Far Horizon (31 page)

There was a rustle of dead leaves behind the three men and they all turned as Sarah appeared at their side. ‘What's going on?' she asked.

‘Silence, please, madam,' Patrick whispered. ‘Samson, take these people to the
boma
and wait for me there. Set up a defensive position and don't shoot me when I return.'

Samson nodded and stood. He roughly lifted the gagged prisoner to his feet.

‘Samson,' Patrick said, and the young man turned to face him.

‘
Yebo?
'

‘Guard those animals with your life.'

V
assily Orlov blinked the sweat from his eye and refocused on the rhino. The big animal had turned slightly at the moment he was going to fire, presenting more of its front than its flank to him. The Russian relaxed his trigger finger and waited patiently for the animal to turn again.

Hess and Klaus scanned the bush around them, alert for the slightest noise. Hess willed the Russian to take his shot.

The rhino turned side-on again, reaching for another thorn branch. Abruptly, it stopped feeding, and raised its big head a few centimetres. Orlov watched the big nostrils flare as it sniffed the wind. He thought that the scent of a female was a good last sensory sensation for any creature. Again he took up the slack on the trigger.

Two gunshots shattered the still of the night and brilliant flashes of light robbed Hess of his night vision. Instinctively, the hunter flattened himself on the ground. The rhino disappeared from Orlov's vision.

‘What have you done?' Hess hissed. His first thought was that the silencer on the M-14 had malfunctioned.

‘It wasn't me!' Orlov protested. ‘I didn't even get off a fucking shot.'

‘To your left,
baas
,' Klaus whispered. ‘Sounded like an FN. Maybe only thirty metres.'

‘
Scheisse!
Put some fire on him, Klaus. Now!'

The big African raised himself to his knees, flipped the selector switch on his AK-47 to automatic and pumped out two short bursts of three rounds each. Small night creatures scattered noisily through the bush as Hess leopard-crawled through grass and dried leaves until he was next to Orlov, who was also now lying on the ground.

‘Give me that,' Hess said, grabbing the sniper rifle from Orlov.

A protest died on Orlov's lips as he remembered the firefight in Mozambique. While he craved the adrenaline rush of just such a fight, he knew he had been lucky to survive the previous year's gun battle.

‘More fire, Klaus! Cover me, I'm moving forward.'

One of the poachers joined Klaus in laying down a barrage of deafening gunfire as Hess raised himself up and sprinted forward.

‘One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand,' Hess chanted softly in German as he ran. Before he got to ‘three' he threw himself flat on the ground amid fallen thorns and dried undergrowth. He knew that three seconds was all it took for a marksman to take aim and fire. He rolled four metres to a new spot, in case anyone had seen where he
dived for cover, cradling the M-14 to his chest like a baby as he twisted. He stopped behind the trunk of a stout tree, raised himself up on his elbows and brought the night sight up to his eye.

In front of him, to his surprise, he saw the dirt road and followed it, through the sight, to the clearing surrounding the rhino
boma
. He had not realised they were so close. Movement flickered at the periphery of the night sight's fuzzy green circle. He adjusted his aim to the right and saw a man burst from the cover of the trees and run across the little clearing.

The man carried a rifle, an FN, as Klaus had guessed. ‘Three seconds,' Hess whispered to himself as he followed the man until the crosshairs were fixed on a point just in front of him. By leading the running man with his aim, his bullets would intersect with the target's body by the time they reached him.

Hess flicked the safety to fire and squeezed the trigger twice. The first shot missed, but the second found its mark and the man collapsed in the dust, about ten metres short of a gate in the wooden fence surrounding the rhino pens.

Instinctively, Hess ducked his head as a burst of automatic fire, including the glowing trails of two rounds of bright green tracer, rocketed from a gap in the wooden fence. The bullets were coming nowhere near Hess, which told him the other side was laying down suppressive fire to cover the man who had been running.

The fire also meant the running ranger was not alone. Hess briefly wondered what had caused the National Parks staff to increase the number of guards on the rhinos.

He peered into the night sight again and watched the man on the ground writhing in pain. The man lifted a hand and called out to the people inside the
boma
, ‘Stay inside, stay inside!' Then he coughed painfully.

Hess knew exactly what he would do if he were safe behind a wall and a comrade of his was lying wounded outside under fire from a sniper. He would stay where he was and, if necessary, put the man out of his misery. But Karl Hess knew that he was different from most other men, so he watched and waited for what he knew would happen next.

‘For God's sake, what's going on?' Sarah demanded, when the first two gunshots went off.

‘It is all right,' Samson said. ‘The boss, Patrick, is scaring the rhino away. Our only risk is that the animal might charge his way. That is why he has ordered us in here.'

Samson had only just swung the big gate of the wooden fence shut when the gunfire began. The rhinos grunted and jostled against the wooden railings of their individual enclosures at the sound of the rifle fire.

When the AK-47s opened up, one after another, Mike, Sarah and Samson all dropped to the dusty dirt floor of the pen. Mike hoped the stout rhino-proof timbers of the fence were strong enough to protect them from the assault rifles' bullets.

Sarah huddled close to him and he wrapped an arm protectively around her. She didn't resist, and
nestled even closer to Mike's side as a couple of stray rounds zinged over the top of the fence.

‘The fire is coming from a long way off,' Samson said.

‘Yeah. They're deep in the bush. Probably can't even see the
boma
,' Mike said in agreement with the ranger. He wasn't sure if that was right, but he wanted to reassure Sarah. He felt her start to move. ‘Stay down!' he barked.

But Sarah was on her knees now, crawling to the fence and peering through a gap. ‘Look, it's Patrick! Here he comes!'

Samson and Mike squinted through other cracks in the fence. They could see the old ranger sprinting like an Olympic athlete, his FN held out in front of him to keep his balance.

‘Run, man, run!' Mike urged him.

Both the AK-47s had stopped firing. As Patrick moved closer and broke into the clearing they could hear the rapid thump of his feet in the sand. Small clouds of dust rose with each step.

Suddenly he fell, heavily, and Mike thought for a moment he had tripped. ‘Get up, get up!' Mike willed him, but there was no movement.

‘My God, look!' Sarah cried. ‘There's blood on the ground, it's coming from his belly!'

Patrick was no more than ten metres from the
boma
, reaching out to the others with his right hand, clutching his side with his left. He had certainly been shot, but there had been no sound of gunfire. Mike was momentarily confused, but then the pieces fell into place.

Samson stood and cocked his AK-47. He flicked the selector to full automatic and reached up until his rifle was pointing over the top of the six-foot-high fence. He pulled the trigger and sent a burst of fire in the general direction of where the other rounds had been coming from.

‘One of them must have a silent rifle,' Samson said, as he dropped down beside Mike and swapped the empty magazine on his weapon for a full one.

‘And maybe a nightscope, too,' Mike added.

‘You mean he can see in the dark, like the gizmos they use in the movies?' Sarah said.

‘Yes, but this isn't the movies – the bullets are real. We've got to get Patrick inside,' Mike said.

‘If it's not the movies then why are you talking like Bruce bloody Willis? You'll be cut down before you get close to him.' There was real concern in her voice.

Mike found her words touching, but he couldn't let a man die without trying to help him. Once again, it seemed he would be left with another person's life on his conscience. If he hadn't raised the alarm, old Patrick would probably be fast asleep right now.

‘Stay inside, stay inside!' Patrick called to them from outside the fence.

‘Let me go,' said Samson, as he began to stand.

Mike laid a hand on his arm and pulled him down. ‘You have to look after the lady, Samson, and we'll need some firepower to get out of here.'

Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘This isn't the way, Mike.' She reached out and laid a hand on his knee. ‘You won't bring anybody back by getting yourself killed.'

He was surprised that she could see into his mind so clearly, but he knew what he had to do.

‘I'll need
hobos
of covering fire, Samson,' Mike said, using the local word for ‘lots'. ‘A whole magazine at least. OK?'

‘All right, but if this man has a silencer and a nightscope he knows what he is doing. We don't even know what direction he is firing from. Remember, he can see in the dark,' Samson said, as he peered through the crack in the fence at Patrick.

‘Are these infra-red, these scope things? Do they pick up body heat?' Sarah asked.

Mike was getting keyed up to go through the gate and he didn't need distractions. ‘No,' he snapped. ‘They work on image intensification. They magnify any light that's around.'

‘So light like tonight?'

‘Is perfect for him. Not too dark, not too bright with only half a moon. I don't have all night to explain this, Sarah.'

‘Just bloody well bear with me. Let me get this straight – too much light's a bad thing for a night sight?'

‘Too much light, a very bad thing. If we had a spotlight or a floodlight and could put it on him, the light would be so intense it might damage his eyes. His scope would be whited out, overloaded, for sure. But we don't have a spotlight.'

Mike stood and turned his back on Sarah. He and Samson walked to the
boma
gate at a crouch and discussed their hasty plan.

‘I'll open the gate and you lay it down, hot and
heavy, Samson. Keep it low and spray all around, OK?' Mike asked.

‘OK,' Samson said with a nod. He stood by the gate, rifle raised at the ready. Samson unbuttoned one of his chest pouches, ready to reload the rifle once his magazine was empty.

Patrick coughed and groaned from the other side of the fence. Mike jogged back to where Sarah was standing, peering through the fence. Despite the tension of the moment he was sorry he had cut her questioning off so abruptly.

‘I'm sorry about before. Here, take the pistol. Remember how to use it?'

‘Won't you need it out there?' Sarah asked.

‘I won't have time. Besides, if anything . . . if anything happens, you might need it.'

She blinked her blue eyes a couple of times and Mike wondered if she was fighting back tears. He held out the pistol, but she ignored it. For a moment they stood in silence, looking into each other's eyes.

Mike stepped closer to her and took her hand, pushing the pistol into it. As she took the weapon he reached out with his free hand and drew her body close to his. He kissed her hard on the mouth and, just when he thought she might push him away, he felt her lips part.

Samson coughed. ‘Mister?' he said.

Mike broke their embrace, which had only lasted a couple of seconds, and Sarah stepped back from him, the pistol hanging heavy in her right hand.

‘Gosh,' she said, confusion clouding her face. ‘Good luck.'

Mike nodded, and walked to the gate.

‘Mike,' she called after him.

He paused at the gate, where Samson was nervously waiting with one hand ready to lift the wooden latch from its iron brackets, and turned to face Sarah. ‘Yes?'

‘Hang on, I've got an idea,' she said.

Karl Hess heard the crackling of dried leaves and twigs in the bush behind him but did not turn at the sound. All his attention was focused on the little ring of bright green light and the wounded man writhing at the centre of the illuminated picture.

‘Karl, is that you?' Hess heard the Russian whisper from behind him, confirming his guess.

‘Be quiet and stay down.' Hess hissed back. He had lowered the folding metal legs of the rifle's bipod to give him extra stability and now he gently swivelled the weapon's barrel to the left so he could view the gate in the high wooden fence. That was where the enemy would come from, at a rush and probably with covering fire. He traversed back to the wounded man. He was safe from random fire, having edged his body behind the trunk of a stout leadwood. Only the rifle barrel and the bare minimum of his skull were exposed to fire.

‘I suppose you know that we should leave now,' Orlov whispered again, ignoring the hunter's rebuke. Orlov crawled forward on his belly until his face was only centimetres from Hess's left boot.

‘Where are the others?' Hess asked, blinking away
sweat that was running from under the hot woollen cap into his eyes.

‘I've left them back where we stopped. The poachers have no stomach for this fight. I've told Klaus to shoot them if they try to leave without us, but we can't wait here all night, Karl.' Orlov eased himself forward further until he was next to Hess and peered around the opposite side of the tree trunk. ‘Look! The gate!'

‘Here he comes, stay down!' Hess said.

On cue, the heavy wooden gate swung open and a rattling barrage of gunfire spewed from the narrow gap.

Orlov ground his face into the dirt as yellow muzzle flashes lit up the night and bullets zinged in the air above him. Every now and then an arcing trail of bright green tracer flashed across the periphery of his vision, like the tail of a low-trajectory skyrocket.

Hess remained motionless amid the hubbub and allowed himself a small smile as a darting figure entered his narrow field of vision from the left, just as he had expected. It was a European man, clad like a tourist in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. He raced to the wounded ranger and bent to grab the man under the arms.

Shifting his aim, Hess placed the crosshairs on the standing man's head and started to squeeze the trigger. Suddenly, the image in the night sight was gone, blasted away by a blinding burst of light.