by Tony Park
Sally screamed, let go of the pillow and toppled off the bed onto the floor. Bruce uncovered his face and gulped air, then started to swing himself off the bed to make sure the petite assassin wouldn’t get up again. But instead he found himself staring down the barrel of a Chinese-made pistol.
‘Shit,’ he said.
*
Jorge had his orders, but Fidel’s suggestion that he might ‘have some fun’ with the Australian woman had been playing on his mind since the boss suggested it.
He had been told to finish her off quickly, but that was like holding out the prospect of an ice-cream to a small child for doing a good deed and then snatching it away in spite.
Jorge looked down at her, on the ground. Kerry Maxwell was gagged with duct tape and her hands were bound behind her back with a plastic cable tie. She stared at him with wide-eyed terror. He grinned at her. For a moment he contemplated how far he had fallen in life, from farmer, husband and father to gambling addict, rhino poacher and, very soon, murderer. The simple act of binding and gagging this woman had been arousing. He was about to cross a final line. He saw her not as a human being, but as an object.
It had been easy to subdue her, even if it had taken longer to catch her than he had planned. At Hazyview Junction, when the car guard had taken his rubbish to the bin, he had used the bicycle spoke to make a tiny hole in the sidewall of the left rear tyre of Baird’s Land Rover. It was a trick favoured by thieves in Zimbabwe who, having made the puncture, then followed the unsuspecting victim until, eventually, the tyre went flat.
However, Kerry had managed to get out of Hazyview, through Bushbuckridge, and all the way to Klaserie, not far from Hoedspruit, before enough air was gone from the tyre for her to notice and pull over.
Jorge had been behind her and he pulled over too. He had seen the panic mixed with relief on her face when he got out of the Amarok and smiled benignly. ‘Hi there, you look like you’re in trouble. Can I help?’
‘Yes, please.’
As she had knelt to inspect the tyre, he had taken her. Now he had her, at his mercy. The feeling of power, for a man who had lost everything and now lived to follow the orders of another, was exhilarating.
*
Gina lurked in the shadows. She saw the smelly human, the only one of their kind she trusted, lying on the ground. There was another one, standing over him, looking down at him, plus a third.
The man standing over Smelly kicked him, and Smelly screamed.
That was Gina’s cue.
She broke from the cover of the shadows and the clan followed her. They had played together for years, fighting over every carcass meal that was dragged in for them. Gina had sparred with them, teaching them how to move, how to run, how to attack, how to defend. The others had never hunted in the wild, but all the time in the enclosures they had been honing their skills and deep within their DNA they were hardwired for the kill.
Gina had played along with the man who had teased them the night before, leading the pack in a chase along the fence. He thought he was tormenting them but with every run their muscles were worked. Every time he stopped and dodged, the others watched how Gina would be a step ahead of him, how she would outflank him.
But now the man was inside a cage and they were free.
Gina led them in through the open gate, past the other man, who stood by the four-wheeled machine. There was no whooping, no advance notice, just the speed of the chase and the instinctive parting of the pack and its instant transition from group of bored captives to cohesive hunting machine.
Gina and Julia, the eldest of the captive females and the alpha member of the clan until Gina’s arrival, went right, and Jade, and Bozo and Benno, the two subservient males, hooked around to the left.
Before any of the humans knew what had happened Gina was on the man in the uniform. She clamped her teeth around his right hamstring and bit down, feeling the bones crunch under the 3,700 pound per square inch power of her jaws. He fell, screaming, and the others of her clan danced in glee and greed around her.
Gina growled and Julia led Bozo and Benno back towards the man they had just passed. He had gathered his wits and was sprinting from the scene of the attack. He was halfway into his machine when Julia got to him. The man wore trousers and Julia was able to snap up the hem. She pulled, worrying his leg as he tried to escape. The man kicked and Bozo and Benno whooped and slobbered, getting in the way rather than helping Julia.
The man kicked again and his trousers ripped. He managed to get into the shiny machine and it started to cough and rumble. The hyenas bellowed for his blood. Gina shook the man in her jaws, then dropped him, but he couldn’t get far.
The noisy four-wheeled machine started to move towards them, and Gina saw a hand protrude from one side.
Gina sensed danger. She shifted a few steps so that she straddled the lying smelly man, legs either side of his body.
A clap of thunder sounded again. Gina yelped and slumped to the ground, half-on and half-off the smelly man.
*
Graham braced himself for the next shot, which he knew would be for him, but twin beams of light swept up the access road to the enclosure and he heard the growl of an engine.
Fidel Costa, gun still in hand and still wearing his mask, looked over his shoulder as a bakkie pulled up and Des Hennessy opened the door. In his hands was a pump action shotgun. Des took aim and fired and the rear window of Costa’s four-by-four shattered into a thousand pieces. Costa put the vehicle in reverse and stood on the accelerator. He churned the dust as he raced past Des, who opened fire again.
Fidel must have found it hard to drive and shoot because there were no return shots as Des pumped and fired again and again.
Des let the gangster go and ran towards Graham and the hyenas.
‘Get away,’ Des yelled at Julia, Bozo, Benno and Jade, who, having been scared off by Fidel’s shots had now returned to the lifeless body of Charles, the crooked security guard. Des punctuated his command with a shot over their heads and the hyenas scattered into the bushes.
‘Don’t . . . don’t kill them,’ Graham said.
‘What about Charles?’ Des ran to his man, dropped to one knee and felt for a pulse.
‘He was in on it,’ Graham said. ‘They tried to set me up.’
Des looked to the immobilised white rhino. ‘Grace, no, what have they done to you?’
‘Untie me, Des, for goodness’ sake.’
Gina was whimpering in the dust next to him.
‘Of course.’
Des knelt by Graham, took out a pocketknife and cut the tie binding his wrists.
Graham immediately reached into his pocket for his phone and tried Kerry’s number, which rang out. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’
‘What is it?’ Des asked.
‘Costa had someone following Kerry Maxwell, the woman who was staying with me. He’s got a hit out on her as well. She’s somewhere between Hazyview and here.’
Graham ran a hand through his lank long hair. He had to think. If he called the police he could be on hold for ages. ‘The Land Rover.’
‘What?’ Des asked. ‘You’re worried about your vehicle?’
‘No, no. It’s got a tracking device fitted.’
‘You can check on the office computer, Graham, and take my bakkie once you locate your Land Rover.’
‘Thanks, Des. You need to sort Grace out – draw up a syringe of naltrexone. That will bring her around. And can you sedate Gina and load her into your vehicle? I’ll take her with me. I need to treat her as soon as I find Kerry. I’ll do it on the roadside if I have to.’
Des handed Graham his shotgun. ‘You’ll probably need this. I’ll call the cops as well.’
*
Nurse Tamara Shepherd’s high heels clacked on the polished hospital floor as she walked towards the intensive care ward. Most of the lights were off or dimmed at this late hour.
Ahead of her was the nurse’s station where she was based during her shifts, but th
ere was no one there. Precious was on tonight, Tamara recalled. Perhaps she was seeing to a patient who had called for help, or maybe was in the bathroom.
By force of habit Tamara could not walk past the station without checking the computer and charts to see how her various charges, including Bruce, were doing. When she walked around the partition and into the cubicle where the duty nurse usually sat she saw Precious lying on the floor.
Tamara raised a hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Precious had a piece of grey duct tape over her mouth and her hands were bound behind her with a plastic cable tie. Her eyes were open but heavily lidded and she was unresponsive. Tamara checked her pulse and confirmed that she was alive and breathing. She laid the back of her hand against Precious’s cheek.
She set down her bag on the floor, opened it and fumbled for the revolver which, by virtue of its weight, had made its way to the bottom of the bag under all her clutter. She pulled it out.
She thought of the patients on the ward. There was a young woman who had been in a car accident, a middle-aged man who had lost three fingers in a chainsaw accident, and Bruce. The Australian man had been in a gunfight with poachers in Mozambique. If anyone was going to draw criminals to her ward, then it would be him.
Tamara slipped off her high heels and moved barefoot, silently, towards Bruce’s room. When she neared the doorway she heard voices inside.
‘Goodbye, Bruce. I’m sorry I have to use this gun and wake everyone up. You have made this very difficult for me.’
‘You . . . drugged . . .’
Tamara peeked around the door and saw an Asian woman in a bloodied white lab coat pointing a pistol at Bruce, who, though sitting up, was swaying as if he were about to fall.
‘Put down that gun,’ Tamara said, as she raised and aimed her own. Her heart was pounding.
The Asian woman turned to her, gun hand moving quickly.
Tamara pulled the trigger and the boom was deafening in the confines of the ward. The woman fell to the ground. Tamara screamed and let her revolver fall by her side. She couldn’t believe what she had just done.
Bruce was off his bed. The other woman was not dead, however. She sat up and raised her pistol, but before she could get a shot off Bruce had his arm around her throat. A second later the woman was dead, her neck broken.
Chapter 17
Kerry writhed and screamed into her gag as the man grabbed an arm and a leg and dragged her painfully along the bare metal floor of the bakkie’s rear load bay. Her clothes were ripped from his initial assault on her and she had been chilled by the rushing wind as she lay in the back of his vehicle, staring up in fear at the night sky.
The man who had pulled over to help her change her tyre had grabbed her, fought with her, then subdued and loaded her into his vehicle and, from what she could tell, he’d driven her down a gravel track deeper into the bush, out of sight of the main tar road she had been on. Now he had stopped and was trying to get her out of the back.
She was terrified. Her imagination tortured her with a variety of nightmare scenarios, including her being taken back across the border to be imprisoned again by Fidel Costa. Or perhaps the man was some random crazed sex killer? No; she had seen the way the man had glanced at her when he’d taken the call on his mobile phone back on the main road. Someone on the other end had been talking about her, she was sure. This was a targeted attack, and she would bet Fidel Costa was behind it.
Kerry was sore and bruised already; she had rolled and banged herself on the metal sides of the truck and several times she had collided painfully with a shovel that rattled around beside her. She kicked back at him, but he dug his fingers into her flesh and she gave a muffled cry of pain.
As he brought her closer to the tailgate she saw that his pistol was stuffed into the waistband of his shorts. He also wore a hunting knife in a sheath on his belt. He would use the gun and the knife to intimidate her, to force her to do what he wanted.
‘My boss said I should just kill you,’ he said as the skin on the small of her back was gouged and burned from the friction. ‘But I’ve got other plans for you first.’
He held her by one ankle and reached around to his back pocket with his free hand. He drew out another black plastic cable tie, then proceeded to tie her feet together, and, instead of pulling her out of the truck, he pushed her further in again. Then he grabbed the shovel.
‘I’ll be back for you in a minute. Don’t go anywhere.’ He laughed.
The man left her in the back of the truck and walked away a short distance. Kerry managed to sit up and saw that he had begun digging.
She shivered with fear. He was digging a shallow grave.
After a while he came back to her and leaned the shovel against the side of the truck. He looked down at her, reached over and ripped her shirt fully open. Kerry cowered as far away from him as she could. He stepped back, reached into his shorts and started touching himself.
She tried to scream but the gag prevented her. He got up into the tailgate, grabbed her bound feet and started pulling her towards him. Again she felt her skin being rubbed raw as her torn shirt rode up.
But as frightened as she was, Kerry was ready for him as well.
The man drew his knife from his belt. Kerry lay on her back, looking him in the eyes.
‘You’re being brave. That is good. I don’t really want to hurt you more than I have to, so if you cooperate this will go easy for you. I might even let you go.’
She saw through his lie, but did nothing to antagonise him. Kerry prayed he wasn’t about to cut her, for fun, as he brought the blade down to her legs.
He sliced through the cable tie binding her ankles, sheathed his knife and then grabbed each of her ankles. He dragged her hard, fast, to the edge of the tailgate.
‘Don’t move.’ The man started to unzip himself.
Kerry inched towards him, moving her butt a little at a time.
‘Oh? So you want me?’ He grinned. ‘Yes. Do this for me, and I will let you go.’
She just needed to get closer.
Kerry brought herself up, slowly, into more of a sitting position, her abdominals straining. She stopped so her face was not too close to his.
‘Yes. I want to look into your eyes.’ He grabbed himself with his right hand and gripped her right thigh muscle, hard, with his left. He smiled again.
Kerry straightened her back, gritted her teeth, and tucked her chin down onto her chest to brace herself, just as her father had instructed her, many years ago when she was a teenager first going out alone. Her next move was to flick her whole torso forward and ram her forehead into the man’s nose.
She heard a satisfying crunching of cartilage snapping, and the man screamed. It hurt her, but, clearly, not as much as it did him. The man turned his head, instinctively, to one side, just as Bruce said an attacker probably would after that first blow, so Kerry did as her dad had told her and aimed her second headbutt blow at the top ridge of his cheekbone, near his eye.
That one gave her more pain, but she was firing on adrenaline now and it totally disorientated the would-be rapist. He let go of her leg and lurched. Her dad had said that hitting him there, the cheekbone orifice, he had called it, would shock the nerves in the attacker’s brain; a blow there, Bruce reckoned, would also affect the sensory receptors in the stomach, of all places. Her father was right.
The man gasped, doubled over, and vomited. Blood flowed from his mouth and nose.
Kerry brought her legs together, drew back her knees, then shot her feet out like twin cannon balls and delivered a double kick to the side of his head. The man fell to the ground.
Speed, momentum and aggression were key now. She shimmied to the edge of the tailgate and jumped down. With her feet free she kicked him, but without shoes or boots there was only so much damage she could do. Kerry took a breath and steeled herself, mentally, for what her father had told her she would have to do next. As the man rolled onto his back, starting the process of sittin
g up, she stomped down on his face with the sole of her foot, not once, but three times, smashing his shattered nose with every merciless blow. He howled and pawed at her.
Kerry thought fast. She could stay here and keep kicking him, but with her hands tied there was only so much she could do until she tired or fell over. He was already reaching for the knife at his belt. She had no time to cut her hands free in order to drive the vehicle, so she decided to run.
Those hours running at home in Australia were hopefully about to pay off once more. The road was stony and uneven, but her fear and adrenaline overrode the pain in her feet as she sprinted downhill.
Kerry had to concentrate; with her arms bound at her back she felt unsteady, as if she might topple forward at any moment. She heard a bellow of rage and pain behind her; no doubt the man was on his feet now, and even if he was in bad shape he had a gun. Kerry crested a rise and in front of her she saw Graham’s battered old Land Rover by the side of the main road. Parked just in front of it was an Isuzu bakkie. Her momentary relief, however, washed away from her.
Kerry felt the frustration almost cripple her. There was no one in sight near the other vehicle, and no sound of approaching traffic. She couldn’t start Graham’s truck with her hands still tied and she couldn’t see anything lying in or around the Land Rover that she could use to cut the cable tie. She could not even cry out for help.
She looked over her shoulder and saw, on the crest of the hill, the silhouette of the man who had taken her. He was coming for her. Stopping by the truck had cost her precious seconds.
*
Jorge spat blood and bile and used one hand to wipe his streaking eyes. He moved cautiously towards the Land Rover, his pistol up and ready.
‘Where are you, Kerry?’ he called out into the African night.
Jorge looked around.
He closed on the Land Rover, pistol up and ready. He looked around and under it. There was no one. He had the keys in his pocket. Next, he moved to the Isuzu bakkie, twenty metres further along the road. He was even more cautious now.
As he approached the vehicle he took up the pressure on the trigger of his pistol. The windows of the rear cab, he now noticed, were steamed up, as if there was someone inside, breathing heavily. There was no sign of a driver, but perhaps the woman had got in the back and was hiding.