Murder on Safari

by Peter Riva

  “It will do nicely.” Chief Methenge said, puffing out his chest. “Just fine. Take tha’ picture.” Mbuno had been clicking away. Digital cameras were useful, they made no sound, and he had already more than twenty pictures of this farce. Pero watched as Mbuno clicked one more. Pero walked over to him, quickly backing-up the viewer to the best image. A hyena could be seen clearly dragging a part of the rib cage away in a tug-of-war with a large Egyptian stork. Pero showed the glowing image to the Chief who was impressed, “That is-a very good. Where and when will I see it in there?” He meant the Daily Nation newspaper, of course, and soon.

  “If I leave tomorrow to Nairobi, I can take it to them right away, Chief.”

  “Very good, you will do this.” It was an order, not a question.

  Pero nodded.

  “Good, now we will discuss the fine.” He made to leave.

  Pero stayed still.

  Normally, they should drive off in his ancient limo to his “office.” There Pero would sit in his official mud building that still had no windows and only a tin roof, with little whitewashed stones marking out the parking lot—a post-colonial car park in the middle of flat nothingness. They’d wrangle and Pero would have to sip one of his wives’ Luo version of tea, blowing the curdled milk and beeswax—not to mention dead bees—away on the foamy top of the chai. But now Pero had a different priority. The killers were still out there and Pero needed to make sure, where and, maybe, who. The Chief might not know. The Gurreh tribe’s people confided in him, but only when strangers were not about.

  Watching his soldiers scavenge through dead Simon’s clothing—totally in the open, without a care in the world—taking hold of the now crusty shinbones to pull the pink feet from re-usable boots, the Chief and Pero talked things out for a moment or two. He was puzzled at Pero’s refusal to walk to his car and leave with him. Tea and important matters were being offered, did Pero not understand? “Chief, I left some valuable equipment behind when we were searching for poor Mr. Simon . . .” Pero gestured to the killing ground, the soldiers looked up, questioning if Pero was trying to exert authority over Simon’s remains . . . “If you will allow me, I will have Mbuno drive our old Land Rover back to camp, with me following, after we back-track to there,” Pero pointed vaguely back, a ways away, into the distance south of the Ajuran Plateau “to pick up my equipment, and then I promise I will come straight to your office, your Excellency, and you can explain your needs completely and fully. I am sure you will find me most happy to collaborate, as I did before,” and then he added with emphasis, “exactly as before.”

  The Chief stroked his chin, made up his mind, and said, imperiously, “Yes, it is ordered.” He looked at the minder who visibly shrank out of his path as they started walking back to the truck and Humber. “I-a trust you Mr. Pero, you are mzee of your people.” Well, well, was Pero a chief then? It was a great compliment.

  “Chief, Sir, this small mzee will not let you, ah, down. I will be there before tea time, to down my cuppa.” Said with a smile.

  The Chief frowned, and then got his play on words and opened his mouth and barked, literally barked, a laugh. All six teeth were deeply decayed. He turned to the men and said, “We go now.” In Swahili, he ordered Simon’s body parts to be thrown into the Toyota and he strode away. The soldiers started collecting the bits, like firewood, and dumped them over the white flap-down back gate. They made a hollow sound as they hit. There was no head anyone could find. Hyenas quite often take the head away for a nighttime snack, they all knew it. It could be miles away by now.

  Silently, full of guilt, Pero offered an apology, Sorry Simon, I could have prevented this but I needed your corpse to look this way, bones all chewed up, to cover your real cause of death.

  Pero noticed that the Chief’s driver, who opened the door to his Humber, only had one sock on. When you are poor and only have one sock, wear it with pride was Pero’s guess.

  As he watched them drive away his morbid thoughts rambled to an African Foreign Minister, Pero met once, who didn’t even have the one sock . . . Years before, late 1986 it was.

  Pero was in the Nairobi shop of a man who was a friend to the Maasai, himself a blood brother. Macpherson Knot had a series of little tattoos on his forehead at the hairline, two blue ones Pero remembered, the mark of a rank of chief. Three and you are a chief among chiefs. Having spent years with the Maasai on his “walkabouts” since retiring from the British Army, Macpherson was a bit of a mystery to the Maasai. Over the years they found him trustworthy, deeply interested in their stories and, always, ready to come to their defense. Locally, the word spread and his little native artifacts’ shop became known as a place where a “good British” would pay fair prices for crafts, advise on western ways and, above all, help when help was needed.

  Macpherson (never Mac, “only rude Americans call me that, once, and once only”) and Pero were sitting in his little office when the shop lady assistant came in to say there was a strange gentleman to see him. Macpherson told her to send him in while he reached under the desk for his Army Special Forces’ knife. The man who walked in was about forty. His hair and skin were freshly clean—his shirt was clean but not pressed. He had a tie on that was poorly knotted and the suit had definitely seen better days. He had come to ask for help. He had shoes, but no laces and no socks.

  Mr. Mturbai had hitchhiked from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. As the Ethiopian Foreign Minister, he was to attend a UN conference in Nairobi to determine why the food aid raised by happy singers in America had been left on the docks and had been, subsequently, sold off to line officials’ pockets. He had come to be chastised. He knew it.

  But Mr. Mturbai had come to tell the truth that no one wanted to hear. After decades of well-intentioned CARE and church aid, they had saved eighty percent of babies born, but no one had told them not to go on having a baby every year. Every woman of age always had done so for millennia, one child a year expecting eighty percent of them to die before maturity. So instead, the modern population steadily grew until there was famine. The UN stepped in and cut down the Commiphora forest and planted rice, because there was so much rain. Without the trees, the rain stopped. They received aid to plant wheat. The monsoon rains washed the root-less top soil into the Indian Ocean. Famine ensued. Geldof and pop singers recorded a happy unifying song. The West felt its conscience assuaged. Some camp people got rice and survived. Famine kills the very young or the very old. Any that survived were of breeding age. Still the missionaries and aid groups did not council family planning. In the starvation camps, women had malnourished babies. No one sang the song the next year, so babies died, along with the parents. Geldof got a Knighthood—he deserved it for his intentions, not for the end result.

  Mr. Mturbai wasn’t angry. He was African, used to Mother Nature taking her children and women “back to the soil.” He wasn’t emotional about that. He was emotional about being called a crook for profiteering off western rice aid. He stood there, impoverished, asking for bus fare so he could get to the last day of the conference and address people on fat salaries and tell them that next time you send rice, send trucks and gasoline to take it to the people. Oh, and while you are at it, if you really want to save these people, take them to your homes, your land, because the land they live on has gone, 300 feet down off the Kenya coast, red muck choking the coral there too, by the way.

  Macpherson gave him the taxi fare and food for a meal and told him he could sleep in the shop if he wanted and gave him a set of keys. Mr. Mturbai wept. Not for himself, but for the irony of it all. Here was an ex-Colonial man with a little hole-in-the-wall shop helping when others wouldn’t. The people he was going to be reprimanded by were living in white gin palaces, driving Mercedes, manicured lawns, getting fat UN and NGO salaries, and they, he knew, would not listen nor care.

  Pero had his travel bag with him. Pero reached in and gave him a pair of socks, a pair of desert boots, and what cash he had in dollars, “for your trip home.”
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br />   “Asanti, asanti sana, bwana.” Thank you, Sir.

  “Tell them the truth, even if they don’t like it.”

  “I promise, I will.” They shook hands.

  The little man was assassinated two years later walking his kid to school. He still didn’t own a car, let alone a Mercedes. Pero saw the photo in the paper. There he lay, feet splayed. Pero noticed he was wearing socks. Poor compensation.

  Pero woke from his reverie as the Chief’s Humber started first try with a backfire. With the one-sock chauffeur driving, the car did a nine-point turn to go back the way it had come, carefully avoiding the thorn bushes either side of the narrow clearing, a good precaution because of the bald tires. The Toyota flatbed followed in the dust, their minder’s face peering back at Pero, looking totally miserable because Simon’s bones were bouncing at his feet.

  “Mbuno, strap the glider down properly on that Land Rover while I get something out of this one.” Pero opened the rear door of the long-wheelbase Land Rover and unlocked the toolbox again. Inside were his papers, private equipment, and revolver. It was only a small police .38. Pero took out binoculars and handed them to Mbuno. With his eyes, he could keep better watch than Pero. “We’ll take this one. We’ll come back for the other Land Rover later. I’ll drive Mbuno—you sit up top and keep watch.”

  “So, am I watching for the other car, bwana?” That was so like Mbuno and somehow very comforting. Pero had used him now on over ten shoots in Kenya and Tanzania. He was old—must be over sixty-five—but was still the most trusted, experienced, white-hunter guide. Nothing happened in the bush that he didn’t observe, nothing.

  “Yes, Mbuno, I don’t know where they went or who they were, but there is danger with them nearby.”

  Mbuno didn’t reply, his face showed nothing, his eyes searched Pero’s. If he knew about the shufti or guessed that Simon had not died accidentally, he could say, but old elephant hunters knew how to keep silent in the bush. Time would show Mbuno what he needed to know and do.

  Pero drove off, engine revs low, stopping frequently, heading back towards the northeast of the Ajuran Plateau. Pero wanted to find the mystery tracks. Twice he thought he had spotted them, twice Mbuno told Pero they were their other Land Rover’s tires. Pero couldn’t find a trace of the mystery vehicle, nor could Mbuno. “Are they still here anywhere, do you think Mbuno?” They were proceeding slowly, carefully.

  “No, Mr. Pero, they are gone. There is no foreign thing here now.” He meant nothing un-natural, no animal disturbance to reveal the presence of a human. Suddenly: “Here,” he pointed at what looked like nothing but flat soil, “Stop, you can see something was dragged, maybe a sack.” So, they had covered their tracks. To catch these shufti who had killed Simon, Pero would need to find a way to smoke them out to spot them again. Or maybe they were best left alone. Pero privately voted for the latter, if only he knew where they came from, exactly who they were. They were clearly up to no good and spotting something unusual was exactly what his State Department contact had asked him to do, if possible. No one had said anything about a killing. The risks were perhaps too great.

  They drove back to the other Land Rover and Mbuno climbed down, handed Pero the ‘binos and took the wheel of the other car. An expert bush navigator, Mbuno knew to lead. So, Pero shut every door, roof trap, and window, locked his gear and gun away, and followed, heat mounting in the airless cabin, in Mbuno’s dusty wake. They made their camp an hour later.

  “Where’s the body, Pero?” Heep and the team looked anxious. Heep would be. It was he who had convinced Simon to come up here with them. Simon normally only flew nearer the National Park in Nairobi. The Ajuran Plateau was more dangerous, had sudden air currents. Now Simon was dead and Heep would have to explain to Simon’s three-year girlfriend, Margarie, a Princeton grad studying the movement of big raptors under Simon’s tutelage. Her parting words had been on the phone to Heep—not to Pero, thank goodness—“Keep him safe Mr. Heeper, won’t you?”

  Pero was contrite, “Sorry Heep, the Chief’s got the body, what’s left of it. The hyenas and vultures did a pretty thorough job. Just too many of them. I’ll ask the Chief later what he is going to do with it. Pretty gruesome.”

  “Damn.” A pause, then, “Get footage of the vultures?” That was Heep, always the visualist, using work to mask his emotions. Pero knew he was hurting, Pero could see it in his eyes after so many years.

  “Yeah, with the minicam. It’s all yours.” He handed it over “But somehow I can’t see that bitch in LA wanting to view that tape.” Heep knew what Pero meant. The “bitch” was one Nancy McEwen, appointed by the friendly boss of the television division. He made her their corporate liaison, the production coordinator, a corporate “minder” by any other title. He had no idea how useless she was.

  Three weeks ago, her parting words of ignorance to Pero were “I’ve been to Africa, I know you don’t need any cash, use your American Express to pay the locals and bill us.” Yeah, give Chief Methenge an Amex card and he’d put it to good use all right. It made a handy scraper when he squatted in the bush. The thought of her looking at vultures and hyenas ripping a carcass to bits—especially a human one—conjured up images of a dead faint and accusations of abuse. She was a vindictive bitch to boot. Maybe Pero would be happy to pay her back a little, but later, if there was a later. Pero was still unnerved.

  Heep was still all work, no outward emotion, “Pero, what are we going to do? Simon’s footage, ours—I’ve reviewed it all—is great, especially the flight stuff and all. Can we use any of this? Should we use any of this?”

  “Heep, let’s leave that for later. Right now, I’ve got to get to the Chief’s hut, negotiate another huge fine, see if I can prevent the minder from coming back here tonight with the police or, worse, calling Nairobi on the Chief’s ham radio and yanking permits. Later, tonight, we can review the tapes and decide. My first guess is that Simon’s accident is a great story. And we will, I promise, pay his family the insurance we got for him. You had better tell LA on the satellite phone while I’m away, and have them put in the claim. You know this will be in the papers by tomorrow. The Chief wants the publicity for helping us recover the tragic accident, which will be his spin. Tell LA they must avoid forceful negative discussions via the US Embassy with the police about insurance claims—at least until we’re safely out of here—or else we may find ourselves in a long-distance problem.” Heep knew what Pero meant. A few years before, when US aid was being withheld from Kenya’s crooked President Moi, the Kenyan authorities “rescued” a crew shooting a big-budget Hollywood film and kept them incommunicado until the State Department negotiated their safe return. Of course, Moi got his Swiss bank account transfer before the star, Gina Maddox, even stepped on the plane to go home. Heep and Pero were way too small fish to merit such State Department support—Pero had no illusions, and he was sure Heep knew it too. Add to that, Pero thought, if Nairobi gets any whiff that someone at State wanted us to scout for them up here . . .

  Later that night, with the Chief having been contented with another $500 of their production money, Heep and Pero were alone in his six-man, tan-colored tent, the thin nylon showing their shadows outside. On the satellite phone, Heep had put in the claim for Simon’s accidental death. The bitch was none too happy. Neither man really cared about her. So, after they shut the satellite phone down, they squatted and viewed the footage, earphones in place, and nodded silently to each other, keeping the unasked questions and emotions at bay. Ruis and Priit had seen most of the footage earlier . . . but now Heep and Pero were viewing the secret minicam tape that Pero had shot. Heep looked worried. They took off their headsets as the footage went to blank.

  Almost silently, he said, “You never tried to protect the body. You removed the glider, but didn’t try and save him.”

  “He was dead, it didn’t hurt him. I wanted to get his family the insurance, Heep.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Pero put his hand in his pocket
and extracted an unwashed flattened bullet, which Pero had found in the body, stuck to the inside of the pelvis. Pero showed it to him.

  “Pero . . .” a quiet pause, “Pero, who did this?” Heep had covered war zones throughout his sixty years; he knew a flattened death bullet when he saw one.

  Pero kept his voice low, “That car coming from the east, remember? I don’t know who, why, or how. But it must have been them—no one else was around. If the claim or police report says he was shot, then there will be an inquiry for years and Simon’s family would never see a dime. This way its accidental death, not an act of some imaginary war, and our production insurance will pay up, no problem.”

  “Okay, I understand. But it’s time to leave, right now—this is not our battle up here. The Ethiopian shufti kill first and ask questions later.” Heep knew shufti are usually army deserters, trained, but off the leash, dangerous, desperate. They are feared, with good reason: desperate men using violence as their only means of survival. Heep knew that the Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Dafur were all riddled with them. “Anyway, the shot we have is useless without that backdrop of the cliff and Simon gliding.”