Far Horizon (41 page)

‘Where's Nigel, Sam?' Mike asked.

‘Don't know,' Sam said, biting off the last strand
of tape as he secured a strip across the poacher's mouth.

‘Help me . . .' came a voice from the rear of the truck.

Mike jogged around Nelson and saw Nigel lying at the base of a tree. There was blood all over his left shoulder and his face was ivory white.

Nigel opened his eyes. ‘It hurts, Mike. Christ, it fucking hurts, man,' he said. Blood welled from his lower lip where he'd bitten it to stop from crying out.

Mike was touched by Nigel's bravery. If he had screamed or cried out, the ambush would have been blown.

He knelt and took Nigel's right hand, and clasped it hard. ‘You did good, mate.' Gently, Mike raised him to the sitting position and inspected the wound. ‘It's gone straight through, but it doesn't seem to have hit your lungs. Believe it or not, you'll live.'

Mike fished in his top left pocket and took out a handful of tampons. He had asked the girls to surrender any spares they had. ‘Sam, remember what I told you? Take a few of these and pack them around the entry and exit wounds. Cover them with that piece of plastic shopping bag I gave you and tape it down. We'll take him to Kylie, but you'll have to help him walk.'

Kylie, Sarah, Mel and Linda were a hundred metres behind them, hidden deep in the bush. Mike had found a natural strongpoint in the forest, made by two fallen trees with trunks wide enough to stop a bullet. One tree had knocked the other over when it fell, making a barricade with the point of the two
trunks facing the way the bad guys would most likely approach. They had tied the spare tarpaulin across the fallen logs to provide shelter and then covered the whole thing with fresh-cut trees. Mike made everyone empty their backpacks and stuff them full of food and water bottles. His plan was to run a fighting retreat from the log fort, as they had christened it, or, if too many of them were wounded, to make their last stand there.

Nigel winced as Sam finished applying the crude bandage. Sam's hands were red and sticky with blood, and he stared at them.

‘Good job, Sam. Here, take this,' Mike said as he unslung the dead poacher's AK-47 and handed it to Sam.

‘What'll we do with him?' Sam asked, pointing to the bound and gagged poacher lying on the ground.

Mike pulled the pistol from his belt and walked over to the prone man.

‘You're not going to . . .' Sam said, his eyes wide.

Mike shook his head, bent over and clubbed the man hard on the back of the head with the butt of the pistol. ‘Drag him under a bush. He'll wake up eventually.'

‘It looks like you've got a spare gun. I'll take it,' Sarah said. She had arrived silently behind them.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I've come to help, and you look like you need it,' she said.

‘I told you to stay back at the fort, with the –'

‘I
know
what you told me. Back with the
girls
. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?' Her eyes burned with barely suppressed anger. ‘I know you
have trouble accepting that women can do more than make the tea, but you seem to be short of able-bodied men, now, don't you?'

‘I killed a man tonight, Sarah,' Mike said. ‘I didn't want to do it, but he was going to kill me if I didn't. Believe me, you don't want to do what I've just done.'

‘Spare me the patronising chauvinist bullshit! Sam's got to carry Nigel, and get him back to Kylie. I'll tell you right now that he's too big for me to carry, but I can fire that gun of yours!'

‘Lucky you showed up, then,' Mike said to Sarah, and handed her the pistol and the spare magazine. ‘Everyone ready?'

Nigel's face was even paler as Sam pulled him to his feet, but he managed to stand and lean on Sam's shoulder. They set off, as quietly and as quickly as Nigel could manage. They headed straight back from the truck through the bush towards the log fort. Mike was hoping to keep the truck between them and the remainder of the poachers. With George and Terry missing he had no idea how many others they faced. The poachers would soon know their initial raid had failed.

There was a sound like the ripping of canvas, followed by a thump that could have come from the back room of a butcher's shop. Nigel and Sam were knocked to the ground. Someone cried in pain.

‘Sniper!' Mike yelled. ‘Everyone down!'

Mike grabbed Sarah's wrist and pulled her to the ground. He hugged her to his chest and rolled down a slight slope, four, maybe five times, their bodies alternately riding on and crushing each other until they came to rest against a stout tree trunk.

‘Christ, Nigel's been shot again,' Sam cried.

The American lay on his stomach a metre away from Nigel. Low ferns hid him from view, but Nigel was lying in a patch of clear ground. He stretched an arm out to Sam, and Mike saw Nigel's fist opening and closing in a futile attempt to reach him.

‘Nigel, where are you hit?' Mike called.

‘Leg . . . It hurts. Mike, it hurts!'

‘Sam, get behind some cover before you get shot.'

‘I've got to move Nigel. We can't leave him out there!' Sam said.

‘No! Stay where you are. The sniper wants you to go into the clearing. He's waiting for you, Sam. Nigel, can you hold on for us, mate?'

Nigel coughed. ‘I think so,' he croaked.

Another silenced bullet slammed into the mud next to Nigel's face, sending up a geyser of black water. The shooter was toying with them. Undergrowth and tree limbs obscured his view, but Mike guessed the sniper was close, probably just on the far side of the shot-up tents.

‘Sam, I'm going to swing around to the right, back to the truck. I've got to get up high where I can see these bastards, but I need a diversion. You got the cocktails?'

‘Yeah, I got them with me,' Sam replied.

‘I'm coming with you,' Sarah said.

Mike could have argued, but he supposed that at least if she was with him he could try to protect her. He didn't bother replying to her since nothing he could say would have made the slightest bit of difference. He simply nodded.

‘Give me three minutes, Sam. Remember the plan – aim for the tents,' Mike said.

‘What about Nigel?' Sam called back.

‘Three minutes, Sam, that's all he has to hold on for,' Mike said.

Nigel coughed and Mike saw how his body shook with the pain. He had both hands pressed on the wound on his thigh, and the blood had stained them crimson. Another bullet whizzed low over his head and split a narrow branch behind him. ‘Come on,' Mike said to Sarah, ‘the shooter's going to get tired of this game soon.'

They headed along the ridgeline towards the log fort, keeping to thick bush out of the sniper's line of sight, and then hooked across their intended path and turned back to the truck. Mike checked his watch and motioned for Sarah to stay close.

He could see Nelson through the bushes. The windscreen was shattered and the bodywork riddled with bullet holes. Mike whispered to Sarah what he wanted her to do. The plan sounded insane, but Sarah nodded. They crept along the side of the truck, careful not to make a sound. Sarah climbed the steps up into the passenger cab, pausing for a second when her weight caused a spring to creak. She continued on inside. Mike went to the back of the truck, slung the AK-47 he was carrying, and climbed the external ladder up onto the roof.

Mike checked his watch again and saw by the ticking luminous green second hand that he and Sarah had reached their positions with just twenty seconds to spare. Those last seconds, however, were ticking by with agonising slowness.

As the sweep hand passed the ten-second mark, Mike heard a whoosh of displaced air as the sniper fired another silenced shot. The second hand passed the final mark and Sam screamed, ‘Take this, you motherfuckers!'

A bright trail of burning orange sparks arced out from where Sam hid towards the nearest of the bullet-holed tents.

‘Now, Sarah!' Mike yelled.

Nelson's headlights flicked on, followed by the extra driving lights, and the horseshoe of tents was bathed in stark white light. The whisky bottle Sam had lobbed hit one of the tents and exploded, shards of broken glass and burning petrol shooting out in every direction. The tent burst into flames. A rolling cloud of oily black smoke danced upwards and momentarily shrouded the glare of the headlights as the petrol ignited.

Mike always kept a jerry can of petrol in the truck to clean the diesel engine's air filter and he had used it all tonight on the last of his surprises for the poachers. They had doused the tents with fuel and made Molotov cocktails from empty spirit bottles.

There was movement between the tents. Mike recognised the tall black man who had attacked him in Victoria Falls. The man was dressed in a khaki bush shirt and trousers, and armed with an AK-47. He hesitated as the tent next to him caught fire. The man raised his rifle to his shoulder, and Mike swung the barrel of his own weapon around and thumbed the safety catch.

Klaus fired first and Mike felt the truck shudder
beneath him as a long burst of ten or fifteen bullets raked the front. Bullets penetrated the panels and ricocheted off the solid engine components, but two found their mark, and one of the headlights and one of the brighter driving lights were snuffed out with a spray of broken glass.

A heavy-bore hunting rifle joined the din, crashing as fast as the new marksman could work the weapon's bolt action. Mike couldn't hear the hiss of the silenced rifle above the din, and he hoped the weapon's night sight had been blinded by the headlights and the glare from the flaming tent.

Mike pulled the trigger of his AK-47 and Klaus dived to his left as three bullets ploughed harmlessly into the earth where he had been standing. He fired again, but the mud-caked rifle jammed. Mike swore aloud as he snapped the magazine from the rifle and worked the cocking handle back and forth furiously. A live round tumbled from the breach and he banged the butt of the weapon down hard on the roof of the truck, causing dried mud to flutter from the working parts. He fitted the magazine back onto the rifle and yanked on the cocking handle.

Klaus raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the roof of the truck, where Mike was lying. Mike rolled to one side as he pulled the trigger. Bullets punched through the thin skin of the walls and roof of the cab beside him, buzzing and whining as they carried on into the black sky.

Mike rolled back onto his stomach and saw the other man taking aim again. There was no way Mike
could get back into a firing position and take aim before his enemy got another burst away.

From Mike's left another AK-47 started firing, its bright muzzle flashes giving Sam's position away in the dark. ‘Come and get me, you cocksuckers!' he cried.

Klaus swung to face the new threat. Mike brought his weapon up to fire again, but a flicker of light to his left distracted him. Klaus was crawling for the cover of an unburnt tent. He also looked up at the sputtering wick sailing through the damp night air.

‘No!' Klaus shouted as the bottle fell towards him. He held up the rifle in his right hand to ward off the Molotov cocktail, but the bottle shattered with a whoosh when it struck the barrel of his weapon. Klaus was sprayed with burning petrol and his clothes erupted. He stood, and the fire engulfed him like a torch. The big African staggered from side to side, his arms waving uselessly. He stumbled and fell into another of the petrol-soaked tents and this, too, blazed into a consuming funeral pyre. His screams were muffled as the burning canvas enshrouded his body.

Somewhere nearby, another shot rang out. It was not the heavy-calibre rifle or the chatter of a Kalashnikov but the flat report of a pistol, puny in comparison with the other weapons, but just as deadly. Sarah, Mike thought with rising panic.

The hunting rifle boomed and one of the two remaining lights on the truck shattered. Mike fired a wild burst into the night in the general direction of where he thought the shot had come from. He
realised he was a sitting duck now, and that he had to get himself and Sarah away from the truck. The heavy-calibre rifle echoed again and the truck shook as Mike shimmied down the ladder at the rear of the cab. With the last of the headlights now out, the only light in the clearing came from Klaus's burning body in the tent. The sickly smell of burnt flesh filled the air around the campsite. Mike swallowed hard and looked under the truck, where he had told Sarah to hide.

There was no sign of her.

‘I
t is over!' Hess called from the bush beyond the flame-lit clearing. Sarah cried in pain.

Mike peered around the tree he was sheltering behind and saw Hess stride into the centre of the camp. One side of his body was bathed in flickering orange light from the guttering fire. On his dark side he had his left arm wrapped around Sarah's neck. His right hand held an automatic pistol to her temple.

Mike was consumed with a mixture of rage and helplessness. Hess was doing it again, taking away someone he cared about – someone he loved. This had become a personal war between the two of them. Mike forced himself to control his emotions. Hess was a cold-blooded killer. Mike had killed once that night. He could do it again.

‘Come out!' Hess said, standing still. He smiled. ‘You know I will kill her if you don't obey. Shall I start the count? One . . . two . . .'

‘Wait,' Mike said, emerging from the darkness.

‘And the other one. The one who throws the
Molotovs. I want to meet this man who calls me a “cocksucker”.'

‘If the name fits.' Mike shrugged.

‘A funny man, eh?' Hess pushed the barrel of the pistol hard into Sarah's skin and she cried in pain.

‘Sam,' Mike said, ‘come out.'

A few seconds later Sam strode from the other side of the clearing, his rifle pointed at Hess. Mike's weapon dangled loosely in his right hand, the barrel pointed down.

‘Place the weapons there, three metres from me. Do it now. Both of you,' Hess said.

They did as he ordered, then Hess said to Sam, ‘Lie down, on your stomach, hands locked behind your head.' Sam dropped to the ground. ‘You,' he said to Mike, ‘stay standing. I want you to have a good view of everything that goes on.'

Mike noticed Hess's left hand was bleeding and the hunter caught his gaze.

‘A fine souvenir, don't you think?' Hess said, holding up his hand, covering Sarah's face. The little finger was missing and he had wrapped a handkerchief around the stump. Hess grinned as he held the bloody wound close to Sarah's eye.

‘She is a fighter, this one,' Hess said, looking at Sarah. ‘She saw me approaching your position and took a potshot at me with her pistol. The little finger I don't think I'll miss, but she destroyed my fine rifle with that carelessly aimed shot. If I still had that weapon you would all be dead now.'

‘It didn't do you much good at Matusadona,' Mike said.

‘Ah, good. I am glad that was you in the national park. I would have hated to have gone to all this effort to kill the wrong man. I like your new haircut, by the way, but my colleague liked the lady better as a blonde, I'm sure.'

Orlov jogged into the clearing, then stood, panting, next to Hess, his hunting rifle levelled at Mike. ‘So,' he said with a grin, ‘we meet again. I didn't recognise the lovely lady at first. I think we have some unfinished business from Victoria Falls.'

‘Pig,' Sarah said. She turned her head and spat at the Russian, but Hess silenced her by tightening the grip on her neck.

‘Who are you working for?' Hess asked Mike.

‘Read the sign on the side of the truck. I'm a tour guide.'

‘My instinct is to kill you right now and then hunt down the rest of your little tour group. Answer my questions and I promise you that they will all die quickly. However, if you refuse I will allow my colleague here to have some fun with the women first.'

‘Let her go, Hess. It's me you want.'

‘Of course it's you I want – and her. Now, I ask you one more time, who are you working for?'

‘I work for a tour company.'

Hess glared at Mike, then pushed Sarah away from him, towards Orlov. ‘Tie her hands, Vassily. Use your rifle sling, that way the bitch won't scratch you when you fuck her.'

Orlov grabbed Sarah by the hair, and forced her to her knees. He unclipped the sling from his rifle and started wrapping it around her wrists, behind her
back. His rifle was lying on the ground while he used both his hands. Sarah struggled and Orlov slapped her hard across the cheek with the back of his hand.

‘Stop!' Mike roared. He took a pace forward, but Hess bought his pistol up between Sarah's eyes, stopping Mike cold as Orlov tied the canvas sling tight. Sarah's eyes were wide with fear. ‘I'm working for the South African Police.'

‘I thought as much,' Hess said. ‘Who is heading the investigation?'

Mike wavered, unwilling to name Theron. He knew that if he identified the detective he may as well have put a bullet in his head himself.

‘Take her, Vassily. Loosen her tongue for us, and whatever else takes your fancy,' Hess said, turning his pistol on Mike again.

Orlov pushed Sarah hard in the chest and she fell heavily, twisting to one side to break her fall. She was on her back now, knees raised and together, her hands pinioned beneath her. Orlov dropped to his knees beside his discarded rifle. He took a long-bladed hunting knife from the scabbard at his belt and held it to her slender throat. Hess smiled as Orlov reached out with his free hand and tore open the front of Sarah's shirt. Orlov stared at her pale breasts, mesmerised for a second, and Sarah hawked and spat at him. The Russian laughed as he wiped his face. He slapped her face again and forced a knee between her legs.

Mike heard his own blood pounding in his ears as the rage boiled up from deep inside him. From the corner of his eye he noticed a tree branch move and
had to will himself to keep his gaze locked on Hess. Sam, lying on the ground to his left, had raised his head, but Hess was staring at Mike, down the barrel of his Glock pistol.

‘They told me you were a soldier, Hess. Don't soldiers believe in honour?' Mike asked.

‘Yes, I was a soldier. I've fought in many wars and I can tell you that terror, not honour, is what wins wars. Now, tell me, who was the policeman who sent you?'

Hess was distracted for a moment by a noisy hiss of radio static. With his bloodied left hand he reached into a pocket of his hunter's vest and pulled out a multi-channel walkie-talkie with a flexible rubber aerial. He returned his piercing stare to Mike as he spoke into the radio in Afrikaans. A broken voice at the other end answered in the same language, but Mike had no idea what they were talking about.

Mike looked over at Sarah, and saw she had turned her head away from Orlov and was staring out into the gloom beyond the burning body in the tent, apparently resigned to her fate. Orlov grappled awkwardly with the belt on her shorts with his one free hand, reluctant to lay down the knife.

‘So you don't struggle now? You want this, I think,' Orlov chuckled as he finally undid Sarah's belt.

‘You're not a soldier, Hess,' Mike said. ‘I bet you don't even clean that pistol of yours.'

Hess looked at Mike, puzzled at the last remark, and shook his head. ‘Cleaning my weapons? What are you talking about? I think you must be losing your mind. Perhaps I'll kill you now and be done with it.'

Mike searched his eyes for some sign of comprehension, allowing Hess a couple of seconds for his words to sink in, but he gave no sign that he understood the real meaning of the question. The bush moved again and Sarah turned her head towards Mike.

‘George Terry!' Sarah said loudly.

Hess turned to face her, but kept the pistol trained on Mike. ‘What?'

‘George Terry. That's the man you want. But he's armed and ready for you,' Sarah said. She glanced at Mike and he read the silent message in her eyes.

‘Shut up, bitch,' Orlov said, and slapped Sarah hard across the face once more.

Mike looked to the darkened bush past where Orlov grappled with Sarah and saw a figure emerge stealthily from the long grass.

‘Now!' Mike bellowed. He lowered his shoulder and charged directly at Hess, his body tensed and waiting for the shot that would come. To Mike's left he heard a wailing war cry and George and Terry burst from the trees where they had been hiding.

The machete in George's hand reflected the orange firelight as he brought it down in a wide slashing arc from above his head. Orlov raised his knife hand high in a futile attempt to ward off the blow. Crimson blood gushed from the stump as Orlov's right hand, still grasping the knife, sailed through the air in the wake of the swinging machete.

There were noises behind Mike, words of warning screamed by young women. Sam was on his knees now, slipping through the mud as he scrambled towards his dropped rifle.

Hess fired his pistol at the moment Mike hit him, hard, in the chest, with his lowered shoulder. Hess toppled back under the force of the charge and the left side of Mike's body erupted in pain as he fell on top of his quarry. Awkwardly, Hess twisted his right hand inwards and thrust the barrel of the pistol hard into Mike's stomach. Hess pulled the trigger again.

Nothing happened.

There was confusion in Hess's eyes as Mike grabbed the lapel of his shirt with his left hand and smashed his right fist into his nose. Mike felt a hot spurt of blood on his knuckles and then landed another blow on Hess's jaw.

‘Good soldiers clean their weapons,' Mike hissed at him as he reefed the watch cap from his head and took a hank of his wavy blond hair in one hand.

When Mike had searched Hess's room at the Victoria Falls Hotel he had risked detection to ensure that the next time Hess used his pistol he would get off no more than one shot. If Hess had cleaned the pistol since then there was no way he could have missed the round Mike had reversed in the magazine.

While Mike knew that Hess would manage one shot, he had consoled himself with the thought that even if he was killed, George and Terry, who he had seen creeping through the bush, and Sam would be able to overpower Orlov and Hess before the latter had time to clear the blocked pistol.

Hess was down and bloodied now, but that just made him more dangerous. While his pistol wouldn't fire again, it still made a good weapon. He jammed the barrel hard into the deep open furrow his bullet
had gouged just above Mike's left hip. Mike yelped like a kicked dog and instinctively clutched his side.

Hess thrust up with his butt and his hips, throwing Mike off to one side. Mike tried to stand, but the pain had taken his breath away, and he pitched over on his face a second after making it to his knees.

‘Freeze!' Sam yelled.

Hess raised the useless pistol. Sam, not knowing the pistol was jammed, dived forward into the mud, firing the AK-47 wildly as he fell. The bullets flew wide of Hess, who nimbly leapt to his feet and sprinted away as Sam struggled to his knees. The rifle wavered as Sam took aim at the running figure. He fired twice, but neither bullet found its mark and Hess disappeared into the trees.

Orlov lay in the mud on his side, tears streaking his blackened face as he clutched the spurting stump where his right hand had been. Mike struggled to his feet, his left hand pressed against the wound in his side. The pain stopped mattering as he walked slowly towards Orlov. The blood was beating in his ears again.

Everyone from the crew was gathered in the clearing now, the girls alternating their gaze from the stinking, burning body, to Orlov's bloody stump. They all turned to Mike as he approached.

‘Give me his pistol,' Mike said to Terry, who had pulled the weapon from Orlov's belt.

The Russian was on his back now. Kylie had wrapped a clean T-shirt around the stump and tied a belt on Orlov's forearm as a tourniquet. Her hands were dark with his blood. Sarah stood over Orlov, her
torn shirt knotted together at the front to cover her breasts.

George handed Mike the pistol, butt first. He cocked the weapon.

‘Stand back, all of you,' he said, as he thumbed the safety.

Kylie looked up at him, horrified. ‘Mike?'

‘No, please, I beg of you! No!' Orlov wailed.

‘You pathetic piece of shit,' Mike said. ‘You fucking coward.' He straightened his arm and pointed the pistol between Orlov's eyes.

‘Don't do it,' Sarah said.

Mike looked across at her. ‘They killed her. They killed the nuns. They killed the workers at that mission. I saw what was left of the place, Sarah.'

‘And he tried to rape me, Mike. But this isn't the way. You'll be as bad as them.'

‘It wasn't me,' Orlov cried. ‘I was unconscious, I killed no one. It was Hess.'

‘Get out of the way, Kylie,' Mike said.

Kylie looked at Sarah, then at Mike, but did not move. ‘For God's sake, I'm a nurse, Mike,' she protested. ‘Sarah's right.'

Mike dropped to one knee and pressed the barrel of the cumbersome Russian pistol hard into Orlov's temple. He heard a gurgling noise and looked down to see a spreading dark stain on the man's trousers. Mike was close enough to him to smell his urine.

His hand started to shake as his finger tightened on the trigger. He felt a gentle touch on the back of his neck and looked up into Sarah's serene face. She was
beautiful, he thought. His face was contorted in pain, but it wasn't from the oozing wound in his side.

Mike lowered the pistol and stood. He looked down at the pitiful, bleeding figure below him. He couldn't kill him, no matter how much he despised him. Mike believed Orlov when he said he had not been responsible for the deaths in Mozambique, but the fact was that Isabella had died because of him. Orlov was guilty and would be held to account.

Mike looked around and saw everyone was staring at him. Nobody spoke. He noticed for the first time that Nigel wasn't there.

‘Where's Nigel?'

‘We carried him back to the log fort,' Mel said. ‘The bleeding's OK, but he's dreadfully pale, Mike.'

Mike knew he had to check his emotions and take charge again. He also realised that Hess was getting further away with every second he wasted.

‘Sam, get everyone in the truck and get it started. George, Terry, take the AK-47s and ride shotgun. I'm going after Hess. He probably left his vehicle on the far side of the hill and that's where he'll be heading. Once you're out on the road, head for Mfuwe. Pick me up on the road if you see me. If you don't, send someone back for me tomorrow.'