Ivory Ghosts (27 page)

The new-moon night accentuated the brightness of the Milky Way reflected in the black water as we flew low, following one of the main tributaries from the Kavango River that opened out into the immense delta. The large body of water looked like a star nursery—that's how intensely bright and dense the star clusters reflected on the black, watery abyss even through night vision. The vast expanse of open water bifurcated into large veins that branched and branched again until we reached a network of tiny capillaries. At that point, we descended and headed for a small lodge where the pickup was planned.

As I flew closer to the water, ripples scurried over a winding star-studded black channel lined with papyrus. According to my GPS, I was getting close, but it was impossible to see a lodge—just miles and miles of wetland. Jon scanned from the passenger side, and Gidean and Natembo looked down left and right from the backseat.

Finally, Natembo saw what we were looking for. Tiki lights lining a runway just south of a tiny lodge on the southern tip of the delta. I tipped my wings as I flew over and prepared to land.

After a bumpy landing, I turned the plane around and puttered toward the hangar. As the propeller wound down, Jon opened the passenger door. He took his headset off, hopped out, and pulled up the passenger seat to let Gidean and Natembo out of the plane.

He smiled as he watched me unbuckle. “We're going to win this time.”

I smiled and nodded and got out as well.

Two BDF soldiers appeared from the dark sporting AKs on their shoulders.

Jon approached them. “Fan boats ready?”

They nodded and took their place next to the airplane as planned.

The Botswana Defense Force had been given fan boats by the United States and took great pride in blazing up and down the waterways, ruining the silence and drowning out the calls of the fish eagles. The hippos probably hated them the most. But the BDF had graciously offered their use for tonight, so we were grateful. Although not in the least stealthy, the fan boats were fast and designed for this environment—they could easily get deep into the tributaries.

“Good.” Jon put his arm around me, and the four of us headed toward the lodge.

We walked past the lodge and down to a small dock in a shallow backwater, where a boat was ready for us at the dock. Gidean and Natembo were dressed in plain clothes, disguised as local recipients and transporters of ivory.

Jon whispered, “You guys will stay in the boat around the bend. Catherine, you stay out of sight until the guys delivering get on shore. I'm going to man the radio from the lodge.”

I watched Jon walk off, and then crouched down behind a stand of reeds. I tried to get comfortable, as I assumed it would be a long wait. Though the nights had been cold, I was glad for the change of seasons. The mosquitoes were pretty much a nonissue. And my secondhand lined NATO jacket that I had bought at Katima Hardware was extremely warm.

I sat in the dark, wearing my night-vision goggles. There was no moonlight to improve the graininess of the night vision and I struggled to identify the bird that had just flown out of the reeds. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that it was a white-backed night heron. The only heron that would be flying at night. I strained my ears for the noise of a powerboat, or even the paddle of a
mokoro
dipping into the water. We weren't sure exactly how the shipment was to be delivered. It would have taken many
mokoros
to deliver the amount of ivory we were expecting.

I heard the high
hoot
and then the
hoot-oot
of a female Pel's fishing owl. This was curious. The call is normally the response to the eerie male call that's much harder to reproduce. I was sure that I hadn't heard the male call, as it's quite distinctive and one of my favorites. It sounds like a high-pitched note dropped through an up-curved PVC pipe. Not something I'd miss.

I stood up and looked up and down the river to see if I could spot anything obvious. Perhaps someone was using the call as a signal.

The swishing of papyrus tickled my eardrums. There was no other sound to be heard.

I crouched back down behind the reeds for so long my calf got a cramp, and I had to stand up again. That's when I heard the noise of an outboard engine approaching from some distance. I walked up to the dock and stood in the reeds there, waiting for the boat. Finally, I saw the dark shape of a medium-sized whaler, leaving a wake behind it as it neared.

The boat pulled up to the dock. It was Geldenhuis and someone else driving. As Geldenhuis tied up, I retreated farther into the shadows and tried to identify the driver.

As Geldenhuis was about to climb out of the boat, he appeared to have spotted movement in the reeds next to the dock. “It's a fucking trap,” he cried as he unwound the rope from a cleat as fast as he could. The frantic driver revved the engine and practically drove away with the dock. I tried to recognize his face, but it was covered by a cap, and the view from my grainy night vision was no help. I could confirm that it wasn't Ernest, but that was about it. The boat rushed away into the night in a wash of white wake.

I stood there in shock. What had tipped them off? Natembo would have made sure he was completely out of view. This was not a possibility that we had accounted for. And I hadn't thought to bring my camera, which would have allowed me to take pictures that we could have blown up to get documentation on the second person. This all happened too quickly.

Jon rushed onto the dock and shouted out, “Gidean! Go! NOW!” He turned and looked at me, the wind knocked out of his sails. “What happened?”

“I don't know. Maybe he saw the boat.”

“Bloody hell!”

A huge camouflaged fan boat burst noisily from a narrow side channel around the bend. Gidean was at the front, and Natembo stood next to the driver, a BDF soldier.

Suddenly bullets flew down the river as a high-speed chase ensued in and out of the narrow reedy channels and into the dark blue night in the distance. Geldenhuis's high-powered aluminum boat seemed to be holding up just fine against the fan boat.

Jon and I stood on the dock as the noise of the boats receded. One of the boats must have bumped into an angry group of hippos, as their disgruntled hollering echoed up and down the river. But within minutes, a frothy wake and the moaning and revving of distant engines were the only evidence of the bust gone bad.

Jon spoke into the radio. “Natembo. Natembo. Do you read me?”

Natembo's voice crackled through, the first time I had ever detected any emotion from him. “We are struggling to keep them in sight.” The radio hissed and bleeped. “They know the backwater well. And there are several boats.”

Jon threw the radio down. “Decoys most probably.”

There was only one solution. I pulled Jon's arm. “Come on. We've got to get up in the air. They could lose them.”

Jon looked up at the night and back to the water, listening to the distant whine of the chase. “Okay, let's go.”

We ran past the lodge and to the airstrip. The two soldiers helped us in, and I quickly fired up the engine. I put on my night-vision goggles and accelerated down the runway, pulled up on the yoke, and we were in the air. I banked sharply to the right, keeping low over the water and heading down the delta.

It didn't take long to find the fan boat. And I could see three separate aluminum boats heading in three separate directions. The guys wouldn't know which one to follow, as the three were well ahead of them.

It was easy for me to see from the air with night vision. I pointed down at Geldenhuis's boat, and Jon got back on the radio.

Jon adjusted the radio frequency, the glow of instruments illuminating his face. “Natembo. Natembo. Radio twenty-five. Heading southeast. We're just above him.”

Natembo's voice was a faint rasp crackling under a loud whine. “Can't get you. Radio twenty-five.” The static was terrible.

Jon looked down. “Damn it! They're heading the wrong way.”

“We'll buzz Geldenhuis. Maybe they'll be able to track us following him.” I banked hard, circled around, and ran up the river above Geldenhuis.

That's when the gunfire shifted toward the sky—at us.

A bright line of tracers arced around the plane. There was a dull plunking noise and then several thunks as bullets struck the fuselage and engine from below.

“The engine's been hit!” I banked sharply away but could not avoid getting hit again—the horrible sound of bullets piercing the metal of the left wing and fuel tank.

“Bastards! They hit the fuel tank!” Jon gripped the yoke in front of him and started pulling up.

I could feel the nose tipping up too much. “Jon! Keep your hands off the yoke!” The smell of fuel filled the cockpit just as the plane misfired. “We need to land fast!”

The plane spluttered, and it got harder and harder to keep it level as it bumped along above the delta. I scanned the floodplain and could see a small line of fires illuminating my night-vision view. I pointed at the faint glow in the distance. “That must be where Geldenhuis landed.”

As we flew over, Jon pointed down. “There's a plane!”

Below us sat an eight-seater Cessna. In the distance, Geldenhuis had circled back in his boat and was now approaching the strip from the river. There was no longer a second passenger in the boat. I circled and prepared to land, but the other plane was parked halfway down the strip. There wasn't enough room to land.

“It's going to be tight.” I came in as close as I could above the other plane. I landed hard and fast and at a sharp angle, bouncing violently. Though I couldn't control the momentum, I tried to steer clear of the large trees that were rapidly approaching. But the trees were everywhere.

There was no avoiding the crash. I braced myself as the metal of the nose crunched sickeningly and the plane wrapped around a large tree at the end of the strip.

I came to, disoriented, unsure of what hurt more, my head or my shoulder. I readjusted my goggles and slowly looked around. Pieces of tree and buckled metal stabbed through the passenger side.

Jon was holding his leg, groaning in pain. I could see that his thigh was badly gashed and bleeding heavily.

He grimaced in agony.

I fumbled under my seat for the first-aid kit. I was frantic. “You're losing a lot of blood!” I pulled out a bandage and started wrapping. “We've got to get you to a hospital.”

Jon shook his head, dizzy with pain and loss of blood. He pressed down on the bandage.

I looked down the airstrip behind us. There was a simple solution to all of this. BDF and the rangers could handle the rest of this operation. I wasn't going to risk losing another person on my watch. “I'm going to get the other plane.”

The door on my side of the plane was untouched and easy to open. “I'll be right back.”

I opened the door and stepped down. I checked my hip to make sure that my revolver was still in the holster. I wanted to be prepared for the worst.

I stood by the side of my smashed plane for a few seconds to make sure there was no movement around Geldenhuis's plane. I needed to get there first.

When I was certain that we were alone on the airstrip, I slowly approached the plane. It was a Cessna Caravan 208 with an underbelly cargo pod for extra cargo. I opened the door to the pilot's side. Everything looked in order. I was sure they'd have enough gas to get back to the Caprivi, as that's where I had assumed Geldenhuis would head after the shipment was delivered.

I climbed in and sat down. I'd have to drive the plane as close as I could to the crash site in order to minimize the distance for Jon to walk.

Suddenly, I felt a hand grip my shoulder from outside the plane. I spun around.

“I'm impressed.” Geldenhuis growled and pulled the night-vision goggles from my head and threw them on the ground.

I was temporarily blinded as I tried to readjust my eyes to the darkness.

He pulled at my dead weight. “Now, step out.”

I was desperate. All I could think about was Jon and his bleeding leg. “I've got to get Jon to a hospital. He's bleeding badly.”

Geldenhuis smiled coolly. “Ah, the little biologist with a cause.” He heaved me effortlessly out of the pilot seat and threw me on the ground.

There was only one way out. My hand shook as I slowly reached for my revolver and pointed it at him.

“Give me that,” Geldenhuis said with unnerving coolness, reminding me what he was capable of.

I shook my head. “I'm not going to let you get away with this.”

He laughed. “You're not a killer.”

“No…but I know what you're capable of.” I gripped my revolver with both hands. “I saw what you did to the witch doctor.”

Geldenhuis had a look of genuine surprise on his face. He slowly walked to the side of me. Then he lunged at me, knocking the pistol out of my hand and it fell to the ground. We both grabbed for it, cracking our heads in the process. I shook my head to clear the stars and black spots from my vision. I had to move fast. It was him or me, and there was no way I had the strength to outmuscle him.

I grabbed the revolver and stood over him with my finger on the trigger.

He put his hands out in surrender. “You can't stop this, you know.”

“I can stop you.”

“Me,” he scoffed. “I'm just the bloody pawn. By tomorrow, the ring leader will be halfway to Hong Kong.”

“You mean Mr. Lin.”

He smiled. “Ah, yes, blame the Chinese shop owner. Better go back to detective school, Ms. Sohon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Lin is just a triad puppet. It's impressive what a man will do when there's a gun to his son's head back in Hong Kong.”

“You're lying.”

He jumped up with surprising speed in an effort to tackle me. I had no choice but to pull the trigger.