The Prey
Authors: Tony Park
First published in Australia in 2013 by Pan Macmillan
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London
W1U 8EW
Copyright © 2013 Tony Park
The moral right of Tony Park to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
TPB ISBN 978 1 78206 161 8
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78206 162 5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Australian writer Tony Park fell in love with South Africa on a short trip in 1995. He is a major in the Australian Army Reserve and has worked in journalism and PR, including six months in Afghanistan in 2002 as PR officer for the Australian ground forces. Tony and his wife Nicola now divide their time between Sydney and the African bush.
Also by Tony Park
Far Horizon
Ivory
Silent Predator
Zambezi
Safari
The Delta
African Dawn
African Sky
Dark Heart
For Nicola
UTHOR’S NOTE
A
t the time of writing this book, in 2013, there was minerals exploration occurring in several national parks and wildlife areas in Africa. Contrary to the story you are about to read, however, there were no plans to develop mines in or adjacent to the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa, or in the coastal region of Inhambane or Homoine in Mozambique. The proposed coalmines mentioned in this book are completely fictitious.
ROLOGUE
A
USTRALIAN
F
INANCIAL
R
EVIEW
O
NLINE
M
INING EXECUTIVES KILLED IN
Z
AMBIAN AIR CRASH
10 October 2013
Lusaka, Zambia: Troubled Australian mining giant Global Resources is mourning the loss of two of its brightest stars, second-in-charge Dr Kylie Hamilton, and a senior South African mine manager, Cameron McMurtrie, who died today in a light aircraft crash in Zambia.
Dr Hamilton, the company’s director of health, safety, environment and community, had been widely tipped to take over the company if and when its besieged CEO, Jan Stein, departed. Dr Hamilton and Mr McMurtrie, who had been recently appointed to the position of director of new projects, were on their way to visit a mine in Zambia’s copper belt region when their Cessna crashed.
A Zambian air force helicopter found the crash site yesterday in rugged bushland in the centre of the country’s remote Kafue National Park. Reports said the badly burnt bodies of two men, one believed to be the pilot, and a woman were found at the scene of the crash.
Mr McMurtrie, from Barberton, South Africa, and Dr Hamilton, from Sydney, Australia, were the only two passengers on the flight.
‘The pilot did not radio a distress call, and a ranger in Kafue National Park told us he saw the aircraft pass overhead and then heard a loud explosion a short time later,’ Zambian military spokesman Colonel Oliver Mwanzi told the
Australian Financial Review
.
Mr Stein said in a statement issued last night that Dr Hamilton and Mr McMurtrie were irreplaceable members of the Global Resources family.
The news has sent Global Resources shares plummeting to an all-time low, continuing the trend of the last two weeks as the company has lurched from one crisis to another in its African operations.
1
S
ABI
S
AND
G
AME
R
ESERVE
, M
PUMALANGA
, S
OUTH
A
FRICA
U
nlike the rest of his kind, he was a catcher of fish, and unlike those of his relatives who also liked to fish, he did so at night.
He didn’t fear the darkness, populated as it was with the lion and the leopard on the hunt and countless smaller predators, such as the wild cat, the serval, the genet and the civet. Secrecy was part of his defence. He was a master of camouflage and, although he had a big voice when it was called for, he usually went about his business in silence.
He scanned the water of the Sabie River in front of him. It was the end of the long dry winter and the river, which had been a raging torrent that claimed trees and washed away banks in the summer, was now gurgling gently. Perfect.
His eyesight was good. In the light of the full moon he could see a fat barbel snaking its way along the bottom, its ugly black tadpole-shaped bulk and its cat’s whiskers clearly silhouetted against the rich gold of the sandy bottom of the shallow river.
A crocodile cruised a little further upriver, its nostrils and eyes the only parts of it that sliced the glittering surface. A hippo honked its
impatience at another in its pod as it wallowed and queued, waiting for its turn to wade ponderously out of the river and begin a night of foraging for grass.
The deep shade of the sycamore fig cloaked the fisherman in a dappled moon shadow, so the barbel wouldn’t see him until the second he speared the water and struck. He watched the fish and thought of the feast to come.
From the home he shared with his mate he heard the cry of his baby. He turned his head three hundred and sixty degrees to face the sound.
His baby squawked again. A fiery-necked nightjar offered a prayer to the night:
good Lord, deliver us, good Lord, deliver us
, the bird called.
He was under pressure.
A blade of bright light suddenly slashed the darkness and played across the surface of the Sabie River. The barbel, as startled as the fisherman by the intrusion, flicked his tail and disappeared upriver at a speed surprising for his size. The crocodile dived, like a submarine preparing for action.
‘Look, it’s an owl,’ a human voice called.
The fisherman took flight.
B
ARBERTON
, S
OUTH
A
FRICA
C
hris Loubser hated the dark. He stole a last glimpse of daylight as he walked into the cage, and closed his eyes tight as the gate slid shut. The few people in his personal life who knew of his phobia – his sister and his parents – had been astounded when he’d taken the job working underground.
The cage bell rang. Immediately it felt to him as though the rock walls around him had started to move inwards, as if pushing the bodies of the other mine workers into him, so that he melded with them, a single multi-armed, multi-legged crush of flesh sandwiched between the pressing rock.
This was his nightmare, and his job. Themba, his newly recruited and freshly university-minted assistant, elbowed him in the ribs. Chris, startled, opened his eyes to see the young man grinning. He’d said something but Chris hadn’t heard it over the screaming of the spooling cable.
‘What?’
‘It’s faster than I thought. Hell of a ride, man.’
Chris nodded and took in the scene in front of him. Themba
seemed to be enjoying it. Two other men in the cage chatted and laughed casually, and another couple stared straight ahead, looking bored. Just another shift. Chris wished he could be like them.
‘It’s a job, Mom,’ he’d said to his mother. ‘And I’m a twenty-nine-year-old Afrikaner
oke
in a workforce where black women are at the top of the hiring list – even in the mines – and white men are at the bottom.’
‘You could go to Australia, Chris, there’s plenty of work for smart boys like you there.’
His mother hadn’t looked into emigrating, but Chris had. He knew it wasn’t nearly as easy for him to enter Australia as she thought, and besides, the only industry that would offer him a job and sponsor him into the country was mining. If he was going to have to work in an underground hell he would rather it be at home. He loved the bush and he loved his country, despite all of its faults.
‘I can do more here in South Africa,’ he had told his mother. ‘In Australia safety is already the industry’s priority, whereas here there’s much more to be done on that front. I can achieve more here. I can save lives, Mom.’