by Tony Park
Graham laughed, but Sarah’s mind was turning over the new information. She had broken a few laws herself, when she lived in Mozambique, but was on the straight and narrow these days. Sarah had driven overland tour trucks in Africa and ended up on an island off the coast of Mozambique where she had, for a time, become involved with a former British military officer who was leading a gang of modern day pirates. There were some things she had done that she hoped would never come to light given her new career as a fundraiser, but what she saw in Graham’s story was not something to be covered up – far from it.
‘You never check Facebook, do you?’ she asked.
‘Do I still have an account? In my defence, I do “tweet” occasionally.’ Graham made air quotes with his fingers. ‘I find Twitter a good source of news and links to porno sites.’
‘Graham! Behave. Listen to this.’ Sarah called up Eli’s page again and read from his post. ‘Kudos goes to our anti-poaching operatives who held their ground and returned fire in the face of a fierce ambush, and to Juan Pereira and his staff who patched me up. They probably saved my life.’
‘A tad melodramatic, but it’s the truth,’ Graham said.
‘This is gold, Graham.’
‘Stop talking in Australian,’ he said to her. ‘In English, woman, or Afrikaans at least.’
‘Don’t call me woman. You know I hate that, and all that “my girl” South African rubbish.’
‘Have a drink.’ He raised his glass and drained it. ‘I need a top-up.’
‘No, Graham, just a minute. Hear me out.’
He looked at his watch and started to stand. ‘It’s Captain Morgan time.’
She held up her hands. ‘Stop.’
Graham sat back down. ‘I love it when you’re forceful.’
‘Shut up and pay attention.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘The stuff Eli has posted is pure gold when it comes to tugging on the heartstrings of donors, and raising money for our cause. That’s a real live report from the front line of the war against poaching.’
Graham picked his nose.
Sarah wagged a finger. ‘I’m warning you, Graham. Listen to me. I need you for the honey badger job, but I also want to fly you to Cape Town.’
‘What for?’
‘Like I said, Vergel was supposed to be the guest speaker at my fundraiser there. I’ve got all sorts of politicians and people coming, plus some zoo people from Australia attending a conference there at the same time.’
‘Um, no.’
‘Why not? I’ve just offered you a free trip to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.’
‘I like Hoedspruit, thanks.’
‘Graham, come on!’
‘I don’t like public speaking, the limelight and all that.’
‘You’ll be fine, Graham. There are some tricks I can teach you about addressing a crowd of people.’
‘Such as what?’ He sounded dubious and instantly sober.
‘Imagining everyone in front of you is naked.’
‘I do that all the time.’
Sarah sighed. She then wondered if she had spoken too soon. However, she thought of the two hundred–plus people who had paid good money to see television’s bush vet, Vergel Worth, and she shuddered. She did not want to have to refund all that money.
‘Graham, please tell me you’ll come to Cape Town, to talk at our function.’
He rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘Honestly, my girl, I’m not interested.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ Sarah played her trump card. ‘What about money.’
He blinked. ‘You didn’t say anything about cash.’
‘The television vet was going to be paid an appearance fee. He’ll have to claim that back on his travel insurance now, lost income and all that.’
‘Hmm,’ Graham said, and she could see the sparkle in his eye.
‘Twenty thousand rand.’
Graham gave a low whistle. ‘Eish.’
She held back a smile. The appearance fee was actually twice that amount, but Graham didn’t need to know that. She wondered if he even realised just how big an international star Vergel was.
‘It’s yours, if you come.’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Come on, Graham. I know you could use the money and I’m asking this as a friend.’
‘No.’
‘Graham!’
He held up his hands and smiled. ‘Relax, Cinderella. You can go to the high roller’s fundraiser and I don’t need your money. Pay for the flights and my accommodation and,’ he raised his glass and clinked the ice cubes, ‘this stuff, and you’ve got yourself your talking monkey.’
‘You don’t want the money?’
He shrugged. ‘Give it back to the cause. There have been hardworking saps and armchair conservationists around the world raiding their piggy banks to help you – help us – so it seems wrong to take their cash.’
Sarah ignored the thinly veiled criticism of Vergel. ‘Thank you. You’ve got me out of a bind, and possibly reminded me why I like you. Also, since you’re coming to Cape Town, I need you to do a check on half-a-dozen black rhino at a small private game reserve not far from the city – Vergel was going to do that for me as well. I’m working on a project to relocate them to another country to start a captive breeding program.’
‘Where are they going? Australia? You were working on relocating some of them over there, weren’t you?’ Graham asked.
‘Can’t tell you right now as it’s hush-hush, but I’ll be announcing it in Cape Town.’
‘Intriguing, and I’m happy to give your rhinos the once-over. Look forward to seeing you soon. All of you.’ Graham shifted in his chair, grinned, and half closed his eyes.
Sarah couldn’t miss the unmistakable sound of a fart. She shook her head and ended the call. She went back to Eli Johnston’s Facebook page. She re-read his account of being in the gunfight with poachers. There were a few pictures he had posted with the story. One showed a ranger standing in the open, firing a rifle – probably during a shooting practice, she imagined, but an action shot like that would help gather more likes. There was another shot of Eli, in hospital, bare-chested with a bandage around his arm. His skin was smooth, possibly waxed, and Sarah wondered what it might be like to run her fingers over that. Graham’s torso was covered in too much wiry salt and pepper hair.
Next she typed ‘Kerry-Anh Maxwell’ into Facebook’s search window and soon found there was only one woman with that name, who was also a friend of Graham Baird.
Sarah went to Eli’s post and hit Share so that it came up on her Animals Without Borders Facebook page, and then started to tap in her own caption.
Amazing report from anti-poaching warrior Eli Johnston on his gunfight with poachers in Mozambique. What Eli wasn’t able to report, for security reasons, was that Animals Without Borders’ own assistant veterinary surgeon, Dr Graham Baird, was also caught up in that action. Graham was in a helicopter that was shot down a few days ago by poachers, also in Mozambique, and personally killed two of the gang that had been slaughtering elephants. To top all that off, after escaping unlawful imprisonment and making his way back to South Africa, Dr Baird then went back over the border to rescue a young wildlife volunteer, Kerry-Anh Maxwell and her father, Bruce Maxwell.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said to herself. ‘Gold.’
Chapter 12
Kerry woke to the sound of her phone ringing.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ her father said by way of greeting.
Kerry rubbed her eyes. ‘Dad? What’s up?’
‘Face-bloody-book, that’s what’s up. What are you playing at?’
Kerry swung her feet off the bed. She hadn’t even been sure where she was when she opened her eyes, but now she remembered. She needed to go to the toilet. Holding the phone to her ear she opened the bedroom window. Her father was still in hospital, where he had been given an angiogram and had a stent inserted. As far as she knew he was doin
g fine.
‘I have no idea what you’re going on about, Dad.’
‘Your name’s all over the internet, all the stuff about you being kidnapped, about the bloody vet coming to get you. Eli’s really worried for you.’
‘Hold on, hold on. I need to wee.’
‘TMI, as the young people say. Call me back. I’m on my Aussie phone and it’s costing me a fortune.’
Kerry rolled her eyes as she walked passed the litter of Graham Baird’s evening – a pizza box, empty beer cans and a half-demolished bottle of rum. There was a pair of underpants hanging over the back of a dining chair.
In the bathroom she checked her phone. ‘Shit.’
Her Facebook account had been bombarded with messages from friends and relatives wanting to know how she was, and if her father was OK. A couple of friends had shared a post from Sarah Hoyland which, Kerry saw, was actually a re-share of something Eli Johnston had posted. Kerry quickly read the posts and most of the comments and as she did so she felt her anger start to rise. She called her father back.
‘Dad, I don’t know how that woman got all that information.’
‘Well,’ Bruce huffed, ‘she’s obviously a buddy of your no-good friend Graham Baird. He must have told her everything that happened and she’s spilled the beans. This is a serious breach of what we used to call operational security in the army. She’s practically told the world how we violated Mozambique’s borders and your name – and mine – are out there for anyone to see.’
Kerry felt her anxiety rising. ‘Damn. Maybe I should contact a lawyer here, get some advice. I might need one in any case to help me with the car hire company – my rental car is still in Massingir and I’m facing a huge bill to have it brought back to South Africa.’
‘Don’t bother about lawyers and cars. Get back to Australia. Today. See if you can change your flights and head back to Sydney this evening.’
‘I’ve still got more than six weeks left of my stay in Africa, Dad, and I’m not ready to go home. I’m shaken by what happened, of course, but now that I’ve learned so much more about the poaching problems here I want to help out more than ever.’ Her father shook his head and Kerry knew what she was saying was counterintuitive. As terrifying as her ordeal had been it had also exposed her, firsthand, to the seriousness and violence of poaching in Africa and made her even more aware of the need to fight it. If she left now, while people such as Graham and Eli stayed in the fray, then what sort of person would that make her? Added to that she realised she had become hooked on the continent and its wildlife and landscapes in a very short time. ‘But what about you?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Bruce said. ‘Doc says I’m on the mend. Besides, I’ve got Eli here to keep me company. His medical aid insurance company flew him from Mozambique to South Africa to treat his gunshot wound and he ended up here in Nelspruit in the same hospital I’m in. Apparently a lot of people who get sick or hurt in Mozambique end up here because it’s the closest decent hospital on this side of the border. He’s ropeable, too, love. Eli’s very annoyed that someone put all that info on Facebook about you.’
‘I can’t say I’m overly happy about it, either. I’ll ask Graham about it when he gets out of bed.’
There was a pause on the end of the line. ‘Kerry, please don’t tell me . . .’
She laughed. ‘Oh, no way. Come on, Dad. There’s no way I’d sleep with him.’
‘Sleep with who?’ Graham asked.
Kerry turned and saw Graham, dressed only in a pair of chequered boxer shorts, scratching his groin.
‘Got to go, Dad. See ya. I’ll call you later.’ Kerry hung up before he could say anything else.
‘Graham, have you seen Facebook?’
He shifted his scratching to his stubbled chin, and then around to his rear end. ‘As a rule, no.’
Kerry thrust her phone towards him. ‘Read that.’
‘Let me get my reading glasses.’ He plonked himself down on the tattered couch and started rummaging under the pizza box. ‘I know they’re here somewhere.’
Graham found his glasses and put them on. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said.
‘Yes. We’re trending. Breaking the internet.’
‘Probably good for my business. I might get a few more paying volunteers.’
‘I’m not laughing, Graham, and neither is my father. He and Eli are worried we might get in trouble from the Mozambican authorities.’
‘Pfft,’ said Graham. ‘Costa knows me, he knows where I live. If he wants me he’ll come for me one day, or send one of his henchmen or poaching gangs, more like it.’
‘You’re very fatalistic.’
‘You have to be, living in Africa. You never know what kak is going to come your way next.’ Still reading, Graham made his way to the refrigerator.
Kerry snuck a look at him. His general unkempt demeanour gave the impression of a middle-aged man going to pot under his baggy sweat-stained bush clothes but, in fact, she saw he was surprisingly toned. She guessed his work was quite physical, but she had also seen a pair of running shoes on Graham’s front porch, and she had noticed a pile of particularly smelly mouldering exercise shirts and rugby shorts in the laundry.
He took a quarter-full plastic bottle of orange juice from the fridge and closed the door, then handed the phone back to Kerry. ‘This is Sarah’s handiwork.’
‘Sarah Hoyland? The woman I booked my stay here with?’
‘Yes.’ Graham held the juice out to her, but she shook her head. He put the bottle to his mouth and drained it. Kerry cringed. ‘That’s who I was Skyping with last night. She’s a professional fundraising consultant for do-gooder groups, kind of a hired gun who helps charities rake in more bucks and takes a cut as a management fee. She runs that business you booked through, pairing paid volunteers with people like me as a sideline. Her big client at the moment is Animals Without Borders.’
‘Oh! I read about them on her website. They do brilliant work, relocating African animals from zoos around the world back here, and sometimes moving endangered wildlife, such as rhinos, to safer havens.’
‘I know, I’m their back-up vet. Their main guy is –’
‘Vergel Worth. He’s gorgeous.’
‘If you like the pretty-boy, lantern-jawed type.’
‘Mmm, yes please. But tell me more about Sarah.’
‘Well, like all do-gooders, she’s got her eye on the dollars. Vergel is in Australia with her – she’s negotiating with the Downunder private zoo to bring some sable antelope and a honey badger, of all things, back over to South Africa – and he was supposed to speak at some gala fundraisers in Sydney and Cape Town and make all the rich middle-aged matrons swoon and part with their savings to save the furry creatures of Africa.’
‘You’re a cynic,’ Kerry said.
‘You think?’
Kerry ignored the sarcasm. ‘So why all the stuff about you and me escaping from Mozambique?’
‘Vergel’s come down with malaria and Sarah wants me to be her ventriloquist’s dummy and talk on stage in Cape Town and at some media event dog-and-pony show when she releases the badger into the Kruger Park. The idea is to tug at everyone’s heartstrings.’
‘Ah,’ said Kerry. ‘So she thinks people will be interested in hearing about your gunfights with the poachers?’
‘And yours, too, I expect.’
‘That would explain why she named me in the posts. She had no right to do that without my permission,’ Kerry said.
‘Sarah subscribes to the old saying that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,’ Graham said.
‘Clearly. You don’t seem very worried by all this.’
He shrugged again. ‘Why should I be? I’m not scared of Costa.’
Kerry drew herself up and thrust out her chin. ‘Then neither am I. You don’t seem too upset about this Sarah splashing your name all over the internet. How come you aren’t mad?’
‘Oh, I’m not happy, but Sarah knows the one thing that will stop
me complaining. Money.’
‘You get paid for your work for Animals Without Borders? I thought that was a charity gig.’
‘It is, for me at least, but she was going to pay Mr TV Vet some serious coin as an appearance fee. Hero that I am, I’m only asking for my room and board as recompense for wowing the crowd.’ Graham ran a hand theatrically through his lank, greasy greying hair.
Kerry raised an eyebrow.
‘What are you insinuating, Miss Maxwell?’
Kerry looked him up and down. While his body was lean, the rest of him was a wreck. He rummaged in the mess on the coffee table and found a packet of cigarettes. He shook it and the last one fell out. His eyes gleamed like a kid who had just been told he could have ice-cream for breakfast. Graham picked up a lighter.
‘Out . . .’
He glared at her. ‘This is my house. You don’t like smoking, then you go outside, Miss Prissy Pants.’
Kerry saw red. She put her hands on her hips and took a step closer to him.
He raised the flame to the tip and sucked on it. The orange glow mocked her. ‘Sarah will want you, next.’
‘What do you mean?’
He exhaled, though he blew the smoke away from her. It wasn’t enough; she coughed and waved a hand in front of her face. The smoke stank, he smelled of perspiration, and the house was a tip. ‘You’re part Vietnamese, you’re pretty. Sarah is also doing a lot of work in ’Nam; everyone’s on the rhino bandwagon, but she’s buttering up the Vietnamese government with her plans to relocate African animals. She makes your people feel good about themselves, and not the wildlife criminals that most of Africa think they are. You’ll be a perfect token Asian to front her campaign.’
‘How. Dare. You.’ Kerry raised her hand.
‘Want to slap me again?’
‘Yes!’
‘Ooh, goody. It was strangely arousing last time.’
They stared at each other and then a phone rang. Graham found his iPhone, which had a cracked screen, under a half-eaten packet of Simba chips.
‘Howzit. Yeah. OK. I’m coming.’
Graham turned and went back to his room.