Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘I’m probably finished as a protection officer no matter how this pans out. I cocked up royally and I deserve all I’ll get, but there are two men’s lives at stake here. I can’t just sit on a beach and do nothing.’

‘It’s why I’m here as well. God knows, I’ve probably screwed my career up too.’ She tried to force a laugh, but it was hollow and they both knew it — her words were too close to the truth. ‘But we’ll do more harm than good charging around blindly, and you know it. Say we did find the vehicle by ourselves and went in there, guns blazing…’

‘They outnumber and outgun us,’ he conceded.

‘If we make a mess of it, the first thing they’ll do is kill the hostages. You know that, Tom. This is the time for others — the military, whoever — to make a plan to rescue them. But we can still look for them. Tomorrow. Carefully.’

He sighed and slumped against the car. ‘Christ, I’m hungry — and thirsty. But I keep thinking how bad things must be for Bernard and Greeves.’

‘They know you’re on their trail, Tom. You nearly caught them in Kruger. That will keep your men alive. That will give them hope.’

‘So where to next? A hotel?’

Sannie shook her head. ‘African towns aren’t generally renowned for the choice of accommodation. I don’t like the look of anywhere I’ve seen so far. Hotels in small towns often double as brothels.’

‘So where, then?’

‘The beach is about ten kilometres from here. There’s a municipal camping ground that has some small chalets. We stayed there a few years ago. It’s not luxury, but it should be okay.’

Tom shrugged. He was, as he had been from the moment he touched down in Africa, out of his depth and totally reliant on her. It wasn’t a bad feeling — not nearly as bad as the frustration he felt now that it appeared they would be spinning their wheels for twelve hours until morning. ‘Lead on.’

Sannie drove, and after the main road took them up a hill, out of the centre of town, she turned right at a sign with a beach umbrella on it that said Praia do Xai Xai. There were no streetlights, and only pinpricks of illumination showed in the dark from lanterns in villagers’ homes. The Volkswagen careened up and down a roller-coaster of hills which were under cultivation with bananas, and other crops that Tom couldn’t make out. Unlike the townships he’d passed through on the way into Kruger, the villagers here seemed to have left plenty of mature trees growing amid their homes, either for shade or to help stabilise the sandy hills they lived on.

The road to the beach ended in a roundabout on top of a cliff and Sannie swung left onto a side road that deteriorated rapidly from potholed tar to dirt as they wound down towards the Indian Ocean. The wind was up and Tom could see white horses pinpricking the dark sea through the gloom. He smelled salt air through the open window and, despite the breeze, it was still warm outside. As they drove down the hill he saw holiday homes that looked like they had come out of a 1970s timeshare brochure. There were curving verandahs, angular geometric designs, and lots of whitewash. Some of the villas still looked run-down, though many, he noticed, had been spruced up with a coat of pastel paint and had well-tended gardens. One particularly nice place, re-done in an ochre coloured render, had its own security guard out front in a blue beret and military-style uniform.

Sannie momentarily seemed to have lost her bearings at the bottom of the hill. ‘Sorry, should have turned left, not right,’ she said, executing a three-point turn. In front of them was a multistorey white concrete hotel, but no lights were shining in its rooms. Tom looked back as Sannie changed directions and caught a glimpse of the hotel’s facade. It was completely gutted. The rooms were empty — all the glass panes and, presumably, all the contents, were gone. In its way, the hotel reminded Tom of Egyptian temples in the Valley of the Kings, or the ruined city of Petra, in Jordan, which he’d visited while protecting a former foreign secretary. The hotel was yet another relic of a disappeared people. He wondered if someone would reopen the hotel one day, though from what Sannie had said, the tourism boom had bypassed sleepy, rundown Xai Xai in favour of nicer beachfront real estate further north.

At the gates of Campismo do Xai Xai, an elderly African security guard greeted and led them through the camping ground, which was set back from the beach below a line of low dunes topped with trees and hedges. Tom noted a security fence amid the shrubbery, but also saw it had been trampled in places. There were neon lights in several trees around the small camping area, though about one in two seemed to be broken. There were only two parties of campers — a couple in a caravan towed by a Mazda pick-up which looked like it had seen better days, and an old Toyota Cressida parked next to a two-man tent. It hardly looked like a playground of the rich and famous.

Sannie spoke to the caretaker when they pulled over and he unlocked the door of a small blue bungalow, the walls and roof of which looked as though they were made of asbestos sheeting. He switched on the light and a single naked light bulb revealed a double bed at the front of the room and a kitchenette. They walked in and, behind a curtain at the rear, found an alcove with two single beds.

‘I was worried there for a moment.’ Sannie nodded at the double bed. ‘You were almost spending the night in the car. You get one of the singles. I hope you don’t snore.’

The hut smelled mouldy and damp, and Tom heard mosquitos buzzing around his ears. When he asked Sannie the price he thought it seemed exorbitant for what it was, but neither of them was in the mood to haggle. ‘We’ll take it,’ he said to the caretaker, and Sannie translated.

He checked his watch as they walked back out to the car to unpack their meagre supplies and belongings. ‘Let’s listen to the news again.’ It was close to nine pm and Tom pulled out the battery-operated portable shortwave radio from his bag. He always took it with him on overseas trips and they had tuned in at regular intervals to the BBC World Service. While the news of Greeves’s abduction still rated highly, it had been usurped as the lead item by a report of a scandal involving footballers’ salaries. Typical, Tom thought. The pips sounded the hour.

‘I’ll get us a drink,’ Sannie said, opening the rear hatch of the Chico.

‘Thanks, I could use one.’

‘ An African-based terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of British defence procurement minister Robert Greeves and an as yet unnamed staff member and released a video in which they threaten to behead…’

‘Coke?’

‘Shush.’ Tom beckoned her closer. The reception was bad so they both leaned in to hear the report.

‘ Mr Greeves is seen in the video, head shaved, dressed in orange overalls, kneeling in front of three men wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying automatic weapons. One of the alleged terrorists holds a long-bladed sword resting on the minister’s shoulders and says, in Arabic: “This war criminal, Robert Greeves, will be beheaded in forty-eight hours unless the British Prime Minister agrees to withdraw all of his country’s troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.” The low-resolution video clip was reportedly emailed today to an Arabic language satellite television news channel and has been airing for the last hour. The abductors say they are members of a so-far unknown group called Islamic African Dawn. Mr Greeves, who says nothing in the video, disappeared from a luxury game lodge in South Africa yesterday morning following talks with…’

Tom straightened in the car seat as the announcer recapped the story. ‘They must have sent it this afternoon, while we were out looking for them. That means they’ve stopped — holed up somewhere.’