The Sea Hawk helicopter’s pilot touched down on a gravel access road not far from Crooks’ Corner in the northeast of the Kruger park.
Jed and Franklin got out and Jed headed towards the South African national parks section ranger responsible for this part of the reserve; the man had guided them into the landing zone by radio. Franklin went to the edge of a grove of almost luminous green fever trees, sat down in the shade, and began stripping and cleaning his MP5.
Jed and the ranger shook hands. ‘Our forward command post in Durban is now receiving a live satellite feed from over Zimbabwe. As soon as we know where that bakkie with the fugitives on board is headed we’ll be leaving here.’
‘You’re going to cross into Zimbabwe?’ the ranger asked.
Jed winked. ‘I didn’t say that. We could see the people we’re looking for in the back of a truck hiding under a tarpaulin with a FLIR camera on the chopper and we’ve got a bead on them now. We’re watching where they’re headed to and when we get the go from our government, well …’
‘OK, then I won’t ask any more questions.’
Jed clapped him on the arm. ‘Probably a good idea.’
Jed walked over to Franklin and sat down in the grass beside him. The other man continued cleaning and oiling his weapon.
‘We need to talk,’ Jed said after a while.
Franklin began reassembling the machine pistol. ‘About what?’
‘I know you can’t talk about where you were before this.’
Franklin racked the cocking handle backwards and forwards, testing the slick action.
‘It was Syria, right?’
Franklin looked through the sights, aimed at a tree and pulled the trigger. The hammer clacked on the empty chamber. ‘You said yourself, you know I can’t tell you that.’
‘You know more than you’re letting on, more than Chris knows, or more than he’s giving up.’
Franklin set the gun down, took up the magazine and started thumbing out the bullets into his floppy bush hat, which he had set, upside down, on the ground.
‘You’re Muslim.’
Franklin glanced at him. ‘Says who?’
‘I saw you praying, discreetly, closing your eyes and facing Mecca yesterday.’
‘Last time I checked it wasn’t a crime.’
Jed tried another tack. ‘Paulsen’s dead. Tell me about him.’
‘What makes you think I knew him?’
‘Only reason you’re here is because you know these people. You don’t know Africa, that’s why I’m here. Chris didn’t partner us up just because we both happened to be in South Africa at the same time. Was Paulsen a true believer?’
The other man paused in his work. ‘True as they come. There’s no one so zealous as a convert.’
Jed nodded. ‘I get that. I guess he was the right man for this job because he blended in, being white South African and all, but he sure must have stuck out in Syria.’
‘They called him Hamza al Sabah, “the ghost”, in Syria. Firstly, because he was as white as a ghost with his blond hair and complexion, and secondly because he sent plenty of nonbelievers to their graves. He was ruthless.’
‘More so than anyone else in ISIS?’
Franklin seemed to ponder the question. ‘Yes. He went through a lot to get to the front line. Naturally, with his looks and background, plenty of the Daesh guys thought he was a plant.’
‘Sounds like you were there.’
‘You know better than to ask questions, Jed.’
Jed let it lie.
Franklin loaded the rest of the magazine then slotted it back into the MP5. ‘Yep, Egil was different. He killed to prove he was a true believer. Soldiers, civilians, women, kids. They put a parade of captives in front of him and he never flinched, though he sweated plenty – beheading thirty people is damn hard work.’ Franklin looked off into the distance, towards the Limpopo. ‘Don’t know if a true undercover agent could have done what they made him do, to prove himself.’
Jed didn’t have to say any more. If Franklin had been undercover in Syria he might have been through similar tests to Paulsen. Jed could see from the haunted look in his eyes that he, too, must have done some things he would never want to reveal. It accounted, perhaps, for the cold-blooded way he had opened up on the kids with little provocation in Mkhuze Game Reserve.
‘We don’t work like them, remember?’ Jed said.
Franklin looked back at him, his cold, dark eyes empty. ‘Don’t we? You heard Chris. The Company doesn’t care if we kill that baby to get hold of it, search it, find out what it’s carrying or what its mother was hiding.’
Jed hated to admit it to himself, but Franklin was right. The stakes were high in this chase, maybe too high for him. He’d seen his fair share of killing, righteous and otherwise, in a couple of tours in Afghanistan, and some action on the African continent. He wondered if he was going soft in his old age, or whether having a family a second time around had simply reset his moral compass to normal.
‘I trust Dunn,’ Jed said. ‘I think he’ll deliver the kids, the baby and the teenagers to us, once he knows they’re safe, both from us and from ISIS. I think he’ll reach out to us.’
Franklin put his handkerchief away and his bush hat back on his head. ‘You could be right, Jed, but if Suzanne Fessey gets to them first, it’s game over. If we can’t get her the next best thing is to get her kid.’
For the first time in a very long time in his life, Jed Banks felt a shiver run down his back, as though he’d just encountered something evil afresh. ‘Tell me about her.’
Franklin shook his head, slowly. ‘Paulsen killed like a machine. Suzanne’s not like that. She’s a monster.’
*
The driver of the bakkie took Mike, Nia and the children into Gonarezhou National Park through the southern entrance.
It was a wild place, largely devoid of tourists, particularly in the south. They startled a small herd of zebra and every now and then passed a lone bull elephant.
They crossed the Runde River, driving through the shallow water, then followed the road east until they saw the magnificent Chilojo Cliffs.
‘They’re beautiful, Mike,’ Nia said. She’d heard of this national park, famous for its towering, sheer red rock formations, but this was the first time she had been here. The countryside was very different from KwaZulu-Natal, brown instead of green, sparse instead of lush, rocky instead of fertile. However, it was stunning in its own wild way.
‘It’s normally a place of great peace for me,’ he said, ‘which is odd.’
‘Why odd?’ He turned away from her, looking out at the cliffs. She suddenly realised the meaning of his words. ‘Was it here that it happened, that the boy was …?’
‘That I killed the boy, yes. Near here, just across the border in Mozambique.’
Nia saw Themba look up and over at Mike. They had folded the tarpaulin after they had lost sight of the helicopter. Nia caught his glance and gave a slight shake of her head. Themba seemed to understand, and lay his head back on the tarpaulin, once more pretending to sleep.
‘I came here,’ Mike went on, ‘to these cliffs, after it happened. I camped out here for three days by myself, not moving. I drank. A lot. I would sit in the riverbed each evening as the sun was going down. I took a cooler box of beers, Scotch, whatever was left, and sat here, listening to the lions calling, half hoping they might take me. I still come here, when I’m down.’
Nia saw him screw his eyes and his fists tight. She reached out and felt his arm shake with the torment still pent up inside him. He blinked a couple of times. ‘It’s OK, Mike.’
He looked at her, eyes red. ‘It’s not.’
‘It is. You were in a war, a victim of that conflict. It was an accident, what happened.’
‘That’s what I told myself.’
‘It’s the truth.’
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Yes, right.’
Mike slumped down into the back of the truck and closed his eyes. Nia tried to doze, but the road was too bumpy, the view too magnificent to sleep. She saw eland, waterbuck and reedbuck, which gave a squeaky alarm call when they were startled by the truck full of people.
At last they came to the other side of the park, on the Save River. They stopped briefly at a thatch-roofed hut where a Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife ranger checked their entry paperwork. The driver continued along the sand road and took a turn to the right. The riverbank fell away to the left, a sheer drop to the sandy bed below. Nia grabbed the metal side wall of the bakkie as the truck slewed around a tight turn to the left.
For a second she thought they might slide or roll over, but the driver gunned the engine and the momentum of the downhill run carried them through the sand and into the river. The first channel seemed quite deep and water fantailed on either side of them as he ploughed on. They came up onto the wide, sandy middle section of the bed and the driver revved the engine hard to maintain their momentum.
When they reached the channel on the other side of the river the surface underneath was studded with large rocks worn smooth by the water. The driver slowed so as not to damage his suspension. Nia saw birds on either side: a pair of tall, elegant black and white saddle-billed storks with yellow spots on their bills; a pied kingfisher which hovered above the river’s sparkling surface then dove straight down in search of a fish, spearing the water; and in the shallows a black crake, which was wading and making a loud honking call that belied its tiny size.
Clear of the river they climbed the other bank and took a dirt road for a few kilometres through bushland until they came to a turnoff, to the left, to Fish Eagle Lodge. The driver took them through the boom gate and then up a steep paved driveway to the main lodge, where he deposited them at the entrance. They offloaded themselves and their baggage, grateful to stretch their legs and put an end to their ‘African massage’, as bumpy roads were often called. Mike thanked the driver and Nia paid him with a folded wad of rand.
The quiet around them had a soothing effect on them all. As they approached the entrance to the main building, a young woman welcomed them to the lodge, introducing herself as Cassandra, the manager. Another woman handed around a platter of cold towels. Nia wiped her face and hands and the back of her neck.
‘Is David here?’ Mike asked Cassandra.
‘He’s coming now.’ She pointed ahead as she led them out onto the terrace that overlooked the Save River.
David Stowell was part owner and resident general manager of the lodge, Mike had told Nia. He had white hair and a bushy Father Christmas beard that contrasted with the dark mahogany of his mottled skin.
‘Mike!’
Mike introduced David to Nia and the teenagers. If David thought it odd that Mike had arrived with a rather bedraggled and multiracial entourage he gave no sign of it.
‘Welcome,’ he said.
Mike and David went into a huddle and Nia moved to the railing of the deck. Themba and Lerato, who carried the baby, joined her. Nia heard Mike asking David if he could use the lodge’s phone and the two went into the manager’s office.
‘Wow,’ Lerato said.
The river looked cool and inviting, but on the far side they could see three large crocodiles. The reptiles were a reminder, not that they needed it, that danger lurked even in a seeming paradise. A trail of round, crater-like holes pitted the sand beneath the river’s surface: the tracks of a hippo that had been active the night before, Nia imagined.
After a few minutes Mike broke from David and came to them. ‘There’s a self-catering camp here that’s vacant. We can stay there for now.’
‘For now?’ Themba asked.
‘We don’t know how long it will be safe for us to stay here,’ Mike said. ‘But we have planning to do.’
Cassandra came back to them. ‘I can get our camp attendant, Stanley, to take you to the camp now, if you like.’
Mike thanked her. ‘Themba, Lerato, please take the baby and go find a room – or rooms – that you’d like to stay in. I just need a minute with Nia.’
The youngsters left with Stanley, who helped carry their bags.
When they were alone, Mike turned to Nia. ‘We need to talk,’ he said.
‘Sounds ominous.’
‘It is. Suzanne Fessey knows where we are.’
Nia felt a familiar shiver of dread rack her body. ‘How?’
‘David just told me that my ex-wife, Tracy, rang him, asking if I was here. David said no, but Tracy asked him to get me to call if I showed up. She said she was worried about me and that the police were looking for me.’
‘And did you call her?’ Nia asked.
Mike nodded. ‘Just now, from David’s office. I got a description of the female police officer who interviewed Tracy. It was Suzanne.’
‘My God, Mike, Tracy’s lucky to still be alive.’
‘I told her to get Debbie, my daughter, and to leave town. They’ve gone to stay with friends in Port Alfred. It’s not Tracy’s fault; she was just trying to help. However, she was suspicious enough of Suzanne, in hindsight, to try and tip me off.’
Nia slumped down onto one of the deckchairs and Mike lowered himself into the chair opposite her. ‘What do you think?’
Nia felt the sense of relaxation escape from her body, like she’d been punctured. ‘When are we going to stop running, Mike? Will we ever be truly safe anywhere?’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Not while Suzanne Fessey is still on the loose and while the CIA is trying to track down both her and us. We’ve awoken a sleeping giant, Nia, running from the Americans. It won’t take them long to use every resource at their disposal – men, aircraft, satellites, drones – to find us. Our time is limited.’
‘What do you suggest?’ she asked.
‘What do you suggest? You track people for a living. I monitor vultures.’
Nia liked that he wanted her opinion, and she sensed it wasn’t for show or to curry favour. She thought about their situation. ‘Suzanne Fessey and her crew were prepared to destroy Boyd’s farmhouse with rocket-propelled grenades to get back her child, but that doesn’t reassure me that she cares for the baby’s safety.’
‘So,’ Mike followed her train of thought, ‘that would indicate she’s more interested in retrieving the microchip.’
‘What kind of mother thinks like that?’ Her question was rhetorical, so she carried on. ‘If the microchip number is a bank account, which seems likely, then she’s after the money. We could just give the child to her, or leave him somewhere where she could find him.’
Mike nodded, slowly. ‘We could. Do you want to do that?’
Nia thought about it. ‘She’s a criminal, a murderer, and she deserves to face justice, in South Africa and wherever else she’s committed her crimes. Also, even if she has feelings for her baby, what kind of life would we be condemning him to?’
‘My thoughts, too,’ Mike said.
‘The Americans are behaving almost as recklessly. Nobody cares about this child except us. Can we remove the microchip from the baby?’
‘Microchips are easy to implant,’ Mike said, ‘but they’re damned hard to remove. I looked into this with vultures. When I first heard about the technology I thought we could maybe re-use the chip if a bird died and we retrieved it. It turns out it’s a difficult procedure, even on a dead bird. The chips are hard to locate – they move around under the skin away from where they’re first inserted – and scar tissue forms around them where they come to rest, so it’s not as simple as, say, making a small incision. The baby would have to be anaesthetised and it would take a plastic surgeon to dig around and get it out and, more importantly, repair the damage done under the skin as well as stitching him back up.’
‘So, if Suzanne or the Americans get the baby, dead or alive, they’re going to be able to read what’s on the chip. We can’t give up, though,’ Nia said. ‘If Suzanne or the other terrorists get the information they could access the bank account and use it to fund some terrible attack, like maybe another 9–11.’
‘We could just hand the baby over to the Americans. I can call Jed Banks, and we can give ourselves over to them – with no guns this time,’ Mike said.
It was a tempting proposition, Nia thought. If the Americans had the baby then Suzanne would have no reason to come after them. Or would she? She might have already deduced that they had read the information on the chip.
Mike appeared to have had the same thought. ‘Suzanne would probably still try and get the information from us. Damn.’
‘Damn what?’ Nia asked.
‘If Suzanne checked Boyd’s operating theatre, and I’m sure she would have, then she would have seen that the microchip reader was lying around after I’d used it. I should have put it away.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ she said. ‘Suzanne’s outsmarted everyone so far.’
Mike leaned towards her, his elbows on his knees. ‘The interesting thing is that unless Suzanne is just a grieving mother trying to get her kid back – and her recklessness with his safety seems to contradict that – then she mustn’t know the numbers on the chip.’
‘That could mean she’s not in the loop,’ Nia reasoned, ‘or that this was something that only just recently happened. The puncture wound from where the chip was inserted hasn’t healed yet.’
‘Either way, she now needs the numbers.’
‘And we have them,’ Nia said. ‘Question is, what do we do with them?’
‘What do you think?’ Mike asked.
She thought it through. The idea she had in mind was crazy, could never work, but they had to turn the tables on Suzanne. ‘We go find the money.’
‘Go to Switzerland? Crazy,’ said Mike.
‘Listen to me. I fly to Switzerland, check out the bank, go there and find out what’s in the account. I’ve got the account number and what looks like the passcode number.’
‘Call the bank,’ Mike suggested. ‘See if they’ll tell you what’s in the account.’
Nia shook her head. ‘My friend Roger said that with these numbered accounts they don’t do electronic or telephone banking or give out details that way. Think about it, Mike, if Suzanne knows I’m in Switzerland she’ll know for sure we have the numbers and that it’s too late for her. Roger told me that these Swiss banks are cracking down on criminals using their services, so if I go there, access the account and tell them the money belongs to terrorists, they can call in the police. If Suzanne knows we’ve locked up the money then there’s no reason for her to keep chasing the kids and the baby, though I guess she’ll want her child back eventually as well.’
Mike stood, his fists clenched by his sides. ‘No, Nia. She might head to Switzerland herself if she knows you’ve gone there, and I won’t allow you to be bait for her to follow. You can’t just jump on a plane to Geneva!’
That made her mad. She got to her feet. ‘You won’t allow it? I know the numbers, I can do what I damn well want with them.’
‘I’ll go to Switzerland, then,’ he said.
She put her fists on her hips. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘You need to stay here and look after these three kids of ours, that’s why not,’ she said.
‘Ours?’
She grimaced. ‘You know what I mean.’ She changed the subject. ‘What do we do about the Americans?’
‘I share your misgivings about them, but I’d still rather Jed Banks found us than Suzanne.’
Nia nodded. ‘Lesser of two evils. But the Americans want the baby – and presumably the money – as much as Suzanne. We’re all still at risk. The money gives us leverage over all of them, and insurance.’
Mike continued to clench and unclench his fists by his side. ‘I still don’t like it, particularly if it draws them after you. I’d rather stash you and the kids somewhere else safe, maybe find a place in Harare, and go myself.’
‘Three reasons why it has to be me, Mike.’ She raised her thumb. ‘One, there is nowhere that’s really safe and at least you know the terrain here.’
She could see from the set of his mouth that he knew she was right.
‘Two,’ she raised her index finger, ‘I’ve got the cash to buy a standby ticket. I might even use my parents’ Amex card and go business class. Do you have that sort of money?’
He didn’t return her smile. ‘You know I don’t.’
‘Sorry, I don’t mean to rub it in.’ She raised a third finger. ‘Three, I’ve got an Australian passport with me so I don’t need to organise a visa in advance. I’ve been to Switzerland a couple of times on holiday with my folks. I can find my way around. I’ll phone you from there and let you know how it’s going.’
‘You still need to get to Harare.’
‘I’ve thought of that. Cassandra,’ she called inside to the manager. The young woman came over to them. ‘Do people sometimes fly in and out of this place?’
‘Yes, we’ve got a light aircraft due in today.’ Cassandra checked her wristwatch. ‘It’s due any time now.’
‘Can I get on it?’
Cassandra seemed momentarily surprised. ‘Well, um, sure. It’ll be empty, so I’m sure we can find you a seat and work out a means of payment.’
Mike shook his head. ‘I don’t like this, Nia. You’ll have to use your real name and passport number to book your international flights. The Americans will be monitoring that kind of stuff. They’ll find you and they’ll be waiting for you when you fly to Europe via Johannesburg. You won’t get a direct flight from Harare to Switzerland.’
‘I’ve thought of that too,’ she said. ‘I know people who’ve flown into and out of Zimbabwe before. I can get a flight to Nairobi and go from there. The Americans may be able to track me, but I won’t make it easy for them by going via Joburg. Also, I’d like to see them try and pick me up in Switzerland without creating an international incident.’
‘No,’ Mike said.
Nia put her hands on her hips. ‘Yes. If Suzanne does show up here, as we think she will, then try to find a way to parley with her. Tell her we’ll give her the bloody numbers if she leaves Africa and guarantees your safety and that of the kids. I’ll leave Switzerland and she can take her chances with the bank and the cops there.’
‘It’s still crazy. Also, Suzanne doesn’t seem like the type to negotiate. She shoots first.’
Nia sighed. ‘This whole thing is mad, Mike. If we get access to her money we get ahead of her, really in front of her, for the first time.’
They were at a stalemate. The sound of vehicle engines revving to climb the steep driveway to the lodge made them both turn.
An open Land Cruiser game viewer carrying a party of eight tourists pulled up at reception. As the guests were greeted by Cassandra a double-cab Land Rover Defender arrived as well.
The occupants of the second vehicle walked in, and they were a very different breed from the tourists.
There were three white men and two black; all wore green military-style field uniforms that were mottled black with sweat under the arms and across their broad chests. Their clothes were also coloured with dust and dirt; all carried a few days’ worth of stubble and their hair was unwashed, spiked, matted. As they came closer Nia smelled them.
‘Nia,’ Mike said, gesturing to the man at the head of the phalanx, ‘meet Shane Castle and Tim Penquitt. They run the anti-poaching operation in this part of Zimbabwe.’
They all shook hands. Cassandra politely interrupted them. ‘Nia, if you want to get the flight out, then the vehicle that just brought the tourists can take you to the airstrip. The plane leaves in twenty minutes.’
‘Excuse me,’ Nia said to the new arrivals. She took Mike by the elbow.
‘Don’t do this,’ he said.
‘I have to, and you know it. Keep the kids safe, Mike. Trust me on this, and if you can’t, then it doesn’t matter. I’m my own person, I’m going.’
He put his hands on her shoulders and she felt small, but also safe, in his grip. ‘I think that’s one of the things I like about you.’
She took a deep breath. Her tough talk belied the fear that balled in her chest. She was worried that she was leaving him in grave danger. Nia looked up at him. ‘I like a few things about you, too.’
Mike kissed her and she wrapped her arms around him.
‘Be safe,’ he whispered in her ear.