‘What is all that stuff?’
Jed didn’t say, but he recognised it all immediately State-of-the-art image intensification nightvision goggles, auto-focus binoculars that calculated range and heading through a light-up display, and a GPS unit. Expensive, sophisticated gear. Exactly the same makes and models as issued to United States Special Operations Forces – people like himself.
‘Just stuff for tracking and researching animals,’ he said, only realising the irony of his words as he spoke them. He hoped Luke didn’t catch on.
‘Oh,’ said Luke.
Jed stuck the screwdriver in the lock of the second box. ‘You thirsty? I could really use a drink,’ he said to Luke, looking over his shoulder.
‘No, I can wait,’ he said.
Jed didn’t want to make a big deal of his growing suspicions. The second lock popped as easily as the first. Inside the case was a dismantled tactical satellite antenna and an LST-5C radio. Not only did Chris and Miranda have satellite phones, they had a field-portable tacsat communications system capable of sending encoded burst transmissions of voice, pictures and video at high speed and high resolution.
‘What’s that? A radio?’ Luke said.
‘Must be for radio-tracking animals,’ Jed lied.
He checked the outside of the case for any giveaway markings, bar codes or serial numbers. There were none. He directed his attention back to the first box and picked up the GPS unit. He directed it over. There was a dark space where a sticker might once have been, but no serial number or identifying marks on that, either. He felt sure people with expensive equipment in a poverty-stricken continent such as Africa would engrave or otherwise mark it in some way in case it was stolen. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He’d seen unmarked gear like this before. The third case yielded a new-looking Nikon digital SLR camera with a suite of lenses.
‘That’s professional quality gear,’ Luke said. ‘It’s pricey stuff.’
Jed had used similar cameras on reconnaissance missions and didn’t need to be told that this was top-drawer equipment. The contents of this case alone were worth the same as a new car.
‘Hey, there’s a reader for camera memory cards. We’re almost in business,’ Luke said.
Jed snapped the lid of the case closed. ‘Fourth time lucky,’ he said, shattering the lock on another case.
‘Bingo,’ Luke said. ‘Do you know her password?’
Jed hadn’t thought of that. ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t use one.’ He carried the case downstairs and Luke followed. There was no electricity in the lodge, he remembered. ‘I wonder how she keeps the batteries charged?’
‘Probably has an inverter to run it off her car’s cigarette lighter. That’s what I do – or did – with mine.’
Jed switched the computer on and they both stared at the start-up screens, impatient for the operating system to kick in.
‘Looks good so far,’ Jed said. They had not been prompted to enter a password. He scanned the desktop icons on the screen, making sure there was nothing sensitive the journalist would be tempted to click open. ‘No peeking at her files, OK?’ Jed would do his own checking after they had viewed the photos.
‘Of course not,’ said Luke, offended.
‘Over to you, kid.’
Luke took Jed’s seat, acutely aware of the big American soldier leaning close over his shoulder.
Outside he saw herons flying low up the river, heading for their evening roosts. He connected the memory-device reader to the computer. He took the card from his pocket and slid it into the reader.
Luke double-clicked on the first of the picture icons that appeared in a box on the screen.
‘Shit,’ he said. The first image was badly out of focus. He could make out a man and woman standing on the bridge of a white boat, but that was it. No details of the faces were clear, although the woman was obviously blonde and slender. ‘I snapped these pretty quickly. I’m sure the others are better.’
Luke closed the picture and put the cursor over the second icon. He licked beads of perspiration from his upper lip.
‘There! That’s better, what do you think?’ he said as the picture appeared.
The detail of the man’s face was sharp. He had his head back, laughing at something the woman had said. She was half turned away from the camera, although most of the profile of her face was clear.
‘No. I can’t tell for sure, but I don’t think it’s her,’ Jed said. His voice was soft.
‘No way!’ Luke said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘If it was my daughter I’d know immediately. But she’s half turned away. Do you have a clearer shot?’
Luke was mad, and confused. He’d nearly been murdered for these pictures, and he’d crossed two countries to get to Jed, but now his theory was crumbling. Why the set-up in Zanzibar if bin Zayid hadn’t been concerned with him seeing the girl on the boat? He began to feel sick with doubt. Maybe Hassan bin Zayid was simply playing around with another man’s woman. But, if so, was the threat of him being exposed serious enough for him to try to frame and murder an innocent journalist? No way.
‘I hope this one’s better,’ Luke said, bitter.
The third picture flashed up on the screen. Bin Zayid was in profile now, but the woman had turned and was facing directly into the camera, smiling. Her features were perfectly focused.
‘I can zoom in, make the face bigger, if you like,’ Luke said. He did it without waiting for Jed’s answer.
‘It’s not her,’ Jed said. He turned and walked across the room, staring out at the majestically languid Zambezi which burned red with the last light of the dying sun.
‘What? Come on, take another look, man!’ Luke was livid. He had risked his life – and taken another man’s life – over these pictures. He pulled the newspaper from the torn daypack and fumbled through the pages to the story on Miranda’s death. Luke strode across the room and held the picture to Jed’s face. ‘Take another look. It’s her! The girl in the pictures is the same as the one in this newspaper!’
Jed shrugged. ‘I think I know my own daughter.’
‘Bullshit. You hardly knew her. You told me yourself in Afghanistan. You spent most of your lives apart. She probably changed her hair or something since you last saw her.’
Jed turned and gave the Australian a hard, cold stare. ‘Be careful what you say. I knew my daughter; you didn’t. She’s dead and I have to come to terms with that. I’m sorry you went to such trouble to get these pictures to me. I wanted to believe you. I really did. But it’s just not her.’
‘Well, where does that leave us?’ Luke pleaded.
‘Us? There is no us. Time to go back to where we belong. I’m sure the professor won’t mind if you stay here the night. You can hitch out tomorrow.’
Luke felt utterly deflated. The American hadn’t even offered him a ride out of the park. He put his head in his hands and sat there as Jed walked outside into the gathering gloom. He felt like crying. It was partly the exhaustion, but he could also feel the greatest story of his life slipping slowly out of his grasp.
It was a good site for the kill, Hassan bin Zayid told himself one more time. Everything was going to plan, but still his stomach churned. It was just nerves, he supposed. He had arrived at the dirt airstrip with time to spare. Juma had been waiting with the Land Rover and their kit, as planned.
‘Help me with these boxes,’ Hassan had said, pointing to the back of the Cessna. The engine ticked as it cooled down. The stillness and quiet assaulted Hassan’s ears after the noisy hours in the air.
‘The hole is dug, for the woman?’ he asked as they lifted the cheap coffin out of the plane.’
‘Yes. At the bush camp.’
Good old Juma. Reliable and unquestioning as ever. But Hassan noticed the man was avoiding his eyes.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you too well. What’s gone wrong, Juma?’
‘The girl’s father …’
‘What about him?’ Hassan snapped. He knew the man had called the lodge and been told Hassan was unavailable.
‘He came here.’
‘He
what?’
‘He came, boss. But I sent him away. I told him you were in Zanzibar.’
‘What did he see?’
Juma shuffled from foot to foot.
‘Out with it!’ bin Zayid barked.
‘He saw this Land Rover. The packs, the weapons.’
‘And what did he ask? What did you tell him?’
Juma faced up to the Arab. ‘I told him I was going on an anti-poaching patrol.’
And he believed you?’ Hassan fought to control his rising panic.
‘I think so.’
And that was it? He left?’
‘Yes.’ Juma did not dare tell his employer about the failed ambush.
‘Very well. Let’s get the other box loaded.’
They pushed the Cessna into its wooden hangar. Inside the building, perched like a resting dragonfly, was an ultralight aircraft. ‘It is fuelled? Ready?’
‘Yes, boss,’ Juma answered.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Juma drove the Land Rover down the dirt road that led to the airstrip. When they were almost in sight of the river he turned left onto a rutted, rarely used track. The trail led to a small satellite camp, a remote outpost two kilometres along the river from the main lodge. The bush camp consisted of a thatch-roofed timber hut, a pit toilet concealed by a reed screen, and two round concrete slabs, each about two metres in diameter. One stand was for making a campfire and the other was the base for a bush shower. A canvas bucket dangled from a tree branch above. When small groups of clients used the secluded bush camp, Juma and two African servants went ahead of the main party and erected canvas tents for the clients and bin Zayid to sleep in, and a canvas screen for the shower. The hut was used to store food and a gas-powered deep-freeze, and was safe from marauding baboons, monkeys and hyenas. Now the camp was deserted.
Juma stopped the vehicle and they got out. Hassan leaned into the back of the truck. He looked at Miranda’s motionless body. There was no going back now. He closed the lid. They lifted the casket out of the truck and lowered it into the shallow hole Juma had dug.
‘Cover her,’ Hassan said, and turned away as he heard the first shovel-load of sandy earth spattering the lid.
As Juma worked, Hassan took up his AK-47. He removed the magazine, checked it was full and replaced it on the rifle. He pulled the cocking handle and let it fly forwards, chambering a round. He checked the webbing vest and rucksack Juma had prepared for him and nodded his approval. He leaned back into the rear tray of the Land Rover and removed the lid of the other coffin. From inside he removed two loaded HN-5 surface-to-air missile launchers from the straw packing. He placed them gently on the floor of the Land Rover, snuggled between the two packs to stop them bouncing around too much.
After successfully planting the bomb on board the tourist bus in Dar es Salaam, the travel agent had handed over the prize in his cache of arms – the two anti-aircraft missiles – and briefed him on the plan. He’d shown Hassan a video filmed in Afghanistan on how to operate the missiles. A crash course at best,’ Hassan had remarked.
‘These things were designed to be operated by illiterate Russian conscripts. Afghan tribesmen who’d never seen anything more technologically advanced than a bolt-action Lee Enfield were able to shoot down Russian helicopter gunships by the score using this weapon. I’m hoping you, a university-educated man, can hit one unarmed civilian aircraft, Hassan,’ the travel agent had replied caustically. Along with the missiles, he had given Hassan three hand grenades and the explosive device he’d used to bomb the nightclub in Zanzibar.
The missiles were Chinese copies of the Russian SAM 7, often referred to by its NATO nickname, the Strela. The Chinese version, known as the Red Cherry, was exactly the same in its look, feel and operation. The missile was old technology – its design dated back to the late sixties – but the two Hassan possessed would be more than adequate for his mission.
Juma joined him beside the vehicle, brushing the dirt from his hands on his green fatigues. ‘Let us go,’ Hassan said. He took a small GPS from a pouch on his webbing and turned it on.
They drove the rugged four-by-four back out to the dirt road leading to the airstrip, and then followed that road for a few hundred metres. Juma engaged low-range four-wheel-drive and turned onto a trail in even worse condition than the one that led to the bush camp. They headed west, towards the boundary of the bin Zayid concession. Hassan kept an eye on the GPS as they bumped over rocks and exposed tree roots. The Land Rover bucked sickeningly as Juma climbed out of a dry creek bed. The watercourse marked the boundary between bin Zayid’s land and the property of his neighbour, Willy Wylde. Hassan was not worried that Wylde or one of his scouts would chance upon them. He guessed, correctly, that Wylde and most of his staff were waiting on the edge of their own airstrip, anxiously expecting the arrival of their most important hunting client ever.
Eventually they arrived at the killing ground. ‘It is a good position, boss,’ Juma said, sensing the Arab’s nerves as he scanned the sky.
‘That it is, Juma. That it is. Camouflage the vehicle.’
Lieutenant General Donald ‘Crusher’ Calvert, retired, shook hands with the President of Zambia and smiled for the camera.
The US military had well and truly recovered from its post-Vietnam hatred of the media and now actively courted it. Media representatives had ridden into Baghdad in American tanks and helicopters, and had been a constant presence at the Coalition base at Bagram, Afghanistan, when Calvert had commanded the forces there. As a former Pentagon spokesman he had held court at more than his fair share of press conferences, but any commander worth his salt these days knew that one had to be a good media performer to win and keep the top jobs. As an aspiring politician, he knew he was in for even more exposure. It was only a local newspaper in a Third World African country, but his smile was no less broad, his eyes no less steely than they would have been for the
Washington Post
or the
New York Times
.
The visit hadn’t been as bad as he had feared. The new president displayed all the vigour and foresight that had recently carried him to victory against an incumbent who had presided over the country’s steady and seemingly unstoppable downward economic spiral during his decades in power.