Captive_A High-octane And Gripping African Thriller

by Tony Park

  ‘No. I’m at the station captain’s house. His wife was having a breech birth and the local doctor and midwife were both away, or busy, or something. I delivered it.’

  ‘You delivered a human baby?’

  ‘Don’t sound so incredulous. I handle difficult animal deliveries all the time. I’m better qualified than some local GP quack to deliver a breech baby.’

  ‘All right. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Come get me?’

  ‘From Capitão Alfredo’s place? OK. I know where that is.’

  ‘Good. Hurry.’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  Graham ended the call just as the captain re-emerged, beaming still, and handed him a Cuban cigar and a bottle of Laurentina Lager. Graham opened the beer and let the policeman light up his cigar, then returned his phone.

  ‘Cheers, yes?’

  Graham clinked his bottle with the captain’s, but the officer then ushered him inside again with a hand in the middle of his back. Relatives and friends were talking fast and loud in Portuguese and xiTsonga.

  The captain was talking to the warder who had been keeping an eye on Graham. They weren’t looking at him so Graham backed slowly towards the front door and slipped outside once more.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Graham said under his breath, scanning the street for sign of his friend.

  After a couple of agonising minutes Juan’s four-wheel drive rounded a corner and came speeding towards the house. Just then, Graham felt a hand grab his shoulder. His heart sank as he turned and saw the captain, who had hold of him, and the warder next to him.

  ‘The captain, he want to know where you are going?’

  ‘Um, nowhere,’ said Graham. Juan had pulled up outside the house, engine idling.

  The captain reached into the top pocket of his uniform shirt and pulled out a green South African passport and Graham’s mobile phone. He spoke in Portuguese.

  ‘The captain, he say that if you do decide to go somewhere, you might need your passport. Also, he say you should go quickly, and no come back to Mozambique for maybe one year. People at the border will be looking for you soon if you try to come back. Fidel Costa’s cousin is a senior officer at Giriyondo border crossing. You should be quick.’

  Graham nodded and took the passport as the captain let go of him. He shook hands with both policemen and got in the waiting truck.

  ‘Go!’ he said to Juan.

  Chapter 6

  The cemetery was becoming too crowded. There were so many fresh graves, Fidel thought, that if one squinted a little it looked like a freshly ploughed field. The only thing that grew in abundance here in this harsh land was the body count.

  Luiz stood next to him, as he had for several other funerals. The old tracker was now the closest thing Fidel had to a direct family member. The pallbearers, the other men Fidel’s younger brother Inâcio had been with on the day of his death, slowly lowered the coffin into the gaping wound in the red soil.

  Fidel drew a breath. He would not cry in front of his soldiers, but that did not mean he was incapable of grief.

  The civil war had robbed him of his mother, father and sister, and his childhood. SIDA, as Portuguese speakers referred to HIV-AIDS, had taken two uncles, and his wife had been killed in a car accident in a collision with a drunken driver. Luiz, a friend and wartime comrade of his father, had trained and mentored the young Fidel as he rose through the ranks of the liberation army, and had been something of an uncle to him.

  Fidel’s early life had been driven by a desire for revenge, for his family and later his wife – he’d had the driver of the car that killed Gracia murdered. Later he had turned to money in an attempt to buy his way out of his grief.

  ‘He was a good boy,’ Luiz said, when the priest had finished.

  Fidel looked at the open hole, trying, but not quite able to picture his little brother inside the box.

  ‘He was stupid. He should have listened to you, rather than running towards the veterinarian.’ Fidel put a hand to his eyes and took a deep breath to try to stifle the scream that was fighting to escape from his lungs. ‘But I loved him so much.’

  ‘He knew the risks. We all do.’

  Fidel looked around the cemetery. The spaces between the old cement graves of the Portuguese colonials had long since been dug up and filled with the victims of the SIDA plague, but many of these new mounds were the unmarked resting places of young men like Inâcio, who had crossed the border into South Africa in search of their fortune. More than five hundred men had been killed while illegally hunting rhino in the past ten years, and a good many of them lay here.

  Fidel held the brim of his Panama so tightly he thought he might destroy it. It did not do to show weakness in front of his lieutenant, but the grief was roiling inside him. ‘He was more like my son than my brother, Luiz. He didn’t need to die.’

  Luiz shook his head. ‘Not for money. But he did what young men need to do, prove themselves as warriors. Whether it is shooting a RENAMO dog or a rhino, or driving a car too fast or fucking too many whores, young men will take risks and some of them will die.’

  Fidel shook his head. ‘There was no need.’

  ‘You were the same,’ Luiz said. ‘You couldn’t wait to get to the war and fight for the cause.’

  ‘No,’ Fidel corrected him, ‘I fought to avenge the deaths of family members. Inâcio wanted for nothing. You saw the car I bought for him.’

  ‘That is why he picked up the AK-47, why he went to the bush.’

  Fidel looked into the older man’s eyes. They were looking rheumy and Luiz was losing weight. Fidel, who was educated enough to take precautions and rich enough to afford the occasional virgin, wondered if Luiz, despite his age, was succumbing to the virus. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He was the boss’s brother, Fidel. You are right, he did not want for money, but he lacked respect.’

  ‘Who didn’t respect him?’ Fidel clenched his fists. ‘Tell me, and they will answer to me.’

  Luiz shook his head again, as if Fidel was the slow pupil who still struggled to understand the formula on the chalkboard. ‘He wanted your respect.’

  Fidel’s vision began to swim. He wanted to cry, to scream, to pull his hair out, but he could not; these were the actions of women, not men, not commanders. He took a deep breath and summoned the memories from his youth, of the days, weeks and years after the deaths of most of his family, and the cleansing that had come through the kick in the shoulder from the recoil of his rifle, the smell of the cordite in his nostrils, and the warm red blood on his hands. He relaxed his hands.

  ‘We need to talk business,’ Fidel said. Money, like revenge, would not extinguish grief, but it could pave over it for a while.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The South African government has changed its regulations relating to the trade in rhino horn. Their environment minister is allowing limited numbers of horns to be traded within South Africa’s borders. If this is the thin edge of the wedge and free trade comes then I want to be part of it.’

  ‘Pah,’ Luiz spat. ‘I am a tracker and a hunter, not a farmer. Besides, you know the Vietnamese. They demand we take the ears and the tail of the rhinos we kill so that they know the horn comes from a wild animal killed in the bush, not one that has been reared like a cow and had its horn harvested.’

  ‘I am working on something,’ Fidel said, ‘that will give us access to captive rhinos. What we do with them, and their tails, ears and horns, will be up to us.’

  Luiz looked unconvinced. The gravediggers were hovering nearby, waiting to begin the business of robbing Fidel of the last vestiges of his family. ‘But what will you do now?’

  ‘Now? Kill Graham Baird.’

  *

  Kerry arrived back at the police station but when she walked inside there was only one officer there, a young woman who continued studiously reading a newspaper, even as Kerry coughed for attention.

  ‘Hello? Excuse me,’ Kerry said.

 
; ‘Por favor, eu não falo Inglês. So Portugues.’

  ‘No English?’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘Dr Graham Baird? I want to see the doctor.’

  The woman shook her head. Kerry turned at the sound of footsteps behind her.

  ‘Good afternoon, miss, can I help you?’

  The man who addressed her in nearly flawless English was well dressed in a tailored shirt and trousers and a Panama hat. He was handsome, with a neatly trimmed moustache and engaging dark eyes.

  ‘I’m here trying to visit someone who’s in the cells, a Dr Graham Baird, but this woman doesn’t speak English.’

  The man spoke in rapid Portuguese and the policewoman replied, this time immediately and respectfully.

  ‘The officer says that only relatives of the inmates are allowed to visit.’

  Kerry thought quickly. She’d had no problem getting in to see Baird earlier, but a different officer in charge obviously meant different rules. ‘Can you tell her I’m his fiancée, please?’

  The man raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? You are to be married?’

  She didn’t know what business it was of his, but felt she should keep the conversation going. ‘Yes, really.’

  The man translated and the woman shrugged and spoke some more.

  ‘Ah, Miss . . .’

  ‘Maxwell.’

  ‘Miss Maxwell, the officer now says that if you are the doctor’s wife-to-be then you may visit him, but there is a small problem.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  ‘The doctor is no longer here.’ The man conversed some more with the female officer. ‘He went with Captain Alfredo, the man in charge of the station, to the captain’s house. There was a medical emergency, apparently. I am here to see the captain and I know where he lives. I can take you there.’

  Kerry was unsure of what to do. She had a methodical, analytical mind and prided herself on being able to solve complex problems and juggle multiple tasks at the same time, but Africa was bringing her undone. The man standing next to her was polite, but she wasn’t in the habit of following complete strangers. ‘Can I ask who you are?’

  He smiled and gave a little bow of his head. ‘My name is Fidel Costa. I am a businessman and local politician; I serve on what you would call the local council. The officer here will vouch for me, I’m sure.’ He spoke to her again in their language.

  The police officer looked to Kerry and nodded. ‘Sim,’ she said, which by the vigorous nod of her head Kerry realised meant ‘yes’. ‘Big man.’

  Kerry felt reassured and she followed Fidel out into the blinding sunlight.

  *

  One of Juan’s safari guides drove Graham’s Land Rover through the Parque Nacional do Limpopo and met them on the road to the Giriyondo border crossing.

  Graham kept wiping sweaty palms on the side of his grubby trousers as he waited to clear customs and immigration. Graham hoped Fidel Costa’s cousin hadn’t yet received word to keep an eye out for the South African veterinarian.

  Juan stayed in the car park on the Mozambican side of the border until Graham emerged, surrendered to a perfunctory search of his vehicle by the bored customs officer on duty, and then gave a thumbs-up and got in his vehicle.

  Graham drove through to the South African side and felt like kissing the woman from the Department of Home Affairs who stamped his passport and welcomed him home.

  One of the rules relating to travel through the Giriyondo border post into South Africa was that people using it had to book a night’s accommodation in the Kruger Park. This was to stop long-distance lorries and passenger buses using the national park as a short cut to and from Mozambique’s Indian Ocean coast. There was a South African National Park office at the border and Graham was able to book a rondavel at Letaba Camp. He would have preferred to drive all the way home, but he figured a night in the park, playing tourist, would give him a chance to chill out before going back to work.

  Before getting back into the driver’s seat he went to the car fridge in the back of his four-by-four and took out a Long Tom can of Castle Lager and popped it. He drank deeply as he drove into the Kruger Park and then let out a satisfied, celebratory burp.

  The sight of hippo sunning themselves on the wide sandy banks of the Letaba River and a bull elephant feeding by the side of the road helped calm him. At the camp he checked in and went to his accommodation, via the camp shop where he bought more beer and a steak to braai for dinner.

  In the hut he plugged in his mobile phone to charge the battery and stripped off his filthy clothes. Several messages beeped at him. Thandi had tried him a couple of times, letting him know that Kerry Maxwell was looking for him.

  He wondered how the woman was faring; he hoped that she, too, had returned to South Africa by now. She would be angry that he hadn’t told her he was out of prison and that she had wasted her time; he would have to find a way to keep her calm until he could refund her money.

  She was pretty, so the thought of making amends with her was not unappealing. Graham felt bad about the way he had dismissed her. He’d been half-drunk on the rotgut rum, but he had been unnecessarily rude to her.

  He took a beer into the shower. She would get over it.

  When he finished washing, Graham lay down naked on top of the bed. He fell asleep immediately and it was dark when the sound of his phone ringing woke him. He groaned, rolled over and saw Juan’s name on the screen.

  ‘Howzit?’

  ‘Fine, Graham, and you? I take it you’re safe in the Kruger Park?’

  ‘I am, thanks. Sheesh, what time is it, man?’

  ‘Ten o’clock. Do you know a woman by the name of Maxwell?’

  Graham rubbed his face and took a sip of now-warm beer. ‘Kerry, yes. We met briefly when I was a guest of the Mozambican government.’

  ‘She called and emailed me, asking about you and how she could help get you out of prison.’

  ‘So? She’s a do-gooder.’

  ‘She left a message for me to call her at a lodge in Massingir. I did, just now. They’re worried about her. She booked for dinner but never returned to the lodge. Either she’s skipped out without paying her bill or she’s gone missing.’

  Graham digested the news. ‘She’s a lawyer, so she’s not going to leave town without paying. Also, she doesn’t strike me as the type who’d savour the night-life of Massingir – too prissy.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Check with the lodge again in the morning, see if she showed up.’

  ‘All right. And I’ll go to the police station tomorrow and see if they saw her this afternoon,’ Juan said.

  ‘All right. Be careful, my friend.’

  ‘Always.’

  Graham finished his beer and drifted back into a fitful sleep, but was woken at midnight by his phone. He answered the call.

  ‘Dr Baird?’ asked a male voice.

  Damn it, he wasn’t going to get any sleep this night. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘We have your fiancée.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your wife-to-be.’

  ‘I don’t have one. Is this a joke?’

  ‘No joke. We are going to kill her unless you bring money.’

  ‘I’m telling you I don’t have . . .’ Graham felt sick to his stomach as he realised who the man meant.

  ‘Miss Maxwell. She is here. Listen.’

  Shit, Graham said to himself.

  ‘Dr Baird,’ the Australian woman sniffed. ‘I’ve tried telling them we’re not engaged, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They’re threatening to kill me.’

  Graham slapped his forehead. How had this happened? He tried to collect his thoughts. ‘Have they hurt you?’

  ‘They roughed me up a bit, pointed a gun at me. This is all very traumatic, you know?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But you’re OK, physically?’

  Her tone changed. ‘I’ve been a hell of a lot better! Call my father, he’s –’

  The phone was tak
en from the woman again.

  ‘Dr Baird, you killed two good men, their families are grieving. You have cost people a good deal of money. You will compensate us for this. You will bring one million rand across the border. You have forty-eight hours, otherwise we will start cutting this pretty woman.’

  ‘No, wait, I don’t have that sort of money. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. I’m broke, man.’

  ‘No problem. The woman will die then.’ The man ended the call.

  Graham sat on the edge of the bed and turned on the light. He called Juan, waking him, and explained what had happened.

  ‘If I try to cross the border at Giriyondo again Costa’s cousin will grab me,’ Graham said.

  ‘Maybe that’s what all this is about.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought, too,’ Graham said. ‘Can you try Captain Alfredo tonight?’

  ‘I’ll try, but you saw him when I collected you – already had a couple of beers in his hands. We might just have to trust the cops in the station.’

  ‘Ja.’ The thought didn’t fill him with confidence. ‘Can you put the call in?’

  ‘Will do.’

  Kerry had asked him to call her father, but she’d been cut off before she could give him any more details. Graham checked the emails on his phone and found one from his friend, Sarah Hoyland, a charity fundraising consultant who specialised in pairing people who were prepared to pay to be volunteers with worthy causes in Africa. It was through Sarah’s website that Kerry’s trip to Ukuphila had been organised. In the attachment Kerry had completed he found next of kin details for a Bruce Maxwell, Kerry’s father, in Canberra. Graham took a deep breath and dialled the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Maxwell, hello. My name’s Dr Graham Baird. I’m a veterinarian in South Africa and your daughter . . .’

  ‘I know exactly who the bloody hell you are. Where’s Kerry? Did she get you out of prison? I have to say I’m not very happy about this set-up you’re running over there, mate.’

  There was no hint of affection in the last word Bruce Maxwell had spoken. In fact, it sounded to Graham more like the gravelly voiced man wanted to rip his head off.