Ivory Nation, Andy Maslen [e manga reader .txt] 📗

the market, and you ask to meet me. You splash dollars around like sweeties and then give me this bullshit about your cause. Why do I get the feeling you’re really just interested in making money? Does this Committee for Policy Progress of yours even exist?’

‘Yes! OK, look, I wasn’t completely straight with you, Julius. And for that, I apologise.’

‘Go on,’ Witaarde said, lowering the revolver a fraction.

‘That money I gave you? We’re really struggling financially. It was a big chunk of our reserves, but we hoped, if we could show you we were serious, you’d cut us in on the ivory. We’re also looking at blood diamonds, drugs, people trafficking, whatever.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘That’s it. Now you know everything.’

Witaarde relaxed. He let the Smitty’s barrel thump onto the table. A grin stole over his features.

‘I don’t fucking believe this. The old colonial masters reduced to begging from me!’

‘Believe it or not, it’s true.’

‘The Committee’s real.’

‘Yes. If we can reach an agreement, I can introduce you to some very powerful people.’

‘Powerful poor people.’

‘It’s a cash-flow issue. They still have connections you could use. In the US, Russia, Israel.’

Witaarde stood.

‘I need to think about it. I’ll give you an answer in the morning. Stay here tonight. I had Klara prepare a guest room. We’ll talk over breakfast.’

The grass towered over Gabriel. He stretched out a hand to move one of the stems aside and winced as its saw-edge cut through his skin. Beside him Smudge, Stevo and the others were also bleeding from their hands and forearms.

Smudge grimaced.

‘This stuff’s sharper than my bayonet, boss,’ he said. ‘Look.’

He chopped the last foot from a stem with his bayonet and grabbed it as it fell to the ground. Blood leaked out from between his fingers as he clenched his fist around the green sword.

He stroked it across Gabriel’s wrist. The edge bit deep into muscle, sinew and bone, separating the hand as cleanly as a butcher jointing meat. There was no pain. Gabriel watched, fascinated, as his hand flopped to the ground and scuttled away into the undergrowth, leaving a slimy trail of blood.

A crash from the other side of the stand of grass shattered the silence.

Smudge looked up. Gabriel followed his gaze. Smudge screamed. A monstrous-tusked elephant blotted out the sun, rearing on its hind legs before plunging forwards and down. It smashed Smudge’s skull into pieces with a trunk like a great, grey club, before trampling his headless body into a red pulp on the forest floor.

Then it turned to Gabriel.

‘You’re next, kaffir,’ it said, in Witaarde’s voice.

Its blue eyes flashed, then it swung its massive head left and right, sending razor-edged tusks in a slashing arc through Gabriel’s belly. He screamed as he watched his intestines spill into the dirt and shot bolt-upright in bed, the borrowed pyjamas drenched in sweat.

Klara Witaarde was sitting on the edge of his bed. Her face was glistening in the moonlight: face cream. He could smell it, and remembered his mother in Hong Kong, coming into his room when he’d had a nightmare. The same perfume. What was it? Pond’s?

‘Alec, you were screaming. Are you all right?’ she asked, holding his hand in hers.

‘I’m fine. Sorry. Just a bad dream. Must be the heat.’

She moved towards him and laid the back of one cool hand on his forehead. Her nightgown was pale, edged with lace. The front was a deep V and, once again, he couldn’t help glancing at her cleavage.

‘You’re hot. And you’re soaked. Take that off,’ she said, pointing at his pyjama jacket.

‘But…’

She leaned closer.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘Julius is a heavy sleeper. A rhino could come through the house and he wouldn’t wake up.’

Gabriel unbuttoned the pyjama jacket and pulled it off. She took it from him and balled it, before tossing it towards the door.

‘How about the rest?’

Beneath the sheets he removed the soaking pyjama trousers and handed them to her.

‘I should change the sheets for you,’ she said.

‘Really, it’s fine.’

She bit her lip.

‘No. It’s not.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, God!’

She sniffed, and Gabriel watched as a tear emerged from the corner of her eye and crawled across her cheekbone, catching the moonlight like a diamond on her skin.

‘What, Klara, tell me.’

‘I don’t know if I can trust you. If I tell you and he finds out, he’ll kill me. He’ll kill us both.’

Gabriel sat straighter in bed, his role in bringing Witaarde to justice forgotten for the moment. Now there was another reason to hate the man.

‘I won’t let that happen.’

She sniffed again and wiped away the tear with a finger.

‘Julius, is,’ she hesitated, ‘a good man. Deep down, I mean. But his ideas, they’re so,’ her eyes searched the ceiling as if the words she were seeking might appear there, ‘unrealistic. I admit I don’t like the blacks, but you can’t turn back the clock. I just wanted to live in peace up here away from everything. But Julius, he wants a full-blown revolution.’

Her whispering took on a harsher note.

‘The fact is, Alec, I’m a prisoner here. We all are. The women, I mean.’

‘Prisoner, how?’

‘They treat us like slaves. We were told that we would have equal rights in Volksrepubliek van Suid-Afrika, but they want to send us back to the kitchen like the eighteenth century never ended. I went to university in Capetown before I married Julius. I was a finance analyst. Now I’m to be a cook and baby machine. Look,’ she said.

She pulled down the straps of her nightdress. She leaned forward and twisted so her left shoulder was facing him. It bore a tattoo – three heavy, gothic letters: BAW.

‘What does it mean?’ Gabriel asked.

‘Oh, Alec, that’s his mark,’ she choked out. ‘It stands for Behoort Aan Witaarde. Belongs to Witaarde.’

She let her hands fall to the counterpane and, as she did, the top of her nightdress slid down, revealing the tops of her breasts. She made no attempt to cover herself.

Gabriel saw an opportunity. To get to Witaarde, but