Evolution of Fear (21 page)

Hope smiled big like love. He could see it there on her face, in every contracted muscle, in the heat coming from her flushed cheeks, that exothermic reaction over which she had no control going off inside her like rockets.

‘She wants to meet you, Clay,’ she said, breathless. ‘Tomorrow afternoon at the Mephistos copper mine waste pits in the Troodos. Three o’clock.’

‘Slow down, Hope,’ said Clay. ‘Who was it you spoke to?’

‘Someone called Hamour, from AFP’s Istanbul desk. He said you knew each other.’

‘Was he sure it was her?’

‘He said the message came with the story that she filed yesterday. It was attached as an addendum, with my phone number, asking him to pass the message on through me. He’s been trying to reach me since then. That’s all he said.’ Hope shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t she just call me herself?’

‘If she’s trying to hide, she’s not going to call anyone. Was there anything else in the message?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you sure.’

‘That was it. Just meet her at the mine tomorrow.’

Clay looked at his watch. ‘That gives us about fifteen hours.’

‘Do you know this place?’ said Crowbar.

‘I’ve been there once before,’ said Clay. ‘A local environmental group asked me to do some chemical testing on the waste pits a couple of years ago. Rania knew that – I told her about it. It’s an
isolated place, on the western side of the mountains. No vehicle access. A good ten clicks walk to get in there, pretty rugged country.’

‘How far from here?’

‘About five hours’ drive, another couple walking.’

Crowbar put his beer on the table. ‘Then we’d better get moving,
broer
. Now. Anyone picks a place like that to meet,
ja
, it’s because someone else is interested.’

‘You have plenty of time,’ said Hope.

‘We’re going to get there nice and early,
ooma
, make sure that if Rania does show, we have her covered. And if someone else shows up, we’ll ask ’em a few impolite questions.’

Hope looked at Clay. ‘What is this
ooma
?’

Clay grinned at Crowbar. ‘It means old lady.’

Hope’s expression hardened. She glared at Crowbar.

‘
Kak, Straker, fokken roerder
,’ Crowbar said in Afrikaans. And then in English, to Hope: ‘No, that’s wrong. It doesn’t mean…’

Hope said nothing, just stared up at him.

‘It’s respect,’ blurted Crowbar. ‘
Fok
, Straker. Tell her.’

Clay said nothing.

‘You’re not old,’ said Crowbar, fidgeting now. Clay had never seen him like this, was enjoying it.

Hope played him, stood expressionless. After a moment a hint of a smile crept across her face. ‘Why, thank you, Mister Koofoot. Neither are you.’

They had no way of knowing from which direction Rania would approach the mine. There were at least three road access points within ten kilometres of the pits, narrow gravel firebreaks that switch-backed between ancient black-trunked pines and gnarled scrub oak, snaked around crumbling, frayed rhyolite and marble cliffs, the mountainside scarred by the centuries-old quarryings of people long dead, Ottomans, Romans.

They decided to leave Clay’s rental car in Agios Psemanitos, a tiny, near-abandoned village about twenty kilometres west of the mine, and track around to the eastern approaches in Crowbar’s Pajero. By the time they had hidden the 4WD two hundred metres into the forest, behind the boulders of an ancient landslide, the sun was up and the last of the shadows were edging from the deep valleys. It gave them the best part of eight hours before Rania’s appointed time.

It took them less than two hours’ hard walking to reach the mine site.

Clay stood beside the largest of the pits and stared down into the copper sulphate sterility of the bright-blue water. The air had that crushed, burnt smell of sulphides, the latent sweetness of molybdenum, an undertone of pine resin breaking through now and again as the breeze swirled through the valley. A faded metal sign swung from a rusted barbed-wire fence that ran with listing and fallen posts across the end of the pits towards an old adit entrance. A set of narrow-gauge rails, almost buried now, tracked from the adit across the open kill-zone that surrounded the pits and disappeared into the trees.

Crowbar was on the bank between the two smaller pits. ‘Smart
bokkie
,’ he said, voice bouncing over the heavy, metal-rich sludge. ‘Nice field of fire.’

Koevoet was right. From where he stood, Clay had a clear view at least a hundred metres in every direction. Not a bad spot if you wanted a private conversation. And yet of all the places she could have chosen, why here?

Crowbar raised his field glasses, scanned the ridge above them, pointed up at the steep rock face. ‘That’s where I’ll be,
broer
.’

It took them almost half an hour to scramble to the top of the ridge. The slope rock was weathered, cubed, hot already in the midday sun. It disintegrated under their boots as they climbed, trickled back down the hill in rivers. Gnarled pine trees clung to the bands of marble and gneiss that jutted from the slope like ramparts, their twisted roots spreading like veins through the barren rock. How they survived here Clay could not imagine.

They collapsed to the ground, sweating and panting. Clay looked back down to the pits, three blue sapphires sparkling in the sunshine. From here, he could see out across the whole spread of the mine workings, the old rail line snaking up the valley to the western approaches, mountains stretching away to a blue horizon in every direction.

Crowbar slung off his pack, fished out a water bottle, drank and offered it to Clay. Then he stood, walked along the ridge, disappeared momentarily behind a boulder the size of a small truck and reappeared. ‘Commanding,’ he said, pulling out his Beretta. ‘Great lines in every direction. No better place in the whole goddamn valley.’ He looked down at the pits. ‘I figure 350 metres,
seun
. Too far for me to help. But I can warn you,
ja
. Two quick shots from this, time for you to
ontrek
. RV at the Pajero.’

Clay nodded at Crowbar, looked at his watch. Three and a half hours to go. He started back down the slope, the sun refracting through the edges of the treetops, strobing over him as he pushed his boots down through the rattling scree, and after all these years, that feeling again, of someone watching over you, an archangel. And, as he reached the base of the ridge and started towards the pits, he knew that everything had changed. And though he’d known it for days, it had been like so much else in his life – having the knowledge but not the understanding. You chose who you loved, or maybe they chose you. But a son, a daughter, you were given.

He sat on the middle berm, in the epicentre of the pits where he could be clearly seen. He picked up a handful of the crushed mine tailings, let the stuff fall from his hand and waited. He thought about her disappearance from the hotel that day, the note she’d left, wondered about her leaving, about Spearpoint that day on the street outside the hotel in Istanbul – had he been one of Medved’s informants? Had he been the one who’d called in the assassins whose bodies were now rotting at the bottom of the Med? The things she’d said to him that last morning they were together replayed now in his head. Justice isn’t an event, she’d said. It isn’t something you do once. There is no end to it. Forgiveness, you earn.

In a couple of long hours, he’d see her again.

A cold wind blew through the valley. Clouds the size of mountain villages drifted high over the peaks. Shadow passed over the ridge, cooled the surface of the ponds from molten copper to glacier blue. He closed his eyes, breathed.

At just that moment, just as the unfamiliar shade of serenity began to flow over him, a shot echoed through the valley.

Then another bang, louder, higher pitched. The sound danced among the rocks for a moment then died. Clay tensed, scanned the tree line in a three-sixty-degree arc. No one. Silence. He glanced at his watch. Just gone two. The first shot was definitely Koevoet’s Beretta. The second was a big charge, high velocity. Clay sprang to his feet, sprinted towards the base of the ridge.

He made it to the top about ten minutes later, quads screaming, chest heaving. He’d heard nothing since the two shots, just the jackhammering of his heart, the rail of his breathing, the loose rock tumbling behind him.

Crowbar was sitting with his back up against a slab of weathered rhyolite, hand pressed over a bloodied compress bandage that covered his lower abdomen. He opened his eyes as Clay approached. ‘
Kak
, Straker,’ he growled. ‘Bastard surprised me.
Fokken
stupid.’ Crowbar raised his hand and pointed towards the back slope. ‘That way.’

Clay pulled out the Beretta, sprinted to a break in the slope and scanned the valley. No movement. Nothing. Clay ran back, crouched at Crowbar’s side. ‘Let me look.’

‘I’m good,’ said Crowbar. ‘He had a Dragunov, if you can
fokken
believe it. Must have been one of Medved’s people. Surprised each other.’ Crowbar pointed to the edge of the slope. ‘He came up right there. I was side on. The round passed right through, didn’t open up.’ He pulled the compress away from his gut, looked down. A trough about three inches long had been sliced across his belly. The wound oozed blood. Crowbar tugged at the roll of fat that covered his midsection, stifled a laugh, winced. ‘
Fokken
asshole did me a favour,
ja
. Wanted to get rid of this anyway.’

‘Jesus, Koevoet, hold still,’ said Clay, fishing in Crowbar’s pack. He pulled out a fresh compress, gauze, disinfectant. ‘We’re going to have to get you sewn up,
broer
. Can you walk?’

‘Unless you’ve got a Puma handy,’ grunted Crowbar.

‘No Puma.’

‘Then
ja
. Guess I’ll have to.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘Didn’t see anyone else.’

‘Rania?’ Clay doused the wound with antiseptic.

Crowbar winced, shook his head.

‘Did you get a look at the guy?’

Crowbar shook his head again.

‘Did you hit him?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Easy shot from here for that Dragunov.’

‘Good thing I came along to look after you,
soutpiele
.’

Clay ripped open a new compress with his teeth, spat out the paper and pushed it down onto the wound. ‘Who’s looking after whom right now,
oom
?’

Crowbar pushed him away. ‘
Fok
that, Straker. Go after the bastard. He can’t be far, lugging that bloody great commie sniper rifle.’

‘No way, Koevoet. Now hold still, for Christ’s sake.’

‘If that bastard has Rania…’ Crowbar tailed off. ‘Look, it’s just a clip. I’m good. Just don’t forget to come back for me,
ja
?’

Clay pushed the compress down hard on the wound.

Crowbar grabbed his wrist, held it tight. ‘Go.’

Clay knelt a moment, looking into Koevoet’s eyes. He knew that look. Clay stood, pulled out his Glock. ‘Okay,
oom
. You win. Stay put.’

Clay stood at the edge of the backslope and scanned the place where Crowbar’s assailant had stood. Bootscuff marks in the loose, rocky soil. A brass shell casing, 7.62mm, long, fresh. And there, like moss blooming on rock, a spray of blood, viscous red drops scattered over the burnished stone, more footmarks leading downslope. Clay looked back at Crowbar, gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Spoor,
oom
. Blood trail.’

‘Short little
draadtrekker
. I knew I’d hit him. Go get the fucker.’

Clay reached down, touched a drop of blood onto his finger tip, raised it to his nose, inhaled the scent. He’d grown up doing this, on the veldt as a boy with his father and uncle, tracking the prey on foot, a springbok or a kudu, hours and sometimes days, the old way. Make the kill, eat the heart.

And then in Angola with Crowbar and the Battalion he’d tracked and killed human beings.

Clay checked his watch and started down the slope. Twenty minutes now since he’d heard the shots. Moving over rough country like this, carrying a heavy weapon, a strong, fit man might cover two, maybe three kilometres in that time. Judging by the amount of blood on the trail, he was also carrying a 9mm slug inside him somewhere. Clay guessed the guy had maybe a kilometre head start on him, not much more.

He moved quickly through the trees, following the increasingly ragged trail to the break in slope, then east into a valley bottom dense with black pine and remnant Cyprus cedar. Clay could tell from the scuffing of the footmarks that the man was struggling. There
was quite a bit of blood. Inside the thicket it was dark and cool, the ground underfoot moss, stones, fallen rotwood. He could hear the trickling of water, smell the humic freshness of cedar. Visibility dropped in the undergrowth. Clay slowed, crouched low, moved in short bursts to cover, wary now. If the man had sensed he was being followed, he might turn, face his pursuer. Ahead, beside a moss-covered boulder, a flash of white on the ground. Clay moved forward, crouched. A paper bandage package, smeared with blood, still wet. Boot marks in the soft ground, moving away down-stream. He was close. Clay waited a moment, listened, but all he could hear was the sway of the treetops in the mountain breeze. He checked the round in the Beretta’s chamber then kept moving.

About two hundred metres along the valley, the trail cut sharply upslope. Clay could see gouges in the moss where the man had slipped, deep imprints where he’d used the butt-stock of the Dragunov as a crutch. Blood hung in semi-coagulated droplets from the tips of pine needles. Up above, the torn yellow rock of the old mine road. Clay had walked this road once, about three years ago. He knew now that the guy was making for the northeastern approach, the terminus of the old mine rail line, only about a kilometre and a half away. That’s where he would have left his vehicle. Clay looked at his watch. Almost an hour now since he’d left Koevoet. The guy was moving fast.

Clay scrambled up the slope towards the mine road. He’d just reached the frayed edge of the cut, was picking his way through the rusted boulders piled on the valley side of the road, fragments of ancient oceanic crust, when the tree behind him splintered, a twisting, snapping sound. He flinched, pure reflex as the second sound came, a high-pitched crack that echoed down the valley. Clay dropped to the ground, pushing himself into the rock as more rounds sent shards of wehrlite and gabbro zinging through the air around him. Then quiet. Clay stayed absolutely still. From the report of the rifle, the same one he’d heard back at the pits, he guessed a range of four hundred metres, off to the right, towards the terminus. He’d
been lucky. At that range, the Dragunov was deadly accurate. But tired, breathing hard, bleeding, it would have been a difficult shot.

Clay waited a few seconds, backed away into the valley then started off at a run. He contoured the valley side about ten metres below the road, moving quickly through the trees. He guessed the sniper would be on the move again, heading towards his vehicle.

Clay had gone about three hundred metres through the trees when the valley started to shallow noticeably. He was nearing the flats, an area where four valleys met, where the mining company had chosen to build the camp and the ore-crushing plant. Derelict now, equipment dismantled, roads blocked by berms of earth, it was part of Cyprus’s two-thousand-year-old legacy of copper and gold extraction, forgotten, rarely visited. Clay knew that, from this point, the road flattened out, swept around to the east in a long arc towards the camp. He kept moving, faster now, sprinting over the increasingly dry, stony ground as the wooded valley gave way to the open scrubland and dry pine of the flats. He had a clear view of the road now, tracking along the convex side of the curve. There was no spoor, no trail to follow. It was a footrace.

Clay sprinted across the open ground, still paralleling the road, between stunted scrub oak and the occasional tall, fire-scarred pine. At any moment he expected to feel the impact of a bullet, hear the sound of gunfire. And then, there on the road, not far from the berm and the old tin sheds, about two hundred metres away, a man in dark trousers and shirt. The guy was powerfully built, stocky, ran with an uneven gait, a limp, as if his left leg was strapped, held straight. Clay could see the man’s left arm dangling, the white bandage tied up high near the shoulder. He carried the Dragunov in his right hand.

Clay stopped, chambered a round. He was closing. The man was almost to the sheds now, the earthen berm blocking the road. Clay called out. The man stopped, turned, stood facing him, chest heaving. A hundred metres separated them. Not more. Clay raised the Beretta, steadied it on his stump, took aim.

It was Zdravko Todorov.

‘Where is Rania, asshole?’ Clay shouted.

Zdravko smiled, flipped open the rifle’s bipod, lowered it to the ground. ‘Dead, motherfucker. Just like you gonna be.’

The words hit Clay like a spray of shrapnel, all that they meant flooding his brain at once, an overload of pain. He started walking towards Zdravko. His heart banged like a cannon.

‘You lie’ he screamed, framing the target in the handgun’s sight. It was a tough shot. He was still too far away.

Zdravko looked back over his shoulder to the berm, no more than a few paces away. Clay knew the only way Zdravko could fire the Dragunov one-handed was from the prone position. The rifle was there at his feet, ready to go.

‘Your friend too, motherfucker,’ screamed Zdravko. ‘I paint message for you, on wall. Did you get?’

Clay staggered, kept walking towards Zdravko, gun raised.

Zdravko raised his good arm. ‘Did you a favour, Straker,’ he called in his thick, Slavic accent. ‘You should be thanking me. For his parents so sad, yes? Now they don’t worry.’

There it was, so clear now. Zdravko had known since Yemen about Eben. As head of security for Petro-Tex, where Clay had worked as a contractor, Zdravko had undoubtedly been going through his letters, hacking into his computer. He’d murdered Eben in his hospital bed, killed his parents too. And now Rania. No, Clay refused to believe it. A wave of grief poured through him, regret, a roaring cascade that filled his head, drowning out Zdravko’s words. Clay bent double, vision blurring. He could feel the turn coming on, could already see the red periphery closing in, the nausea rising inside him like a five-day fever. He swayed, tried to breathe, stumbled to the ground. Shit no. Not now.

The Dragunov barked; something tickled the back of his neck, an insect crawling there. Clay raised the Beretta towards the sound, fired once, twice, again. Cordite stung the air. He blinked hard, wiped his eyes with his stump, looked up through the dust. Zdravko was up now, running towards the berm, carrying the Dragunov by
its handle. Clay pushed himself up onto one knee, raised his weapon and took aim. Zdravko was no more than a blur, wavering, fragmenting. Clay took two deep breaths. Slowly, his vision cleared. The screaming in his ears dulled. Zdravko was at the top of the berm now, his dark shape silhouetted against the tin shed beyond. Clay fired. Zdravko disappeared.

Clay scrambled to his feet, steadied himself, started running. He was almost at the berm when he heard a car engine start, rev. Then the sound of tyres spinning in gravel, stone pelting metal. He reached the top of the berm just as Zdravko’s car sped away in a cloud of road dust.

By the time he reached the ridge-top it was almost dark.

Crowbar was where he’d left him. As Clay approached he scowled. ‘I heard shooting,’ he said, his voice weak. ‘Did you get the asshole?’

Clay shook his head. ‘It was Todorov. He said Rania was dead.’

Crowbar closed his eyes, exhaled. ‘Bullshit,
seun
. He’s fucking with you.’ He was pale, shivering.

‘Let me look at you,
oom
.’ Clay knelt beside him, pulling back the blood-soaked compress. The wound had opened up, bloomed like a flower. There was a lot of blood. Clay gave him water, pulled his fleece shell jacket from his pack and put it over his commander’s chest and shoulders. ‘You’re not going to make it all the way back to the car like this,’ he said. ‘I’m going to sew you, run you an IV.’

Koevoet’s eyes fluttered, opened. He nodded. ‘
Fokken stupid
salt-dick,’ he grunted. ‘You never even asked me why I slugged you at the turtle doctor’s place.’

Clay fumbled in his pack and pulled out his headlamp, strapped it over his head, switched it on and opened the medical kit. ‘I know why you did it. Besides, I deserved it.’

Crowbar shook his head, grunted. ‘You are one screwed-up individual, Straker.’

Clay ignored this, closed his mind and focused on what he had to do. He washed his hands in antiseptic, doused the wound, found the suture kit, threaded the needle. ‘Lie back,
oom
,’ he said. ‘You need to stretch out.’

Crowbar didn’t even flinch as the needle pierced his skin. Clay sewed, big ugly stitches, twelve in all, one for every year of silence. After the sewing he covered the whole thing with an adhesive suture, applied a clean compress and wrapped it all in place, winding the gauze around Koevoet’s midsection and tying it off. He laid Crowbar back down, set his pack under his head and ran him an IV.

Crowbar closed his eyes. ‘It was proof, Straker. That’s why I…’

‘Rest now,
oom
. Tomorrow, we walk.’