Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘I know the police here have been alerted, but she was probably a long way from Maputo by the time they got the word. You know, Sannie, it was all a bit hazy for me the other night, but nothing — ’

‘Tom, this isn’t the time or the place. I can accept that Carla probably drugged you, but the fact is that you let her come to your room voluntarily and, whether anything happened or not, there was intent. As I told you after the first time, what you do in your own time doesn’t concern me. The fact that it looks like Carla was working for the terrorists changes nothing.’

He started to say something else, but she knew the look on her face was enough to silence him. It worked on her kids and it used to work on Christo as well. He had laughed about it often enough. Besides, she didn’t want to go over old ground with Tom now. Part of what she said was true — what concerned her was that, drugged or not, he had not resisted Carla. However, she realised that what he did on his own time actually did concern her. Her feelings for him were growing stronger — she couldn’t deny it. She admired his doggedness, and whether it was the tension, the excitement, the adrenaline of the pursuit or just his physical presence, right now she felt more alive by his side than she had since Christo’s death. Her husband would have liked Tom, she decided, and was pleased she could think of the two men without feeling that she was betraying her husband.

Her heart went out to Tom, too, seeing him sitting there, staring at the map as though it would suddenly yield some previously unthought-of solution. As with any police investigation, what they needed was a break — some vital clue to fall into their laps — and there was little use driving endlessly up and down the Mozambican coastline while they waited for it, even though that would give them something to do in the morning.

Sannie rested her chin in the palm of her hand as she sat at the table, looking at Tom. She was angry at herself, but there was nothing she could do to stifle the realisation that she hadn’t only crossed the border with him because she empathised with his living through the worst scenario a protection officer could face. She was also there because she cared about and wanted to be with him.

When Sannie had checked her messages she found she had two missed calls from Isaac Tshabalala. She had taken a call from her boss. Wessels had told her that she was officially reprimanded for ignoring the Skukuza police commander’s orders and she could expect a slap on the wrist from him for crossing the border with a foreigner suspected of drug possession on an unofficial investigation. Unofficially, he wished her luck, told her to come home as soon as she could, and to make sure she kept herself safe. ‘Think of your kids, Sannie. Don’t let that Englishman put you in danger.’

His warning was and wasn’t fair. She did owe it to her children not to take unnecessary risks — and this assignment certainly fell into that category — but she resented the fact that Wessels had all but accused her of being a bad mother. He was kind, and a good boss, but, as far as romance went, there would never be anything again between her and Henk.

Tom’s phone rang again. He answered it, listened for a few seconds, and when he jumped up knocked over both of their drinks, spilling them all over the maps.

Tom swore again as the Volkswagen’s front wheels clanged in and out of a pothole as wide as the car’s axle.

‘Careful!’ Sannie reached out and braced herself on the dashboard with one hand.

He barely checked his speed, keeping the needle close to the one hundred and twenty mark. They raced along the darkened EN1 north of Xai Xai and Tom kept a close eye on the odometer, counting off the kilometres as they neared the thirty-five mark.

When he’d gotten off the phone with Bernard he’d taken down precise directions from the Afrikaner owner about how to get to the beach resort. He’d told Bernard to wait there — once he’d ascertained the man’s injuries weren’t life-threatening — rather than try calling a Mozambican ambulance or the local police. He wanted Bernard Joyce back under his protection as soon as possible and Sannie was a hundred per cent in agreement.

Tom braked hard as a truck loomed large in his windscreen. The vehicle was travelling with no lights. He cursed and swerved around it, his foot flat to the floor.

Tom recapped his brief conversation with Bernard as he shifted back down to fourth and revved the underpowered engine into the red before ramming the gearstick viciously into fifth. Bernard had already spoken to Greeves’s office — to Helen, the press secretary — and she had passed on Tom’s mobile phone number to him. Bernard’s next call, when Helen found the number, was to the SAS commander in South Africa. Tom hadn’t wasted time, or Bernard’s satellite phone battery, when they spoke. Bernard had been jogging along the coastline somewhere in Mozambique, his breath heavy from the exertion, and Tom had listened in silence as he explained that Greeves was alive, and the circumstances of his lucky escape.

‘I couldn’t overpower them, Tom. There were too many of them in the end and Robert told me to go… It wasn’t my choice…’

Tom cut him off, seeing where Bernard was heading. ‘You did the right thing, and Greeves was right sending you to get help, and we’re on our way but you have to give us an indication of where you are. I’ll stay online with you or you can call me back.’

At that point Bernard had reported that he could see lights in the sand dunes ahead and to the left of him. Tom waited breathlessly as Bernard laboured up a path through the dunes. ‘It’s a bloody pub!’

Dressed only in stained boxer shorts, his feet caked in sand and blood, and his eyes wild with relief and lingering terror, he’d stumbled into a beachside bar attached to a small coastal resort. Tom heard the amazed response — loud talking in Afrikaans — as Bernard burst in on the owner, who was tending bar, and a half-dozen fishermen on holiday. There had been a pause as explanations were given and Tom heard one of the men saying they had just been watching a news item on CNN about the abductions.

Bernard had passed the phone to the bartender, whose English was passable but halting, so Tom had transferred the phone to Sannie, who spoke rapidly in Afrikaans as Tom bundled their gear into the back of the Chico. It turned out the resort was less than forty kilometres from Xai Xai and while the owner had been about to close the bar — in order to send the drunken fishermen to bed — he would certainly wait for their arrival. Not only that, but he would have to meet them on the road into his encampment as the last kilometre was through deep sand.

‘This is it,’ Sannie said, spotting a property development sign and another marking the end of the Distrito do Xai Xai, which the resort owner had described. Tom swung hard and skidded into a right turn onto the unmarked sandy track. It seemed the lodge’s owner was happy to promote himself by word of mouth only as there was no sign to his property, which was called Paradise Cove.

‘The police would never have come down here looking for them,’ Tom said.

Sannie nodded in agreement. Their luck had been in, though neither of them dared predict what the kidnappers would do with Greeves now that they knew their hideout had been compromised. Tom’s very real fear was that even though Bernard had escaped less than an hour ago, his abductors might have already shut up shop and be on their way to a new location.

They had called in at Xai Xai police station, but the female officer on the night shift, who had been dozing at the front desk, spoke no English or Tsonga Shangaan. Sannie and Tom had said Capitao Alfredo’s name over and over again and pantomimed using the telephone, but the female officer had steadfastly refused even to try to understand them. ‘Fuck it,’ Tom had said at last, unwilling to waste a second more. They were on their own again.