The Devil's Horn (25 page)

Chapter 26

Late in the morning, some of Juma’s girls tidied up the bottles and cans in front of the blockhouse. Allyn didn’t speak to them, though they did things to allure him. He caught only glimpses of Juma shuttling in and out of the blockhouse. Left alone in the rumble of the generator, Allyn began drinking again in the lawn chair.

He sat for hours as the day warmed. Juma ran out of beers too quickly, before Allyn could get drunk. He didn’t seek shade but let himself perspire in his clothes. Allyn couldn’t recall the last time he’d lain on a beach or relaxed by a pool with Eva. Even on the deck behind his mansion beside the lake, he stayed under an umbrella, concerned the sun would age him. In sparse Macandezulo, the sunlight glowed ruby through his closed eyelids, the color of a blood orange. Sweat dribbled down his back and throat into his already-moist shirt. The flesh of his cheeks and arms tingled and reddened. Allyn sought these sensations, he wanted the change.

During the morning call with the president of Zimbabwe, Juma had beamed with pride at Allyn, his old protégé. The president decried the duplicity of America over this affair of the missile and the drone; he sympathized as if Allyn were acting out of civic duty. The president agreed to negotiate the deal and set the price at two hundred million dollars. The president would keep a 50 percent broker’s fee.

Juma could barely contain himself, he’d not imagined this kind of sum. Allyn hushed him. The president ended the call by saying the deadline for the ransom should be midnight tonight. Allyn challenged this as too fast to arrange that amount; the old politician and crook called the number a pittance. The time must be short, to leave America no chance of finding the missile and sending a team of assassins.

When Juma heard this, he emptied Macandezulo of all but the women, his four guards, and Allyn. He opened his basement arsenal and distributed rifles and unlocked the ammo cabinet. In teams of two, he sent his poachers, drug dealers, and whore-mongers, even the cooks, to the perimeter of the abandoned village, with orders to stay on guard until tomorrow morning. That was why there wasn’t enough beer left for Allyn. In one of Juma’s hurried passes, he propped a loaded rifle against Allyn’s lawn chair. It stood there, like Allyn, untouched and heating in the daylight.

There was nothing to do but wait and sun. He could toy with the women, but the thought of grappling in the heat and salty sweat lacked appeal; he’d save that for the darker, cooler hours spent on the straw mattress waiting for word of the payment. Allyn let the women slide by when they walked from the blockhouse to the well or to the alley to relieve themselves. Their shadows crossed him, fingers slipped across the top of his head; many times he did not open his eyes. Allyn silenced his cell phone when the mine rang him twice. He checked his watch, an expensive item. Any of the men in Macandezulo would have knocked him senseless for it on a dark Jo’burg street but not here, not where he was one of them.

Just after noon, Juma returned to the blockhouse. He disappeared inside long enough to emerge with a steel canister from the basement. The big man stepped up onto the bed of the bakkie; his weight pressed it down to the tires. Deftly, he loaded an ammunition belt into the mounted machine gun, then eased his great frame down. The worn truck springs sighed.

Juma joined Allyn in the lawn chairs. Despite stomping around the village for hours, he’d not sweat at all. Juma beheld his old friend with a shaking head.

“We should move you inside, shamwari. You look to be frying.”

“I’m fine.”

“Perhaps I should throw a bucket of water on you.”

“You can throw a bucket of champagne on me tomorrow.”

“Fifty million dollars each. It’s quite a thought.”

The two had no beers, and the cooks were on patrol. There was nothing to watch in the emptied village, and little breeze. More sweat drizzled into Allyn’s clothes. He thought he might take them off and sit nude in the sun, like a steam bath. Who would see him but Juma and the whores?

“Is it always like this?”

“Is what always like this?”

“Crime.”

The expanse of Juma’s chest jiggled. He knit his fingers.

“It’s a game of hide and seek. The one who hides has little to do after he’s in his hiding place. The seekers make all the effort. We’ve done what we did. Now we wait. They look.”

“Will they find us, Juma?”

“No.” Juma shook his head with closed eyes and a pursed lower lip. “No.”

“What about your contact? The one you left alive.”

Juma considered this, tapping his belly.

“You ask about crime, yes?”

“Yes.”

“A criminal must know human nature. His life and freedom depend on knowing how to turn a person away from what they thought was right. My contact in the Kruger is poor and needs my money. He is gifted but very unappreciated. And I have had a ranger killed at his feet.”

Juma meant that he did not trust his contact so much as owned him. He and Allyn were safe. But Juma did not say these things. Juma had put twenty guns around Macandezulo, and his big machine gun was loaded. To say they were completely safe would have been a lie.

Allyn wanted to be in this place, but he wanted a drink, too, to leave it a little.

Juma got to his feet.

“I have more to do. You’ll be alright here?”

“Fine.”

Moving behind him, Juma lifted the rifle to lay it across Allyn’s lap. The metal and wood were warm on Allyn’s legs, as if the gun had already been fired.

Chapter 27

Neels made it clear to the girl that another misstep or lie would be at the cost of her life. He told her to head to the border, nowhere else. Neels moved Karskie to the middle of the line and stationed himself behind Promise, rifle in hand.

In the last several years, he’d not spent enough time in Shingwedzi. He’d tried to let the younger men have it, had trained them to act in his stead. He’d tried to have a wife and a house, to leave the bush to others. But the animals continued to die without him, and the roars late at night were only his own and his wife’s. A desk was not the veld, a lamp was not the sun. Neels did not cheer up on the trail, for he had no faith he could even spot the traces of cheerfulness in his life anymore. He clamped his teeth and pushed on toward violence, knowing he was just.

Promise led them at a confident pace. She never looked over her shoulder, as if she were walking alone. She snagged leaves from a giant jade and chewed them for the water and vitamins. Passing the plant, Neels did the same.

Behind Neels, Karskie held his own. The big boy seemed lost in his thoughts, like Promise. Only the Americans talked quietly to each other.

The game trails dissipated as they neared the border. Promise entered a patch of hip-high grass where pods hitchhiked on their legs. The grasses bled into a dry streambed, a moonscape of stones and amber dust where the fence had fallen to the spring rains long ago and had not been repaired.

On the verge of the border, Neels called a halt. Karskie sought out a shrub to sit beneath its shade. Promise waited, dark and quiet as a well. Neels addressed the Americans.

“Macandezulo is four more miles, east along this ravine. We’ve got a few choices.”

The captain spoke.

“They are?”

“You hit a button and blow the damn thing right from here. Or we wait until dark.”

The tall man turned his sunglasses skyward, checking the sun.

“Another eight hours. Can’t wait that long.”

Neels extended an arm at Karskie.

“Hey. Karskie.”

The big boy stopped guzzling water.

“What?”

“Is Juma stupid?”

“Likely not.”

Neels brought the arm around, as if handing Karskie’s observation to the captain.

“Juma’s not stupid. If he’s got an operation in Macandezulo, he’ll have guards out. We can’t just stroll in. So, if you don’t want to wait until nightfall, the choice is made. Blow it now.”

“What if Juma’s nowhere near the missile? I thought you were so hot to kill him yourself.”

“Oh, have no doubt, Captain. Your rocket might take care of him. That’s fine with me. If it doesn’t, it’ll at least wreck something of his. But I know who the bastard is now. Where he is. Juma’s dead by your hand, or later by mine.”

“We need to get closer.”

“How close?”

“Enough to see it.”

What was this mad Yank saying? Was he going to fight his way into Macandezulo in broad daylight? Impossible with just the three of them, plus a woman and a boy who’d shoot off his own foot. Neels explained again that they were here at his consent, and he wasn’t going to trade bullets with Juma’s boys at high noon like an American cowboy.

“I’m telling you to blow it. Either that or I turn you around. Choose.”

The tall captain dug into his web vest for a handheld radio. The thing wasn’t much bigger than a delicatessen sandwich with an antenna. He held it between them.

“See this? It’s a low-wattage radio. Made for team communications only, not much power. The destruct charge on that missile is wired to an air-to-air frequency. Its range is based on line of sight, with nothing in the way. My radio on that high-end frequency isn’t strong enough for long range, not used ground to ground. Even if I wanted to detonate it from here, I probably can’t. There’s vegetation, terrain, maybe buildings between me and it. I need line of sight. I need to be close.”

“How close?”

“I don’t know, not until we figure out where Juma’s holding the missile.”

The captain tucked the radio away. The stocky sergeant stepped beside him. In unison, both Americans took their weapons—the ones Neels had brought them—into their hands.

“Now let me be clear. We’ve got orders, and they don’t include waiting until dark. We’re going to Macandezulo now. Promise, can you get us there?”

The girl’s dim pulse barely seemed to quicken. She looked at Neels without defiance or temper.

“Yes.”

“Where’s the border?”

She pointed east along the dry ravine.

“Right there.”

The sergeant hooked the girl by the arm and pulled her behind him. The captain kept talking; he was the sort of man Neels had followed in the Scouts. Grim, and like he’d said, clear.

“You do what you have to, Neels. Come or stay.”

Shouldering the strap of his own rifle, Neels almost called the man sir.

“Macandezulo in the middle of the afternoon?”

“That’s right.”

“You got a plan?”

“I do.”

Beside the captain, the sergeant jerked as though a shock had gone off in his feet. He opened his mouth but shut it after catching a faceful of the captain’s shining sunglasses.

Neels spread his hands.

“Let’s hear it.”

The captain gestured to Karskie, who was on his arse, listening intently from under the shrub.

“Mr. Karskie?”

The boy reared at his name the way a big-eared kudu would at the first sound of danger.

“What?”

“I need you, son.”

Chapter 28

Wally took charge. He left Promise in the front of the line but put LB behind her, Karskie in the middle, then himself. Neels trailed. The old ranger had struck up another of his one-sided arguments with the air. LB was losing confidence that Neels was bolted together tightly enough.

With guilty determination, Promise trudged over the border into Mozambique, like she was going to the gallows. She had every reason to break into a dead run and not look back. She could rush ahead to warn Juma that Americans were coming, that the missile he was holding for ransom was rigged. Juma could throw it in a truck and hightail it out of Macandezulo, way beyond the reach of Wally’s little radio. She could go into hiding with Juma, save her own life along with his. If he did manage to pull off this massive blackmail, he was going to be rich past LB’s ability to imagine. Promise would be in line for some gratitude. She could buy her grandparents a house from afar, then hide forever from Neels and his justice.

But the girl crossed the downed fence without a word or glance up from her boots. She continued over the amber dirt of the ravine under a noon sun that had grown tiresome. LB had nothing to console Promise, and he wanted to, for taking him to the water hole, the wild marvels he saw there: lions, zebras, antelope, and the young rhino that had looked at him almost drunkenly. The big beast had stood graven in the water, heavily sure of itself, armed with long horns and a ton of muscle, unaware of its own danger and everything Karskie had said, as if the bush were not being overrun with long rifles and machetes. LB had been moved at the sight, he was moved now, but he could not step beside Promise to thank her. He’d knelt beside fighting men, hopeless and dying men, and had never once been unable to comfort them somehow. LB had never seen anyone as alone as Promise. He followed her into Mozambique.

Behind them, a hundred feet of steel fence lay on its face, tangled wires and rusted posts, neglected and useless. On this side of the border, the earth turned stony, unnourished and untrammeled, the plants sparse and ugly, every tree scraggly and spooky. While the Kruger had not been welcoming, Mozambique shouted, “Go away.”

For three and a half miles in the dry creek, they saw no creatures, not a bird, nothing scurried out of their way. At the back of the line, Neels stopped mumbling. Karskie drained his water bottle and asked for more. That was it for talking.

When Promise finally stopped walking, LB almost bumped into her, mesmerized by the sameness of the bleached terrain. Karskie lumbered up and agreed they were a half mile west of Macandezulo. This was where Wally had said they would split up. This was the moment LB had been waiting for to argue with him.

Neels completed the circle. He surveyed their surroundings, seemed calmer and more focused.

“Captain.”

“What?”

“I go.”

“We talked about this. I need you in reserve. I got it.”

Before Neels could repeat himself, LB jumped in.

“Look. This sounds weird because he just said the same thing, but you need to stay behind.”

“No.”

LB retreated, gesturing for Wally to follow him so they could have a private debate. Neels wagged a finger, insistent.

“Enough of that. You two talk in front of us. We’re all in this.”

Wally held his ground. LB had no choice.

“Alright, fine. I’m saying let me and the kid handle it. You hang back with Neels. Something goes wrong, you figure out the next plan. Tactics is what you do. Call Torres. She’ll tell you the same thing.”

“Is this about Torres?”

“It’s about a lot of things. Mostly it’s about us taking two good shots at this if we need to.”

“That’s what we’re doing. Me and Karskie first. Then you and Neels.”

“It’s got to be me.”

“Why you?”

LB grabbed Wally’s arm to tow him away in the ravine. Neels objected. LB whirled on him.

“Fuck you. Shut up.”

When he’d dragged Wally far enough, LB dropped his voice.

“You’re the captain. You’re my oldest friend. And, yeah, you’re getting married. None of that matters right now. Listen, if we do need backup, you really think that obsessive asshole over there won’t do something nutso? I don’t know what to do with the guy. You stay with him, he respects you. If me and Karskie don’t pull it off, the two of you can get it done. Me? I’ll shoot Neels if you make me stay back with him. I swear. Five minutes in, I’ll shoot him.”

Wally worked his jaw while training his shades on the old ranger. LB tapped his own chest.

“You’ve sent me in a hundred times. I always come back, don’t I?”

Wally made a thirsty, smacking noise. He took a swallow from the canteen on his hip, then offered it to LB, who accepted.

“Give me your radio,” Wally said.

LB took a draft, returned the canteen, then gave Wally the handheld from his vest.

“The missile’s on two hundred sixty-one point one.”

Wally dialed the frequency knob.

“The code is five-four-three-one-zero. Don’t be standing there when you hit zero.”

Wally set the radio in LB’s palm.

“I want a really good wedding present.”

“I’ll stay sober at the reception.”

“Done.”

“Wally.”

“Now what?”

“How about the girl?”

“You trust her?”

LB glanced at Promise, who stood separate from Neels and the big boy. She’d crossed her hands in front of her, hanging her head as if in prayer.

“I don’t know. If she wanted to take off, she’d have done it by now. Keep an eye on her. Keep Neels off her.”

“I’ll try.”

LB and Wally rejoined the others. Karskie left his rifle with Neels; LB refused to be unarmed. Karskie mopped his brow on his bare arm. LB stepped up to him, a fist on the boy’s sloping chest.

“You good?”

Neels spoke for him.

“He’s good.”

This brought a pinched smile to Karskie’s lips.

“I suppose I’m good, then. Shall we?”

Karskie took the first steps. LB joined him.

Like an automaton, Promise fell in behind them. Neels stabbed a finger at the girl, but he aimed his surprise at Wally.

“What the fok is this?”

Wally told Promise to stay back. She shook her head.

“Juma won’t believe you. He will believe me.”

Neels lunged for her.

“You’re going nowhere, you little
lafaard
.”

Before LB could move, Promise dodged Neels’s grasp. She skipped around him, looking ready to box, on her toes, nimble and resurgent. She spit her words.

“Touch me again, old man.”

LB grabbed her by the back of her tunic. He tugged her off balance, away from Neels, who looked ready to slug her. Wally jumped between them. Karskie flapped his long arms, already frightened, now flustered.

LB swung Promise toward Macandezulo; she stumbled when he let her go. How could he leave her behind with Neels and that amount of hatred? If LB did wind up needing Wally, he’d need the old ranger, too, and fast. Better to separate Neels from the girl, if for no other reason than to keep him quiet.

Besides, she might be right about Juma. LB stomped close. She balled and unballed her hands, leaning as if she might charge Neels, fired up and fed up.

“Stop it.”

Promise throttled her tension back enough for LB to speak in a normal tone.

“You know we’re putting our lives in your hands. Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“My word is not worthless.”

“You’ve broken your word. Recently.”

This slapped Promise, as LB intended. More of the girl’s truculence drained away.

“I know.”

“But now you’re telling me you’ll keep it. That right?”

Promise’s eyes flexed; something behind them snapped into place, hard.

“I will. To Wophule.”

LB eased his own challenging stance.

“What did that mean? What he called you. Lafaard.”

“Coward.”

“He’s not even close. How do you say dickhead?”

“Pielkop.”

“I’ll hang onto that one. Listen to me. This is serious. Juma’s not going to be glad to see you.”

“I know.”

“You keep it together. Follow my lead. Nothing else. Can you do that?”

“I can.”

“We’re there to get rid of that missile. Anything else will have to wait. I know you’re pissed. But I got a mission, and nothing, not me, not you, not Wophule, comes before that. I mean it. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“And let me give you some advice. You got enough to worry about. Don’t make it worse thinking about killing somebody. It’ll take care of itself if he’s that big a creep.”

“I won’t interfere.”

“That as good as I’m going to get?”

“Yes.”

“I guess it’ll have to do. Walk.”

Promise joined Karskie, facing east along the dry creek to Macandezulo. LB left his pack behind and shouldered the rifle. He tossed Wally a thumbs-up. Neels had turned his back.

LB didn’t believe in signs, but buzzards wheeled in the blue distance. What could have died, since he’d seen no animals since crossing the border? LB had been in shit holes before, rescue missions in desert wastes and high, airless buttes; dead salt basins; and frothing oceans. But vacant, sun-warped Mozambique took a spot near the top of the list of forbidding places LB would try to avoid in the future.

He slogged on between Promise and Karskie. The girl spoke first.

“You should not have brought your weapon.”

LB answered, his eyes on the buzzards.

“I disagree.”

“I’ve seen Juma’s men. They’re bushmen. We won’t know when they are close. They may shoot first.”

Again, the girl had a point.

“Karskie.”

“What?”

“What color underwear do you have on?”

“Beg pardon?”

When Promise refused to carry the long stick, she smiled for the first time since dawn. LB couldn’t do it, either, he needed both hands ready. With a hefty sigh, Karskie accepted the added indignity.

The big boy hoisted the branch high into the hot day, his white boxer shorts attached to the end. Advancing through the ravine, Karskie waved the stick back and forth more than necessary. LB focused on the bush and hoped Juma’s men would arrive soon. Karskie muttered a series of poor jokes at his own expense, then hushed. The meager bush sizzled, and their boots kicked red puffs of dust.

LB could not have told how they snuck up on him. Beneath the buzzards and the undershorts, his attention might have waned. But the clack of a bolt sliding a round into a long barrel was unmistakable. LB sensed the crosshairs finding him. He raised his hands before the voice reached out.

“Drop your gun.”

Karskie turned his boxers in the direction of the voice, waving furiously. LB pushed the boy’s arms down.

“That’s enough. Lower it. Jesus.”

Before dropping the stick, Karskie tugged his underpants off the end. Clutching them, he lifted his own hands, oblivious and scared. Promise didn’t raise her arms but keyed in on the exact place where the poachers emerged. Two dark men appeared behind a large rock, stepping out of the heat ripples above it. Far off, the buzzards circled behind their heads.

One man was small, burdened with an AK-47 that looked too heavy for him. The other, his dark limbs like dead branches, came with a hunting rifle up at his oleo-colored eyes, finger on the trigger. He wore a leopard-pelt poncho.

Beside LB, Promise muttered, “Thank you.”

“Who’re you thanking?”

“The old gods.”

LB had no time to consider this. The leopard-skin shooter advanced quickly, insisting with both his voice and gun that LB drop his own rifle. The little one with the AK-47 seemed to brighten as he approached, smiling at Promise.

With hands still high, LB whispered, “You know these guys?”

“Yes. The tall one, Good Luck, he will die.”

So this was the poacher who’d shot her partner.

Without lowering the hunting rifle from his cheek, the shooter stopped ten strides away. He looked to know how to use it, and his barrel did not waver from LB’s chest.

“Promise. I did not think to see you again.”

Good Luck spoke with a lisp, without front teeth.

“Tell your friend to put his gun on the ground, or I will kill him. Friend, listen to her. She knows.”