Red Earth

by Tony Park

  ‘All right. I’m going. Give me five minutes then call or SMS me your radio frequency. Talk me in to where your pilot is.’

  ‘No, man,’ John said, ‘you’re a civilian. I’m not asking you to go catch the dude, just to please flag down a policeman, or tell them to contact me if one comes to your location. These guys were armed when they took the car and …’

  The adrenaline was still fuelling Mike’s senses. He was a ‘civilian’ now, as John had said, but once he’d been a foot-soldier in the war on wildlife poaching, not simply a researcher. He was once more relying on the instincts he had honed as a warrior. A child was at risk and that stirred a barely suppressed, painful memory – something that still haunted him. He’d tried to atone, by helping troubled youngsters in South Africa set a new course in their lives through working in the bush, in conservation and the rhino guards program, but it never felt like it was enough. It was impossible for him to redeem himself, but he never wanted to stop trying. The woman who had saved so many vultures today was now trying to rescue a baby and the police weren’t helping. ‘Your pilot helped me out, so I’ll return the favour. Put me in touch with her.’ He jogged back to the Defender.

  Chapter 6

  Nia Carras was having a hard time keeping a lid on her anxiety. The Fortuner had turned left off the N2, heading northwest towards Hluhluwe–iMfolozi.

  The Fortuner raced past the Somkhele coalmine, crazily overtaking every car it came to, and narrowly avoiding a head-on as it crested a rise. The signal from the tracking device was still loud and clear which told her the man was either alone or his accomplice had failed to find the tracker. The Fortuner slowed and took another left, this time onto a dirt road that led into a rural area dotted with huts. Cows and goats fed on the sparse covering of dry grass that barely masked the red earth.

  ‘Getting close to home?’ she asked the driver, rhetorically, as he skidded through a bend, the rear of the Fortuner fish-tailing.

  Her phone rang. It was John. ‘Please tell me the cavalry is on its way.’

  ‘Well, kind of,’ John said.

  ‘I don’t have time for games, John. Who’s coming?’

  ‘You know those dead vultures you found this morning?’

  ‘Yes, John.’

  ‘Well, the vulture guy who went to check out the carcass – his name is Mike – is now on his way to you.’

  Nia rolled her eyes. ‘Some bird hugger? That’s my ground crew?’

  ‘Afraid so. I asked him to find some cops, but he insisted on going Chuck Norris. He’ll be in touch with you soon. Maybe he can just follow the Fortuner from a distance.’

  Nia wondered what good a nerdy researcher could do. He was probably some PhD student with no friends. Whoever he was, though, he was the only person who had responded to John’s call, and she was fast running out of options. As it was she did not have enough fuel to return to Virginia and had spent the time waiting for John’s last message contacting other airfields, and even King Shaka Airport, seeking approval for an emergency landing.

  ‘OK, John. Give him this location.’ Nia tapped the iPad and read off the coordinates of the intersection where the SUV had left the tar road. ‘The Fortuner’s moving slower now, into the rural areas, heading northwest up into the hills towards the game reserve. Give the guy my number and tell him to call me. If we’re lucky they’ll hide the Toyota somewhere or start stripping it and maybe this vulture guy can find somewhere to keep it under observation while I land and refuel.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ John said, then hung up.

  Nia banked sharply to the left when she saw that the dust cloud behind the Fortuner had stopped moving. The driver had pulled up next to a cluster of three shabby-looking huts.

  Her phone rang, but she couldn’t answer it as she was too busy flying. She backed off away from the kraal, and went into an orbit. She hit the number on her phone to redial.

  ‘Howzit, it’s Mike Dunn here.’

  ‘Vulture guy?’

  ‘Yes, vulture guy. I hear you have a situation.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘I’ve got your coordinates and I’ve been trying to visualise exactly where you are since I spoke to your guy. Is there a blue rondavel perched on top of a hill, probably to the east of where you are right now?’

  Nia was impressed. ‘Yes, there is. How did you know that?’

  ‘I know some people there. I spend a lot of time in the communities around the national park.’

  ‘OK, whatever. You think you can get here soon and keep the place under surveillance until the cops arrive?’

  ‘I think I can manage that.’

  His voice was deep, and his tone calm. Nia was doing her best to sound professional and cool, but wasn’t sure she was pulling it off. This guy sounded like she’d just asked him if he could go to the bar and buy her a beer.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ she warned him. ‘There’s a baby in this car.’ As she spoke she saw some movement below. ‘OK, wait. Driver’s out of the car. He’s taking a break for something, maybe to try and find the tracking device and get rid of it. Doesn’t know I’m here. This is your chance to put foot and catch up.’

  ‘All right. I’ll be there soon.’

  ‘Quick as you can. I can’t stay here much more than ten minutes or I’m going to have to put down where I am. I don’t want to lose this kid.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Nia ended the call. She didn’t want to risk getting closer to the Fortuner and being spotted, but she also wanted to keep the thief in sight, to see what he did with the child. From the corner of her eye she picked up movement and for a second she thought it might be the vulture man, here already. Unfortunately it was a white van, a minibus taxi. The driver of the Fortuner was pulling stuff out of the back of the vehicle and dropping the various articles on the ground. She could see his bottom protruding from the vehicle’s boot.

  The minibus taxi slowed, perhaps out of curiosity, and came to a stop.

  *

  Warrant Officer Vusi Matsebula had been sleeping pleasantly in the back seat of the crowded taxi, until it lurched to a halt. He was jerked awake. He vaguely recalled a thud, as though the taxi had hit something. That was the last thing he needed. He rubbed his red eyes.

  Vusi looked past the pregnant woman next to him out the window of the taxi, and saw a white Fortuner parked at an oblique angle.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked the woman.

  She shook her head and tutted. ‘Some crazy young man is throwing things out of that car and something hit the taxi. The driver is not impressed.’

  A surge of adrenaline roused him. There was a young man standing by the driver’s side of the vehicle. He wore low-slung jeans, his underpants showing above the waistband. He moved his right hand behind his back and Vusi saw the guy pull out a gun. Vusi stood in the cramped cab of the taxi.

  ‘Hey, watch what you’re doing,’ said the man in the suit in front of him as Vusi bumped him as he drew his Z88 police-issue nine-millimetre pistol.

  ‘Quiet, keep your heads down.’

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ said a woman on Vusi’s left, pointing to his pistol.

  ‘Shush. I’m police,’ Vusi hissed.

  The driver of the taxi was out of the van, hitching up his trousers and then stabbing a finger towards the young man. Vusi could see the man by the Fortuner was still hiding his gun behind his back, but the driver obviously hadn’t seen the firearm.

  ‘Hey, you, what are you doing throwing stuff at my taxi?’ the driver yelled in Zulu.

  The young man raised his arm, pointing his gun at the driver. ‘Back off, old man.’

  ‘Shit,’ Vusi whispered. ‘Everyone, take cover.’ Vusi nudged his way to the door of the taxi, his pistol held down by his right leg and out of sight. The young man had his eyes locked on the driver, who was not
backing down.

  ‘What’s going on?’ a girl in school uniform with a boy next to her said in a quavering voice.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Vusi quickly assured the girl. ‘Just stay low.’ The girl lowered her head and the boy, maybe seventeen, put his hand on her back and then covered her with his body. Vusi took a moment to squeeze the boy’s shoulder.

  The driver wagged his finger. ‘You back off, and you put that gun away or …’

  ‘Joseph, no!’

  Vusi looked back at the seat he had just passed. The schoolboy who was comforting the girl had slid open his window and called to the gunman. Vusi rolled his eyes. This day was fast deteriorating. He thought of his wife and child, waiting for him just a few kilometres down the road. He’d been lucky to be allowed to leave at the end of his shift, given the storm that had erupted over Durban that morning, and now he was being sucked into his own personal nightmare. Vusi took a deep breath.

  ‘Themba,’ called the man with the gun. He looked to the bus. ‘Damn, get off the bus, I was looking for you. Why didn’t you just stop the bus and get off here at your home?’

  Vusi swivelled his eyes to look at the schoolboy, Themba.

  ‘I’ve got stuff to do, Joseph. Hey, cousin, just put the gun down. Chill, man.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Themba. Get off the taxi now. Come, I need help.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Joseph,’ Themba replied.

  Vusi crouched lower in the taxi and whispered: ‘Themba.’

  The boy glanced down.

  ‘Don’t look at me, Themba,’ Vusi said. The youth looked back outside the taxi. ‘I need you to keep talking to that guy. Who is he?’

  ‘My cousin, Joseph,’ Themba said out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Will he use that gun?’ Vusi asked. Themba’s silence told Vusi all he needed to know.

  Themba took a deep breath. ‘Joseph, lower your gun, please, let the driver get back in the taxi. Mister Driver, please, let’s just keep going.’

  Both the driver and Joseph were looking at Themba. Vusi crawled along the floor of the van. He slid between the two front seats like a python and rolled out of the taxi onto the grass, on the opposite side to where Joseph swung his gun from the driver to the bus and its passengers. Vusi stood in a crouch and, his back to the vehicle, edged slowly around the front. His pistol was cocked and ready.

  ‘Themba, get off the bus, now. I need your help, cousin.’

  ‘I’m not doing that, Joseph.’

  Joseph aimed his pistol at the driver’s head. ‘Get off that taxi or I’ll shoot the fat man.’

  A woman started screaming on board the taxi. Vusi saw a piece of door trim on the ground. It was clear Joseph had been stripping the inside of the vehicle. There was another noise above the commotion. It was a baby crying, but Vusi could not recall seeing an infant or even a young child on board the taxi. He swore quietly in Zulu.

  Vusi drew a deep breath. He could not shoot Joseph outright without first identifying himself. Also, the taxi driver was between him and the car thief, partially blocking his view. Added to his difficulties, he was terrified. Vusi worked in community relations and had not been on the streets, dealing with criminals, in more than fifteen years. He was overweight and he needed a new pair of glasses. He gripped his Z88 harder to try and stop his hands from shaking, but the effort made it worse.

  ‘Police …’ he began to yell, but as he stood straight and extended his pistol the driver, seeing that Joseph’s attention was again on Themba, reached behind his back and pulled out his own pistol. ‘Down!’

  Vusi ran out from his position of cover at the front of the van. Joseph turned and fired a snap shot that caught the taxi driver in the chest and poleaxed the big man. Vusi fired twice. His first shot missed, but his second seemed to catch Joseph in his left shoulder. The younger man’s body twisted sideways, which meant Vusi’s next shot whizzed by him.

  Joseph, however, still had his gun hand up and he blasted away. Vusi had to sidestep to avoid being hit by the falling driver, and the fraction of a second this took gave Joseph the chance to steady his aim. He fired again.

  *

  Nia watched the scene unfolding below her in horror. It was over in a matter of seconds.

  She saw the fat man fall, then another middle-aged man with a gun emerged from his hiding spot at the front of the taxi. He, too, fell in the exchange of gunfire and lay as still as the driver in the blood-stained grass.

  Nia hit the redial button on her phone, which was connected to her Bose headset via bluetooth.

  ‘I’m about ten minutes away,’ the vulture man said without preamble.

  ‘Hurry, there are people shooting at each other here.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘No, I’m not OK. There are two men down here. A taxi pulled up next to the Fortuner. The hijacker got spooked or something. This is out of control.’

  ‘I’m coming as fast as I can.’

  ‘Can you make a call for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Call for an ambulance. Two people down, and it’s not over.’

  The gunman backed away from the minibus, towards the Toyota. A younger man, no more than a gangly boy in a school uniform, Nia saw, climbed out of the taxi and ran past the gunman to the Fortuner. She had to do something to stop more bloodshed below.

  Nia lowered the collective, pushing the Robinson into a fast dive. She banked hard to the right and used the pedal to pull the tail around in a tight descending turn, keeping the crime scene on her right. The fuel warning light flashed on and off. That was the effect of the aviation gas sloshing in the tanks. When she levelled out the light went out, but she was dangerously close to minimum fuel. The gunman was not threatening the schoolboy; in fact, he was turning his attention and anger on her – he had spotted the chopper.

  The gunman looked up at her and she could see the wild look in his eyes. The man raised his pistol and Nia saw it buck in his hand. Metal pinged on metal somewhere on the helicopter. Nia climbed out of the turn and the warning light flashed again.

  Orbiting out of pistol range she saw the gunman run back to the taxi. He was yelling something back over his shoulder, apparently telling the boy to rip some possessions from the back seat of the Fortuner, which he began to do. Nia saw household goods, an iron, a cardboard box of plates and other crockery that fell apart and spilled its contents on the grass, blankets and clothes on hangers.

  Nia tightened her turn, raising the collective lever to increase the power and use the torque of the main rotor to help her around. She was acutely aware of the risk of the engine flaming out because of a lack of fuel and started mentally preparing herself for a low level auto-rotation, an emergency landing.

  The next time she saw the boy in the school uniform he had a military-style rifle in his hands with a curved magazine – she recognised it immediately as an AK-47.

  She knew of pilots who’d been shot at, but she could hardly believe it had just happened to her. Her heart had begun to beat painfully in her chest. If it wasn’t for the child in the Fortuner she would have been long gone from here.

  The man with the pistol climbed into the taxi again and this time emerged with a teenage girl in a school uniform. She struggled against him, but he grabbed her and frogmarched her to the Toyota, holding the pistol up to her head, high enough for Nia to see.

  The gunman appeared to order the girl and boy into the front of the Toyota while he took the cleared seat in the rear, and the doors slammed.

  At the same time, someone inside the minibus taxi had taken the driver’s seat and the bus was backing down the red earth road at high speed, jinking left and right as the driver fought to keep control.

  Nia flicked the radio to the police emergency frequency again and broadcast what she had seen, and the fact that she had been shot at. As she did so, she thought that even
if the police couldn’t respond immediately at least members of the news media, who monitored the police channel, might pick up the story and this would put pressure on the police to devote some resources to saving the kids. To her it seemed that the gunman had taken the schoolgirl as his hostage as he had kept the gun on her and not on the boy, who was armed with an AK-47. He could have been threatening the boy in some other way, but something about the way they had interacted made Nia think the two young men knew each other. Her phone rang.

  ‘Five minutes away,’ the vulture man said.

  ‘Hurry, but be careful. Sheesh, I don’t know. Maybe don’t come at all, there are people killing each other down there!’

  ‘OK, keep the phone line open.’

  The passenger behind the wheel of the taxi had turned the bus around and it was disappearing back towards Mtubatuba. Nia saw the Fortuner start to move. She followed it, bringing the R44 down low, closer than she had ever come to a moving vehicle. Slowly, she pulled ahead of the Toyota. The boy at the wheel accelerated to ninety kilometres an hour.

  She thought of the boy and wondered how skilled he was at driving. He hadn’t looked more than sixteen or seventeen. Nia thought she might be able to slow him down, but she was acutely aware of the girl and the baby in the car. The last thing she wanted was for the guy to crash and injure the innocents on board.

  Nia was terrified of engine failure, but she had to try something. She eased sideways with the pedal, trying to keep the aircraft level to avoid sloshing the fuel. She was as low as she dared, her skids at windscreen height as she tracked right just ahead of the stolen car. The driver braked, but rather than giving up, as Nia had hoped, he turned off the narrow gravel road and into the veldt.

  ‘I see you on the horizon. Nearly there. What’s the status?’ asked the vulture man.

  Nia spoke into the headset. ‘The status is, this is fucked. I’m in pursuit, but I have to land ASAP, I’m nearly out of fuel. The kid driving has just gone into the veldt. That’s slowed him down. If you hurry you might be able to catch him.’