Hunted

by Chris Ryan

  He nodded, but he wished he didn't feel so helpless. 'We'd better get back,' he said. 'They'll be wondering where we are.'

  'You're right,' agreed Li.

  Paulo watched her as she stood up and moved to the door; she seemed a little more relaxed, less edgy. Talking had done her good. Maybe that would be all she needed; maybe now she could leave the fear behind.

  Someone opened the door before Li had even touched the handle. A voice boomed in: 'Aha, caught you!'

  Paulo jumped to his feet, shocked. Outside in the dark corridor, Tessa was grinning back at them, her hand on the door handle. Li and Paulo glanced at each other. They were both thinking the same thing: had she heard?

  'I knew there was something between you two,' said Tessa, wagging her finger as her smile spread wider. She was breathing hard, as though she had just been running. 'You're looking all guilty. Sneaking off for a quick tryst, eh?'

  Li was about to agree for the sake of keeping her secret, but then Tessa's expression changed. Her smile faded. She shivered and leaned more heavily on the door handle.

  'Actually, guys,' she said, 'I don't feel at all good. Have you seen my dad?'

  Paulo dived to catch her as she tumbled to the floor. 'Quick, Li,' he said. 'Call an ambulance.'

  The ambulance was there when Joe Chandler got back with Amber, Alex and Hex. Hex glanced across at Joe and caught the look of panic on his face as he braked, cut the engine and jumped out of the Jeep.

  Li and Patrick ran out of the door to meet him.

  'Tessa's gone into septic shock,' said Li breathlessly. 'The infection from the wound has got into her bloodstream. They're going to have to take her to hospital.'

  Behind her, the paramedics pushed Tessa down the front steps on a trolley. She lay wrapped in a red blanket, a drip plumbed into her hand and connected to a bag of clear liquid that rested on her chest. Paulo was with her. He held onto the bag of liquid to stop it falling as the trolley clattered onto the grass.

  Joe looked from his daughter's face to the face of the paramedic in front of him. 'Will she be all right?'

  'She's very ill,' replied the paramedic. His colleague jumped into the ambulance and pulled the trolley in. 'You'd better come with us.'

  Joe's eyes met Patrick's in an unspoken question.

  'Go,' said Patrick. 'We can manage here.'

  Joe climbed into the back of the ambulance. A paramedic pulled the doors closed and the ambulance sped off.

  Alex, Hex and Amber were still in the Jeep. 'I thought she was on antibiotics,' said Amber.

  'They weren't enough,' said Paulo.

  10

  MOYA

  'We found this calf about a week ago. Poachers had killed her mother and she was in a bad way.'

  They had just had breakfast, and Patrick had led them round to the yard behind the lodge. It was a wide, sandy area with two large pens marked out by ranch-style fencing. A baby elephant stood in the corner of one, watching them with dark eyes. It was time to feed her.

  Amber thought she was about the cutest thing she had ever seen, a perfect, petite version of the mighty Boudicca who had met them at the gate. She wanted to say something gushing but she restrained herself; she'd never live it down. Instead she went for something eminently sensible: 'She looks rather unhappy.'

  Patrick nodded. 'She's ill. We found her the same day as Tessa had her accident. We told Tess about her when she was in hospital, and she insisted on naming her. She's called Moya.' As he spoke he fitted a large teat to a bottle of formula milk.

  Still watching them, the baby elephant curled the end of her trunk into her mouth and sucked it.

  Unlike Amber, Paulo had no inhibitions about responding to the creature. He leaned over the fence and caught Moya's eye, giving her a great, welcoming grin.

  Moya knew a friendly face when she saw one. She trotted up to him eagerly, her ears forward, framing her face like butterfly wings.

  Paulo put his hand down and stroked Moya's head. The baby elephant twisted her head round and tried to get his fingers in her mouth.

  Hex flinched backwards on Paulo's behalf. 'Careful, Paulo. Patrick, does she bite?'

  It was Paulo who answered. 'She just wants some milk.' He offered Moya his thumb, just as he used to with the calves on his ranch. The elephant pulled it into her mouth, making sucking noises. Paulo looked round at the others, enchanted. 'Her tongue's really soft.'

  'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Li, 'I give you Paulo, the man who suckles elephants.'

  Patrick was ready with the milk bottle. Moya saw it and tried to reach for it with her trunk, but missed and clouted Paulo on the side of the head.

  Paulo reeled backwards, his head ringing. Even though the elephant was only small, it was like being lashed with a thick cable. 'Ouch, I just saw stars then.' He shook his head.

  'Careful, Paulo,' said Patrick. 'That's happened to me and it really hurts. She doesn't have much co-ordination yet; she has to learn how to use her trunk. But a fully grown elephant could cave your skull in with a blow like that.'

  Moya had leaped backwards as Paulo yelped and now stood eyeing him nervously, her trunk looped into her mouth again. Patrick leaned over the fence and tried to coax her over to him.

  'Patrick,' said Paulo, 'may I feed her? I want to be friends with her.'

  Patrick handed him the bottle. 'Be my guest. It may take you a while, though.'

  Paulo followed his gaze to a crate on the ground. It held another seven bottles. He smiled. 'No problem.' He held out the teat to Moya. 'Come on, querida, time for breakfast.'

  Li looked at Patrick. 'Did the poachers hurt her?'

  'No, not physically; but they took away her mother. She didn't get enough antibodies from her mother's milk and now she's got an intestinal infection. Do you see how she's bloated around the tummy but thin everywhere else? She's not absorbing any food. We're giving her massive doses of antibiotics in the milk, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. She's always ravenous and she's getting thinner. I suggested that we shouldn't tell Tessa about her – we could have farmed her out to one of the other reserves – but Joe wanted to give her an incentive to get better. Anyway, now Tessa is probably too ill to remember she's here.'

  Amber was aghast. 'You're not going to give up on Moya, are you?'

  'Just tell us what to do and we'll nurse her,' said Li. 'Twenty-four/seven.'

  Patrick shook his head slowly. 'It's not a question of that; we're doing all that can be done. We just have to hope that it works.'

  Amber again voiced what they were all thinking. 'How bad is Tessa?'

  Patrick took a deep breath. 'I've known people die of septic shock. It's bad.'

  The baby elephant took a cautious step towards Paulo. Her lips opened and she let go of her trunk, which tumbled to the ground like a heavy rope. With the next step she took she trod on it and let out a shriek of surprised pain.

  As one, Alpha Force dissolved in helpless laughter. After the shocking events of the past few hours it felt good to have something to laugh about.

  Paulo leaned over the fence, coaxing her to come near. Hunger eventually overcame Moya's distrust. She sidled up to him, holding her trunk out of the way of her feet like a dowager lifting her skirts, and clamped her mouth onto the offered bottle. Once she had the teat she sucked ferociously. The milk bubbled and sloshed as she pulled on it. But now Patrick had pointed it out, Paulo saw that she did look unwell. The bones of her hips and shoulders were like razor blades under her rough hide, while her belly was swollen like a famine victim's.

  'Hey,' said Alex, 'we've got company.'

  Two adult elephants were ambling across the yard.

  Patrick looked up. 'Oh, I thought it was about time for those two. That's Penelope, nearest to us; the guy next to her is her twelve-year-old son, Brains. There's another member of the family – Thunderbird – she should be around somewhere. We actually called her Thunderbird Two because when we found her, she had flattened a line of trees in a long avenue.' He gr
imaced. 'I guess you can tell Joe named these ones, not Tessa.'

  Alex was astounded. No-one had heard the elephants arrive, yet they were more than three metres tall, with legs as stout as the pillars that held up the front of the lodge. Each elephant's head was as big as an entire zebra. 'How did they get past without us hearing?' he said. 'Look at the size of them.'

  Patrick nodded. 'They can move silently when they want to. Elephants are amazing animals.'

  The two elephants were clearly on a mission. They headed for a wooden outhouse, where there was a tap. Penelope lifted her trunk. At the end were two finger-like lips, which she lowered delicately onto the handle. Brains put his trunk over the nozzle of the tap, like a hose, while Penelope turned it on. A few drops fell onto the sandy earth, but most of it went up Brains's trunk.

  'Did you teach them to do that?' said Hex.

  'No,' said Patrick. 'One day we just found them doing it. They must have seen us. They're very intelligent.'

  Brains took his trunk away from the tap, opened his mouth and squirted the water into it. Its upturned corners made him look as though he was laughing. Then he and Penelope reversed roles: Brains turned the tap on and Penelope took a drink.

  'Are they tame?' said Li.

  'Not tame as such,' said Patrick. 'I'd say they were friendly; they're used to us. They came one day because we had another orphaned calf here – that was Thunderbird. Now they've made this their watering hole. It's safer than the ones out in the park because they're not vulnerable to poachers.'

  'I can't see any tags on them,' said Li.

  'They're under the skin, in the neck,' Patrick explained.

  'This must be Thunderbird,' said Alex.

  Another elephant was trotting towards Brains and Penelope, her ears held out. She made a loud rumbling noise and the other two elephants turned away from the tap to greet her. As she reached them, they all twisted their trunks together, clacking their tusks like drumsticks and flapping their ears.

  'Look,' said Li, 'Paulo's getting on well.' Moya gave a loud sigh and milk spurted down her chin and all over Paulo. It was the latest of many accidents. His dark-blue T-shirt and jeans were already soaking.

  'I think he's in his element,' said Amber. 'Patrick, what will happen to Moya?'

  'If she survives, we'll rehabilitate her into the wild. These three will probably get to know her and adopt her. We had Thunderbird here ten years ago and Penelope took her on. Before we started doing this, orphans went to zoos and circuses.'

  Amber looked at Moya's thin shoulders. 'Was Thunderbird as bad as Moya?'

  Patrick shook his head. 'No. I think Moya is worse.'

  Paulo started Moya on the last bottle. She attempted to explore his face with the prehensile fingers on the end of her trunk. 'Hey,' he said gently, dodging a clumsy probe, 'you don't get me with that again.'

  Thunderbird turned away from the group and they saw her other side for the first time. In the thin membrane of her ear were two bullet holes, like a punch made with a machine.

  'Is that an old wound?' asked Hex.

  'No,' said Patrick. His mouth was a tight line and his voice quivered with fury. 'I haven't seen that before. Some poacher's had a go at her.'

  11

  RANGERS

  'Anyone know what this is?' Gaston laid the gun down on the bonnet of the Jeep with a wiry hand. Alpha Force were to go into the field with him. They were going to have another look for the unmarked elephants they had seen earlier and tranquillize them so that they could be tagged. They hoped the poachers hadn't got to them first.

  Alex recognized most of the weapon's features. He pointed to each one as he reeled them off: 'Benjamin Sheridan stock, optional pistol grip, bolt action, point-five calibre smooth bore, two times pistol scope . . .'

  Li put her finger on the long canister of propellant gas fixed to the underside of the barrel. 'It's a tranquillizer gun.'

  'Have you ever used one?' asked Gaston.

  Li shook her head. 'I haven't but my parents have. I've seen just enough to know that tranquillizer darts can be just as dangerous as bullets.'

  Gaston nodded. 'That's all you need to know for now.' He took the tranquillizer gun and put it in the back of the Jeep. 'Hex, have you got the tracking unit?'

  'All set,' Hex replied.

  'Good afternoon,' called Patrick on his way past. He was leading three teenage boys to the Teak Lodge Range Rover. They looked Amber and Li up and down appreciatively as they walked past. Amber looked back, sizing up their expensively cut clothes. They positively bristled with designer labels.

  One of the boys was talking to Patrick. He had wavy black hair and wore a crisply ironed shirt. 'So do we get to shoot?' he asked, trying to catch Amber's eye.

  'Only with a camera,' said Patrick. Amber smirked. She could hear the patience in Patrick's voice was already strained.

  The boy was showing off: 'My dad went on safari in Kenya and he was allowed to shoot a leopard with a tranquillizer gun. He got so close he was able to put his foot on it. My mum took a photo.'

  'Some safari companies do that but we don't,' replied Patrick. 'This park is all about conservation. We don't want to fire at the animals unnecessarily. But there's plenty of opportunity to get close to them, and we do balloon trips too.' He opened the driver's door. The party climbed in.

  'What are kids like that doing in a place like this?' said Amber quietly. 'They must have got the wrong holiday.'

  Hex had been watching them too. 'They're rich kids whose parents send them to boarding school, then when they return home for the holidays they're packed off on some expensive trip to get them out of the way.' His voice was scathing.

  'I think that's about hit the nail on the head,' said Gaston, and started the engine. 'I'm not very good at dealing with people like that, so Joe palmed them off on Patrick.'

  'Any news from Joe?' said Paulo.

  'He phoned to see what we're up to and to give us instructions about the visitors. Tessa's being pumped full of drugs so he's staying at the hospital for a while.'

  Too late, Hex realized his remarks might have offended Amber: her parents had put her in boarding school and sent her away in the holidays too, although they couldn't exactly tell her it was because they were out on clandestine missions. 'Er, I—I didn't mean . . .' he stammered. 'Of course, Amber, your mum and dad weren't . . .'

  'It's all right,' said Amber. 'I know you didn't mean to call my parents stuck-up rich bastards.' She gave him a smile like a cobra.

  'I mean . . .' continued Hex.

  'Just keep talking,' said Amber. 'I'm enjoying this.'

  * * *

  Gaston drove them to the water hole they had visited that morning. Paulo and Li noticed the others start to look around warily as they passed a distinctive baobab at the edge of an acacia wood.

  Gaston noticed too. 'This is where the poachers ambushed you, isn't it?' he said.

  Hex nodded and pointed to the sandy ground. 'Look – you can even see our prints where they got us out.'

  'Was that really only this morning?' said Alex. 'So much seems to have happened.'

  'You were lucky,' said Gaston. 'One of the wardens was killed last year. It was Patrick's brother. And Patrick and I got shot at a few weeks ago. If this continues, we won't be able to go on taking tourists around.'

  Alex automatically scanned the scrubby bushes. He was looking for the tip of a weapon, the clump of a head camouflaged by branches, or birds startled by a predator. Once bitten, twice shy.

  'Whereabouts did you see the elephants?' said Gaston.

  'Just over there,' said Amber. 'Where those trees are.'

  Gaston stopped the Jeep and put on the handbrake. He opened the door and got out. Alpha Force followed. 'OK, we're looking for elephant tracks. They look like this.' He squatted down and swept his hand across the sand in a circle nearly thirty centimetres across. 'It's basically a large, flat, padded print,' he said, 'and you might also see the toenails.' He drew several indentations at th
e front of the circle. 'Have a look around and see if you can find them.'

  He stood up and folded his arms, watching as the group started to look around on the ground.

  But Amber looked at him sceptically. She pointed straight at a row of broken trees that formed a passage into the wood. 'I'd say they went thataway.'

  Paulo, Li, Alex and Hex groaned. They had nearly fallen for the trick.

  Gaston grinned. 'Damn – that always works with the tourists. I usually get them looking for prints for ages. Yes, folks, elephants generally leave a trail of destruction wherever they go.'

  He reached into the back of the Jeep and brought out the tranquillizer gun, a black tube and a couple of small cases. 'I'm going to load the gun now so we're ready.' He took the lid off the black tube and tipped out three darts. Then he laid the two cases next to the gun. Both contained bottles the size of alcohol miniatures. One set was red, the other blue. He took two red ones and fitted darts on the ends. Then he took a blue one and fitted a dart on that. He held up one of the red ampoules. 'This is the tranquillizer. It's strong enough to make a five-tonne elephant very sleepy. It's absolutely lethal to anything else, and of course that includes us.' He put the red capsule down and picked up the blue one. 'This is the antidote. If anyone gets so much as a scratch . . .'

  Li finished the sentence for him. 'Give them the whole lot immediately.'

  'Right.' Gaston handed Li the dart with the antidote and stowed the tranquillizer gun in a special rack like an umbrella stand on the outside of the door of the Jeep.

  Another handy feature of ex-army vehicles, thought Alex. It also had grenade pockets. It took him back: when he was small his dad had taken him to headquarters and let him climb all over the SAS vehicles.

  'One final thing,' said Gaston. He bent over, scooped up a handful of dust and stood up again, letting the sand trickle from his fingers. He watched it for a moment, then brushed the rest of the sand from his hands.

  'Were you checking the direction of the wind?' said Alex.

  Gaston got into the Jeep. 'That's right. We have to approach into the wind or they'll smell us and head for the hills.'