by Tony Park
Shane took a seat on the leather lounge in the drawing room and with the remote control switched on the wide plasma screen television. Sarah inserted the tape in the player and sat in an armchair.
On the television, torsos and legs passed the camera’s lens as the interview was set up. In the background he heard a boy’s voice, whining a little, asking if he really had to tell the story to the camera. A woman’s voice, soothing yet authoritative, told him it would be fine, and for the best. ‘Is that thing on?’ the woman asked, and the black face of a woman with a nun’s headdress filled the screen.
‘No, not yet,’ he heard Jim Rickards reassure the nun on the tape. The cameraman, who was now setting up a portable light nearby, looked at him sheepishly and shrugged off the lie.
The camera’s focus pulled back, shifted, and settled on the wide-eyed face of an African boy. Next, he heard Sarah’s voice, behind the camera, starting the interview by asking the boy to state clearly his name, age and place of residence.
‘Um . . . I am Daniel. Daniel Ngoma. I am fourteen years old, and I live in St Francis’ orphanage in Livingstone, Zambia.’
‘Thank you, Daniel. Now, in your own words, I’d like you tell us what you saw when you accompanied your uncle and some other men on your trip to Zimbabwe.’
Daniel dissembled at first, neglecting to say why the men were in Zimbabwe, only that they had been ambushed by armed men while walking in the bush.
‘Tell us why your uncle and the men were in Zimbabwe, Daniel,’ Sarah asked softly but firmly.
‘Um . . . for a holiday.’
‘Tell us why they were there – really.’
‘Um . . . they were hunting.’
‘Legally hunting?’
Shane almost felt sorry for the young boy. It had obviously taken a huge amount of courage for him to tell the sisters or priests who cared for him that he had been part of an illegal cross-border raid, let alone whatever else he had to reveal. Also, Shane knew from his own bitter experience how intimidating Sarah Thatcher could be in an interview.
‘No, madam. Poaching.’ He looked down as he said it.
After that first admission of a crime committed, Daniel held nothing back, answering all of Sarah’s questions in a clear, strong voice. As he spoke, Shane noticed the passion well in his eyes and strengthen his delivery. Though Shane had as yet provided no details to Sarah, it was clear to him that the poaching expedition the boy had been on was the same one in which he and Wise had parachuted in to block the criminals’ escape into Botswana.
‘And what happened, after the gunfight in which your uncle was killed by the rangers and the white man, Daniel?’
Shit, Shane thought. I probably killed this kid’s uncle.
Daniel told how he and two other men, unarmed bearers who had been carrying the illegal ivory, had run off into the bush, towards Botswana, without their booty. ‘We carried no weapons, no ivory, nothing. We ran as fast as we could, but one of the men was hurt.’ These, Shane knew, were the ones Fletcher and the American hunters – Chuck’s national guard buddies – had gone off to track.
‘What was wrong with him?’
‘He had been shot in the leg.’ Daniel leaned down, the cameraman skilfully dipping the lens to follow his actions as he pointed to a spot on his skinny ebony calf. ‘This man was bleeding, very badly. We could not leave him in the bush. The other man, his brother, carried him on his back.’
‘What happened then, Daniel?’ Sarah asked, patiently drawing out the boy’s story and, Shane thought, deliberately building to a climax for the television viewers.
‘Other men were following us.’
‘Were they Zimbabwean men? Black African national parks rangers, Daniel?’
‘No, madam, they were wazungu.’
‘White men, you mean.’
Daniel nodded. ‘The men I was with said that we would be caught soon. They decided that they should give themselves up, as there was no way they could escape the white men. We could see them catching up to us. They told me to run ahead, to try and make it into Botswana, where I would be safe.’
‘And did you, Daniel? Did you leave those men?’
He shook his head. ‘I was scared, madam. I wanted the white men to find these other men, my colleagues, and to let them go. They had no ivory, no guns, so I thought that they would be set free.’
‘And were they?’
He closed his eyes then, and when the single tear forced its way out from between his tightly shut lids, Shane had to swallow hard to keep his own emotions in check. Daniel brushed away the unmanly sign quickly with the back of his hand, embarrassed by his weakness. He took a deep breath. ‘No, the white men did not set these men free.’
‘What happened, Daniel?’
The boy looked straight back at the interviewer and said, ‘They killed them.’
‘Who did?’
‘The white men. I hid behind a termite mound and watched. The Zambian man who was not wounded stood and put his hands up when the wazungu arrived. He said, in English, “Please do not hurt us. We are unarmed, and we had no part in this business.”’
Sarah said nothing and, after a few seconds, Daniel resumed. ‘A man with white hair said, “No, you are poachers. You can die like dogs or you can die like men. I will let you start running, either with the wounded man or alone, and then we will hunt you.”’
Shane heard a faint gasp from behind the camera, as Sarah betrayed the soul beneath her no-nonsense professional exterior.
‘The men stayed, but then the mzungu with the white hair started firing into the dirt around them. Eventually, the man picked up his wounded brother and started walking away. The other men were laughing and calling things out – bad names for black people.’
‘What happened next, Daniel?’
‘The man carrying his brother made it about one hundred metres, and then the white men started firing at them. Their first bullets were in the trees and on the ground, and this made the man stumble and fall. He picked up his brother, and then the gun firing began again . . .
‘They killed them. Both of them.’
Michelle got her second puncture less than a kilometre from Isilwane. She swore and banged the steering wheel as the Land Rover coasted to a halt, but she realised no amount of anger would fix a flat tyre.
It was just bad luck. She had changed the first wheel near the hot springs at Manzi Chiesa, watched by a curious herd of zebra as she unbolted the spare wheel from its bracket in the rear tray of the Land Rover. It was a task she had performed countless times in Africa and the job was soon done. Getting two punctures on the one journey was not unheard of, but it was a pain in the ass. There was a full puncture repair kit in the vehicle’s toolbox, and a set of tyre levers to take the rubber off the wheel, but she had done that once before and she knew it was a long, hard task. As it was getting dark she thought it better to walk the short distance to the lodge and get Shane or Lloyd to bring her back out with an inflated spare from one of the other vehicles. Lloyd could mend the hole tomorrow. There was some risk, walking alone in the bush unarmed, but she would stick to the road and be inside safe before any lions or other nocturnal hunters roused themselves. She hoped.
Arriving on foot meant the occupants of the lodge didn’t hear her. She wondered who the strange Landcruiser belonged to. Fletcher’s Mercedes, which Shane had taken to Victoria Falls the day before, was parked in the driveway. Michelle walked up the steps into the foyer and heard voices. She slowed her pace, her curiosity growing when she noticed the abnormally harsh light emanating from the drawing room.
As she reached the doorway she saw Shane, sitting in a chair opposite a man and a woman seated either side of a tripod-mounted television camera. A bright light was shining on Shane’s face. He looked like an animal caught in a spotlight. Why had he been foolish enough to invite the television crew back to the lodge? By all accounts – assuming these were the same people – they had savaged him the last time he had spoken to them.
‘So, Mister Castle, you say you were not involved in the shooting of two unarmed Zambian men – bearers for the gang you and your offsider had been engaged with in combat?’ the woman asked.
‘That’s correct. Once all of the armed members of the gang had been accounted for, my priority was to take care of my man, who had been injured. It was my judgement that the unarmed bearers – including the boy in your story, Daniel – should be allowed to get away.’
‘Why was that?’ the reporter asked.
‘They were no threat and we were not a police force. Our mission had been to support the national parks rangers in protecting wildlife and stopping the armed poachers from escaping with their ivory. We were also able to disrupt the poachers, who had been in the process of setting up an ambush with the intention of killing the rangers who were pursuing them.’
Michelle had not seen his first interview with the Englishwoman, but she was impressed by how he was handling this one. He looked cool and in control – as he normally did.
‘So, what did your employer, Fletcher Reynolds, and the American hunting clients he was escorting on the day, do after your fire fight with the poachers?’
‘They arrived late – after the action was over. They seemed . . . disappointed.’
‘Disappointed?’
Shane paused to clear his voice. ‘Fletcher – Mister Reynolds – told me he would take the hunters on a scouting expedition to follow the tracks of the men who had escaped. It was my impression that this was all Mister Reynolds intended – to show the men a practical lesson in bushcraft.’
‘You’ve heard what Daniel Ngoma said happened next. Do you believe the men he saw kill – murder – two unarmed Zambians that day were Fletcher Reynolds and his hunting clients?’
Shane stayed silent for a couple of seconds as though contemplating his next words. Michelle was horrified. She couldn’t believe that Fletcher would have murdered anyone. If anyone had been shot, it must have been in self-defence. ‘Yes I do. There were no other Europeans in the safari area on that day.’
‘And why, Mister Castle, do you think Fletcher Reynolds and/or the men who were with him, would have murdered those men? For fun?’
‘No. For money.’
Michelle felt dizzy. She couldn’t believe what Shane was saying, but the reporter was making him spell it out.
‘You mean, they wanted to rob these two unarmed Zambian men? Surely they wouldn’t have been carrying much money, or any valuables. You said you had already recovered the ivory.’
‘It is my belief that the men with Fletcher Reynolds, his hunting clients, had paid him a significant amount of money to go hunting and that Mister Reynolds delivered on his part of that deal by leading them through the bush to where those two men were. . .’
‘What you’re saying, Mister Castle, is —’
‘What I’m saying is that Fletcher Reynolds was paid, and not for the first time, to organise a safari – a hunt – where the trophy was a human being. He was running a manhunt.’
‘No!’ Michelle screamed, then ran for the front door, out into the dark African night.
27
Shane found Michelle outside, on a garden seat. From the glare of a security floodlight he could see her eyes were red from crying.
‘I don’t believe it. Not a word of it,’ she said as he sat down beside her. He handed her a bottle of Zambezi, but she shook her head.
‘Here, drink it,’ he insisted. Reluctantly she took the bottle from him.
‘But how do you know for sure, Shane? That Zambian boy could be lying. Couldn’t they have been fired on and shot back in self-defence?’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s how it all started,’ he said, pausing to take a drink. ‘I think it started with Chuck Hamley – he’s certainly in this thing up to his neck. A few months back when Hamley shot a poacher he probably did so because he thought his life was in danger. Fletcher took the rap for it, and got away with it, but I think that’s when the money started rolling in. It coincides with my employment – and the funding for your work.’
‘Blood money?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it. Hamley was willing to pay again for the thrill of shooting a human being, and so too were the men he recommended Fletcher to. The hunters who killed those two unarmed Zambians were Hamley’s national guard buddies from the States. I remember them.’
‘But how do you know all of this, Shane?’
He told her of his visit to Victoria Falls earlier in the day, and how he had persuaded Fortune Ndlovu to talk to him.
‘I got it wrong. I thought that Fletcher was being blackmailed by Charles Ndlovu because he’d planted a rifle on a dead man’s corpse to make it look like he’d been an armed poacher. Charles was smarter than me. He told his son that he went to Fletcher to confront him over the missing gun and that he had worked out that Fletcher’s actions were premeditated. Charles had the missing piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t see. Fletcher knew Caesar and I had been watching those poachers and that only one of them was armed, with an old bolt-action rifle. He knew he’d get the drop on them, because Caesar and I had them under observation and we’d disabled their vehicle. They were sitting ducks. All Fletcher needed was another weapon so he could later convince the police that he and his hunters had been in mortal danger. He left the lodge with that old SKS semi-automatic rifle not as a back-up weapon but as something to plant at the scene of a crime to justify his actions. He went there to kill, Michelle. It was premeditated murder.’
She shook her head. She desperately wanted it all to be some terrible mistake. ‘Why didn’t Charles tell you, or go to the police when he worked it out? It just doesn’t make sense.’
Shane took a long pull on his beer bottle. They were alone at the lodge. Lloyd was in the staff compound, and the television reporter and cameraman had left for a night drive back to Victoria Falls. They had more research and filming to do there in the morning. ‘Tell me, Shane,’ she prompted.
‘Charles had AIDS. He was dying. He knew there would be no death benefit for his family if he simply died of his illness while doing his job. But he had another plan to make the most of Fletcher’s safaris.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He sold himself. To Fletcher.’
Shane was staring out into the night, and she saw the pain, plain on his face. ‘His son told you all this?’
‘The funny thing is that the boy thought I knew all about it. Charles must have kept my ignorance a secret from him. Maybe he figured one day I’d come looking for the truth about how he died – that I’d work it out. Charles needed money and he knew that Fletcher had clients – including Charles Hamley – who would pay big-time for the opportunity to kill a human being. Charles also knew he was going to die soon, so he made a show of leaving the lodge, pretending he’d defected to the poaching gangs. Fletcher backed him up with a cock-and-bull story about Charles leading our patrols away from where the poachers were really operating. When it was time – when Chuck Hamley was next in the country on safari – Charles Ndlovu walked out into the bush, to his death.’
She remembered the day. The start of the rains. Shane had tried to keep her at the lodge, to stop her from tagging along, but she’d been worried about Fletcher’s safety. It was the most emotional she had ever seen Shane, when he had brushed past her in the pouring rain. She looked across at him now.
There was a tear running down his cheek. He got up and walked away from her.
Shane breathed deeply. He wiped the errant sign of weakness from his face with the back of his hand. This was not the time to fall apart. Breaking the news to Michelle was something he had dreaded, not least of all because he was sure she would be gone the next day, back to Canada.
He’d promised Sarah Thatcher he would dig
through Fletcher’s records to see what else he could come up with. In a court – if this bizarre situation ever made it that far – Fortune Ndlovu’s testimony would be hearsay. Besides, the young man had made it quite clear he would have no part in any legal action against Fletcher, Charles Hamley or anyone else, and if contacted by the police he would deny ever having spoken to Shane. Fortune wanted to protect himself, his mother, and their meagre wealth.
Shane and Sarah needed more information to bring Fletcher down, to stop his trade in human life. He went into the den and turned on Fletcher’s computer again. He had trawled through the document folders and sent and received emails, but found nothing incriminating. In a few messages to and from Hamley there were references to ‘unusual trophy requests’ and mentions of hunting ‘primates’. That struck Shane as odd as hunters only shot monkeys in Zimbabwe if they had become problem animals. The same went for baboons, although these were sometimes killed for sport and bizarre trophies. He wondered if ‘primates’ actually referred to humans. Even if it did, it would be tough convincing a policeman or court of the link. He found Fletcher’s picture folder and double-clicked on it, revealing dozens of the thumbnail images of hunting parties and individual shots of Fletcher, a particular hunter and the trophy he had taken. Of course, Fletcher wasn’t stupid enough to keep pictures of his clients posing with dead humans. When he right-clicked on a picture, and then selected ‘properties’, he found that Fletcher had entered a caption for each picture, giving the date, the client’s name and the relevant measurements or weight of the trophy animal. That was interesting.
He heard footsteps in the corridor and Michelle’s tall, slender frame was silhouetted in the doorway. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘What are you looking for now?’
‘A picture of a man – one of the Americans.’ He scrolled through the pictures as he spoke, finally finding the group he was after. He clicked on the image of Charles Hamley’s fellow national guardsmen. Only one of the men was not smiling. He opened the caption box. He found the name of the frowning man third from the left and wrote it down. He knew that in another file he would find contact details for all of Fletcher’s clients. Bingo.