Silent Predator

by Tony Park

  Alfredo shook his head again. ‘This is a poor country, Detective Sergeant Furey. Not all of my officers have cars or motorcycles. They had no way of pursuing the Toyota, but the officer used his cell phone to call the next checkpoint, at Chidenguele. The officers there said the description matched that of the suspect vehicle you have lost.’

  The emphasis did not escape Tom, and he remained silent.

  ‘And that checkpoint notified you?’ Sannie ventured, looking for a way to defuse the confrontation before it began.

  Alfredo smiled at her efforts. ‘Yes, Sannie. I ordered the police in the speed traps to set up roadblocks and check every bakkie passing through that area.’

  She nodded. It was good policing and a swift reaction.

  ‘However,’ Alfredo continued, taking his seat again and, as though he had just got back from running after the truck himself, mopping his brow with one of the serviettes that had come with the takeaway chicken, ‘the vehicle never reached Chidenguele.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Tom said, almost instantly regretting the words.

  ‘I am sure, Detective Sergeant.’

  ‘Hard to miss it with a static roadblock in place,’ Sannie said, as much in reproof of Tom for doubting the Mozambican officer’s word as in support of Alfredo. ‘May I?’ She stood and walked around the enormous desk so she could study the map more closely. Alfredo swivelled in his chair and looked up at her.

  ‘As you will see,’ he said, ‘there is a side road they could have taken, away from the coast.’

  ‘Or they could be somewhere here.’ Sannie circled the stretch between Chongoene and Chidenguele. ‘About forty-five kilometres of coastline.’

  ‘Didn’t you say this is one of the busiest parts of Mozambique?’ Tom observed. ‘We were thinking they might prefer somewhere more remote, perhaps further north.’

  Alfredo started to speak, but Sannie beat him to it. ‘The established coastal resorts, such as Xai Xai and Bilene, further south, are busy, but this part of the coast is still very empty, if I’m not mistaken, Capitao?’

  Alfredo nodded. ‘Sim, Sannie. There are only a few resorts, but they are mostly quite inaccessible. One needs a four-wheel drive to get into them because of the coastal sand dunes in this area.’

  Sannie looked back at Tom. ‘Remote, inaccessible to most vehicles, on the coast . . .’

  ‘Perfect,’ Tom agreed. ‘And still only a couple of hours’ drive from Maputo if they need to fly anywhere or disappear into a city.’

  ‘Some of the beaches – mostly those near the resorts – are protected by natural reefs, so you could bring a small boat in or out as well,’ she said.

  ‘Captain,’ Tom said, trying his best to sound humble and beseeching, ‘what assets do you have at your disposal to search this part of the coastline?’

  ‘Naturally, I will devote what resources I can to this task,’ Alfredo said. ‘It is, of course, of great importance to the British government and I would hope that they would be grateful for the assistance of our poor police force.’ He spread his hands wide, over the desk, palms upwards.

  Tom half wondered if he was expected to pay a bribe at this point. He forced the uncharitable thought from his mind. ‘Vehicles?’ he said.

  ‘I have four cars and two motorcycles, though only one four-wheel drive – my own Land Cruiser – which we will, of course, use to investigate any leads that my officers turn up.’

  This hardly filled Tom with confidence. ‘Boats?’

  ‘Alas,’ Alfredo said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘there are some inflatable boats, donated to the police by the government of Portugal, at the praia, but they all have punctures.’

  ‘The praia? What’s that, the beach?’

  Sannie nodded. ‘The Praia do Xai Xai, the town’s beach, is about ten kilometres from here.’

  ‘I will have my officers contact all of the accessible villages and resorts on this stretch of the coast first thing tomorrow morning,’ Alfredo said, standing as if to signal their meeting was over. ‘If we receive word of the stolen vehicle I will be ready to depart, at a moment’s notice, in my Land Cruiser. I will keep four men here with me, armed with AK 47s, to act as the reaction force.’

  ‘Thank you, Capitao. We are very grateful to you for staying back to meet us, and for your kind offer of assistance in the morning. We will be here first thing to monitor the search.’ Sannie stood and nodded to Tom to do the same. Her look told him to keep his mouth shut.

  Tom turned on her as they walked outside into the sticky, salty night air. ‘What the fuck is all this mañana bullshit? We’re wasting time.’

  ‘Easy, easy.’ She placed a hand on his arm, as she had done at the border. ‘Look at the realities of policing in Africa, Tom. This guy’s got no boats, no helicopter, one four-by-four and a few bicycles. You saw the station – it’s empty except for him and the woman on duty. All of his officers will be off in their villages by now. The police here spend most of the time standing by the side of the roads with speed cameras, or on roadblocks hassling tourists. You’re not going to get a SWAT team rappelling out of the sky, no matter how much you want it.’

  ‘I’ve got to get on a phone and tell the people back in the UK. They might even have people on the ground by now, in South Africa or here. At least we’ve got the vehicle confined to a limited geographic area.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She removed her hand from his arm. ‘I’ll do the same with my people and until we can get some back-up over here, I’m afraid there’s not very much more we can do until Alfredo gets his people on the job tomorrow morning.’

  Tom walked away from her towards the Volkswagen, his fists clenching and unclenching as he went. He felt like hitting something, running somewhere, getting in the car and charging up and down the coast road in pursuit of a vehicle they had only a vague description of. It was all so maddeningly frustrating. All the long day he’d been just a step behind the abductors. They were close, but close wasn’t good enough in this game. He turned and saw Sannie standing there, giving him space to vent. ‘It’s not about me, Sannie. I want you to know –’

  ‘I know, Tom,’ she said sympathetically.

  ‘I’m probably finished as a protection officer no matter how this pans out. I cocked up royally and I deserve all I’ll get, but there are two men’s lives at stake here. I can’t just sit on a beach and do nothing.’

  ‘It’s why I’m here as well. God knows, I’ve probably screwed my career up too.’ She tried to force a laugh, but it was hollow and they both knew it – her words were too close to the truth. ‘But we’ll do more harm than good charging around blindly, and you know it. Say we did find the vehicle by ourselves and went in there, guns blazing . . .’

  ‘They outnumber and outgun us,’ he conceded.

  ‘If we make a mess of it, the first thing they’ll do is kill the hostages. You know that, Tom. This is the time for others – the military, whoever – to make a plan to rescue them. But we can still look for them. Tomorrow. Carefully.’

  He sighed and slumped against the car. ‘Christ, I’m hungry – and thirsty. But I keep thinking how bad things must be for Bernard and Greeves.’

  ‘They know you’re on their trail, Tom. You nearly caught them in Kruger. That will keep your men alive. That will give them hope.’

  ‘So where to next? A hotel?’

  Sannie shook her head. ‘African towns aren’t generally renowned for the choice of accommodation. I don’t like the look of anywhere I’ve seen so far. Hotels in small towns often double as brothels.’

  ‘So where, then?’

  ‘The beach is about ten kilometres from here. There’s a municipal camping ground that has some small chalets. We stayed there a few years ago. It’s not luxury, but it should be okay.’

  Tom shrugged. He was, as he had been from the moment he touched down in Africa, out of his depth and totally reliant on her. It wasn’t a bad feeling – not nearly as bad as the frustration he felt now that it appeared they would be spinning
their wheels for twelve hours until morning. ‘Lead on.’

  Sannie drove, and after the main road took them up a hill, out of the centre of town, she turned right at a sign with a beach umbrella on it that said Praia do Xai Xai. There were no streetlights, and only pinpricks of illumination showed in the dark from lanterns in villagers’ homes. The Volkswagen careened up and down a roller-coaster of hills which were under cultivation with bananas, and other crops that Tom couldn’t make out. Unlike the townships he’d passed through on the way into Kruger, the villagers here seemed to have left plenty of mature trees growing amid their homes, either for shade or to help stabilise the sandy hills they lived on.

  The road to the beach ended in a roundabout on top of a cliff and Sannie swung left onto a side road that deteriorated rapidly from potholed tar to dirt as they wound down towards the Indian Ocean. The wind was up and Tom could see white horses pinpricking the dark sea through the gloom. He smelled salt air through the open window and, despite the breeze, it was still warm outside. As they drove down the hill he saw holiday homes that looked like they had come out of a 1970s timeshare brochure. There were curving verandahs, angular geometric designs, and lots of whitewash. Some of the villas still looked run-down, though many, he noticed, had been spruced up with a coat of pastel paint and had well-tended gardens. One particularly nice place, re-done in an ochre coloured render, had its own security guard out front in a blue beret and military-style uniform.

  Sannie momentarily seemed to have lost her bearings at the bottom of the hill. ‘Sorry, should have turned left, not right,’ she said, executing a three-point turn. In front of them was a multistorey white concrete hotel, but no lights were shining in its rooms. Tom looked back as Sannie changed directions and caught a glimpse of the hotel’s facade. It was completely gutted. The rooms were empty – all the glass panes and, presumably, all the contents, were gone. In its way, the hotel reminded Tom of Egyptian temples in the Valley of the Kings, or the ruined city of Petra, in Jordan, which he’d visited while protecting a former foreign secretary. The hotel was yet another relic of a disappeared people. He wondered if someone would reopen the hotel one day, though from what Sannie had said, the tourism boom had bypassed sleepy, run-down Xai Xai in favour of nicer beachfront real estate further north.

  At the gates of Campismo do Xai Xai, an elderly African security guard greeted and led them through the camping ground, which was set back from the beach below a line of low dunes topped with trees and hedges. Tom noted a security fence amid the shrubbery, but also saw it had been trampled in places. There were neon lights in several trees around the small camping area, though about one in two seemed to be broken. There were only two parties of campers – a couple in a caravan towed by a Mazda pick-up which looked like it had seen better days, and an old Toyota Cressida parked next to a two-man tent. It hardly looked like a playground of the rich and famous.

  Sannie spoke to the caretaker when they pulled over and he unlocked the door of a small blue bungalow, the walls and roof of which looked as though they were made of asbestos sheeting. He switched on the light and a single naked light bulb revealed a double bed at the front of the room and a kitchenette. They walked in and, behind a curtain at the rear, found an alcove with two single beds.

  ‘I was worried there for a moment.’ Sannie nodded at the double bed. ‘You were almost spending the night in the car. You get one of the singles. I hope you don’t snore.’

  The hut smelled mouldy and damp, and Tom heard mosquitos buzzing around his ears. When he asked Sannie the price he thought it seemed exorbitant for what it was, but neither of them was in the mood to haggle. ‘We’ll take it,’ he said to the caretaker, and Sannie translated.

  He checked his watch as they walked back out to the car to unpack their meagre supplies and belongings. ‘Let’s listen to the news again.’ It was close to nine pm and Tom pulled out the battery-operated portable shortwave radio from his bag. He always took it with him on overseas trips and they had tuned in at regular intervals to the BBC World Service. While the news of Greeves’s abduction still rated highly, it had been usurped as the lead item by a report of a scandal involving footballers’ salaries. Typical, Tom thought. The pips sounded the hour.

  ‘I’ll get us a drink,’ Sannie said, opening the rear hatch of the Chico.

  ‘Thanks, I could use one.’

  ‘An African-based terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of British defence procurement minister Robert Greeves and an as yet unnamed staff member and released a video in which they threaten to behead . . .’

  ‘Coke?’

  ‘Shush.’ Tom beckoned her closer. The reception was bad so they both leaned in to hear the report.

  ‘Mr Greeves is seen in the video, head shaved, dressed in orange overalls, kneeling in front of three men wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying automatic weapons. One of the alleged terrorists holds a long-bladed sword resting on the minister’s shoulders and says, in Arabic: “This war criminal, Robert Greeves, will be beheaded in forty-eight hours unless the British Prime Minister agrees to withdraw all of his country’s troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.” The low-resolution video clip was reportedly emailed today to an Arabic language satellite television news channel and has been airing for the last hour. The abductors say they are members of a so-far unknown group called Islamic African Dawn. Mr Greeves, who says nothing in the video, disappeared from a luxury game lodge in South Africa yesterday morning following talks with . . .’

  Tom straightened in the car seat as the announcer recapped the story. ‘They must have sent it this afternoon, while we were out looking for them. That means they’ve stopped – holed up somewhere.’

  Sannie nodded. ‘So they couldn’t have gone much further than where Alfredo’s men last saw them. The newsreader said “low-resolution video”. They could be sending it via a satellite modem, or even from a phone. If it’s a phone-camera they’ll need to be in an area with mobile reception.’

  Tom nodded. ‘At least he’s still alive – and they’re giving the government forty-eight hours. No news of Bernard, though.’

  Sannie leaned against the car, arms folded, her mind processing the new information. ‘They might want to use him in a separate video, to keep the media interested in the story. You know TV – they can only show the same footage so many times before people lose interest.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, for his sake. I’d like to see that video.’

  ‘Over there,’ Sannie said, pointing to the caravan.

  ‘What about it?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Come with me.’

  As they approached the caravan they saw an overweight white man sitting in the annex area. His camp chair looked like it might buckle under him. He drank from a big yellow can of Laurentina beer while his diminutive wife mixed something in a bowl at a fold-out table. Sannie walked towards them and Tom followed. As they closed on the couple, Tom saw flickering light reflected in their faces and heard people talking in Afrikaans. The couple, though, were silent.

  Sannie pointed to the rear of the caravan and it dawned on Tom what he was seeing. A portable satellite dish, about the size of a large wok, stood on a white metal pole which was anchored to a spare wheel, sitting on the sandy ground. A cable led into the annex and, although Tom still couldn’t see the screen, he realised the couple were watching satellite television – hundreds of kilometres from home, on a stretch of beach in Mozambique.

  ‘Ja, we love our TV,’ Sannie said. ‘Some of these people wouldn’t leave home if they thought it would mean missing their soap operas or their rugby games on the weekend.’ She greeted the couple in Afrikaans.

  The man looked up from the screen, a slightly annoyed look on his meaty face. ‘Ja?’

  ‘We need to see your TV, please. Can you please change it to BBC World or one of the other news channels.’

  ‘My wife’s watching her soap opera,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘This is important. We’re police of
ficers – I’m Inspector Susan van Rensburg.’

  The fat man laughed. ‘What, you come to check my TV licence? This is Mozambique, not South Africa.’

  Tom walked in front of the screen. ‘The lady said it was important.’

  The man started to stand, but then saw the look on Tom’s face. ‘We need to see the news.’

  ‘You can’t just –’ But the man’s wife had changed channels with the remote and his protest was silenced when the image of Greeves, kneeling under the executioner’s threatening blade, filled the screen. Tom and Sannie crowded into the annex for a closer look. ‘You’re after these skurke?’

  Sannie nodded, watching the video in silence.

  ‘Sorry, hey. Good luck. But I think this guy’s for the chop,’ the man said as the news item finished.

  Tom had seen the three armed men in the grainy video clip and knew that while he and Willie had hurt them, reducing their number by two, the big man was probably right. There was nothing they could do right now, except wait.

  ‘I’ll pray for him,’ the thin lady said.

  ‘Can’t hurt,’ Tom said. He felt Sannie take his hand, and looked across at her, at the unexpected gesture. He saw that her eyes were downcast and that her other hand was in one of the big man’s and his, in turn, was joined with his wife’s. Tom felt a lump suddenly come to his throat at the gesture from these strangers; and at the sight of Sannie – beautiful, smart, determined, brave Sannie, who was risking her career for him – praying.

  Tom took the elderly woman’s hand to complete the circle.

  He bowed his head and said, softly, ‘Please.’

  16

  Even though it was midnight, it was still hot under the aircraft hangar’s tin roof at Hoedspruit air base, close to the western border of the Kruger National Park. The black fire-proof jumpsuit that Jonathan Fraser wore didn’t make him any cooler, but he would stay dressed like this, ready to don the rest of his gear, until the situation was resolved one way or another.

  His men didn’t need to be told what to do – they were all professionals. Weapons were being unpacked from carrying cases; the M4 assault rifles and Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns stripped and cleaned; pistols checked and magazines loaded with ammunition. Demolitions experts rigged charges of varying strength to blow in everything from a wood door to a welded steel security gate. Until they knew where the civilians were being held, and what sort of stronghold the terrorists were using, all they could do was try to prepare for any eventuality. SAS troopers cross-trained as combat medics unpacked and repacked their first-aid kits, checking that their controlled stores of morphine and bags of IV fluid had survived the trip.