by Tony Park
*
Liesl came to and the pain washed over her again, making her nauseous. She blinked and turned her head as far as she could. Aston was sitting in a corner of the shipping-container surgery, his legs crossed. He was reading a copy of Escape!.
‘Ah, my patient is awake. Good. You know, as well as taking exceptional photographs, you also write very well.’
She blinked again. ‘Water . . .’
He frowned. ‘Well, I suppose that’s possible. We shouldn’t have too long to wait.’
Aston went to the stainless-steel side counter and poured a glass of water from a plastic bottle.
‘I’m afraid it’s not cold.’ He tipped the glass to her lips, but the restraint tied around her head prevented her from sitting up enough. She coughed and spluttered out what little liquid Aston had managed to tip in. ‘Here, let me loosen that for you.’
He undid the buckle on the restraint strap and Liesl was able to lift her head enough to be able to drink from the glass. She was parched, but she was also able to get a view of the cuts on her body. She laid her head back down again as another wave of nausea passed over her. ‘Why . . . why don’t you just kill me now?’
Aston smiled at her. ‘If it were up to me, I would. You and your friends have evaded death too many times. However, I understand Hess’s strategy. He’s going to show you to your friends, when they get here, to scare them, and he’s going to threaten to kill you if they don’t reveal where the Englishman and the Rwandan girl are.’
‘You want me . . . my body, don’t you?’
He looked down at her and brushed a sweat-dampened lock of hair from her forehead. Liesl cringed. ‘Yes, but not in a sexual way. I want your spirit. Your body will heal a great many people. Think of yourself as one big organ donor.’
‘I’ve got money,’ she said. ‘Back in Cape Town.’
‘So have I, Miss Nel. I daresay I have a great deal more than you. In the new South Africa there are people who will pay almost any price for the right kind of muti. I’m going to make more from your body than you could afford to pay me as a bribe to let you go.’
‘How can you be so . . . evil?’
He shrugged. ‘You were here, in Rwanda, after the genocide, as was I. You can’t lecture me about evil. I have my beliefs, in the power of the muti I harvest. Yet what was done here was for no reason, other than jealousy and hatred, and the instinctive evil that lives in all men. I simply worked out a way to profit from it, as did you.’
‘I did not.’
Aston laughed. ‘Of course you did. You media people, you feed like vultures and hyenas on Africa’s death and sorrow, and then you regurgitate it to feed the squealing masses who consume your filth.’
‘I . . .’
Aston put his hands on his hips and looked at her. Liesl began shaking in her restraints and her convulsions increased until the whole operating table was shaking. Her head, now all but free of the restraints, thrashed from side to side.
‘Stop!’
Liesl’s body continued to writhe and jerk. The bed began moving on its wheels, juddering and shaking from the force of her fitting.
‘Don’t die!’ Aston commanded again.
Liesl’s body sagged. Her head flopped to one side and she was still.
‘No!’ He placed two fingers on her neck, feeling for her carotid artery. ‘A pulse. Are you conscious?’ He slapped her face, but she gave no response. He hit her harder.
Liesl parted her eyelids a little, then fluttered them. Her lips moved.
‘What? What are you saying, woman?’
‘F–’
‘What?’
‘F–’
‘I can’t hear you. Were you having a fit? Is that what you were saying. Are you epileptic?’
‘F–’
He lowered his head and turned it so that his ear was close to her lips. Liesl opened her eyes and said, ‘Fuck you!’ Her head shot up to meet his and she grabbed his ear between her teeth and bit down as hard as she could.
Aston screamed like a dying animal. He lashed out at her, but Liesl held on to him with her teeth like a hyena ripping into its prey. She tasted the tang of blood in her mouth, but still she bit and shook. Aston tried to get away from her, which was what she had hoped he would do. The gurney was old and the leather strap restraining her left hand was looped around a purpose-made sliding steel pole set into a tube on the side of the table. It was locked, to stop it sliding, but Liesl had been quietly jiggling the pole since Hess had left, while Aston had been engrossed in the magazine. Liesl thought that the locking mechanism might be worn as the pole felt loose in its socket. She’d staged the fit to pull at the anchor point even more. It was nearly free.
Aston flailed at her, but Liesl had endured so much pain in the last few hours that the fat witchdoctor’s blows felt girlish and ineffective. Aston fell into the side table, sending a metal tray of surgical instruments crashing to the floor, then slipped over. In doing so his foot connected with one wheel of the operating table. Liesl felt the gurney start to tip, which was what she hoped for. Blood ran down her face and for a second she had the terrible thought that Aston’s ear might come off in her mouth before the table fell. Aston, however, kicked out with his foot, which just helped put the trolley further off balance and it, and Liesl, toppled over onto him.
Liesl wrenched furiously at the pole on the left side as Aston screamed underneath her. The table must have buckled a little in the fall because suddenly the pole slid loose and Liesl’s left hand was free. She let go of his ear, but swiped down straight away on the big man with her free hand and drove two fingers straight into his eyes. Aston squealed at the new pain and started lashing out at her. Liesl pushed harder and tried to scoop his eyes from his head.
Aston finally recovered from the shock of nearly losing his ear and then having the trolley and the girl fall on him. He was overweight and slow, but he was also strong; he reached under Liesl and heaved her off him. She’d put all her effort into hurting him and still only had one limb free. Aston put a hand to his blurry eyes and kicked at her as he tried to get away.
Liesl was on her side and the air was forced from her lungs as Aston’s shoe connected with her chest. She knew Hess had given him a pistol and she’d seen Aston put it down on the side bench. He was on his knees, hauling his heavy body up. She groped on the floor around her and her fingers closed around a bloody scalpel Hess had used on her. She grabbed it and reached up and plunged it into Aston’s back, around where she thought his kidneys would be.
Aston bellowed and fell backwards on top of her. Liesl pulled the scalpel out just before he crushed her, and got her free hand out of the way. Aston writhed on top of her, but before he could hit her or push himself free of her, Liesl plunged the scalpel into his neck and dragged it crossways.
Blood and air gushed from the wound, but Liesl continued to saw the blade through his skin and windpipe.
As the strength rushed from him, Liesl rolled the dying man off her and started to undo her restraints. Her pain subsided as adrenaline recharged her tortured body. She’d kill that bastard Hess, too, when he got back.
32
Aubert put a finger up to his lips. ‘We are very close to the gorillas. Listen. Hear the branches snapping? They are feeding.’
Despite the stress of the situation, Carmel couldn’t help feeling a twinge of excitement. Henri turned to look at her, took her hand and gave it a squeeze. God, Carmel thought, I hope I can have a normal life once this is all over. She let him help her up a slippery stretch of the pathway that had been hacked through the rainforest vines and stinging nettles by the trackers. Henri grinned and pointed.
Carmel saw the young gorilla lying on a tangle of tree branches. It was light enough not to fall through. It lay on its back with its head lolling down, looking at her through upside-down eyes. It blinked twice. She felt her heart move. There was beauty here, in the dark heart of Africa, despite all the killing and chaos that had gone on. In this moment, Carmel knew there
was and always would be hope for the future.
‘It is a young female,’ Aubert whispered. He arranged them so they could take pictures, but none of them was minded to. Hess and his chauffeur appeared to be more interested in looking for other gorillas. Carmel saw the blond man’s head bobbing as though he was doing a count of the troop. The African man with him leaned on his walking stick and looked bored. Henri seemed mesmerised, first by the young gorilla and then by its mother, who climbed out on a limb and offered her baby her hand. The young one went to her mother and followed her down the trunk of the tree. The pair passed between Carmel and Henri, barely a metre from their legs as they knuckle-walked down the path.
‘Come, we will follow them.’
The order of march was now reversed as they retraced their tracks a little way down the path. Carmel was the first of the tourists, just behind Aubert, followed by Henri, Hess’s man, and then Hess himself, who now brought up the rear. The two trackers, who had found the gorillas early that morning, slung their packs and AK-47s and fell in behind Hess.
‘This troop of gorillas recently crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo,’ Aubert said quietly to Carmel as he moved briskly after the gorillas. ‘They lost a baby and its mother over the border to poachers not long ago. We believe the troop was too frightened to stay on the Congo side.’
Carmel nodded. She wondered how much thought went into the gorillas’ movements, which she imagined were more seasonal and to do with vegetation than with fear or an understanding of danger. Still, perhaps she was wrong. Maybe the gorillas really did think it was safer on this side of an imaginary line drawn through the Virunga Mountains.
Aubert turned to the left and began hacking through vines and bushes. He was soon joined by one of the trackers, who had overtaken them. Aubert held up his hand and Carmel paused. He pointed up with his machete. A juvenile male gorilla had climbed a tree trunk and was looking down at Carmel. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom in this darkened part of the forest, which lay under a thick canopy of vegetation, she eventually made out the black forms of the rest of the troop as they munched on leaves and here and there paired off to groom each other.
‘The silverback,’ Aubert said. ‘His name is Kajoliti.’
Carmel nodded. ‘He only has one hand?’
‘Yes, he is the one who lost a hand in a poacher’s snare. He is no less able as a result, and he is very strong and very protective of his family. The trackers have reported that he is very temperamental, quite aggressive, since the loss of the baby.’
As if on cue, Kajoliti stood and took three paces towards them, beating his leathery chest with his good hand as he advanced. Carmel flinched and bumped into Henri behind her as she instinctively stepped backwards.
‘Still,’ Henri whispered to her. ‘You must not run.’
He folded his arms around her, from behind, and she felt safe and comfortable in his embrace. Gradually her heart rate slowed to normal again. It had been a short, sharp shock to see how fast the big silverback could move. From her reading and previous visit she knew the gorillas were basically gentle creatures, but the one-handed Kajoliti had just reminded her he was more than capable of killing if he had a good reason.
‘I can’t believe people are still killing gorillas and taking their babies,’ she murmured to Henri.
‘It is money,’ Henri said.
‘It is evil.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he whispered to her. He hugged her and kissed the side of her face. Carmel reached up and put her hand around his.
Behind her, Carmel heard a noise like two paper bags being burst. She pulled away from Henri, turned towards the sound and saw Karl Hess striding along the trail with a pistol in his hand. On the end of the weapon was a long silencer. He raised it, looked past her and Henri and fired two shots. Aubert’s head snapped back and he fell in the mud.
The noise was nowhere near as loud as a normal gunshot, but the suppressed bang was still enough to frighten off the gorillas. Several of the females screamed and babies ran to them and jumped into their arms and onto their backs. Kajoliti turned to face the humans and grunted and beat his chest again as the family began scampering away. He stayed until all had disappeared into the thick undergrowth, then turned and ran after them, all the while glancing back over his shoulder to make sure the humans weren’t following.
‘Down,’ Hess barked at Carmel and Henri. ‘On your knees. Hands on your heads. Do it!’
Hess’s accomplice was right behind him. He carried the AK-47 that Carmel knew must have belonged to the other tracker. She realised the man was dead. Carmel wanted to scream in frustration. She had known the risks inherent in confronting Hess, but had decided to go after him anyway. Everything she had done had been against her nature, but she had followed her heart, not her head, to try to find Liesl, the woman who had ruined her life.
‘Do as he says,’ Henri whispered, dropping slowly to his knees.
‘Shut up.’ Hess struck out and pistol-whipped Henri across the face, drawing blood from his cheek with the butt of the weapon.
‘Hello?’ the first tracker called out as he retraced his steps back to the group. He began frantically unslinging his AK-47 from his back as soon as he saw Aubert’s body. Hess raised his pistol again and shot the tracker. The man was screaming as he fell. Hess stepped over Aubert’s body and fired two more silenced shots into the tracker’s head.
‘Tie them,’ Hess said to his man.
From his daypack the driver produced a roll of duct tape, which he used to bind Carmel’s and Henri’s hands behind their backs. He tore off two strips of tape and used these to gag them. When he was done he dragged them to their feet and gave Carmel a shove in the small of her back.
Hess caught her, by the hair, before she fell. ‘I’m more than happy to kill you here, on the mountain,’ he hissed into her ear. ‘But I want to talk with you first and find out what you know. If you cooperate there’s a chance I’ll let you live, in return for my freedom. Understood?’
Carmel nodded. They headed off down the mountain, and she imagined how the scene would be reported. The fact that Hess and his henchman had done nothing to hide the bodies of Aubert and the trackers gave her a preview of the story that would play out in the media. Two foreign tourists and Hess, or Pens as he was locally known, the wealthy lodge owner, would be reported as missing, presumed kidnapped by armed bandits or rebels. There would be a search – something like this could not be covered up – but by the time the police got organised Hess would be long gone, probably in another country, and she and Henri would be dead and buried, literally.
Carmel looked back over her shoulder and was rewarded with a slap in the face from Hess’s man. ‘Eyes front.’ She hadn’t been able to see Henri, which meant Hess was keeping them separated. She wondered what had happened to Liesl – if she had really left them and gone to Kigali. Carmel prayed she had, because if she’d been kidnapped by Hess then she was probably dead already.
*
There was nothing more Richard could do for Warrant Officer Manzini after the surgeon and nurses at Phalaborwa Hospital had loaded him onto a gurney and taken him into the operating theatre. The sun was up, but the sky was grey with low cloud as Richard, Theron and Collette stood outside the building. He could only hope Carmel had found Liesl in Rwanda.
‘We’re going back to see if those wild dogs are still there,’ Theron said to Richard. ‘Are you coming with us?’
Richard nodded, and looked to Collette. She nodded. ‘I want to come too.’
‘After this, we’ll go back to Kruger with the helicopter. I still have a house there and I’m sick of running.’
‘That sounds good to me,’ Collette said. ‘I need a bath, and I need to sleep.’
‘Come, let’s get this done,’ Theron said.
It was a short ride back in the helicopter to Letsitele and as they approached the Nels’ farm Andre spoke into the intercom so they could all hear. ‘Funny, there’s another
helicopter overhead, hovering over the farm. He’s low. I don’t have visual, but I can see him on my radar. He’s in the mist and low cloud.’
‘Get there, fast,’ Theron said. He slid his Glock out of its holster and ejected the magazine. He counted his remaining bullets and decided to replace the magazine with a fresh one.
‘Poachers?’ Richard asked.
‘In a helicopter?’ Collette said, sounding surprised.
‘Ja. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time around here. We’ve suspected a couple of local pilots have been working with poachers. There’s even evidence a vet has been involved in the poaching of rhinos inside the Kruger Park and in the private reserves bordering it.’
‘It should be over here,’ Andre said, pointing out the right side of the helicopter. ‘But I can’t see any navigation lights.’
‘Come right a bit more,’ Richard said. ‘We’re almost over the enclosure where I saw the dogs.’
Andre flicked on his landing spotlight, to make himself more visible as he approached the mystery aircraft through the cloud. ‘Holy fuck!’
The helicopter rocked to the left as the pilot threw the machine over. A darkened bulk and spinning rotors passed by them, momentarily blotting out their view of the ground.
‘Crazy bastard!’
‘That’s them!’ Theron said.
Richard had time to glimpse a white face in the rear of the other helicopter as it flitted past them. His heart was pounding. If Andre hadn’t switched on his landing light at that moment they would have probably collided with the other machine, which had been in the process of taking off, but showing no lights.
‘After them!’ Theron said.
Andre brought the helicopter around in a sweeping turn, increased the throttle and headed after the rogue aircraft.
‘Bring us alongside,’ Theron said into the microphone. His door was open and wind rushed into the rear cabin. Richard drew his .38 as well, and turned his torso to further shield Collette from the passenger or passengers of the other helicopter.
Lourens couldn’t bring his gun to bear, as he was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, on the opposite side of the pilot to the other chopper, and Musa, the armed ranger in the back, was sandwiched between Theron and Richard on a bench seat along the rear bulkhead.