelspruit now-now.’

  ‘Where is he now, Henk?’ Sannie’s patience was wearing thin, due to sleep deprivation, and Henk, she knew, liked to draw a story out as long as possible.

  ‘In handcuffs in my car.’

  ‘Really?’ She also knew Henk de Beer was a tough guy, but she had just expected him to question the pilot, not lock him up. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘We were waiting for him at the airport, keeping out of sight, but when he touched down one of the uniform guys took it upon himself to walk out to the flight line and put his hand up, telling the oke to get out.’

  Sannie shook her head. ‘What did the pilot do?’

  ‘De Vries started to take off, but we showed ourselves and our guns and put a couple of rounds over his head,’ Henk chuckled, ‘then I think he kakked himself and landed.’

  ‘What was he panicking about?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say,’ Henk said, ‘but when I told him we suspected him of ferrying poachers in and out of the game reserve he hit the roof, claiming he’d never do such a thing because he loved rhinos and what-what-what.’

  ‘OK, Henk. Do you feel like a ride in the chopper?’

  ‘I was hoping you would say that. I’ve got him here at the airfield now. I was looking for an excuse to get out of Nelspruit.’

  Sannie checked her watch. ‘I can be at Kaya Nghala in an hour. I’ll see you and the pilot there. I need to talk to him in person and I don’t want him flying off and getting lost on purpose on the way.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ Henk said. ‘I’ll be the bad cop and you can be the good one.’

  ‘In the mood I’m in, that might not be possible.’ Sannie said goodbye to Henk and ended the call.

  Although she was in the middle of an increasingly complex investigation, Sannie still had a family to worry about. She called Tommy on his phone.

  ‘Hi, Mom. How are you?’

  �
��Fine. Is everything all right with you, my boy?’

  ‘Ja, hundreds, Mom. Christo made breakfast, but then he went to Gita’s place.’

  ‘Did he now,’ she said, unable to keep the smile from her face. Gita was the daughter of Kubashnee Venkatraman, one of the Kruger Park’s vets. Christo and the pretty Indian girl had grown up together, going to the same schools, though Gita, like her mother before her, had been studying at Onderstepoort, the country’s premier veterinary college. Sannie knew that Gita had come home for lockdown and both she and Kubashnee had noticed the two childhood friends spending more and more time together. She was pleased she had something to cheer her, a little.

  ‘Kubashnee’s home,’ Tommy said, as if to ensure everything was above board, or maybe to reinforce his older brother’s story. Sannie didn’t have time to worry either way; she trusted Christo and both she and Tom had brought the boys up to respect women and girls in every way.

  She sighed. The thought of Tom momentarily stopped her train of thought.

  ‘It’s fine. Do your schoolwork and I’ll see you later today, hopefully. I’m going to get Tannie Samantha to come look in on you. Eat something healthy for lunch, please.’

  ‘Yes, Mom. Love you.’

  ‘Love you,’ the words caught for an instant in her throat, ‘bye.’

  Sannie called Samantha Karandis and told her she was still away from home, working.

  ‘Sure, Sannie, no problem. I’ll fix him some lunch, and just call if you need me to take the boys some dinner as well.’

  ‘Thanks a million, Sam.’

  ‘Happy to help. How’s the investigation going? They’re saying on the radio this morning that two guys were shot dead in Killarney.’

  ‘Ja, but sorry, I can’t go into details.’

  ‘I understand. Take care and don’t worry about Tommy.’

  ‘Oh, Sam.’ Sannie remembered part of their drunken conversation at Samantha’s house. ‘You said something about Liz having a helicopter pilot boyfriend?’

  ‘Sannie, I talk too much after a few wines. It was indiscreet of me.’

  ‘Who does he fly for?’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Um, one of the larney lodges in the Sabi Sand.’

  ‘Kaya Nghala Lodge? That place is very fancy, as you know.’

  ‘Sannie, please. Liz asked me not to say anything.’

  ‘That’s not a “no”, Sam. This could be important. Is the pilot she’s seeing Mike de Vries, from Lion Plains? Yes or no?’

  There was another pause. ‘Liz hasn’t done anything wrong, Sannie.’

  ‘I’m not saying she has, but please, this is official. Yes or no.’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  ‘Tell me about the pilot. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Sannie, we’re all friends. You really need to ask Liz about this, not me.’

  Sannie knew Sam was right and that it was unfair of her to press her friend in this way. She and Henk already knew de Vries was guilty of something – evading arrest, for a start. She would make an official call to Liz later if de Vries was not forthcoming when they spoke to him. ‘I will. Thanks, Sam. And thank you for looking after Tommy, I value our friendship. Bye for now.’

  She put her phone away and continued walking. The area she was in was a buffer zone between the settlement of Killarney itself and the Sabi Sand reserve. The community project had encroached into this area, which before that had mainly been used by the locals to graze livestock. She heard the clanking of a goat bell somewhere nearby.

  Sannie was sure that this was also a prime spot for poachers to come and go from the reserve, although these days the perimeter fence was quite an obstacle. It was electrified, reinforced with coils of razor wire along its lowest levels, and covered at regular intervals with security cameras. Added to that, the Vulture system was pointed to cover this sensitive sector of the reserve.

  Sannie thought about how she would question the helicopter pilot. She wondered if he was maybe moving contraband, such as alcohol and cigarettes.

  Sannie heard a noise and stopped. A cape turtle dove called nearby, but that was not what she had heard. This was more like a cracking noise – not a gunshot but more like something big, breaking. She left the well-trodden path she was walking on and headed through the scrubby bushveld in the direction of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve’s fence. She heard the noise again, coming from the direction in which she was walking, and smiled as she quickened her pace.

  Soon she came to the rough dirt perimeter road that ran alongside the fence. Beyond the barrier of wire and electronics there was another road, this one smoothly graded and well used by security patrol vehicles inside the reserve. Past a firebreak of slashed dry grass there were tall, mature trees, and the bush was thicker than on this side. It took her a moment to notice the swaying, slender trunk of a young tree. She smiled to herself as she saw the first of the elephants.

  A cow, distinctive by the angular shape of her forehead – males’ heads were more rounded – was bending the sapling in order to strip the nutrient-rich bark from it. From between her legs came a tiny baby.

  Sannie’s heart lurched again, though this time it was from pure, ingrained maternal love rather than pain. She relished the feeling and felt the sting of tears welling in her eyes as the little one took a few brave steps ahead of its mother into the cleared zone.

  ‘Hello,’ Sannie said quietly.

  The baby’s trunk flipped and flopped about as it walked. Sannie knew that it would take time for the little one to work out how to use his unusual appendage. The mother paused in her foraging and raised her own trunk in the air.

  Sannie realised, only now, that the wind was at her back and the mother had probably caught her scent. The cow made a grumbling noise from deep in her belly and the little calf turned and trotted back to her. Silently, almost magically, the huge animal and her tiny newborn disappeared into the dun-coloured vegetation, leaving Sannie to wipe her eyes and turn back to the path she had been on.

  She felt alone, adrift, and sad that she had, if only briefly, contemplated ending her own life the previous morning. Only now could she fully imagine what Tommy might have thought of her. At the time, as she had looked at the Z88 pistol in her hands, her own grief had been all-encompassing. Seeing the mother elephant and how its tiny calf depended totally on her had reminded her that she was not alone in the world even though Tom was gone.

  Tom.

  She did not have to let him go back to Iraq, but at the same time she knew there was nothing she could have said or done that would have stopped him. The creeping, gnawing feeling that she had not minded him leaving was still there. She did her best to brush it aside, but the guilt threatened to consume her.

  For now, though, she had work to do.

  Chapter 20

  Mia, Bongani and Sara drove to the Vulture system headquarters.

  They were quiet on the drive, all of them reflecting on what had gone on with the lioness and her cubs. When they arrived, they got out and went through the process of a handover with the two volunteers from a neighbouring lodge who were sharing the manning of the array of high-tech monitoring systems.

  The departing men had seen nothing of interest. Bongani volunteered to make tea and coffee while Mia and Sara each sat in front of a double-screen work station.

  Mia scrolled through the log of confirmed intercepts. She noted elephant, buffalo, giraffe, an array of buck and, of more interest, several rhino sightings. She pointed the listing out to Sara. ‘Three white rhinos travelling together.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘Yes and no. They’re not herd animals,’ Mia said, ‘though sometimes they clump together.’

  Mia clicked on the entry and pulled up video one of the other operators had recorded from the camera. It was black and white and grainy, shot at night. Mia paused
it and tapped the screen. ‘Yes, as I thought, see.’

  Sara craned her head over. ‘Is that a young one in the lead?’

  Mia nodded. ‘Yes, white rhino calves walk in front of their mothers. The idea is that the mom can keep an eye on the little one. It’s different for black rhinos – their calves walk behind the mother because they mostly live in thick bush and she needs to clear a path for the baby. White rhinos live in country like this, more open and grassy.’

  ‘And the big one at the back?’

  ‘That’s a male, for sure,’ Mia said, ‘following the cow, hoping she’s nearly ready to mate again.’

  Sara swivelled in her chair. ‘A tempting target for poachers.’

  ‘For sure. If poachers pick up the tracks of those three, it will be a bloodbath.’ Mia wondered, in an afterthought, if someone had tipped them off.

  ‘What do you know about Julianne’s helicopter pilot?’ Sara asked.

  ‘You’re reading my mind,’ Mia said. ‘Let’s first see if we can find these rhinos again.’

  Mia’s screen was covered with blinking dots, moving targets that had been picked up by radar.

  In the area where the rhinos had been reported she picked up slow and steady movement by a couple of groups of animals. One was a herd of elephants, which, when she clicked on a video from an earlier intercept, showed that the family was eating on the move. Based on the estimated speed and trajectory of the three rhinos she watched a corner of her screen intently, hoping the radar would pick them up again.

  ‘Got you,’ she said when a moving dot appeared. She clicked on it, and a camera focused on where the animals were. She zoomed in. It was the rhinos.

  ‘Cool,’ Sara said, looking across from her screen.

  Mia double-clicked and entered the details of the three rhinos. She would keep an eye on their progress from now on.

  ‘I’ve got something interesting,’ Sara said.

  Mia slid over on the rolling office chair. ‘Show me, please.’