The Prey

by Tony Park

  ‘I agree,’ said Jan. ‘Let me take all this to the board, along with my letter of resignation. They’ve known it was coming for some time. I’ll tell the Chinese that Tertia can expect to be met by the police in Cape Town. That should deter even China Dynamite from doing a deal with her.’ He got up to leave.

  ‘That’s it?’ Luis said. ‘He’s just going to walk out of here, away from all this?’

  Jan moved until his face was just inches from Luis’s. ‘You want to try and stop me now? My life is over. You have a coalfield; sell it to the Chinese and watch your natural resources and your money drain away from your kak country.’

  Cameron stepped between the two men and Jan let himself out of the cabin. Luis sat down on the bed where Jan had been. ‘So that is it? This war criminal will go free?’

  ‘No, Luis,’ Kylie said. ‘It’s up to you what happens to him. You need to go to the authorities and make a complaint against him. Perhaps to the International Criminal Court.’

  Luis sagged. ‘My first priority must be to my son, and to the memory of my wife. I cannot let evil people like Wellington and this Tertia triumph. But Lotz is right; I fear that if I deal with this Chinese company it will not be in the best interests of my country or my people.’

  ‘We need to go direct to the board,’ Kylie said. ‘With the truth.’

  Cameron opened the small closet in his cabin and checked inside his travel bag.

  Kylie saw the look on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My pistol,’ he said. ‘I packed it, and it’s gone. I’m worried about Jessica, Kylie. I’m going to look for her.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘What about going to the board?’

  ‘That can wait.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Luis said.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Kylie said as they started walking towards the lounge car at the rear of the train.

  Cameron looked back, his impatience showing.

  ‘Cameron, did you tell anyone, anyone at all, that we were going to your wife’s parents’ house at Hippo Rock with Luis and Jessica?’

  ‘No. Of course not. It was supposed to be a secret. Did you?’

  *

  Jan closed the cabin door behind him and gazed into the eyes of the woman he had loved with all his heart since he had first met her in high school.

  Tertia came to him, her eyes misting, and he folded her in his arms. She pressed her face into his chest. ‘My God, I have missed you, Karl.’ She looked up at him. ‘What’s wrong? Kiss me.’

  He swallowed hard. They had waited years for this moment, forced to live apart, and quietly, via the internet, plotting a future where he would be able to return to South Africa and the pair of them would have money and property to last them the rest of their lives.

  The blacks had taken Tertia’s beloved game reserve and wanted to sell it off as a coalmine. It had seemed a gift from heaven when he, as the CEO of a mining company, had been given the opportunity to bid for the rights for Lion Plains. He had made sure Global Resources won the tender – offering over the odds for the actual price and a small fortune to greedy hands behind closed doors. Their plan, for the project to then fail and for Global Resources to be left as an empty shell which the Chinese would pick up for a song, had been going perfectly.

  ‘It’s all within our grasp, lover,’ Tertia said to him. ‘Talk to me, you’re scaring me. Are the Chinese getting cold feet?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, they’ll stick to their word.’ He had sought out China Dynamic five years ago when they had tried unsuccessfully to buy Global Resources. He’d been on his way up in the mining industry in Australia, working under his assumed name, but it had seemed that as much as he made and as hard as he worked he would never be able to give him and Tertia the life they deserved, especially after Lion Plains was taken from her. He needed to make a quantum leap.

  He had read an article about corporate moles – people who wormed their way into the senior ranks of companies, often the African offshoots of foreign companies where oversight was less rigorous and the talent pool smaller than in the home countries. Global Resources was at the time a mid-sized company looking to expand in Africa and he was African born and heading up through the ranks of a competitor. When the CEO’s job became vacant Jan approached China Dynamic and laid out a plan for them. If he, Jan Stein, could run Global Resources, build its portfolio of African mines and then systematically erode the company from within, to the point where it was in need of a fire sale, would China Dynamic guarantee him a five million dollar bonus if he could deliver it to them?

  The Chinese had agreed.

  The Lion Plains affair had just added sweetness to the deal. Tertia had given up on the idea of running a game farm – she just wanted revenge against the people who had taken it from her, and an even bigger windfall from the purchase and subsequent sale of Kilarney to China Dynamic. They would both walk away from Africa, from the bush, from mining, and from their continent’s politics. Rio was shaping up as their preferred retirement destination, and their life would be one of unending opulence until they died.

  ‘They know about you,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no way they can prove any of it.’

  ‘Your trained lion, Wellington, squealed before the Mozambican shot him. Kylie Hamilton and Cameron McMurtrie are going to the board right now. They know that you are the mythical “Mohammed”.’

  ‘You should have shot Wellington when you had the chance underground,’ she said, and her tone irked him.

  ‘I wouldn’t have been underground if you hadn’t let McMurtrie’s daughter live. That was a mistake. We could have finished off Wellington at our leisure.’

  ‘I’ll deny it all. It’s hearsay,’ Tertia said.

  ‘There’s going to be enough publicity about all this for the Hawks to move on you. They’ll trace your movements, bank accounts; we have to face reality, my love.’

  ‘No. Wait, let me think.’

  She broke from him and sat on the made-up bed in the suite. Her chest was rising and falling.

  ‘Do they know about you yet?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘They know we were – are – husband and wife, but they bought my story that I had Global Resources bid for Lion Plains to get back at you, because I hated you. I told them you also hated me but didn’t want to see me arrested and paraded before the courts here or in Mozambique.’

  Tertia frowned and nodded. ‘So you’re in the clear, but that doesn’t help me.’

  ‘Berger won’t sell Kilarney once your plans are exposed, but the Chinese will still buy Global Resources. I’ll get my bonus from Mary Li, and we can sell all the shares we’ve been buying through the front companies as soon the Chinese get the mines back up and running and the share price rises again. With Wellington dead and us out of the zama zama business, Eureka will be back in the black in days. All this will be forgotten.’

  ‘And I’ll be in prison.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, you must disappear now. You have the fake passports and IDs that I arranged for you, in the lockers at Johannesburg and Cape Town airports?’

  Tertia nodded. ‘Yes, our escape plan. But I want you to come with me. I’ve waited so long to be with you. I can’t bear being away from you any longer. Come, run with me, Karl.’

  ‘No. I can get through this. I’ll be in Rio with you in a month, with more money than we need.’

  She looked up at him and blinked her eyes. After all she had done, all the killings and theft and lies, she was the same big-eyed, adoring, spoiled rich girl he had fallen for all those years ago. He had agreed to, perhaps even been slightly aroused by, her plan to seduce Chris Loubser and use him as their pawn to help undermine the company and the Lion Plains project, and he wondered, often, if she slept with Wellington when they met, for her to take the gold for sale to the Arab buyers. But she had changed; he knew it. It seemed the more crimes she committed, the more perversions she indulged in, the more
wicked she became. He had disagreed with her decision to sell McMurtrie’s daughter; to him, killing the girl seemed kinder, given that the rest of her family was supposed to be dead.

  ‘How shall we do it?’ she asked.

  ‘Put on your jeans and boots and your overcoat, tie a scarf, or better yet a towel around your head to protect you. I’ll hit the emergency stop button and as the train starts to slow, jump for it. Tuck your arms in and keep your chin on your chest, roll when you hit the ground.’

  ‘Karl …’

  ‘Do you want to meet the police at the next station?’

  ‘No.’

  He passed her the clothes she needed while she changed out of the cocktail dress she had been going to wear to dinner. He couldn’t help but notice the expensive lingerie she was wearing; perhaps she’d had a plan to sneak him into her room in the middle of the night. They had been so close.

  When she was ready, her head encased in the towel, he took from his suit jacket pocket a small hammer that he had found at an emergency exit, the kind that would shatter reinforced glass. ‘The train’s windows don’t open. We will have to do this quickly.’ He kissed her, long and deep, and thought his heart must surely break.

  ‘I love you,’ Tertia said.

  ‘I love you too. Always.’ He smashed the picture window in the cabin with the hammer and the glass fell away like a thousand diamonds being scattered into the night. The wind rushed into the cabin. He knocked the remaining shards from the bottom of the window frame. ‘Sit up here.’

  He scooped her in his arms and lifted her so that her legs were dangling out of the window. ‘Mind your head, my love,’ he said. He placed a hand on the top of her head, to shield it from the sill, then moved his palm to the base of her cranium. His other arm he wrapped around her neck, then started to squeeze.

  Too late, she felt her airway being constricted and her spine protesting. She tried to look back at him, but he couldn’t bear to see those eyes again. There was no way she would escape South Africa if she survived the fall. It was regrettable, to lose her now, but with Tertia dead he could create a new life for himself, in her honour.

  ‘Goodbye, my love.’ Her neck snapped and, gently, he pushed her out the window.

  Karl Lotz sat in his wife’s cabin, breathing in her scent for the first time in years and the last time in his life.

  *

  Lotz entered the dining car and shot the starched white cuffs from his suit jacket then smoothed down his hair. He saw McMurtrie, his daughter, Hamilton and Correia all look up at him as he walked through the carriage.

  ‘Has anyone seen Tertia?’ Lotz asked them.

  Kylie shook her head then put down her knife and fork, halfway through her starter. ‘No. Have you?’

  ‘No, I was tendering my resignation. Hilary Hann accepted it on behalf of the board,’ he said. He looked at Luis. ‘So, are you going to sell your coal to the Chinese? From what I could gather from Hilary, the sale is still going ahead.’

  ‘It is none of your business,’ Luis said quietly. ‘And I will not rest until I see you in prison.’

  Lotz snorted. ‘Well, good luck with that.’

  ‘I hate that the company can’t put off the sale and do a deal with Luis now that he’s resigned,’ McMurtrie said, loud enough for Lotz to hear as he passed them and took a table by himself. Lotz smiled.

  As the waiter was taking his order the train started to slow. He wondered if one of the carriage butlers had discovered Tertia missing and raised the alarm. He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and saw the modest outskirts of a Karoo farming town trundling into view. Ahead was the station. A blue light flashed. Lotz felt sweat prick under his armpits. He had to stay cool. Probably Tertia’s broken window and absence from the train had been noticed and the train management were hoping to start a search without alarming the other passengers.

  Lotz had ordered the springbok for his main course and the waiter set a weighty steak knife down on the side of his place setting.

  Lotz looked behind him and saw McMurtrie easing himself out of his seat. Lotz slid the steak knife from the table and into the cuff of his shirt. Hamilton was getting up too.

  ‘Jan, Karl, whatever you want to call yourself. Please get up and come with me,’ Cameron said.

  Kylie stood behind him, arms folded, trying to look menacing.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘The police are waiting for you, and in the interests of the other passengers I told the manager I’d escort you off the train and onto the platform.’

  ‘And what crime have I committed? None. I changed my name by deed poll in Australia, legally. I failed to report a conflict of interest to the board and for that oversight I have just resigned.’

  Kylie moved closer to him, also keeping her voice low to avoid making a scene. ‘You were in on it with Tertia all along.’

  ‘Rubbish. I told you, I was working against her.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Kylie said. ‘You were working against us. It was you who called a halt to the use of armed security against the zama zamas and you who pushed for the Lion Plains mine when the board favoured an early investment in Mozambique. You’ve been working to bring us down for years.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘She doesn’t need to,’ Cameron said.

  ‘I asked Cameron if he had told anyone that we were taking Luis to Hippo Rock after his wife died,’ Kylie said. ‘He didn’t tell a soul, but I did. You. I told you in my daily update that we were going to a holiday house Cameron’s in-laws owned. I just remembered and Cameron told me that he had talked to you about Hippo Rock in the past and emailed you pictures of the house, and that you liked the sound of buying a place there one day. That was the only way Wellington could have known where to find us. Where’s your wife now?’

  Lotz shifted his eyes left and right. Most of the other diners were oblivious of their conversation, but some were pointing out the window at the approaching flashing lights.

  He looked pointedly out into the darkness and smirked, sure they could see his reflection.

  ‘Don’t look away from me when I ask you a question, you bastard,’ the Australian woman said.

  ‘Kylie …’

  Lotz saw the movement he had hoped for, in the reflections in the carriage window. Kylie had moved past Cameron and was between him and McMurtrie. Lotz sprang from his seat and raised his elbow up and into her, catching her under the chin so that her head snapped back. Before she fell he caught her, then slid the sharpened steak knife from his sleeve. He had it at her throat before she recovered from his first blow. McMurtrie, fists balled in impotent anger, took a step back.

  Wine glasses spilled, women shrieked and men stampeded for the exits at either end of the carriage. At the same time, he saw Cameron’s kid – the girl – enter the carriage.

  ‘I’m getting off the train, with Kylie, and she stays with me until I get what I want.’

  ‘Dad?’ Jess shouted.

  Cameron looked back at his daughter. ‘Jess, get out of here. Go back to your cabin.’

  ‘No, Dad, I’m not leaving you.’

  Cameron shook his head and turned back to Lotz. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Karl. You know how it will end. There are a dozen heavily armed police on the station. You know they’ll end up shooting you dead. Do you want to take Kylie with you?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He pushed the knife into the soft skin of Kylie’s neck. ‘Maybe I’ll just kill her now anyway and let the cops finish me off. My wife’s gone and so is yours, Cameron. I’ve been watching you and this one. I think you’re sweet on each other. If I can’t have the happy ending, then why the fuck should you?’

  Lotz backed towards the rear of the dining car. ‘But for now I’ll keep her alive until I can get a helicopter. I see you haven’t pulled a gun on me yet, Cameron. Guess you must have thought you were safe.’ The train juddered and the brakes squealed. ‘Sit down, Cameron, Luis. We’re going to be here for some time while the negotiation
s play out. Or you can leave if you want.’

  ‘I’m staying,’ Cameron said. ‘Jess – go.’

  ‘Good advice. Listen to your father,’ Lotz said.

  ‘No, Dad. I’m staying.’ She glared at Lotz. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You weren’t coming to save me, were you? You were working with Wellington. Did you come underground to kill me?’

  ‘Clever girl.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jess, get under the table,’ Cameron said. ‘If the cops come in shooting there’ll be bullets everywhere.’

  ‘More good advice from dear old dad,’ Lotz said. Jessica lowered herself to the ground, next to her bag of schoolbooks. Correia, the coward, got down on the floor next to the girl, on his belly. Karl wondered, briefly, what kind of child he and Tertia might have had if they had been given a chance.

  ‘Karl Lotz. This is the South African Police,’ blared a voice through a loudhailer. ‘Release your hostage and lay down your weapon. Come out with your hands high.’

  ‘They’ll have a sniper taking a sight picture on you by now,’ Cameron said.

  Lotz laughed. ‘In this dorpie? No, that will be hours away. I don’t really think I can wait that long and of course I know you’re right. This will never end with me being flown to Cape Town airport in a helicopter with Kylie as my hostage, and me boarding a plane to Rio. It just doesn’t work that way, does it? There are no happy endings. You lost your marriage; I lost my country and my wife. Be thankful you got your daughter back. Kylie wanted my job, but now she won’t get that because the Chinese will put their own person in, so I think she and I will make our exit now.’

  He started to push the knife into Kylie’s neck as she kicked and writhed against him.

  Then his world went black, as impenetrable as a darkened mine.

  EPILOGUE

  ONE MONTH LATER

  Musa Mabunda watched in silence as his cousin, Tumi, swept the far bank of the stream with her spotlight, searching for the telltale glow of the owls’ eyes.