by Tony Park
She fumbled in the dirt for the knife, but Sibanda kicked it aside.
‘Hey,’ Sam called.
‘Run,’ she croaked.
Sibanda kicked her again, then stooped, almost casually, to retrieve the fallen AK-47. ‘You stupid, gullible white bitch. You think you’re so much smarter than us. You and your kind think you can rule Africa with your private armies.’
Sonja drew a painful breath to try and stop the dizziness, but the sun was in her eyes as she looked up at him. ‘My daughter …’
Sibanda smiled. ‘… will be looking into my eyes when she dies.’ He raised the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and put his finger through the trigger guard.
NINETEEN
When Sam saw the African man roll from under Sonja and punch and kick her he raised the gun, pointing straight up in the air, and pulled the trigger as he started running.
Nothing happened.
‘Shoot,’ he said to himself. He looked at it. Think! In movies and computer games they grabbed the top and pulled back. His left hand was slick with sweat and he only managed to pull it back halfway before it slipped and slid forward. He pulled the trigger again and nothing happened.
‘Hey!’ he called to the man, who was bending to pick up a rifle. If the man heard or saw him, he obviously thought Sam was no threat.
Sam wiped his hand on his T-shirt and yanked back the slide on top of the pistol again. It was much tougher than he expected, but when he pulled it all the way back and let it go this time he heard and felt a satisfying clunk. The man was raising his rifle and pointing it at Sonja.
‘Oh, dear God,’ Sam said. He stopped in the narrow pathway of fallen cornstalks and raised the pistol in a two-handed grip and pulled the trigger.
The noise and the recoil of the pistol made him start. He heard two shots, though he thought he had fired only one. He saw smoke and gases erupt from the barrel of the rifle and the man looked up at him. Sonja was moving on the ground, but he couldn’t tell if she had been hit. The man started to swing the barrel of the rifle towards him and Sam fired again.
And again. And again. And again.
When Sam opened his eyes the man was slumped against the black pick-up, a smear of glistening blood following him down the paintwork as he slowly sank to the ground in a seated position. Sam’s legs felt like jelly, but he forced himself to walk closer, his right arm up, with the pistol still levelled at the man.
‘Sam!’ Sonja cried. She was on her knees, a strand of drool linking her mouth to the mud she was trying to free herself from.
The African man was holding his rifle one-handed now. He looked at Sam and weakly tried to raise the weapon.
‘Motherfucker.’ Sam fired thirteen more times, emptying the pistol into the lifeless form.
‘No!’ Sonja screamed. She got to her feet and stumbled to him. She reached out and grabbed the pistol from him. ‘Why did you kill him, you idiot?’
Sam stopped and looked from the man he had just killed to the red-faced, screaming woman whose life he thought he had just saved. ‘Why do you think, Sonja?’
‘No, no, no!’ She scrunched her free hand into her hair and knelt beside the dead man. She untangled her fingers and placed two on his neck. ‘Dead. Shit.’
‘Sonja, sit down. You need to tell me what was going on here. I just killed a man who I thought was going to kill you.’
‘My daughter. Give me your phone.’
‘Your daughter?’ He pulled his phone from his shirt pocket and she snatched it from him. While she dialled a number he stared at the body and the wide open eyes of the man he had just killed, watching his blood pool in the mud and dirt around him. Sam started to feel queasy, then dropped to his knees and vomited.
Sonja had the phone pressed to her ear. ‘Martin, it’s Sonja. Shut up and listen. I need you to get Emma collected from boarding school and on tonight’s flight from London to Jo’burg.’
As she talked she bent down and prised the AK-47 from the dead man’s hands. She motioned, with the tip of the barrel, for Sam to follow her while she talked. Sam dry-heaved a couple of times and palmed tears from his eyes. He forced himself to his feet. She was as cold and nasty as a goddamned rattler.
‘Business class,’ she said into the phone. ‘And book her on the first available flight to Maun tomorrow, then Mack Air to Xakanaxa. Ask for Laurens, the head pilot, and tell him to look out for her. I’ll phone Stirling and tell him to find a room for her.’
Sam pushed half-broken stalks of corn out of his face as he stumbled in Sonja’s footsteps. There was something wet on the toe of his boot and when he bent at the waist to take a closer look he saw it was blood. They were following a trail of it. The caller at the other end of the phone – he gathered it was her security consultant boss, Martin Steele – was asking the obvious question. Why?
Sonja glanced back over her shoulder at Sam, then to her front. She held the AK-47 loose in her left hand, so she obviously wasn’t expecting more trouble. She lowered her voice, and Sam had to lengthen his stride to get closer to her so he could eavesdrop.
‘Those people we spoke about … they caught up with us. No, none of us was hurt and the … visitors have been dealt with. But one of them threatened Emma, Martin. He told me they would get her if I didn’t let him live. He had credible information that told me he wasn’t bluffing.’
Sam swallowed hard, as he knew the next question and its answer.
‘I had to finish him off. Look Martin, I don’t care if I have to pay for the flights myself, but I don’t have a credit card on me and I need you to get Emma’s transport arrangements sorted ASAP. If you don’t do this for me then I’m walking, right now. I’ll drive to Windhoek and I’ll steal the money for a flight to England. If I get there and find my daughter dead then it’ll be on your head. Understood?’
She paused for a few seconds. ‘OK, good. Send Laidlaw and Regan. They’re good men and Emma knows them. I’ll call her and tell her to pack her bags.’
‘Sonja …’
She held up the phone to silence Sam and pressed some more buttons. ‘Emma, it’s me, listen carefully.’
Sam trudged on while Sonja spoke to her daughter. He didn’t think it strange that she’d so far neglected to say anything about having a child, as he’d already learned she was not the sort of person to pull out snaps of her family. Sonja’s tone with her daughter was brisk and commanding. There was no ‘missing you’ or ‘I love you’, but Sam wasn’t surprised.
Sonja ended the call, stopped, and handed the phone back to Sam, without a word of thanks. She dropped to one knee and used the tip of the rifle barrel to brush aside some fallen green stalks. ‘Help me take this one back to the truck.’
Sam saw the lifeless eyes and the gaping chasm of blood, sinew and white muscle that had once been the man’s neck and throat. He turned away and retched again. He felt like his body was turning itself inside out.
‘Sam, come on. I need your help.’ She slung the rifle over her back and grabbed the body under the arms. When Sam had the courage to look again he thought the man’s head had lolled so far back that it might fall off. He spat bile.
‘Man up, for Christ’s sake.’
Man up? Did this woman think life was a goddamned war movie? Sam swallowed and grabbed the dead man’s boots. By the time they reached the Toyota he was cursing and sweating. Together they heaved him into the rear seat of the pick-up, and then placed the body of the man Sam had shot in the front passenger seat. Sam averted his eyes from the interior of the cab, which was painted with the driver’s blood, brain and skull fragments.
‘Stand back.’ Sonja raised the AK and fired a single shot into the vehicle’s body, just behind the driver’s side rear door. Petrol jetted from the neat hole in an arcing stream. Sonja walked to the passenger side, reached into the cab and patted the pockets of the man who had tried to kill her. She took out a lighter and a packet of Newbury cigarettes. One-handed, she placed the open top of the pack to her lips and drew o
ne out. She lit it, inhaled deeply, exhaled through her nose, with the cigarette still in her mouth, and peeled the blood-drenched shirt from the man’s shoulder wound. She walked back to the petrol fountain, soaked the rag in fuel, lit it, then tossed it into the pool of fuel.
Sam was speechless. He had the presence of mind to step back as the fireball erupted into the air. Flames engulfed the Toyota and the bodies inside it. Sonja ejected the empty magazine from the pistol, replaced it with a fresh one, and stuffed the gun in the waistband of her shorts.
Sam could smell them burning. He wanted to be sick again, but he was empty inside. He started to cry.
‘Come on.’ Her voice was softer. She held the dead man’s cigarette between her blood-stained fingers and closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply.
He stood there, staring, blinking away his tears. The windows popped and the people inside burned like spent Fourth of July fireworks consuming their flimsy wrappers.
Sonja tossed the AK-47 through the front passenger window. It bounced off the melting body in the flaming seat. She stubbed out the cigarette, put the butt in her pocket and placed her hand in Sam’s, gripping it lightly. ‘Come on.’
He started to walk and she immediately increased the pace. He glanced back once more at the scene; it was a live cross from hell, except this wasn’t television.
Sonja was almost dragging him as he stumbled along. He shook his hand free of hers and stopped. ‘Who were they?’
She didn’t look back at him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Like shit it doesn’t matter, Sonja! There are three dead men back there. Who were they and why were they trying to kill you?’
Still, she refused to meet his eye. She started walking again and knocked stalks of maize aside as the heat intensified at their backs. ‘Us, Sam. They were trying to kill us.’
‘Who were they?’
‘CLA. Caprivian Liberation Army. They probably heard about your visit and decided they would kidnap you and the rest of the crew.’
‘Bullshit, Sonja. A second ago you said they were trying to kill us. Now you say it was a kidnap attempt. They were shooting at us. And what’s all this got to do with your daughter?’
She stopped and turned, and wiped the back of her hand across her brow. It left a red smudge. Sam looked down at his own hands, then wiped them on his shirt. They were sticky with the blood of the man whose throat Sonja had cut. Her clothes were covered in it. She looked like an angel of death. ‘You don’t need to know anything more than those men tried to kill or capture you and you acted in self-defence. With luck you’ll be out of the country before the police even find the vehicle.’
‘Need to know? This is not the goddamned army, Sonja. I need to know why I just shot and killed a man, and why he was trying to kill you. Frankly, I’m having just the teeniest bit of trouble with taking a human life, although you seem to be handling it all right.’
She pulled the dead commander’s cigarettes from her pocket and lit a second. She held the pack out to him.
‘I don’t smoke.’
She shrugged and dragged deep. ‘Booze helps. Maybe see a shrink when you get back to LA. Myself, I find they ask too many questions and don’t give enough answers for what you pay.’
‘How can you joke at a time like this?’
‘It’s called black humour, and we’re going to end up like those okes in the bakkie if we don’t get a move on. Fire’s gaining. Let’s move.’
She set off and he dried his eyes on the blood-encrusted sleeve of his shirt.
Sam had followed Sonja’s instructions and, on reaching the Okavango, had driven parallel to its banks for a while before hooking left and back through some sparse cattle-grazing areas to the main road. Instead of carrying on to the dam site he had left the others and gone back to look for Sonja. Part of him wished he’d done as she’d first ordered. However, if he had, she would have died and he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself.
The Land Rover was still where he’d left it, parked under a tree. As he followed Sonja towards it he saw blue-grey smoke coming from the tailpipe. Rickards and Gerry were standing outside in the shade, but it looked like Cheryl-Ann was still inside.
There was a pick-up in the dam construction company’s livery nearby, and two men in overalls were chatting to the cameraman and sound man. A white Land Cruiser slowed, indicated and turned off the tar to pull up next to the other four-by-four. The white man who climbed out was Deiter Roberts.
Everyone seemed to asking questions at once.
Roberts addressed Sam: ‘What’s going on here? We got your call for help. Are you guys all right – you’re both covered in blood.’
‘How’s Cheryl-Ann?’ Sam asked Jim.
‘Was that more gunfire we could hear?’ Rickards replied.
‘Who were those guys?’ Gerry chimed in.
Sam saw Sonja ignore the cluster and move to the window of the Land Rover. She tapped on it, waited a couple of seconds, then tapped again. Sam walked over to her as Cheryl-Ann rolled down the window. Her eyes were red and her cheeks streaked with tears. She blew her nose into a tissue. Sonja opened the door, leaned in and wrapped her arms around Cheryl-Ann, holding her face to her chest. Cheryl-Ann recoiled at first, from Sonja’s un-expected embrace and her blood-spattered skin and clothing, but then started sobbing again and melted into the other woman’s arms.
He was told to ‘man up’ and Cheryl-Ann got a hug, Sam couldn’t help thinking cynically. He left the women in peace and Rickards placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘Cheryl-Ann’s fucked, man. I’ve never seen someone lose it so quickly and so completely. I had her figured for a hard arse.’
Sam looked back at the sobbing wreck who until recently had been ordering them about with such gusto.
Rickards continued. ‘When you left she told us to leave you and Sonja. I said no, and Gerry said we should wait and she just blew a fuse, man. She started abusing us like you wouldn’t believe, then she just kind of made this mooing noise, curled up in a ball and started crying. She was saying she didn’t want to die, and shit like that.’
Sam knew he’d been very close to losing it in the same way.
Roberts called for everyone’s attention. The red-faced engineer seemed to find the displays of emotion particularly annoying. He clapped his hands. ‘People, listen. I have called the police on my radio and they will be here soon. I also called GrowPower’s PR people and Selma Tjongarero spoke to head office. Mr Schwarz, the head of GrowPower, just called me from Windhoek to say you may use his company’s aeroplane to fly straight to the capital, if you wish. In the circumstances, that might be a very good idea.’
Sam thanked him. They were supposed to be going back to Ngepi that evening for some filming on the Okavango, and then catching a charter flight from the airstrip at Bagani to Windhoek the next day.
Sonja brushed Cheryl-Ann’s hair from her face and murmured a few more quiet words to her. The American woman had stopped wailing, but she stayed in the Land Rover with her head in her hands.
‘You don’t want to hang around for the police investigation,’ Sonja said to Sam. Deiter nodded in agreement. ‘Also, I think Cheryl-Ann needs to be sedated. The quicker you get her back to civilisation, the better.’
Sam looked hard at her, wondering where this sensitive, compassionate soul had been hiding when the blood-streaked killer lit a dead man’s cigarette and torched his body. She caught his eye then turned quickly to Roberts. ‘You agree, Deiter?’
The engineer rubbed his jaw. ‘With the way the police work in this part of Africa you could be stuck here for days. May be better to write a couple of quick statements at the airstrip and leave them with me. I know the chief of police. I also know GrowPower and the government won’t want to make too much of this incident. It sounds like a car-jacking attempt to me, Sonja. What do you think?’
She nodded.
‘That’s not what happened,’ Sam said.
‘Leave it, Sam. Forget abo
ut it.’
Roberts held up his hands. ‘Sonja’s right, Sam. Whatever this was, you don’t want to stick around for the aftermath. Car-jacking is nowhere near as prevalent in Namibia as it is in South Africa, but it is not unheard of. You two should clean yourselves up, get rid of those bloody clothes and get out of here, fast.’
Sam held his tongue. He, too, wanted to get away from this place, especially the pall of smoke behind him which reminded him of what he had just done. He couldn’t see a way in which the publicity surrounding his shooting of a man in a remote corner of Africa could be turned into a good thing.
‘I spoke to the pilot just now,’ Roberts said, as if delivering the argument’s clincher. ‘The GrowPower aircraft will be ready to leave in thirty minutes. I suggest, for Cheryl-Ann’s sake, we get a move on.’
Jim and Gerry compared stories as they scribbled statements in Cheryl-Ann’s notepad during the drive back to Ngepi camp, where they hurriedly collected their bags. Cheryl-Ann was still too shaken to walk far, so Sonja collected her luggage from her room for her then hurriedly loaded the lot into the Rover. Then they headed straight to the nearby airstrip at Bagani.
‘Um, what do we call you in our statements, Sonja?’ Gerry asked, as he checked his notes.
‘Field guide and security consultant,’ she said.
‘Cool. So our “field guide and security consultant” fired back at the suspected car-jackers, probably injuring the driver, right?’
‘Whatever,’ Sonja said, watching the road.
Gerry wrote some more and then looked up again. ‘And then their pick-up went off the road, crashed in the cornfield and caught fire, is that how it went down, Sam?’
‘Like the lady said, Gerry.’
‘Awesome.’
Sonja pulled up at a lean-to that was roofed with corrugated iron, which passed for a terminal in this part of the continent, next to a battered old blue Bedford refuelling truck, and a pair of white Nissan Patrol four-wheel drives which looked incongruously clean and new. Roberts’s Land Cruiser and the other vehicle from the construction site were behind them and stopped next to the Land Rover.