An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  She was tempted to insult him some more, or maybe shoot him in the genitals. ‘Tell her you love her, every day, if you mean it.’

  ‘I do, I do. I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave me here.’

  Sonja got in the truck, reached into the cooler box the pastor had on the back seat and tossed him a couple of bottles of water. ‘Tell your wife your Landy broke down and you hitched a lift home. Tell her the truck’s in the garage for repairs, and tell your God you’re sorry.’

  *

  Hudson Brand met Matthew Allchurch at the small but tastefully decorated dark grey terminal building at Skukuza Airport, in the Kruger National Park. Allchurch had taken the direct Airlink flight from Cape Town.

  ‘We could have talked some more on the phone,’ Brand said as he shook the older man’s hand. Allchurch’s clothes were casual but tailored, chinos and a blue cotton shirt. The rest of the Embraer aircraft’s passengers, a tour group, wore matching green and khaki safari wear.

  ‘You can’t hang up on me this way,’ Matthew said. He carried a leather cabin bag, which he hoisted over his shoulder.

  Allchurch completed the formalities of paying for a national park permit at the window next to the small gift shop, and Brand then led him out of the terminal, past a life-sized sculpture of a rhino, to the car park. ‘So, where are you staying, Matthew? I can drop you somewhere if you need, after we’ve talked. Do you have luggage?’

  ‘No luggage, and I’m not staying.’ Allchurch said. ‘I’m catching the afternoon flight to Johannesburg and then connecting to Windhoek.’

  They got into Brand’s battered Land Rover and he started the engine. ‘That’s a roundabout way to get to Namibia from Cape Town.’

  ‘If my information is right, Mr Brand, you were the last person to see my son alive. I would have flown to Ulan Bator to see you.’

  ‘Call me Hudson, or Brand, folks use either. Well, have it your way, but we can drive to Skukuza camp at least and get a coffee or a drink there.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Brand drove out of the car park, past the Joint Operations Command anti-poaching headquarters located next to the airport, and turned right at the end of the access road. He slowed to cross the single-lane low-level bridge over the Sabie River. Brand pulled into one of the parking bays on the bridge, designed so that people who wanted to watch animals or birds could stop and let other vehicles pass.

  ‘Some hippo over there,’ Brand said, pointing to a pod that occupied a pool.

  ‘I’m not here to go on a game drive, Brand. What was my son doing on his last flight?’

  Brand sighed. ‘Flying the aircraft.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for jokes.’

  ‘I’m not making light of it. As far as I could tell, your son and the other pilot were simply there to fly the Dakota. They didn’t seem to be involved in the business at hand. In fact, they were a fill-in crew. The regular pilots had both come down with food poisoning in Angola. The replacements were flown up to us. Somebody pulled some strings to make sure our flight left on schedule.’

  Brand waited for a game viewer to pass and then crossed the remainder of the river and turned left at the four-way stop. They followed the river for a few hundred metres and he glanced at Allchurch who was silent, digesting what must have been new information.

  ‘Who were the other pilots, were they South African air force?’

  ‘No, not air force, they were civilians,’ Brand said, ‘one was South African and the other was Portuguese.’

  ‘Do you remember their names?’

  Brand searched his memory. Most of his contact had been with Venter, the loadmaster, though he’d seen the pilots around the forward operating base in Angola a few times. ‘No. But if I heard them I’d probably recognise them.’

  ‘Was Roland Pretorius one of the civilians?’

  Brand turned right at the next intersection and accelerated up the hill. He thought a while, remembered a tall man with dark hair, sideburns and a moustache. ‘Yes, that’s one of them, the South African. How did you know that?’

  ‘He contacted me out of the blue a couple of years ago. He told me he had some information about Gareth’s last flight. I checked the squadron history book and the list of members’ names I had also obtained – I probably know more about that squadron than some of the men who served in it – and Pretorius’s name wasn’t on either. I wondered if the man was a con artist who had heard about my searching and was going to string me along with false information. In any case, he never made the meeting; he died in a car accident.’

  Now it was Brand’s turn to be silent. Pretorius and the Portuguese guy had been company employees, CIA contractors. They were ex-military mercenary pilots who were paid to fly where they were told and not ask questions. Venter had hinted that they, like him, were on the take as well. It would have been convenient for a lot of people for Pretorius to die in a road accident before spilling the beans on those flights out of Angola.

  ‘What was the mission?’ Allchurch asked, filling the void of silence. He paid no attention to the journey of seven giraffes browsing the trees at the side of the road.

  ‘That depended on who you were talking to.’ Brand turned right at the big four-way stop just outside Skukuza and drove through the gate into the camp and down the road past the clock tower and conference centre to the Cattle Baron restaurant on the river.

  ‘Please don’t talk in riddles, Mr Brand – Hudson. This is very important to me.’

  It was important to me, too, Brand thought. It had nearly cost him his life, and it had ended his career with the CIA. Still, at least he hadn’t lost a child. He felt sorry for Allchurch, but his intelligence background made him wary of sharing secrets with a stranger. ‘Officially, which was still unofficial as far as anyone who asked at the time was concerned, we were supposed to be dropping arms and ammunition to a UNITA unit that had got itself cut off and surrounded.’

  ‘UNITA, the anti-communist guerrillas,’ Allchurch said.

  Brand got out and Allchurch followed him to the riverfront, where they took a table on the deck. ‘Yep. The CIA was bankrolling UNITA, importing weapons and supplying cash to their leader, Jonas Savimbi, to continue the fight against President Dos Santos and FAPLA, the Angolan Army.’

  ‘And we South Africans were at war with Angola because they were supplying bases and aid to SWAPO, the people trying to overthrow South West Africa.’

  ‘Correct,’ Brand said.

  ‘You were there with the CIA?’

  Again, Brand’s initial instinct was to reveal as little as possible. ‘I was a captain in the US Army Rangers,’ he said truthfully, though leaving out the next step in his career path, his secondment to the CIA. ‘I was like the bag man, making sure the money from the Reagan administration bought the right stuff and that it and the cash got to the right people and wasn’t siphoned off along the way.’

  ‘Not easy, I imagine,’ Allchurch observed as Hudson beckoned a waiter. ‘I’ve done pro bono legal work for some NGOs and I know how international aid can be siphoned off by corrupt parties; I assume it was even harder to keep track of money and weapons.’

  Brand ordered a coffee, as did Allchurch. ‘You’re right,’ Brand said, ‘but I became more interested in what was coming out of Angola rather than what was going into it.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Brand watched some tourists wandering along the pathway and fence that separated the camp from the Sabie River. The house where he lived was on the other side, just a few kilometres up river. The tourists had only just spotted the old bull elephant that was browsing in the reed bed. Brand had seen him as soon as they had approached the cafe, but he hadn’t bothered to point out the animal to Allchurch. That was what had nearly got him killed. ‘Ivory.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard those stories, that UNITA and even the SADF were poaching wild animals in Ango
la.’

  ‘The Angolan bigwigs wanted to line their own pockets as well as fund the war effort, and there were some senior South African military people, too, who realised there was a buck – quite a few bucks, in fact – to be made in smuggling stuff out of Angola. Elephant herds were decimated, ditto the rhinos. Tusks and horns were shipped out and sold on the black market, and plenty of diamonds left the country too.’

  ‘Was my son killed flying diamonds out of Angola?’

  Brand heard the sense of distress and futility in Allchurch’s question. ‘Could be.’ Venter had bragged about making a fortune from diamond smuggling and Brand had encouraged his boasts, hinting that he was looking for a way to make money on the side as well. Unbeknown to Brand, Venter had taped him using a Walkman, and so had evidence that seemed to prove that Brand was interested in getting in on the racket. The tape later came to light, part of Venter’s personal insurance policy. ‘But there was more than diamonds on the Dakota your son was flying. There were half a dozen bundles on board, each made up of four wooden crates made for carrying artillery rounds; hundreds of kilograms of stuff. They had parachutes fixed to them, so they were going to be dropped somewhere.’

  ‘But not in Angola?’

  Brand waited before answering as the waiter set their coffees down in front of them. ‘No, not in Angola. We started across the border from the Caprivi Strip, in Angola, and flew southwest, into what’s now Namibia; it was clear from the start that we weren’t going to resupply a besieged UNITA outpost with ammo. We landed at Ondangwa air force base in South West – Namibia – and refuelled.’

  Allchurch ignored his coffee. ‘That’s a long way south of the border. Where were you headed after that?’

  Brand shrugged. ‘That’s what I was trying to find out, where all this stuff was destined for. The fact that UNITA and the South African military were smuggling ivory and rhino horn out of Angola was pretty much an open secret, but the vast majority of it went by road, through Rundu, into South West Africa, then South Africa and somewhere beyond. The trade in wildlife products made me sick, but I was more interested in what was on these covert flights flown by freelance pilots, and where they were headed.’

  ‘So you got yourself on one of the flights?’ Allchurch asked.

  Brand nodded. ‘I didn’t know it when I boarded the flight in Angola, but I’d been set up from the start. The man whose body was found at that archaeological dig is Jacobus Venter. He was a crewman on the DC-3 Dakota that regularly flew stuff out of Angola. I’d been buddying up to him, trying to find out who was running the smuggling outfit, and he asked me if I wanted to go on a joy ride and help him push some cargo out of the back of the airplane.’

  ‘But why bother investigating in the first place?’ Allchurch interrupted. ‘You were an American adviser – of some sort – not some international policeman.’

  It was a good question, and, in hindsight, Brand wished he’d never begun his unofficial investigation. ‘You’re right, but I was concerned that there were Americans involved in shipping shit out of Angola, not just guns and money into it. These flights flew under the radar, literally. I was curious about where they were headed, as well as what was on board. I was also naïve, a boy scout, and I’d become fascinated by Africa’s wildlife. So much of what I found in Angola wasn’t right. It was supposed to be one of Reagan’s noble crusades against communism. I bought the propaganda bullshit and when I got to Africa I found we were propping up an illegitimate force whose leaders were more intent on making money than winning a war.’

  ‘So your superiors didn’t know you were investigating those flights out of Angola?’

  Brand gave a little laugh, although it had been anything but funny at the time. ‘I believe my superiors and some of their counterparts, South African spies, were running the smuggling operation, outside of the regular cross-border smuggling route.’

  ‘So what happened after you landed?’

  Brand sipped his coffee. ‘We took on fuel at Ondangwa, and another passenger.’

  ‘Who?’

  Allchurch was impatient, like a dog going after a bone. ‘I don’t know. I’d never seen him before; a white guy, South African, in uniform, but no rank or other insignia. Maybe late twenties, early thirties. It was night; I was taking a piss when he boarded the aircraft, at the last minute, and he sat up front with the pilots. I was down the back with Venter so I never really got a good look at the guy’s face.’

  ‘And Gareth?’

  ‘One of the pilots, the younger one, I guess it was your son, checked that the cargo was secured OK, but didn’t say too much. It was like he was just following orders, not asking too many questions. If he was surprised that we were inside South West Africa and not flying over some drop zone in Angola, then he didn’t show it. When I’d first shown up at the strip Venter had a map out and was briefing your son and the other pilot, so they knew where we were headed, even if I didn’t.’

  ‘What about the other man who boarded the flight in Namibia, what was his role?’

  ‘He was there to kill me.’

  Chapter 11

  The pilot and co-pilot flew by the light of the moon, their faces illuminated by the dull glow from the plane’s instruments. Other than that, no lights showed from the inside or outside of the Dakota.

  The man who had boarded the Dakota at Ondangwa stood behind the pilot, one hand resting on the back of the seat. In his other hand he held a nine-millimetre pistol. He was talking to them.

  Brand struggled to hear the conversation as he lay on the cold metal deck of the cargo hold, which vibrated beneath him. His head throbbed and he tasted the blood that had run down from the wound in his hair, where he’d been clubbed by the butt of the man’s pistol soon after they’d taken off from the air force base in South West Africa.

  Through slitted eyes – he was still pretending to be unconscious – Brand saw the man with the pistol turn and wave to attract the attention of the loadmaster. ‘Get ready to jettison the baggage,’ the man called from the front of the aircraft. Above him, Brand’s peripheral vision registered the loadmaster, Jacobus Venter, giving a thumbs-up to the new guy, who was obviously the most senior man on board.

  One of the pilots, the younger one, was glaring back over his shoulder at the newcomer. He’d been shouting at the man before, though Brand had been coming out of his unconsciousness at the time and the pilot’s words hadn’t registered. The boss man, as Brand had come to think of him, waved his pistol in the young pilot’s direction and the man returned his attention to flying the aircraft.

  The space between Brand and the cockpit was stuffed with cargo. The six bundles were each surmounted by a cargo parachute and the static lines of the parachutes atop them were drawn and attached to an anchor cable that ran the length of the Dakota’s fuselage. It would be hard to navigate a way to the front of the aircraft, and vice versa.

  Brand sensed Jacobus Venter looking down at him, and closed his eyes. He lay motionless. He felt a brush as Venter stepped over him, the toecap of his flying boot dragging across Brand’s chest. The crewman had moved further aft. Brand risked a glance. Venter was donning a slim-back free-fall parachute, the kind where the wearer had to pull a ripcord to open the canopy, as opposed to the static line parachutes used on the cargo and by paratroopers, which relied on the line fixed to the cable inside the aircraft to deploy the parachute. As a US Army Ranger, Brand was also a qualified paratrooper.

  The collapsible troop seats that ran down the interior of either side of the fuselage had been folded and stowed. Stuffed into one of the sections of seating was the khaki-coloured military chest webbing that Venter had been wearing over his aircrew survival vest when he was on the ground in Angola, before they’d taken off. The man wore his personal weapon, a pistol, in a shoulder holster, but Brand could see a wicked-looking hunting knife taped to one shoulder strap of the webbing. Brand’s hands were tied beh
ind his back and his ankles had been bound once he’d been knocked out; he needed to get to that knife.

  Venter was moving to the cargo door. It would take him less than a minute to open and secure it, Brand knew. He wouldn’t have enough time to get to the chest rig and pull out the knife, so when Venter’s back was to him he rolled, instead, until his bound hands could reach a ratchet tie-down device at the base of the rearmost crate. Working by feel, Brand thumbed the release and pulled down on the handle of the tie-down. The aircraft lurched as it hit a pocket of turbulence and the nylon strap that ran through the device instantly became slack.

  Freezing air blasted the inside of the Dakota and Brand glimpsed stars in the night sky as the loadmaster secured the door open. Brand rolled, fast, back to the approximate position where he’d been lying. He knew that the door had been opened for one reason: to get rid of him.

  As Brand had hoped, when Venter turned back to him the man’s eye had immediately been drawn to the loose cargo. The line of crates sat on tracks of roller conveyor, which allowed them to be rolled into and, eventually, out of, the aircraft, when they were dropped to whomever they were intended. Brand still hadn’t figured out where or when the cargo would be dropped, but he knew that as he had been left at the aft of the aircraft, the last thing to be loaded, he would be dispatched through the open door first, with no parachute. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, so he had no idea where they were.

  Venter keyed the switch clipped to the front of his flight suit, no doubt informing the pilot of what had gone wrong. The man with the gun had his back to them; he was still leaning against the pilots’ seats, looking out through the cockpit windshield into the night sky. The loadmaster dropped to one knee and heaved on the rear crate, manhandling it back into place on the roller conveyor and pulling on the nylon strap to tighten it once more.

  ‘Hey!’ said Brand, loud enough for Venter alone to hear.

  Venter’s head snapped around. Fortuitously, the aircraft bucked at that precise moment as it hit another pocket of turbulence and the line of crates, still not secured, rolled back against the loadmaster. He couldn’t reach his intercom without letting go of the cargo, which lurched and heaved forward again, almost pushing him over. Brand finished the job by rolling onto his back and kicking out with his tied feet, smashing the soles of his army boots into the crewman’s face. Blood spurted from Venter’s nose as his head snapped back.