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

Gabriel next asked the question he’d been turning over in his mind, as much a brain-teaser as a practical matter.

‘The park’s a big place. How do you know where to find the elephants?’

Ruud turned and winked.

‘Why do you think the guard knows me? They have pretty sophisticated tracking up here. A gift from one of those bleeding heart charities. You know, “Save the Elephants” or some liberal bullshit.’

‘And he tells you where to find a herd.’

‘In one, my friend. I tell you something else. The locals aren’t nearly as fond of elephants as the greenies seem to think. You know how long it takes a single bull to destroy a farmer’s yearly crop of sorghum or tomatoes?’

‘How long?’

‘One night! One, man! Then that poor kaffir is fucked three ways from Sunday.’

As they drove north, Ruud checking a discreet GPS tracker on his side of the steering wheel, Gabriel sorted through the options he’d been considering for despatching Witaarde and getting himself out of New Hope and back to the relative safety of Johannesburg.

The best option would be to shoot him and Ruud and blame their deaths on a rival poaching gang or, better yet, a patrol of Botswanan APU guys. After killing them, he intended to leave the bodies out for the scavengers, just as Witaarde had bragged he did with the dead ‘enemies’ of the Volksrepubliek van Suid-Afrika.

He’d have transport. But would the park guard want to know where Ruud was? Scrap that, he’d be behind the wheel of one of the best 4x4s in the world. Cross-country back into South Africa and avoid New Hope altogether. Now he knew he wouldn’t be acting as, what had Britta called him riddare i skinande rustning – a knight in shining armour – to Klara Witaarde, he’d be better off avoiding the place altogether.

‘You know the best place to shoot an elephant, Gabriel?’ Ruud asked, breaking into his thoughts.

‘Tell me.’

‘For a one-shot kill, you want to hit him in the brain. A heart shot is more of an insurance job. Sure, you can take one down that way, but it’s a small target in a big body.’

‘What’s the shot placement?’

‘Side-on; you want to hit him just in front of the ear-crease, where it joins the head. From the front, visualise a point halfway between the eyes. The height depends on if he’s got his head up. You ever hunt before?’

‘Only people.’

Ruud laughed, a harsh bark.

‘Ha! “Only people.” I like that. Yah, well, big game is different. You hit a man with a decent calibre round, he goes down, one way or another. Big game is different. Miss the brain or the heart, it’ll just take off. A big kudu or a hippo, you put a round in its body it just swallows it up, man.’

As Ruud talked, Gabriel tuned him out. He was thinking through the upcoming confrontation with Witaarde. He’d imagined he’d be travelling alone with Witaarde and had planned simply to shoot him dead once they got to the elephant herd. Rudd complicated the picture, but not by much.

A phone rang. Gabriel paid attention to Ruud’s side of the conversation.

‘Yah, right beside me.’

—

‘The best way to shoot an elephant.’

—

‘Hold on. Thirty minutes.’

—

‘OK, boss.’

Ruud turned to Gabriel.

‘That was Julius. He’s found the herd. It’s small. Just a bull and two cows plus three babies. But plenty enough for us. It’ll be a good haul, too.’

Gabriel nodded. He realised he wanted to take two lives and save six. Was he getting sentimental? He didn’t know. Only that he wasn’t going to let these men kill and butcher any more elephants.

After half an hour’s driving through lighter scrub, Ruud pointed off to the right.

‘There’s the plane.’

Gabriel followed his extended finger. The Cessna stood out against the brown and green like one of the egrets they’d seen striding along the mud flats skirting a small lake at the entrance to the park.

Beside the Cessna, Gabriel could make out a white pickup – a bakkie. But what troubled him was the truck’s contents.

53

Next to the bakkie, Gabriel could see four brown-skinned men standing alongside a white man that had to be Witaarde.

Ruud roared off the track and rumbled the Range Rover across the dusty earth, slewing to a stop some fifty feet from the bakkie and throwing up a dust cloud that drifted across the open ground. It enveloped the loose group of men, forcing them to hide their noses and mouths in elbow crooks or behind hats.

He climbed out and Gabriel followed. As the dust cloud cleared, Witaarde strode forward and stuck his face close to Ruud’s. His blue eyes were dark with rage against the dust sticking to his sweaty skin.

‘You fucking idiot! Don’t you ever pull a trick like that again. If those kaffirs weren’t here I’d knock you down.’

The big man’s eyes glistened with unshed tears and Gabriel knew where he had seen that level of fear before. A cult compound deep in the Brazilian rainforest. A demented Frenchman named Christophe Jardin – the self-styled Père Christophe – who’d ruled like an absolute monarch until Gabriel had deposed him.

‘I, I’m sorry, Julius,’ Ruud stuttered. ‘I just thought it would be funny to see those kaffirs choking.’

‘Yeah, well it wasn’t funny from where I was standing. Come on, let’s get them organised.’

Witaarde turned to Gabriel.

‘Gabriel! How do you like this fine game park?’

‘Who are they?’ Gabriel asked, pointing at the black men unloading long guns from the bakkie.

‘They’ve come down from Congo-Brazzaville to help out. What? You thought it would be just us two? Listen, man, this isn’t some fucking ego trip for one of those “white hunter” wannabes. This is my business. This is my country’s future we’re building.’

‘Sorry, Julius, I meant no disrespect. I was just curious, that’s all.’

The apology, which Gabriel had figured, correctly, would appeal to the man’s inflated sense of his own importance, worked. Witaarde clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Yah, well, that’s who they are. You have a problem with any of them, you bring