Tony Park - Silent Predator

Sannie caught up with Tom as he reached the top of the last dune. Spread out before them was the endless sea, its rippling surface flecked white-gold by the dying moon. Out on the horizon the sky was pinking as the sun waited to make another entrance.

Below them they saw the solitary figure slow as he reached the foot of the sandhill and walk out towards the water. The tide was turning, the patch of dark, wet sand widening with every small wave’s gentle lap and retreat.

Tom ploughed on down the hill, Sannie by his side. She called Bernard’s name again, but he ignored them.

‘Slowly,’ Tom whispered, placing a gently restraining hand on Sannie’s arm as they reached the flat sands.

Bernard was walking into the water. The foam was at his knees when he stopped.

‘There’s nothing you could have done,’ Tom said, his voice just loud enough to cover the distance between them. The water broke over his shoes and Sannie stood with a hand at her mouth.

‘I know, Tom,’ Bernard called, though still looking away from them, out to the first tiny fingernail of morning light.

‘We’ll get them, Bernard,’ Tom said.

Bernard shrugged, then finally turned and faced them. ‘Yes, I do believe you will, some day, but that’s not the point, is it?’

‘You did the right thing by going for help,’ Sannie said.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said to her. He looked at her for a couple of seconds and slowly nodded his head. ‘Yes, the right thing. I followed orders. His orders.’

‘That’s right,’ Tom confirmed. ‘I would have told you to do the same thing — you would have told him to do it if the positions were reversed.’

‘Yes.’

‘Come back, Bernard. We’ll go down to Sarel’s and get a cup of coffee, or something stronger,’ Sannie suggested.

‘A wake?’

She shrugged.

Bernard turned his gaze on Tom, who looked down at the automatic pistol hanging loosely by the other man’s side. ‘We let him down, Tom. You and me both.’

‘I know I did, but you didn’t. You were his best shot at freedom, Bernard.’

‘No, I let him down by doing the right thing. The right thing by the book. That was always me in the navy, you know. Plenty of them used to joke about it. They said I crapped by the manual. They were right. I always had to do it better than any other man, because of… because of who I am, what I am.’

‘Come on. Let’s go get a drink, Bernard.’

Bernard looked back out to sea, towards the molten ball rising from the waters.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Sannie.

‘I need to talk to you again, Bernard. I need you to take me through every hour, every minute, every second from the time they took you and Robert until the time you escaped.’ Tom stayed still as he spoke.

‘I’ve told you everything I know.’

‘There’s always something else. Trust me, I know. There’ll be some small detail that you’ll remember — something someone said or did, or didn’t say or do — that will nail them, Bernard.’

Bernard turned back to him and smiled.

‘No, I’ve done quite enough already, Tom. Or, more to the point, I’ve done not quite enough. I shouldn’t have left him.’

‘No.’

‘Yes, Tom. You know it and I know it. I ran.’

‘He told you to.’

‘I told Helen his last words. You know, he was thinking of his family, and spitting bloody murder at those bastards as I left him.’

Tom nodded.

‘He was a brave man.’

‘He was,’ Sannie said.

‘I let him down.’

‘You didn’t, Bernard,’ Tom insisted.

‘I called you, you know?’

Tom was confused. ‘On the phone?’

‘No. When it happened. When they dragged me out of my bed, at the lodge, I called your name. I didn’t know who else to yell for.’

Tom felt the sickness rising from his stomach again, the blood draining from his face. Bernard had said nothing of this before.

‘I called for you, but you didn’t answer, Tom. I suppose you were asleep. Can’t expect you to be on the job twenty-four hours a day, though, can we?’

‘Bernard, toss the gun over here.’ Sannie sounded forceful, and took a step towards him, but Bernard started to raise the weapon and she checked her pace.

‘We let him down. You and me.’

Tom was speechless, his mind still trying to process this new information. He had just about convinced himself that except for sleeping late — and possibly losing five or ten minutes of chase time — there was nothing more he could have done to prevent the abductions. He’d reasoned that there would have been no way he could have known what was going on, as he’d been in a separate suite both to Bernard and Greeves. This new revelation hit him like a blow in the solar plexus and threatened to drop him to his knees in the surf.

‘Sometimes the right thing, being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing by the book, just isn’t good enough. I should have stayed with him, or taken on the single guard while he was fighting the fire before the others came back.’

‘You would probably have been killed, Bernard,’ Sannie said, filling the void left by Tom’s ominous silence.

‘I cared about him, you know,’ Bernard said, looking back out over the water.

Tom started to move, his fists clenched by his sides.

‘Tom,’ Sannie whispered, but he ignored her.

‘He was a good man, who could have gone on to do great things for his country. Too good a man for politics. I used to tell myself that I would lay down my life for him.’

Tom began to run, his feet raising geysers of water as he closed on Bernard.

The other man turned, so that one side of his face was bathed red-gold by the sun as it breached the waters.

Bernard raised his hand, placed the barrel of the pistol in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Three weeks later

The phone rang, waking him. He looked at the red LED display of his clock radio and saw that it was nine in the morning. He coughed, and was punished by the smell of stale Scotch.

‘Furey,’ he said into the handset, after retrieving the phone from the floor. His voice was croaky, as he’d started smoking again.

‘Tom, it’s Sannie.’

He raised himself on one elbow, earning himself a giddying head spin. He coughed once more. ‘Sannie, this is a surprise.’

‘Are you okay? You sound like you’re ill.’

‘Got a cold coming on,’ he lied. ‘Bloody London weather. Where are you, at home? I can call you back if you like.’ He remembered the references to her tight family budget, trying to raise her two kids on one income.

‘No, Tom, I’m at work. This is semi-official so they don’t mind me calling overseas.’

‘Oh, right. Of course.’ Not everyone had lost their job over the debacle in Mozambique. He chided himself for his oversight. ‘So this is business?’

There was a pause on the other end of the line and he regretted his last words. Did he sound petulant, as though he had thought she might be calling for personal reasons?

‘Yes, it is business, though I’ve been wanting to call you, to make sure you’re okay. That everything’s all right with you.’

All right? The man he’d been sent to Africa to protect was dead. Another had killed himself in shame, leaving Tom feeling like he should have done the same thing, and he was suspended from his job indefinitely, pending the outcome of an official government inquiry into Greeves’s death. ‘I’m fine. Enjoying the break.’

‘Tom, I know how hard this must be for you, but you’ll pull through.’

‘Right. Um, what is this about, Sannie?’

‘I’m coming to England.’

That made him sit up in bed. ‘When? Why?’