Ivory Nation

by Andy Maslen

  ‘Or if the electorate kick you out after four years when they’ve been reduced to eating grass, eh?’

  Witaarde laughed loudly at his own joke. With no hard surfaces bar the 4x4s for hundreds of kilometres in any direction, the sound died quickly in the warm air.

  Tammerlane shrugged.

  ‘There could be a different electoral system by then,’ was all he said.

  ‘Hey!’ Gabriel slapped Witaarde, who’d lapsed back into a trance state. ‘What’s going on between you, Tammerlane and Bokara?’

  Witaarde focused on Gabriel. He glanced down at the Colt then back up into Gabriel’s eyes.

  ‘We never saw eye to eye on ideology. But one thing we all knew – still know – is that ideology is nothing if you don’t have power. Dreams are fine. But you rule, or you fail. Me, Horatio and Joe, we understand that.’

  ‘But how could you ever make this work?’

  Witaarde smiled, though it lacked any human warmth.

  ‘It’s not so hard to see, if you look at it right. I want a Boer homeland. Nothing different from what other marginalised groups want or have taken for themselves: Catalonia, Scotland, Wallonia, Palestine, Israel. They’ve all either got their own homelands or are pressing for them. Horatio wants a black South Africa. Simple as. No Indians. No whites. He’s prepared to try and copy what Mugabe tried in Zim. Blame his country’s troubles on the Brits or the UN, or NATO, hell, the EU for all he cares. It doesn’t matter as long as it plays well at home.’

  ‘And Tammerlane?’

  ‘Joe wants to create a socialist utopia in the UK. He’s mad, obviously, but who cares. That’s not my fight. My fight is here. In Africa. In fact, guess what? It all dovetails neatly together. Joe gets a new enemy to rail against. What could be better for a hard-left firebrand like Joe than white South Africans fighting for independence? Meanwhile Horatio gets to burnish his credentials in Africa while he lets me split off and create a homeland where he can banish the whites.’

  Gabriel shook his head. It was monstrous. A triple-legged tower of fantasy fuelled by slaughtering elephants. They didn’t mind who got in the way of their twisted dreams.

  ‘You’re a murderer,’ he said.

  Witaarde raised his hands.

  ‘I told you what you wanted to hear. You have to keep your side of the bargain. Put that gun down and let me go.’

  Gabriel looked down at the revolver’s gleaming barrel. Witaarde had put him onto an international conspiracy that would bring down Tammerlane, if not Bokara.

  He looked back at Witaarde.

  ‘No.’

  He raised the revolver and aimed at Witaarde’s head. This close, the round would take his head clean off.

  Witaarde flung himself to the ground, crawling on all fours towards Gabriel, who had to take a step back.

  He raised his face.

  ‘Please don’t kill me, Gabriel. Please, have mercy. I am begging you, man. I have a wife. Klara needs me.’

  ‘Fuck her! She’s worse than you, Witaarde. Get to your feet.’

  Instead, Witaarde knelt before Gabriel like a penitent before a priest.

  Then he reared up and flung two handfuls of gritty red dust directly into Gabriel’s eyes.

  Gabriel staggered back, keeping a tight grip on the revolver with one hand and frantically trying to clear his eyes of the stinging earth with the other.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Witaarde screamed as he ran off into the tall grass.

  Eyes burning, Gabriel raced after him. His vision was smeary but he caught a glimpse of Witaarde and fired. He saw a spurt of blood from his right thigh. Witaarde screamed but kept running. Gabriel swore: he’d missed the femur and the artery, both of which would have brought his man down.

  Witaarde scrabbled frantically at the thick screen of grass before him and plunged on.

  He screamed again.

  No! Gabriel had time to think. No human had emitted that unearthly wail.

  Gabriel burst out from the grass to find Witaarde turning towards him, wide-eyed, running away from an adult elephant and a calf. The adult – the mother? – had raised her trunk and was trumpeting her displeasure at Witaarde.

  Gabriel straightened his right arm and shot Witaarde point-blank, straight between the eyes. His face disintegrated in a red mist as his head exploded. The headless body stumbled forward on dead legs and fell at Gabriel’s feet.

  Gabriel kept his eyes locked onto the adult female. She stood less than twenty feet from him, legs planted foursquare, ears wide and erect, trunk lashing from side to side. The baby had taken sanctuary beneath her heaving belly, secure inside the four massive pillars of her legs.

  Gabriel lowered his right hand, let the revolver fall to the ground and took a slow, deliberate step backwards.

  The elephant glared at him, her brown, long-lashed eyes following him as he slid his feet backwards, flat-footed, until he felt the grass at his back. He fought to maintain a wide view of her and her calf, avoiding the tunnel vision inexperienced fighters could let overwhelm them, until all they could see was the enemy fighter.

  In the distance, he saw a small herd of elephants. Go and join them, he mentally urged her. Take little Dumbo there and get back to your friends. I didn’t come here to hurt you.

  The baby bleated from beneath its mother’s downcurved belly. The meaning was as clear as the endless blue sky. Mum, I wanna go!

  The mother raised her trunk and blared defiantly at Gabriel, then turned, reaching under her chest with her trunk to caress the top of her baby’s head. Then mother and baby lumbered off, back to the herd. And safety.

  Gabriel breathed out, shaking his head. He bent to retrieve the 629 and stuck it in his waistband.

  He began the walk back to the pickup truck: his ride out of the park.

  Inside the bakkie’s cab, Gabriel pulled out his phone and made a call.

  ‘This is Major Modimo.’

  ‘Major, it’s Gabriel Wolfe.’

  ‘Gabriel! How are you?’

  ‘I’m good. If you get some men to the GPS coordinates I’m going to send you, you’ll find four dead Congolese poachers and a South African named Julius Witaarde. He was the leader of a Boer separatist movement called Boerevryheid an Regte and the poaching gang that murdered your men and the Paras.’

  ‘You are sure of this?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. He confessed to me.’

  ‘This is most welcome news. Thank you. Do you need help with extraction?’

  ‘No thanks, Major. I have transport here.’

  As Gabriel approached the gatehouse entrance to the park, he rolled his shoulders and relaxed, pasting a smile on his face, ready to charm the guard into letting him through. He needn’t have bothered. The place was deserted. He cruised past the wooden hut at a nice, easy ten miles an hour and was back on the highway heading towards Gaborone five minutes later.

  Ahead was a long drive. But the bakkie had water, he could buy food from a roadside vendor and, if necessary, sleep in the cab. Compared to some journeys he’d undertaken, in and out of uniform, that counted as luxury living.

  He called Eli and discovered to his delight that she was back in Botswana and waiting for him to make contact.

  ‘I’m waiting for you at the Avani, Gabe,’ she said. ‘Drive carefully.’

  A day later, as Gabriel was rolling into Gaborone and looking for somewhere to leave the bakkie, Major Modimo was speaking to TV cameras outside his office. Before him were laid out the corpses of the poachers beneath tarpaulins, the single white man among them at the front of the tableau.

  ‘These men sought to enrich themselves by slaughtering Botswana’s elephants and trading their ivory illegally.’

  He paused and pointed dramatically with his pistol at the bodies before him. Cameras whirred. Journalists waited patiently to ask their questions.

  ‘Thanks to the efforts of my men, who found themselves under fire when trying to arrest them, these desperadoes have been brought to justice. Their leader wa
s one Julius Witaarde, the leader of the Boerevryheid an Regte, a South African white rights movement. We suspect he was using the cash he gained to finance his operations.

  ‘We are in contact with the South African authorities to discuss further steps to ensure his organisation does not attempt to re-enter Botswana to murder our elephants. I will now take questions.’

  Klara Witaarde stared at the screen of her laptop in disbelief. As the journalists squabbled over questioning rights like flamingos at a nesting site, a photo of her husband replaced the live feed. Beneath it, a crawl read:

  JULIUS WITAARDE, LEADER OF BOEREVRYHEID AN REGTE , SHOT DEAD BY ANTI-POACHING TROOPS. CONFIRMED AS LEADER OF IVORY POACHING GANG

  ‘Julius!’ she screamed, slamming the laptop’s lid down. ‘What have they done to you?’

  She didn’t cry. That would have to wait. Klara Witaarde regarded herself as a model of Boer womanhood. Grief was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now.

  She and Julius had discussed what to do if he should ever be killed. They’d always imagined it would be the ANC or their contracted-out stooges who’d make the attempt. But now it turned out that bloody Englishman had tricked them both into letting him get too close to her beloved Julius. Who was he working for? It was obvious, to Klara at least.

  Julius had been too wrapped up in the logistics of the ivory operation to revise who he was doing business with. And now that Commie bastard had sent a hitman to kill the one man she had ever loved. The one man who could rescue their people from Pretoria’s grip.

  She went out back to the office with the safe key and a look of determination on her face.

  They would pay for their crimes. All of them. But especially him.

  56

  ALDEBURGH

  Gabriel and Eli flew back to England together. Don met them with a chauffeur-driven limo at Heathrow, courtesy of the mission’s banker. The following day, all three, plus Stella and her boss, were seated at the kitchen table. Cups of freshly-brewed coffee steamed between them. Wind rattled the ill-fitting windows in their wooden frames.

  Patiently, and stopping to answer all their questions, Gabriel laid out his actions in Botswana and what Witaarde had told him. When he finished, the room was silent for several seconds.

  Eli was looking at Don. He’d steepled his fingers under his nose. His deep frown had turned his eyes into slits beneath his greying eyebrows. Stella and Callie McDonald were open-mouthed. Gabriel distinctly heard two separate snaps as they caught each other’s eye and closed them.

  ‘Did anyone just hear me?’ Gabriel asked the group. ‘I said Joe Tammerlane, poster boy of the hard left and our newly elected prime minister, is complicit in the murders of four Paras and three Botswana soldiers, not to mention the illegal fucking ivory trade!’

  ‘We heard you, Old Sport,’ Don said. ‘It’s rather a question of what we do with what we know.’

  Gabriel turned to Stella.

  ‘You could arrest Tammerlane, for a start.’

  Callie spoke before Stella could respond.

  ‘It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. Tammerlane has surrounded himself with a private security force. We’ve effectively been sidelined. Assigned to purely criminal offences.’

  ‘But this is about as criminal as it gets,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said, with a patient air that merely infuriated him. ‘But I can’t go charging into Number Ten with Stella here waving our shiny handcuffs. There are armed guards on the gate and they no longer belong to us.’

  ‘Shit! How long was I away?’ Gabriel asked. ‘Have I come back to the same country I left?’

  Don sighed.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Those of us who love this country – as it was and should be – have been fighting a rearguard action. This intel is brilliant, and if we can find a way to exploit it, we have a slim chance of getting rid of Tammerlane and cleaning out the Augean stable.’

  The discussion wore on for three more, fruitless, hours. Halfway through they turned on the TV to catch a lunchtime bulletin. The newsreader announced that Joe Tammerlane and his inner circle were at Chequers, the country house residence enjoyed by British prime ministers since 1921. Gabriel grabbed the remote and snapped off the programme.

  Stella asked a question that brought Gabriel up short.

  ‘Did you find anything else out about who hired the Syrian to murder Princess Alexandra?’

  Gabriel shook his head.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Let’s look at motive,’ Stella said. ‘Who could have reason to want her dead? Qui bono?’

  ‘Who benefits?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Exactly.’

  The table fell silent. Gabriel felt himself subsiding into a personal quiet space removed from the others as he turned the problem over in his mind. Yes, who would benefit from the death of a princess? He’d never placed much credence in the idea of its being Israeli retaliation for her ill-judged attendance at the charity event, even before they’d proved it couldn’t have been Lieberman.

  Alexandra wasn’t a member of ‘the inner circle’. A grand-daughter of the old queen, yes, but not what was known as a ‘working royal’. No official duties. No state visits. No public profile beyond the occasional appearance in a celebrity magazine. Just a very wealthy young lady who lived in a grand house in England’s Home Counties and happened to have a jewellery box full of tiaras.

  Why her, then? If you wanted to strike a blow against the monarchy, you’d go for the head, surely? Or if not him, one of his children. Or one of the vanishingly small number two or three steps away from the throne.

  Fear of public revulsion? Sure. But you’d get that whoever you killed, such was the love most ordinary people in Britain had for the royal family. As had been proved in the days following the princess’s murder and funeral.

  He recalled his final conversation with Witaarde. He’d asked him if Tammerlane was involved and, instead of denying it, Witaarde had dodged the question. You’d have to ask him, he’d said.

  Narratives flashed through his mind, colliding, sparking off each other. And he knew. Right there. He knew.

  The princess was a distraction! It was a blow at the monarchy. But it was more subtle than attempting to strike at its heart. This wasn’t revolutionary France or Russia in 1917. You couldn’t overthrow the monarchy by killing them. This was cunning on a monumental scale. And suddenly, he knew with dread certainty who was behind the assassination. And the knowledge made him feel sick.

  Gabriel looked up. Eli was staring at him. Her eyes were searching his. Her forehead was crinkled with concern.

  ‘Are you all right, Gabe? You look pale.’

  He swallowed.

  ‘I know who ordered Princess Alexandra’s murder.’

  Eli and Stella wore identical expressions. Shocked eyes, wide and staring, mouths dropped open a little. Frowns. Callie and Don were regarding him with appraising looks.

  ‘Who?’ Stella said.

  ‘Joe Tammerlane.’

  ‘What?’ Eli burst out.

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘You asked who benefited from her death, Stella. Try this on for size. After her death – which, by the way, he arrived seconds too late to prevent, but still managed to kill the alleged assassin – he gets showered with praise by an already pretty favourable media. The public love him. Then he gives them his “I may be a republican but I just did what anyone would do” speech.’

  ‘His position on the monarchy was hardly a secret, though,’ Stella protested.

  ‘No, it wasn’t. And that’s my point. Boss,’ he said, turning to Don, ‘you told me he’s pretty much placed the king under house arrest. On the grounds of national security, but still.’

  ‘That seems pretty sensible, until they find out who really paid al-Javari,’ Eli said. ‘There could be another assassination.’

  ‘There’s not going to be another one,’ Gabriel said. ‘Why can’t you see it?’

  ‘Be
cause you’re not making any sense,’ Eli said. ‘I can accept him being corrupt. Even being tangled up with the Paras’ murders. But this? No. It’s too much.’

  Gabriel sighed with frustration.

  ‘First you find a pretext to get the ing away from the public eye. You keep him there. Then you find ways to protect the other members of the royal family. Then you hobble the armed forces and the police, which, by the way, it sounds like he’s doing. And then, bam!’ he clapped his hands together, ‘you announce that it’s time to usher in a brave new world of republicanism. Sling a few more freebies at the populace – give everyone free Sky Movies – and you’re home and dry. Welcome to the People’s Democratic Republic of Britain.’

  ‘Wow,’ Stella said. ‘That was quite a speech. And I agree,’ she added quickly, as Gabriel opened his mouth to object, ‘it’s a compelling narrative, but I ask you again. Where’s the evidence?’

  ‘I—’

  He closed his mouth again. She was right, damn her. Bloody detectives. He ran a hand over his face. His palm came away wet. He felt a ball of tension in his stomach.

  Eli rose from her chair and knelt at his feet. She placed a hand on his knee.

  ‘Gabe. You’ve been under so much pressure. I think this was your brain weaving a conspiracy out of unconnected events.’

  ‘I’m not so sure he is,’ Don said. ‘Callie, what’s your view?’

  ‘Look, I’ve heard some pretty outlandish tales in my time as a police officer.’ She shot Stella a searching glance. ‘And, believe me, this is right up there with the best of them. It has the virtue of consistency. Just not evidence.’

  Gabriel got up from his chair at the table and went outside. Eli arrived a few minutes later. She put her arm round his waist and looked up into his eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This is so much bullshit, El,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of all this “where’s the evidence” crap. It’s obvious who’s behind it.’