by Tony Park
‘Is he awake, Tenille?’ an English voice asked from the next cot. Shane turned his head and winced through the pain. It was Geezer, sitting up in bed, a glossy men’s magazine in his good hand. His right shoulder and upper arm were bandaged.
‘He is,’ the nurse said. ‘And I’ve told you before, it’s “nurse” or “ma’am”.’
‘Shane, this is Nurse Jamgotchian. She’s from New York. She hasn’t come to terms with it yet, but she’s going to be my next wife.’
‘Puh-lease,’ she said, taking the thermometer from Shane’s mouth and checking it. She made a note on the chart.
‘Jam . . . ?’ Shane’s head felt fuzzy as he tried to read the nurse’s name tag.
‘Jamgotchian. It’s Armenian-American,’ she said.
Shane looked across at Geezer as the nurse turned around to adjust the drip, which he just noticed was feeding into his arm. Geezer winked and mouthed the word ‘Hot’.
Shane wiggled his fingers and toes. Everything seemed to be working, which was good. He saw the face of the RPG firer again, in the second before he loosed his final rocket, heard the screams of the burning man in the pick-up.
‘Rio,’ Geezer said as the nurse walked from the ward, her rubber-soled boots squeaking on the polished linoleum.
‘What?’
‘Rio de Janeiro. South American women are sensational.’ He held up the folded magazine, revealing a tanned girl on a beach folding her arms across her bare breasts. ‘It’s where I’m going on leave, if Tenille keeps playing hard to get.’
Shane shook his head. They’d both nearly been killed and all Geezer could think about was getting laid. Shane had been in a relationship for a while in Perth – she was a nurse, but not military. She’d been supportive, and supposedly remained faithful during his time in Afghanistan. Iraq – with the army – had been a strain. She’d complained about being lonely, hinted at marriage and kids. He’d wanted everything to stay the same. She’d been ecstatic when he announced he was leaving the SAS, then walked out of the home they had shared for six months when he told her he’d taken a contract job back in the Middle East. He hadn’t asked her to move in, it had just sort of happened. He knew from his mates’ experiences that precious few marriages survived the life men like him led. In busy times like these, professional soldiering – in or out of uniform – was hardly conducive to a happy home.
When he settled, in Africa, as he would some day soon, he hoped he wouldn’t be alone. He thought of Amanda, the nurse, and her clutter about the house. At first he’d found the drying hand-washed underwear, the perfume bottles, the hair combs, the shoes, the shoes, the bloody shoes, so annoying. Later, when she’d gone, the place had seemed soulless. Clean, but soulless. He owned the house outright, but what good was a three-bedroom home when you lived alone?
‘I said, where will you go on your leave?’ Geezer said from the next bed. ‘Still stoned?’
‘What? Sorry. I don’t know. Maybe back to Oz. Maybe to Africa again.’
‘Hello, here’s trouble,’ Geezer said.
A short, bald-headed man walked in. Ross Goldman was a retired US Army colonel who ran the local arm of the company Shane and Geezer worked for. ‘At ease, don’t get up,’ he said.
‘Very funny,’ Shane replied.
‘I haven’t told Shane yet about the generous terms of our compensation payment,’ Geezer said. To Shane, he explained, ‘Ross came by this morning while you were still in your drug-induced coma.’
‘A moment, please?’ Ross said to Geezer. Shane had pegged him long ago as the type of leader who thought men wouldn’t respect him if he were too familiar with them. It was not the kind of management approach that endeared him to men such as those he led. Goldman pulled across the curtain that divided Shane’s bed from Geezer’s, then took a seat close to Shane’s bedhead.
‘There’s been a complaint,’ the American said.
‘By who?’
Goldman explained that an Iraqi ambulance had pulled up behind the US Army vehicle that had set fire to the pick-up containing the Arab gunman. A doctor had seen Shane stride down the street and shoot a burning man in the head, killing him before the medical team had a chance to get near the vehicle to check for survivors.
‘That’s bullshit, and you know it, Ross.’
‘I believe your version. But you know there are people in the Iraqi administration who’ll do anything to undermine the American presence here – and that extends to foreign security firms.’
Shane screwed his eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening. ‘What about the sergeant in the RG-31 – the guy who told me to let the Arab burn?’
‘He’s under investigation too. This is going to get blown out of all proportion, Shane.’
Shane opened his eyes and looked into Ross’s. The other man looked away. Bastard, Shane thought. ‘You won’t stand behind me?’
‘It’s their country and we have to play by their rules. You know there have been complaints about companies such as ours acting like a law unto themselves. We’re bidding for a new contract right now with the Iraqi Government and we can’t afford controversy.’
‘So I’m finished?’
‘You’re a good operator and we don’t want to lose you. You’re due leave, right?’
‘I’ll be ready for work again in a couple of weeks.’
‘It might be an idea to take a little longer.’
It dawned on Shane what his supervisor was suggesting. They wanted him out of the country – indefinitely. ‘Shit,’ he said. He hadn’t expected a medal or a bonus for what he’d done yesterday, but neither had he expected virtually to be laid off.
‘I can get you out of here on a C-130 to Kuwait tonight. I’ll have our doctor say you need further medical treatment. If you’re not in the country the investigation will probably peter out,’ Ross said.
‘All so the company can win another multimillion dollar contract.’
‘We look after our people, Shane.’
‘So it seems.’
Ross straightened in his chair. ‘I’ll try and ignore that attitude. Take six months’ leave and we’ll reassess the situation here at that time. In the meantime, you might be interested in this.’ He handed Shane a piece of paper.
Shane felt betrayed, angry, abandoned. Reluctantly, he scanned the message. It was a print-out of an email. As he started to read, Goldman explained the originator was a friend of his, a retired South African Recce-Commando major who lived in Johannesburg. The major had been sounded out about a job in Zimbabwe, but was already engaged full time in his own security business. He had forwarded the original message, which had come from a professional hunter.
It was an informal job advertisement.
I’m looking for someone who can run anti-poaching operations on my hunting concession in Zim, north-west of Wankie, on the Botswana border. As the local law and order situation deteriorates things are getting worse up here. Not only subsistence poaching, but also organised gangs, heavily armed, who are crossing the border from Zambia in search of ivory and rhino horn. Ideally the person will be ex-special forces, with a good knowledge of the bush, and able to work well with Africans. I have funding in US dollars for the job. House and vehicle will be supplied. Initial contract is six months, with a view to extension.
The email was from a Fletcher Reynolds, of Isilwane Lodge, Matetsi, Zimbabwe. The name seemed familiar. Shane stared at the overhead lights, then remembered. ‘I saw this guy on television yesterday.’
‘Whatever,’ Ross said. ‘Are you interested?’
Interested? He could have kissed the American, if he hadn’t been so pissed off at him. It was a chance to get back to Africa, make some contacts and earn US dollars at the same time.
Goldman left and a red-haired female doctor arrived to inspect Geezer’s wound. As the Englishman flirted with her, Shane lay back, wishing he could light a cigarette, and closed his eyes.
The action replayed in his mind, in slow motion, but crystal clear. He
saw the rounds from his rifle strike home on the sniper’s weapon and body, his aim and actions as precise and cool as if he’d been on the firing range back home. He saw the anger on the face of the RPG firer as the man realised Shane’s shot had spoiled his aim. It was the closest to his victims he had ever come. Man against man. It was a world away from calling in B-52 air strikes on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, or the running vehicle-versus-vehicle gunfights of the early days of the Iraq invasion.
He had faced the ultimate test of a warrior. He thought about the burning man, and tried to remember how he had felt when he pulled the trigger. He told himself he had done the deed out of mercy for a respected foe, that he had wanted to end the man’s incurable pain. He thought of the dead men lying in the street around him, the blood and the noise and smoke, and tried to remember if he had been scared.
The pictures still played in his mind, but when he strived to recall his feelings, and to analyse his emotions now, after it was all over, one shocking truth suddenly dawned on him.
He felt nothing.
5
The Sinamatella River wound its way across the dry plain like a brown snake. At this time of year it was a river in name only, its bed more sand than water, except for the odd puddle where the life force still oozed, reluctantly, to the surface. In some places there were damp patches of sand where determined elephants had dug for water.
Michelle watched a pair of white rhino through her binoculars. They might be a mating pair, she thought. It had been four days since her dinner with Fletcher. She set the glasses down on the stone-slab table at the Elephant and Dassie Restaurant and took a sip of bitter Zimbabwean coffee tinted grey with canned evaporated milk.
A cooked breakfast was pot luck at Sinamatella Camp these days. She sopped up the last of her runny egg yolk with a piece of home-baked bread and pushed the remains of her rather gamey pork sausage to the edge of the plate, then returned her attention to the view.
And what a view. The camp was situated on a mesa that rose steeply from the otherwise featureless plains. From this majestic vantage point, beneath an expansive thatched lapa, or shelter, with a bit of luck one could sit and see all of Africa’s big five – lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo – though even through binoculars a two-tonne rhino was little bigger than an ant. Of wild dogs there was no sign, although a reported sighting by a ranger near Mandavu Dam ten kilometres from the camp had been enough to make her up-stakes from Robins for a few days.
She had packed reluctantly, having hung around Robins and its satellite camp, Nantwich, where Rembrandt had been killed, in the hope of running into the pack again, even though she had lost radio contact with Picasso’s collar. Normally, when she received a new sighting report, she couldn’t wait to get on the road, but yesterday she had wished she could stay in the north of the park a little longer – until Fletcher made contact with her again. There was no public telephone in the camp and her radio was tuned to the national parks frequency only. She could have gone to the warden at Robins or Sinamatella and found out Fletcher’s frequency and callsign – they were sure to have that information – but she found herself unwilling to make the next move.
‘Will there be anything else, madam?’ the waiter asked.
‘Just the bill, please,’ she said as the man cleared away her plate. Poor guy had arms like an anorexic’s. She remembered him, by sight, from her earlier visits, but couldn’t recall his name. It saddened her to think that on her next visit – maybe in a month or two – he mightn’t be around any more. The virus was a slow, silent plague that everyone in Africa had come to accept as a part of life – and death. She wondered if he would leave a wife and children behind.
Michelle heard a vehicle pull up in the car park beside the restaurant. Even though her view was obscured by the stone wall draped with pink-red bougainvillea, she recognised the clatter of a diesel Land Rover. She tried not to look as she heard Fletcher’s booming voice as he greeted the waiter like a long-lost friend. ‘How’s it, shamwari?’
He strode across the flagstones after ordering a coffee and sat down beside her. ‘You’re harder to track than a leopard,’ he said.
Oddly, he was carrying what looked to Michelle like a woman’s woven cane sewing basket. She put down her binoculars and said, ‘I kind of expected to see you again down at Robins, to talk about . . . business.’
‘Ah, yes, business. First off, forgive me for not finding you sooner. Second off, please, Michelle, I hope you’re not mad about the other night. You know I wouldn’t want to do anything to offend . . .’
‘No, no. Really, it’s all fine. Still friends – and business partners?’
‘Still both. Good, I’m glad that’s sorted.’
‘All the same, I did think you’d want to talk more about this research deal.’
‘That’s why I’m here, but I was called away on business, to Harare, the day after our dinner. There was no way to get word to you. I hope you didn’t read too much into that.’
‘Of course not,’ she lied. She’d agonised for two days, thinking he might withdraw his offer of funding because she had spurned his advance. She breathed easier now, and hoped her relief wasn’t too obvious.
Over a fresh pot of coffee Fletcher explained that one of his regular local clients, a brigadier in the Army of the Republic of Zimbabwe, had invited him to Harare to discuss a business venture. The army had been committed by the government to the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, a couple of years earlier to help prop up the regime of Joseph Kabila, son of the murdered Laurent Kabila, who had seized power from the Zairian dictator Mobuto Sese Seko in 1997. Stories abounded of how the Zimbabwean government and its military had become involved in business dealings in the DRC as a pay-off for their support of the regime. Fletcher’s contact, Brigadier Winston Moyo, had been interested in exploring new hunting opportunities during his time in the war-ravaged country.
‘Moyo’s talking about a joint venture – him organising a concession from the DRC government on the Ugandan border, close to the Virunga National Park, and me running the hunting operation. Because the rains start much later up there than here in Zim, it means I can keep hunting in our off season.’
‘I’ve read about the area you’re speaking of. That’s mountain gorilla country, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Bad poaching, even worse than here. It’s also near the Rwandan border, and there are still refugees and militia from there living in the bush on the DRC side. They’re hunting gorillas and other primates for bush meat, and also selling baby gorillas to illegal wildlife traders.’
‘Fletcher, please don’t tell me you’re going to be hunting mountain gorillas?’ She knew he wouldn’t be, but couldn’t resist goading him.
He ignored her flippancy. ‘Leopard, forest sitatunga, giant forest hog, maybe some forest elephant and buffalo, if we can find any left.’
‘No okapi?’
‘They’re protected,’ he said, missing her sarcasm. The okapi, sometimes known as the forest giraffe, looked like a zebra with an impossibly long neck.
‘What am I doing here drinking coffee with you?’
He smiled. ‘Working out how to spend my fifty thou, I suppose.’
‘What’s in your dainty little basket there?’ she asked.
‘Ah, I was wondering how long it would take you to ask. It’s for you. A peace offering.’ He slid the basket across the stone table towards her.
‘You don’t have to make peace with me, Fletcher.’
‘Then call it a belated birthday present.’
She lifted one of the top flaps and caught a whiff of bougainvillea and perfume. ‘Fletcher, where did you get all this girly stuff?’ Inside the basket was a tastefully arranged selection of scented soaps, bath beads, salon-brand shampoos and conditioners, nail varnish, and cleansers, interspersed with flowers and a kind of African ethnic potpourri made from seed pods, guineafowl feathers, leaves and even a couple of porcupine quills.
Fletcher looked ac
ross at her expectantly. He cleared his throat. ‘My maid, Mary, did the arranging,’ he said, as if to reassure her of his masculinity.
She laughed. ‘I’m touched. Thank you, but where did you get all this stuff?’ As her surprise receded, she fixed her eyes on his, trying to read what intentions there might be behind the gift.
He looked down, swirling the dregs of his coffee in the cup. ‘To tell you the truth it was my wife’s. She . . . um . . . left behind stuff she could buy when she and the kids moved to Cape Town. It’s all unopened and it seemed a shame to throw it out. I hardly ever get clients visiting with their wives any more.’ He looked back up at her.
She was touched by his awkwardness. He usually seemed so self-assured, yet here he was trying to do something genuinely nice for her, while not wanting to make it look like another come-on. At the same time, he was struggling with memories of his failed relationship.
‘It’s beautiful, Fletcher. Thank you, and thank Mary for me. Now, tell me, how’s your local business going?’
He seemed grateful for the change of subject. ‘More Americans coming in tomorrow. Some banking friends of the dentist. But, for now, how would you like to see some of your doggies?’
Her coffee cup clattered on the unforgiving surface of the stone table. ‘You’ve seen them! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Relax, they’re sleeping. On the edge of the road in some mopane, between here and Mandavu. Well, what are you waiting for?’
They travelled in her vehicle, as it was easier than transferring all of her monitoring, tracking and recording gear to his. Also, with fuel so short in the country no one ever took two trucks when one would do.
Fletcher was keen to see her in action, to assess the merits of her work and satisfy himself she was not just some overkeen graduate student on an extended holiday. As pretty as she was, he genuinely wanted to make sure he had made the right decision about committing the dentist’s research grant. And he wanted to spend time with her. He’d been clumsy the first time around and, while he was disappointed, he was not deterred. Some hunts took longer than others.