"I got in Stirling"s truck to help Professor Sutton he came looking for someone to help. I thought he was only going to move the trucks fifty metres or so. I hopped into the Amarok and we"d just started to move, out the gate, when Matthew appeared next to me, opened the door and dragged me out. That"s when the gunfire started and I ran to the nearest tree and hid."
"That"s the best thing you could have done," Sonja said. "I"d forgotten about Matthew."
Alex jogged to them and also dropped down into the gra.s.s. "Emma, my G.o.d, I was going crazy looking for you. How is Stirling?"
Sonja didn"t look up from tying a dressing around Stirling. "Not good."
"I"m also worried about Natangwe; he"s drifting in and out of consciousness," Alex said.
Brand looked to Emma. "What are they up to down the road?"
"The chopper"s landed," Emma said. "Professor Sutton"s nearly at it. He"s still driving. Some woman"s out of the helicopter and waving at him. He"s . . . s.h.i.t!"
Dorset Sutton saw the Russian bring his rifle up to his shoulder and Irina Petrovna Aleksandrova swinging her Dragunov sniper"s rifle in his direction. The woman peered through her telescopic site at him, then lowered her weapon. She put a hand on the barrel of the other man"s AK and pushed it down as well.
Dorset ducked down below the level of the dashboard. On the floor of the truck he wedged a small plastic cooler box he"d found in the cab onto the accelerator pedal. He grabbed his AK-47 from the pa.s.senger seat.
The helicopter loomed large in the windscreen as the truck trundled on. Sutton moved between the front seats, raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. The burst blew out the windscreen of the Unimog and st.i.tched a line of bullet holes through the Perspex windows of the helicopter. Sutton saw the pilot slump over his controls, then he turned and scrambled through the access way between the cab and the bespoke camper behind. Bullets followed him, zinging and ricocheting around him.
Moving between a couch and a galley kitchen he grabbed the handle of the rear access door to the camper and turned it at the moment the front of the truck ploughed into the helicopter.
Turning rotor blades sheared off, bounced and flew into the bush, and the Unimog reared up onto the c.o.c.kpit. The gunmen who had been waiting to either board the chopper or shoot up the oncoming truck were not as lucky. One was crushed by the Unimog and two more were incinerated as the rampaging vehicle smashed into the engine and ignited the Bell"s fuel tanks. The explosion sent a mushroom cloud of oily black smoke into the air and a fireball in every direction.
As Dorset opened the rear door, the force of the blast behind him propelled him like a human cannonball out of the campervan and onto the bonnet of the Volkswagen Amarok being towed behind. Winded and dazed, it took him a couple of seconds to work out that on the other side of the windscreen that his right shoulder had just painfully shattered was not Emma Kurtz, but Matthew Allchurch.
Dorset raised his arm, the pain welling up, and pantomimed the turning of the ignition key with his right thumb and forefinger together. Matthew, however, seemed to be a step ahead of him as the engine started up before he"d even finished signalling. Dorset had lied to Brand about the vehicle being disabled; it was fine. Dorset, his training from half a lifetime ago kicking in, fought through the pain that threatened to overwhelm him and rolled off the dented bonnet. He pointed the barrel of his rifle at the tow strap that linked the Unimog to the Amarok and pulled the trigger. With the strap all but severed he opened the pa.s.senger door.
Bullets raked the bakkie and Sutton ducked, saving his life as another round whizzed over his head, then fired two snap shots at a Russian who had survived the impact of truck and helicopter. The man fell backwards.
"Nice shooting," Matthew said as Sutton hauled his aching body inside the Amarok.
"Thank you. Now, if you don"t mind, I think reverse gear is in order."
Brand stopped the compressions on Stirling"s chest and Sonja rocked back on her heels. Stirling had started breathing again, though his chest was gurgling with blood. At least he was alive, thanks to Hudson and her giving him CPR.
Alex came to them. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Pray the evac chopper gets here soon," Sonja said. "Stirling"s barely alive, Natangwe"s bleeding out again and the professor and Matthew were probably just fried."
Brand stood and looked at the wreckage of the burning helicopter and truck.
A ringtone sounded and Brand pulled his phone out of his pocket. "h.e.l.lo?"
No one answered his greeting, but Brand could hear a voice on the other end, far off, as though someone had accidentally turned on their phone by sitting on it. "Now if you don"t mind, I think reverse gear is in order," the voice said. It was Dorset Sutton.
Matthew reversed hard and fast away from the burning wreckage. "Go past it," Sutton said, "to the main road, and turn left."
Matthew looked to him. "Why not go back to the castle?"
"We have to draw any remaining enemy away from the others. We"ll see if we can find the local police and lead them back here."
Matthew stopped, put the truck into first, and glanced at his phone to make sure his call to Brand had been answered. Then he accelerated past the helicopter, the Unimog and the fire, which was spreading to the bush on either side of the road and threatening the filling station. He drove to the main road and turned left, then slowed down.
"Faster, Matthew, we need to find the police."
Matthew stopped the truck near the small cl.u.s.ter of shops. Locals were nervously milling around, moving into the road to watch the pyre in the distance. A few started to move towards the strange vehicle.
"What are you doing? Drive, Matthew. Hurry."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Not until you tell me what happened to my son."
Dorset shook his head. "I have no idea what happened to your son. How should I?"
Matthew put the car into first again, moved off and began to turn around.
"What are you doing?" Dorset asked him again.
"We"re going back to the castle. Hudson wants to talk to you, wants to take a good look at you again and ask you some questions."
Dorset raised his AK-47 and pointed it at Matthew. "I told you to drive out of town, now keep going."
Matthew stopped the truck again. "No."
Dorset curled his finger around the trigger. "Get this b.l.o.o.d.y vehicle moving or I"ll kill you, here and now."
Matthew stared at him. "Do it. You think I haven"t been half dead since my son disappeared all those years ago? I"ll make you a deal. I"ll drive; I"ll be your hostage or whatever you want me to be and I"ll help you get away with the rhino horn in the back if you just tell me the truth about my son."
A trio of local youths, two brandishing sticks, was closing in on them. "b.l.o.o.d.y drive. I"ll tell you what you want to know."
Matthew stared at him. "Gareth."
Sutton sighed. The men were shouting now, wanting to know what had happened to their town. "All right, I was on the Dakota. Gareth survived the crash. Now, if you want to know more, can we please go?"
Matthew accelerated and weaved between the mob.
Brand put the phone on speaker. Alex had moved away from where they were treating Stirling and was calling the aeromedical evacuation service again, to get an update on the helicopter"s arrival. There was no movement at the destroyed chopper and no more gunfire; all of the Russians must have been killed or seriously wounded.
"Status?" Brand called to Alex.
"They"re on their way. The dispatcher says they should get to us in about twenty minutes, same with the police. They had to respond to a bus crash first."
Sonja stroked Stirling"s face, though he was unconscious. "Hang on, Stirling."
Brand looked away, back to Alex, and Emma, who had run to the castle and back and brought with her a blanket. "All right," Brand said, "let"s load Stirling and get him back to the castle with Natangwe."
They lifted him onto the blanket and Brand, Sonja, Alex and Emma each grabbed a corner and carried him. Brand held the phone up as they walked.
"What happened to the other pilot, Bester?" Matthew asked.
"He wanted to turn around, after Brand started the fire on board, and fly back to Ondangwa. He got cold feet, even though he"d taken a couple of shots at Brand. I told him to carry on to the drop zone, over the ocean. He refused, so I shot him in the head."
Brand shook his head and said a silent prayer for the dead and the dying.
Dorset looked at Allchurch. He would have to kill the man at some point, and perhaps it was better to do it now.
No, he thought, reconsidering; he might need a hostage. His plan was to make for the border, to cross the Kunene into Angola, at a drift where the river was low. On the other side he knew an ex-special forces and BOSS Bureau of State Security man who ran a fishing camp on the Atlantic coast. He"d find a way to ship out the rhino horn from Luanda. He didn"t have the whole shipment, but what he and Stirling had been able to load into the Amarok would be enough to set him up for life, and make up for the near thirty years he"d spent trudging around the Namibian deserts on archaeological digs searching for the Dakota.
His situation was bad, but it could have been worse; at least he was alive, unlike Danie Bester, the pilot he"d killed on board the Dakota, and Jacobus Venter. He"d survived the war in Angola and escaped prosecution by South Africa"s Truth and Reconciliation Commission by hiding behind the false ident.i.ty of archaeologist Dorset Sutton. He had, in fact, studied archaeology at university in South Africa after his compulsory military service. He"d been recruited by the security service to spy on subversive students supporting the African National Congress, and had completed his degree in the process. A fake overseas degree and his real knowledge had helped him into a lecturer"s job some years after democracy had come to South Africa and eventually he had landed a professorship. Since then he"d been developing a special interest in Namibia"s archaeology to cover his search for the Dakota. Dorset had set up the pipeline for ivory, rhino horn and diamonds out of Angola to the Russians, via Irina Aleksandrova"s father. He knew the daughter and had been in regular contact with her over the years. Dorset also knew of Andre Horsman, but the ex-air force officer had never met Dorset, who ran the smuggling operation from behind a series of cut-outs. Dorset had long watched Horsman"s ham-fisted attempts to find the missing aircraft. If the youngsters, Emma, Alex and Natangwe, hadn"t killed Andre and Sebastian then Dorset would have; leaving them to do the dirty work had preserved his cover a little longer. He"d shown himself to Irina as he lay on the roof of the castle waving while she flew over in her helicopter. She had landed, as he"d hoped she would, and called off her men as she waited for him to deliver the goods to her then he had taken her out of the picture. With less than a full aircraft load of horn there would have been fewer profits; now with Irina and her contact Tran Van Ngo dead Dorset could set up and have complete control over a new market in Vietnam. All he had to do was get away.
They were out of Wilfriedstein, though Allchurch was slowing down again. "Faster," said Dorset.
Allchurch glanced at him. "Why don"t you just kill me now, be done with it? I know you"re going to."
Dorset nodded. "You"re right, I should. But all the others know I"m a criminal now, since I"ve driven off with the rhino horn. What difference does it make if I let you live? I won"t be coming back to Namibia or South Africa again."
"You murdered Danie Bester and I"m a.s.suming you murdered my son as well. There"s no statute of limitations on that, no jurisdiction where you can hide from that."
"Well then you"re right, Matthew. You just signed your own death warrant."
Allchurch stopped the Toyota on the side of the road and opened the door. "We"re one and half kilometres out of town, Sutton. Far enough for there to be no witnesses. You can kill me now if you want. Just tell me how my son died."
Brand held up his phone and they listened to Dorset and Matthew"s conversation. "I have to go and try to get him," Brand said.
Sonja picked up her AK-47 and turned to Emma. "You and Alex stay here with Stirling and Natangwe. The paramedics can help you load them, OK?"
"Yes, Mum," Emma said.
Brand took a spare magazine for his rifle from the cargo pocket on the side of Stirling"s blood-soaked pants. "Sonja, I can do this myself."
"I"m coming. I can"t be here when the cops come." She looked to her daughter. "Emma, you"ll have to think up some story. OK?"
Emma nodded.
"Mum," Emma said as Brand started to walk away. He looked over his shoulder. Sonja had stopped. Emma went to her and wrapped her arms around her. "Mum, I love you. Please stay safe."
"I love you too, my girl."
They ran out of the castle"s gate and split left and right, onto opposite sides of the road, and jogged towards the blazing skeletal remains of the melded chopper and truck. Brand had his rifle in his shoulder as he picked out bodies in the ground, watching in case one moved.
"No survivors my side," Sonja called to him over the crackle of flames.
"Nor mine." He smelled burning meat, remembered Angola, and swallowed hard.
"No sign of the woman, Irina?"
"No," Brand said. By the side of the road were the three men the gangster had executed. Brand had no history with the Russian woman, but he felt an instinctive hatred for someone who would treat her men like that.
"What"s Matthew saying?" Sonja asked.
Brand had the phone in his pocket, but had plugged in his hands-free cord and earpiece. "Nothing. There isn"t even an engine noise. I think they"ve stopped. The last thing he said was he was a kilometre and a half out of town."
"Then let"s get a move on."
Brand and Sonja turned left when they reached the main road, pa.s.sed the filling station and started running up the road.
"s.h.i.t," Brand said.
"What is it?"
"Dorset"s telling Matthew to get out of the truck. I think he"s going to kill him."
Chapter 35.
Matthew got out and stood by the side of the road. He thought about running, but he knew he wouldn"t get far before the bullet drilled into his back. In any case, he needed to know.
The white-haired professor, the picture of the harmless, wise academic, moved to the driver"s side of the truck and raised the rifle to his shoulder with the practised ease and the stance of a killer. Matthew took a breath. "At least tell me."
Dorset tensed, his finger curled through the trigger guard; Matthew knew from his brief time in the army that one only did that when one was ready to shoot.
"Tell me," Matthew said again, louder, emboldened by the crystal-clear certainty that his own death was imminent. He thought of Helen, of how her sadness would just be multiplied because of his foolishness, trying to lay Gareth to rest. "Tell me how my son died."
Dorset blew a breath out of his mouth, seemed to sag a little in his marksman"s stance, and licked his lips. "It was a different time, you know?"
Matthew nodded slowly. "I know. I investigated shootings of civilians, of soldiers killing each other; most of them I helped sweep away. We were fighting for our survival."