by Tony Park
Sam trod the sandy path to the huts on the fringe of the camp. He knew what Rickards was up to – the Australian had been crude enough to tell him. He had no idea which hut the woman would be in, but only one of them showed a light. A dog gave a low growl from somewhere. He heard a small cough, perhaps from a child. Sam looked around and moved closer to the hut. He heard the hiss of a gas lantern. Insects clouded around the chink of light that bordered a blanket that was hanging over the entranceway.
‘Jim,’ he called softly. ‘Jim, it’s time to go, man. You in there?’
Sam licked his lips. The last thing he wanted to do was walk in on them while they were in the act. He paused by the door and listened, but there was no sound. Maybe they had fallen asleep.
‘Jim?’
Sam grabbed the edge of the tattered blanket and pulled it to one side. ‘Holy shit!’
He moved in and dropped to one knee beside the two bodies. Jim lay on his back, with a dot of red blood on his forehead and his eyes wide open. There was another bullet hole in his chest, near his heart, and blood all over the coarse mattress. The African woman was face down and both of them were naked. ‘Oh, Jesus, no.’
Sam reached over to the upturned beer crate that served as a beside table and grabbed the metal swinging handle of the gas lantern. He placed it on the earth floor next to Jim’s face as he reached out and touched Jim’s neck. There was no pulse, but there was the faintest trace of warmth on his fingertips. He checked the woman and saw there was nothing he could do for either of them. He started to retch, but swallowed hard. Why hadn’t he heard gunfire? He took a deep breath to steady himself and moved back to Rickards. He slipped a hand under the Australian’s head. There was no blood on the back though; no exit wound. It was a tiny hole in Jim’s forehead. He wondered who could have been responsible. Perhaps, he thought, it was a jealous husband?
Sam looked around the room and saw the red light on the video camera that was pointing at him and the two bodies. He shook his head, then stood and went to it. He picked the camera up and pressed the ‘record/pause’ button on the hand grip. He knew a thing or two about cameras and located the ‘play’, ‘fast forward’ and ‘rewind’ buttons on the side of the Canon. He pressed ‘rewind’, waited a few seconds, then hit ‘play’. In the small flip-out LED screen he saw Jim and the prostitute having sex. At one point the woman slid forward onto the mattress. Jim stood and looked at the camera, shock plain on his face. Sam was too slow to press ‘stop’ before he saw the sickening vision of the Australian’s death. As he replayed the scene, Sam saw Jim raise a hand. His lips were moving, then he crumpled to the ground. Sam felt nauseous and light-headed. He put the camera down. He needed to hear what Jim had said.
Beside the camera was Jim’s black nylon backpack. Sam unzipped it and rummaged around until he found a set of headphones. He located the audio jack on the side of the camera and plugged them in. When he hit ‘play’ and ‘rewind’ again he heard the high-pitched squeal of voices. He went back past the scene of Jim’s death and caught a few seconds of the two people having sex. Sam drew a deep breath to steady himself as he watched the woman fall limp on the mattress.
‘Don’t stop now, baby …’ Sam heard Jim grasp.
After screaming out his orgasm, Jim seemed to grasp what had happened. ‘Holy shit!’ Sam saw Jim jump to his feet on the tiny screen, then turn and say: ‘You?’
Sam heard an English-accented voice, delivering a final insult before a silenced pistol coughed twice. Sam couldn’t see the man who had uttered the words, but he recognised immediately who it was. ‘Steele,’ he said out loud.
‘Very clever, Sam.’ Sam turned to look at the doorway. ‘Silly of me not to check the camera.’
TWENTY-NINE
Chipchase was panting by the time they made it back to the construction site’s administrative compound. Twice they’d had to lie low in the bush as a Namibian Defence Force Land Rover and a BTR 60 armoured car had raced past on their way to the gate. Sonja kept the pistol pressed to his ribs to make sure he didn’t try and alert the soldiers.
‘I can’t believe Steele would have had you killed,’ Chipchase said between ragged breaths. ‘What’s going on between you two?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Sonja said. An innocent man and woman had been gunned down because the security guards at the gate had mistaken them for Sonja and Gideon. ‘I didn’t think he was going to kill them. I thought the idea would have been to arrest them – us.’
‘So Steele’s working for GrowPower – for Schwarz – not the Caprivians.’
Sonja knelt in the moon shadow of the site office, catching her own breath while the Irishman wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. ‘Yes. There was something about Schwarz’s recorded message in the presentation that didn’t sound right and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I spoke to my father.’
Chipchase nodded. ‘Steele told Schwarz that you were going to the dam site on a secret reconnaissance mission, using the American film crew as cover.’
‘Yes.’ It was Schwarz’s reference to ladies and gentlemen in his recorded message to them during Selma’s briefing that had been the clue she had subconsciously picked up. ‘Schwarz knew I was going to the dam, but no one else on site – not even Roberts, the construction foreman – was expecting me. Schwarz changed his message to include me, as well as Cheryl-Ann in his opening remarks. He was a victim of his own obsession with getting his presentations correct. He knew there would be two women in the audience at the briefing, but no one else did. Even the smartest criminals make mistakes.’
‘Well he’ll be in big trouble now – from both the Namibian and the German governments for ordering the killing of innocent civilians. He’s overstepped the mark this time.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Sonja said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If it’d been Gideon and me in that ambulance then Schwarz and the Namibian government would have had the world’s media there tomorrow. They would have been able to show the bodies of a mercenary and a Caprivian rebel. My guess now is the wreckage of that mobile clinic and those two bodies are going to disappear very quickly.’
‘You could testify, and—’ Chipchase said.
Her look silenced him. ‘Who do you work for, Sydney? The Namibian government?’
‘I told you. I’m a missionary.’
‘Bullshit. I thought for a while that maybe you worked for GrowPower, but you wouldn’t have let me witness the killing of the nurse and the driver if you were secretly in cahoots with Steele. You didn’t know about any of it, did you?’
He stared at her, but she knew she was right.
‘I give you my word, Schwarz and GrowPower – and Steele – will pay for the murder of that young woman.’
Sonja started nodding. ‘Not the black African driver? The German government doesn’t care about him, does it?’
Chipchase was silent again, but she’d worked it out. ‘If you didn’t work for the Namibians, which was unlikely in any case, and you weren’t employed by GrowPower, then who else has an interest in everything that goes on in Namibia? The Germans, of course. I understand now. I’m sure you had an arrangement with Schwarz and the Namibians, though. What did you do, Sydney … have little meetings every now and then?’
His eyes betrayed him as he looked away from her.
‘It was you who infiltrated the CLA, wasn’t it? You were the freelance white mercenary who helped them with their training and then sold them out. Your information allowed the NDF to almost wipe the rebels out, didn’t it, Sydney? I bet you set up some innocent Caprivians to take the wrap as spies. Their blood’s on your hands … you’re no better than Steele and Schwarz.’
‘Don’t lump me in the same category as Steele,’ Chipchase said. ‘Namibia has friends in Europe and it’s in Europe’s interest for this part of Africa, at least, to be at peace. This region also needs the water and electricity the dam will bring. GrowPower might be rotten, but that doesn’t chang
e the fact that this dam will save lives. We knew you and Steele were active in the area from information MI6 supplied us. No one knew about the Zimbabwe job, but I was ordered to keep tabs on Corporate Solutions. I figured, rightly, that Steele was going to hawk himself – and you – to the CLA. What I didn’t know was that he was doublecrossing them and working for Schwarz.’
Sonja stood and looked down at Chipchase, who stayed lying in the grass. ‘Get up, you’re coming with me. I’ve got work to do and you’re my insurance policy if we get stopped.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, Sonja, and I’m not going to be a party to the destruction of this dam.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll have to kill you.’
*
‘Strip,’ Martin Steele said to Sam.
Sam stood in the hut with the two dead bodies and the man who had killed them. The nine-millimetre Sonja had given him was in the small of his back, in the waistband of his pants, but if he reached for it Steele would shoot him dead. He guessed Steele wanted him naked so it would look like he’d been killed in some sort of ménage à trois with Rickards and the prostitute – perhaps by a jealous boyfriend. ‘You’re going to a lot of trouble.’
Steele drew on his cigar, while keeping the pistol pointed at Sam. ‘You’re an American TV star. The rest of the world won’t give a fuck about what happened to the Caprivi Liberation Army, but this place will probably be swarming with the bloody FBI forty-eight hours after you’re gone.’
‘Why should I make killing me any easier for you?’
Steele shifted the aim of the pistol and fired. The report was a silent cough, and Sam flinched. His left arm felt like someone had grabbed the skin near his biceps with a pair of pliers and yanked it back. Other than the immediate sharp sensation there was no pain, but there was blood. He lifted his right hand to the wound and blood pulsed through his fingers. He stared at it.
‘Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you very, very slowly. The next shot will be in your balls. The twenty-two is a small round, but it’s still very deadly. The quickest way for me to kill you is a head shot, but there’s nothing to say a jealous lover wouldn’t have taken his time with you. Now take your kit off.’
Sam started to sweat and feel unsteady. He licked his lips and glanced down at the wound again, but then looked away. The sight of the blood, as much as the wound, was making him woozy. ‘I … I feel …’ He staggered and went down on one knee.
Steele shifted his position. ‘I’m still watching you.’
Sam nodded and moved his hands to his belt buckle. His right was slippery and sticky with blood, so it wasn’t easy. He reached out for support, towards the makeshift bedside table.
‘Steady. Hands where I can see them.’
Sam swayed and nodded. Steele took a step back.
Sam grabbed the lantern, ignoring the burning sting of the glass mantle, and hurled it straight at Steele. The light shattered on the arm that Steele raised instinctively to protect himself. Steele, however, was an SAS officer, trained in close-quarter battle, and his other reflex action was to fire two snap shots at his target.
Rolling away, Sam felt one of the small-calibre bullets snatch at his billowing bush shirt. He wasn’t nearly as weak or shock-affected as he had made out. He swung his legs in a wide arc, feet together, and kicked through the flimsy grass and reed wall of the hut. Behind him there was darkness and Steele’s cursing. He rolled once more then got to his feet, blindly crashing through jungle outside the back of the hut. His eyes were still partially blinded by the sudden change from the light to dark, but Steele would be suffering the same disability. Sam got to his feet and drew the pistol from his trousers. He pivoted at the waist and fired three shots back in Steele’s direction. He doubted he would hit anything, but the thunderous crash of the unsilenced weapon would alert the Caprivian troops waiting at the helipad.
Sam sensed more shots flitting through the bush like angry bees beside him as he ran, as fast as he could, back towards the camp. Behind him he heard a whoosh of displaced air. He slowed and risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw the night sky flare orange and a volcano of sparks and glowing embers shoot up from the hut in which Jim and the woman had been killed.
Not watching where he was going, Sam ran headlong into a barrel-chested African soldier toting an AK-47. Sam stumbled and the man wrapped an arm around him. It was the lieutenant in charge of the ready reaction force, Edison.
‘He has a gun!’ Edison said.
Sam found himself pushed to the ground and facing a semicircle of armed warriors, all pointing automatic weapons at him. He tossed Sonja’s pistol in the dirt and held his hands up, then placed them on his head. ‘Steele … Major Steele is trying to kill me. He killed my cameraman—’
‘Silence!’
Sam turned and saw Steele standing in the pathway, the silenced pistol raised and pointing at him.
‘Step away,’ Steele said to the rebel soldiers. ‘This man is to be summarily executed. He killed the fellow he was with, and one of your women, from the village. I want a firing party of five men. Now!’
Edison shook his head. ‘We need orders from Major Kurtz.’
‘Major Kurtz is dead,’ Steele said. ‘He and his men were killed in an ambush at M’pacha. You men need to get saddled up and ready to go as soon as we’ve killed this saboteur. We have to protect the withdrawal of the main force back across the border.’
‘An ambush you set up, Steele.’ Sam turned back to the lieutenant. ‘This man is working against you, not for you.’
Steele laughed. ‘Preposterous. I’m the only person who knows what’s going on here. With a bit of luck we can snatch something out of today’s defeat. This man is a bloody journalist, he’s never been on your side.’
‘I have seen this man on television, on DSTV,’ Edison said. Both Sam and Steele stared at him.
‘You have?’ Sam said, taking the words out of Steele’s mouth.
Edison nodded. ‘On Outback Survival. I trust this man.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Steele said. He took a step closer to Sam and pointed the pistol at the side of his head. ‘I don’t have time for this.’
Edison cocked his AK-47 and shifted its barrel slightly so that it covered Steele as well as Sam.
‘Go get the commander … please,’ Sam said to one of the men arrayed behind their officer.
Steele licked his top lip. ‘Don’t waste your time. This man killed the general and the two signallers in the command tent. He’s a spy and he needs to be executed immediately.’
‘What?’ Edison looked down at Sam, who was still kneeling.
Sam suddenly comprehended the enormity of Steele’s deceit.
‘I just stopped by the headquarters tent,’ Steele continued. ‘All three of them are dead. We need to kill this man now and get going as soon as possible. There may be other enemy agents in the area. Listen …’
Sam lifted his face to the night sky along with several of the other men. The far-off drone of the helicopter’s engine was soft, but growing stronger.
‘Wait,’ Sam said to Edison. ‘Check the bodies in the command tent and look at the bullet entry wounds – and exit wounds if there are any. Compare them to the pistol I had,’ he moved a hand and pointed at Sonja’s weapon down on the ground, ‘and that silenced popgun Major Steele is holding. Ask yourselves who the assassin is.’
‘Right,’ Steele said, marching forward. ‘This has gone far enough.’ Defying the men who faced him he grabbed Sam by the epaulette of his bush shirt and hauled him up.
Edison moved as well and grabbed Steele’s wrist in a huge hand. The two men stared each other down. ‘Julius.’
‘Sir?’ one of the other men answered the lieutenant, who still held Steele’s arm.
‘Go check on the general and his men. Come back and tell me if they were killed by a two-two or a nine-mil. You have one minute.’
‘Yes, sir!’
Edison looked back at his subordinate
and motioned his dismissal with a nod of his head.
Steele shook off Edison’s hand while he was momentarily distracted, pointed the silenced pistol at his chest and pulled the trigger. Only one shot came out, but it took the big man in the chest and he staggered back, collecting one of his other troopers as he fell. Steele looked around him, threw the empty pistol at Sam and ran.
Sam picked up the wounded officer’s AK-47, pointed it at the fleeing Englishman and pulled the trigger. The AK reared high and to the right as thirty rounds tore into the grass and reeds around Steele. Other rifles joined the cacophony, which reached a crescendo as the helicopter raced low overhead, towards the landing zone. Those men not firing knelt beside their tall leader, who was gasping for air. Blood was spreading across Edison’s camouflage shirt.
‘Get him to the helicopter,’ Sam said to the leaderless troops. ‘Hurry.’
‘What about Major Steele?’ one of the others asked as four men grabbed the wounded man’s arms and legs.
Sam shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We leave him. He’s a dangerous animal and he’ll be worse now he’s cornered. What he said was right – there might even be other people converging on this place while we stand around here. Let’s go!’
It seemed wrong to leave Jim’s body, and Steele running around the bush alive, but Sam’s fear was growing rather than dissipating with the disappearance of the rogue mercenary. If Steele had killed the Caprivian general and Jim, planned to kill Sam, and set up the ambush of Hans Kurtz at M’pacha, what had he planned for Sonja?
They ran towards the noise and buffeting downwash of the helicopter, which was settling into the long waving grass of the LZ. Sam clasped the hand of Edison, who had saved his life, as they all moved, bent at the waist, to the helo. ‘Hang on!’ he roared over the turbine’s nose as the man’s comrades slid him into the cargo hold of the machine. A man already inside grabbed the wounded officer under his armpits and dragged him the rest of the way aboard. When Sam looked up he was shocked to see the short, wiry figure of Hans Kurtz, his face streaked with black camouflage paint.