Black Horn (16 page)

She
came sharply awake just after midnight.

She
turned and saw Ruby sitting up in the twin bed. They could hear gunfire just
outside the building and much shouting. Abruptly, the window smashed and Mrs
Manners pulled herself under the covers and shouted to Ruby to do the same as
glass littered their beds and the floor.

The
firing stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then they heard footsteps running
down the corridor outside. Gloria was filled with fear until she heard the
voice of Inspector Gilbert shouting out to them to stay still and that
everything was all right. Seconds later he was in the room.

"I
managed to get one shot off," he said. "And of course it had to come
through your window. Is anybody hurt?"

"No,"
Gloria said. "What about the man who did it?"

"They're
both dead, Mrs Manners. Please don't move. There's glass everywhere. I'll have
some maids here in a couple of minutes to clean the place up and move you to
another suite. You can spend the rest of the night in peace."

"Peace!"
she said. "I doubt I'll ever find peace in this country."

They moved fast about a kilometre in from the lake itself. They would not be
stopping to trap that night. They simply chewed on strips of biltong. Maxie's
plan was to skirt behind the village of Binga and come in at right-angles to
the ridge where the small white community lived. The country was very sparse
and dry and they sweated under the rising sun. They walked side by side, but
there was very little conversation. They trudged on with an air of impatience.

It was late afternoon when Maxie reached out a hand to stop Creasy.

"Someone's tracking us," he said.

Creasy wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand and grinned.
"I was waiting for you to tell me," he said. "I picked it up ten minutes
ago."

Maxie grinned back. "You're a smart ass, Creasy. I picked it up an hour ago, and
deliberately took us close to that bunch of baboons to give them a fright. They
got another fright, fifteen minutes later and I heard their chattering. Then, whoever
was behind us disturbed some crowned plovers and ten minutes ago, they
disturbed the very noisy honey-guide -- that's what you heard."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to be sure. I needed to establish a pattern from the disturbances behind
us and the timing of them. There's no doubt now that whoever's tracking us is
keeping about a K behind. He's probably waiting for us to camp and then he'll close in."

"Do you think it's those two Batongkas from last night? Maybe they're looking for
more krugerrands."

"I doubt it. First, they know I'm an ex-Selous and I tracked them, even though
they took great care. They know what I'm capable of. They also know where we're
going, which is why I've taken this route. You may have noticed that we kept to
high ground, to avoid the chances of being ambushed from the front. If they
were tracking us, they would not have been so clumsy. My guess is, that by now,
they're back in their village, getting drunk out of their minds."

They
were walking again. Maxie said, "Don't look back. Whoever is behind us is
overconfident."

"Let's
do a buffalo circle on him," Creasy said.

Maxie
shook his head. "Creasy, you're brilliant in most terrains and especially
in urban situations. There's no one better than you in the desert." He
smiled to take away any offence. "But this is my territory and here, I'm
ever so slightly better than you."

Creasy
grunted in half-agreement. "Maybe. But you're sure as hell enjoying that
fact. So let's do a buffalo circle."

Again
Maxie shook his head. "A wounded buffalo circles back on its tracker and
waits in thick bush, just a few metres from its own track, and then charges the
tracker. The problem is, we don't have any thick bush in this vicinity. We just
have those mopani trees and sparse shrub."

They
walked in silence for a while, and then Creasy said, "There's a low hill a
couple of K's in front of us. So when we pass out of his sight, I'll just
pop off to the left and wait for him."

"Do
you want to kill him or catch him?" Maxie asked.

"Catch
him, of course."

"Then
you don't just drop off to the left. We have to assume that, even though he's
arrogant, he's a good tracker. On this loose soil, he'll be tracking at least
fifty metres ahead. He will see the tracks diverge and then he'll back off
fast."

"So
what do we do, smart ass?"

Maxie
turned and grinned at him. After three days in the bush, they both looked and
smelled like tramps. Maxie was enjoying his rare moment of superior knowledge.

"We
do sticks and boots," he said.

"I've
heard about it but never been involved in that situation. Explain in
detail."

"Well,
we've got to make him think that he's tracking the same two men and not just
one." He gestured ahead. "When we pass out of sight, around that low
hill, we stop and have time to pull a couple of small branches from a tree. We
tie one end of the branches to your boots. You wrap your feet in your shorts
and your shirt and you tiptoe your way to the left, for at least half a K and then
circle round behind our tracks and slot in behind him or them. Beyond that
small hill, there's a series of three more, so I'll be out of sight. I'll make
camp beyond the third hill. All the way, I'll be carrying those sticks with
your boots on the end and I'll plant your bootprints next to mine. You need to
be close up behind him, or them, by the time they get near to my camp, which
will be about four K's from here." He glanced to his right at the
evening sun. "I'll time my arrival for dusk and set up a rough dummy by
the fire to impersonate you. They won't move in before dark, by which time
you'll be right behind them. Now, keep looking behind you, once in a while,
like you normally do as the backmarker. When we get round the edge of that low
hill, do exactly as I tell you." He turned and grinned at Creasy again,
who grunted something inaudible.

Twenty
minutes later, Creasy carefully followed the instructions. They had walked
alongside a mopani tree.

"Stand
still and don't move," Maxie said. He reached up and pulled himself into
the tree and climbed through it and around it. From the back, he stripped down
two branches. He climbed back and handed them down to Creasy, and very
carefully lowered himself so that his own feet descended exactly on to the last
two bootprints he had made. Then he issued instructions.

"Carefully
take off your shirt and your shorts, but each time you lift a leg, make sure
you put your boots back on to exactly the same spot. Lay the shirt and the
shorts on your left, side by side, then step out of your boots, leaving them
exactly where they are and put one foot on your shirt and one on your shorts.
Do not lower your rifle to the ground."

Creasy
handed him back the branches and looked down at his boots. They were Fellies,
much beloved by white Zimbabweans, made of suede and laced up to the ankle. He
took off his green cotton shirt, placed it beside him, and then stepped out of
his green shorts and placed them next to the shirt. He was naked except for
dark blue briefs.

"Very
tasteful," Maxie commented. He received another grunt and then Creasy was
unlacing his boots. He stepped carefully out of them and on to his shorts and
shirt, then watched as Maxie went to work. He had chosen two branches with a
cluster of smaller branches at the ends. He picked up one boot and forced it
over the small branches and then took twine from several loops around his waist
and tied the boot firmly into place without running any of the twine under the
sole. He repeated the process with the other boot, and then placed both boots
exactly on the spot where Creasy had stepped out of them. He said, "For
the past few minutes I've watched your spoor and I know exactly the length of
your stride. You tend to walk on the sides of your feet, like a cowboy. I'll
duplicate your spoor. I know only one man who could ever have noticed the
difference between the spoor that I'll make and the genuine article."

"Maybe he's the one behind us," Creasy said.

Maxie shook his head.

"Definitely not. He was a tracker for ZAPU. I killed him eighteen years ago. About twenty
K's from here." He tapped his left side. "He left me with a
little trademark. That scar under my ribs."

"OK. I'll see you in about an hour. Get going."

He watched for a couple of minutes as Maxie moved across the ground, reaching out
with his hands far to his left and planting Creasy's boots in an exact rhythm.
Creasy bent down, wrapped his shirt and shorts round his feet and fastened them
with twine. Then, as though walking on cut glass, he moved away to his left.

Karl Becker tracked with assurance and pleasure. He loved his work, but he
infinitely preferred tracking humans to animals. The end result gave more satisfaction.

It had not been difficult. He had spotted them early in the morning, moving in the
direction of Binga. The Envoy L4A1 rifle was slung from his right shoulder. He
padded along confidently. He did not track the twin spoors from behind, but
crisscrossed them in a zig-zag manoeuvre which took him four to five hundred
metres away from the spoors on either side. It was a tiring and time-consuming
way to track, but it diminished the possibility of an ambush. He knew what he
was up against and it sent a sudden thrill through his body. He was tracking a
Selous Scout and a man who he knew was a legend among mercenaries. He felt no
fear. He was on his own territory. His rifle was on his back and his instincts
were honed. He knew that he had not been spotted. He could have tried two
long-shots, but they had moved through open country on the high ground and his
approach would have been difficult. Now dusk was coming and soon they would
have to camp in a more bushy terrain. He would have cover enough to get within
one or two hundred metres. He would shoot the Selous Scout first and he would
shoot him twice, to be sure. He felt more confident about having to track down
the mercenary.

Maxie stopped and looked around and then picked his spot. His arms were tired from
the constant rhythm of planting Creasy's spoor. He tossed the sticks and boots
aside and worked quickly. He gathered bushes and, using the twine looped around
his waist, tied them into the shape of a torso and a head of a size resembling
Creasy. Then he built a fire and placed the dummy torso on the far side from
their tracks. The fire blazed and Maxie crouched on his haunches beside the
dummy, laid his rifle beside him, pulled a strip of biltong from his pouch and
started to chew on it.

Twenty minutes later, Karl Becker carefully circled the edge of the low hill and
spotted the fire about a kilometre away. It was almost dark, and he chuckled
inwardly as he took in the scene. There was a clump of bushes about a hundred
metres between him and the fire. It made a perfect hide. He would wait for full
darkness and then move in and make the kill. He looked again at the fire and at
the two shadowy shapes sitting beyond it. He chuckled again. "Sitting
ducks," he thought to himself, and moved away to his right, to come in
exactly opposite the fire.

Twenty minutes later, Maxie heard the fluttering wings of a bird, slightly in front
and to his left. He knew that somebody was out there. The bird would have been
roosting for the night and would not have flown unless disturbed. Of course, it
could have been a hyena or a wild dog, but every instinct told him that it was
a human hunter. He felt no concern. If Creasy had been in any way disabled
during the past hour, he would have fired a shot to alert Maxie. The hunter out
there was being hunted.

Karl Becker reached a clump of bushes and gently eased his way through them. He had
a good view of the fire and the two shadowy figures beyond it. He knew that the
mercenary was bigger than the Selous Scout. The larger figure on the left had
to be the mercenary. He eased his backside on to the soil and raised the rifle
to his favourite position with his elbows resting on his knees. He decided that
his targets were not such good bushmen as he had been told. They should have
been sitting on opposite sides of the fire, watching each other's back. He laid
his cheek against the stock of the rifle and took aim.

A casual but hard voice behind him said, "Dr Livingstone, I presume."

Creasy
threw him on to the fire. He screamed and twisted, and managed to roll away as
a small burning branch slipped down his mottled green and brown shirt. He could
not reach it because his thumbs had been tied behind his back and his ankles.
He screamed again, rolling over and over, and eventually dislodged the burning
twig. He lay gasping and whimpering, his face against the dirt.

Creasy
sat alone, chewing on a piece of biltong. Five minutes earlier, Maxie had
melted into the dark bush to make sure that their would-be assassin had no
back-up out there. He would be gone at least half an hour.

Creasy
took a careful gulp of water from his jerrycan, looked at the bound man and
said, "When I ask you a question in future, I'm only going to do it once.
If I don't get an answer within ten seconds, I'll toss you back on that fire.
And if it's not the right answer, you go back on anyway. Now, what's your
name?"

Ten
silent seconds passed and then Creasy began to rise.

"Karl
Becker!" came the strangled reply.

"Why
were you trying to kill us?"

Painfully
Becker twisted over. His short hair was singed and his eyebrows and his left
cheek black. He looked up at Creasy, drawing in short, shallow breaths. "I
thought you were rhino poachers," he said. "There's open licence on
them."

Creasy
sighed, stood up, walked two paces, picked him up by his shirt-front and the
crotch of his shorts and threw him back on the fire.