Death of the Mantis

by Michael Stanley

  Kubu shook his head. “No. We’ll do a short trip this afternoon. If it takes longer than expected, we can try again tomorrow.”

  “But . . .”

  “We’re going!” Kubu snapped. “We’ll drive for a couple of hours, then come back.” He stalked off to the Land Rover. Khumanego was already there, waiting.

  After half an hour they stopped to give Tau a break. Wrestling with the wheel was hard work, and Tau was dripping, as was Kubu. Tau took advantage of the stop to stand on top of the vehicle and scour the landscape with his binoculars to see whether he could see any koppies, small or large. Kubu, of course, refused to scramble onto the roof for fear of damaging government property. Khumanego just shook his head. “It’s still too far,” he said, but wouldn’t elaborate when they asked how far it was. He seemed to be getting increasingly withdrawn and said little.

  After another half an hour, Khumanego asked Tau to stop at the top of a small rise. “Your map says we should go in that direction,” Khumanego said, pointing to the southeast. “There is nothing there. I know it well. We should go further east, in that direction. We’ll have a better chance there, I think.”

  “But what about the GPS track? Of the students who died? They were further south.”

  “But you don’t know if they were murdered, do you? You’re just speculating again. Another death by a poison used by Bushmen. Therefore it must have been a Bushman. Right? That’s how you are thinking. You’ve become one of them, David. You’re no longer a friend of the Bushmen.”

  Kubu lost his temper. “Damn it, Khumanego! I’m not one of them, whoever they are. And I’m not one of you either. I’m a police detective, and I’m trying to catch a vicious murderer—maybe a gang. I’m interested in facts. I don’t make them up. And I don’t believe them unless I have double-checked them, if that’s possible.”

  “If you trust me, you’ll go in that direction. If you don’t, why did we come on this trip in the first place? We might as well have relaxed at the camp. Going east is where we’ll find the hills I remember.”

  Kubu was in a quandary. Khumanego was asking him to deviate from the planned route. But of all of them, only the Bushman knew this area. Not from maps, but by having spent time here, by being here. He didn’t need maps, indeed didn’t really see the point of them. To him the desert was a map unto itself.

  Eventually Kubu decided he had to trust Khumanego’s knowledge. They would follow his directions.

  About an hour later, Khumanego asked Tau to stop. He walked a couple of hundred yards up a slight slope and waved for the other two to follow. When they arrived, he pointed to the horizon.

  “See those black lines?” he asked. “Those are a small range of hills. That’s where I’m taking you.”

  “What’s there?” Kubu asked, out of breath.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not been there. My people regard them as sacred. We are not allowed to go there.”

  “Have you heard anything about them? Could there be precious stones there?”

  “I’ve heard nothing, so I can’t answer you. Wait a minute, I’ll go and get your binoculars. Then we can take a better look.”

  Khumanego loped off toward the vehicle.

  “What do you think?” Kubu asked Tau.

  “I think we should go back to the others. It’s getting late. When the new vehicles reach us, we can come back here and investigate.” He hesitated. “About Khumanego, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know whether to believe anything he says. Sometimes he’s easy to read. Sometimes I can’t tell whether he is lying or telling the truth.”

  “We were close friends when we were young,” Kubu said. “We were both bullied and teased a lot. Me for my size. Him for his race. It was a bad time for both of us. His friendship means a lot to me.”

  As Kubu turned to see where Khumanego was, he heard the Land Rover start. Kubu was stunned, but Tau realized what was happening at once and sprinted toward the vehicle, shouting. “Stop, you bastard! Stop!”

  He was still a hundred yards from the Land Rover when it started moving and roared away. He pulled his gun from its holster and fired at the vehicle, but he knew it would be in vain. The distance was too great.

  “Bastard! He’s leaving us to die.” Tau was drenched from his short run in the scorching sun.

  “He’ll be back,” Kubu said doubtfully. “Maybe he’s just taking a look around.”

  “Bengu!” shouted Tau. “Wake up! You’re a fool! Khumanego has led us by the nose. The deviation from the proper route. The broken-down vehicle. It’s all been planned. And you fell for it! You’re the reason we’re going to die! Believing a Bushman? You must be mad! You can’t trust anything they say.”

  Kubu swallowed. His stomach ached, and he could feel a headache coming on. Think! he said to himself. Think! Keep your head, and you’ll get out of here. Panic, and you’re dead.

  “We’re going to die, Bengu. All because you believed a Bushman!” Tau grabbed Kubu’s shoulder and shook it repeatedly. “It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”

  Kubu came to life. He brushed Tau’s arm aside.

  “Calm down, Tau,” he hissed. “If we panic, we will die.”

  “He’s taken all the water. You can’t live without water. The radios too. And they don’t know where we are! They won’t be able to find us.”

  “Listen to me. We can get out of this. I know how to survive in the desert. They’ll find us in a day or two at most. Just believe me, and we’ll be okay.” Kubu didn’t feel as confident as he sounded, but he needed to get Tau under control.

  “Come on, Tau. Come with me.” Kubu grabbed Tau’s arm and pulled him in the direction of where the Land Rover had been. “First thing is we have to get out of the sun. Otherwise we’ll go mad. We’ll sit there in the shade for half an hour, then we’ll be calm, and we can work out what to do. Come on!”

  Kubu dragged Tau to the small trees that offered a little shade.

  “Half an hour, Tau. In half an hour we’ll figure out how to get out of here.” He collapsed on the ground, head and stomach aching. “We’ll get out of this. Just keep calm.”

  Kubu sat on the sand and let his head drop into his hands. It was time to put his mind to work.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  When Kubu lifted his head, he understood his predicament and knew what they must do.

  The situation was dire. Nobody knew where they were. It’s Friday afternoon now, he thought. When he didn’t report that evening, Edison would check with the other Land Rover and when they told him he hadn’t returned, he’d report to Mabaku that they’d lost contact. He wondered what Mabaku would do. Probably nothing until tomorrow morning, because it was so difficult to arrange anything after hours.

  And the relief Land Rovers couldn’t reach them before Sunday night even if they knew where to go, which they didn’t. So it was unlikely that they could be rescued before Monday at the earliest.

  Kubu thought back to his survival course. “A human can survive three to five days without water depending on the conditions,” the instructor—a humorless ex-Special Forces sergeant major from the British armed forces—had told them. “You can live for weeks without food, but only days without water. Don’t forget that. Be prepared.”

  Monday evening was three days away.

  Tuesday evening was four.

  And if they weren’t found by Wednesday evening, it would be too late.

  And they were not prepared. They had no water, no food, no tools, no shelter, no blankets. Nothing! So even Tuesday evening might be too late.

  Khumanego had certainly planned this well, Kubu thought. He’d been blinded by his affection and friendship for the Bushman. Why hadn’t he questioned Khumanego’s motivation—the sudden change of heart volunteering to lead them to the koppies? He’d let his emotions override his brain. Suddenly he remembered the boot prints in the desert near where Monzo had died. Supposedly the Bushman group had discovered them, but the exchange between Khumanego and the other
Bushmen had all been in their own language, and it was Khumanego who had led the detectives to the prints. His heart sank. It was his fault. Tau had a right to scream at him.

  But screaming was not going to save them. Thinking was.

  “Tau!” Kubu said loudly. “Tau, listen to me!”

  Tau was lying on his side in the sand, like a baby, clutching his knees to his chest.

  “Tau! Sit up. We need to talk.”

  Slowly Tau stirred and sat up. Kubu could see the stress in his face and the hostility in his eyes.

  “Tau. It is my fault we’re here. I’m sorry for that. But now we’ve got to get out and capture Khumanego. If he isn’t the murderer, he knows who is.”

  Tau nodded without saying a word.

  “Our best chance is to stay here. The tire tracks lead here. They are what the others will look for and follow. Our greatest danger is dehydration. We must do everything we can to conserve water.”

  “We don’t have any water!” Tau growled.

  “In our bodies, I mean. We must minimize our sweating. Move as little as possible during the hot hours and try and find some better shade than this.” Kubu looked at the meager foliage of the surrounding trees.

  “Just wait to die, you mean!”

  “No, no. Doing nothing is a positive step. It’s not giving up. It gives us the best chance to get out of here. I took a survival course from an ex-British Special Forces instructor—best in the business. Stay put is what he told us. As soon as you start wandering off, you make it harder for the rescuers. He also said that you should build a nest—make yourself as comfortable as possible. It helps you mentally as well as physically.”

  Kubu pointed at the sun, which was sinking rapidly toward the horizon. “It’s going to be dark soon. Before the light goes, we should build a better canopy in this tree. That’ll help with the sun tomorrow.”

  He walked to some scraggly bushes nearby and started breaking off branches with leaves, sometimes standing on them where they joined the trunk if he couldn’t break them off by hand.

  “Come on Tau,” he shouted. “Don’t just sit there. We’ve got to protect ourselves from the sun. Come and help.”

  Tau shrugged his shoulders, but didn’t move.

  Kubu tried a couple more times to motivate his colleague, to no avail. Exasperated, he turned away and concentrated on what he was doing. After fifteen minutes he had gathered quite a pile, which he carried back to the small trees where Tau was still sitting. He then wove them into the branches. When he finished it was almost dark, and he was satisfied they would have better shade the next day.

  He turned to Tau. “It’s going to get cold tonight, Tau, probably down to fifty degrees, maybe colder. We should sleep next to each other to use each other’s warmth.”

  Tau shook his head. “I’ll sleep over there,” he said, pointing at another clump of trees about fifty yards away.

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s important that we stay right together. Not only for body heat, but in case something attacks us at night—a hyena or lion. We’ve got handguns. We may need them, but it won’t be much use if we’re far apart and possibly shooting at each other in the dark. We should also try to shoot an animal or large bird, if we can. We can eat the meat and drink the blood. That’ll help. Tomorrow we’ll try to find some tsama melons and tubers. I know how to do that.”

  Kubu could see the fear in Tau’s eyes. He may have been brought up in the Kalahari, Kubu thought, but he’s clearly afraid of it. “Don’t panic, Tau. We’ve got to keep calm, even if we’re terrified. Panicking will only create more problems.”

  When Edison didn’t receive the call from Kubu at 6:00 p.m., he decided to wait half an hour before doing anything. When he hadn’t heard by 6:30 p.m., he called the other satellite phone. Sergeant Pikati answered almost immediately.

  “Kubu?”

  “No, it’s Edison. Where’s Kubu?”

  Pikati recounted what Kubu had done. When he hadn’t returned by dusk, they’d tried reaching him by both radio and satellite phone, but hadn’t been successful. They wanted to know what to do.

  Edison said he’d speak to Mabaku and call them back.

  “I should fire him,” Mabaku exploded when Edison told him about Kubu’s trip into the desert. “I told him not to do anything stupid, and now he’s gone off with only one vehicle. Idiot!”

  “I need to call the others back and let them know what to do.”

  Mabaku leaned back and pondered his options. “Tell them to monitor their satellite phone all night and check in first thing in the morning. They should continue to try and contact Kubu, and if they hear from him, they’re to contact you immediately. If you hear anything, call me, no matter what the time. In the meantime, get hold of the backup group and tell them to be ready to leave as soon as possible.”

  “What do you think’s happened?”

  “We’ve already had one breakdown, so it’s possible that Kubu’s vehicle did the same. But then to have his phone not work as well is highly unlikely. I don’t like the smell of this, but there’s not a lot we can do until morning.”

  Neither Kubu nor Tau slept much that night. Both were miserable, tossing and turning as they tried to find a comfortable position in the sand; and both were scared—scared of what animals might be wandering close to them; scared of their predicament. To make things worse, as the night wore on, the desert cold took a deeper and deeper hold on their bodies, causing them to shiver, sometimes uncontrollably.

  The half moon provided only a little light and no comfort. Their eyes kept playing tricks in the dim light as they thought they saw things lurking nearby.

  As the sky lightened, both men stood up, thankful the night was over, slapping themselves and stamping their feet to increase circulation. God, Kubu thought, I’ve got at least two more nights of this torture. Maybe three. But if it’s four, I won’t have to worry anymore.

  “How are you doing, Tau?” he asked.

  “Terrible. I was scared all night. I didn’t sleep at all.”

  “I didn’t either. Well, let’s get to work. First thing we have to do is make something that can be seen from the air.” Kubu hesitated as he thought what their physical state might be by Tuesday or Wednesday. “And from the ground. In a few days we may not be able to signal for help ourselves.”

  Kubu started to unbutton his shirt. “Take off your underwear, Tau. We can make a white cross on the ground. A signal that’ll be easy to see from the air. We can put them back on at night for warmth.”

  “Assistant Superintendent, your plan is crap. We can’t just stay here and wait. What if they don’t come? We’ll just die. I’m going for help.”

  “Tau! Listen to me. Leaving is the wrong decision. If we’re to survive, we have to conserve energy and, more important, water. If you walk, you’ll sweat ten times as much as if you lie here in the shade. You can’t survive without water. You’ll die before you get back.”

  “Bullshit! If I leave now, it’ll be cool for another couple of hours. Then I’ll only be a few hours away. We drove two sides of a triangle. If I cut the corner, it’ll be much shorter. Maybe only twenty miles. I can walk that in six or seven hours, even in sand.”

  Kubu grabbed Tau’s arm. “Don’t be stupid! If you don’t keep to the tracks, you’ll get lost. There is nothing to navigate by. No hills. Nothing. It’s impossible to walk in a straight line even on good ground. In the desert you’ll end up going in circles.”

  “I don’t have to walk exactly in a straight line. I’ll intersect the vehicle tracks somewhere before we turned off. I’m going, no matter what you say. I know you can’t walk far, but that doesn’t mean you have to force me to stay.”

  “Staying has nothing to do with my size, Tau. It’s basic survival to stay here. I know you want to do something. But believe me, staying is the right decision. You’ll never make it if you try to walk back.”

  “You’ll thank me when I arrive with help. You got me into this, Assistant Superintendent. I
’m going to get myself out of it. Why would I trust your judgment now?”

  “Tau, as your superior, I order you to stay!”

  Tau laughed at him. “You’re ordering me to stay? Ha! I’m going. Hope to see you soon!” With that, Tau stripped off his shirt and put it over his head. He turned and, ignoring the vehicle tracks, walked resolutely into the desert.

  “Tau! Tau!” Kubu shouted. “Don’t take off your shirt! You’ll sweat more. Lose more water. Put it back on!”

  Tau walked on without looking back.

  Kubu shook his head. Tau was making every mistake. He shouldn’t have left, and he shouldn’t have taken off his shirt. And he should have followed the tracks. He’ll get lost, Kubu thought with anguish. His chances of getting through are close to zero.

  Kubu spent the next fifteen minutes dragging dead branches into the center of the tracks. If I’m unconscious, they’ll know I’m near, he thought. Then he put his white undershirt and underpants on top of the pile, spread out as much as possible. Not very big, he mused, but at least it’s a different color from the surroundings.

  He looked up into the sky. “Please, God, let them find me! And help Tau. He needs it.”

  Mabaku was at the office at 6:00 a.m. Edison was there to meet him. He was looking tense and hadn’t slept much.

  “There’s been no word from Kubu,” he said.

  “What’s the status of the backup Land Rovers?”

  “They’ll be ready to leave just after lunch.”

  “Get them to leave as soon as they can. Make sure they both have satellite phones with them. If they haven’t got everything they need, get the police at Tshane or Kang to take care of it and have it waiting when they arrive. I want them to push on tonight and get as close to the others as possible.”

  “Can we get a helicopter to search?”

  The director pressed the button on his intercom: “Miriam, where are the helicopters? I need to know now!”

  Only a few minutes passed before Miriam stuck her head in. “One is having its annual service, and the other two are in Kasane working with Immigration on the illegal alien stuff.”