by Tony Park
‘Didn’t seem that way last night.’
He laughed. ‘I like you, Jane, and yes, it was great. It’s a sackable offence for me, by the way.’
‘We didn’t do anything illegal – at least, not this time.’
She was being good about it, which made him smile again. ‘That reminds me, I’m expecting a call from my boss today, once we get back into mobile range around Punda Maria Camp. I’ll try not to sound too guilty,’ he said.
‘Seriously, though, I’m not looking for anything . . . deeper at the moment. You’re right, we both had too much too drink. I was lonely. You said you know how that is.’
‘I do.’
‘Maybe we should leave things as they were for the time being.’
She was right, but part of him immediately felt disappointed by her words. ‘I agree completely,’ he said quickly, and wondered if he saw in her eyes the same brief flash of mixed emotion he’d felt.
‘Here comes the nosy reporter again,’ she said gesturing to Sarah, who was walking furiously, arms pumping.
10
Vassily Orlov pulled the butt of the rifle into his shoulder and laid his right eye against the black rubber eyepiece of the starlight scope. Through the green tinge of the night sight, which amplified the ambient light from the moon and stars above, he made out the outline of the leopard.
This was not hunting, Orlov thought. Hess had had his man hang a haunch of impala meat from a tree branch to lure the big, sleek cat to its certain death. No, this was no more than a mildly enjoyable way to zero the sights on his favourite rifle, in case they had been knocked out of alignment during the flight from Moscow via London.
The night sight was American, state-of-the-art. It magnified the target in the crosshairs, like a normal telescopic sight, while also allowing him to see in the dark. It was much better than anything the Russian Army had developed. Orlov remembered the night vision devices they had used in Afghanistan – cumbersome things that weighed a tonne and only worked intermittently.
Orlov aimed for the beast’s heart. The hide would make a fine rug for the bedroom of his dacha. The huge elephant tusks, their rough ends now capped in solid gold, took pride of place above the enormous fireplace in his banquet room. On this trip he would be collecting the trophies denied him by his wound twelve months before. The leopard would be the first, followed by a black-maned lion, a bull buffalo with magnificent curled horns and, most exciting of all, the head of a black rhinocerous. Orlov knew the last of Africa’s big five would be the hardest to bag, and that it could not be done legally in the wild.
Hess had risen to the challenge and organised a safari guaranteed to sate his prize client’s lust for adrenaline and danger. He knew the trophies were almost incidental to Orlov and wondered how close to death the Russian would come this year.
They were on Hess’s private hunting reserve near Messina. Orlov, Hess and his servant, Klaus, lay in the thick bush that flanked the small river running through the reserve. Frogs croaked at the edge of the still water and mosquitoes buzzed noisily around the trio’s ears. The hunter knelt in the long dry grass next to his client, while a metre behind them Klaus watched out for other, unseen game in the night, his trusty AK-47 resting on one knee.
Hess wondered how the Russian would fare on this, his first night back in the African bush since the near disaster in Mozambique a year before. Tonight would be a test for his client, and a chance for Hess to gauge whether the old soldier was ready for the rigours they faced. Tomorrow they planned to leave for Zimbabwe, by road, in the rented four-by-four. In Zimbabwe, where National Parks rangers followed a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, the danger would be real enough, and Orlov would get his adrenaline fix.
The leopard had climbed the pale green fever tree and it crept silently along the exposed branch towards the suspended meat. After every silent, padded pace it stopped and slowly looked left and right. Its ears twitched, straining for any sound that might alert it to a possible trap.
While the Russian squinted into the night sight and slowly traversed his rifle to keep the crosshairs centred on the cat’s heart, Hess turned to Klaus and gave a little nod. On cue, the big African dropped his rifle, letting it clatter noisily on a fallen tree branch in the grass.
The leopard stopped and turned wide yellow eyes towards the sound for a split second. Its muscled body seemed to spin in midair as it turned and bounded back along the branch to the trunk of the fever tree. Orlov did not turn towards the sound behind him or utter a word. As the leopard stretched its front paws to grasp the thick trunk, the Russian fired. The leopard was still moving and the bullet missed the heart, but burned a deep furrow along the cat’s lower rib cage. The creature called in pain, its eerie, rasping call piercing the silence that followed the gunshot.
‘It’s wounded,’ Hess said calmly in his ear.
Orlov did not acknowledge the blindingly obvious comment. Instead, he kept the sights focused on the leopard. The cat half-slid, half-ran down the tree and headed straight towards the trio of men crouched in the grass. The fever tree was no more than forty metres away and the leopard, its heart and lungs untouched, rapidly gained the speed it needed for its lethal charge. Orlov worked the bolt action of his hunting rifle, chambering another round.
He heard Hess rise to his feet beside him and, from the corner of his eye, saw the Namibian raise his rifle to his shoulder. Behind him, he heard the oafish African cock the mechanism of his retrieved assault rifle. ‘Still! Both of you. It’s mine,’ he said in English, their common language.
Hess smiled and lowered the rifle slightly so he could get a better view. The leopard was a mere ten metres away from them when Orlov fired again. The bullet entered the dappled fur of the cat’s breast and penetrated the heart. With each of its remaining bounds the life force pumped from the animal until it fell, on its knees, not two metres from the Russian’s feet. Orlov stood and watched its death throes. He chambered another round and turned to face Hess and his manservant.
A smile played across his lips as he said, ‘Perhaps, when you two have tired of your games, we can start the hunt.’
Hess smiled as well and clapped the Russian on the shoulder. Klaus grinned sheepishly in the dark behind them and resumed his vigil. ‘Come, now we drink. Klaus, bring the leopard.’
*
Orlov stood with his back to the roaring leadwood fire in the dining room of Hess’s lodge. The night was unseasonably chilly, exacerbated by the ride back in the open-topped Land Rover, and Orlov rubbed the ache in his right leg, recalling as he did the wild excitement of his last trip to Africa.
‘Still giving you trouble, Vassily?’ Hess said as he handed the Russian a heavy square glass tumbler containing golden liquid and ice.
‘Ah, Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Good of you to remember we don’t all drink vodka,’ Orlov said as the warming liquor coursed down his throat. ‘My leg only troubles me in the cold, which means quite often, in Russia. But don’t let it concern you. I am in the peak of physical condition, for a man of my age and wealth.’
Orlov surveyed the masculine domain around him. Magnificent trophies lined the walls – the horned heads of sable and roan antelope, gemsbok and kudu, a pair of tusks almost as big as the ones that adorned his own fireplace, as well as buffalo and rhino heads. A huge maned head glared up at him from the rug on the floor and genuine leopard skin-covered pillows dotted the deep upholstered leather lounge beside him.
Hess took a seat in a wing-backed leather armchair and unfolded a map on the heavy dark wood coffee table between him and the lounge. ‘Please, have a seat, Major,’ he said, remembering the Russian’s fondness for his defunct rank. ‘I thought we could review the itinerary now.’
‘Yes. But first, tell me the latest news. You said the police had been making inquiries,’ Orlov said. He drained his glass then refilled it from the decanter Hess had placed on the table.
‘Routine inquiries only. A fishing expedition, as the English would say,
’ Hess said with a dismissive wave.
‘Yes, but have they had any bites?’ Orlov asked, taking another sip of whisky.
‘They guessed we had used a helicopter. The lack of tracks leading from the elephant would have made that obvious anyway. It would have taken them a long time, but the police did try and interview as many helicopter pilots as they could in South Africa –’
‘And did they find our pilot?’ Orlov interrupted.
‘Yes. Viljoen called me as soon as the police had spoken to him. He told me he gave nothing away, but he said he wanted to talk to me urgently. I met him and he was rattled. The business at the mission, it seems, had unsettled him.’
Orlov nodded. He had been recovering from the anaesthetic when the gunfight had erupted at the mission clinic, but Hess had made sure he was fully aware of all that had happened as soon as he had pulled through. ‘Regrettable, to be sure. But there was no alternative. You acted in the correct manner and I would have done nothing differently.’
Hess acknowledged the praise with a curt nod. ‘The pilot was a risk. Unfortunately, he met with an accident. I believe it was reported as an armed robbery of his house, that went bad.’
Orlov smiled. ‘This is a violent country you live in, Karl. These things happen, eh?’
‘As far as I know there is nothing to link us to Viljoen,’ Hess said, studying the map to indicate the subject was closed as far as he was concerned. ‘As you know,’ he continued, ‘this safari will take us out of South Africa, away from our police, into some of the wilder parts of the continent.’
Orlov leaned closer to the coffee table so he could follow the route of Hess’s slender finger. I bet he has his pick of the women, Orlov thought as the tall, fair-haired Teuton began reciting the itinerary.
‘From Messina we will cross into Zimbabwe at Beitbridge. I’ll allow you to sleep late tomorrow – we will have plenty of time to reach our first stop, at Bulawayo. You may need your sleep after your dessert.’
‘Let us hope so,’ Orlov replied with a smile of anticipation. ‘But back to the safari, please.’
Hess had been appraising the Russian since he met him at Johannesburg airport. There was a little more grey in the neatly trimmed moustache and wavy hair. Orlov had always had a heavy build, he could see, but unlike many rich men he had not succumbed to obesity. The cold, he had said, affected his leg wound, but Hess had not detected any sign of a limp. Anyway, Hess told himself, it would become warmer and warmer the farther north they moved from the Limpopo. Most important of all, Orlov had not lost his nerve after the previous year’s fiasco. That was what Hess’s prearranged stunt with Klaus had been designed to test during the leopard hunt. He continued with the itinerary.
‘From Bulawayo we move on to Victoria Falls. Your first visit, yes?’ Orlov nodded. ‘I have allowed time for you to visit the falls. The town itself is disgusting – a seething mass of low-budget tourists and blacks trying to sell them drugs or steal from them, but I have arranged suitable rooms for us.’ Orlov again nodded his assent and Hess continued.
‘On the way to the falls we will take a side trip to a hunting lodge here,’ he said, moving his finger to a spot south of the well-known destination, ‘on the northern border of Wankie National Park.’ Hess, like most whites in southern Africa old enough to remember Zimbabwe as Rhodesia, used the former name of the park now known as Hwange.
‘There you will be able to bag a sable, the most attractive of all the African antelope.’ Hess gestured to the wall behind him, where his own sable trophy was hung. Glass eyes stared mournfully from the beautiful black and white head. Massive ringed horns curved back away from above the eyes until they almost touched the wall behind.
‘From Victoria Falls we will take the road south of the Zambezi towards Kariba, here, where the dam wall forms Lake Kariba. There are a number of excellent safari areas south of the lake and I propose to set up camp in two of these, here and here. This should be suitable for you to take lion and buffalo. All the trophies taken in Zimbabwe will be mounted by reputable taxidermists in the nearest major town – I have already forewarned them. They will arrange shipment, legitimately, to Moscow for you.’
Hess paused to take a sip from his own drink, a gin and tonic. ‘Now, for the most difficult, and riskiest part of the trip.’ The detour Hess had planned for this hunting trip would take them across another border, and across the line that separates legal, sustainable hunting, from common poaching. This, Hess knew, was what Orlov craved most, and what made this whole arrangement, which ordinarily would have seemed preposterous, such a lucrative business venture.
‘We will cross the border at Kariba. We actually drive along the dam wall to enter Zambia and there we will base ourselves in the town of Siavonga for the next part of our expedition.’
Hess was a cautious man. That was how he survived wars and the not inconsiderable dangers of his chosen peacetime profession. He did not want to alarm his wealthy client, but he could not be sure Viljoen had not mentioned his name to the police, even though they had not sought him out. If the police were watching him, there was the possibility, however remote, that they may have been able to plant a listening device in the lodge.
‘From Siavonga we will travel to the safari area by small boat, where our Zambian guide will assist us to track our . . . quarry.’
Orlov knew enough about the methods of law enforcement officers in the west to know that Hess was being deliberately obscure in his description of this element of the safari. He was not unduly concerned, and thought the Namibian’s obvious caution was only prudent.
He looked more closely at the map when Hess mentioned the words ‘safari area’. The hunter was pointing clearly to a location not on the Zambian side of Lake Kariba, but on the opposite, Zimbabwean shore. It was not a safari area, a place where hunting was legal and controlled. When Hess lifted his long, tapered finger, Orlov read the black print on the shaded area: ‘Matusadona National Park’. Orlov knew from his research through press clippings and the internet that the remote, spectacularly beautiful Matusadona was the last preserve of the endangered black rhino in the Zambezi valley. Poachers had decimated the once thriving population of the prehistoric animals in the 1970s and ’80s. When Orlov had e-mailed the confirmation of his travel arrangements to Hess he had mentioned that he was keen to ‘see’ the remaining members of the big five that he had missed on his last trip to Africa. In particular, he specifically wanted to ‘see’ a black rhino.
Hess had replied via the internet that it would be difficult to see such a rare animal, but that he could arrange it for a premium price. As was their usual practice, the actual price of the tailored safari Hess had put together for Orlov was ten times the figure he quoted in his final e-mail. If either man’s computer system was being hacked by police or other agencies, the prices quoted for the safari would not arouse suspicion.
‘Next we will move down the river to the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia, opposite Mana Pools National Park on the Zimbabwean side. You said in your e-mail that you would arrange shipment of this final trophy from Maputo. Is that still correct?’
‘Yes,’ Orlov replied. He had told Hess he would give him an address in the Mozambican capital where the special trophy should be delivered. There, they would be collected by a mid-ranking official from the Russian embassy. The man, who had been in Orlov’s pay for many years, had proved an asset worth far more than the comparatively paltry amounts deposited every six months into a Swiss bank account. Orlov had already used the man to arrange illegal diamond shipments out of Angola and South Africa via the diplomatic pouch from Maputo. This next shipment would be much bigger, but the diplomatic immunity of the container would not be impinged upon, no matter what size the ‘pouch’.
‘Good. I propose moving our prize by boat down the Zambezi, and have made the appropriate arrangements,’ Hess said. A telephone call from a satellite phone would provide the time and latitude and longitude for the pick-up. The boat, piloted by the
same Mozambican tracker who had accompanied them on the previous year’s safari, would speed downriver into Lake Cahora Bassa, in Mozambique. There the trophy would be sealed in a watertight container and then welded inside a 200-litre fuel drum filled with water, prior to being moved by road to Maputo.
‘And your contingency plan, should we encounter problems again?’ Orlov asked, draining his whisky.
Hess bridled at the inference that he had somehow been responsible for the close call they had experienced on the last trip. But he kept such petty emotions in check and instead said, ‘I have arranged for a helicopter to be on standby, at Livingstone, on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. The pilot will travel there independently of us and charter a local machine. He will stay with it, twenty-four hours a day, until I tell him he is no longer needed.
‘In the event of a problem, the pilot will fly us to the Zambian capital, Lusaka. We both have open-ended first-class air tickets out of the country.’
Hess felt comforted by the knowledge that emergency evacuation was only a radio call away. The pilot he had chosen was ex-military, like the late Viljoen, but seemed to be made of stronger stuff than his predecessor.
‘Finally,’ Hess said, ‘I propose we end our trip with a visit to the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia for a few days’ relaxation at the luxury private lodge I mentioned in my e-mail. By the time we finish there, your special trophy should have arrived in Maputo. Afterwards, I will drop you at Lusaka, where you will catch a flight to London and then connect to Moscow, while I will return here via Namibia. Klaus will return the hired four-by-four to Jo’burg.’
‘It is good, Karl. I am impressed, as usual, by your thoroughness and attention to detail. Now, you said something about dessert?’ Orlov said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Of course, Vassily. I don’t think you will be disappointed. You can take it in the privacy of the guest wing. There is everything there you will need, I believe,’ said Hess. He stood and walked to a small white intercom box fixed to the wall near the light switch. Hess pushed a button and said, ‘Klaus, bring in our guest.’