Child of Africa

by T. M. Clark

‘Mr Kanobvurunga, you are in shock.’

  ‘They will find me there, they will kill me. I need to be free now. I need to leave. I need to make this right.’ He didn’t seem to notice that he was even in her bakkie as he babbled.

  She drove away, hoping that perhaps he would stay like this and not turn violent on her. ‘How can you do that? You cannot bring your son back from the dead.’

  ‘No, but I know where the domba lives. I can kill him in his sleep.’

  Hillary shook her head. These were the words of a man who had suffered a great loss and experienced great trauma. The threat was not real; it was the adrenaline talking, the fear and the pain in his heart, not the brain of the man. They were just empty words.

  ‘I need to warn Joss Brennan; they will take his children too,’ Francis said. ‘I have to warn him. The king is coming to take his brother’s throne and he will kill whoever is in his way. He has grown in strength.’

  Hillary stiffened, hearing the very name of the person she was driving towards. ‘Why must you warn Joss Brennan? What has he to do with your son?’

  ‘Because he is friends with the king’s brother. Because to hurt the brother, the king will take the children. It is my fault. I found the weakness. I tried to use it to get my Thomas back. Now he will exploit it.’

  ‘Who?’ Hillary asked.

  ‘King Gogo wa de Patswa. I can tell you everything because he has nothing left to take from me. He will kill me anyway.’

  What this man was saying in his grief was very interesting indeed. And it was backing up her view that this was the time to reach out for help. ‘Do you believe he will kill you?’

  ‘I will die today. His spies are everywhere, even here in the police force. Someone will cover up yet another murder.’ He looked at her. ‘How do I know you are not one of them?’

  Hillary glanced at the terrified man. ‘Because I am a woman of integrity, of honour. A Matabele.’

  ‘He is a BaTonga and he kills Matabeles. He does not care for the law,’ Francis warned.

  Hillary glanced again at Francis Kanobvurunga. This man was telling the truth. She knew it and the proof was travelling in the backseat with them. He was right: Tichawana’s network would kill him. The only place that he would be safe was with her, and the only place they would be safe was inside the boundary of Chief Bongani’s land.

  She could contact ex-Zimbabwean Reason Sazulu in the International Crimes Court again, and they could finish her father’s killer. His reign of terror could be stopped. It was like Reason had said, she would never get Tichawana Ndou on war crimes, but if she was patient, and gathered substantial evidence, they would get him on international criminal charges, and the ICC could and would prosecute him on those instead. He was shipping ivory across borders and they could step in with proof. They just had to give Tichawana Ndou enough rope to hang himself.

  ‘They will get me anywhere I go.’

  ‘Let us hope not, or they will kill me too. Put your head back and rest now; I am taking you somewhere safe.’

  ‘You are going to dump my body—’ He began fighting against the seat belt.

  ‘No, Francis. Listen. I give you my word,’ she said as she pulled over to the side of the road.

  He went quiet as he looked at her, then he began struggling in earnest. ‘You. You are his secretary!’

  ‘Stop. Stop struggling. I am not on his side. He killed my family. I have been trying to find evidence to bring him down for almost three years. Before that, when he was 5th Brigade, he killed my father and my brother, and he raped my mother before he closed her in an ikhaya and burnt it to the ground. I hate the man. I am not on his side.’

  A fire lit in Francis Kanobvurunga’s eyes, and he stilled. ‘Do you know where his camp is?’

  ‘I know almost everything. I need your help. You need mine. Let me help you because, believe me, if we stay on the side of this road, and he finds out what I have just done, we are both dead.’

  He looked at her. ‘May God strike down your whole family if you are lying to me.’

  ‘I am not,’ she said.

  Tears welled in Francis’s eyes. ‘He killed my son, even though I did everything he wanted me to do. I told him how to take the children. He is going to hurt them too.’

  ‘Shush. You need to have a sleep, so that you are calm when we speak with the people who can help us.’

  ‘And these handcuffs?’

  ‘I have the key, Francis; I just cannot take them off you right now, not in your state. I am scared to remove them, as you are unpredictable. If you show me you are calmer, and once again in control of yourself, we can talk about it. Perhaps in another three or four hours. Depending on if this GPS is right,’ she said as she pressed the accelerator to the floor again and sped along the tarmac towards Binga.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Taken

  Joss woke to the incessant ringing of the house phone.

  ‘Lwazi!’ he shouted, but then he remembered that even though it was the weekend, the boy wasn’t home; he was still at Anton’s village, gathering honey with Matilda.

  He heard Mitch answer the phone and muted tones as he spoke with someone, his Australian twang audible in the still of the night.

  Peta turned over next to him and snuggled close.

  Through the baby monitor, he heard Sophia start to complain in her sleep, then settle again.

  Mitch’s footsteps came down the passage and stopped outside his door.

  He checked that Peta was covered. ‘I’m awake, come in.’

  ‘You need to call this number. It’s Matilda at Anton’s village. She said it’s very urgent but she wouldn’t talk to me. She said there’s trouble and Bongani is not answering his phone.’

  Peta stirred next to him, and he tucked the sheet around her as he dialled the number on his cell, his hand on her shoulder. Joss switched his phone to speaker. ‘Hello, Matilda?’

  ‘Thanks be to Jesus. Joss, you need to find Bongani and come here. Quickly. Quickly. We have been attacked. Someone has taken the children,’ Matilda said.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Peta sat up, clutching the sheet to her.

  ‘I am unharmed. My grandfather was struck down, but he is going to be okay. There are others who tried to stop their grandchildren being taken, and they were hurt too. But I do not think anyone is dead. They have burnt a few of the boats. They have destroyed our fishing camp. They came in three helicopters. Who comes in helicopters and steals children?’

  Mitch sat down on Joss’s bed.

  ‘Could you identify anyone? What language were they talking?’ Joss asked.

  ‘They spoke Ndebele and English. They were dressed in camouflage clothes. They were asking for Lwazi and Ephraim by name. They took them. They took our children too. Seven boys.’

  ‘What can you tell us about the helicopters?’ Mitch asked.

  ‘They looked like army helicopters, but they didn’t have numbers on them.’

  ‘Did you get a look at any of their guns?’ Joss asked.

  ‘Hang on,’ Matilda said, and they heard her put her phone on speaker too. Chief Anton’s voice came over the phone; he was shouting as if not understanding that the microphone would pick up his voice.

  ‘Matilda said you wanted to know what guns they had? They all carried hunting rifles, like they were doing an elephant cull. The bullets that went through our boats have made big holes when they went out of the other side.’

  ‘Did they shoot anyone?’ Joss asked.

  Peta put her hand on Joss’s.

  ‘No. They shot a lot on the ground, and into the ikhayas and our boats. But they knew your children were here. How did they know that those two boys were here?’ Matilda asked.

  ‘How long ago did the attack happen?’ Mitch asked.

  ‘About half an hour. I was too scared to come out from my hiding place before that. They said if we did they would shoot us with their long-range scopes.’

  Joss’s ears strai
ned in the night, trying to listen to not only the phone conversation, but to see if he could hear the helicopters too. Bishu Village was north of them, then it was just the whole of the Chizarira between them and civilisation on the other side. Alternatively, Zambia was a short hop across Kariba Lake. If they had taken the boys there, they would be difficult to follow. ‘Anything they said, anything at all that you can remember?’

  ‘The one man, who was tying the boys up, he said something about the king being happy. He could be there to take the boys and now he could come back and take his crown next,’ Anton said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Joss asked, sitting straight up.

  ‘Yes. He spoke in English, not in Ndebele,’ Matilda said.

  ‘I will find Bongani and we will be there by first light. If you remember anything else, you need to call us right away.’

  ‘The people in this village, they are hurting; we do not know why they have done this to us. Even during the bush war, nobody would take our children. There is something rotten going on here. Children, they took the children.’

  ‘I understand,’ Joss said. ‘Matilda, believe me, we’ll do everything we can to get them back.’

  He stayed quiet as he pushed the end-call button.

  Mitch looked at him. ‘Joss?’

  ‘When I came home, I believed I’d closed the door on fighting. I always wanted to be the hero, save people, and look where it got me.’ He gestured to his legs. ‘When I left Afghanistan, I believed I would never need to lift a gun against a person again. But these people have taken Lwazi and Ephraim. I have come to think of them as my sons, as older brothers to my little girl. Now I’ll hunt these men down and kill everyone who’s involved.

  ‘I have always been driven by honour and good intent; now I find myself facing a battle with hatred in my heart. That scares me. I can’t ask you to fight with me and Bongani, but I could use someone I trust to have my back. A friend I can walk into battle with again. My only wish is that we’ll all have our souls intact when we come out of the other side of this madness, along with the boys they have stolen.’

  Mitch nodded. ‘I’m in. Having met those boys, I’ll gladly fight for them. You do realise we can’t all go rushing up to the village? If they have helicopters, what’s to stop them raiding Bongani’s other villages?’

  The baby monitor on Joss’s night stand burst to life with Sophia crying.

  ‘I’ll go grab her,’ Mitch said and went into the nursery, leaving Peta and Joss alone.

  There was a light knock on the door. Joss looked at Peta. She nodded.

  ‘Come in, Madala.’

  The old man shuffled into the room. ‘Is everything alright, Joss? I heard you and Mitch talking loudly and—’

  ‘Come, sit. There is something I need to tell you, and you’re not going to like it.’

  * * *

  The heat of the day was making mirages on the water in front of Yingwe River Lodge. Mitch, Peta, Madala White, Amos and Julian sat around the table in the dining room collecting information as Bongani and Joss drove back after their dawn visit to the village.

  Mitch was not surprised by how much the bush telegraph knew. Abigale, the head N’Goma, along with Lindiwe, had appeared at the lodge just before nine o’clock, asking for Bongani. Thoko had arrived half an hour later, with Cludu and Thully arriving soon after. They were settling in with tea and scones on the veranda.

  The phone at the lodge hadn’t stopped ringing. It was as if the world knew that Chief Bongani needed help and people were calling to offer their services, vehicles and weapons. Hunters with lodges in the area had even begun arriving with their trackers and anti-poaching personnel. From talking to the other villages in the area, the group had been able to work out which direction the helicopters had come from, and in which direction they had left. Now they were getting ready to follow.

  Two guests were shown into the dining area by one of the reception staff. She came to their table. ‘Miss Peta, these people, they said that they are looking for Joss and for Chief Bongani.’

  ‘Thank you, Alice,’ Peta said. ‘What can we do for you?’

  ‘My name is Hillary Shambira, this is Francis Kanobvurunga. We are looking to speak with Joss Brennan or Chief Bongani.’

  The name ‘Francis’ jumped in Peta’s head. ‘They are both busy elsewhere at the moment,’ Peta said. ‘They shouldn’t be much longer.’

  Hillary frowned. ‘We will wait, thank you.’

  ‘We are here about the children,’ Francis said.

  ‘Look around you – so is everyone else,’ Peta said.

  ‘The children have been taken already? Is there some place more private we can talk?’ Hillary said.

  Peta frowned, Hillary’s words clanging like a huge bell in her head. ‘We can talk in Joss’s office. Amos, please will you keep an eye on what’s happening out here? Mitch, I think you should come.’ She led the way from the dining room and into the office. ‘Sit, please.’

  Between the desk and the visitors’ chairs, they found a place to sit, except Mitch, who stood next to Peta as if he were her bodyguard.

  ‘This is Francis Kanobvurunga; your Chief Bongani knows him,’ Hillary said.

  ‘Peta de Longe and Mitch Laski,’ Peta said.

  ‘I saw you that day in Bulawayo with Mr Brennan and the dark child,’ Hillary said.

  ‘You saw us?’ Peta said. ‘You’ve been watching us?’

  ‘Yes. No. Not like that. It is complicated, and there is a lot of the story that we are still trying to piece together, but we have run out of time,’ Hillary said. ‘Your children have been taken and we are here to help.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  Francis shook his head. ‘No. No more talking. He killed mine and he took yours. You have to stop this man. You have to stop him.’

  ‘Calm down, Francis, we need to explain why we are here,’ Hillary said, ‘or they are just going to think we are a pair of babbling idiots.’

  Francis sat back in his chair, but his legs jumped to an unnatural rhythm, his palms silently tapping his knees.

  ‘Perhaps we need to start at the beginning,’ Hillary said, and was just about to fill Peta in on the details of what had happened with Francis and their escape from the Bulawayo police when the door opened and Joss and Bongani walked in.

  ‘Apparently you have visitors in here,’ Joss said, going to stand next to Peta. Bongani flanked Mitch.

  ‘You. What are you doing back here?’ Bongani asked Francis. ‘You skipped out of Amaluandi over a week ago. Why are you back?’

  ‘Go easy on him, he is still in shock – they killed his son,’ Hillary said.

  ‘And you are?’ Joss asked Hillary as she passed Francis yet another tissue.

  ‘I am – was Tichawana Ndou’s secretary. It is not a position I was ever comfortable with, as he murdered my family.’ She explained what she had been doing, and how she had files in her car to back her up. ‘How did he take the children?’

  Bongani told them what they knew of the attack from the accounts of others.

  ‘It is an open declaration of war,’ Hillary said quietly.

  ‘Pardon?’ Joss said.

  ‘He is trying to get Chief Bongani to come out from where he is safe and fight him, so that he can go behind and steal what he believes belongs to him.’

  ‘Tichawana truly believes he should be chief of this area?’ Joss asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Hillary said. ‘He will stop at nothing to attain what he wants.’

  ‘So why is this man here?’ Chief Bongani asked quietly.

  Hillary related the situation in detail.

  ‘What exactly did Francis tell him about me?’ Joss asked.

  ‘That Chief Bongani had no weakness until you arrived. But you have a weakness: children. If Tichawana was to take them away, Chief Bongani would do anything for his best friend and he would leave his area to try to save them. You have to understand, he was desperate to save his own child’s life.’

  �
�At the expense of other people’s?’ Joss said, wiping his face with his hands. ‘The longer we talk here, the further away those poor kids get. They are young boys, Francis. Just like your son. What were you thinking?’ He slammed his hand down on his desk.

  Francis jumped to his feet. ‘I was trying to save my son! He took him to a camp and I could not find him. I tried and I tried but I failed. Zimbabwe’s bush is large. Thomas was lost out there with those madomba. I would do anything to bring him home.’

  ‘Are you sure he took your son to a camp?’ Hillary asked.

  ‘Yes. He told me Thomas was too soft for a boy; he would come back from the camp a man. A fighter.’

  ‘Then we can find them; I know where most of his camps are. God help me, but I helped set them up,’ Hillary admitted.

  Amos tapped on the door of the office before opening it. ‘Miss Peta, we have a small problem.’

  She looked up at him. He motioned with his head.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said as she followed him out.

  ‘Look, see that bakkie that the visitors in our office came in? It is the one that was dismantling the spotter’s camp in the game reserve. Look – same number plate,’ Amos said.

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’ Peta swore. ‘Have you checked it out?’

  ‘No, I did not want those people finding us too close.’

  ‘Dammit,’ Peta said, dragging her fingers through her hair. ‘Okay. I’m going back in there. If you hear shots fired it’s probably them shooting the secretary dead.’

  ‘Do not joke about something like this, Peta,’ Amos said.

  ‘I’m not,’ Peta replied, as she strode back into the office.

  Joss looked up from where he sat, his face lined in worry. ‘Hey, Peta, everything okay?’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, turning to Hillary. ‘Whose bakkie did you drive here in?’

  Joss frowned and sat upright in his chair.

  ‘I signed it out from the company fleet. In my job I can take a bakkie when I need one for work purposes, and the foreman at the construction company gave me this one when I asked this morning. When Mr Ndou finds out that I took it and what I have done, he will kill me. Why are you interested in that bakkie?’