by Tony Park
‘You can come back tomorrow,’ said the voice.
‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Mr Steele will want to see me and if he finds out you delayed the message I have from reaching him then you’ll be in for an ass-kicking, my friend.’
‘A what?’
‘You will be in big trouble. Come to the gate and I’ll give you the message. That’s all I want.’ Sam checked his watch. The five minutes was up. There was no further conversation and he stood there, nervously tapping his foot. He heard a rumbling and grating and the gate began to slide open. It stopped when it was wide enough for a man to walk through.
An African man in a green shirt and trousers filled the gap. ‘What is the message?’
Sam held his nerve. The man was as tall as he was, and solidly built. He noticed the bulge under his overhanging shirt and presumed it was a pistol. ‘I need a piece of paper and pen.’
The man shook his head. ‘Tell me.’
‘No, it’s private. Go and get me a piece of paper and a pen. Please.’
The guard sighed and turned. Sam started to follow the man as he walked across the gravel, but the guard stopped and put up his hand to stop him. His other hand hovered in front of his waist. ‘You cannot come in here, without Mr Steele’s permission. Please, you must wait at the gate.’
Sam raised his hands. ‘That’s cool. Don’t want to upset anyone. Say, you couldn’t get me a glass of water, too, could you? It’s awful hot out here.’
‘I am not a waiter. Stay at the gate, and I will—’
The sound of something crashing to the ground inside made the guard turn back towards the house and reach for the gun at his belt. Sam lowered his head and shoulder-charged him, knocking him to the ground. The man fell, sprawling in the sharp white gravel, but rolled onto his side with frightening speed and got himself on top of Sam. He raised a fist and slammed it into the side of Sam’s face. He grabbed Sam’s throat in one huge hand while the other reached again for the pistol in its holster. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Jim Bates, CIA station chief here in Mombasa, and if you kill me, you’re going to bring a world of hurt down on your ass.’
The man laughed as he slid his gun out, then suddenly pitched forward as Sam heard a thud like someone hitting a punching bag with a baseball bat. Sam wriggled out from underneath his attacker and saw Sonja standing over him with a security guard’s wooden truncheon in one hand and her pistol in the other.
‘Here,’ Sonja said, reaching out a hand. Sam took it and she lifted him to his feet, almost effortlessly. Sam stared down at the unconscious man. Neither Sam nor the guard had seen or heard her approach. ‘House is empty, except for one more of these.’ Sonja produced a curly telephone cord that she had presumably ripped from a handset inside the house, and knelt by the motionless guard. She used the phone’s cord to tie his hands behind him.
‘No sign of Emma?’
Sonja shook her head. ‘The other guard told me Steele took her out to his boat.’
Sam followed Sonja inside. Looking out over the lawn he saw that the gate leading to the beach was open. He wondered if she had shot the lock off. She’d evidently entered unnoticed, as the second security man lay on the tiled floor, which was spattered with blood. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth, and his face was beaded with perspiration. Sonja had tied a tourniquet around his leg, below the knee and above the bullet wound in his calf. The man’s eyes widened and he shrunk away from her. ‘He needed some persuading,’ she said.
Sam made a mental note to try very hard never to do anything to upset his new girlfriend. ‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘Yes he is, but at this moment, Sam, I don’t particularly care.’ She walked through the open-plan living area and Sam followed her. Across the beach they saw a rubber boat speeding towards shore. It beached and a man got out and dragged the craft up the sand. ‘Quick! Get out of sight, Sam!’
‘What?’ Sam was too slow to react and just as he saw the man Sonja had pointed at, the man saw him. He started pushing the boat back into the water.
‘Shit,’ Sonja said. She ran across the sand, with Sam in her wake. This part of Nyali Beach was quiet as twilight approached. The man splashed into the sea, jumped aboard the inflatable boat and yanked on the starter cord. The engine roared to life at first pull. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot!’
The man must have recognised Sonja. He lowered himself between the bulbous sides of the boat and gunned the outboard. Sonja spread her feet, lifted her pistol hand and wrapped her left around her right. She fired a double tap, and then another two shots. The man dropped out of sight completely and the boat began circling back towards shore in a wide turn. The inflatable slowed and, as Sonja waded out into the water, it started to sink. ‘Bloody hell. I must have holed both watertight compartments.’
Sam stood at the edge of the Indian Ocean. He realised the man must be dead, part of his body somehow pressing on the outboard tiller to make the boat turn. ‘Let’s call the police, Sonja. You can get Steele for abduction, if nothing else.’
She turned and glared at him, the pistol hanging loose in her right hand. ‘There’s no time, Sam. Martin could be up to anything out there. I’m not wasting time waiting for the police to arrive.’ She kicked off her shoes, stuffed the pistol in her shorts and started jogging up the beach, towards a young man who was folding a beach umbrella, under which a sandwich board said Kitesurfing lessons.
*
Emma felt light-headed and guessed it was a combination of sun, fresh air and alcohol. The sun was setting and the water looked as though someone had covered it in a floating blanket of gold foil, like the chocolate-money wrappings she remembered from childhood Christmases.
‘How was dinner?’ Martin asked.
‘Lovely.’
‘We’ve got strawberries for dessert, but would you like to stretch out for a bit first?’
‘Mmmm. That would be nice,’ she said without thinking it through. He stood and held out his hand, and she let him lift her to her feet and lead her to the pile of cushions behind the warmly glowing brazier. He eased himself down and she joined him.
They lay side by side, propped up on their elbows, looking at each other. He took her hand in his. ‘I’m worried about your mother,’ he said.
She looked down at their intertwined fingers. ‘I told you she’ll have a cow. But we can deal with it.’
‘No, there’s something else. Did you see the news video on the flight from Johannesburg to Nairobi, about the dam in Namibia being blown up?’
Emma nodded. A feeling of dread started to enshroud her heart and lungs, making it suddenly hard for her to draw a full breath. ‘Was Mum up there? Is that why we haven’t heard from her?’
He looked into her eyes. ‘Has your mother ever told you what she does – what we do – for a living? What she really does?’
‘She says she’s a bodyguard, but I know she does more than that for you.’
Martin he set his drink down on the wooden deck and rolled back to face her. He took her hand in both of his now. ‘Your mother and I work as private military contractors, what some people call mercenaries. She was … is very passionate about the environment, and the Okavango Delta, where she grew up, and where we were both staying.’
‘I know all that. She used to talk about it sometimes, but I thought it was a bit of a dustbowl. What are you saying? Oh my God, what? Are you saying she …’
Martin nodded, silencing her. ‘Yes, Emma, your mother blew up that dam. She was paid to do it – we both were – but she took on the job because she wanted to save one of Africa’s true paradises. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain … but if she was OK, I would have heard from her by now. She was very brave, Emma.’
Emma snatched her hand back. ‘What are you saying, was? Is she dead? Did she die blowing it up?’ It was too much to take on board. She had her problems with her mother but she couldn’t imagine her not being there, even if ‘there’ was halfway around the world. ‘No.’
‘No!’ Tears sprang to her eyes and the lack of breath made her choke. She started crying and Martin put his arm around her. She felt rotten, thinking back on all the horrible things she’d said to her mother recently. She pressed her face against Martin’s chest and sobbed and sobbed.
‘She might be OK, Emma, but I needed to tell you my fears. I have to be honest with you. I want you to know that whatever has happened I will look after you. I will care for you forever.’
His words sounded muffled and she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. She felt his finger under her chin and she raised her face, although her whole body was racked by convulsive sobs. He kissed her wet cheek and she blinked her eyes. He was looking at her funny now, as if he was thinking something deep and dark. Emma sniffled and tried to draw a deep breath to still her shaking. He leaned closer to her again and kissed her on the lips. She felt his tongue.
‘No!’
‘Emma …’
This was all suddenly so wrong. Emma realised he had deliberately held off telling her about her mother’s death so he could continue seducing her, and now she was supposed to fall, simpering, into his comforting arms. The bastard. ‘No!’ She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. ‘Get off me! This isn’t right.’
‘Emma, it’s OK. I know how you feel. Let me hold you close. You’re going to be all right. We’re going to be—’
She wriggled away from him, drowning in the mass of pillows. ‘We’re not going to be anything.’ He reached out and grabbed her wrist. It hurt. ‘Fucking let go of me!’ She lashed out with her other hand and punched him in the chest, but he didn’t release or ease his grip. ‘Let go!’
Martin got to his knees and managed to grab her other hand. ‘Listen to me,’ there was no gentleness in his tone now, ‘your mother’s dead, Emma. You have to face facts. She made me your guardian in her will.’
‘She what? Let go of me. I’m going to scream.’
He smiled. ‘Scream away. We’re too far out for anyone to hear. Get it out of your system. Listen, I know you’re hurting right now, but I am going to take care of you and we are going to be fine together. Remember the things we chatted about online, Emma … Remember the things we talked about doing, the things you’ve fantasised about. It can all be real, now, Emma, now—’
‘Now that my mother’s dead? You sick fucking old pervert. Did you kill her? Did you kill her so you could have me?’
‘Of course I didn’t. Calm down, Emma.’
She took a breath and narrowed her eyes, seeing him as he really was, for the first time. She was too smart to believe in coincidences – her mother dying just as Martin had taken her into his life in real time. She saw the hours on the internet for what they were – what teachers had warned the girls at her school about so many times – she had been groomed by a man who wanted not only her body, but her money. How could she have been so gullible, so stupid? She forced herself to think this through, to think what her mother might do in this kind of situation.
‘OK.’ She took another breath. ‘I’m OK, now. I’m fine. Just don’t rush me, all right? This is a lot to take in.’ She forced her body to relax back into the pillows and when he let go of her wrists she lashed out at him, raking her fingers across his cheek, drawing blood.
Steele yelled in pain and Emma rolled from under him. She leapt to her feet and started running, barefoot, along the deck. She had reached the brazier when she felt his hand grab the hem of her dress. She felt the pressure against her skin, then heard the fabric tearing. She reached down and grabbed the blackened teapot from its stand. The handle burned her palm, but she ignored it. Emma flung it back past her body and yelped as a jet of boiling water shot across her bare thigh.
The scream that came from Martin, however, was far worse: an animal cry of pure pain as the lid popped off the kettle and a wave of boiling water drenched his chest and arms. He dropped back into the cushions, writhing in pain as he tore off his shirt. ‘You bitch!’
Emma ran to the front of the dhow, her dress hanging in tatters from her body. She jumped up onto the prow and looked around her. Steele was rummaging in a bag at the back of the boat. The obvious way of escape was to dive overboard, but once in the water there was no way she could out-swim the boat and there were no other vessels in sight. He could circle her until she tired of treading water, shoot her or run her down with the propeller. On board, she could still fight him, and she could still hurt him before he did whatever it was he was going to do to her. Her mum wouldn’t have given in without a fight. All the same, she screamed into the night: ‘Help me!’
Sonja heard the cry as she shot past the first of the two dhows she had seen out sailing on the red-gold waters. There had been a man and a woman on board the other boat, but when they started waving to the lone kitesurfer she was fairly sure it couldn’t have been Martin and Emma. As she skimmed past the wooden sailboat she confirmed it was a much older couple.
The scream had come from the only other boat in sight and she brought the kite down to maximise her speed.
The woman on board had climbed up onto the prow and Sonja saw diaphanous shrouds of white material snapping in the stiff evening breeze. ‘Help me!’ she cried, and Sonja knew at once it was her daughter.
There was no time to think of a plan. She saw another head bobbing along the dhow’s deck and recognised Martin. He reached up for Emma and she shrieked as he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her crashing down on top of him.
‘Help me!’
The cry tore into her like a bullet and she aimed amidships on a kamikaze course towards the wooden craft. As she came close enough to recognise their faces clearly she saw Martin turn to stare at her. ‘That’s right,’ she said to herself, ‘it’s me you bastard, and I’ve come to get you.’
She saw his right hand move up, holding something, and Emma disappeared from sight. Emma was screaming, and Martin struggled for a few seconds to subdue her, but when his hand reappeared she glimpsed the telltale curved magazine of an AK-47. Sonja heard the pop of the bullets leaving the barrel, and the displaced crack of air somewhere off to her right. SAS men were crack shots who fired thousands of rounds during their training to qualify as expert marksmen. Sonja was two hundred metres out and closing fast, and soon she would be dead if she didn’t do something fast.
Martin fired again and one of the two shots was close enough to almost burn her cheek. Sonja lifted the kitesurfer’s steering bar quickly over her head to just past the twelve o’clock position and soared into the air. Steele raised his rifle to follow her midair flip, but his next volley sailed wide. Sonja pulled the bar down to two o’clock and dropped back to the water’s surface on a path well forward of the boat and as she transitioned back towards the dhow her sudden change of direction put him further off his aim. Martin disappeared from sight for a moment and Sonja heard him swear. She imagined Emma was fighting him, trying to spoil his aim. Good girl, Sonja thought; just be careful, my baby.
The wooden hull rushed up towards Sonja with frightening speed. ‘Go Emma!’ Sonja yelled. ‘Dive overboard!’
Martin popped up above the gunwale, rifle at his shoulder. Sonja raised the bar again and lofted up into the darkening sky. As she did so she let go of the bar with one hand and reached for her pistol. She stayed attached to the kite via her harness and one-handed grip as she tried to aim at Martin. There was a splash as Emma jumped overboard.
Steele fired a three-round burst on automatic and Sonja felt the hammer blow of a bullet in her left shoulder, forcing her to let go of the bar completely, but the harness held her. The force of the hit made her body spin and the board came away from her feet and splashed into the sea. Sonja fired blindly in Steele’s general direction. The wooden deck of the dhow was beneath her as she grasped the
emergency harness release with her left hand and yanked on it. She screamed in pain from her shoulder wound and then dropped hard to the weathered boards three metres below as the kite sailed off into the dark sky. Steele’s firing pin clicked on an empty chamber and as he dived to one side one of Sonja’s bullets found its mark, hitting him in the thigh.
Steele rolled behind the brazier’s sand box as Sonja dragged herself up off the deck and emptied the last rounds from her magazine. She tried to reach for the left pocket of her shorts, but her arm now refused to work. She stared at the blood pumping from her shoulder and shook her head in anger and disbelief. Steele poked his head up over the top of the box and saw her pistol was locked open, smoke curling from the breech. Sonja dropped to her knees and placed the empty firearm on the deck so she could reach across her body to the pocket with the spare magazine. Steele rose and launched himself at her. He kicked the pistol across the deck before knocking her to the boards in a tackle. Sonja jabbed her fingers into the wound in Martin’s leg and he rolled off her. She crawled towards her pistol, but Steele was on his feet again. He stamped his foot down on her wrist just as her fingers almost reached the barrel.
Sonja bellowed in agony. Steele stared down at her, eyes wide as he rammed a spare magazine into his AK and yanked back on the cocking lever. ‘Hello, Sonja.’
She snatched her aching hand back and put pressure on the bullet wound in her shoulder as Martin kicked the empty pistol further out of reach, sending it sliding across the deck back towards the sand box. One-handed, he unthreaded the belt from his linen trousers and backed off a couple of paces. ‘Don’t move or I’ll kill you.’
‘You may …’ Sonja gasped, ‘… may as well do it now.’
He shook his head as he wrapped the belt around his thigh, threaded the tongue through the buckle and pulled it tight. The blood flowing from his wound started to slow. Sonja, meanwhile, could feel her own blood pumping from her shoulder with each heartbeat. ‘Call her back,’ Steele said.