African Dawn

by Tony Park

  She reached up and locked onto his hand and Tate heaved as hard as he could. Natalie's boots slipped on the crate's wooden walls but couldn't find purchase. Her hand was slippery with perspiration and she slipped from Tate's grip, and screamed.

  Chengetai was bustling backwards and Tate knew that unless he tried something else Natalie would be jammed against the rear of the crate. He jumped over the rim of the crate and landed, legs astride, on the rhino's back. Chengetai hopped on the spot like a bucking bronco as Tate reached again for Natalie. She took both his hands and managed to get her foot onto one of the metal framing ribs that ran parallel to the ground. Tate rode the jumping rhino and got a hand under Natalie's bottom to steady her. When she was able to grab the rim of the crate Tate half-slid and half-fell off Chengetai's back. He landed on the floor of the crate and reached up in time to get a hand under Natalie's foot and heave her up, giving her the boost she needed to get out.

  Tate yelled and slapped Chengetai's bottom so hard it stung his palms. He looked up and saw Elias standing on the back of the truck leaning in. He had Tate's toolbox in one hand. ‘I don't know how to load the dart gun, baas!’

  ‘The dart! Throw me a dart!’

  Natalie grabbed the box and opened it. She found the spare dart Tate had made up earlier.

  Tate looked for the electric prod but Natalie had dropped it and Chengetai had stomped on it and destroyed it. The rhino kicked back and Tate dodged to one side and nearly lost his balance. He started to climb, but Chengetai reversed at full speed and smashed her body into the rear of the crate. Tate yelled in pain as he felt his left leg being crushed against the timber of the rear door. The whole crate shook with the impact and it was only the fact that his leg had been to one side of a steel reinforcing tube that had stopped his bone from being pulverised. Nevertheless his leg buckled under him when he dropped to the ground.

  Chengetai continue to push back, slowly but steadily. Her mad panic had subsided to a crushing, killing force. Tate felt his chest being squashed against unyielding timbers and, as much as he slapped and yelled, Chengetai would not move forward. The African crew screamed from outside and banged on the crate. A third man went to help the crew on the nose rope, but Chengetai could not be stopped or controlled.

  ‘Tate!’

  He looked up and managed to get his right hand up in time. The left side of his body, including his arm, was now pinned by the rhino's bulk. Natalie hefted the dart, point up, and Tate prayed it wouldn't start tumbling. If the needle pierced his skin the M99 would kill him before anyone could get to him to administer the antidote – that was if the rhino didn't finish him off first.

  Tate caught the dart, reversed it in his hand and jabbed it into Chengetai's thick skin with all his remaining might. The rhino continued to push home even as the dart took effect and Tate felt a stabbing, searing pain in his left side.

  ‘Get him out!’

  Hands were reaching over the rim of the crate now. Tate grabbed hold and felt himself being lifted off his feet as Chengetai finally succumbed to the drug and the heaves of the men on the nose rope. Tate gritted his teeth and moaned at the intense pain in his side. Once out of the crate he sank to his knees on the hard surface of the truck's bed.

  ‘Oh, God, Tate,’ said Natalie, ‘you saved my life. Are you all right?’

  He winced as she put an arm around him. ‘I'm … OK. I think I've got a couple of cracked ribs.’

  ‘Oh, I'm sorry.’ Natalie released her hold on him. ‘I didn't mean to make it worse.’

  ‘No,’ Tate breathed, biting back the pain. ‘It's OK. You didn't make it worse, Natalie … you couldn't.’

  ‘Oh God, Tate …’ Tears started welling in her eyes as he looked at her.

  Instinctively, and despite the pain in his ribs, he reached for her and drew her to him again. ‘I would have died if anything had happened to you.’

  35

  Braedan had gone by the time Tate and Natalie got Chengetai back to the assembly point at the boma where the other rhinos had been killed.

  ‘Where is he?’ Tate asked.

  ‘I sent him on ahead, in the first group of five vehicles,’ Paul said.

  ‘Damn,’ Tate said.

  ‘What's wrong, apart from your ribs?’ Paul asked.

  Philippa was strapping Tate's bare chest with surgical tape as they spoke. ‘I needed to talk to him about something … about some accusations he's made.’

  Paul waved a hand as though swatting a fly. ‘I've no time for this, Tate. I sent Braedan ahead because I know he's a smooth talker and he's got plenty of cash on him. If we're going to get trouble at any roadblocks between here and Kariba I want him to try and smooth the way. Also, if he gets caught, he's going to call me on the cell phone and we'll take a different route with the rest of the rhinos.’

  ‘That's a good plan,’ Tate conceded.

  *

  Emmerson Ngwenya's hulking, bald-headed man, Simba, pressed the buzzer on the intercom outside the walled mansion in Willowmead Lane and identified himself to the man who responded. The gate rolled open slowly and Simba drove up the paved driveway to the house. Henry was in the front passenger seat and Nicholas sat beside their ministerial boss in the back of the Hummer.

  The place was a single-storey, whitewashed affair with a Mediterranean-style terracotta roof. Emmerson had bought it from an Indian family who had left two years earlier, finally giving up on the country's plummeting economy. One man's loss, Emmerson thought as he followed Simba to the front door.

  He liked this house and he could see himself living in it one day. Perhaps he would install a mistress here in the interim. It only had three bedrooms, and they were small given the size of the house and the property, but everything else about the place spoke wealth. It had a tennis court, a pool, a bar and separate billiards room with a full-size table; it even had a gym. Emmerson walked through the grand entrance, his feet tapping on the polished parquetry floor, then out through double French doors to a paved verandah. All the house's rooms were linked by a covered walkway whose roof was supported by pillars that gave the place the feel of a Roman villa. A place for a modern-day emperor to repose, Emmerson smiled to himself.

  Two of the bedrooms faced onto the pool and outside one of them sat a bored-looking CIO man reading a newspaper. The man looked up then jumped to his feet. Emmerson loved the feeling of power that money and fear purchased.

  ‘My sister?’ Emmerson asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

  ‘She is inside, Comrade Minister. Safe. But plenty angry.’ Emmerson smiled. He wouldn't have liked to be the man tasked with keeping Thandi quiet and in one spot.

  ‘Let me in.’

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. He unlocked the door and Emmerson walked into the room. Thandi was lying on top of the bed, fully clothed, reading a South African women's magazine. She pretended to continue to read for a few seconds then peered over the top of her reading glasses at him. ‘I wondered how long it would be before you came, brother.’

  He grinned. ‘I hope you are comfortable. Do you like my house?’

  ‘I don't like anything you have bought with the proceeds of crime. You and your kind have bled this country dry, Emmerson.’

  He shrugged. ‘I would have thought that your time here would have given you the chance to realise it is not wise to make unfounded allegations in public, Thandi.’

  ‘I knew it was you behind these trumped-up charges. I'm not guilty of treason, and you know it.’

  ‘You think I don't know about you and George Bryant?’ said Emmerson casually. ‘You think I am stupid? I knew you were his slut when you were younger, and I knew he used to visit you in Mozambique.’

  Her eyes widened at his remarks, but she said nothing. He knew he had her. Emmerson had told some senior ZANU cadres, back in the early seventies, that he suspected his sister of being a spy for the Rhodesian security forces, and let them know that she had been sleeping with a mukiwa, a white boy. He'd hea
rd, later, that she had suffered during her time in the camps in Mozambique.

  Thandi stayed silent. Emmerson moved closer to her bed and had the satisfaction of seeing her cringe away from him, ever so slightly. She was putting on a show of defiance, but she, too, feared him.

  ‘You shamed us all by sleeping with George. I spent my war trying to atone for your disgraceful rutting, Thandi. It was me who raided the Bryants' ranch and kidnapped the child. I would have killed her if I'd had the chance, to repay the sorrow those meddling whites caused me. I killed Hope Bryant as well.’

  Thandi glared at him for a few seconds, then turned her face away from him, ashamed of his boasting.

  He kneeled beside the bed and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head around so he could fix her again with his stare. He spoke softly now. ‘Yes, sister, she lived after the crash and I bayoneted her through the heart. This is the only way to rid our country of the people who you plot with.’ He could see the turmoil in her face. But Emmerson knew he needed more to ensure his sister's silence. He sat down on the bed beside her and the springs creaked. He would have to get them oiled. He let go of her hair and she slithered out of his reach. ‘Amazing, when you think of it. Your daughter, my niece, is now the same age that you were when you were in the camp, learning your lessons …’

  Thandi rolled over and glared at him, the defiance back in her eyes. ‘If you touch my daughters, I will kill you.’

  He shook his head. ‘They are my family, too, Thandi. I would never touch them in that way. Others, however, might not be so kind, so forgiving of lies and treachery. And if it did come to that, to the children being punished for the sins of the parent, then you would already be dead, sister. I can only keep you here for so long. You know that, and I know that. You probably have your puppet masters in England and America on the internet organising petitions for your release as we speak. I know that even if I get you to court you will probably get off. But we both know that you betrayed your country once before, by sleeping with George, and that he is still in this country. Africa is a dangerous continent and anything could happen to him. Anything could happen to you, too, Thandi.’

  ‘What do you want from me, you bastard?’ She spat the words at him.

  ‘Your silence, that is all. It is a terrible thing that our father has died, killed by poachers. But it paves the way for me to take over the rhino-breeding program and you, dear sister, will support me in my claim to the land, and together we will grieve in public for a true hero of the struggle for freedom.’

  ‘Our father would be ashamed of you. You murdered him, didn't you?’

  Emmerson stood. ‘Talk like that will keep you here much longer than needs be, Thandi.’ He walked to the doors. ‘Think of your children. Think of the white man you whored yourself to all those years ago.’ He turned his back on her and locked the bedroom door behind him.

  She talked tough, his sister the politician, but she was still a woman. He knew how to keep her in her place, and he was sure she would do what was required.

  Emmerson smiled. He was feeling pleased with himself now, after a few worrying days and weeks. The inside pocket of his tailored black suit coat bulged with an envelope containing $100,000 in cash – the proceeds from the sale of three adult rhino horns and the stubby protrusion of the calf to Nguyen. A ranch stocked with rhinos waited for him in Bulawayo, and an up-and-coming young Kwaito pop star would be looking for him in the audience of her gig tonight. He had booked a suite at the Miekles and she would be in the hot tub with him, drinking French champagne by midnight. He would have to ask her if she had a friend. He felt strong. He walked along the corridor to where Simba was sitting on a chair.

  The driver put down the newspaper he'd been reading on a side table. ‘Where to, sir?’ Simba asked.

  Emmerson was about to answer when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered it and clenched his fist as he listened to the man speak. ‘What do you mean, all the rhinos are being moved?’ The tinny voice on the end of the phone gave him some more details about where the animals were being taken. ‘It will take us about three hours to get there, maybe longer. This cannot be allowed to happen. I have paid you too much.’ Emmerson looked back through the French doors at Thandi as the man on the other end of the line made more excuses. His sister was lying on her side, in the foetal position, immobile.

  ‘I don't care,’ he told the caller. ‘Delay them. I'm on my way.’ He ended the call and felt like crushing the phone to pieces or throwing it at someone.

  ‘Sir?’ Simba asked tentatively, sensing Emmerson's sudden change of mood.

  Emmerson checked his watch. ‘Makuti. Kariba Road, now!’

  *

  Natalie had tried to sleep as they drove through the African night. But it was so different to night-time in Australia. Here the night blanketed the country. It was as if Zimbabwe had gone back in time, to the days before electricity – which was partly true, thanks to power cuts and failures – but it was more than that. The country of her birth was entombed in darkness and as much as most of the population prayed for someone to open the door and let the light back in, many people had given up hope. And many people had died.

  She had been too confused, and still too charged from the events of the days before, for any sleep to come to her as Tate had driven them through the night. Their route had taken them east from Bulawayo, through Gweru and Kadoma. At Chegutu they'd headed due north on a tar road towards Murombedzi, and Chinhoyi, where they had rejoined the main road to Kariba, bypassing Harare.

  They'd been travelling most of the night but they still had a few hours ahead of them. She could see that every time Tate leaned across to change gear he winced at the pain in his ribs. And that was her fault.

  ‘I really am sorry, about falling into the crate. I feel like such a fool.’

  He glanced at her, then back at the road, and she saw the beginnings of a small grin curl his lips. It was a rare enough occurrence for her to be surprised. ‘What are you laughing at?’

  He kept looking straight ahead. ‘I wasn't laughing.’

  ‘Well, grinning then. It wasn't that funny, was it?’

  ‘I was just going to say, I know how you mean about feeling foolish.’

  ‘What do you –’ She was confused, but when he looked over at her again she realised what he was talking about. The embarrassing night in the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge. ‘Tate, you don't need to feel foolish about that.’

  He didn't look at her and she thought she could see his cheeks colouring.

  ‘I feel so stupid, but …’ he glanced at her now, taking his eyes off the road for a moment, ‘it was just that you do remind me so much, physically, of Hope. I know I need to let go, but I might not ever be able to forgive myself for letting her go.’

  Natalie shifted across the wide bench seat until she was sitting next to him.

  He glanced at her. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Steady, tiger. I just thought I'd help you change gears. It seems to be hurting you.’

  ‘Go to fourth,’ he said. He stomped on the clutch and Natalie grabbed the gear stick and brought it down, across and down some more. Tate let out the clutch and pumped the accelerator to build up some more revs as they tackled a hill.

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘Perfect,’ he said.

  Natalie sat for a while with her hands in her lap, then tentatively reached over and laid her right hand on Tate's left thigh. He kept looking straight ahead, but she saw the small smile return, and it made her feel good, but then she thought about the predicament she'd landed herself in. From having no man in her life she now had two – twin brothers who hated each other.

  *

  Thandi Ngwenya turned her head to peek over her shoulder once her brother had stopped talking. She saw the CIO man had settled into his chair again, with his back to her, and was once more reading the paper.

  The house she was imprisoned in looked ostentatious, but she had discovered its finishings wer
e cheap. The panes of glass on the French doors were thin and she had heard Emmerson talking on his cell phone. He'd said something about rhinos being moved and that he was on his way to Makuti, which was near Kariba in the north of the country, near the Zambian border.

  She put the pieces together as best as she could. The only rhinos – live ones at least – that Emmerson was interested in were the ones he had planned to take charge of on the Bryant ranch. George would still be in the country, from what she remembered of his plans. With her father's death, old Paul Bryant would know that his rhinos were doomed. Would he move his own rhinos to Makuti or Kariba to keep them from falling into Emmerson's hands? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps he was going to truck the rhinos across the border into Zambia – there were road crossings across the dam wall, and at Chirundu, downriver from the dam. If it were a covert operation, Paul could even put the rhinos on a boat and cross the lake. It sounded crazy, but Emmerson had sounded incensed. She didn't have a phone number for Paul Bryant, but George had left her his business card, which she had placed in her handbag.

  Thandi sized up the secret policeman outside. CIO men, she knew from her own experience, were thugs and bullies, but there was no requirement for them to be fit, like soldiers, or adept in any particular skills, like proper spies. They were enforcers more than killers, and if they did kill it was with a gun or with a car. Zimbabwe's recent history was littered with examples of opponents of the regime who had been forced off the road or had their cars rammed by heavy trucks. Morgan Tsvangirai's wife had been killed when the car she and her husband were driving in was forced off the road by a lorry. The subsequent investigation had declared it an accident, but the Mugabe faction had enough form for serious questions to be raised.

  Thandi's fears gave her courage. She knew that Emmerson would not trust her to keep her mouth shut, whatever she promised him. When she defected to the MDC she had done so in full knowledge that other members of parliament and party organisers – even ordinary MDC voters – had been beaten and burned and killed by the president's nationwide network of henchmen. She had visited the victims in hospital – seen the broken bones and the angry blistered burns made by cigarettes on flesh. She had read of the district chairpersons who'd been bludgeoned to death or beheaded. She had fielded her fair share of threats of death and violence from those still loyal to Mugabe but she supposed, perversely, that as Emmerson's sister and the daughter of Kenneth Ngwenya she might have been afforded some tacit, lingering protection. She had been too well connected to disappear or to wind up in hospital, she had thought. Thandi now knew that she'd been wrong to harbour such foolish notions. Her brother was going to kill her, and probably make it look like an accident.