by Tony Park
‘Ja,’ said Theron. They laid Manzini on the floor of the helicopter and Richard hooked the IV drip onto the bulkhead. ‘We’ll take him to hospital, then I want to come back and find out what’s happened to the dogs.’
Tokkie Nel grabbed the sleeve of Richard’s shirt. ‘What has happened to my daughter? Where is she?’
‘Rwanda. She tipped us off about the plan to raid you and kill you and Elize and steal your wild dogs.’
‘She did? How . . . Is she safe?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Nel. I hope so,’ he said. The truth was that Liesl had sent the SMS messages to him under duress, or someone else had her phone. All that stuff about them loving each other and sending hugs and kisses had tipped him off that all was not right on the farm. ‘I’m sorry, we have to go. The policeman needs surgery.’
‘You’ll tell me, as soon as you hear from my daughter?’
‘Yes.’ Richard climbed into the helicopter.
‘Go, go, go!’ he said to the pilot as the sun came up over Africa.
31
Carmel woke before dawn, showered and dressed in long pants, boots and a long-sleeved shirt for the gorilla trek. She’d seen the gorillas before and wasn’t convinced it was necessary to go through the whole rigmarole again for the sake of maintaining their cover as tourists. She was itching to find Hess and question him.
They’d been told to be at breakfast at six, but Carmel arrived early. The African chef on duty took her order for a fried egg – all that he was offering – presumably so he could get ahead of the rush. She helped herself to strong coffee out of an urn. It was clear outside, but chilly. Henri walked in, rubbing his hands together.
‘Morning,’ he said.
‘Have you seen Liesl?’ Carmel asked.
‘No.’
‘I knocked on her door as I came past – several times. I called for her but there was no noise from her room.’
‘Good morning, madam,’ said the Rwandan woman who had checked them in the day before. She carried a folded piece of paper, which she held out to Carmel. ‘Miss Shang, I have a letter here, from your friend, Miss Liesl Nel.’
‘Really?’ Carmel unfolded the note and read it. Henri cocked an eyebrow. ‘Bizarre. She says she’s gone back to Kigali with Aston and his driver, and she’s going to fly back to South Africa. She says she’s sorry she got cold feet and that she hopes we stay safe.’ Carmel passed the letter to Henri, who read it for himself.
‘It’s odd, I must admit. We’ve come so far . . . but you’ve said yourself she was more of a hindrance than a help. Take that business at the prison, for example, where she got herself kidnapped.’
Carmel nodded. ‘Hmm. Still, it’s strange that she would go from being so keen to find Hess to turning her back and running home.’
‘She did suffer a breakdown of sorts after being wounded in Afghanistan.’
‘Did she?’ Carmel said. ‘I didn’t know that.’
Henri nodded. ‘She told me over drinks that first night in Kigali. She was wounded when the vehicle she was travelling in was hit by an IED. She famously kept taking pictures, even as they were pulling her out of the burning wreck, but afterwards she fell apart. Perhaps this brought back too many memories – of being under pressure to deliver the picture and story, but knowing that you’re facing death in the process.’
Carmel shrugged. ‘I guess so.’ The waiter appeared with her egg on toast and she sat down to eat it.
After breakfast they went back to their rooms. Henri waited in the doorway of his room as Carmel came out of hers and closed the door. ‘Come here,’ he said, nodding to the interior.
‘Henri, we don’t have time for this.’
‘We do.’ He took her hand and led her into the gloomy interior. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hard. When he broke from the kiss he brushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘I don’t want to see you hurt, Carmel.’
‘I’m going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.’
Carmel’s phone beeped. She eased herself out of Henri’s embrace. She took it out of her pocket and saw it was a new email.
‘Ignore it.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, opening the message and reading it. She sat down on Henri’s bed. ‘It’s from the head of the ICTR in Arusha. I can’t believe it; they’re ordering me to drop the investigation. I emailed them the day before yesterday asking for guidance and back-up from our local investigators. They’ve been slow to give me any information on this case all along. It was almost like they were stalling or blocking me, and now she says that I am to come back to Arusha and that any investigation into the shooting down of the president of Rwanda’s aircraft is out of our remit. I’m supposed to close Mike Ioannou’s file for good.’
Henri placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s probably for the best, Carmel.’
‘Maybe you’re right. We’re in over our heads. The ICTR could just be following the letter of the law, but perhaps there’s more to this.’
‘Like what?’ Henri asked.
‘I really don’t know. Perhaps the ICTR is worried about upsetting the current government, or perhaps some other UN member country is bringing pressure to bear. It could be the French, or the Americans, or the Belgians. I just don’t know.’ Her shoulders sagged under the weight of confusion. She wished she was back in Australia.
She sat her phone down on the bed and it rang. Carmel answered it, wondering who would call at this time. She didn’t recognise the number on the screen, but from the prefix it was not from Arusha, Tanzania. ‘Hello.’
‘Carmel, it’s Richard. I’m in a hospital in South Africa . . . I’ve been trying to get through to you for ages.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, but listen, Liesl is in trouble. Have you seen her?’ Richard asked.
‘No. We got a note from her telling us she was going back to Kigali. And I’ve just been ordered off the case by the ICTR.’
‘Carmel, that note’s a fake. I got some weird text messages from Liesl that convinced me she was under duress or someone had her phone. There’s been a shootout at her family farm. More people are dying, Carmel. You’ve got to try and find Liesl.’
‘Hess?’ she said.
‘It’s all pointing to him.’
‘It is. It turns out we’re booked on a gorilla trekking trip with the company he owns, under an alias. I was just about to pack up and go back to Kigali.’
‘Carmel, I don’t want anything to happen to you. Can you call in the local cops? Tell them Liesl’s been abducted or something like that?’
‘There might not be time. She could have been gone from yesterday evening. What if they have her, Richard? We can’t just turn around and leave her. I have to go through with this now.’
‘Carmel . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Carmel, I . . . just be careful, OK?’
‘OK.’
She ended the call and told Henri what Richard had said. Henri took his daypack from the bed and unzipped it. ‘I have this.’ He reached in and pulled out a Russian Makarov semiautomatic pistol.
‘Where did you get that, and when?’
‘I went shopping when I was in Kigali. I still have some contacts there. Do you know how to use it?’
She took the gun from him and turned it over in her hands. ‘I was in the army for eight years. I know how to shoot.’
‘We know this man Hess is dangerous and he has tried to have us all killed. I can’t imagine he is going to come quietly,’ he said.
‘If you want out, Henri . . .’
‘No. I want to be with you, to see if I can help, or at least protect you.’
She laid a hand on his forearm. ‘I’m going to find Hess and try and get Liesl. If I judge it too risky, I’ll pull out and call the state prosecutor in Kigali and get him to involve the Rwandan police and let them take it from here.’ She looked up into his eyes, marvelling at his handsome face, as he reached for her and stroked the hair at the back of her head.
She did feel safe with him. ‘There was a time in my life when I thought I would have been better off dead, Henri. I felt empty for so many years, and I was in pain. I tried drowning myself in alcohol and after that I tried burying myself in work. I want more than that now. I want to live for a change. And Liesl . . . I don’t like her, but if she’s in trouble we have to help her. I have to go.’
‘Me too.’ He bent his head and kissed her again, more tenderly this time. ‘Come, the gorillas and Hess await.’
He led her out of his room and into the sunshine and they walked up the road the short distance to the national park entry gate.
A man with white hair – neither the grey of age nor the fake white of peroxide, more a strange cross between albino and platinum – strode across the grass from the car park at the gorilla trekking base camp. He waved.
‘Hello,’ the man called. ‘I’m Jurgen Pens. You must be Liesl Nel?’
Carmel shook her head. ‘No, I’m Carmel Shang, but I know Liesl. Can I have a word with you, Mr Pens?’ Her heart was pounding. She was face to face with Karl Hess.
‘It looks like we are about to leave, yes?’ The man was smiling, and he rubbed his hands with anticipation. Carmel tried not to stare at the disfiguring scar on his face. ‘I have seen the mountain gorillas many times, but I never tire of it. We must go now.’
‘About Liesl . . .’ Carmel began.
‘Yes, where is she? I’ve organised this trip for you and your friend, on the basis that Liesl will be doing a story on my lodge for Escape! magazine. Do you know where she is? The guides, the gorillas, they won’t wait for her.’
‘I was just about to ask you the same question. Liesl left a message with the receptionist at our guesthouse last night saying she’d gone back to Kigali.’
Hess frowned. He was playing the part of the safari company owner very well. ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea where she is. These permits are worth five hundred dollars each. I was counting on Liesl’s story in her magazine.’
‘We don’t need to see the gorillas,’ Carmel replied.
Hess waved a hand in dismissal. ‘No, it’s fine. They’re non-refundable and I never miss a chance to see the gorillas. Even though I live here I don’t often get the chance. Come, you’ll be my guest and we’ll go back to my lodge for brunch afterwards.’
‘That’s very kind, and I need to talk to you anyway.’
Hess raised his snow-white eyebrows. ‘I can’t imagine what about, but we can talk on the walk. I’m in a separate vehicle to you. Once your national parks guide has given you a briefing you’ll travel with him to the jumping-off point, where our walk will begin.’
Carmel wanted to stop him now and quiz him, but he turned and strode back to the black Land Cruiser he’d arrived in. ‘Bizarre,’ she said.
‘Quite,’ Henri said.
‘He’s as cool as. He’s either a consummate chameleon or he’s innocent.’
Henri shrugged. ‘It’s your investigation, Carmel.’
Carmel stopped to consider her options. She knew their current course of action was risky, but she hadn’t come this far to turn back now that they’d found Hess. Even with the grotesque scar that crossed one side of his face, there was no doubt in her mind that he was the man in the photograph. But what did that mean? Perhaps Hess was an arms dealer, but did that mean he had supplied the weapon that sparked the genocide, and was responsible for the attempts on their lives to cover his tracks? Perhaps this was a dead end and there was someone else out there still after them. If Hess was out to get them, why hadn’t he killed them in their sleep in the guesthouse? Why had he made no attempt to hide from them? It was as though he was taunting her.
A national parks guide came up to them and introduced himself as Aubert. He was young and looked supremely fit, which was no wonder as his job entailed climbing up and down rainforest-covered volcanic mountains every day. Aubert wore a pressed green uniform and black gumboots. He carried a handheld radio and a folder. He explained they would be tracking the seventeen-strong Amohoro troop of mountain gorillas.
Carmel was too busy mulling over thoughts about how she would interrogate Hess to pay too much attention, but she did pick up that this troop of gorillas had recently crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo side of the Virungas into Rwanda. Aubert explained that they should not get closer than seven metres from a gorilla, but added that sometimes the mighty apes came closer than that to their human visitors.
When the briefing was done, Carmel and Henri got into their RAV4 with Aubert and drove out of the national parks compound and turned right. Hess’s driver waited until they had passed him, then pulled out and followed them. The tar road ended within a few hundred metres and deteriorated progressively from graded dirt, through the village near the national parks camp, to a rutted, eroded track that looked like a solidified lava flow. Aubert told Henri to turn right and they started climbing the slopes of a mountain. Here the surface of the road was littered with volcanic rocks worn smooth by years of bouncing tyres. Several times the little four-by-four, with its low clearance, bottomed out and there was the tortured sound of its underparts dragging over rocks. Carmel looked over her shoulder and saw the menacing shape of Hess’s bigger vehicle, its windows tinted black, never far behind them. She consoled herself with the thought that even if Hess was their man, there was no way he would try to harm them in front of a national parks guide and the team of three trackers that Aubert told them would be with the gorillas. Besides which, she didn’t plan on outing herself to Hess straight off the bat; as far as he knew, they were just a couple of tourists blagging a free mountain-gorilla trek from their journalist friend.
‘Are the trackers armed, Aubert?’ she asked, to reassure herself.
‘Yes. They have AK-47s. They spend all day with the gorillas and leave in the evening, once the troop has made its night nests in the trees. The females, babies and young males sleep in the trees, and the silverbacks, who are too big for the branches to support, sleep on the ground in order to defend the family. The trackers return each morning, around dawn, to the same spot and are there when the gorillas awake. This way we always know where the gorillas will be.’
‘That’s good,’ Carmel said. Surely not even Hess would try something around three men armed with automatic weapons.
They bounced along until they came to a small village set midway up the cultivated sloped leading to the rainforest. The road petered out completely and Aubert told Henri to pull off to the left, into a muddy plain that functioned as a car park. Hess pulled in behind them. When they got out Aubert pointed to a young boy who was carrying a sheaf of wooden sticks. ‘Take a walking stick, please, and tuck your trousers into your socks because of stinging nettles and leeches,’ he said.
Carmel noticed that Hess, when he got out of his vehicle, was wearing waterproof gaiters that came down over his socks, and chamois leather rigger’s gloves to protect his hands from the nettles. A couple of villagers greeted him and he replied in Kinyarwanda. It was clear he was well known and apparently well liked by the locals. Carmel wondered again if she was heading for a dead end in her investigation. Hess seemed afraid of nothing and no one.
‘Let us go,’ said Aubert, leading the way up a pathway that passed between fields of beans and flowers. Laid out on the ground, blocking their way, was a plastic tarpaulin strewn with the heads of white flowers.
‘Daisies?’ Carmel asked. She hadn’t remembered seeing flowers here on her last visit.
‘These are pyrethrum daises,’ said Aubert. ‘They are dried and then the chemical extracted from them is used in insect repellents.’
They walked around the drying flowers and up the steepening trail until they reached a waist-height dry-stone wall. ‘This is the border of the national park,’ Aubert said.
It was no barrier to a mountain gorilla, or a poacher, Carmel thought. The intensely cultivated and terraced fields ended at the wall, and a thick forest of bamboo and tall trees began on the other side. Aubert t
old them to form single file behind him, and to stay as quiet as possible. They climbed over the wall and the ascent immediately became steeper, tougher and more slippery. Carmel realised that the main reason the jungle, the national park and its attendant wildlife still existed here was because the land was simply too steep to build on or farm.
Carmel found she was using her walking stick with every step, pushing it into the muddy path and using it like an anchor to drag herself up. A couple of times Henri, who was in front of her, lost his footing and almost slid down the slope into her. She managed a laugh, despite the tension she felt in her chest. Hess had placed himself in front of Henri in the queue, as if he was deliberately avoiding her.
Aubert stopped and Carmel, although she prided herself on her fitness, was grateful for the chance to catch her breath. ‘Buffalo,’ he said, pointing to a pat of dung on the ground.
‘I am surprised there are any left,’ Henri said, puffing a little.
‘Yes,’ Aubert agreed. ‘The poachers come into the foothills and the bamboo at night-time and set snares. Our patrols pick up thousands of snares each year, but some small buck and buffalo are still caught. Also, the snares are a danger to the gorillas when they come down to the bamboo zone to feed on the new shoots.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Carmel said. She’d dealt for many years with the evil that men inflicted on each other, but the thought of an innocent animal such as a gorilla being injured or killed by a snare upset her deeply. It was why she devoted much of her spare time and cash to wildlife conservation charities, and now, she reflected, this interest had led her to Henri.
She watched his broad, sweat-dampened back as Aubert led them back up the hill. She remembered the touch and the smell of him as they’d made love. She wanted more of him, and to get to know him better. Perhaps once this was done, if such a goal were achievable, she would take him up on his offer of an extended stay at his riverside mansion in Zambia.
But first, there was Karl Hess to deal with.