by T. M. Clark
‘So who else gets to use it?’ Peta asked.
‘Anyone who signs it out from the company.’
‘Do you happen to have photographs of the people who can take it out?’
‘Yes,’ Hillary said as she dug in her handbag and took out her purse, removing a flash drive.
Joss put it into his laptop and went to the file Hillary named. They ran through the pictures.
Peta recognised a face from the surveillance pictures that Amos and Julian had brought back from the spotter’s camp. She pointed. ‘Him. Same man. Who is this?’
‘Adam and his boy Brighton; they are professional hunters. Adam is the son of the foreman, but he does not work for Tichawana Ndou that I know of. I put him on my file because twice he has written off company bakkies while driving with his father’s permission. What is this about?’ Hillary asked. ‘What else is going on?’
Joss unlocked a cabinet in his office. He removed a folder and put it in front of Hillary and Francis.
‘That is also Adam and Brighton,’ she said. ‘Why do you have pictures of them setting up a hunting camp?’
‘They’re dismantling a spotter’s camp inside the Chizarira Park.’
* * *
They had been flat out since midnight, but sleep was the last thing on Joss’s mind. That was totally occupied by the boys.
They had decided to split up. The anti-poaching squads would remain at home, along with Peta and Amos. Madala White, Julian Seziba, Makesh, Timberman and Obias were all sitting at the table with them, as was Mary.
When Mary saw Francis, she knew that he had told Bongani that she had been spying on them, and reporting to the King of Thieves. The news was nothing they didn’t already know, but what puzzled them all was that Ephraim had been taken – he had been her eyes and ears. Timberman had had to pry Madala White off Mary when the information came out, as he attacked her in rage that her stupidity and greed had put both their boys in trouble.
‘Bongani,’ Mitch said, ‘as much as I dig, a lot of the Zimbabwean records are not computerised. It looks like Crew-Build was one of the companies that someone from pretty high up in the government simply gave to Tichawana – he never bought it, just took it from its previous owner, much like the farm invasions, only at a corporate level.’
Hillary said, ‘He is comrades with the president. They trained together in Zambia, and he was part of the 5th Brigade.’ She passed them yet another page from a file.
‘You have gathered extensive information on him,’ Bongani said. ‘Stay close to your friends but closer to your enemy? You played a dangerous game, Miss Hillary.’
‘Someone had to do it,’ she said.
Mitch shook his head. ‘His construction company is profitable but there’s no way he can make that amount of money from construction. Not here in Zimbabwe, where there’s nothing being built. The amount of foreign exchange going through this account is incredible.’
‘It is more than a construction company. It is also a front,’ Hillary said. ‘He ships ivory and rhino horns to China. He takes blood products and makes them look legitimate. I think he is beginning to run guns, but I have no proof of that yet.’
‘You are a very brave person,’ Bongani said.
‘Not brave. Desperate. I needed all this evidence for Reason Sazulu, an agent in the International Criminal Court. Only then could my family’s killer be brought to justice, because I was never going to get him any other way. He put them in an unmarked grave deep in the bush, and for many years I have collected this evidence against him.’
‘There are four camps that specialise in training apprentices for the construction industry. Is this correct, Hillary?’ Mitch said.
‘You found that fast.’
‘If it’s on a computer, Mitch will find it,’ Joss said.
‘There are two camps in the Gwanda area; the second is just a little north of the first. His other camps are in the Masvingo area. Then he shows as owning another construction warehouse just outside Bulawayo, in the Turk Mine area, but it’s too well funded to be a warehouse. Something else is happening there. This also says that he owns – well, part owns – half of a trucking company that is registered in Malawi,’ Mitch said.
‘Are you looking for the training camps, or are you looking for his warehouse where he stores his illegal goods? His other warehouse is at Beit Bridge itself,’ Hillary said.
‘I’m trying to find out if he had access to an aviation company,’ Mitch said. ‘Helicopters don’t just disappear, they belong to someone.’
‘Adam’s brother owns an aviation business in Zambia; he has helicopters there. I know that Tichawana has hired those before, because I saw a photo of him standing next to Adam’s brother, with the helicopter in the background. Mr Ndou loves to hunt. That is the old friend he has gone to, to borrow the helicopters to raid Bishu Village.’
‘Why am I not surprised about that?’ Mitch said. ‘But don’t mind us while we double-check you and everything you say as far as we can. We don’t want to be led into a trap, now, do we? It could be just another psychopathic game to this man. Send the damsel in distress to us so that we focus our attention one way and forget to look the other.’
Hillary shook her head. ‘He is exactly that. We are trying to bring down an extremely well-connected poaching mastermind, and a powerful serial killer as well. He helped create mass graves in the 1980s and he funnels money to the government, so he is well placed with his peers. They will do everything they can to protect themselves. If you go in to take him down, believe me, you are going to come up against many bureaucrats who will stall everything. They will “lose” things to protect their own backs.
‘I have studied him for years now. I know this man, and I want him dead as much as everyone else in this room. I have been spying on him for a long-long time, trying to bring down not only him but also Philip Samkanga, who was known as Black Mamba during the Gukurahundi. They served together and have remained in contact. Black Mamba knows the president from the old days too. That was how I found him, in the paper standing next to our president.’
‘Philip Samkanga is bad news,’ Bongani said. ‘As corrupt as you can get, and he is still in charge of a lot of people within the army. Does Tichawana have much contact with him in his office?’
‘Never in his office. They often meet at functions, and talk on the telephone,’ Hillary said. ‘Once or twice, they hunted together in the Mana Pools area.’
‘Sounds like the deranged loyalty that my half-brother would attract,’ Bongani said.
‘Now this is interesting,’ Mitch said. ‘I added Philip Samkanga’s name to the search. Apparently, there was a shipment of rocket launchers that were supposed to come into the Harare army camp a few months ago, but they mysteriously disappeared. The brigadier in charge of the stores was suspended, because they suspected he was in on the theft. In the same month there were two hundred and ninety kilograms of stocked rhino horn that disappeared from the ZimParks Harare headquarters. The head ranger there was suspended, pending a full investigation. There is a page on conspiracy theories run by someone who doesn’t even live in Zimbabwe. He claims the crimes are connected.’
‘I remember that horn theft,’ Peta said. ‘I spent a month dehorning those rhino in the park; I thought that we were doing the right thing to keep them safe from the poachers. And they still haven’t caught the bastards who stole them.’
‘The man in charge of the investigation of all these crimes, by order of the president, is none other than Philip Samkanga,’ Mitch said.
‘Hillary, which training camp do you think he’s taken the boys to?’ Mitch asked as he sat next to her.
‘His favourite camp is his newest one in Gwanda. He visits that one the most. He hunts in that area to feed the camp. There is something special about that place to him. It is not like the others. He spends time there, and always says he is going to check on the kids’ training.’
‘I think we are going to need more policemen in
volved other than our friend in Binga,’ Peta said.
‘If you reach out for help, Detective Sargent Kudzanai Mathobeni will warn all the others on Mr Ndou’s payroll, and they could further endanger the children,’ Hillary said.
‘Then we don’t,’ Joss said. ‘We’ll wait to call in the police. We’re already a strike team. Mitch and I are more than capable of taking down one facility, once we have more intel on it. Hillary, are you able to draw a rough map for us of the layout?’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘We hit that camp first, and we hit it fast. Go in, get our kids, and get out. Then we can call in the police. They can hit his construction company in town and his compound outside Turk Mine, and any other places we need looked at. Surely Gideon Mthemba must have at least a few other police he knows are not rotten apples? He can get them to check the warehouse in Beit Bridge. We’ll leave the anti-poaching guards here, just take a few of the trackers with us. The men here will guard the safari lodge and the people in the village.’
‘I’m coming too,’ Bongani said.
Joss shook his head. ‘That’s what he wants – to get you outside of your area.’
‘I know. But if we do this like you suggest, we go in fast, he will not expect us to have this type of information.’
‘True,’ Mitch said.
‘We know his goal. He is counting on Bongani leaving here, to go and try to save the children,’ Joss said. ‘But he isn’t expecting us to go in so soon. When he gets the intel from his spies that Hillary is here with Bongani, he’ll know his operation is blown.’
Hillary smiled. ‘That might work.’
‘There is more,’ Peta said. ‘We have the location of what we believe are mass graves. There was a man who marked them; he was trusted by the people, who got him to mark each with a cross. He appears to have been working with Adam Smith, or Tichawana Ndou, or both. We are still trying to put that puzzle together too.’
‘I will be very happy to have something concrete on the mass graves,’ Hillary said. ‘I know we cannot touch him yet, but it will help to tighten his noose when he is taken away and tried for these atrocities he has committed. Do you have the name of the man who was marking the graves?’
‘Kenneth Hunt.’
Hillary frowned. ‘That cannot be right. Why would that spotter be marking mass graves for the people? He worked for Mr Ndou.’
CHAPTER
30
Cold Graves
Peta sat in Joss’s lounge, the baby monitor on the table turned up to its loudest so she would hear Sophia if she so much as farted. She had the men from the district’s different anti-poaching units doing patrols around the perimeter of the safari camp, and she had brought all the villagers into the safari area for safety. They had people camped in the stables, and on every available surface within the lodge. The guests had been briefed on the severity of the situation, and they had surprised Peta by being accommodating and not complaining when she asked them all to remain close to the lodge and not go out.
It was already past eleven pm, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep, not with Joss, Bongani, Amos and Mitch, along with one of her own anti-poaching guard units, driving to the dawn raid on the youth camp.
‘I need to work out how Adam and Tichawana knew about the spotters’ camps in Chizarira,’ Peta said.
‘I can help you with that,’ Hillary said. ‘It is another of my boss’s projects. I just cannot believe that Adam is caught up with him. I guess it was right in front of me and I did not see it.’
‘The spotter’s camp?’
‘There is a map that Kenneth Hunt apparently has; it shows the good places to watch the migrations of the animals in this area. I have never seen this map myself, but there was a copy on his computer. It was not in Kenneth Hunt’s possessions when one of your lions ate him in the park, and the police have said they do not know where the computer went. Mr Ndou always pressed him for a copy of the map, but Kenneth Hunt always told him that it was private and he was not entitled to see it.’
Peta humphed. ‘That must have gone down well.’
‘I was asked to find a way around it, to find the places he stayed. Many of the pictures of the animals that Kenneth Hunt sent with his report were done on a digital camera. I used the metadata in those to pinpoint where his camps were. If you look in my files, you will see that he had two favourite camps in the Chizarira and three in the Matusadona. He also had three spotting places in the Mana Pools area.’
Peta frowned. ‘Why so many?’
‘Hunting concessions in the safari areas next door to the parks. Mr Ndou has more blood ivory and rhino horn coming in from up north than he can process, so his scheme was to register bogus hunting companies to pay for concessions of the animals of similar sizes, then he paid the local chiefs the small portion of money owed to them, without the work, and they could sell that tusker again, and make more money from it. He turned the commodities legal without having to actually hunt for the animals and going to the expense of outfitting a real safari hunt. Hunting trophies are allowed to be shipped out, no questions asked.’
‘That is quite sickening.’
‘Mr Ndou and Mr Mlilo are both looking for the computer. Mr Ndou thinks that one of the policemen in Binga stole it. One of your game guards at Chizarira is on his payroll. He was not with you when you found the body, but he reported as much detail as he could afterwards.’
‘Does your boss know you listen to every conversation?’ But in her head, Peta was ticking off names of the guards who were with her that day in Chizarira, and she sighed with relief that she had sent her trusted men with Joss, and not a mole for Tichawana without knowing it. The only person remaining in camp the day they found Kenneth Hunt had been the new gardener, and she would arrange that his sorry arse got fired as soon as she could.
‘Hell, no! Or I would be dead. I will happily throw the Korean investors that he works with under the truck, and laugh as they all get their just rewards.’
Peta opened her eyes wider. ‘He works with the Koreans? He isn’t the head honcho?’
‘He is his own boss, but he is not clever enough to be the big boss,’ Hillary said. ‘He is what you would call a contractor. He has to work with other people to make everything happen. Organised crime is more structured than people think.’
‘Who does he contract to?’
‘A Korean businesswoman, who pretends that she is a little old granny. I think she might live in Sandton in South Africa. I never got her name or phone number. She came to visit him just once after he had lost a shipment of ivory and horn to customs. He sweated from the moment she arrived until she left, and he does not stress for anyone, not even the president. She owns the club he loves to visit.’
‘That’s interesting. I assumed that he worked totally for himself,’ Peta said.
‘You do not know this man at all,’ Hillary said.
‘No, and I’m beginning to think it’s just as well.’
‘The graves?’ Hillary asked. ‘How many of those have you found?’
‘We have a map with a fair number on it.’
‘You should let me get in touch with Reason Sezulu at the ICC. He could help you with them.’
‘At the moment we’re just trying to not scare the villagers into removing the crosses.’
‘Can I add my family’s gravesite to your map?’ Hillary asked.
Peta looked at her. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘It is not something you ever forget. I am here for help. I will not have a job when this is over, and I will be lucky if I can still live in Zimbabwe. Reason Sezulu warned me it might come to this, that if I was serious about putting Mr Ndou in jail, it would get ugly. But I still did it. If you have more information on the graves, Reason will help you; he is not in anyone’s pocket, and he lives in Brussels, so they cannot touch him there.’
Peta got out her copy of the map.
Hillary ran her fingers over each cross. ‘So many crosses. So many people d
ead by his hand.’
‘We’ve still got to prove it,’ Peta said.
‘Proving the graves are there will achieve nothing. I have to get Tichawana Ndou and Philip Samkanga for other crimes. In my heart I have always wished that one day I can bury my family in a proper ceremony so that their spirits can cross over. So many restless spirits in this country. One day all the people’s spirits will find peace.’
Peta squeezed her arm. ‘Joss and Mitch have contacted a friend in the British Army who has been enhancing satellite imagery, and we’re going to look through those, and on the ground, see if any closer surveillance is necessary. Many of the sites in Rwanda have been found like this, so having the places marked will make their job easier.’
Hillary shook her head. ‘No. This news can never reach the president; he will simply send in a digger and take all the bones away, blame the colonial times, claiming the graves are from then, like he did once before. No one will ever get to DNA test the bones, and no one will ever know which bones belong with who, as he puts them somewhere else. He will never allow the proper historical excavation of the graves.’ Hillary paused. ‘Surely now Mr Ndou has taken the children, we can bring him to justice?’
‘We have to prove that he knew about the abduction of the boys and that he’s responsible. Even with everything you’ve shown us, we’ll still need legal counsel on all this, to see if we can bring him to court.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you know that Hunt was double-crossing your boss? We found that many of his reports were duplicated but there were differences between what he emailed and the ones he had in the field. There were many files on his computer that were locked away, but once we got past them, it was interesting reading.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘According to his computer files, he was a desperate man. And he needed atonement for the crimes he had committed. He felt it was his duty to save the tuskers, save some of the last big breeding herds of the rhino in Zimbabwe. Those same herds that his own grandfather had seen, and recorded where they were.’