Safari

by Tony Park

  ‘Maybe he called the media after you fobbed him off – before you killed him.’

  Fletcher shook his head. ‘There was no way for him to make a call off the mountain, and Patrice made sure Wise didn’t get anywhere near a telephone before he died.’

  Marie Delacroix made the sign of the cross and looked skyward, uttering a short prayer of thanks for the stream in front of her.

  She knew, from her time researching gorillas, that they disliked water intensely and would go to great lengths to avoid even getting their feet wet. As soon as Mubare came in sight of the running water, he stopped the troop. He stood there, looking up and down the watercourse, trying to work out what to do. Behind her, in the distance, Marie still heard the intermittent popping of gunfire.

  ‘Turn back, turn back,’ Marie willed the silverback.

  His big head swivelled slowly, like a tank turret. Finally he made a decision, and the troop shuffled off, on their hind feet and knuckles, downstream. Marie cursed.

  ‘What’s that gunfire?’ Vincent whispered.

  ‘It’s them Wandans, or something,’ Eddy said.

  ‘Rwandans, stupid,’ Anthony corrected him. He looked over his shoulder, wishing Fletcher would hurry up doing whatever he was doing to the Brit, and get back on the line. ‘Shush. I hear something.’

  ‘It’s like coughing. What the fuck is that?’ Sal hissed.

  ‘Quiet!’ Anthony insisted. ‘Holy Mother of God! Would you look at that.’

  Vincent looked back at him, mouth agape. He took a couple of seconds to collect his thoughts then said, ‘What do we do, Anthony, run for it?’

  ‘No fucking way. Say hello to a million dollars, baby.’ He raised the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the sights.

  Mubare smelled human – and not the woman this time.

  He uttered his warning call and the troop stopped. In the lead was the female who had sired his latest son, and she held the baby close to her. He tried to suckle from her pendulous breast, but she moved his mouth away for the moment, too intent on reading the silverback’s signals.

  Marie Delacroix heard men’s voices, and started to stand, to get a better look down the course of the stream.

  Shane heard the hmm-hah of the cough and it took him a second to recall it. ‘Fletcher!’ He looked up from riffling through the Englishman’s pockets and nodded back towards the Americans. ‘Gorillas!’

  Fletcher rolled his eyes, turned and started to run, waving his rifle high over his head. ‘Away, away! Anthony, no!’

  The female gorilla looked across the stream at the running, yelling man, shrieked, and started to run. The silverback bellowed in rage and splashed into the stream, against his better instincts, towards the source of the danger. Mubare hesitated, frustrated and enraged, as the unfamiliar sensation of water washed up to his knees.

  Anthony squeezed the trigger, but Fletcher’s yelling had spooked the primate too soon. He saw his bullet hit home in the female’s right upper arm. ‘Shit,’ he cursed. By the time he chambered another round, the gorillas had disappeared into the jungle – all but one, that was. The baby, which had been clinging to his mother, had fallen. In her pain and panic, the wounded mother had run into the bush without him.

  ‘Vincent, get up there and grab that baby!’ Anthony ordered.

  Vincent was the closest of them to the little ape, but he hesitated, looking back at his future boss. For three seconds he considered telling Anthony that he should get up off his fat ass and go fetch the baby gorilla himself. The ape crawled groggily on the ground, having landed on his head on a smooth river rock. Anthony glared back at Vincent and the boy came to his senses. He got up and splashed into the water.

  The tiny bundle of black hair squealed in fear. He started to run, but Vincent, falling in the process as his foot slipped on a rock, managed to grab hold of the gorilla’s left rear leg. He lifted the baby, grinning wildly, dangling him upside down as he stood triumphantly in midstream.

  ‘Attaboy!’ Anthony cheered.

  The bamboo thicket at the edge of the stream exploded in a shower of torn leaves and flying twigs as the silverback erupted from cover, bellowing as he ran. Vincent turned to see where the noise had come from but, before he could register his fate, the gorilla careened into him, knocking him flat on his back. The silverback, in a blur of black fur and bared white teeth, snatched up the twice-fallen baby and clutched him to his chest. With the back of his other hand he slammed Vincent’s skull sideways, and the man’s head ended its trajectory against the same rock he had slipped on. Tendrils of blood reached out into the flowing waters.

  Gunshots erupted from the hunting party as men came to their senses. Fletcher stood, worked the bolt of his rifle and fired high over the heads of the fleeing gorillas, in order to see the troop off once and for all. The silverback, mercifully, was gone as quickly as he appeared. Their bullets did nothing but shred the bamboo.

  ‘Vincent!’ Sal screamed, staggering forward.

  Marie Delacroix ran from the storm of gunfire, stooped low, tears blurring her vision, a mix of anger and fear pumping her heart full of adrenaline. She took care to give the startled gorillas a wide berth, heading north as the primates turned back to the east and the relative safety of the park.

  She could hardly believe what she had seen.

  That man.

  That beast.

  That devil, whom she had made a deal with. Fletcher Reynolds, standing there, as plain as day, shooting at her gorillas.

  Sal was still crying as he cradled Vincent’s lifeless head in his lap. He spat vitriol at Anthony, uncaring that the man could have him killed for using such language.

  ‘Suck it up, Sal. The boy’s dead, but he died brave.’

  ‘You motherfucker! You sent him to his death. I’m gonna kill you after I kill all them fucking apes!’

  Fletcher moved between the two men and laid a hand on Sal’s shoulder before he could stand. ‘Enough! Our priority now is to get back to camp.’

  ‘What’s with him?’ Anthony asked, gesturing to the Englishman, who now sat on the ground, his hands bound behind him with plastic cable ties. The wound on the back of Delancy’s head was crusted with blood, the collar of his safari shirt stained deep purplish red.

  Fletcher spoke loud enough for all of them, Sal, Anthony, Eddy and Shane, to hear. ‘That piece of shit came here to spy on you and to expose you to the world’s media.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Anthony said.

  ‘He came to get us?’ Sal looked up from his dead son’s face for the first time. ‘You fucking asshole!’

  Fletcher looked towards Sal and said, ‘If I hadn’t been occupied taking care of this spy, I would have been with you. If I’d let Anthony shoot the gorilla it would have been done my way. Properly. This man caused Vincent’s death, and would have brought the downfall of all of us, Sal.’

  Sal gently laid Vincent’s head down on the carpet of leaf mulch, stood and staggered over to Delancy, who looked up into his eyes, mouth grim, no emotion playing on his face.

  Sal delivered a brutal kick into the Englishman’s ribs, which sent him sprawling. Shane stood by, watching, his eyes flicking across each of the men.

  ‘I say we do him, now,’ Sal said, pulling a Colt .45 automatic pistol out of his shoulder holster.

  ‘Nah,’ Anthony interrupted. ‘Fletcher wants to have some sport with him first, right?’

  Fletcher nodded.

  ‘Let’s take him back to camp. It’s going to get hot on this hill if the army drives those militiamen any closer our way,’ Shane said. In the background, underscoring his words, was the ominous chatter of a light machine-gun.

  Silence prevailed for a short while, except for the omnipresent twitters and croaks of the jungle’s natural inhabitants. The men looked at each other, and their captive.

  ‘Tell us your real name,’ Fletcher said, looking down at him.

  ‘Captain the Honourable William —’

  Fletcher cut him off
with a punch in the nose that made Shane wince with the sound of breaking cartilage, and left Delancy’s face plastered with fresh blood. Fletcher turned his back on Delancy and Shane, and said, ‘Anthony, perhaps you’ve got some particularly American ideas of how to make a recalcitrant prisoner talk.’

  ‘Drop it,’ Shane said.

  He moved swiftly behind Fletcher and rammed the muzzle of his SLR into the back of his head. ‘Now!’ he barked. Fletcher let his rifle fall to the ground. ‘On your knees.’

  Fletcher lowered himself to his knees, looking to the gangsters for help. Shane had timed his move as well as he could, when the minimum number of men were armed. Anthony had laid his rifle against a tree, and Eddy’s was on the ground while he smoked a cigarette. Only Sal carried a weapon, his nickel-plated .45.

  ‘Drop it, Sal, or I’ll kill Fletcher.’

  ‘What makes you think I give a fuck about him?’ Sal brought his pistol up, straightening his arm.

  Shane anticipated the mobster’s reaction. He’d already thumbed the safety catch on his rifle and the barrel of his weapon had less distance to travel than Sal’s. He swung the SLR up and to the left and fired two shots in quick succession. The first bullet took off the top of Sal’s skull, while the second shattered his sternum, punching him back. He fell across the body of his son.

  ‘Who’s next?’ Shane asked.

  ‘Not me,’ murmured Eddy, who dropped his cigarette and extinguished it.

  ‘The quietest one’s always the smartest,’ Shane said. ‘Pick up the other rifles and hand guns by their barrels and put them in a pile in front of me. Anthony, make like Fletcher and get on your knees.’ To Delancy, still sitting tied and bloodied beside him, Shane said, ‘All right, then, Geezer?’

  ‘Oh, just fine, thanks. Took your bloody time, didn’t you?’ he gurgled through a throat thick with clotting blood.

  ‘On your knees, Eddy, next to —’

  ‘I could kill her now, Shane, but I thought you might like a sporting chance to get away – certainly a better deal than you gave poor Sal there. Hi, Anthony, Eddy. Long time no see.’

  Shane looked over his shoulder. Chuck Hamley emerged from behind a tree and stood with an arm around Michelle’s neck and a Glock pistol pressed against her temple. She, like Caesar, was bound and gagged. Patrice covered the Ndebele with an AK 47.

  ‘Oops,’ mumbled Geezer.

  ‘Ah, Captain Delancy. I’ve been longing to meet you, sir,’ Chuck said with false charm. ‘Now, Shane, we can have a shoot-out, if you like – I’m sure you’re a better shot than me, but I can guarantee you’ll have this pretty lady’s blood on your hands, just as I’ll have her brains on my face.’ He grinned at Shane.

  Shane stared back at Hamley. Even if he took him out, Patrice would open up with the AK. It would be a slaughter. Shane lowered his rifle.

  Fletcher, Eddy and Anthony needed no urging to hop to their feet and knock Shane to the ground. They stripped him of his pistol, his webbing, his canteens and his knife, till he was left with nothing but his camouflage fatigues and boots.

  ‘Michelle?’ Fletcher said, looking across at her. Chuck still held the pistol to her head.

  She looked back at him. Chuck pulled the gag from her mouth, but she stayed silent.

  ‘Why are you holding her, Chuck? Let her go now, damn it.’

  ‘She’s part of your problem, Fletcher. I’ll explain, but first tell me what’s gone on here. What happened to Sal and Vincent?’

  Fletcher recapped as Eddy bound Shane’s hands with cable ties, then Chuck explained how he had taken the time to do some checking on William Delancy.

  ‘From my quick phone call to Fletcher yesterday I found out that William here was referred by my old buddy Larry Monroe. You probably don’t recall Larry, Fletcher, but he was one of your less than satisfied clients. One of the group who trailed the poachers to the Botswanan border?’

  Fletcher looked shamefaced, Shane thought, as realisation dawned. ‘That snivelling bugger who didn’t want to shoot.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Chuck confirmed. ‘I’ve been busy on the sat phone since yesterday, Fletch, as you should have been. I spoke to Larry, and he tried to con me for a little while; that is, until I persuaded him to tell me the truth.’

  ‘How’d you do that? Did you pay him?’ Shane asked.

  ‘No, Mister Castle, as a matter of fact I told Larry I’d kill his wife and children if he didn’t tell me all he knew about William Delancy. A far more persuasive approach than threatening to expose him through the media. Incidentally, I’m really looking forward to meeting this Sarah Thatcher. From the SNN website she looks very attractive. Where are you meeting her with the tapes?’

  Fletcher stooped and picked up Geezer’s hidden camera from its bag, holding it aloft for Anthony and Sal to see.

  ‘The only other connection there was left to make, which I did via Fletcher’s laptop and satellite phone today, was to find out who inside the camp had spilled the beans. According to Larry, Thatcher had part of the story, from an eyewitness, but had bamboozled Larry with a whole lot more information which must have come from somewhere else.

  ‘I Googled Michelle – nothing there – and then Shane. I read all about Shane’s little shoot-out in Baghdad and was surprised to read that our good friend William here was on Shane’s team in Iraq. Small world, huh?’

  ‘Michelle’s got nothing to do with this,’ Shane said.

  ‘Very noble, and right on cue, Shane. Thank you,’ Chuck said, obviously enjoying holding court. ‘I had no reason to suspect Michelle at all until she made a rather pathetic attempt to overpower me with a shovel, just before we left camp. She must have overheard me radioing Fletcher about William, or seen the results of my internet search.’ He reached over his shoulder and rubbed his back, presumably where Michelle had hit him. ‘I could only assume young Caesar here, Shane’s loyal foot soldier, was in on the act as well. I searched her things and found some digital video tapes.’

  Anthony clapped, slowly. ‘Bravo, Chuck, but do you mind telling me what the fuck we’re supposed to do now? We got four prisoners, two dead guys of our own and a mountain crawling with rebels, soldiers and poachers.’

  Fletcher had stood there, open-mouthed, through Chuck’s speech. He looked at Michelle, then Shane, then back at her.

  ‘Why? You and I could have been happy together, Michelle. I would have given you the world, could have given you anything you asked for . . .’

  She glared back at him. ‘It’s not about money . . . or about things, Fletcher. You’re a murderer.’

  ‘Let her go,’ Shane said again.

  Fletcher looked at him, his fists clenched in rage.

  ‘You’ve got us.’ Shane nodded at the Englishman and Caesar.

  ‘No, Shane.’ Both men turned to face her now. ‘I’m not going anywhere without you.’

  Fletcher walked over to Shane, who stood, defiant, with his wrists tied behind his back. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘No!’ Michelle screamed.

  33

  ‘I still say we shoulda just capped the fuckers,’ said Eddy.

  ‘Nah, I like this,’ Anthony said. ‘A real hunt. Not one of them set-ups like Fletcher organises. Ain’t that right, bwana?’

  Fletcher frowned, though said nothing. Shane, his right eye swollen and his lip still bleeding from the punches Fletcher had landed on him, noticed that Chuck and Anthony were calling the shots now. Fletcher looked almost hollow, as though the soul he’d sold had finally been collected. Shane felt no pity for him. Since Fletcher’s admission that Patrice had been following Wise on the day he died – and presumably had executed him on Fletcher’s orders – Shane had promised himself he would kill the bastard.

  ‘Make the call, please, Colonel,’ Chuck said to Gizenga.

  He nodded, raising the radio microphone to his lips. In French, he said, ‘Attention all army and UN callsigns. This is Colonel Francois Gizenga. I am in pursuit of four escaped poachers who were apprehended this
morning after attempting to hunt mountain gorillas. Descriptions as follows – one white man and one white woman handcuffed together, and one white man and one black man also cuffed.’ He repeated the broadcast in English for the benefit of the Indian Army peacekeepers, who were conducting operations with the Congolese Army along the border to the south of the Sarambwe Forest, under the auspices of the United Nations peace monitoring contingent in the Congo.

  ‘Good,’ Chuck said. To Shane, he added, ‘In the event that you somehow elude us, you’ll probably be killed by the first army or UN patrol you bump into.’

  Shane didn’t like their chances, particularly since Gizenga’s arrival at the stream half an hour before, along with ten of his soldiers. The rest of his infantry company, another eighty men at least, were fanned out in the jungle on either side of the stream.

  ‘I overheard one of Gizenga’s men telling him that the captured poacher they were going to herd down the stream for Anthony’s boys to kill, got away,’ Michelle whispered to Shane.

  ‘Quiet there, honey, or I’ll put your gag back on,’ Chuck drawled.

  Rightly concerned that two ex special forces soldiers might be able to outrun and evade the hunters and Gizenga’s men, Chuck had ordered that Shane and Geezer be ‘handicapped’ by having Michelle and Caesar handcuffed to each of them, respectively, with manacles provided by the Congolese colonel.

  Geezer had winked at Shane as the young, fit African’s left hand was cuffed to his right, until Chuck had nodded a silent, prearranged command to Patrice. The tracker moved behind Caesar, swung back his arm, and then hacked down with his panga. Caesar had cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, dragging Geezer down with him, as the machete’s blade sliced a deep, debilitating wound across the back of his right calf muscle.

  Shane was faced with an impossible dilemma. He knew that he and Michelle could move fast, but could they live with themselves if they left Geezer and the horribly wounded Caesar to their own devices?