Red Earth (16 page)

‘Pilots?' Mike asked.

‘Heading there now.'

They crawled to the cockpit, leaving Franklin in a dip in the ground, which would cover him from view of their enemies. The smoke was thinning. Mike saw a man across the road, standing by the parked cars. ‘Jed, down!'

A noise like a rushing train was followed by a smoke trail as a second rocket-propelled grenade scythed through the air between Jed and Mike. The two men flattened themselves on the ground as the projectile slammed into the cockpit of the downed Sea Hawk. The grenade detonated and fire mushroomed.

‘If they were still alive, they're finished now,' Jed said. ‘Run!'

*

Themba had run down the hill, away from the falling, spinning helicopter, and had felt the impact of the crash reverberate through his feet. Lerato had been right behind him and Themba had motioned her to the rear of the caravan.

As gunfire burst around them and a second RPG round slammed into the helicopter, Themba made his way to the side of the caravan and, finding the door unlocked, grabbed Lerato's forearm. She struggled, the weight of the baby on her back making it harder for her to get inside.

The engine of the Discovery roared to life. Themba saw that the elderly white couple had made it back to their car during the chaos. The Discovery lurched forward, and the caravan with it.

‘Themba, hurry!'

Themba ran after the caravan, pushing himself into the fastest sprint of his life. Ahead there was another long burst of gunfire and the Discovery weaved hard to the right. The caravan slewed and rocked and for a moment Themba feared it might roll over, but the evasive manoeuvre slowed the van enough for Themba to catch up.

Lerato hung half out the door, her arm extended. ‘Take my hand!'

‘Take the rifle.' Themba hurled the AK-47 and Lerato just managed to catch it, almost fumbling it in the process. She tossed the rifle inside. Themba's legs pumped as fast as they could and his heart hurt with the effort of keeping up. The Discovery started to accelerate again now that the caravan had stabilised. Themba reached out and felt Lerato's fingers grip him as he leapt. She pulled and he scrambled and for an instant he thought his arm would be wrenched from its socket, but she managed to haul him into the doorway and he landed on the floor inside with a painful thud.

Lerato reached over him and slammed the door shut then moved to the front of the caravan. She undid the wrap and laid the baby, screaming from the noise and movement, on a couch. She stacked pillows around him to try and stop him from moving. Chest heaving, Themba hauled himself to his knees and peeked through the closed blind on the rear window. The woman in the police uniform and the two men were all firing at two other men in the grass beyond the burning wreck of the helicopter. Themba saw the woman pointing at the departing caravan and yelling something to the men. Then the trio began getting into the police
bakkie
, the woman at the wheel. Moments later they took off, coming down the road behind the caravan. The two men from the helicopter were on their feet now and ran into the middle of the road, firing after the police vehicle. ‘Help me,' Themba said.

Themba unfastened the lock on one side of the long rectangular window. Lerato went to the other side and unlocked it as well. Themba pushed the window out, locking it in the up position, then retrieved the AK-47 from the floor of the van.

‘Get down,' he yelled at Lerato.

She lowered herself beneath the window as three rounds zinged through the inside of the caravan. The man in the front passenger seat of the
bakkie
was firing at them with a pistol.

Themba popped his head up and fired a burst of rounds at the
bakkie
. He had the satisfaction of seeing the gunman and the driver duck their heads as their windscreen shattered, but the truck kept coming. In fact, the gap between them closed as the woman accelerated.

Lerato was peeking through the window. ‘Hurry, they're catching us.' The child was screaming.

The man with the pistol fired again and Lerato retreated deeper into the caravan and lay on a bunk bed, moving some of the pillows and covering the child with her body, Themba marvelled at her courage. He must be brave, too. Ignoring the incoming fire he stood, braced himself with his legs apart and fired a long burst, emptying his magazine, into the engine bay of the
bakkie
.

Bullets glanced off the bonnet, scarring the white paintwork back to bare metal, but Themba had also hit something vital. Steam jetted like a geyser from either the radiator or a punctured hose. The driver slewed to try and get out of Themba's line of fire, and the
bakkie
started dropping further back.

The caravan lurched as the Discovery took a left turn, hard and fast, and Themba had to reach out a hand to steady himself on the kitchenette counter. ‘They're falling behind!'

‘Where are we going?' Lerato asked.

Themba checked the countryside around them. ‘Heading north. We've crossed underneath the main access road that divides iMfolozi from Hluhluwe; that means he's crossed into Hluhluwe instead of going into the outside world via the Nyalazi Gate.'

‘Is that smart?' Lerato asked.

Themba thought about it. ‘He could drive much faster once he's out of the national park, but he also might be more vulnerable to attack. I guess he feels safer staying inside a game reserve, where there will be rangers, hopefully, responding to what happened.'

‘What exactly did happen just then?'

‘I don't know,' Themba said, honestly. ‘But it's clear they weren't real police officers you were about to surrender to. They just shot down an American military helicopter.'

Lerato closed her eyes, and when Themba looked at her more closely he saw the tears start to stream. ‘What are we going to do, Themba? Who are these people and why are they still trying to kill us?'

He staggered the length of the rocking caravan – the driver might still be in the game reserve, but he was far exceeding the fifty kilometre per hour speed limit as he negotiated the winding road – and sat down on the bunk bed beside Lerato. She had the child in her arms, pressed to her breast, and was rocking him. Themba put his arms around both of them and felt Lerato's tears soak through his shirt onto the skin of his chest.

She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. ‘I need to contact my father, Themba.'

‘We should be able to use the electricity points in the caravan. If we're in luck they might even have an iPhone charger in here somewhere. I'll have a look in the drawers, see what I can find.'

‘We have to get to him.'

‘I'll get you to him as soon as I can,' Themba promised. ‘At least we're safe for the moment, Lerato.'

She looked into his eyes. ‘Themba …'

‘Yes?'

She eased herself away from his embrace. ‘I was thinking before, after I found out about your past, that I couldn't trust you. I wanted us to give ourselves up to those people, but you were right to be cautious; they are bad people.'

‘Yes.' Hearing her words gave him no comfort.

She wiped her eyes. ‘Tell me I can trust you, that you'll get us out of this, alive.'

‘I will get you and the baby home safe.'
Or I will die trying
.

Chapter 17

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.'