Far Horizon (32 page)

Hess cursed and blinked, seeing nothing but silver stars when he closed his right eye. When he opened it, his vision was seared again by more brightly
flashing lights. Confused, he rolled back behind the safety of the tree.

‘What is it?' said Orlov.

‘I can't see a fucking thing!' Hess replied, rubbing his eyes as he spoke.

Orlov had drawn his pistol now and thrust it out in front of him. ‘Camera!' he said, and fired off two quick shots at the man who was dragging the wounded ranger closer and closer to the open gate. Gunfire started again from the gateway. The man inside had replaced his empty magazine with a full one.

‘What?' Hess asked. He risked a peek around the tree and light flashed from the top of the wooden fence. Now he understood. A camera. How simple, how brilliant. He shook his head. Someone had taken a succession of flash photographs with a camera and this had blinded his view through the nightscope.

‘They're inside. We've lost them. Let's go, Karl,' Orlov said, rising to his knees.

‘Bastards!' Hess spat. He stood, in the cover of the tree, brushing leaves from his black shirt. ‘Go back to the others, Vassily. Get to the boat and wait for me there. If I'm not there within fifteen minutes, leave without me. I'll make my own way back.'

‘Karl, leave it! You've got to come now!'

Hess picked up the M-14 and folded the bipod legs back against the barrel. He slung the weapon over his head and across his back and reached up for a low branch of the leadwood. ‘No witnesses, Vassily. You know the policy.'

Orlov watched as the hunter hoisted himself up into the branches, muscles rippling under his tight
shirt like those of a climbing leopard. He knew it was pointless arguing and, also, that Hess was right. ‘Fifteen minutes, Karl. That's all,' he said, and turned and retreated silently back into the bush.

Higher and higher Hess climbed until, at last, he could see down into the rhino
boma
. He found a position in the crook of two strong branches and unslung the rifle from his back. Through the green haze of the night sight he surveyed the compound.

Beyond the high wooden outer wall was a ring of clear, bare ground. Then there were individual pens for each of the orphan rhinos. From his perch he could hear their grunting and snuffling in the almost painful silence that had replaced the cacophony of gunfire. Here and there a rhino crashed noisily against its wooden pen, still scared by the memory of the noise.

He moved the rifle left and right, scanning the top of the outer fence. The wounded ranger and the man who had saved him must have been sitting, or lying, close to the wooden wall, because he could not see them from this angle. There were two other targets in sight, however, including the one he most wanted.

A figure backed away, crouching, from the fence into the open ring around the pens. He focused closely on it. To his surprise, he saw it was a woman: the outline of breasts and curving hips was unmistakable as she momentarily stood. She was holding something to her face. Light flashed again and Hess instinctively closed his eyes. It was the camera again, but it was pointing down and not up at him, so the effect was neither as blinding nor as surprising as it had been at first.

‘Stupid bitch,' he whispered to himself and let the crosshairs linger between her breasts for a second. He was amazed that someone would be taking snapshots in the aftermath of a firefight. Was this a hapless tourist or, potentially worse, a reporter or news photographer?

He moved the rifle yet again. Though the woman was an inviting, easy target, he found the man he was looking for. Hess had been concerned about the non-appearance of the poacher who had been sent to disable the radio at the rangers' post. He assumed the man had either got lost or been captured. He had enough respect for the Zambian's ability in the bush to doubt that he would get himself lost, so he had correctly guessed the man's fate.

There he was, sitting with his back to one of the rhino
bomas
, mouth gagged and hands bound behind his back, watching whatever was going on out of Hess's sight, in the lee of the high wooden fence. Hess imagined the white man was treating the wounded ranger. Neither the ranger nor the Samaritan who had saved him were a threat to Hess, as neither would have seen his face.

Hess placed the crosshairs over the poacher's forehead. The man would be able to describe Hess and Orlov to the authorities once he was questioned. Hess had no reason to assume the miserable man would not cooperate fully with the Zimbabwean authorities in order to reduce his inevitable jail sentence. For his stupidity, for allowing himself to be caught, there could be only one verdict and only one punishment.

Hess pulled the trigger. The M-14 jerked back into
his shoulder. The only noise was the gas-operated slide chambering a new round from the magazine. Blood spurted from the poacher's forehead as his body rocked back hard into the wooden corral with an audible thud. The woman disappeared from Hess's view and he heard a scream.

‘Shit, it's the sniper! He's up high!' Hess heard a man shout out in English from behind the fence. ‘In the tree, Samson! That leadwood . . . about one o'clock high!' said the same voice.

Hess had a good vantage point over the compound, but no cover. Now was the time to retreat. He slung the M-14 over his head again and swung himself down from his perch to the next lower branches. With more time he could have found a safe spot in the tree and picked off the armed ranger when he broke cover, but Hess did not have time.

Two rifles opened fire, the chatter of an AK-47 on full automatic, and the slower, deeper report of a semi-automatic FN. As he swiftly descended, Hess realised the man who had rescued the ranger had retrieved his rifle as well. The odds were now two to one, another good reason to retreat.

Leaves, bark and twigs rained down on his head as blast after blast of copper-jacketed lead tore into the branches above him. Hess dropped the last six feet to the ground and landed silently, like a cat. Then he turned and ran for the cover of the bush.

Samson and Mike fired a few more rounds into the bush at the base of the leadwood where the sniper
had been hiding, but they had to conserve what little ammunition they had left.

‘If he is smart, he will be gone by now,' Samson said, as he swapped his empty magazine for the last full one from his chest pouches.

‘Mike, Patrick's still losing too much blood. We've got to get him to safety,' Sarah said from the shadows of the wooden barricade.

Patrick had taken a bullet in his left side, a through-and-through shot a few centimetres above his hip. Mike checked him again. There was no blood coming from his mouth and no air escaping from his lungs, which was good, but the old man was losing blood and they didn't have any proper dressings to bandage him. Mike had taken his shirt off and wrapped it around him, as best he could.

Patrick lay there now, just as Mike had left him before the gunfire started, with his hand pressed hard against the wound. He was a tough old chap, but that, too, was the problem. He wouldn't let on just how bad the pain was.

Mike understood why Sarah had to get a picture of him treating the ranger – it was her job – but he was glad to see she had slung her camera again to tend to him while Samson and he were blasting away at the sniper. He respected her professionalism for doing her job under fire, but he loved her for stopping to help the wounded man. She could have gotten some award-winning action shots of Samson and him shooting, but her first concern had been for Patrick.

The smell of cordite stung Mike's nostrils and the hot barrel of the FN smoked in the cool night air. His
bare shoulder ached from the recoil, but it was a good pain. Patrick was alive and hopefully they had seen the poachers off for the time being. The captured poacher was dead, though, and Mike realised all of them had been lucky to escape with their lives.

‘Why would he shoot his own man?' Samson asked, as he felt one last time for a pulse at the dead man's throat.

‘Witnesses,' Mike said, as he slung Patrick's rifle and reached down to pick up the old ranger. ‘It's their style. Make sure no one who can identify them lives to tell the tale. We would have been next, though.'

‘Give me the rifle, it'll make it easier for you to carry Patrick,' Sarah said.

‘Your little trick with the camera flash probably saved my life, and Patrick's,' Mike said as he unslung the rifle and handed it to her.

She blushed and examined the weapon.

‘Pull the trigger here . . .' he began with a smile.

‘And the bullets come out
here
, I know,' she said with a nervous little laugh.

‘You're getting good at this.' This was an absurd time to be making jokes, Mike knew, and Samson gave them a peculiar look.

‘Samson, take point. Sarah, stay behind me and keep checking the rear,' Mike said as he lifted Patrick up onto his back. Patrick was almost unconscious now, probably through loss of blood.

Mike noticed how easily he had lapsed into the familiar routine of giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed. It was as though part of him had been dead for a year and was only now reawakening. He
liked the feeling, although he didn't underestimate the responsibility he was taking on. This was not a training exercise. Here the enemy were firing real bullets, not blanks, and people he cared about were in the firing line.

‘We'll bomb-burst out of here, on a count of three,' Mike said. Both Samson and Sarah gave him puzzled looks. He had, he realised, also lapsed back into army jargon. ‘We all go in slightly different directions when we leave the gate, then meet up in the trees on the lakeside. Got it?' The others nodded.

‘One, two, three!'

Samson swung open the gate and they ran out. Patrick was not a big man, but he was, almost literally, a dead weight. Burdened as he was, Mike knew he was the easiest target of the three of them, and he prayed that if the sniper was still around he would find him more tempting than Sarah.

There were no shots. They regrouped and made their way back to the camping ground on the lake shore.

‘Come this way, sir,' Samson said, directing them further along the shore, away from the houseboat's tender boat and the now-blazing lights of the anchored vessel. ‘We have a bigger boat, bigger engine.'

Around a small spit of land, out of sight from the main camp, they came to the National Parks staff accommodation. There were two simple brick houses with corrugated-iron roofs and a separate toilet block. All of the buildings were painted the light olive green favoured by the Zimbabwe National Parks Service. Hens clucked in a small chicken run and
clothes flapped lazily on a wire washing line strung between two trees. An old woman emerged tentatively from one of the staff houses and Samson spoke quickly and reassuringly to her in their language.

The woman, bent and grey-haired, rushed forward when she saw Mike easing Patrick from his back. Mike sat Patrick gently on the gunwale of the National Parks boat. The aluminium boat was bigger than the tender, and painted Parks green. On the back was a seventy-horsepower outboard. ‘Help me, Samson,' Mike said.

Samson hadn't even worked up a sweat during the run. He helped Mike shift the old ranger into the boat and together they laid him on the deck.

‘This is Patrick's wife,' Samson said.

The old woman pressed against Mike to get a look at her husband. Patrick opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. She pushed Mike aside and bent over so that her face was close to Patrick's. She ran her gnarled fingers through his tight grey curls as they spoke.

‘He is telling her to stay here, to look after their child. They still have a daughter living here,' Samson translated. He added, ‘I must take Patrick now.'

Mike respected the younger ranger's desire to stay with his comrade, but he had duties here. ‘No, Samson,' he said, laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘You must stay here, protect your women and my people, over there.' Mike pointed to the houseboat, bobbing at anchor. All the lights were on now and Mike could see people lining the rails.

Samson looked hard at Mike, reluctant to leave his superior.

‘Stay, Samson,' Patrick croaked in English from the hull of the boat. ‘Your duty is here.' Painfully, the old man raised himself up onto one elbow, on his good side. ‘This is your post. Protect these people and these animals.' Patrick gave a ragged cough and sank back down into the boat.

‘Stay, Samson,' Mike said, echoing the older man's words, ‘but first come with me to tell my friends that they will be safe.'

The young man nodded and Sarah jumped into the boat, taking Patrick's hand in hers. ‘I'll look after him for you,' she said to the old woman who, in turn, reached out and tenderly grasped Sarah's hand. There were tears in the old woman's eyes as she waved farewell to her husband.

Samson and Mike pushed the heavy boat into the water and then jumped aboard. The craft was big enough to have a separate seat for the driver and Mike settled in behind the steering wheel. He set the gear lever to neutral and pressed the starter button. Samson took a seat on the rear bench and apprehensively watched Sarah tend to Patrick as the engine roared to life.

Mike rammed the gear lever into reverse and pulled away from the shore. Once clear of the submerged trees, he pushed the throttle to full-forward. The bow of the boat reared up like a prancing stallion as they accelerated.

‘I don't suppose it would do any good to suggest that I drop you off at the houseboat with the others?' he called to Sarah over the roar of the big outboard.

‘None at all,' she said, as she looked up from her
seat on the deck. She cradled Patrick's head in her lap. ‘Besides, you need someone to keep an eye on Patrick.'

It was a short ride to the houseboat and the nose of the boat dropped again as Mike flicked the gear lever back down into neutral.