Ivory (54 page)

George fell to his knees, but then dropped to his belly and rolled, avoiding Alex's backswing.

‘Run!' Alex yelled at Jane and Oliver.

Oliver lashed out at George, kicking him hard in the ribs as he tried to crawl away. George loosed another shot, which would have struck Jane if she hadn't dodged to her left. Alex stomped his booted foot down on George's wrist and the other man cried in pain and dropped his pistol. Alex scooped the weapon up and pointed it at George.

‘I should kill you now.'

‘I'll kill him for you, man,' Oliver said.

Alex shook his head. ‘No. Not yet, at least. We need him.'

George got to his knees, nursing his wrist. Alex guessed it might be broken.

‘On your feet.' He grabbed the Englishman by the collar of his shirt and hauled him upright, eliciting another cry of pain. He checked Penfold's pockets and relieved him of a speed loader fitted with six rounds of ammunition for the pistol.

‘What now?' Oliver asked.

Alex held the pistol under Penfold's chin, his free hand locked around his neck. ‘Why did you land your helo on the ship?'

‘Fuel,' answered Oliver.

‘How much have you got left?'

‘Enough to start it and make a short hop. The tanks would be dry soon after.'

‘How far could you get?'

‘I don't know. A kilometre, maybe two?'

‘That's enough. We're going to go out there and you're going to take Jane, get off this bloody tub and fly towards the
Talana
. Ditch if you have to. They'll pick up your emergency rescue beacon.'

‘How do you know about the
Talana
?'

Jane looked at him.

‘Long story. The short version is I put a call into Tactical Headquarters to tip them off about the
Peng Cheng
– that's the freighter we landed the stolen ivory on. I didn't want that ivory leaving Africa and ending up in China or Taiwan.'

‘I don't get it,' Oliver said. ‘You stole millions of rands worth of ivory and you were going to hand it back again?'

‘It's complicated.'

Jane smiled.

Penfold's face showed his disbelief and outrage. ‘It's a bloody double-cross is what it is. You prick. You were going to take Chan's money and then shop him.'

Alex shrugged. ‘You and Chan set me up and ambushed me. I'm a pirate – what's your excuse, George?'

*

Piet van Zyl stormed away from the Rooivalk. His men rested in the shade of the drooping rotor blades. They were all strong guys, but they would need more muscle power to tip the helicopter overboard, and time was running out. He'd heard the shots from inside the container and assumed George was executing all of the prisoners.

‘Christ, what a bloody mess,' he muttered to himself, rueing his decision to take Penfold's money. Still, he told himself, they were all in it up to their necks now. There was no going back. He climbed the stairs to the bridge. He would get the first mate to broadcast a message to the rest of the ship's crew over the PA system, summoning every spare man to the helipad.

‘What's going on down there?' the mate said as Piet opened the door.

He turned and held a hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare reflected from the deck and the containers that crowded it. ‘Fuck.'

Piet unslung his M4 and, staying low, moved out onto the starboard bridge wing. He rested his rifle on the rail, switched the selector switch to single shot and took aim.

 

‘Unsling your weapons and put them on the deck,' Alex commanded Van Zyl's thugs. Seeing their paymaster, Penfold, with a pistol at his head, the men slowly, reluctantly, complied. ‘Jane, Oliver, grab a gun each. Toss the rest overboard.' What worried him was that Van Zyl was not with his men. Alex scanned the decks and faraway bridge, but couldn't see the South African.

Jane hurled the small arsenal into the blue waters of the Indian Ocean below while Oliver frisked each of the men. He liberated concealed pistols from two of them and stuffed one in the breast pocket of his flight suit. ‘All clear.'

‘Oliver, get in and start up.'

The pilot needed no convincing. He tossed his assault rifle into the cockpit and climbed up into his seat.

‘Jane, give me the rifle and get in the front seat.'

‘No, Alex. I'm not going to leave you. I've got a gun and I'm going to stay here with you, until the navy comes.'

‘I'll face the music – God knows it's time – but I want you out of here, safe and alive. You're better off with Oliver in a life raft than on this death ship.'

She shook her head. ‘I'm staying with you.'

There was a whine from the Rooivalk's engines and the rotors above them slowly started to turn.

‘Get in the chopper! Oliver, close your hatch. There's still one of the gunslingers unaccounted for. Keep an eye out for him.'

The pilot cocked his head, unable to hear Alex over the growing noise from the turbojet engines.

Jane looked from Alex, to George, who glared back at her malevolently. She stared into the eyes of the monster she had very nearly married, then looked into Alex's. She saw the resignation there, and something else. ‘I love you, Alex.'

Alex opened his mouth, but the report of the gunshot silenced him.

The first bullet passed through Oliver's throat. The second took off the top of his skull. Unrestrained, he toppled sideways, and hung half in, half out of the cockpit.

Alex threw George to the deck, his pistol still at the shipping magnate's head. He was unwilling to give up his only bargaining chip. Van Zyl's men made a run for it, scurrying amidst the mass of stacked containers like fleeing cockroaches.

Van Zyl's third, fourth and fifth shots went into the air intakes in front of the Rooivalk's twin engines. Thick smoke billowed from one exhaust, but the rotors still turned steadily above them.

‘Alex!' Rounds zinged off the metal containers around Jane, sparks and bare metal gouges showing the path of ricochets.

Alex knew they would be picked off soon enough, and Jane would be the next to die. Penfold was the only thing stopping Van Zyl from shooting Alex. The mercenary was toying with them. He'd told Oliver to close the canopy on the chopper as he knew the Rooivalk's crew
stations were protected by armoured glass. ‘Jane, when I start firing, climb up into the gunner's seat . . . in the front, OK?'

‘OK.'

Jane looked at him, eyes wide with fear, but she nodded.

‘On three. One, two . . .'

Alex's third count was drowned out by a short burst of five rounds on automatic from Van Zyl's rifle. Alex countered, emptying the revolver at the bridge. He had little chance of hitting the man at this range, but all he wanted to do was keep his head down. Jane leapt from the container top and climbed into the gunner's seat. As she slammed the cockpit closed a bullet bounced off it, starring the glass.

Alex had to release his grip around George's neck to reload and as he did so Penfold elbowed him hard in the ribs. He knew it was coming, so he rolled out of the way. George sprang to his feet and ran off towards the bridge. Alex rammed the speed loader in the empty chambers of the six-shooter. He fired alternately at George and the bridge wing as he used his free hand to haul Oliver's body down from the pilot's seat.

Alex climbed in and slammed the cockpit hatch closed as a fusillade of shots bounced off the glass. Alex surveyed the array of gauges, switches and buttons in front of him. He'd watched plenty of helicopter pilots over the years but had no idea how to fly. He found the throttle and revved it hard. Above them he heard the engine note change and saw the blades turn faster.

Jane was on her knees, looking up at him from the front seat. She winced every time a bullet bounced off their glass cocoon. ‘Can you get us off the ship?'

‘I don't know, but I'm trying.'

Above the noise of the engine Alex could hear someone talking over the loudspeaker. The words were unclear but, glancing around, he saw Van Zyl's men start to emerge from their hiding spots, and crewmen in overalls appearing, more tentative than the trained killers, as they climbed up onto the top stack of containers. The men moved towards the helicopter.

‘Hurry, Alex!'

Alex increased the throttle further and pulled up on the lever by his side. He felt the pressure ease off the Rooivalk's landing gear. He toyed with the cyclic stick.

‘We're lifting!' Jane squealed.

Jane had dropped her rifle in her rush to get aboard the helicopter.

Washington, Van Zyl's hugely muscled African-American sidekick, scooped the weapon up.

‘Come on baby . . . Please . . .' The Rooivalk lifted a metre off the deck and rocked sickeningly from side to side as Alex wrestled with the unfamiliar controls.

‘We're flying!'

The hired gun raised the M4 to his shoulder and opened fire, emptying thirty rounds from the curved magazine into the one functioning engine.

The Rooivalk dropped like a dead bird, jarring Alex and Jane in their seats.

Alex looked out and saw Van Zyl and Penfold, side by side, returning to the helicopter. If he opened the armoured glass cockpit to shoot at the men he would be cut down in less than a second by the black man standing guard, his rifle pointed straight at Alex. There was no way he could be quicker on the draw.

Van Zyl's men and a dozen of the ship's crew surrounded the Rooivalk and the two people trapped inside it. They laid their hands on the hot metal and, at Penfold's shouted urging, began pushing.

Alex checked the instrument panel in front of him. Even though both engines were dead, the lights on several gauges and monitors were still illuminated. That meant they still had electrical power. ‘Jane, put on the gunner's helmet.'

‘What? It's like plastic, it's no good for –'

‘Jane, just put the bloody thing on.'

Alex found the weapons selector switch and moved it to ‘guns'.

‘Pull the monocle on the side of the helmet around so you can look through it. Tell me what you see.'

Jane did as he asked, then said, ‘It's a sight of some sort.'

Below them, Alex felt the vibration of something mechanical moving.

‘Turning your head moves the guns in the turret under the nose.'

With the extra manpower the Rooivalk started to slide. It was sitting crossways on the container stack, its nose pointing out to sea on the starboard side of the ship. Looking over Jane's head Alex could see the front of the chopper was now overhanging the edge. They'd be lucky to survive the long drop uninjured, and if they couldn't get out they would suffocate once the helicopter went under. He was sure that if they did get out, Van Zyl and George would pick them off in the water.

‘Jane, aim at something and pull the red trigger on the control stick.'

‘OK.'

He watched her shift in her seat and turn her head as far to the right as she could, until she was looking back at the bridge. Alex could just glimpse the tips of the cannon's multiple barrels. Jane squeezed the red trigger and the whole aircraft shuddered. Men around them scattered when the guns roared into life and spewed hot spent brass onto the containers.

Tracer rounds flashed brightly past the bridge and others slammed through steel plating and shattered even the thick glass in front of the helm.

‘Whoo-hoo!'

‘Keep firing, Jane. Short bursts, though. Keep their heads down.'

For a minute they stayed there. Alex looked around him. The crewmen and gunslingers were slowly edging back towards the Rooivalk. Jane turned her head as far as she could to the right, then shifted position to turn to the left and the guns moved with her. However, it was impossible to get them to face rearwards. Van Zyl was quick to spot the weakness and he and most of the men disappeared out of sight under the Rooivalk's tail boom.

Alex felt the rear of the aircraft start to lift.

‘No!'

‘Shit,' Alex said. He pounded the instrument panel in front of him.
‘We've got a helicopter gunship full of missiles and rockets and nothing to shoot at.'

‘What's that on the radar?' Jane asked.

Alex looked at the screen and checked the name next to the blip. ‘The SAS
Talana
! Jane, I could kiss you.'

T
he voice on the radio being broadcast throughout the bridge of the SAS
Talana
was distorted by the hum of the sea boat's engine, wind and the slap of the RHIB's hull on the water.

‘Say again, Ironman,' Captain Fourie said into his microphone.

Petty Officer Bruce Irons – Ironman to all ranks on his ship – was coxswain of one of the rigid-hulled inflatable boats racing towards the
Penfold Son
and the reported location of the crashed Rooivalk.

‘Sir, we've just heard what sounds like gunfire coming from the direction of the
Penfold Son
. Request further orders, over.'

Fourie turned to Commander Kumalo. ‘XO, get on to that bloody freighter and find out what's going on.' To his small boat crew he said, ‘Ironman, cut your engine and hold your position. Tell the other RHIB to do the same. Await further orders.'

 

Jane looked out of the cockpit to the stubby wings on the right-hand side. A pod of a dozen air-to-ground rockets hung there, along with two larger Mokopa antitank missiles. One of Van Zyl's henchmen stood behind the wing, out of the arc of fire of the cannon under the nose, and pushed forward as the other men lifted the tail another
few degrees higher. She felt the helicopter start to slide.

‘Now, Jane. Fire!'

‘Oh God, please forgive me,' she whispered. At rest, the Rooivalk had been sitting slightly nose up, but with the men lifting from behind, the rocket pod was now sitting close to parallel with the sea surface. She could see from the radar display in front of her that the blob electronically marked as
SAS Talana – F 149
was dead ahead of them. Alex had told her that in the unlikely event the unguided antipersonnel rocket hit the
Talana
, it would bounce off the ship's thick hull. It had been her idea to fire at the
Talana
and get them to do something – anything – in a response that might buy them some time. She prayed there were no men in exposed positions, then switched the selector to ‘rockets' and pulled the trigger.