Jed noticed again the man didn’t use Miranda’s name. ‘How much time did she spend on this side of the border?’
‘I really can’t say. I manage the game reserve and am out of camp often. I spend a lot of time in the bush.’
‘Hunting poachers?’
‘Amongst other things. Mr Banks, again I am sorry you have wasted your time by travelling all the way here. I assure you I will relay our conversation to Mr bin Zayid, but there is really nothing more I can do for you now.’
The man climbed into the pick-up and backed out of the car park, along with his two packs, two combat vests, six-hundred-odd rounds of ammunition and three guns.
Jed Banks was alone in Africa. His daughter was dead and her boyfriend was nowhere to be found. There was nothing more he could do. He walked back to his Land Rover and started the long journey home.
Solomon.’
‘Mort, it’s Christine again.’
‘Hey, babe. Did you get my message?’
‘Don’t call me that. And no, I haven’t checked my emails today’ Chris stood on the verandah of the lodge at Mana Pools.
‘I’m going secure, OK?’ he said.
‘Whatever.’ Chris drummed her fingers on the balcony railing as she waited for the scrambler to kick in. Two saddle-bill storks were standing in the shallows of the Zambezi, their striking red, yellow and black bills poised above the water’s surface. The female of the pair – Chris could tell the sex from the markings beneath the bird’s eyes – shot her beak into the water and returned with a small, squirming silver fish. Her mate looked on enviously.
‘OK, that’s better,’ Solomon said. ‘Well, you should have checked your messages. Remember how I told you our VIP visitor had changed his plans and was reverting to plan A?’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Chris already knew General Crusher Calvert had changed his hunting plans from Tanzania to Zambia because of the heightened security threat in East Africa and the cancelled security summit.
‘He wants a briefing on the work you’ve been doing in Africa – all of it.’
‘What? You have got to be fucking joking.’
‘Yeah. I know, it’s probably a little out of your way. He gets in day after tomorrow.’
‘It’s a two-day drive for me to get there, Mort! How did he find out about my work?’
‘It seems one of his security people was talking to our security people here and it came up that you were working in Africa in lion research. The general’s security guy knew how keen the big man is on conservation – well, almost as hot as he is on killing – and passed on the news.’ Solomon chuckled.
‘Now the crush-man wants to meet you. We’ve sent a message back saying you happen to be in the general area and that you’d be delighted.’
‘Thanks a lot, Mort.’
‘Like I said, Chris, we want you to brief him on everything.’
‘So he knows who I am, what I do?’
‘All of it, babe. He could be a lot more than a retired general in the near future, so it behoves us all to start kissing his ass.’
‘Dammit. Email me the latest summaries so I can pretend I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been a little out of the loop up here in the bush, you know.’
‘You got it.’
‘When does he want to see me?’
‘He wants a few days first up to shoot the shit out of some of God’s furry creatures, kind of blow off some steam, I guess. His people say you should head over to them and give your briefing on the fourth day. Why don’t you take a couple of days R and R in Kariba beforehand?’
‘OK. I’ll be there,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘Oh, and Mort, the reason I called …’
‘Yes?’
‘I need you to check some more border movements for me.’
‘Not for Miranda again.’
‘No, for Hassan bin Zayid.’
‘I thought we were finished with him. What gives?’
Chris detected the note of alarm in his voice. It was understandable. ‘Don’t panic, Mort. I just wanted to get in touch with him and I’ve been told he’s in Zanzibar.’
‘It’s my job to panic. You know what I always say: panic now and avoid the rush later. Any reason to doubt that he’s in Zanzibar?’
‘Not really, but I want to find out if I’m being strung a line by his people.’
‘Why do you want to talk to him?’ Solomon asked. ‘What’s he got to do with you?’
‘He knew Miranda. They turned out to be friends in the end.’
‘Friends! For Christ’s sake, Chris, I didn’t think you were running a dating agency up there. Was he screwing her?’
‘Mort!’
‘I’m not joking, Chris. Jesus H Christ. She was up there doing
research
. That was supposed to be all. Now you’ve got me very worried and very pissed.’
‘Cool it, Mort. These things happen. He turned out to be a good guy Funded her research, helped her out a lot. And if they were doing anything more, it was definitely without my sanction. That’s one reason I wanted to talk to him, to close the book.’
‘OK, OK. I’ll run a check on him – I spend half my life checking things out for you, babe. But in the meantime, you get your ass across the border and fix your hair and nails for the big man.’
Chris ignored his sexism because she needed information from him, but she was growing increasingly weary of the whole charade. More and more she wanted to go home to the States now – maybe to make a home. ‘OK, Mort. I’ll be a good girl and put on a nice show for the general. Don’t forget to send me the summaries I asked for.’
‘Yes, ma’am, at your service.’
‘Where is Crusher staying, by the way?’
‘Place called Wylde Heart Safaris,’ Solomon said, then spelled out Wylde’s name. ‘Cute, hey?’
‘Very. Where is it?’
‘In the Chiawa Game Management area, on the border of the Lower Zambezi National Park. You know it?’
‘Know of it. Bin Zayid’s place is in the same general area. It’s upriver on the opposite side to where I am now, no more than a kilometre or two as the crow flies.’
‘I thought you said it would take you two days to get to that part of Zambia.’
‘It will, Mort, by road. You can’t just zip across the river – it’s against the law.’
‘Wouldn’t have stopped me when I was your age,’ Mort said.
Chris laughed. ‘The world was a very different place when you were my age, Mort.’
‘Yeah, and I miss it sometimes.’
She was sure he did and, for a second, even felt pity for him, stuck in his airconditioned office. He was probably as envious as hell of her and people like Miranda Banks-Lewis.
‘Let me know about bin Zayid, OK?’
‘Sure. He’d better be where his people say he is. I don’t want any surprises in the next few days, Chris.’
‘No one does, Mort.’
Mashumba’s brother watched from the shadows. He had travelled far away from the two-legged creatures, along the river, to evade the noisy machines full of the upright animals. There were fewer and fewer machines now. His brother was gone, killed by the terrible noise, and that had seemed to placate the hunters.
He was hungry. His time downriver had not been good. Without his brother, hunting was harder than ever before. He had tried to catch an impala, but the little antelope was too fast for him. He had stalked and pounced on a zebra, but the animal was too big for him to bring down himself and it had kicked him hard in the face with its hoof, knocking two teeth from his jaw. If he were not hunting right now he would have moaned because of the constant pain.
Returning to the stretch of river where the two-legged ones lived was risky. He knew the danger.
But he had to eat. He watched this one walk from the machine to the huge anthill – for that was how he perceived the lodge, in his monochrome vision. When she appeared again she was moving slowly, burdened with something. His golden eyes tracked her as she disappeared into the machine, then reappeared empty-handed. The time to strike was when she walked to the machine from her lair, when she was carrying something.
He crept closer, tail down, ears back, keeping his tawny body as close to the ground as possible.
He darted from behind a dirt mound to a bush. He watched. Listened. Waited. Judging it safe to move again he slunk closer, to the base of a mopani tree. His nose twitched, for he was now close to another strange structure that smelled of rotting food.
Chris wrinkled her nose at the smell of the rubbish dump behind the lodge. When the National Parks lodge attendant emptied the trashcans she did so into a brick structure about as tall as a man, which was at the rear of the wood-fired hot-water boiler behind the lodge. Chris supposed the set-up had been designed so that some of the rubbish could be shovelled into the fireplace and burned as fuel. In these days of polystyrene containers and plastic wrap, however, it was impractical and harmful to the environment to burn such disgusting products. The problem was that the staff only cleared out the rubbish once a week, shovelling it into a cart towed by a trailer. It was near the end of the week and the pile stank to high heaven.
Solomon’s request was an inconvenience, but not an insurmountable one. She could use a couple of days’ rest in a hotel in Kariba, she realised, although she didn’t relish the long drive to the safari lodge on the other side of the river. She hefted her backpack into the Land Rover and turned back to the lodge. She would leave all of Miranda’s equipment here, and take her own computer and communications gear with her to Zambia. Her Glock would have to stay in the lodge as well, as she didn’t have a permit to carry the pistol in Zambia. She was sure the weapon and the expensive stuff would be safe until she returned. She would pay for the lodge for another week at least, and spend a couple of relaxing nights back in Mana Pools after she had finished her political duties across the border.
A light breeze rippled the shimmering surface of the Zambezi and carried on over the hot sands of the shoreline. It caressed the leaves of the big Natal mahoganies close to the river as it headed across the bend in the river. By the time the zephyr reached the lodge it had almost exhausted itself. Chris was perspiring from her efforts and the slightest puff of this wind on the back of her neck brought a tempting promise of relief from the heat. The breeze also carried away the smell of rotting refuse; however, it brought with it a new scent.
Chris went back inside and fetched her laptop, in its bulky protective aluminium case. As she walked out of the kitchen towards the Land Rover the breeze stirred again. She froze.
Slowly she turned. There it was. Unmistakable. The smell of damp fur, like a dog that’s just come in out of the rain. Except the musty odour was sharpened with the tang of feline urine. Her heart thumped in her rib cage.
Around her the bush had gone silent. The little yellow weaver birds had stopped chattering; the woodpecker had given up his tireless attack on the leadwood; the cicadas in the trees had ceased chirping. Even the omnipresent hippos weren’t snorting. There wasn’t a monkey or baboon in sight and that alone should have told her long before the smell that something wasn’t right. Chris fought to control her rising panic. She scanned the bush as she judged the time it would take her to reach the swinging screen door of the lodge’s kitchen. Too long. She started to back towards the rear hatch of the Land Rover. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
‘
Wah-hoo.’
A baboon’s warning call from a nearby tree broke the silence. Chris felt her knees go weak.
Mashumba’s brother flinched at the annoying bark of the detestable baboon. He tensed for his final dash towards the woman. It was no more than a few steps, then a leap and he would be on her. He, too, had felt the breeze ruffle his shaggy mane and he twitched his tail involuntarily in annoyance. The creature had turned and was looking right at him. He would be discovered any second now. He knew he could lie low and then retreat. That would be the sensible thing to do. But his empty belly growled and his shattered jaw throbbed. The muscles in his legs twitched and his powerful shoulders knotted as he summoned his remaining reserves of energy Like an arrow released from a longbow, he was on his way.
Chris knew lions. She had studied and lived amongst them for years. She knew the worst thing she could do when faced with one of the superpredators was to run. She knew the best thing to do was to stand rock solid still and wait for the beast to decide she wasn’t a threat. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the old Africa hands said, the lion would back down. She had seen it happen herself, in the Kruger Park. Of course, that theory went completely out the window if a lion had started its charge.
Once a big cat was in full flight nothing short of a well-aimed heavy-calibre bullet or a tight burst of automatic-rifle fire would stop it. The other thing she knew she should do was stay silent.
Chris screamed, a piercing primal shriek, as the huge head erupted from behind the tree near the water heater, not ten metres from her. Great padded paws the size of bread plates made clouds of dust rise as they thudded into the ground. Soon the hooked, yellowed claws would be extended in preparation for the ripping of flesh. She half ran, half fell backwards into the open rear of the Land Rover. The cat had crossed the distance between them in less than a second. She flung the heavy aluminium case containing her laptop at the lion and the box glanced off his snout. The edge of the floor bruised the back of her thighs as she slammed herself backwards inside the truck. She bent her knees and raised her feet to ward off the lion as she dragged herself further inside with her elbows.
Her head banged against another storage box.
‘Back, get back!’ she screamed.
He shook his head and bellowed in agony. The metal box had connected with the pus-filled sockets where his two missing teeth had once been.
Chris felt her body vibrate with the force of the deafening roar. The lion reared up on his hind legs, too close for another pounce, but he swiped at Chris’s booted feet with his paw.
Chris grabbed her backpack and swung it into the lion’s path as she arched her back and threw herself up and over the top of the rear seat. The beast’s claws tore into the nylon rucksack and for a moment became entangled in the fabric. He shook it free and his massive claws found purchase in the heavy rubber mat of the four-wheel drive’s cargo compartment. He pulled his whole body into the cramped vehicle and lunged forwards again.