Zambezi

by Tony Park

  The bus crossed a new-looking bridge over the wide Zambezi. The Zimbabwean border formalities were a little quicker, but by now Luke was losing what little reserves of patience he had.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he fumed under his breath as the last of the passengers ambled over to the bus.

  Africans, he had noticed, never seemed in a hurry to do anything.

  Chirundu, on the Zimbabwean side, from what Luke could see of it, consisted of a few official buildings, a seedy-looking hotel and a general store. As the bus rolled past a line of lorries Luke was surprised to see a lone bull elephant standing between two of the trucks.

  The man next to him noted his wide-eyed look and said, ‘You often see elephants around here. They come sniffing around the trucks at night, looking for those transporting maize and other food. They wander from the bush and through the township on the way to the river to drink.’

  The border-town squalor of Chirundu quickly gave way to thick bushland. The coach had to stop after a few kilometres for three big black Cape buffalo that were ambling across the road.

  ‘I didn’t see any game on the roads in Zambia,’ Luke said.

  ‘You slept most of the journey, remember? But no, you’re right, there are virtually no wild animals left in Zambia outside of their national parks. They have all been poached. The Zambians are all criminals, you know.’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  The road came to a T-junction and Luke saw a sign that pointed to Mana Pools National Park on the left. The bus went right, climbing slowly up the Zambezi escarpment, and Luke was treated to a grand view of the national park where Miranda Banks-Lewis had supposedly been killed by a lion.

  The bus stopped at the service station at Makuti, where a sign pointed down the hill to Kariba, seventy-three kilometres away. Luke waved goodbye to the businessman and found a shady tree to sit under while he waited to hitch a ride into town.

  He felt better being out of the confines of the coach and another step closer to his quarry. He forgot his tiredness and rank smell and the fact that he was wanted for trumped-up drug offences and, possibly, murder. He sniffed the warm, heavy air of the Zambezi Valley. He was on the scent of a story that would probably make the newspapers in every country in the western world, and then some.

  There could even be a book in it.

  He would not stop until he found Jed Banks. He owed Banks for saving his life in Afghanistan and, if things panned out as he hoped they would, the news he had for the Green Beret master sergeant might just settle that debt – if he wasn’t too late.

  Chapter 18

  The Tanzanian customs man was impressed by the luxury motorboat. Boats of all sizes came and went from Bagamoyo Harbour, from leaking dhows to cargo ships, but the cruiser, with its sleek modern lines, polished chrome fittings and impressive array of radar and radio masts, was a thing of beauty It was registered in Zanzibar, he saw from the writing on the stern. It had to be owned by an Arab.

  He was right.

  ‘Jambo,’ the Arab said as he stepped onto the dock.

  ‘Habari,’ the customs officer replied. ‘You are coming from Zanzibar?’ he continued in Swahili.

  ‘Yes. I have some very sad duties to perform here. Two of my most trusted workers are returning home,’ the Arab explained. ‘Come aboard, fetch them now,’ he said to two African men in the uniforms of bellhops from a hotel in town.

  ‘Sad?’ the customs officer asked as he accepted an expensive foreign cigarette from the packet proffered by the Arab.

  The man gestured back to the boat’s gangway with his glowing cigarette tip. It was early morning and the light was still dim, thanks to the overcast sky which masked the rising sun.

  The customs officer shook his head as the first of the two coffins was carried down the gangway, the Africans struggling under its weight.

  ‘The virus,’ the Arab said, shrugging his shoulders as if there was nothing anyone could have done.

  ‘Would you like to look inside?’

  The customs man was a good Muslim. He did not drink and he led a relatively pure life. He was young, twenty-five, and he had his whole life ahead of him. He had listened to the advertisements, seen the billboards and read the pamphlets about HIV-AIDS and he was determined to stay healthy.

  He rarely cheated on his wife and when he did use the services of prostitutes he always took up the offer of a condom. He knew the risks of transmission other than by the exchange of bodily fluids was minimal; however, he did not want to take any risk that was not absolutely crucial to the performance of his job.

  ‘No, I do not need to see the bodies,’ he said.

  The Arab handed over the two death certificates, and the customs man scanned them. They appeared to be in order. ‘Why weren’t these men buried on Zanzibar?’

  ‘They were from the same village, here on the mainland. Their last wish was to be buried with the other members of their families.’

  ‘It is good of you to go to this trouble.’

  ‘These men served me well. This is the least I can do for them.’

  The customs officer felt bad. He had assumed he would dislike the rich Arab, simply from the look of his new boat and the cut of his tailor-made clothes. This was a good man. He wrote down the name of the Arab – Hassan bin Zayid - and the description of cargo – human remains × 2 - on his log sheet.

  Hassan climbed into the passenger seat of the minibus and the second African slid shut the rear door and sat on one of the two cheap coffins. Hassan smiled. One type of cargo that did not raise eyebrows in Africa these days was human remains. Coffins were for sale at roadside carpentry stalls and in hardware stores and it was not unusual to see them being carried, full, on the backs of pick-up trucks.

  The virus had taken the mystery, the ritual, the strangeness and even the solemnity out of death.

  Disposing of human beings had become big business in Africa.

  ‘Where to, boss?’ the driver asked.

  ‘To the ranch,’ bin Zayid said, referring to a game farm owned by the family. The manager, a white Kenyan who had moved to Tanzania to run the property, was away on holidays with his young family.

  Hassan’s private aircraft, a Cessna 208, was parked there.

  They drove fast and in silence and eventually the driver turned onto a potholed secondary road.

  ‘Careful,’ Hassan barked as the two coffins bounced and slammed into the metal tray of the van.

  The man in the back, who had bumped his head on the roof when the caskets bounced, turned away to hide his smile. What difference did a few bumps make to people who were already dead?

  ‘Where are you taking these men to be buried, boss?’ the driver asked.

  ‘I’m going to fly them to the village where they came from. It is near Arusha.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the driver. ‘That is far.’

  ‘Yes, that is why I am flying there.’

  ‘Will you be wanting us to pick you up again, from the ranch, when you return the aeroplane?’

  The answer to that question, Hassan thought, was very much in the hands of Allah the all-merciful.

  And hopefully he would be merciful. Still, he was not afraid, nor was he excited. This was business, in a way He was going to settle a debt, nothing more, nothing less. The risks were high, but he was not scared of death. The only thing he feared was failure.

  At the homestead, ostriches ran up and down the fence line, craning their long necks for a view of the vehicle as it trundled along the dirt road. The driver stopped the van by the wooden doors of an aircraft hangar on the edge of the property’s airstrip. A wind-sock hung limp in the warm morning air.

  It was muggy and Hassan had to wipe tiny beads of sweat from his top lip as the driver opened the hangar door.

  ‘The aeroplane has been checked and the tanks are full, as you ordered, boss,’ the man said.

  ‘Good,’ bin Zayid said. ‘Load the plane.’

  The two Africans sweated freely as they carried t
he heavy coffins into the hangar and slid them awkwardly through the aircraft’s side cargo hatch. The roomy single-engine Cessna 208, also called the Caravan, had been designed to transport up to ten people or the equivalent amount of cargo.

  Hassan had removed the passenger seats long ago, as the aircraft was usually used only to transport cargo around the various bin Zayid properties.

  ‘Well done,’ Hassan said when they had finished. ‘Close up the hangar when I’ve taken off.’

  Hassan taxied to the far end of the strip, the aircraft trailing a plume of grass and dust as it went.

  He applied the brakes, then squeezed his way between the pilot and copilot’s seats. From the briefcase, the only piece of luggage he had brought with him from the boat, he took a screwdriver and proceeded to unfasten the lid of one of the coffins. He wiped the sweat from his brow and opened the casket a little. He felt inside and disengaged the wire. He lifted the cover completely.

  She looked so peaceful, and still so beautiful. It was a shame that her death was so necessary Hassan returned to his seat, strapped in, and released the brakes. He wanted to be able to keep an eye on her as he flew. He needed to remind himself of her deceit as he prepared to settle the debt owed to his family. During the long flight he would have time to recall every detail of how she had come to his bed, how they had made love, how she had lied to him. He increased the engine’s speed and the Cessna hurtled down the strip and into the grey sky.

  *

  The sun broke through the cloud as the aircraft cleared the horizon. The driver of the van that had transported Hassan and the coffins had to shield his eyes as he watched his employer disappear.

  ‘Funny,’ he said to the sweat-stained man who was hauling the doors of the hangar closed.

  ‘What is?’ the man asked. He saw nothing funny about rising at four in the morning to drive the cranky Arab boss-man and two disease-ridden stiffs out to the countryside.

  ‘He’s heading south.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Arusha is north-west of here.’

  Hassan flew due south in order to skirt Dar es Salaam, and then he banked south-west across the wilds of Tanzania. He kept the main road connecting Dar with Mbeya, the last big town before the Zambian border, in sight and on his left.

  As well as Miranda he thought of Iqbal and the divergent paths their lives had taken during their years at university Hassan wondered if it was fear that had kept him on the safe path of pursuing the family business in idyllic, fragrant Zanzibar. He had opted for paradise on earth – money, women, alcohol. It was an easy life. He had told his peers that it was his duty to continue the family’s presence on the island, but in the last few days he had come to the conclusion that he had simply been afraid to let his brother lead him into his world, the world of the mujahideen.

  Hassan had known fear, walking in the bush. There was the time he had stumbled upon a pride of lions on a kill in Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, but that was nothing compared with living through a rocket barrage or fleeing from the buzz of an approaching helicopter gunship’s chain gun, as Iqbal had in Chechnya. He wondered if his twin had been scared when he died, if he had run from Jed Banks or if he had looked him in the eye and died like a man. War had been declared a long time ago, but Hassan had sat quietly on the sidelines, lapping up his earthly delights while others fought for their beliefs. He was ashamed, but now he was taking a stand.

  He looked back over his shoulder at the still body of Miranda Banks-Lewis. Her face looked serene. He recalled the feel of her skin, her scent, the exquisite softness of her lips on virtually every inch of his body. The memory of the joy of entering her, and her surprise when he had despatched her prior to lifting her into the coffin. The thought of their final confrontation made him smile and he noted he was becoming physically aroused – not a comfortable sensation on a long flight.

  The reporter’s intrusion into his affairs on the island had worried him, but he believed he had dealt with the man in good time. The fact that he was dead did not worry Hassan. In the past he had disapproved of violence towards westerners on Zanzibar. It was bad for business and drew unnecessary outside attention to the Arab community on the island. But things were different now. He had, as he reminded himself once again, joined the war. There were no rules in war.

  He looked at the other coffin and mentally checked over the contents – the casket certainly did not contain a dead African worker. The success of his mission depended on everything in there working properly – and on the plans he had made with Juma.

  Hassan was confident Miranda had not learned anything that would incriminate him, but he had taken her with him to Zanzibar to make doubly sure. Making her death appear to be the result of a man-eating lion had been a nice touch. Had she simply vanished, there would have been too many questions asked. Her disappearance had to look like an accident. Juma had told him that the staff at Mana Pools believed there was a man-eater in their park. While he was aware her death had been reported as sensational news around the world, it had not unduly aroused the suspicions of the authorities on the ground in Zimbabwe. Keeping the news of Miranda’s own ‘death’ from her had not been hard. He had instructed his people in Zanzibar to remove the television and radio receiver from his motor cruiser prior to her arrival.

  ‘When I’m on my boat I like to be a million miles from the world’s cares,’ he had lied smoothly.

  ‘We’ve no need for satellite news channels or the BBC World Service here. I’ve got some music CDs and a few DVDs if you get bored.’

  She’d smiled back at him and given him a mischievous wink. ‘I’ve got a feeling we’ll be able to make our own fun, Hassan.’

  After they had flown to the ranch near Dar es Salaam they’d taken a waiting car to the port and had boarded his boat. They’d cruised for the rest of the day and made love that night, as though nothing were the matter. The next morning he had taken the Zodiac inflatable back to Dar on the pretext of a business meeting, and to pick up spares for one of the game reserve’s Land Rovers.

  His meeting with the travel agent a few days earlier, in the beach bar of the resort he had very nearly bought, had signalled his crossover from civilian to warrior.

  ‘I wondered if you would come, Hassan,’ the man had said. He was overweight, sweating in the sun in his western business suit.

  ‘I am ready to help, in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Why the change of heart? Your brother, I suppose.’

  ‘My reasons are my own.’

  ‘If you had come to me a week, a month or half a year ago, Hassan, I would have told you to go away. I would have said I knew nothing about what you are offering, that we never had our previous conversation.’

  ‘I understand the need for secrecy,’ Hassan assured him.

  ‘You understand nothing of our world, your brother’s world. You talk of secrecy in the way a cheating husband lies to his wife. I talk of secrecy in terms of life and death. You are here because two of our number are dead.’

  ‘How –’

  ‘There, you see? You want details about things that do not concern you. But I will tell you, because you met these men. The two who came to your lodge two months ago, the ones I booked. You remember them?’

  ‘I do.’ He remembered the two young Arabs well. He had wondered about the real purpose of their visit. They had rented a boat from him and cruised up and down the Zambezi. They had carried binoculars and field guides, but had known nothing of African birds or mammals when Hassan had tried to strike up a conversation with them. He remembered, too, how Miranda, who had been visiting the lodge at the time, had seemed curious about the men.

  ‘They knew the value of secrecy. They travelled with false passports, but forgeries of the highest quality. They were not identified through their documents, I am sure of it, nor from careless talk on mobile telephones. Someone saw them, perhaps photographed them, and from these images, or this chance sighting, they were recognised as men wanted in other parts of t
he world. I had thought they would be anonymous here in Africa. I sent them to your lodge on a reconnaissance mission. Did someone there see them, photograph them?’

  Hassan felt his pulse start to quicken. ‘No, of course not. Who would have seen them at my lodge? You know that I had no other bookings when these men arrived. You made sure of that by paying a premium price for their accommodation.’

  The travel agent regarded him through heavily lidded, suspicious eyes. ‘I don’t know, Hassan. I will be honest. I would not ordinarily trust a man who has undergone such a sudden conversion as you, who approaches me and asks to join me. This, I think, is dangerous. However, with the martyrdom of my other two men I have no choice. If you are a spy, Hassan, if you are working for the crusaders, then I will know soon enough and I will go to God knowing I have done my duty and that I was betrayed by you.’

  ‘I am not a spy I swear on the graves of my father and my martyred brother.’

  ‘Your oaths don’t concern me, Hassan. Your actions do. I will give you a task so that you might prove yourself worthy of more.’

  Hassan had taken delivery of the bomb in the backpack there and then, and been sent to the centre of town. The travel agent knew of the departure time of a coachload of a American tourists. Even Hassan, who knew nothing of military operations, thought it madness to undertake such a mission with no planning or surveillance of the area.

  The bus was where the travel agent said it would be, outside the four-star hotel that was part of an American chain. The guests were filing out of the hotel. Elderly, mostly, corpulent in the main, loud, laughing. Bellboys were piling suitcases and packs on trolleys in the foyer and wheeling them out to the coach. Hassan walked into the hotel and no one gave him a second glance. He’d pulled his cap down low, in order to shade his eyes, in case cameras were watching him.