by Tony Park
‘Howzit, my boet,’ the Afrikaner driving the Land Rover said to Duncan as they shook hands, African style, linking their hands by the thumbs halfway through the traditional European greeting. The man was grey-haired and his face, tanned to the colour of mahogany, was lined with deep furrows, worn by age and a lifetime in the unrelenting African sun, and his beard was stained yellow by tobacco smoke. He conversed rapidly with Duncan in Shangaan. In the rear of his Land Rover, which, like Duncan’s Cruiser, had no sides or solid roof, just a canvas awning above, were two plainly confused tourists, a young couple.
‘Duncan’s explained what’s going on?’ Tom asked the man.
‘Ja. I’m Willie. He tells me you want to take my Land Rover off road into that bush, to follow those other okes.’
‘That’s right,’ Tom said. ‘We don’t have time to waste. Radio your position and get someone else to come collect you and your clients.’
‘Hold on, bru. You don’t tell me what to do, and no one, not even Duncan, gets to drive my vehicle. I’ve told him to stay here. I’ll drive you.’
Duncan looked at Tom and shrugged. The white man went on, ‘I was a recce commando in our war in Angola. If those okes are as bad as Duncan’s made them out to be, you need someone like me more than someone like him.’ Willie took his own rifle from its cradle on the Land Rover’s dashboard and inserted its bolt and then chambered a bullet as long as Tom’s middle finger. ‘Now then, folks, my colleague Duncan here is going to look after you while this gentleman and I go look for some tsotsis in the bush.’
Before the confused tourists could ask too many questions, Tom was sitting in the passenger seat beside Willie. The big Afrikaner engaged low-range four-wheel drive and the boxlike truck lurched down a drainage ditch and into the bush. Ahead of them the trail carved by the Isuzu was plainly visible. ‘This should be fun.’ Willie veered off to the right.
‘What are you doing?’
‘They’ll be watching their backs, expecting us to follow their tracks. Look around you – this is a valley. They’re only going in one direction, and that’s east, towards Mozambique. I’m going to try to outflank them. This beast of mine will go harder and faster through the bundu than theirs will – take my word for it.’
The ride was almost sickening as the Land Rover lurched up and over fallen logs, bounced through hidden holes and plunged in and out of ditches and sandy watercourses. Thorn-covered branches whipped past them, shredding the canvas canopy and Tom’s exposed arms in the process. If Willie felt the stings of the vicious barbs he said not a word. Tom saw his crazed grin and knew the man was completely and utterly in his element.
‘After Angola I served with the parks board for a while. I know this country better than most,’ Willie said above the protesting whine of the engine. ‘There’s a town on the Mozambique side, not far from here. The road starts there and leads all the way to the coast.’
‘So I’ve been told.’
Willie nodded. ‘We’re also about to hit a fire trail, which, hopefully, your bad guys don’t know about. It’s not on any publicly available map.’
On cue, they crashed through a screen of low bushes, flattening the saplings in the process, and landed on a cleared dirt track. It was rutted and rock-studded, but after their carving ride through virgin bushland it felt like a four-lane motorway to Tom. Willie disengaged low range and floored the accelerator. A tiny antelope – a steenbok, according to the Afrikaner – darted across their path and bounded deeper into the bush.
The track took them down a natural ridgeline above a re-entrant to the Olifants River valley, which both Tom and Willie had reasoned would be the escaping vehicle’s most logical path into Mozambique. On a downhill stretch, Willie cut the engine and coasted in neutral. ‘Listen now.’
Above their vehicle’s noises they heard the Isuzu’s engine, still groaning slowly as the bakkie ground its way through the uncleared country. Willie turned the steering wheel and let his vehicle plough into some thornbushes. ‘Ambush time,’ he grinned.
Tom climbed down, ignoring the barbs that raked him and snagged his already torn shirt. He followed Willie through the bush. Every few paces the bigger man stopped to listen. He raised his nose at one point. ‘We’re downwind, I can smell their exhaust smoke – it’s blowing past them, faster than they’re moving.’
They picked their site well, in among a cluster of granite boulders, looking down over a dry tributary. ‘They’ll be following that game trail, I reckon,’ Willie said, pointing to a well-worn path about a metre wide, which wound through the bush on the floor of the shallow valley. ‘They’ll have to slow to cross. That’s when we’ll flatten them.’
‘Aim for the driver and the passengers in the cab. Don’t fire on the canopy and the load area. That’s where the hostages are.’
Willie nodded, resting his hunting rifle on the smooth surface of a boulder.
Tom had had three magazines of seventeen rounds each at the start of the day, and now he was missing six bullets from two of them. Up to five men in that vehicle were armed. For now, he and Willie had surprise on their side but that was about the only factor in their favour. What worried Tom was a gut feeling that if the men thought they were at risk of being captured they would shoot Greeves and Joyce. He was out of options, though, and the noise of the truck was getting closer. The blue bonnet of the four-wheel drive came into sight. Tom used a two-handed grip to steady his pistol.
‘We shoot to kill, hey?’ Willie whispered.
Tom nodded.
Willie’s first shot killed the driver of the Isuzu instantly. The .458 calibre round was designed to stop a charging bull elephant and it took the top of the man’s skull clean off, spraying the other four occupants and the interior of the twin-cab with his blood and brains. The bakkie slewed off to the left and rammed into a leadwood tree. Its engine continued chugging, but it was going nowhere.
Tom fired two aimed shots into the rear of the cab, but couldn’t see if he had hit anyone because their first salvo was already being answered, more than in kind. The man sitting behind the driver had rested his AK 47 on the open sill of the window and was firing blindly on full automatic. Most of his rounds were sailing high, but a few knocked chips of pink granite off the rocks behind which Tom and Willie were hiding, close enough to make them duck.
When Tom risked looking over the rock again he saw all the vehicle’s doors bar the driver’s were open, as was the rear window and tailgate.
Willie gave a primal war cry and, chambering another round as he stood, climbed over his protective rock and scrambled down the valley floor. An African man, without a mask to hide his face, was kneeling and changing the magazine of his AK. Tom ran after the crazed Afrikaner and raised his arm and fired two shots. The second round hit the African with the assault rifle in the chest, knocking him backwards.
More fire came their way, and Willie slowed to take cover behind a stout tree trunk. Tom pushed on ahead, now uncaring about the risk to himself, the blood lust and anger seizing control of his emotions and swamping them. Something burned across the skin of his upper right thigh, and he stumbled and fell. When he looked up he saw two hooded figures being dragged from the rear of the bakkie and thrust forward, past the nose of the crashed vehicle. Tom tried to stand, found he could, and then braced himself against a tree to take aim again. A man was shouting something in a strange language, possibly Arabic, at Greeves and Joyce, who were being prodded along by another, who used his rifle as a combination prod and club.
Willie’s weapon boomed again but the noise of the single shot was soon drowned out by two AKs firing on automatic. Tom was forced to kneel again as leaves and twigs rained down on him and bullets whizzed past him on both sides. He heard other rounds thud into the tree, which protected him. He had to regain the initiative, he told himself. He stepped from behind the tree and started to run. He was only twenty metres from the disabled Isuzu and that would be his next firing position.
As he ran and stumbled
along – now more than aware of the pain in his thigh and the blood soaking his shorts – one of the masked gunmen stepped from behind a tree. It seemed the other two had vanished, with the captives, down the dry watercourse. The man fired, one handed, across Tom’s front and he heard a cry of pain from the direction he’d last seen Willie.
In the gunman’s other hand was a cylinder about the size of a can of soft drink, but painted green. The man knelt, dropped his rifle and yanked the pin from the grenade.
Tom heard Willie shout a warning, as his own brain registered what was going on.
Tom flung himself flat and heard the blast, which was not as loud as he recalled from his military days. He looked up and his vision was seared by a flash of blinding white light from within the Isuzu.
‘White phos!’ Willie called.
Tom blinked, seeing stars, and felt a wave of stifling radiant heat rolling across him. He rolled away from the Isuzu and crawled blindly through the grass as the vehicle’s fuel tank erupted. All around him, the bush seemed to be burning. When he managed to sit up he saw the white phosphorus was burning fiercely and brightly, and had ignited a fire that was spreading fast along the valley floor. The pall of smoke from the blazing vehicle, and the spot fires created everywhere the incendiary material had landed, had covered the terrorists’ withdrawal.
Tom raised his pistol as he heard movement through the dry grass beside him.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Willie said, staggering into view. He clutched his left shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers, coating his right forearm. ‘Wind’s against us. This fire’s going to be on top of us any second.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’ve got to keep going. I’ll try to get around the fire. How’s your shoulder?’
‘Ag, I’ve had worse. I’ll live.’ Then the big man’s face seemed to lose all its colour and he passed out.
‘Shit,’ Tom said. Ash and burning embers were already swirling around him as he knelt and heaved Willie across his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. His thigh still stung from the wound he had received, but he had checked and found the bullet had grazed a shallow furrow across his skin rather than penetrating skin or muscle. That was about it, he reckoned, for his quota of good luck so far today.
He staggered under the weight of the safari guide and felt Willie’s blood, hot and sticky, soaking his shirt. He should have bandaged the wound, but if he didn’t get moving they would both be burned alive. The smoke was strong in his nose and he noticed movement in the dry yellow grass on either side of him. Rats and lizards, and God alone knew what else, were fleeing the encroaching blaze. Birds swooped and rolled around him, catching insects flushed ahead of the fire. He could feel the heat on his back and forced his legs to work harder.
Tom followed through the bush the path of destruction left by the Isuzu bakkie. Another explosion behind told him what he had suspected, that Willie’s Land Rover would be engulfed by the flames. He glanced back and saw a black-and-orange pyre rising above the bushfire. Tom hoped that Sannie had been able to organise some air support – that would be their only hope now of keeping up with the gang.
He grunted, pausing for a second to readjust Willie’s body across his aching shoulders. As he looked down he saw the grass around his feet was burning. He coughed as smoke entered his lungs. Forcing himself to keep moving he set off again. Somewhere in the distance he heard an elephant trumpet. Wild animals were the least of his worries now.
Tom risked another glance back and saw a tall tree ablaze. Still moving, but not watching the ground, he stumbled as his foot went into some creature’s hole and he pitched face forwards into the grass. Willie’s bulk crushed him, knocking the air from his lungs. When he tried to get them working again he sucked in smoke and ash and retched. He was pinned under the Afrikaner and felt a furnace-like blast of hot air singe the hairs on the back of his legs. He tried to get the man off his back, but strength seemed to have left him. Now, he thought, was a good time to die.
Without warning, the pressing weight was off him. Light-headed from the smoke, his eyes watering, he was vaguely aware of someone calling his name. A black hand was in front of his face, fingers outstretched. He reached for it.
‘On your feet, Tom. Come on,’ Duncan said. He yanked on Tom’s hand, rolling him over and dragging him to his feet.
Duncan knelt and grabbed Willie under the arms. The white man, his shirt now drenched in his own blood, came to and groaned. Tom stood and got under one of Willie’s arms while Duncan supported the other. Tom felt slapping on his back and looked across at Duncan, whose eyes were wide with horror.
‘Your shirt was on fire, man! This is too close!’
They ran, with Willie’s help, as a lofty leadwood tree crashed down behind them, sending a shower of sparks and ash into the air.
Three other safari vehicles from different lodges were waiting for them at the T-junction. Tom and Duncan laid Willie in the back of a Land Rover, along a green canvas-covered bench seat. Tom had grabbed his first-aid kit before leaving Tinga, and Duncan handed it to him. Tom ripped open a dressing and did his best to patch up the man who had done so much in such a short time.
‘The terrs . . . ?’ Willie coughed and winced as he tried to sit up.
‘Lie down, mate. We have to get you to a doctor.’ Tom looked back at the burning African bush as Duncan climbed in next to the guide behind the wheel and told the man to head to Tinga.
11
Sannie had her mobile phone to one ear, on hold to the air force base at Hoedspruit, and was talking to the Nelspruit detectives’ office on the landline when Tom walked in.
His exposed skin was blackened by soot and dirt and his shirt looked like it had been tortured with a lighted cigarette – there were burn holes everywhere. His shorts and left leg were encrusted with dried blood. He pulled his shirt off over his head as he entered, saying nothing to her.
‘I’ll call you back in ten,’ she said to the detectives’ civilian administrative assistant. She kept the mobile phone near her ear as she followed him to the bathroom.
‘We bloody lost them,’ Tom said. ‘We were so fucking close, Sannie, I could see them. They’re alive, though one of them – Greeves, I think – looked injured. He was limping badly. We got two of the bastards, though the fire will have destroyed the bodies.’
She had spoken to Tom as he’d driven back to Tinga, as soon as he had entered mobile phone range. He had passed on descriptions of the gang, so she already knew most of what he was saying. She heard the shower running.
‘What are you doing, Tom?’
‘What does it sound like? I’m getting cleaned up, changed and I’m going after them again.’
Sannie turned at the sound of the door to the suite opening. Isaac Tshabalala walked in, accompanied by a policeman in grey-blue fatigues. ‘They just told me that he’s back. Where is he?’
Tom walked out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist. ‘He’s here. What’s happening? Have you been able to organise some air support yet? They’re probably still on foot.’
Tshabalala moved his right hand to the butt of his holstered pistol. ‘Detective Sergeant Furey, the progress of this investigation is no longer your concern and –’
‘Like hell it’s not my concern. I need a vehicle to get to the nearest border post.’
‘You’re going nowhere. Hand over your pistol, handcuffs, and any other weapons and ammunition you’re carrying.’ Tshabalala motioned for the uniformed officer to move forward and the man stepped towards Tom.
‘What’s this about?’
‘We found the coke, Tom,’ Sannie said.
She saw the puzzlement on his face. ‘Coca-Cola?’
‘The cocaine, in the bathroom,’ the African officer said.
Tom laughed. ‘Do what? I’ve never used illegal drugs in my life. What the hell’s going on here? Get out of my way.’
Tshabalala put a hand on his pistol. ‘Your gun and handcuffs. Now. You’re going to be charged with posses
sion of an illegal narcotic, Furey. The suspected drugs Inspector Van Rensburg discovered in your bathroom go part of the way to explaining why you were late reporting for duty this morning, and how you managed to let the man you were supposedly guarding get taken from under your nose.’
‘Carla,’ he said, looking straight at Sannie. She felt uncomfortable and couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘It’s hers. She was acting wild last night. Ask her.’
The same thought had crossed her mind as soon as she’d entered the room. However, she’d immediately remembered that it had been Carla herself who had suggested setting up the command post in Tom’s room. She explained this to Tom, and the rationale that the woman would not be stupid enough to set herself up for arrest.
‘No, she’s only bloody set me up, is all,’ Tom said. ‘This’d be funny if it weren’t so daft. Where is she?’
‘Gone to Tinga’s other lodge, Narina. She’ll be back in an hour or so,’ Sannie said.
‘I’ve been taking complaints all morning about your little escapade through the park,’ Tshabalala said. ‘Menacing people with a firearm, breaking every national park rule.’ Spittle flew from Isaac’s mouth as his anger mounted. ‘You have no jurisdiction in this country and you cannot commandeer vehicles and men to do the job you should have done in the first place. This is not your little colonial fiefdom! Arrest him!’
Sannie felt as though an injustice was being done, but the evidence all pointed to Tom and, no matter how much she sympathised with the Englishman, everything Isaac Tshabalala had just said was correct. She heard a voice on her mobile phone.
‘Ja,’ she said, listening to the air force captain on the other end.
Tom was staring angrily at Isaac as the uniformed officer retrieved Tom’s pistol, magazines and Asp collapsible baton.
Sannie ended the call. ‘That was Hoedspruit. They say they can’t send a helicopter into Mozambican airspace until they get permission from the defence minister’s office or higher. I spoke to Indira ten minutes ago and she said Dule was waiting for a call back from his counterpart over the border.’