The Delta

by Tony Park

  When the uniformed policeman strode out into the middle of the road and started flagging him down, Sam was sure he’d been busted for speeding. The fine would have been richly deserved as he’d been pushing the vehicle to its limits.

  ‘Our luck might be in,’ Rickards had said, pointing to the police pick-up on the side of the road with its bonnet open. ‘Looks like these guys might just be broken down and looking for a lift.’

  Sam rocked forward then backwards as he felt the nose of the dugout grind to a halt in mud or sand.

  ‘Up!’ the man behind him ordered.

  It was easier said than done. Sam couldn’t use his tied hands to grasp the sides of the canoe, and when he brought his knees up and tried to boost himself up he found his legs had gone to sleep from staying in the one position too long.

  ‘Up!’ He felt a hand grab the back of his shorts and haul him roughly to his feet. His leg muscles prickled with pins and needles and he lurched forward, bumping into Rickards’s back. The Australian swore.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sam said.

  ‘How fucked do you think we are?’ the Australian whispered.

  ‘It’s not good.’ Sam straightened up and put one foot tentatively in front of the other. ‘But I figure if they wanted to kill us they would have done it by now.’

  ‘Silence!’

  Sam cried out in pain as something blunt and unforgiving punched him in the small of the back. At the same time another hand grabbed the shoulder strap of his tank top and dragged him.

  ‘Lift your feet,’ the voice said to him. Sam followed the orders and noted the accent of the new voice was different. It sounded European, maybe Dutch. He hadn’t spent any time in South Africa other than transiting through the airport on his way to Botswana, but he thought the voice might have been that of an Afrikaner. The accent was similar to Sonja’s, but harsher. Sam stepped into a mush of water and mud but his next footfall was on dry land.

  ‘Stop there,’ the man said. ‘Hold your hands steady.’ Sam felt the cold steel of the flat edge of a knife’s blade rest against the inside of his wrist and he flinched. ‘I said steady, unless you want me to cut you.’

  He heard a snap and then felt the blood pulsing back into his hands and fingers. The relief turned quickly to pain.

  ‘Rub your hands together. Massage your wrists. Jissus man, if you’d put these bladdy things on tighter this oke’s hands would have dropped off,’ the man said, presumably to one of the men who had kidnapped them. ‘Strip them.’

  Sam swallowed as he felt hands lifting his top over his head. Any hope he’d had that the man with the Afrikaans accent might have been kinder on them was fast disappearing, along with his shorts.

  ‘Oh fuck, no,’ he heard Rickards whine. ‘Please don’t rape me!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Sam heard a chuckle and some words exchanged in an African dialect. The men laughed some more and Sam reddened under the hood he was wearing. He felt vulnerable and very afraid. This, he figured, was what they wanted.

  ‘On your knees. Now!’ the Afrikaner voice barked.

  Sam lowered himself and placed his hands in front of his pubic area.

  ‘Arms up! Reach for the heavens. You won’t protect yourself that way. If you lower your arms you will get a beating, understood?’

  ‘You’re making a …’

  The blow between his shoulderblades pitched him forwards and he grazed his palms in the sand trying to break his fall. Rough hands pulled him back up on to his knees again. He heard breathing close to the hood. ‘You don’t speak unless you’re answering one of my questions. Name?’

  ‘Sam Chapman. I’m a presenter for—’

  A hand slapped the back of his head. ‘Arms up! All I asked you was your name.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Jim Rickards … sir.’

  Sam heard a thump and a squeal of pain as Jim received the same treatment.

  ‘Play smart with me, Aussie boy, and I’ll cut your fucking balls off. Understand?’

  ‘Um … yes.’

  Sam heard footsteps behind him and again sensed the man close to his face. ‘I see from your passport that you are a Mr Samuel Charles Chapman, citizen of the United States of America. Now, Mr Chapman, I want you to tell me who you are working for.’

  ‘I’m a television presenter for the Wildlife World documentary channel. I’m in Africa making a film about the Okavango Delta and—’

  Sam doubled over and felt only pain when he tried to draw a breath. He fell to his side and clutched his chest.

  ‘Up!’

  Hands dragged him up. He was gasping but couldn’t get any air in his lungs. He thought he might pass out.

  ‘Hands up!’

  A hand grabbed his hair through the hood, forcing the coarse fabric against his mouth as he managed a ragged breath.

  ‘No bullshit, American. I don’t want your fucking cover story – who do you work for?’

  ‘I told you, I work for Wildlife World it’s a—’

  ‘Shut up, you fucking liar.’ Sam heard the slick sliding of metal on metal then felt something press against his temple hard enough to ingrain the weave of the hessian on his skin. ‘Feel that? It’s a Browning nine-millimetre pistol. But don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you with it.’

  Sam was too scared to utter another word. He felt the pressure removed from the side of his head.

  ‘I’m going to shoot your Australian friend here. Mr … James Edward Rickards.’

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ Sam heard Jim wail. ‘He’s telling the truth, you fucking psychopath. This dude’s a TV talking head and I’m—’

  The gunshot shook Sam’s whole body. ‘JIM! Nooo!’

  All Sam could hear was a muffled, gurgling sound. He felt the gun pressed against his head again. He could feel the heat of the barrel through the hood. ‘He’s wounded, Samuel, but not dead … yet. Want me to put another bullet in him and finish him off, or are you going to tell me the truth? Who are you working for and why were you following the woman?’

  ‘I TOLD YOU, I’M SAM CHAPMAN AND I WORK FOR—’

  ‘Papa? What the fuck are you doing, you bloody idiot …’

  The pistol was moved and Sam tried to shrug away from the fingers he felt at his throat.

  ‘Sam, it’s me, Sonja. Relax. It’s OK, Sam.’

  He was almost hyperventilating but her words stilled him. He felt the fingers again. Soft, delicate, as she unpicked the knot at his throat. He smelled her through the bag. Not perfumed, but a raw, woman’s smell. He coughed. ‘Son … Sonja?’

  ‘Ja, hush for a moment while I get this off.’

  He risked the wrath of the other man and dropped his hands to his groin again.

  ‘Get this man’s clothes. Now! And the other one’s, you fucking maniacs,’ she said.

  Sam blinked as the hood came away from his head. He saw Sonja, though her face and ponytail were a black silhouette against the sun streaming through leaves above. He coughed and spat fibres that he’d sucked into his mouth and throat over the past hours. He looked to his side and saw a black man in camouflage uniform struggling to remove the hood from a thrashing, swearing Rickards.

  Sam stood and snatched the shorts from the man who held them out to him, then stepped into them. As he pulled his singlet top over his head he twisted around and saw an old man with a Santa Claus beard holding a black pistol at his side. He felt Sonja’s hand on his arm.

  ‘Jesus, Sonja, do you know these madmen?’ he asked.

  ‘Hands off, motherfucker,’ Rickards said as he wrenched his hood the rest of the way off and hopped from one leg to the other as he tried to pull on his pants.

  ‘That one,’ Sonja pointed to the man with the beard, ‘is my father.’

  The man looked at Sam and shrugged.

  *

  Sam and Jim sat on a log in front of a camp fire. Scattered around the clearing were more tents hiding beneath trees and nets. Every now and then an armed African man in uniform wandered past
and gave them a suspicious glance.

  Sonja lifted a blackened kettle off the embers and poured boiling water into three tin cups. She took a pewter hipflask from the pocket of her shorts and poured a shot of something into each cup.

  ‘Make mine a double, GI Jane,’ Rickards said.

  Sam saw that, despite the bravado and wisecracks, Jim’s face was still very pale. Sonja handed them each a steaming mug.

  Sam smelled coffee and brandy. He sipped it, closed his eyes and let the double-barrelled heat work its way through his tortured body. He opened his eyes and looked at Sonja. ‘That man is your father?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Seems pretty straightforward to me,’ Rickards said, coughing as his first mouthful hit home. ‘Crazy little fucker tried to kill me because he thought Sam was some kind of spy.’

  Sonja smiled. ‘If he wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be sitting here now. He was just trying to scare you.’

  ‘Well it worked. I thought he’d shot you, Jim,’ Sam said. ‘I didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘One of the other dudes put his hand over my mouth just as Kris Kringle shot his wad into the ground by my foot, is what happened. Your dad is one sick fuck, Sonja.’

  She rocked her head slightly from side to side, as if weighing up the observation, but didn’t say anything. Sam wondered whether Jim had hit the nail on the head.

  ‘He was trying to protect me. They were watching you from the time you left Bagani airfield. You shouldn’t have followed me.’

  ‘Who are they, Sonja?’ Sam took another slug of medicine.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that.’

  Rickards stood up and tossed the dregs of his coffee in the fire. A small blue flame danced in the coals. ‘Enough with the “need-to-know” bullshit, Sonja. You owe us an explanation.’

  She crossed her legs and looked up at him. ‘Really, Jim? How do you work that out?’

  He ran a hand through his greasy black hair. ‘How do you feel about telling me to hang out the window of the Land Rover to film those clowns following us in the black Toyota? Did I draw their fire OK for you?’

  She frowned and Sam could see Rickards had scored about half a point.

  ‘I thought if they saw you filming they’d be too scared to do anything and would back off.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Now I’m really confused. Who the hell are “they”?’

  ‘None of your business, Sam.’

  It was his turn to lose it with her now. ‘I killed one of those men, Sonja. I think that kinda makes it my business.’

  Rickards was pacing back and forwards. ‘OK, so Miss Plausible Deniability here isn’t going to tell us anything, Sam. Let’s do a little deducing. What’s the only armed rebel group that’s been active in this part of the world in the last few years?’

  Sam searched his memory for the acronym. ‘The CLA, right?’

  Rickards nodded. ‘Caprivi Liberation Army. I actually came up here years ago, in the nineties, when the CLA tried to take over the police station at Katima Mulilo. I got squat – the war was over before it began – but I remember a rumour going around had it that the CLA was being trained by bitter and twisted whites from the old South-West Africa looking to get a little payback against the Namibian government.’

  ‘How about it, Sonja?’ Sam asked. ‘We getting warm?’ She ignored him.

  ‘And so Sonja’s dear old dad,’ Jim went on, ‘is one of those old soldiers looking to refight the war against the SWAPO terrorists who now run his former home.’

  Sonja said nothing.

  ‘Lion got your tongue, Xena?’

  She glared at Rickards, but didn’t rise to the bait. Sam thought he might have to put a restraining hand on the Australian soon if he didn’t calm down – not that he could blame the guy. He had, after all, just nearly been shot.

  ‘So you,’ Jim pointed between Sonja’s eyes, his fingers cocked like a pistol, ‘work for Corporate Solutions. Cheryl-Ann swallows the line that you’re a bodyguard, but no one wants to listen to Jim Rickards when he points out that CS is a mercenary outfit that specialises in wreaking havoc on the African continent.’

  Sonja turned to Sam, still blanking Rickards. ‘Why did you follow me, Sam? Why not just go off to Windhoek?’

  Sam looked up at Jim, who returned the glance and drew a breath. He answered for Sam, his voice calmer and lower now that the fear-induced adrenaline was subsiding. ‘I’m looking for the story, Sonja, but Sam here was genuinely worried about you after those goons tried to kill us.’

  She looked at the camp fire.

  ‘What’s CS doing up here, Sonja?’ Jim pressed. ‘Are you training the CLA? Running guns?’

  ‘If you expect an answer to that then you should know it’ll be followed by a bullet.’

  ‘You going to deliver it, or are you going to leave that up to psycho-daddy?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not going to hurt you. I was trying to leave this place when you two showed up.’ She leaned forward in her chair and motioned with a hand for Jim to resume his seat on the log, which he did. ‘I don’t think my father will harm you now that he knows who you really are, but I can’t be sure about everyone else here.’

  ‘Are you leaving?’ Sam asked.

  She sucked her lower lip between her teeth and chewed for a second. ‘I wanted to, but I can’t see them letting you go right now.’

  ‘Right now?’ Jim whispered. ‘What’s going on here?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘The dam?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Don’t ask any more questions,’ Sonja said. ‘They already think you know too much. You’re a liability to them.’

  ‘There we go with “them” again,’ Rickards said. ‘Who are they? Who’s pulling the strings on the puppets with the guns here?’

  The three of them sat in silence, thinking about their next move.

  ‘I can try and get you out of here. Quietly. Tonight,’ Sonja said.

  Rickards surprised Sam by shaking his head. ‘No way. I want in.’

  ‘You want what?’ Sonja beat Sam to the question.

  Jim stood again. He seemed to feel better asserting himself when he was on his feet. ‘This could be the African story of the decade. Sam – let me ask you a question. Before you came to Africa and that guy Martin Steele told you and Cheryl-Ann about the so-called security situation in the Caprivi Strip, had you ever heard of the Caprivi Liberation Army or the Free Caprivi movement?’

  Sam shook his head.

  Jim snapped his head around to stare at Sonja. ‘See?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘PR. These dudes have been fighting a silent political and military battle to regain sovereignty over their ancestral homelands, against an unfeeling and allegedly cruel government dominated by a different tribe. Right?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ she agreed.

  ‘And no one has ever heard of them. The CLA needs some good public relations and you, young lady, are going to arrange with your dear old dad for me to be embedded with whatever hit squad these rebels are putting together.’

  Her laugh burst like a grenade. ‘You’re insane.’

  Rickards nodded enthusiastically. ‘Agreed. It’s part of the job description for a TV cameraman. But think about it. Unless your dad is going to kill us – which somehow I doubt – we’re going to leave here and sex symbol Sam is going to sell his story for a mint to OK or New Idea or Entertainment Tonight or whatever, about how he was captured and psychologically tortured by this loony rebel commander. Right Sam?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m sure there will be questions about what happened and I’ll answer them as objectively as I can.’

  ‘Bullshit. Stop being so polite, Sam. I mean, I know you’ve got a crush on Sonja and all …’

  ‘Jim,’ he hissed.

  Sonja turned to him and Sam looked away into the fire.

  ‘Whatever.’ Rickards started pacing again. ‘We
ll, speaking for myself, I am going to get in front of every print, cable and free-to-air journalist in southern Africa when we get out of here and tell them my tale of woe. Win, lose or draw, your pop and his rebel army are going to come off looking as bad as Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. Wasn’t he a Kurtz as well?’

  Sonja ignored the levity. ‘I can see where you’re going, Jim, but my father – not to mention the general commanding the CLA – won’t agree to taking a civilian cameraman with them on any operation. Not that I’m saying there is an operation.’

  ‘Sonja. Listen to me … from what I know the Namibian government has done a far better job convincing the world that Africa needs this dam to give electricity and water to the teeming masses. Correct?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s going to be the same once your war starts in the Caprivi Strip. The Namibians are going to brand these guys as terrorists and criminals. They’re going to lock the strip down and not let any foreign media in. The CLA will have lost the information war before it even begins. I want to be the one who shows the world the other side, the truth – the first pictures of the freedom fighters of the CLA in action, taking back their homeland from a heavy-handed oppressor. And Sam here can tell their story.’

  ‘I can?’

  Jim kept looking at him, waiting for an answer. ‘Think of it, Sam. The ultimate reality program – Coyote Sam Goes to War. You don’t look convinced.’ Rickards paced to the edge of the fire pit and back. He raised his right hand as if seeing letters in thin air in front of him. ‘I can see the headline … “CHAPMAN TELLS – MY TIME WITH THE ECO WARRIORS WHO BLEW UP A DAM TO SAVE PARADISE”.’

  Corny, Sam thought, but he could see there was something in this for the CLA rebels. As Rickards had said, other armed forces – both insurgents and government-led around the world – used the media to help fight their wars. He looked at Sonja, trying to read her face. He was coming around to Rickards’s point of view and he wondered how much of that was due to him searching for a way to spend a little more time with the woman next to him.

  ‘Sonja,’ Sam said, ‘do you think the CLA has a legitimate grievance against the government?’