by Leon Mare
‘Some then kilometres before Crocodile Bridge, there is a fire break that will take you to the fence. Abandon the car there, and you will be picked up on the Mozambican side. The car, by the way, is no loss. It was stolen in Johannesburg two months ago.’
`’Nice, I like it. But surely the South African government won’t take that lying down, With a clear finger print pointing to Mozambique there are sure to be reprisals.’
‘Tough titty, as they say. Things are so bloody confused in both Mozambique and South Africa at the moment, nobody knows who is doing what. The Frelimo government will most probably accuse the MNR of trying to wreck relations with the South Africans, the South Africans will blame the ANC, and the politicians will have a field day. We’ll be smiling while everybody tries to get some political mileage out of the incident.’
They went over it again, filling in more detail as they went along.
Chapter Nine
Sam was on his way back from Nelspruit, having once more spent a weekend with Linda. During the past weeks it had become routine that they took turns visiting each other over weekends. During the initial agonising days of trying to win Estelle back, he had decided to end his relationship with Linda. But the continuous lack of any response at all from Estelle had driven him back to Linda. He still refused to accept that he had lost Estelle permanently, and although his letters went unanswered, he kept mailing them at the rate of one a day. However, he passionately needed someone to help him recover emotionally, and Linda gladly filled the gap, smothering him with solace and sympathy. She realised that she had underestimated the depth of his feeling towards Estelle, but was convinced that, in due course, she would slowly take Estelle’s place as time healed his pain. She was very careful not to apply any pressure at this stage, and actually made a positive effort to keep things light and pleasant for the time being. They enjoyed each other both mentally and physically, and she knew without doubt that all the necessary ingredients were there, it was just a matter of getting Estelle out of his system.
But Estelle was very much present in Sam’s mind as he cruised through the Park in the darkness. In two weeks’ time when the culling team moved out of his territory, he would take a week off and go to Pretoria. If getting her back meant dragging her in front of a magistrate and marrying her on the spot, then so be it.
A small herd of elephant crossed the road in front of him, and he stopped a short distance away, in order to avoid the possibility of finding himself between a cow and her calf. ‘Please walk far tonight,’ he whispered, looking at the herd with sadness. The culling of breeding herds was the only part of his job that he positively hated. He knew that it was the classic example of having to be cruel to be kind, but it never ceased to sadden him to the point of morbidity every time he had to kill elephants, especially cows with calves. The capture of the calves was even worse. All the elephants were darted from the helicopter, the adults with an overdose of scoline, and the calves with M99, a powerful anaesthetic. Once they were all down, the ground crew moved in and the adults were given the coup de grace, while the calves were measured. Only calves up to 180 cm could be handled, so if it was a centimetre too tall, it had to be killed.
Everybody in the culling teams hated every moment of it, but with the threat of man, the only natural enemy worth mentioning, removed from the environment, the population increase could not be allowed to proceed unchecked. A single elephant could, during a day’s feeding, destroy vegetation that took a hundred years to establish, and the ecological balance would be irrevocably upset if more than a certain percentage of trees were ravaged. Certain rare and slow-growing trees, like the kiaat and baobab, were especially susceptible to disturbances of this delicate balance.
The fact that it had to be done did not make it any easier, and knowing that you are destroying something with an intelligence high enough to have a near-human compassion for their families, always placed the rangers under considerable stress. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to kill something you love.
He waited for a few minutes after the last elephant had crossed, to allow for stragglers, and drove past slowly. It had taken Linda a considerable amount of begging before he had agreed to take her along on Friday’s culling. They were using Satara as base, and she would meet him there sometime before lunch.
His thoughts reverted to Estelle and remained with her on his drive to Nwanetzi.
Joao was sweating and swearing, humping the heavy ordnance through the hot, arid bush. He was cursing Courie for sitting in an air-conditioned office, planning excursions like these without really knowing how heavy a five-kilogram landmine becomes after you have carried it for eight kilometres through the bush. And then you still have to be prepared for the odd animal that wanted to recycle your remains. Next time he would make sure that a venue closer to the wire was chosen.
And choosing a spot on the far side of a tourist road had been a dumb move. Their first attempt at crossing the road had nearly ended in disaster. Crossing the road itself was no mean feat, but getting to it, and getting to cover on the other side, before being spotted by an enthusiastic tourist, was something else. After a couple of attempts, they had abandoned the idea of crossing opposite the Sweni firebreak, and backtracked to an overgrown spruit higher up. Here they had crouched in the tall reeds, and dashed across in a quiet moment. The two heavy crates they were carrying had made this quite a hair-raising experience. Getting to the big tree eventually, they dumped the stuff in the undergrowth, and sat down for a smoke.
The roar of powerful engines made them dive deeper into the shrubs. The procession of two Toyota trucks, a large truck with a crane, a gigantic twenty-ton truck with a trailer and two massive four-wheel drive Ford County tractors, passed within ten yards of them. Half a minute later this procession was followed by two more trucks with large elephant cages on the back. Joao recognised these as the ground crew of the culling team. ‘Shit,’ he said to his companions, ‘we must be very careful. Whenever that team is driving around, there is a helicopter in the vicinity. Take care that you’re not caught in the open. They are looking for either buffalo or elephant, and I mean they are really searching. If they spot us we are dead meat. So try and stay in the thick stuff. Let us get back to the border, we’ll come back in on Friday morning early. Courie can take his own chances collecting this stuff.’
Courie, in fact, encountered no difficulties. He was back in his office just after lunch on Thursday, having delivered the arms to an elderly widow, living on a smallholding just outside town. It would be collected in the early hours of the morning, and transported to Soweto, where it would be added to one of the many arms caches distributed throughout the township. The limpet mines especially were in great demand. Setting them in soft civilian targets, like railway stations and chain stores, was something even a child could do, and you were always well away from the scene when things started happening. There was enough in this consignment to fill quite a few newspapers, and he had not only recovered the cost of this whole operation, but shown a small profit to boot. He felt elated. Things were running smoothly, and by tomorrow evening the press should be having a field day if all went well with Joao. He suppressed the urge to phone some of his leftist friends in the press to alert them and, instead, picked up his intercom. ‘Linda, you haven’t forgotten tomorrow morning’s meeting?’ he inquired.
She was baffled by the sudden importance he attached to this particular meeting. Green Valley Estates had been his client for years, and suddenly their re-zoning of large tracts of land as industrial sites, was something he wanted her to handle. Granted, it was more in her field than his, but she failed to see the necessity for endless board meetings with the principals. ‘No, Duncan, I haven’t forgotten, but it is essential that I get away early tomorrow. So cut the crap and make it short and sweet.’
‘Sure thing, honey, short and sweet it will be. You will be on your way by 10.30 at the latest. Last thing I would want to do is spoil your weekend,’ he said and put th
e phone down. Pity, he thought, such a beautiful and intelligent young thing going to waste. Ah, well, all sorts of sacrifices had to be made. If Mammon wanted a sacrificial lamb, he would oblige.
There was a slight frown on Linda’s forehead as she replaced the receiver. She didn’t trust this sudden pretence that their confrontation of the other night hadn’t changed anything. Since that night she had been digging and snooping, coming up with bits and pieces of information here and there, but nothing close to incriminating evidence. Yet. And to add to her unease, there was the nagging suspicion that she wasn’t the only one digging . . .
Joao and his three companions crossed the border just before first light, weighed down with the food, water and enough explosives to start a private war, which was what they intended doing. The man who had joined them the previous evening had already returned with the truck to Maputo, after having assured them that he would meet them again neat Komatipoort later the same evening. He had also given them a set of two-way radios, which was going to simplify things considerably.
Joao was in a buoyant mood. Today he would start inflicting some measure of pain on his hated enemy. He was well aware of the fact that the culling team only started operating at one in the afternoon, so he didn’t expend a lot of unnecessary energy following circuitous routes that enabled them to stick to dense cover.
Elephant and buffalo were always culled during the afternoon, because of the high day temperatures in the Lowveld. By dusk the animals were always gutted and loaded, ready for the long journey to the abattoir in Skukuza. The carcasses were transported and processed during the cooler hours of the night, and by sunrise the abattoir was sparkling clean and silent once more. Only the intestines, which were removed on the spot, were not used. Even buffalo horns and hooves were ground to a pulp together with bones, and sold to pet-food manufacturers. The money earned in this way was once more ploughed back into the Park, so the culled animals did make quite a contribution towards the survival of the species, which is, after all, the single most important aspect of life itself.
Joao did not care about any of this as he carefully selected a spot to leave their ordnance. He chose a long straight stretch of road, with some dense bush bordering it on one side. After each had taken a long drink from his canteen, they stashed their stuff and Joao looked at his watch. Just before eight. Good, that gave them more than enough time to walk to the lookout point, which was no more than six or seven kilometres away. Having crept far enough away from the road, they got up and headed due south, keeping their eyes and ears open for any sign of human presence.
Approaching the lookout point, they started stalking the parking area. There were seven cars, including the BMW and a minibus, and not a soul in sight. Apparently everyone was at the moment enjoying the view from the far side of the rocky hill. ‘Man, this is running too smoothly to be true,’ Joao said, getting up and walking to the car.
‘Lazarus,’ Joao said, opening the rear door, ‘you had better drive from the start, so you can get the feel of the car.’
As he bent down to get in, a voice directly behind him startled him into bumping his head on the door frame painfully. He whirled around and looking into the grinning black face through the open window of the minibus. Noticing the look on Joao’s face and interpreting it correctly, the black man immediately wiped the grin off his face. ‘I was just keeping an eye on the car for you guys. What with the keys being in the ignition and all, it would ruin things if someone else took a liking to it, wouldn’t it?’
Without a word Joao got in and closed the door.
‘Whatever you guys are up to, stick it to them good.’
‘Shut up, stupid! You want to broadcast this all over the place? Get us away from this stooge, Lazarus.’
The BMW made a smooth U-turn and they were on to the tourist road. The collection of their equipment also went without the slightest hitch, and once they were on the Satara road, everything stashed safely in the trunk, Joao let out a single whoop. ‘Man, this is going to be the easiest operation ever. Are we going to catch them with their pants down!’
‘Shit,’ Lazarus said.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said shit. There is a Parks Board truck gaining on us fast.’
‘Oh shit,’ Joao agreed and grabbed the dark glasses lying on the console between the front seats. ‘Don’t speed up, and don’t anyone look around. Pretend to be searching for game. Lazarus, watch him in your mirror, and tell me the moment he pulls out to overtake.’ He slipped the glassed on and took a handkerchief out of his pocket and kept it in his hand. During the next thirty seconds the tension became unbearable.
‘It can only be Jenkins. If he tries to stop you or does anything funny, brake hard and let him overshoot, then get the hell back to the border. If we can just get an initial start, he won’t get close to us in that truck. Just sit tight and don’t do anything before I tell you. He will definitely have a gun, and if . . .’
‘Here he comes,’ Lazarus said in a tight voice.
Joao dived into the handkerchief in a sneezing fit, holding it open so that the whole lower half of his face was covered. Even behind the dark glasses he kept his eyes averted until the cab of the truck was past him. He lifted his eyes and caught a fleeting glimpse of Sam, the blood running cold in his veins.
Sam glanced at the occupants of the BMW disinterestedly as he passed them. Rich bastard, the thought, I wonder what he does for a living.
The Toyota slowly pulled away, and everybody sighed with relief.
‘It was him, the bastard! For killing my brother, I will one day have his heart in my hand. I will tear it out of his living body and choke him with it.’ The raw hate in Joao’s voice sent a shiver through his companions. ‘Most probably on his way to Satara to stock up with goodies for the weekend. Not that he is going to have much of an appetite this weekend,’ Joao laughed harshly. ‘I hope he’s on his way back by the time his piece of crumpet arrives in Satara.’
Joao was just starting to get edgy about the ideal spot for the ambush, when he found it about six kilometres outside Satara. He made Lazarus stop and reverse, and scrutinised the collection of gigantic boulders strewn through the veld.
‘Perfect, and it’s close enough to Satara to be in radio contact.’ A car was approaching from the opposite direction, and Lazarus drove on slowly till the road was clear again, and turned around. When he was directly opposite a big boulder lying right next to the road, he braked once again, and checked his mirror. ‘Clear,’ he said, and Joao and the other two jumped out. One of them grabbed the radios from the trunk, put the strap of one around Joao’s neck and headed for the passenger side with the other. ‘Remember to stick the aerial out the window when reception becomes bad,’ Joao reminded him.
His other companion had helped him with the launcher, two rockets and his water bottle. Once he had everything in his arms, he started running towards the boulder. ‘Don’t miss!’ his companions shouted in unison, getting into the car and turning it around again, pointing the nose of the big BMW in the direction of Satara. They established radio contact immediately, and reception remained clear till they were well past Satara on their way to Orpen.
Joao sat behind his boulder, sweating in the hot sun. There was no chance of him being spotted by a passing tourist unless he stuck his head around the boulder, which he had no intention of doing. His friends would give him ample warning when the target approached. The BMW will be right behind the Porsche when they got opposite the ambush, and the idea was to blow it into oblivion, get into the BMW, and that was going to be that.
Chapter Ten
Vick Steyn, the pilot, was sitting on the step in front of the restaurant having a Coke with some of the ground crew when Sam arrived. ‘Yes, yes, Kosie,’ he greeted Sam in his typical jovial manner. Vick had never used a drop of alcohol in his life, but he always managed to sound slightly inebriated. ‘Which way we headed today?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. I think we sh
ould start at the long northern end of the territory and search southwards along the border. I have noticed a hell a lot of broken trees in that area lately.’
The chief of the ground crew got up and stretched. ‘Well, in that case we will get going in the meantime. We’ll wait at the Shikellengane turn-off.’
Vick was grinning and looking around, searching. ‘So, where is the little lawyer? You did say she was coming along today, I think.’
Sam glanced at his watch. ‘She should be along any moment now, I told her we have to leave at one sharp.’
‘Can’t wait. From what I’ve heard she is a stunner. Would also be nice to have someone intelligent in the copper to talk to for a change. Well, I had better go and check the bird while we are waiting. See you there.’
Linda arrived minutes before one, and stopped next to his truck in front of the restaurant. ‘Hello, beautiful. We are cutting it fine, aren’t we?’
‘Don’t even talk to me about it. I think Courie is becoming senile. He had been carrying on about a terribly important meeting all week long, and then he just sat there waffling and wasting everybody’s time. I eventually just got up and walked out of the meeting. I can imagine the fight on Monday but, fortunately, Monday is still a long way off.’
They embraced briefly and got into the Toyota, both failing to notice the dark green BMW following at a discreet distance. They drove through the camp to a gate at the back. The chopper was sitting on the helipad just outside the camp, and Vick was idly kicking at the skids like someone contemplating buying a second-hand car, as they got out of the truck.