The Delta (24 page)

‘… I was hoping we could spend some time together.'

Stirling had brought a bread roll with him from the brunch table. He ripped off a chunk and tossed it over the railing into the water below the deck. Some bream appeared and began feeding. He stared out over the water. ‘I cried after you left, Sonja. Not very macho. Not very safari guide. There were women, a long time later, and quite a few before Tracey, but none of them lasted long. I suppose I was always waiting for you to come back, but it's been a hell of a long wait.'

Sonja looked back, past the jackalberry tree that the new deck had been constructed around, to the dining area beyond. A few of the guests lingered there and she saw Tracey looking at her, and at Stirling. ‘Is it serious?'

‘With Tracey? I think so. We've been together for three months. She's living with me here.'

He
thinks
so. ‘She's very pretty.'

‘And young. I know what you're thinking.'

‘It's none of my business,' Sonja said.

‘I know why Steele has offered you to the Americans as a bodyguard,' he said, changing the subject.

‘Really? Then perhaps you can explain it to me.'

He looked around. ‘You're a mercenary.'

‘Says who?'

Stirling shrugged. ‘Word gets around. Everyone knows you went off to join the army, but you left after only a year or two. You know how Maun feeds on gossip. Do you remember Heyn, the South African guide who drove his Land Rover through the wall of the Sports Bar that night we snuck in?'

She nodded, knowing what Stirling was going to say next. She recalled the night – they were both still underage – and, years later, meeting Heyn, the Afrikaner, in Kabul. He was working as
a security contractor. The last person she expected to meet there was someone from the dusty safari town of Maun.

‘He said he saw you in Afghanistan. That you were carrying an assault rifle and wearing body armour.'

‘I do close protection – bodyguarding – sometimes.'

Stirling shook his head. ‘I think it's more than that. You show up here carrying a rifle and pistol, with a bandaged leg after sneaking onto a concession and into the game reserve like a poacher. I don't think you're a bodyguard, Sonja.'

She looked down at the water. The snout and eyes of a crocodile broke the surface. ‘Hey! That's not Popcorn, is it?'

‘Don't change the subject,' Stirling said.

‘Why not? It was OK for you to do so when I was asking about Tracey.'

The crocodile was about two metres long. It propelled itself deftly through the shallow water and took a piece of bread in its mouth.

‘Yes, it's Popcorn. He was just a baby when you left.'

‘
Ja
. I used to get mad at my old man feeding him popcorn when he was little. And now you're doing the same thing.'

‘Not me. I drop the bread in and he takes some, not to eat, but to use as bait. Watch him. He's clever.'

Sonja stared intently at Popcorn, who submerged himself just below the surface, a piece of bread sticking out the tip of his snout. He kept himself stationary and after a short while the bolder of the fish began moving towards him, scenting the bait but unaware of the fisherman. A bream began nibbling and Popcorn struck, flicking his tail to propel himself forward like a torpedo. Water splashed as his jaws snapped shut and he disappeared into the depths of the river with the dying fish flapping in his mouth.

‘He's clever,' she agreed. ‘But you're still giving him an unfair advantage.'

‘I know. I'm worried about Steele and this mad plan of his.'

Sonja didn't know what Stirling was talking about so she asked him to explain. Indecision creased Stirling's face. He took a deep breath and rested both hands on the railing. He exhaled and moved closer to Sonja, lowering his voice: ‘He's going to blow up the dam on the Okavango River.'

‘What?'

‘And that's not all.'

As he explained the plan to destroy the dam and foment an insurrection in the Caprivi Strip Sonja had to work hard to concentrate. The smell of his aftershave was competing with his words. He'd worn it the first day they made love – the first time she recalled him using aftershave. It was Old Spice. He told her later it was what he thought a man should wear, and he was still using the same brand. It was an outdated scent, something the hero in a Wilbur Smith book would have worn, but she would forever associate it with first-time sex, with love. It still did the trick.

‘Thanks for letting me know,' she said to him honestly. Martin had a flair for the dramatic when it came to handing out assignments and he didn't like to give his operatives too long to think before accepting a job.

‘Surely he won't get you to blow up the dam while you're there with the Americans?'

She looked back at the dining table. Martin was talking to Cheryl-Ann and Sam, who was nodding his head enthusiastically. Tracey made no attempt to hide the fact that she was watching her and Stirling. ‘No. It'll be a CTR.'

‘Stop talking like a soldier, Sonja.'

‘Sorry. A close target reconnaissance. I've got to hand it to
him, it's a good cover for me to go in with the TV crew. They're expected and they'll get unfettered access to the construction site.' Very clever, she thought, looking down again at the water. Martin Steele was a canny predator as well. CTRs were one of her specialities. A woman could go places a man couldn't, and charm her way past officials. In the past she'd played the part of a nurse, a wildlife researcher, and a teacher to scope out potential targets. She caught a flash of Tracey's orange T-shirt in her peripheral vision, then heard her sandals on the floorboards. ‘Can we talk, later, in private somewhere, Stirling? It's important.'

He looked around and saw Tracey. ‘Not sure. It might be difficult.'

Fuck, she thought again. After all these years he couldn't even spare her the time to talk.

Tracey took hold of Stirling's arm. ‘Babe, Bernard and the others are going to catch their flight. I thought you'd want to see them off.'

Babe?
Stirling looked at her and smiled an apology as his partner – or whatever Tracey wanted to call herself – led him away. Martin left the Americans and their new cameraman to discuss things among themselves, and walked over to join her at the railing.

‘Crocodile,' he said, looking down at Popcorn. ‘Nasty things, but ruthlessly efficient and devilishly cunning.'

‘Like you.'

‘Let me walk you back to your tent, we have things to discuss,' Steele said.

‘So I hear.' They left the deck and took the sandy pathway. A female bushbuck looked up at them but, sensing they were no threat, carried on nibbling on some grass. Its coat was mangy and Sonja wondered if its condition was due to the drought.

‘I should tell you what we're up to,' Steele said.

‘You're going to blow up the dam on the Okavango and start a civil war in Namibia.'

Steele cleared his throat. ‘I do hope Stirling isn't going to tell
all
his old friends about our plans, otherwise I might have to kill him.'

‘I'm not interested,' she said.

Steele laughed. ‘Why must we always go through this hard-to-get act, Sonja? The best thing you can do for your daughter is make more money, and I'm the only one who can give it to you. We both know that.'

It irked her that he knew she'd been thinking about Emma. She shook her head as they walked. ‘The Zimbabwe job was a wake-up call for me, Martin. I nearly didn't make it out this time.'

‘You're still in shock. You've had close calls before. Besides, I think I know now what went wrong. We were doublecrossed.'

‘That seems pretty bloody obvious. There was no one in the limos, Martin. They knew I'd be there. I was bait.' She thought again of the crocodile luring its prey with the piece of bread.

He reached into the pocket of his chinos and pulled out a photograph. ‘Do you recognise this man?'

She took it and studied it. It was a covert surveillance photo of a black man wearing a business suit, leaning forward over what looked like a restaurant table, with his elbows on the white tablecloth and his hands clasped together. He was talking to another man and Sonja could tell by the haircut and the familiar broadness of the shoulders that the person with his back to the camera was Martin. The African man's head was shaved and he had a thin moustache that crawled along the top edge of his upper lip and looked out of place on his jowly face. ‘He was on the helicopter – both helicopters. The Hind I shot down, and later on the Alouette. He's the bastard who shot me. He was in uniform, though.'

‘Damn. It's no satisfaction being right.'

‘Who is he, and what the hell were you doing with him?'

‘His name is Major Kenneth Sibanda. Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation.'

‘What the hell were you doing dealing with the CIO? Did he tell you he was a traitor?'

‘No, he said he represented a splinter group of the main opposition party. After I heard your news I emailed a scan of this picture to a contact of mine at the British Embassy in Harare and asked if they knew who he was. They did.'

She stopped on the pathway and placed her hands on her hips. ‘It might have helped if you'd checked him out in advance.'

He brushed away her concerns with a wave of his hand. ‘Who with? I couldn't very well have gone to the embassy and said, “Excuse me, chaps do you know this fellow? He's paying me two million dollars to assassinate the president”, now, could I? I'm sorry, Sonja – and you know I don't say the S-word, ever.'

She chewed her lower lip then started walking again. ‘So you're saying the Zimbabwean CIO promised you two million dollars to organise a bogus hit on the president in order to discredit the opposition and garner some sympathy for the old man?'

Steele nodded. ‘And I'm afraid their plan seems to have worked. The American government has issued a statement condemning political assassination, no matter how serious the grievances against a leader, and the UK government has had to deny strenuously it had anything to do with the “plot”. The president is all over CNN and BBC World, claiming the moral high ground for the first time in decades.'

‘Those men …' She thought of the uniformed bodies she'd seen on the road beside the
bakkie
and the driver of the police car that had hurtled into the chasm left by the exploding bridge.

Martin placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Their own government
agency sacrificed them – killed them – not you, Sonja. Look on the bright side – at least you and I got to split the million-dollar down payment. The president might have bought himself a few weeks of good PR, but you and I didn't do too badly out of it either.'

‘Jesus, Martin, don't joke about it. I've had enough of killing.'

They stopped at the path to her tent and Martin left his hand on her shoulder. ‘CTR, Sonja. That's all I want.'

‘Yeah, right. For now.'

He smiled. ‘For now. You always were the smartest on the team. I want you to go to Namibia with the Yanks. They'll think you're their bodyguard, but Cheryl-Ann will tell the authorities at the dam that you're their substitute safari guide. I've told her the Namibian government would be suspicious if she said you were their bodyguard, as they're trying to downplay the threat to foreigners in the strip.'

‘There is no threat to foreigners,' Sonja said.

‘I know that and you know that, and the Namibian government knows that, but Cheryl-Ann and her Coyote boy don't. She's already loving the intrigue of it all, but of course she doesn't know your real mission. You know what I need – troop numbers, dispositions, a progress report on construction … a full recce.'

‘I told you, I'm not interested. I've had enough. I quit.'

‘Let me come into your tent so we can discuss this in private.'

She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, though there was little fight and no malice in her gesture. She knew exactly what he wanted from her. There was a time when she'd succumbed to and taken solace in his smooth words and the touch of those strong hands. Life might have been simpler for her if she'd forgiven him his infidelity and gambling and taken him back to her bed. Emma would have had a father and she could have stayed at home and raised her daughter. She started walking
towards her tent and as she did she knew it would never have worked out between them. She could never be happy as a housewife and stay-at-home mum and Martin, damn him, knew it.

‘What are you going to do, Sonja? Stay here and play happy families with Stirling?'

She stopped and tried to fight the urge to turn around.

‘Tracey might not be too happy about that. Stirling's the one you left behind when you joined the army, isn't he?'

She wouldn't let him bait her, wouldn't rise to his taunts.

‘You're a beautiful woman, Sonja, but you ran out on your childhood sweetheart. Tracey is gorgeous, and she's got her hooks into him. Even me, a simple soldier, can see that. What did you think, that you could just show up unannounced and get Stirling to pick up where you left off – where you left him – twenty years ago?'

He had the hook into her. He didn't have to twist it so hard. ‘Bastard.'

He laughed, and she grimaced as she looked over her shoulder. He pulled the cigarettes from his pocket, flipped the lid and drew one out with his long fingers. His electric lighter clicked and she smelled the smoke across the gulf between them. She clenched her fists, wanting the strength to fight the addiction, but craving it all the same.

‘Does he know about Emma, Sonja?'

She looked ahead again, down the path towards the river that had been part of her life with Stirling all those years ago. Part of her wished she could turn back time, but she knew that back when she'd left this place, it was something that she'd needed to do. She left Martin and followed the path to her tent.