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

sun, one hundred metres away. Red dust shrouded the lower halves of their bodywork. Beneath their raised-up chassis, condensed water dripped from the aircon units’ bleeder pipes, darkening the earth.

‘The next shipment goes to the UAE on Friday,’ Witaarde said.

‘How much did we get for it?’ Bokara asked.

‘Three point two million. Your share’s in the bakkie.’ He turned to Tammerlane, the third member of their ill-assorted trio. ‘Yours too, Joe.’

‘Thanks. So, how’s it going?’ Tammerlane asked, as Bokara ambled over to the pickup to count his share.

‘Slow, to be honest. Believe me, setting up a country takes a lot more than cash.’

‘I feel your pain. I might not be setting up a country from scratch, but I’m still trying to recreate one.’

‘You do know that Marxism won’t work? I mean, look around this continent. The place is littered with basket-case economies because their leaders sided with the Commies.’

‘Ah, but that’s where I’m different. I’m going to do it properly.’

‘And does “properly” include stashing your millions in offshore bank accounts?’

‘To be drawn on as and when we need extra cash. For the transition.’

‘Or if the electorate kick you out after four years when they’ve been reduced to eating grass, eh?’

Witaarde laughed loudly at his own joke. With no hard surfaces bar the 4x4s for hundreds of kilometres in any direction, the sound died quickly in the warm air.

Tammerlane shrugged.

‘There could be a different electoral system by then,’ was all he said.

‘Hey!’ Gabriel slapped Witaarde, who’d lapsed back into a trance state. ‘What’s going on between you, Tammerlane and Bokara?’

Witaarde focused on Gabriel. He glanced down at the Colt then back up into Gabriel’s eyes.

‘We never saw eye to eye on ideology. But one thing we all knew – still know – is that ideology is nothing if you don’t have power. Dreams are fine. But you rule, or you fail. Me, Horatio and Joe, we understand that.’

‘But how could you ever make this work?’

Witaarde smiled, though it lacked any human warmth.

‘It’s not so hard to see, if you look at it right. I want a Boer homeland. Nothing different from what other marginalised groups want or have taken for themselves: Catalonia, Scotland, Wallonia, Palestine, Israel. They’ve all either got their own homelands or are pressing for them. Horatio wants a black South Africa. Simple as. No Indians. No whites. He’s prepared to try and copy what Mugabe tried in Zim. Blame his country’s troubles on the Brits or the UN, or NATO, hell, the EU for all he cares. It doesn’t matter as long as it plays well at home.’

‘And Tammerlane?’

‘Joe wants to create a socialist utopia in the UK. He’s mad, obviously, but who cares. That’s not my fight. My fight is here. In Africa. In fact, guess what? It all dovetails neatly together. Joe gets a new enemy to rail against. What could be better for a hard-left firebrand like Joe than white South Africans fighting for independence? Meanwhile Horatio gets to burnish his credentials in Africa while he lets me split off and create a homeland where he can banish the whites.’

Gabriel shook his head. It was monstrous. A triple-legged tower of fantasy fuelled by slaughtering elephants. They didn’t mind who got in the way of their twisted dreams.

‘You’re a murderer,’ he said.

Witaarde raised his hands.

‘I told you what you wanted to hear. You have to keep your side of the bargain. Put that gun down and let me go.’

Gabriel looked down at the revolver’s gleaming barrel. Witaarde had put him onto an international conspiracy that would bring down Tammerlane, if not Bokara.

He looked back at Witaarde.

‘No.’

He raised the revolver and aimed at Witaarde’s head. This close, the round would take his head clean off.

Witaarde flung himself to the ground, crawling on all fours towards Gabriel, who had to take a step back.

He raised his face.

‘Please don’t kill me, Gabriel. Please, have mercy. I am begging you, man. I have a wife. Klara needs me.’

‘Fuck her! She’s worse than you, Witaarde. Get to your feet.’

Instead, Witaarde knelt before Gabriel like a penitent before a priest.

Then he reared up and flung two handfuls of gritty red dust directly into Gabriel’s eyes.

Gabriel staggered back, keeping a tight grip on the revolver with one hand and frantically trying to clear his eyes of the stinging earth with the other.

‘Fuck you!’ Witaarde screamed as he ran off into the tall grass.

Eyes burning, Gabriel raced after him. His vision was smeary but he caught a glimpse of Witaarde and fired. He saw a spurt of blood from his right thigh. Witaarde screamed but kept running. Gabriel swore: he’d missed the femur and the artery, both of which would have brought his man down.

Witaarde scrabbled frantically at the thick screen of grass before him and plunged on.

He screamed again.

No! Gabriel had time to think. No human had emitted that unearthly wail.

Gabriel burst out from the grass to find Witaarde turning towards him, wide-eyed, running away from an adult elephant and a calf. The adult – the mother? – had raised her trunk and was trumpeting her displeasure at Witaarde.

Gabriel straightened his right arm and shot Witaarde point-blank, straight between the eyes. His face disintegrated in a red mist as his head exploded. The headless body stumbled forward on dead legs and fell at Gabriel’s feet.

Gabriel kept his eyes locked onto the adult female. She stood less than twenty feet from him, legs planted foursquare, ears wide and erect, trunk lashing from side to side. The baby had taken sanctuary beneath her heaving belly, secure inside the four massive pillars of her legs.

Gabriel lowered his right hand, let the revolver fall to the ground and took a slow, deliberate step backwards.

The elephant glared at him, her brown, long-lashed eyes following him as he slid his feet backwards, flat-footed, until he felt the grass at his back. He fought to maintain a wide view of her and her calf, avoiding the tunnel vision inexperienced fighters could let overwhelm them, until all they could see