by Tony Park
Luis sighed, then coughed. Wellington would never let him go. He was the only qualified metallurgist below ground and the mine boss depended on him completely. He coughed again.
This place was killing him. Luis was the son of a Machope tribal chief but instead of sitting in the shade of a palm tree drinking beer, or casting a fishing net, he had pursued an education and it had all been for nothing. He would die underground in Barberton and he would never see his wife again. His life was like a mournful Portuguese Fado folk song: short and sad.
Behind him, something moved. Luis’s ears had become sensitive to the slightest noise. Wellington had a habit of sneaking up on his workers in the dark to check on them.
Luis left his workers and took a few steps down the tunnel away from their candlelit workplace. He switched on his torch and stabbed the darkness. It was a man.
The man froze and looked at him. He was dressed in dark clothing and his face was black, but Luis could tell immediately he was not Swazi. Luis played the weak beam of his torch down over his body and stopped when he saw the barrel of the shotgun pointed at him. Luis switched off the torch and heard the man come towards him.
‘Wait,’ Luis whispered in English. ‘You are heading in the right direction. Loubser is with the Lion. Be careful.’
A thought crossed Luis’s mind. If this man killed Wellington in the process of rescuing Chris Loubser, then the zama zamas would be without a leader. Phineas Ncube was Wellington’s second-in-command, but Phineas was little more than Wellington’s enforcer and would never be a threat to Wellington’s leadership. He had neither the brains nor the experience to run a mining operation. Luis had killed during his time in the civil war, and he wondered if he could kill Ncube.
No, he said to himself.
‘Are you still there?’ Luis whispered into the darkness.
There was no answer. The white man had carried on. Luis went back to his men. ‘All of you, listen. Stop working. Go to the old stope face and wait there.’
‘Why?’ a Zimbabwean asked.
‘Because I said so.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Luis liked the sound of the man addressing him that way, but he knew he didn’t really have it in him to take over this criminal enterprise. He just needed the impetus to get out and to try to go straight again, but he couldn’t do that while Wellington was still alive. Luis crossed himself in the dark and said a silent prayer for the blackened ghost who had just left him. Please God, let him kill Wellington.
*
Cameron’s heart was still thumping as he forced himself to move slower and with more care down the tunnel. He had been watching the workers cranking their rudimentary mills and not his footing and had dislodged a rock. He hadn’t realised there was a fourth man, almost in his path. The man had let him pass, but he hoped he was not walking into a trap. Despite that risk, Cameron could do nothing other than continue moving.
All Cameron’s senses were on high alert now as he made out the twists and turns ahead using his night-vision goggles. He silently covered another one hundred metres or so.
‘What you need to do is tap into Eureka’s ventilation system without them knowing about it.’
Cameron froze. It was Chris Loubser’s voice, coming from around a bend in the tunnel. He reached into his left-hand ammunition pouch and pulled out a thunder flash, saved from his days in the army. It was a simulated explosive device that let out a hell of a flash and a loud bang.
‘The alternative,’ Chris said, ‘is to install your own system and run it via an old shaft, away from here.’
‘McMurtrie has sealed all of the shafts within easy reach of our workings,’ said a deep voice.
Cameron stood rock still. The man knew his name. He and Wellington were, he thought, like mirror images of each other. Each had a job to do and each was accountable to more senior people. He was suddenly filled with hate for this man he had never met. He had killed two of his employees and kidnapped another. Poor Chris had even been drawn in to helping the bastard. The way Wellington had operated with near impunity, thanks to Global Resources refusing to use armed security, enraged him, but at the same time he felt a sense of calm flow through him, tempering the adrenaline.
Cameron edged slowly along the side wall until he reached the bend. He pulled the cord on the thunder flash, waited a couple of seconds, looked around the corner and tossed it. He saw two figures in the green glow of his goggles, Chris Loubser sitting with his back to the side wall, and a bald black man seated, incongruously, at a camping table. There were lights on.
In the pause in the conversation between Chris and Wellington the clatter of the thunder flash bouncing on the ground sounded as loud as a bulldozer. Cameron raised his shotgun and closed his eyes as the explosion assaulted his eardrums.
Chris screamed and when Cameron opened his eyes again he saw the boss had fallen over backwards in his seat and was already rolling and trying to scramble away.
‘Chris, stay down!’
Cameron fired, aiming high, and shotgun pellets ricocheted off rock. He charged forward, shotgun at the ready. Chris was trying to stand, groggy from the blast and possibly temporarily deafened by the magnified effects of the pyrotechnic in a confined space. Cameron placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him down. He saw the man – Wellington – crawling away and took aim with the shotgun. The temptation to shred his body with lead was overwhelming.
Cameron swallowed his rage. ‘Stop! Stay where you are, Shumba!’
Bright flashes of orange seared Cameron’s vision and the air around him was cleaved by bullets. He fired as he dropped to his knee, pumped the shotgun and pulled the trigger again. There was an AK-47 firing at him from further down the tunnel. Cameron grabbed Chris’s shirt and dragged him back the way he’d come. ‘Move it, Chris!’
Cameron ushered Chris around the bend in the tunnel. ‘Run man, keep going!’ Chris stared at him and Cameron understood his confusion. He could see nothing and his ears were probably still ringing. Cameron shoved him in the back and Chris stumbled away. Cameron pulled out his last trick from his combat vest, the hand grenade he had pocketed when he disarmed the booby trap. He pulled the wire from the pin holes with his teeth. He heard voices around the corner, shouted commands. A probing burst of gunfire pinged off the side walls, sending chips of rock and fireflies of sparks into the bend. Cameron ducked around the corner, tossed the grenade and ran.
*
Kylie heard the first explosion and the gunfire and knew instantly that Gideon had lied to her. Cameron was not collaborating with the zama zamas; he was here to rescue Chris and take on the pirates single-handedly. The bloody idiot. ‘You lied to me.’
Gideon darted to the side wall and knocked his helmet against it. It fell from his head and clattered to the ground, the attached miner’s lamp playing wildly along the walls. He came at her and Kylie raised her hands, but was too late to stop him. Gideon smashed his forehead into her nose and Kylie wailed with pain. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt woozy. Gideon crushed her against the side wall then backed off so that she slid to the ground. He was on top of her, on his back, before she could roll away. Every time the back of his head connected with her face and nose, a tactic he was using deliberately, she screamed. Kylie could feel his bound hands on her.
‘Get off me!’
As she tried to shift him, and keep her nose out of his way, she could feel his fingers groping at her midsection. She screamed, trying to remember what she’d learned in a self-defence class years earlier.
Eyes. She hooked her fingers into claws and reached around to gouge at his eyeballs. She had the satisfaction of him letting out a howl, and heaved up against him with her pelvis. Too late she realised what he had been after, and found – the Leatherman in the pouch on her belt.
Gideon elbowed her in the stomach and she convulsed and relaxed her grip on his face. Gideon rolled off her. Kylie snatched a breath and reached up and turned off her lamp. They were in total darkness no
w, and she knew from the direction he’d moved that he would have to grope his way back to the side wall to fetch his lamp, presumably after he’d freed himself.
She rolled and crawled and flicked her lamp back on. Kylie turned her head and saw Gideon glaring at her, his hands still behind his back and his arms jiggling. He had managed to open the Leatherman and was cutting through his bonds. She looked to the side and saw his helmet. She scrambled towards it and heard him moving behind her.
‘Bitch!’
Kylie grabbed Gideon’s helmet, switched off her lamp and ran. He was armed, but blind without his lamp. She almost fell and her nose throbbed in agony. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew now she needed to get away from Gideon. Ahead she heard gunfire and another explosion.
Too late, Kylie heard a muffled sound and stumbled into something yielding that wriggled and grunted as she fell. It was a man. She switched on her lamp and saw a black man with bound hands and tape across his mouth. More of Cameron’s handiwork. The man widened his eyes at the sight of her. She ran her hands over his smelly overalls, looking for a weapon. Nothing. She heaved against him and rolled him over. Protruding from his side pocket was a curved metal magazine full of bullets. She thought it looked like it came from an AK-47 – she had paid to fire one at a crazy backpackers’ camp in Vietnam when she had travelled there in her early twenties. The man had nothing else. She heard footsteps echoing behind her and stumbled on in the darkness.
Kylie used her lamp sparingly, switching it on to show her the next section of tunnel in case of obvious obstacles, then turning it off so as not to give Gideon any advantage. She knew he would be moving slower than she was. The next time she switched on her lamp and shone it around she saw a rifle leaning against the side wall. A few paces from the weapon, as if tossed aside, was a banana-shaped magazine, which, when she picked it up, she saw was full of bullets.
12
Wellington marshalled his armed men. He had a security force of fifteen zama zamas armed with a variety of weapons, including shotguns, pistols, AK-47s and hand grenades. He called these men his lion cubs.
‘Take the side tunnel and cut the white men off before they get to the main shaft. You must stop them or we are all finished.’ The men nodded in the gloom.
Wellington had run from the fighting, but could still hear a man firing his AK-47 at McMurtrie. He had recognised the lone figure from his picture on the Global Resources website and wondered if there were more men behind him. Loubser was on the run with McMurtrie, and Wellington was not finished with him. ‘Bring Loubser back alive.’
The men jogged away to encircle Cameron and Chris, as Wellington went off in the opposite direction. He ran back to the old refuge chamber that he’d appointed as comfortably as possible as his underground home. There was a deep freeze full of beer, a single bed, a bedside table and chair and a small electric cooktop. He moved the freezer and brushed away dirt from the rock floor. He lifted a metal lid on a cavity and took out a bag of gold. It was the latest takings from the mine. He put the bag in a backpack, put on a mining helmet and lamp, and changed from his normal underground working clothes of jeans and a T-shirt into a set of clean Global Resources overalls. He exited his quarters and ran deeper down the tunnel, away from the gunfire and explosions.
*
‘Keep going, towards the shaft. I’ll be right behind you,’ Cameron whispered to Chris.
‘No, come with me.’
‘No, it’s fine, Chris, just keep going. There’s only one man behind us. I have to get him. Go.’
Chris paused for a moment, then turned, walked a few steps and looked back. ‘Thank you. For coming for me.’
‘Go.’
Cameron lay down next to the side wall, making his silhouette one with the rock. He laid down his shotgun and pulled out his nine-millimetre pistol. He heard the footsteps coming down the tunnel. The man approaching loosed off a burst of three rounds and the AK, true to its nature and the inexperience of the firer, kicked high and to the right. Cameron knew the man was trying to provoke a reply, so he forced himself to lie still. When the gunman came alongside him Cameron had already moved into a crouch and he launched himself at the man.
The gunman was young and lean, and quick. He thrust back with the butt of his AK and caught Cameron in the solar plexus. Cameron lost his grip. He sensed the man swinging the barrel around so he fired his Sig twice and heard the thud of bullets hitting flesh and the man’s yell of pain. He switched on the infra-red beam and saw the man’s lifeless body sprawled on the rock. One of the bullets had drilled him through the forehead.
‘Cameron!’
He got up and started moving and as he rounded the next bend in the tunnel he saw Chris Loubser, trapped in the beam of a lamp with his hands up. A zama zama with an AK was pointing his rifle at him.
‘Shit.’
*
The pirate miner with the AK stood over a filthy, dishevelled Chris Loubser and said to the man next to him: ‘We take this one back alive. The other one, the boss from above, we kill.’
Kylie crouched further down the tunnel, hiding, but in earshot of the men. She realised there must be others coming. She had sat there for a minute or so watching as the zama zamas bailed up Chris, wondering what she should do. It looked like she would soon be outnumbered.
‘Let him go, take me instead!’ Cameron called from further up the tunnel.
The man shifted his aim from Chris and opened fire into the blackness. Chris put his hands over his ears, sank to his knees and screamed.
Kylie had fitted the magazine to the empty AK-47 she had found lying against the side wall – she presumed Cameron had taken it from the bound and gagged man and dumped it, perhaps planning on retrieving it on his way back to the shaft. Cocking the weapon had taken some fiddling, but she’d eventually remembered how she had pulled back the lever in Vietnam in order to load a round into the chamber.
‘Oh, God, forgive me,’ she whispered. She raised the rifle to her shoulder, braced herself for the recoil and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
Kylie’s mouth was parched and her heart was pounding. Her hand was shaking as she briefly contemplated that madness of what she was trying to do – shoot a man. She took a breath and forced herself to think, and to try to remember what she’d been shown on the firing range. She ran her fingers over the left, then the right of the rifle and found the selector switch. She pushed it down, raised the rifle again, and pulled the trigger again. This time flashes exploded from the barrel and the rifle kicked back into her shoulder, knocking her backwards a little. The man who had been firing yelped in pain and was pitched forward. Kylie didn’t have time to ponder the enormity or repercussions of what she’d just done; her body was firing on pure adrenaline. She ran towards Chris, who was cowering close to the ground. As she passed the entrance to the side tunnel bullets erupted and zinged off the rock beside her. She turned as she jogged and held the trigger and pointed into the tunnel where the flashes had come from. The rifle bucked in her hands and there were more calls of pain. She ran on, trying unsuccessfully to block out the screams she left in her wake.
The man she had shot was lying on the rock floor writhing in pain, blood frothing at his lips. Kylie felt nausea rising up inside her and swallowed it down. Part of her wanted to throw down the rifle and try to save the man she had hurt, but she instinctively knew that to do so could cost her her life, and the lives of others. She forced herself to turn from the man’s torment. She went to Chris. ‘Come on!’ She grabbed his shoulder and tried to get him to stand.
There was movement in front of her and shouting from behind.
A figure loomed out of the darkness, into the cone of light cast by the wounded man’s lamp. Kylie raised the rifle again, aware she was ready to kill if she had to, and pointed it at the man, her finger curled around the trigger. He held up a hand. It was Cameron, festooned with weapons and his angry face blackened.
He shook his head. ‘You were mad to c
ome down here.’
‘I was mad? I just saved your friggin’ life, mate.’ Despite her tough talking, she could feel her whole body begin to shake. She lowered the rifle; it suddenly felt like it weighed a tonne. ‘Cameron …’ She felt the tears welling behind her eyes.
He strode to her and wrapped a free arm around her shoulders and squeezed her for a second before letting her go and looking into her eyes. ‘You did what you had to. But it’s not over yet.’ A probing burst of bullets fired blindly from around a corner tore up the tunnel and the three of them dropped to the ground. ‘Shit. How many more are there?’ Cameron asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Kylie’s tears were gone. His touch had reinvigorated her. ‘There was plenty of movement in the side tunnel. I think I hit a couple.’
He shook his head. ‘This is not good.’
‘Senhor,’ a voice said. ‘Come with me. This way.’
Kylie, Cameron and Chris crawled towards the voice.
‘I know the way out, senhor,’ the voice said. ‘It is normally guarded, but Wellington has all his spare men out looking for you.’
‘Why should we trust you?’ Kylie asked the voice.
*
Luis thought it a good question. ‘Because you have no choice. Because this is my chance to escape here, too.’
‘This is Luis. He’s a good oke, Cameron, you can trust him.’ It was Loubser, his voice shaky. ‘They call him the Professor.’
The moment the gunfire and explosions had begun Luis had abandoned his foolish thoughts of taking over the illegal operation from Wellington. All he wanted now was to see the sun again, to feel the Indian Ocean breeze on his face, to smell the salt in the sea air and to be with his wife and child once more.