Authors: Nic Bennett
The flashlight flicked around the cavern, and Jonah withdrew further into the shadows in terror. The beam moved toward the Baron, and suddenly a familiar form appeared in what was left of the firelight. Amelia. She held a gun in her hand.
Jonah saw his father moving, trying to drag himself along the ground away from Amelia and toward where his gun lay. Amelia passed the Baron, who was in some other world, and proceeded toward David Lightbody’s helpless, scrabbling body.
It was only now that Jonah began to move, something in the core of his being urging him on, telling him his father would die if he so much as hesitated. He pulled the pistol from his belt, his hands shaking. Although he knew he couldn’t guarantee hitting Amelia from where he was, about thirty yards away from her, he had to try. He would use the Baron as bait.
He moved silently into a crouch and exploded into a spring across the cavern floor, racing toward the Baron. He fired his pistol in the vague direction of Amelia, and she fell to the ground.
Had he hit her?
“One more step and he dies,” he shouted. He was still three
yards from the Baron, but his momentum carried him all the way in the time it took Amelia to stand up and turn around.
His bullet had missed. She’d only fallen to the ground so as to avoid the bullet’s path. Now she stood straight up and put her gun to David’s head. “Jonah, darling,” she said, almost brightly, “what did you say? I missed it in all the excitement.” They were ten yards apart, her gun to David’s head, Jonah’s to the Baron’s. “And there I was wondering where you’d gone off to. And you were here all the time. It makes my job so much easier.” She had moved around so that she was now facing him. Her eyes fixed on his, her voice dropping to its most seductive purr as she stared at him. “Put the gun down, Jonah. This isn’t some playground game.”
Jonah glared back. No, it wasn’t a playground game; it was a trade, a very grown-up trade, a trade of lives.
He held her gaze for a few seconds more before he spoke. “You kill my father, I kill the Baron,” he said coldly.
He saw her plucked eyebrows rise, and her hand rise too, aiming the gun at him. “I think the Baron is rather irrelevant now, don’t you? Lost his mojo, eh, darling? I don’t really care if you kill him. And given your father’s state, I’ve changed my mind as to where this thing should be pointing,” she purred.
Jonah thought fast and flicked his wrist so that his gun was now aiming at her. “You won’t shoot me, Amelia. I’m just a kid,” he said. “And you do need the Baron alive. He is the only one who can unwind the trades I have set up. They’ll rip your Apollyon game to pieces. You are nothing without him.” It was all a bluff, but he had a hunch that she didn’t understand enough to know that there was no way he could have set up trades for the Apollyon funds.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, a trace of hesitancy now audible in her voice.
“You don’t believe what?” Jonah sneered. “You don’t believe that I shot the Baron? That
was me
in case you were wondering. You don’t believe that I stole his laptop? Me again. You don’t believe that I broke into your servers and kept you out of them? Yup, I did that. You don’t believe that I have seen all of your trading records? Me as well. You don’t believe that I have put trading bombs in there?” He stood with his feet spread apart, challenging her. “Which bit don’t you believe, Amelia?”
His father groaned, and both sets of eyes focused briefly on him. Jonah knew he had to push on, had to get the trade done. “My offer is your only way out. A life for a life. You walk out of here, and I get my father to a hospital. If not, the bombs will go off tomorrow morning when the London market opens. That’s how long you’ve got before the program kicks in.” He turned the gun back toward the Baron, leaving himself open to her shooting him. “You have three seconds before I kill him. If you shoot me, you’ll have to kill me outright with a single bullet. I won’t miss from here.”
Amelia lifted her gun upward a fraction, readying to shoot.
“One!” shouted Jonah. He could sense her indecision. The smile had become a grimace; she was biting on her bottom lip.
Come on, Amelia
, willed Jonah,
come on
.
“Two!”
She took a deep breath and put a second hand on the gun to steady her aim. Jonah prepared himself to dive.
“Thr …”
“I accept,” she said quickly, the gun still trained on him. “But
you will put your gun down first. You can trust me, Jonah.” She raised her right eyebrow. “My word is my bond.”
Jonah laughed. “That phrase lost all value some time ago,” he sneered, glaring at her with every ounce of attitude he could muster, willing her to back down. “Put your gun on the floor and I will let
you
go. You will have to trust
me
. It will not be the other way around.” He was surprised at how calm he sounded, how in control he was.
Her eyes dropped. She couldn’t hold his stare any longer. She knew he was the one in control. The trade had been done. Amelia transferred the gun to the index finger and thumb of her other hand, bent her knees so that she could reach the floor while still watching Jonah, and put the gun down. She stood up, tossed her hair proudly, and strode toward him.
There was almost no light at all now as Jonah moved away from the Baron and toward his father. He kept his gun trained on Amelia the whole time. She pulled the Baron to his feet. There was some sense of reality returning to his eyes, a sign that the drugs were wearing off, but it would be quite some time before he was fully compos mentis. Jonah picked up the other gun so that he now had one in each hand as she put the Baron’s arm over her shoulder and led him toward the exit. The second man’s body—Klaasens, his license had read—was spotlighted once more by the flashlight, and she halted and turned back toward Jonah.
Jonah tensed.
“How do I know you won’t follow us once we are out?” she said.
“I will follow you,” he said as menacingly as he could. “But not until my father is safe. You have as long as that takes. I suggest you hurry.”
She turned again and disappeared into the darkness.
As soon as the flashlight disappeared, Jonah ran and placed more logs on the fire to provide some light and went back to his father. His eyes were open, but even in the orange glow of the firelight his face was grey.
“Can’t … feel … my … legs,” he gasped. Jonah could now see the damage. He had taken a bullet in the hip and another in the side of his chest and was bleeding heavily. It would be reckless to move him; Jonah would have to leave him there and get help. He took his father’s hand, his throat closing, tears welling in his eyes. “I’ll get you out, Dad. I’ll get you out. Hold on. Don’t die. I’ll get you out.”
“I … know … go … go … now.” Jonah felt David’s hand tighten around his own.
He squeezed back.
And then he ran. He ran for his father’s life. Out of the cave and through the bush, running, hurdling, falling, rising, jumping, swerving, scratched, cut, bruised, breathless, gasping, until he reached the camp and found Chippy’s radio on the table. He snatched it up and pressed the communication button on the side. “Come in! Come in! Come in!” he shouted and released the button.
There was a crackling of static, and a voice came back. “Squad Two reading you. Who is this? Confirm please. Over.” The voice was African, professional, calm, and clear.
“My name is, umm, Eric Botha,” Jonah said, giving the name from his doctored passport. “My father has been shot. Chippy is dead.” He racked his brain, searching for some easily explainable justification.
Rhino poachers! That was the only credible answer
. “Poachers are escaping. Come quickly. Over,” he begged.
“Okay, Mr. Botha. Stay calm. What is your location? Over.”
“I am at Main Camp. They are at the cave. Over.”
“Stay put. We are on our way. ETA less than two minutes. Over and out.”
Within a minute Jonah heard the sound of an engine at full throttle. He grabbed a flashlight and ran out of the camp, pointing it upward so that the beam provided a fix on his position. He could see three beams of light bouncing into the night about half a mile away. He stayed put. The lights swung around a corner along the main track several hundred yards away and then swung away again as the track wound its way toward him. Five hundred yards. Three hundred yards. One hundred yards. The Land Rover came around the bend flat out, and Jonah was caught in the lights, dazzled. He stood still as the vehicle drew up.
“Jump in the back,” said the same voice from the radio, and Jonah grabbed the arm that reached out to pull him in, almost without the vehicle stopping. The engine roared again, and they sped toward the cave, bouncing and lurching over the rough terrain. Jonah counted four men in the open-topped Landy, two in the back, two in the front. They were all in camouflage, and the two in the back held assault rifles. The one in the passenger seat held a powerful spotlight that he swept across the bush as the driver fought to keep control. It was pointless trying to speak; the noise was too great.
They reached the cave. The driver barked something in an African language, and two of the men began searching the surrounding bush with the spotlight while the fourth man grabbed a folded stretcher and a rucksack marked with a red cross. “They will follow the trail. There is another team driving to the perimeter fence. They
have dogs,” the driver said to Jonah in explanation. “Now show us the way.”
At the cave, Jonah led the driver and the medic inside, where the fire had all but died. He ran to his father, whose eyes were now closed. “I’m back, Dad. I’ve brought you help. You have to keep going.”
The driver peeled off to assess Chippy and Klaasens while the kneeled down and felt David’s pulse. “Keep talking to him,” he ordered Jonah.
Jonah held on to David’s hand. his own slick with sweat. “Dad, it’s me, Jonah. I’ve got the medics here. They’re going to get you to the hospital.” Jonah watched the medic rip open the rucksack and get to work, narrating the steps he was taking. “He’s staunching the blood. Now he’s injecting you with morphine. It’ll take the pain away.” He squeezed his dad’s hand, trying to get a reaction, and David’s eyelids flickered open for a second. “That’s it, Dad! Hold on!”
The driver came over from inspecting the other two bodies “Nothing you can do for them. What about this one?”
“We need the chopper,” said the medic. “Pulse is weak, and he’s losing a lot of blood.”
The driver nodded and ran out of the cave. The medic now spoke to Jonah. “Your father was hit twice. The bullet here,” he pointed to the hip wound, “may have touched his spinal cord, which could cause paralysis of his legs. The other bullet looks as if it has pierced a lung and possibly touched an artery. We’re going to bring in a medical rescue chopper from Tsumeb. It will take fifteen minutes. They will fly him to Windhoek.”
Jonah looked down at his father. “Will he live?” he asked.
The man raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
Jonah knelt down and put his mouth close to David’s ear. “Don’t die, Dad. Not now. I need you. Don’t die.” He squeezed his hand again. His father’s eyes opened, and his lips moved silently. “What, Dad? What is it?” Jonah asked urgently, lowering his head again. “Tell me, what can I do?”
The words were faint but clear. “Make them pay, Jonah. Find Kloot. Make them pay.” And then his eyes closed again, and he slipped back out of consciousness.
Outside, the driver was in radio contact with the helicopter dispatcher, giving them details of David’s injuries and the GPS coordinates of their location. The chopper was in the air within five minutes, heading south toward the cave. The driver placed four lanterns on the ground to mark a landing area and returned to the cave to help transfer David to the stretcher.
Jonah and the two men had brought David down to the flat ground of the old riverbed. He had not regained consciousness despite his son’s best efforts. Jonah waited for the helicopter in a thick sweat, praying that his father would live; that the chopper would come to take him to the hospital in enough time to save him; that the two of them would return to London and he would be greeted by Creedence’s warm embrace; that they had found enough evidence to exonerate his father and incriminate the Baron and the Apollyon network.
He watched the helicopter coming in from the north, low and fast, visible by the spotlight on the nose that panned across the ground below. It began to slow, rising slightly. The spotlight locked onto Jonah,
and he had to turn away from its brightness. The driver motioned for Jonah to squat down. The downdraft from the rotor blades blasted him with air and debris as the pilot brought the helicopter gently down onto the rock. The rotor blades slowed but didn’t stop.
Two men came out and ran over to where David lay. They inserted a drip into his wrist and put an oxygen mask on his face before checking the straps that bound him to the stretcher. Satisfied, they lifted up the stretcher and carried it to the waiting helicopter. Jonah followed. The stretcher was placed inside and secured, and the men beckoned for Jonah to step in. They strapped him into a jump seat and put a set of headphones over his ears. The driver and the medic gave him the thumbs-up and retreated. As the chopper’s doors were pulled closed, the volume and pitch of the engine began to rise, and the helicopter lifted into the air, tilted slightly forward, and headed for the hospital in Windhoek.
They had been in the air twenty-three minutes when Jonah saw the paramedic start pumping David’s chest. His impassive voice came over the headphones, “Patient has gone into cardiac arrest! Am performing CPR. Activate the defibrillators.” The second paramedic pushed past Jonah and pulled a box out from under the stretcher, flicking a switch on it and holding up the two defibrillator pads.
“Charging,” Jonah heard over the headphones. “Charged!”
The first paramedic moved away to allow the second access to David. He placed the pads on his chest, and Jonah saw his father spasm as the electricity shot through his body, attempting to restart his heart. Jonah could feel his throat tightening and the tears begin to stream down his face.