Far Horizon (25 page)

This was the reaction the man was hoping for and
he drove his left fist, with the pipe still clenched in it, up into Mike's solar plexus. Mike doubled over and dropped to his knees. The man's teeth scored the length of Mike's finger as it finally came free. The man jumped back, using the room to deliver a brutal kick up into Mike's jaw, knocking the Australian all the way to the ground.

Blood ran freely from the gash on the man's head and he wiped it from his eye with the back of the hand that held the pipe. Mike was having trouble breathing, his finger and face afire with competing agony. He felt like he was going to throw up and tasted stale tequila rising at the back of his throat.

The man again reached under his jacket for his pistol. This time it came out easily. It was an automatic with a long silencer screwed to the barrel.

‘Who are you?' he asked again. He was breathing rapidly, but there was little doubt who had come out of this fight the worse off.

‘Fuck off,' Mike managed painfully, wasting the little air he had been able to drag back into his lungs.

The man kicked again, this time finding Mike's stomach. Mike curled into the foetal position. Somewhere in the darkness he heard running footsteps on the road. I'm going to die, he thought to himself. But there was another thought, as well. He knew he had to protect Sarah and the rest of the people in the truck. Even if he died, the others must not be dragged into this mess.

‘I've been told to kill you, you know,' the man said matter-of-factly, his rich, deep voice steady again. ‘Tell me what I need to know and the girl will go free.'

‘There's nothing to tell,' Mike gasped. ‘Why the fuck did you smash my truck?'

He gave a satisfied snigger. At least Mike now knew Hess, Orlov and their henchman had nothing to connect Sarah and him to the garish overland truck parked in the shadows.

‘Have it your way, then,' the man said. He straightened his arm.

Mike saw his finger take up the slack on the trigger. He realised with a clarity that sliced through his pain that he wasn't ready to die, and that he wouldn't be until Hess and Orlov and whoever had assisted them were locked up or dead – preferably the latter. He had to think of something to stall the man above him. ‘It was money,' he rasped.

The man relaxed his arm slightly and looked over the foresight of the pistol. ‘What?'

‘Money. We get information from contacts, sources, in the top hotels about wealthy male clients. The girl distracts them, gets into their rooms on the promise of sex, then she drugs them and rolls them. Sometimes I do the rooms while she keeps them busy. This time it didn't work, we got busted.'

Mike spoke quickly and hoped the man's command of English was good enough for him to take it all in. The story was flimsy with a dozen holes in it and wouldn't stack up in front of Hess and Orlov, but Mike was hoping it would be enough to stall the enforcer.

The man hesitated and Mike could see him concentrating on the story, weighing it up in his mind. ‘Bullshit,' he said, smiling. ‘I don't believe you, but if
that's the best you can come up with, I'll tell the
baas.
But now you got to die.'

The man straightened his arm again and Mike grabbed a handful of sandy earth. He'd throw it into his eyes, he thought, and maybe the gunman would miss his head. Not much of a plan.

A loud whistle and a dog's bark shattered the quiet. ‘Stop, police!' Mike heard a voice shout. ‘Drop the gun!'

The man was suddenly trapped in the beam of a flashlight. He turned, one arm raised to shield his eyes from the glare, and fired a shot towards the light. Mike heard more shouting and swearing as he rolled, then crawled as fast he could into a patch of deep shadow. He looked back and saw his attacker was gone. He heard the fallen fence squeak and rattle in protest as the man scrambled over it, and he rose painfully to one knee to get a better view. He was running up the street, past darkened shops, scattering a few drunken late-night revellers from the footpath. He disappeared into the shadows of the first alleyway he came to.

Mike turned sharply as he heard someone approach him. He had his fists out in front of him, ready to strike. It was Nigel, looking red-faced and breathing hard. ‘Where the fuck have you been?' Mike spat.

Nigel looked hurt and said, ‘Saving your bloody life by the look of it.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘This character dressed up like Shaft comes up to me an hour ago at the truck and asks me if I've seen
an Australian with a ponytail and a pommy chick with blonde hair. This dude looked bad, but he said he was a friend of yours. I told him I hadn't seen anyone like that, but that there was a blonde woman and a man driving that Toyota four-wheel drive over there.' Nigel smiled as he recounted the conversation.

Mike nodded. ‘Good work. What happened then?'

‘Well, he wandered around the camping ground. Checked the gents, and the ladies, which made me suspicious. He peered into the windows of the four-wheel drive and the next thing I knew, the alarm was going off. He'd broken into it, rooted around for something and then got out a knife and slashed the tyres! I took off and went looking for the security guard. He was outside gasbagging with his mates and the two of us hailed some passing cops.'

‘Thanks,' Mike said.

‘No problem. Who was that guy, anyway? Why was he after you two?'

‘Just some crim,' Mike said, as two Zimbabwean policemen approached them. The security guard was pulling hard on the leash of a barking Alsatian that looked like it wanted to tear a hole in the security fence with its teeth. Mike guessed the security guard's duties didn't extend to pursuit and capture. He supposed the police, too, were happier to stay and take statements rather than pursue an armed man on foot.

The police wanted to know what had gone on and Mike gave them a cobbled-together version of Nigel's good deed and his arrival on the scene. Mike said he had interrupted the man vandalising the truck and had tried to stop him. Mike and Nigel went through
the motions of giving descriptions and the police said they should both go to the station and give a statement. Neither of them wanted that. They were saved, however, by the arrival of the hapless owners of the four-wheel drive. Mike felt sorry for the young South African couple – they looked like they could have been honeymooners. However, he was relieved that their presence, and Nigel's quick thinking, had saved the day. Mike left the couple with the police, and he and Nigel retreated to Nelson and their circle of tents. The rest of the crew stumbled into the campsite a few minutes later, minus Jane and Julie Muir.

‘Oh my God, what happened?' Sarah asked when she saw the bruises on Mike's face.

Mike told the rest of the crew the semi-made-up story about him and Nigel surprising the car vandal.

‘Where are Jane and Julie?' Mike asked when he'd finished the tale.

Mel laughed. ‘Don't worry about those two, they're kicking on with the rafting guys. They said they'll catch up with us tomorrow morning if they don't make it back tonight.'

Mike led Sarah around the back of the truck. She had fetched the first aid kit from the truck and insisted she let him treat his cuts. As she swabbed his face with cottonwool soaked in antiseptic, Mike told her the truth. The antiseptic hurt like hell, but he found the sensation of her soft fingers brushing his face was soothing.

‘Christ, you were lucky,' she said, when he had finished explaining.

‘I don't feel very lucky.'

When she was finished tending his cuts Mike broke away from her. He unlocked the tool locker and switched on a fluorescent light connected to the truck's spare battery. He rummaged in the locker and pulled out the can of grease.

‘What are you doing?' she asked.

‘Evening the odds a little,' he said, as he fished the plastic-wrapped bundle from the can.

From the other side of the truck Mike heard the sound of beer cans popping and a cork being withdrawn from a wine bottle. There were giggles and squeals again now that the drama was over. The party would go on into the small hours, which was good. Hess, Orlov and their henchman were unlikely to come back to the camping ground with so much activity. Also, Mike reasoned, the criminals couldn't be sure the police weren't patrolling the area in search of the phantom car vandal. Still, he couldn't afford to take any chances now that he and Sarah had been partly compromised.

Sarah watched in fascination as Mike unwrapped the plastic and drew out the pistol and cardboard box of ammunition. He removed the magazine and filled it with squat little bullets.

‘You load it like this,' he said, holding the pistol in the light so Sarah could see as he slid the full magazine into the butt and slapped the bottom with the palm of his hand to make sure it was fully seated. ‘This is how you cock it,' he explained as he grasped the slide with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, pulled back and then let it slide forward. ‘That chambers – loads – a bullet into the spout. Don't
point it at anyone unless you plan on killing him. To fire, just pull the trigger. Got it?'

‘Me?' she asked, recoiling as he held the pistol out to her.

‘I'm fucked,' he said. His head had started to spin and he felt like throwing up again. He couldn't work out which he needed most, to vomit or sleep. ‘I've got to lie down. Wake me in three hours. The party will probably be just about over by then. I'll take the next shift until dawn.'

‘Do you think they'll come back?' she asked, as she hesitantly took the pistol. She hefted it experimentally and pointed at a nearby tree.

‘I don't know. My guess is that their man will report back with the story I gave him before the cops arrived. They probably won't believe it, but I doubt they'll risk checking on us themselves. I suppose they'll try to put as much distance between us and them as they can, maybe change their itinerary a bit to throw us off.'

‘OK. Get some sleep. I'll wake you in three hours,' she said, peering into the darkness beyond the truck.

S
arah didn't wake Mike up after he left her with the pistol. He awoke with the sun in his eyes at seven in the morning. He ached all over, from his stinking feet to the tips of every long strand of cigarette-smoke and blood-encrusted hair. Gingerly he felt a bump and a scabbed cut on the back of his head.

‘You said it yourself, you were fucked,' Sarah told him when he angrily asked why she had let him sleep in. ‘For God's sake, Mike, you'll kill us all if you fall asleep at the wheel.'

There was no hot water in the communal shower block, but at least the cold spray revived him a little. He was still annoyed with Sarah for not waking him, but grateful for the extra sleep. Sarah dozed in the seat beside him as he drove through Zambia and a succession of forgettable farming towns. The continuous whine of the diesel engine and the afternoon heat combined to give him a headache of epic proportions. He pulled a couple more paracetamol from
his sweat-stained shirt pocket and washed them down with warm water from the plastic bottle on the dashboard.

Mike glanced over his shoulder into the main cab behind him and thought it looked like the aftermath of a plane crash. Bodies were strewn everywhere – across seats with arms and legs akimbo, on the floor and leaning up against the rear wall of the cab. George was half in and half out of his airline seat with his head hanging back at an unnatural angle. A silvery stream of drool connected his mouth to the floor of the cab. Jane and Julie lay on the floor. Jane still had her party clothes on from the night before and had added sunglasses to protect her bloodshot eyes. She and Julie were the reason they would not reach Kariba that day. Mike was annoyed at the pair of them.

Although their itinerary didn't call for them to leave until mid-morning he had roused everyone reluctantly from their tents as soon as he was up. Mike couldn't tell them it was because he didn't want to risk a return visit by the hunting party. Sarah alone knew why he was so concerned and why he had reverted to army-officer mode.

‘But
why
do we have to leave so early?' Linda had asked in a whining tone as she clutched her head.

‘Because I
say
so, that's why!' he had barked. She sulked off and a few of the others had given him puzzled stares.

‘Where the bloody hell are they?' Mike had asked for the fourth or fifth time as he paced up and down outside the truck in the camping ground. He glanced at his watch and saw it was eleven o'clock. He had
wanted to put as much distance between the overlander and Orlov and Hess as quickly as possible. He knew from the accommodation list Theron had given him, and from Sarah's conversation with Orlov, that they planned on spending time hunting in the safari areas south of the Zambezi before they, too, passed through Kariba. But there was the possibility they would change their plans and come looking for him and Sarah instead.

Finally, a minibus bearing the logo of a white-water rafting company had pulled up with a skid on the gravel road. The sliding door opened and Jane nearly fell in her struggle to get out. Julie supported her mother as she regained her balance.

‘Sorry, are we late?' Julie asked apologetically after she and Jane had said their farewells to the strapping rafting guides. ‘It was my fault, not Mum's.'

‘Sorry. Sorry,' Jane chimed in and then giggled. She looked like she was still drunk, or stoned, or both. It must have been a hell of a party, Mike thought.

‘It's OK. Just get in the truck. We've packed your tent and your gear for you,' he had said.

‘Ooh, cranky are we?' Jane slurred.

‘Yes,' Mike said.

He had felt better once they had cleared customs and immigration on both sides of the river and were at last on the open road. He fished the map from the console between him and Sarah, and the movement roused her from her sleep. They had passed through Livingstone, the older, quieter, shabbier version of Victoria Falls town on the Zambian side, and were heading towards the capital, Lusaka.

Sarah was back in her normal backpacker gear of shorts and tank top. Her hair was tousled and there was still a hint of dark eyeliner under her bloodshot eyes. He thought she looked just as sexy as she had when she was dressed up the previous day.

‘Where are we?' she asked, yawning.

‘Buggered if I know,' Mike said.

She smiled. ‘Seriously,' she said.

‘Somewhere in Zambia. There's no way we'll make Kariba, but it's no real drama. I know a place near the next town where we can stay. It's off the main road and not many people go there.'

‘Do you think we're being followed?' she asked.

‘No. It'd be easy to spot a tail on this road, there's not much traffic. But it's safer from now on for us to avoid the usual haunts. If they work out we're travelling in an overlander they have only to ask one of the other drivers to find out where we'd be likely to stop.'

‘What's this place called where we're staying?'

‘Jambo Safari Lodge. Jambo means “hello” in Swahili. Zambia is a kind of transition zone between southern and eastern Africa. As you move north and east in Africa the people start speaking Swahili and the prices get more expensive.'

Jambo Safari Lodge was really nothing of the sort. Mike found the dirt road turn-off and followed the signs to what was, in reality, a large-scale commercial farm, growing wheat and maize and supporting a herd of beef cattle. The lodge, such as it was, was ten small but tidy chalets clustered around a well-kept lawn and garden, a camping ground and a block of unisex showers and toilets.

They were met by a woman in a green maid's uniform who directed them to the camping ground. Mike's passengers slowly struggled awake as he parked the truck.

‘Curer?' George asked Mike, opening the cool box and selecting an icy can of lager for himself.

Mike was tempted to say something sanctimonious, but he ached all over so he said, ‘Yeah, fuck it, why not. Can't make me feel any worse.' He popped the can and took a long guzzle. The cool liquid spread right to his fingertips and the throbbing in his head slowed to a murmur.

‘Christ,' Terry said, accepting a beer from George, ‘you don't half look like crap, Mike. I hope the other guy looks just as bad.'

‘Hardly dented him,' Mike said crushing the empty can. ‘Chuck us another one, George, and let's get the tents up.'

They set up camp and, like vampires, the crew started coming to life as the red sun slid lazily towards the horizon. It was a moment of peace, watching the sunset and drinking a cold beer. Sam and Terry had started a fire in a cut-down drum in the middle of the camping ground, and most of the others were grabbing chairs out of the truck and sundowners out of the cool box. Mike took another beer, his towel and toiletry bag, and headed for the showers.

Mike stripped and hung up his towel and clothes on the shower room door. The door lock was broken. He shrugged his shoulders, turned on the water and opened his can of beer. Carefully he shampooed his hair, trying not to aggravate the wound on his scalp,
then rinsed and took a long draught from the cold can on the ledge beside him. The near-scalding water soothed the bruises on his side, which had turned a nasty purple during the day, and he found his headache was disappearing nearly as fast as his third beer. He was about to start singing when there was a knock at the wooden door of the small shower room.

‘Occupied,' he called out. To his surprise, the door creaked open, and he turned to face the tiled wall. He turned off the water and looked back over his shoulder.

‘Not pleased to see me?' Julie Muir asked in a tone of mock disappointment. ‘Did you think it would be my mum?' She was wearing a cropped, tight-fitting white top that showed off her pierced belly button, and a purple tie-dyed sarong skirt that barely reached the middle of her smooth tanned thighs.

She undid the knot at the side of her skirt and it fell to the floor. She was naked underneath and she said, ‘I just wanted to say how sorry I was for being late today.'

‘Julie, I don't think this is a good idea . . .' Mike reached for a towel, but she blocked his reach with her body. ‘Julie, put your clothes back on.'

Her young body was lithe and hard, with not an ounce of fat anywhere. Her breasts were high and firm and the nipples strained hard at the stretch fabric of her top.

‘I know I've been bad,' she said as she hooked her hands under her top and slid it up over her head. ‘You were angry at me and Mum this morning, but you look pretty pleased to see me now,' she said with a giggle.

‘You shouldn't be here –' he tried again, but she cut him off.

‘Because of you and Mum? Don't worry, she told me. And I told her it was my turn next.'

She stepped into the cubicle with Mike and wrapped her arms around him from behind. He shrugged her arms away.

‘Julie, this isn't right!'

There was another sharp rap on the shower room door, followed by a female voice.

‘Mike, are you in there?'

‘Shit,' he said. It was Sarah.

‘Oooh,' Julie moaned theatrically. A wicked smile played across her lips, and Mike glared angrily at her.

‘Mike? Are you OK?' Sarah called again.

Julie put a hand to her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud and then reached up for the door handle.

‘No!' Mike said sharply.

‘What?' cried Sarah. She gave a hard shove on the door just as Julie turned the handle.

Sarah flew into the tiny room, and bumped into Julie. She bounced off the naked young woman, forcing her into Mike's arms. Julie made no move to cover herself but instead eased her body back against Mike's and reached up behind her to encircle his neck. He grabbed her hands firmly and tried to place them by her side.

‘Hi Sarah, want to join us?' Julie asked, then giggled.

‘Sarah, I . . . this is . . .' Mike stammered.

‘Sorry,' Sarah said, and her cheeks burned scarlet.
She looked at Julie, at Mike and then up at the ceiling. ‘It's just that, well, I thought, you know, that you might still be hurt and . . . Oh, God . . .' She didn't finish, but quickly turned and stepped out into the darkness.

‘Shit,' Mike said, running a hand through his wet hair.

‘Party pooper,' Julie said, turning to push her slim body against his.

‘Christ, what a mess. I'm sorry, Julie, we can't do this. I could lose my job.'

‘Makes it more fun, doesn't it?' she said smiling broadly. Then she took a step back from him and became more serious. ‘You're soft on her, aren't you?'

‘Who? Your mum?'

‘No, silly. Sarah.'

‘No. What makes you think that?'

Julie picked up her skirt and retied it. Mike looked away as she retrieved her top.

‘You went to pieces. It was like you'd been caught cheating on your wife.'

‘No,' he protested again, but he wasn't so sure.

‘Oh, yes. I've seen that look on men's faces before. Believe me!'

‘I bet you have,' Mike said, reaching for his towel.

‘Cheeky sod. She's got it bad for you, as well,' she added matter-of-factly.

‘No way. She's made that quite clear.'

‘Sure you don't want to play with me, then?'

He shook his head and smiled. ‘Get out before I spank you.'

‘Promises, promises,' Julie said as she shut the door behind her.