Blood Trail

by Tony Park

  Piet shook his head. ‘We make our own luck in this life, Jeff.’

  *

  Lumps of cement render and clods of earth were raining down from the face of the wall and the faint outline of the two-metre circular cutting face of the tunnel-boring machine was starting to show.

  The machine did not move fast, but Sannie knew it would be unstoppable. Beside her, Sean looked up suddenly from where he was lying on the ground, still dazed from his fall.

  ‘My backpack, Benny’s chew toy . . .’ he said.

  At first Sannie thought he was rambling, but then she thought about how much Benny liked the chew toy he received as a reward. ‘Is there something in the bag we can use, Sean?’

  He nodded, his lips trying to form words.

  Sannie could tell it was important. ‘Graham, put Mia on your shoulders. Lilly, climb up on them and call to Benny.’ Sannie knew that her own leg, once more aching and bleeding from where the bullet had grazed her, would not take another two people’s weight.

  ‘We tried that and I couldn’t get out,’ Lilly sniffed.

  ‘I know. I just need to you to try to reach Benny. We need him to fetch Sean’s bag.’

  Graham braced himself against the wall as Sannie had and Mia, then Lilly, quickly scrambled up. Lilly’s outstretched fingers were still about a metre short of the top of the pit.

  ‘Benny!’ Sannie called. The dog came to the edge, looking down inquisitively. Seeing Sean lying motionless he barked again. ‘Benny, get your toy, boy.’

  Benny tilted his head.

  ‘Play time, Benny,’ Lilly said. ‘Fetch your toy, boy.’

  The dog darted away and they all looked to the wall and the now nonstop rain of rubble and dirt. Virtuous dropped to her knees to continue her prayers.

  Benny returned with Sean’s green nylon daypack in his mouth. As Sannie had hoped, Benny had carried his beloved toy through the bush with him. When Lilly got on her toes on Mia’s shaking shoulders to try to reach Benny, the dog backed up, as if this was a game.

  ‘Benny! Drop it!’ Lilly’s voice was stern. Benny came to the edge and opened his mouth. Lilly tried to catch the falling pack, but missed it and it fell, bouncing off Mia’s back. Sannie caught it. The others climbed down.

  Sannie opened the pack. There was a Leatherman pocket tool – useless against several tons of rotating cutting heads – as well as Benny’s toy, a roll of duct tape and a long flexible tube.

  Graham and Mia stood over her. ‘Yes!’ Graham punched the air. ‘That’s det cord – explosives.’

  ‘Thank you, Lord.’ Sannie reached out and squeezed Sean’s shoulder. ‘Good thinking, Sean. You’ve given us a chance.’ Sannie could see the det cord was already rigged with a detonator and initiator. ‘This is a breaching charge, like our tactical squad uses to blow open doors,’ she said for the benefit of the others.

  ‘Can we stop the machine with that?’ Mia asked. ‘Blow it up?’

  The ground was shaking. They all looked over at the sound of a high-pitched whine and screeching sound. The spinning blades of the cutting head were now starting to show through. Instinctively, they all retreated to the furthermost wall of the pit.

  Sannie picked up the breaching charge, weighing it in her hands. ‘No. This has been rigged to blow a door off its hinges or destroy a lock. We’d need a two-hundred-kilo bomb to stop that machine.’ She looked at the thick glass window, fish swimming on the other side.

  ‘Flood the pit,’ Mia said, reading Sannie’s mind.

  Virtuous had stood, and she moved with them to the window. ‘There are crocodiles in there.’

  Sannie looked to the disintegrating wall and had to raise her voice. ‘We’ll have to risk it. We’ve got no chance against that thing.’

  ‘Let me help you,’ Graham said.

  They lifted the breaching charge to the viewing window. Sannie held it against the glass while Graham taped it in place.

  ‘Hurry!’ Lilly screamed.

  The massive rotating face of the machine broke through and dirt, rocks and cement fragments cascaded down and outward. Free of resistance, the juggernaut trundled towards them, unstoppable until it reached its programmed destination.

  ‘Everyone in the corner,’ Sannie shouted. ‘Lie flat. Glass will come exploding outwards. Help each other.’

  ‘I cannot swim,’ Virtuous said.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Mia said.

  ‘I’ve got Sean,’ Graham said, dragging his boss into the corner of the pit.

  Mia placed Lilly in the farthest reach of the pit next to Sean and lay down over her. Virtuous then pressed her body against them.

  ‘I can set off the charge, Captain. I know how it’s done,’ Graham said.

  Sannie hesitated.

  ‘Lie down, Captain. You’ve got children, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought of Tommy, Ilana and Christo, and her poor dear Tom. She lay down against the sangoma and put her arms around her.

  Graham played out the fuse line and got on the ground next to them.

  The cutting heads on the round face of the boring machine spun like the weird rotating teeth of some alien behemoth, the deadly grinding blades now no more than a metre from Graham’s back. The air was filled with dust, flying rocks and a roaring noise as the bulk of the boring machine rumbled ever closer. Graham shielded the rest of them as best as he could with his body builder’s bulk, lying on his side. He gripped the igniter in his hand; it was a tube with a pin that slid into the open end. He smacked the palm of his other hand onto the flat head of the pin, which produced a spark that ignited the fuse. A split second later the detonating cord went off.

  Every one of them was either praying or screaming as the explosion added to the cacophony echoing off the walls of what was probably going to be their mass grave.

  The blast was deafening.

  Sannie, covered in dust and grit, managed to raise and crane her neck. Smoke temporarily obscured her vision, and when it cleared she felt like wailing, because it seemed the armoured glass, while cracked, was still holding.

  ‘Lord, take care of my children,’ she said aloud.

  ‘I love you, babe,’ Graham yelled to Mia.

  ‘Me, as well,’ Mia said.

  ‘Tom . . .’ Sannie whispered.

  But then the crack in the viewing window started to expand, growing tendril after tendril, like a star appearing in the green glass. The machine obscured half the window’s length now and they felt the mechanical heat of it as it bore down on them, shaking the earth beneath them and the air around them.

  The vibrations also shook the glass as, with the cutting heads almost on the prone humans, a fountain of water spurted out over them, sizzling and steaming on the hot metal of the boring machine. The spout turned to a gush and then a wave as all of the glass came away and the water cascaded out and into the pit.

  Sannie felt herself at first pummelled and pushed against the others by the force of the brownish water from the dam, and then she was being lifted. She stood, checking the others around them as the pit began to flood. Graham had his left arm around Sean’s chest, keeping his head above water, and Mia was desperately trying to calm Virtuous, who flailed at the rising tide. Lilly took hold of the sangoma’s hand.

  ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ Lilly said, ‘let the water lift us.’

  The water did nothing to impede the onward march of the machine and its cutter head, which still bore down on them even as Sannie felt her feet leave the floor of the pit. She kicked hard and used her arms to stay afloat. Above them, Benny, as scared as the rest of them, kept up a barrage of barking.

  Sannie kept an eye on the water around them, fearing she might see, or worse, feel, a crocodile below her at any second. A hippopotamus honked in panic somewhere. Something broke the surface with a splash next to Sannie and she couldn’t help but screa
m.

  ‘Just a fish!’ she said to the others.

  Steam rose around them from the heat of the machine below and Sannie and the others all raised their feet as they felt its hot metal surface brushing the soles of their shoes under the water.

  They were near the top of the pit now, and while they had all so far escaped being crushed and churned to mincemeat, their rate of ascent was slowing. Dog paddling, Sannie turned to look around her. She could see what was happening; as the machine exited the tunnel and moved further into the open pit, water was starting to escape around the borer’s edges, seeping back down the tunnel towards Killarney. ‘Everyone, get out! Grab the edge!’

  They were still a metre from the top.

  ‘Climb out, Lilly,’ Mia said. Fighting to keep Virtuous afloat, Mia’s head went under water. She resurfaced and spat out the foul-smelling liquid. She coughed. ‘You can help us from there.’

  Lilly reached up, hooked her hands over the edge of the excavation, and boosted herself upward. Benny’s excited licking did not help, but she managed to get her torso onto the ground and wriggle out. Once there, she turned around and reached for the sangoma.

  Sannie, also unencumbered, was next out. She reached back in to grasp Sean under the armpits. She strained to lift him out.

  ‘Graham,’ she panted, ‘I’m not strong enough. I’ll hold him steady while you climb out.’

  Graham boosted himself out and Sannie jumped back into the churning water to push Sean from below. With considerable effort from them both, Graham was able to haul Sean up, and Benny barked with delight and licked his master’s face. Graham then went to grab hold of the sangoma’s arms and help Lilly lift her over the edge. With Virtuous out, Mia was also able to scramble clear of the water. She turned and looked down at Sannie.

  Physically and emotionally spent, sleep deprived and injured, Sannie felt her strength disappearing. She reached up a hand for help.

  Below her, though, the tail end of the tunnel-boring machine trundled through the hole it had just made, which had the effect of a plug being pulled from a bathtub. With nothing else blocking the tunnel behind it, the water from the pit surged away into the tunnel, sucking Sannie down with it.

  Sannie managed to get her fingers on the ragged edge of the tunnel entrance and hold on for a second as the escaping waters rushed around her.

  ‘You must look after the others, Graham,’ Mia said, then jumped back into the pit as Sannie lost her handhold and was swept away into the darkness.

  Chapter 32

  Sara was giving a running commentary for the benefit of Stayhome Safari’s live worldwide audience as she drove towards the anti-poaching Land Rover and the Lion Plains game viewer.

  ‘You remember we saw the mother rhino and her calf a short while ago, well, now we can see what looks like a couple of anti-poaching rangers leaving their Land Rover and going off on patrol in the bush. They may have spotted something.’

  In her earpiece, Janine, the producer, was giving her feedback. ‘We’re getting comments streaming in, Sara. Keep it up. This is the most interesting thing we’ve seen this afternoon. Give us a rundown on anti-poaching in the Sabi Sand.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the problem of rhino poaching has not gone away during the lockdown,’ Sara said. She did not want to get into trouble from Julianne by saying how bad it had been on Lion Plains. ‘It’s an issue that affects any game reserve in Africa that still has rhinos. Now we can see these rangers better . . . for some reason they’re wearing blue uniforms today, not their usual camo.’

  Sara pulled over. If it was a patrol, or the rangers were tracking someone, she did not want to get in the way. She quickly took out her binoculars. Oddly, she could see Jeff Beaton standing on the roadside talking animatedly to a man who was not Sean Bourke, even though Sara was pretty sure that this was Sean’s Land Rover.

  She switched her gaze to the two men moving across the short grass plain of the Little Serengeti. Not only were they not wearing the correct uniforms, she also now saw they were carrying weapons she was very familiar with from her time in Afghanistan – Russian-made AK-47s.

  Sara ignored Janine’s request in her earpiece for more commentary. She picked up the radio and called Sabi Sand security. ‘This is Lion Plains one,’ she said. ‘Confirm if you have an anti-poaching patrol on Little Serengeti, dressed in blue and armed with AK-47s, over.’

  ‘Negative,’ the officer on duty replied.

  ‘Can you give me a location update for Sean Bourke, Mia Greenaway, and rangers Graham and Oscar, over?’

  ‘Negative again, Lion Plains one. We’ve had no word at all from Graham or Oscar – we’ve been trying to raise them, and Sean has gone missing in Killarney somewhere as well. If you have information, please relay, over.’

  ‘I was told by Mia a while ago that Jeff Beaton, a civilian based at Lion Plains, was taking her, Graham and Oscar to an evac chopper at Leopard Springs, over.’

  ‘Negative. I say again, negative, Lion Plains one. We’ve had no report of that. What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Sara said. ‘Get some air support and a ready reaction force to Little Serengeti . . .’ She heard gunfire. ‘And turn on Stayhome Safari on your laptop, now! Out.’

  Sara saw the two men in blue running now. One of them must have spooked the rhino, because she had set off with her calf, leaving a dust trail behind them. The man Jeff had been speaking to had got back in Sean’s Land Rover and was driving fast, cross-country.

  Sara put her vehicle in gear and accelerated. She switched on her camera again via the remote and glanced over her shoulder to look into the lens. ‘Seems we have a situation, folks, and those guys might actually be poachers. Stay tuned.’

  Jeff was back in the game viewer, Sara saw, and he also drove out onto the plain, but not towards the two gunmen. Instead, he was heading off to the left, to the tree line. When he got there, he stopped his Land Rover, got out and ran into the trees. Sara could see that he was also carrying a rifle.

  Sara turned off the road and bounced across the savannah. She gripped the steering wheel hard for support as she accelerated.

  ‘Lion Plains one, this is Sabi Sand security, over.’

  Sara risked letting go of the wheel with one hand to pick up the radio. ‘Go, Sabi Sand.’

  ‘There’s a national parks helicopter over the Kruger. They were on their way back to Skukuza Airport with an anti-poaching patrol on board, but they’re diverting to your location now. They’ll be there any minute, over.’

  A herd of zebras was galloping away in the distance, no doubt frightened by the gunfire. Sara closed on the men in blue uniforms. Briefly, she wondered if she could get away with running them down while broadcasting to several thousand people around the world.

  One of the men settled her internal debate for her. He turned, dropped to one knee and opened fire. A burst of three rounds bracketed her, sailing past the Land Rover. She swerved hard.

  Janine chattered in her ear. ‘Sara, be careful! Oh my God. We’re going viral!’

  A shadow passed over Sara and she pointed frantically at the two men in the open ground. The national parks helicopter came around in a sweeping turn and Sara saw the ranger sitting in the door, aiming his rifle at the targets below.

  One of the poachers ran; the other, the one who had shot at Sara, made the mistake of standing and pointing his rifle at the sky. Sara had the presence of mind to grab the remote and stop filming as the ranger in the air opened fire and gunned the man down.

  With the poachers distracted, Sara stopped, turned off the engine and climbed behind the camera. She tilted, panned and started filming again, making sure she framed Sean’s double-cab Land Rover, which moved in and out of shot through the relatively open, scrubby bushveld.

  The head and shoulders of another man emerged from the rear passenger seat of the Land Rover. He, too, had an AK-
47, and he pointed it skywards and opened fire. The driver put on the brakes as he came to a donga, a deep dry watercourse bisecting the plain. He had to turn right to find a shallow spot to cross and as he did so the rear passenger door opposite the gunman was flung open and a teenage girl came tumbling out. She fell, but managed to stand and run.

  The helicopter made a low-level pass and this time two rangers returned fire, raking the vehicle from stem to stern as the girl ran clear.

  Sara left the camera running, but climbed back into the driver’s seat. The driver of the double cab, the man Sara had seen talking to Jeff, had either been hit or badly hurt because at that moment the big Land Rover lurched from one side to the other and then rolled.

  The helicopter swooped in low and settled on the ground, and Sara whooped with the joy of victory as the four rangers on board jumped out and ran to the Land Rover. Sara drove as fast as she could to the girl, who headed her way.

  *

  Sannie fought to stay on her back and keep her head above water as the rushing tide carried her down the tunnel towards Killarney.

  She hadn’t been able to remove her boots and she felt them dragging her down. Henk de Beer, according to Virtuous, was somewhere down here, probably. She pictured the layout of the underground network in her mind – this tunnel led to the entry by the swimming pool at the new hotel, but just before then was the offshoot tunnel that led to the first passageway they had discovered, the one that ran from the schoolhouse to the termite mound exit on Lion Plains. That tunnel was blocked, though, halfway, because of the explosions.

  Looking up at the curved ceiling, just a metre above her, she saw a break in the pipe coming up – another vertical entry/exit shaft. She briefly thought about trying to get out there and then make her way back to Killarney. If she did, though, Henk might drown before anyone could get to him. It was a moot argument, however, because she passed under the shaft at such speed that she doubted she would have been able to catch a handhold and pull herself out.

  She said another prayer and braced herself for the rest of the ride, wherever it took her, then heard a weak cry for help ahead of her.