Egil Paulsen’s phone rang. He kept his pistol aimed at Nia Carras while he took the call.
‘The Americans are on to us,’ Suzanne said into the phone.
‘It was only a matter of time,’ Egil replied.
‘We just took out a US Navy helicopter. Three men survived, one wounded, all in civilian clothes.’
‘CIA?’
‘Two of them, at least. One’s dressed like a safari guide, no body armour like the other two. We’re following the two youngsters and my baby. They turned north, probably heading to Hilltop Camp. You know it?’
Egil had stayed in Hluhluwe’s main rest camp as a child, as Suzanne probably had. ‘Yes. What sort of vehicle?’
‘Land Rover Discovery, towing a caravan. The kids are in the caravan. They managed to climb aboard before we could get to them.’
‘You should have no problem catching up to a Land Rover and a caravan.’
‘The boy with the AK took a lucky shot. We’re losing radiator coolant in the police car, and speed. I think we’re about to overheat any second now.’
Nothing had gone according to plan since the killing of the American ambassador, Egil mused. ‘Get another vehicle then.’
‘That’s our plan: as soon as we see one we’ll hijack it. You take the BMW if you need it; it’s too far for us to go back for it and the Americans will be waiting for us.’
‘All right,’ he said. He had stashed the car he had stolen from Dlamini in the bush near the fake roadblock.
He admired her. She was ruthless and tough. Egil thought about his options. He could get the woman pilot, Nia, to chase down the Land Rover and caravan, land, block the road, and he could kill the occupants and take back the child, but the boy in the caravan was still armed with an AK-47, and had shown he knew how to use it. Also, there were the three men who Suzanne and the others had failed to finish off. If they did manage to call for more American reinforcements then he and Suzanne would fail at their mission and none of them would get out of South Africa alive.
He made his decision. ‘I’ll take care of the survivors at the crash site and get the BMW and find you afterwards. If the people with the caravan are staying in the park they can only drive so fast.’
He ended the call and turned to Nia. ‘Turn around and fly back to where the roadblock was.’
‘Was?’ said Nia. ‘Did you friends get bored and leave, or did the cops come and shoot them all?’
‘Don’t get smart with me.’ He watched her. She was scared, of course – this was the second time in two days she’d had a gun trained on her – but she and her boyfriend had killed one of his men. She would have nothing to smile about when he was finished with her, but for now he needed her helicopter.
They flew over the undulating countryside and Egil got his bearings, seeing the wide tar road running left to right up ahead. The pall of smoke clearly indicated the resting spot of the Sea Hawk.
‘Circle the crash site.’
‘Whatever you say,’ the woman said over the engine noise, her tone resentful.
Egil looked ahead and to the side as she entered her orbit, but kept his eyes on the woman as well. ‘Don’t try anything stupid.’
He surveyed the scene. The Sea Hawk was still ablaze but it worried him that the Americans had mobilised and located them so quickly. He wondered if the pilot had radioed a mayday; probably.
A man walked into the middle of the road, waving his hands above his head. Egil instinctively leaned back in his seat, not wanting the man on the ground to get too good a look at him.
‘Scared?’ the woman asked him.
He glared at her in reply and held up the pistol, resting the barrel against her temple again. She licked her lips; he liked her fear. It was almost arousing; no, it was arousing.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Land, but not close to him, in case it’s a trap.’
‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we?’ she said.
He would enjoy killing her. ‘There are supposed to be three of them, one lying wounded. I see only one.’
The burning Sea Hawk had started a grass fire and the wind was blowing west, taking the blaze along the edge of the road. ‘I have to land upwind, the smoke’s too thick past the chopper.’
‘Hover across the road from him.’
Nia nodded. She brought the R44 around until the nose was facing the waving man. Egil noted that the man’s hands were empty and he could see no sign of a weapon in the short grass around him; that didn’t mean he was unarmed, though. He could have shot the man from the air, but he needed to account for both of the mobile survivors. The third man had to be somewhere, perhaps lying wounded in the shade of a tree, perhaps even dead by now, but either way, Egil needed to make sure.
The pilot settled into a hover, as instructed. Egil adjusted his sports jacket so that it was over his pistol. ‘Touch down, but be ready to lift off on my command. Don’t alert this man in any way. I’m simply going to ask him where my colleagues went. If you try anything I’ll shoot him in the head. Understood?’
She looked past him, to the waving man, and nodded.
Egil used his free hand to wave back, motioning the man to come to them. The man gave a thumbs-up, lowered his head and ran across the road. He was the one Suzanne had mentioned who was dressed in safari clothes. Perhaps the wounded man was not too badly hurt and the others had gone off in pursuit of Suzanne, Bilal and Djuma on foot, or had commandeered a passing vehicle.
The helicopter set down and the man ran to Egil’s side. ‘Is it safe to shut down?’ Egil asked.
‘It’s safe,’ the man yelled back to him over the engine noise. ‘Hi,’ the man called to the pilot. She glanced across at him.
‘I’m in charge of this aircraft,’ Egil said hurriedly. ‘I’m Captain Swanepoel, South African Police Service.’ He didn’t want the man and the woman communicating.
*
‘Yeah, and I’m Nelson Mandela,’ Mike Dunn called back. He saw the momentary confusion, then realisation dawn in the man’s face. Nia had all but ignored him, and he’d guessed better than to use her name.
Mike recognised the man in the co-pilot’s seat immediately. It was the same person who had been at the Mona market, when the alleged rhino horn deal went bad. The recognition was mutual.
Mike had bought Jed a few seconds, but no more. In his peripheral vision he saw movement in the grass below the helicopter. Mike had experienced a heart-stopping moment, as Jed must have, when it looked like Nia was going to land right on top of the small depression where Jed had hidden. Mike had scraped dirt and dead branches over him.
Jed was on his feet now, moving at a crouch.
The white-haired man lifted his gun hand clear of his jacket and pointed his pistol at Mike. ‘Don’t move. Where is the other man?’
Nia looked at Mike, eyes wide, but Mike gave a small shake of his head.
Jed stood up, out of the white-haired man’s line of sight, raised his MP5 and put two aimed rounds through the skin of the helicopter. His position meant that the bullets punched through the aluminium fuselage, then through the back of the co-pilot’s seat. The man’s body jerked forward against the restraints of his safety harness.
Nia, startled by the gunshots, instinctively raised the collective and the helicopter reared upwards. Mike waved at her to put the chopper down again.
Jed tossed Mike his pistol and Mike caught it. The two men shielded their eyes against the sun. ‘You got him, I saw him take two hits,’ Mike said.
Jed nodded. ‘So why isn’t the pilot bringing the chopper down?’
‘I don’t know; she saw me,’ Mike said. ‘She knows it’s safe down here.’
The R44 swung around in a low orbit and as the passenger side came into full view again Mike and Jed both saw the arm sticking out the open door. The man started firing at them.
‘Goddammit,’ Jed said as they both ran to try and get under the chopper and out of the gunman’s line of sight. ‘He must be wearing body armour.’
‘You can’t open up on him, you might hit Nia.’
‘Well she’s going to be dead soon if we don’t get him.’
*
Just the act of firing his pistol seemed to be causing her passenger and captor pain, Nia saw. He’d clearly been hit by one, maybe two bullets, but she could see no blood on his chest or anywhere else. His drew his breaths in ragged, painful drags.
‘Around again,’ the man coughed.
Nia saw the two men below. There was no way she was going to line up her helicopter to give this madman a chance to kill Mike or the other guy. She thought about what the man had said to her about committing suicide.
The man was checking himself out. He tried to run his hands behind his back, but couldn’t reach where he wanted because he was still strapped in. He unsnapped his inertia harness and tried again to move his hand to the centre of his back.
Nia saw her chance. The man was momentarily distracted and the door on his side was still open. She knew he was going to shoot her if she didn’t do what he asked, of that she was sure, and he would have her land somewhere before she bled to death. She turned away from Mike and the other man.
The man stopped fiddling behind his back and looked at her. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
‘Killing you.’
*
‘What the hell’s she doing?’ Jed asked.
Mike stood next to the CIA man, in the open. They had watched Nia fly away from them.
The helicopter climbed to about three hundred feet off the ground and banked into a tight left turn. Mike could see the passenger’s side door hanging open and a man frantically reaching to close it. Next, the aircraft’s engine note changed, stuttering to a quiet growl as Nia levelled out.
‘She’s cut power,’ Jed said.
‘What the hell for?’
The nose of the chopper came up a little and Nia then turned hard to the right. From below they glimpsed the man thrown outwards by the centrifugal force of the turn, clutching at the doorframe. The helicopter began to drop, its blades whining in a crescendo.
‘She’s doing an auto rotation – crashing deliberately,’ Jed said.
Mike shielded his eyes. ‘No!’
As the helicopter approached the ground the nose came up, sharply, and it looked to Mike that the tail rotor was about to spear into the earth. Just before it struck, however, Nia levelled out in what looked like a sickening drop. The protesting rotor blades were slowing and bending upwards now.
Mike started running towards the chopper as it smashed into the ground. As soon as it hit the aircraft began sliding forward on its skids. Then, as the toe of one skid dug into the ground the machine started to tip. Rotor blades chopped then sheared off the grass, helping to slow the forward movement. The helicopter’s tail dropped, but just as Mike thought it might settle upright it rolled violently to the left. As he closed in on the crash scene he saw the man thrown from the still open door and the aircraft settle hard on its side in a cloud of dust.
The man stood up from the long grass, about twenty metres from the crash, and staggered away from them, deeper into the bush.
Jed fired at the man, but he was at the extreme range of the short-barrelled MP5 and was now hidden in the trees.
Mike ran to the crashed helicopter while Jed charged into the thornbushes into which Paulsen had disappeared. Mike steeled himself for what he might find. The engine was smoking, and as he came closer he saw Nia, motionless, hanging in her safety harness.
‘Nia? Can you hear me?’ There was no reply.
Mike tore away a section of cracked Perspex and fought his way awkwardly into the cramped cockpit. He found the release for Nia’s safety harness and she dropped into his arms. He could smell fuel and hear it sizzling on the hot engine. He extricated himself from the tangled mess and jogged away from the wreckage, carrying the unconscious pilot. He heard the whoosh and thump as the chopper’s fuel tanks exploded then a wall of scorching air knocked him forward onto his knees. Nia’s fall had been cushioned by the long dry grass.
He cradled her head in his lap and wiped sticky blood off her face. He saw that she’d been cut on her forehead. ‘Nia? Nia?’
She moved her head and blinked, trying to focus on him.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
She winced. ‘What do you think? I’ve cracked a rib, I think. Not nice when I breathe in, but I’ll live. Serves me right for crashing my own helicopter.’
‘It’s a bloody miracle you’re alive,’ Mike said. He felt anger well up inside him. ‘What were you thinking?’
She frowned. ‘I was thinking of saving your bloody life. That guy on board wanted me to swing around so he could cap you.’
Mike was still fuming. ‘You could have killed yourself.’
‘Well, he was about to shoot me in any case, so I didn’t have much of a choice. It was my call and I bloody well took it.’
They both looked up at the sound of a motor vehicle engine starting up and revving hard.
‘He’s getting away!’ Jed called.
‘Stay down,’ Mike ordered Nia, pleased that she was too dazed to refuse. Mike got to his feet and saw a sleek new black BMW emerge from the trees a hundred metres down the road and bounce over the cleared grass verge onto the tar road. Jed came running out, gun up. He fired a long burst at the car.
Mike took aim at the vehicle as well, but the white-haired man had floored the accelerator and was disappearing around a bend.
‘Shit.’ Jed lowered his MP5 and walked over to him. ‘We just can’t catch a break.’
‘That guy,’ Mike said, panting. ‘I saw him yesterday. He’s a dealer in rhino horn.’
Jed nodded. ‘That’s only half of it. His name’s Egil Paulsen, he’s a South African-born foreign fighter who served in Syria with IS. Now he runs a cell that crosses between Mozambique and here. He’s linked to Suzanne Fessey … She’s one of them as well.’
Nia had managed to stand and came to them as well, holding her side. Mike took out his phone and searched his contacts for the local section ranger. He tried dialling. ‘No signal.’
Jed walked away, breathing deeply to control his anger, and at Mike’s urging Nia sank down into the grass to rest. Mike watched as Jed went back to the still-burning wreckage of the Sea Hawk. He was heartened, at least, to see Franklin Washington get to his knees and stand as Jed approached him. The two Americans hugged.
The survivors took stock of their injuries, losses and their situation, then Mike suggested they start walking towards Nyalazi Gate, he and Jed supporting the groggy but now conscious Franklin between them. After fifteen minutes of slow progress, Mike heard a vehicle engine and, nerves raw, turned and held up his gun. He kept it trained on the white bakkie until it got closer to him and he saw with relief that it was a national parks vehicle with four armed rangers in the back.
Laying Franklin down, Jed and Mike met the vehicle, and Jed held his weapon up over his head. Mike knew the ranger driving the vehicle and spoke to him in Zulu. The men in the back, at first on guard given the devastation they had passed behind them, lowered their weapons.
‘What a mess,’ the ranger at the wheel said.
‘Get the okes at Nyalazi Gate to stop a black BMW. Driver’s armed and extremely dangerous,’ Mike said to the man without preamble.
The ranger nodded and got on his radio.
‘Let’s get to the gate, we can call the police from there,’ the ranger said to them once he got off the radio.
‘Roger that,’ Jed said. Nia, Jed and Mike climbed up into the rear cargo area of the truck and between them helped Franklin to clamber in and lie down. With the armed rangers sitting around them, Mike and Jed stood, leaning on the roof, guns ready as the driver accelerated down the road. Behind them in the distance was smoke from the burning remains of the Sea Hawk.
As the driver accelerated, Mike introduced Nia to Jed and Franklin and explained that Sergeant Munro was really Suzanne Fessey.
‘So, she, these other people, they’re the ones who killed your ambassador?’ Nia asked Jed.
Jed glanced to Mike, then back to Nia. ‘No point trying to be coy now. Yes, we believe Suzanne Fessey’s husband was the suicide bomber who killed the ambassador. Egil Paulsen, who was in the chopper with you, heads a cell in Mozambique that works with or is perhaps under command of Fessey and her late husband. Franklin here’s been tracking them – I just happened to be down at our embassy in Pretoria when all this blew up so I’m kind of playing catch up. Franklin knows more than me.’ They looked to him.
Franklin winced, holding his ribs. ‘That about covers it. Fessey, Paulsen and his crew run a side line trading in rhino horn, which helps fund their radical cause. They’re like an IS splinter group. You know all you need to know about them now; they’re dangerous and they’re on the run and Suzanne wants her baby back.’
‘Why?’ Mike asked.
‘’Cos she’s his mom,’ Franklin said.
Mike looked to Jed, who shrugged. Jed either didn’t know any more, or couldn’t say. As much as he had warmed to Jed he was feeling less and less confident in the CIA and the United States government. ‘Where’s the Marine Corps? The SEAL teams? The army and the air force now?’
‘We’re it,’ Jed said. ‘South Africa doesn’t want a US invasion, so we’re relying on your police service now, and ourselves.’
Jed turned to look back, his thick fair hair catching the slipstream created by the speeding Toyota. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then took a breath to compose himself. He turned around to face forward again and took out his cell phone. Mike glanced at the screen and saw that they were once again receiving a signal. Jed immediately started making calls.
The United States of America had been humbled in South Africa. A senior diplomat had been killed and the people responsible were leaving a trail of bodies through Zululand. Jed and his compatriots had been bested this time, but looking at the CIA man’s stone-set face and cold blue eyes Mike had the feeling that the terrorists had made the mistake of prodding a sleeping lion.
The beast was about to wake, but America had been defeated by rag-tag guerrilla fighters and terrorists in the past.
The ranger in the front cab leaned out of the front passenger window and called to Jed. ‘News from the gate, and it’s not good.’
‘What’s happening?’ Jed asked.
‘Paulsen’s just been at the gate. He smashed through a barrier, guns blazing. A female ranger was hit, though it doesn’t sound too serious. They called the police, but they didn’t make it in time.’
‘Shit.’
Mike knew that whatever was going to happen next it was a good idea for him and other innocent bystanders, such as Nia, to be out of it. He was relieved Nia was still alive and that she had survived the foolhardy but courageous stunt she had pulled with her helicopter.
Yet, as he scanned the road and horizon in front of them he thought of a young Zulu boy and two other minors who had also been dragged into this war. Could he really leave Themba and the girl with him to the jackals who were after him?
He wanted to believe Jed and Franklin and the South African Police Service could defeat the terrorists and rescue the children alive. Themba had tried to warn the Americans about the impending rocket attack on the helicopter, and had fired at the pseudo police officers, yet the gunner on the Sea Hawk had still opened fire on them. This man Paulsen and the others would kill Themba and the girl to get the baby back.
Mike had the terrible thought that if he did walk away now, as he very well should, more innocents would die. He knew this part of Africa better than any of them and he knew the parks, where Themba would most likely continue to seek refuge, as well as any ranger.
He thought of the blood-soaked earth under the body of another boy long ago and knew he could not turn away.