The Delta (45 page)

‘Are you leaving?' Sam asked.

She sucked her lower lip between her teeth and chewed for a second. ‘I wanted to, but I can't see them letting you go right now.'

‘Right now?' Jim whispered. ‘What's going on here?'

She shook her head.

‘The dam?' Sam asked.

‘Don't ask any more questions,' Sonja said. ‘They already think you know too much. You're a liability to them.'

‘There we go with “them” again,' Rickards said. ‘Who are they? Who's pulling the strings on the puppets with the guns here?'

The three of them sat in silence, thinking about their next move.

‘I can try and get you out of here. Quietly. Tonight,' Sonja said.

Rickards surprised Sam by shaking his head. ‘No way. I want in.'

‘You want
what?
' Sonja beat Sam to the question.

Jim stood again. He seemed to feel better asserting himself when he was on his feet. ‘This could be the African story of the decade. Sam – let me ask you a question. Before you came to Africa and that guy Martin Steele told you and Cheryl-Ann about the so-called security situation in the Caprivi Strip, had you ever heard of the Caprivi Liberation Army or the Free Caprivi movement?'

Sam shook his head.

Jim snapped his head around to stare at Sonja. ‘See?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't follow.'

‘PR. These dudes have been fighting a silent political and military battle to regain sovereignty over their ancestral homelands, against an unfeeling and allegedly cruel government dominated by a different tribe. Right?'

‘Pretty much,' she agreed.

‘And no one has ever heard of them. The CLA needs some good public relations and
you
, young lady, are going to arrange with your dear old dad for
me
to be embedded with whatever hit squad these rebels are putting together.'

Her laugh burst like a grenade. ‘You're insane.'

Rickards nodded enthusiastically. ‘Agreed. It's part of the job description for a TV cameraman. But think about it. Unless your dad is going to kill us – which somehow I doubt – we're going to leave here and sex symbol Sam is going to sell his story for a mint to
OK
or
New Idea
or
Entertainment Tonight
or whatever, about how he was captured and psychologically tortured by this loony rebel commander. Right Sam?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm sure there will be questions about what happened and I'll answer them as objectively as I can.'

‘Bullshit. Stop being so polite, Sam. I mean, I know you've got a crush on Sonja and all …'

‘Jim,' he hissed.

Sonja turned to him and Sam looked away into the fire.

‘Whatever.' Rickards started pacing again. ‘Well, speaking for myself, I am going to get in front of every print, cable and free-to-air journalist in southern Africa when we get out of here and tell them my tale of woe. Win, lose or draw, your pop and his rebel army are going to come off looking as bad as Marlon Brando in
Apocalypse Now
. Wasn't he a Kurtz as well?'

Sonja ignored the levity. ‘I can see where you're going, Jim, but my father – not to mention the general commanding the CLA – won't agree to taking a civilian cameraman with them on any operation. Not that I'm saying there is an operation.'

‘Sonja. Listen to me … from what I know the Namibian government has done a far better job convincing the world that Africa needs this dam to give electricity and water to the teeming masses. Correct?'

She nodded.

‘It's going to be the same once your war starts in the Caprivi Strip. The Namibians are going to brand these guys as terrorists and criminals. They're going to lock the strip down and not let any foreign media in. The CLA will have lost the information war before it even begins. I want to be the one who shows the world the other side, the truth – the first pictures of the freedom fighters of the CLA in action, taking back their homeland from a heavy-handed oppressor. And Sam here can tell their story.'

‘I can?'

Jim kept looking at him, waiting for an answer. ‘Think of it, Sam. The ultimate reality program –
Coyote Sam Goes to War
. You don't look convinced.' Rickards paced to the edge of the fire pit and back. He raised his right hand as if seeing letters in thin air in front of him. ‘I can see the headline … “CHAPMAN TELLS – MY TIME WITH THE ECO WARRIORS WHO BLEW UP A DAM TO SAVE PARADISE”.'

Corny, Sam thought, but he could see there was something in this for the CLA rebels. As Rickards had said, other armed forces – both insurgents and government-led around the world – used the media to help fight their wars. He looked at Sonja, trying to read her face. He was coming around to Rickards's point of view and he wondered how much of that was due to him searching for a way to spend a little more time with the woman next to him.

‘Sonja,' Sam said, ‘do you think the CLA has a legitimate grievance against the government?'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.'

‘Yet you're willing to risk your life to help them fight a war and blow up that dam on a “maybe”.'

‘Wait a minute.' She raised her hands. ‘No one said anything about a dam or a war. Besides, I just told you, I'm not even staying
here. I'm leaving. I was kidnapped off the road – just like you two.'

‘I don't believe that,' Sam said. ‘Jim was watching you at the dam and now that I think about it, I thought your behaviour was a little odd as well. You
used
us as a cover to get on to the construction site and you work for a mercenary outfit. What do you think about the dam?'

She chewed her lower lip again and sat with her elbows on her knees, staring into the fire once more. ‘I don't have to tell you anything.'

‘You're right. You don't. But tell me, in case I get dragged into this thing any deeper, in your heart of hearts do you believe that dam should be destroyed?'

She looked across at him. ‘I don't know if I believe in the CLA's cause or if they have the right to take on an elected government in an armed struggle, but I do know that from what I saw in the delta – the lack of water in places that should still have had some, even in a drought – that the dam has to be destroyed or the world will lose a piece of its heart and its soul.'

Rickards shifted from foot to foot. ‘I want to be there when that fucker blows. The world will call the CLA environmental heroes – green commandos.'

She turned to Sam. ‘Do you want to be part of this?'

Sam stared at her and knew it was madness to go along with what Rickards had suggested. His answer would depend on hers. ‘Do you?'

She closed her eyes and nodded.

‘I think it's a brilliant idea,' Martin Steele said.

Sonja stood in the Caprivian general's command tent and watched the men carrying on like bull elephants locking tusks, trying to assert their dominance. Steele's comment, siding with Rickards, who had just put his proposal to the general and her father, surprised her. But then Martin was always full of surprises. It was partly what had attracted her to him in the early days – his ability to think outside the box.

‘We are not convinced,' the general said. ‘Our Major Kurtz is right – the television man and his camera operator will get in the way, and if they are killed in action we will be blamed for their deaths.'

Sonja looked at her father and saw the slight nod of agreement and self-satisfaction. He was a different man to the one she'd seen teaching the recruits how to fire the machine-guns. She knew the drink would have taken a toll on him in the years she'd been away, but she'd been surprised at his long greasy hair, his stained beard, his knock-knees and his tatty shorts and T-shirt.

The man who glanced back, however, looked every inch the seasoned warrior. He, or his new African wife, had taken to his hair with clippers and reduced it to a steel-grey fuzz that flanked the tanned skin of his balding pate. His beard, too, had been trimmed to a neat, short, silvery goatee. She knew his father, her grandfather, had served as a German army panzer commander in Russia during the Second World War and emigrated to South-West Africa
in 1946, and though the man had died before her birth, her grandmother had shown her crinkled black-and-white pictures of her grandfather in uniform. She saw that same cold, ruthless face again now. He winked at her.

He wore a camouflage fatigue shirt and trousers in the same pattern as the CLA recruits and a tan canvas South African Army assault vest with pouches on the chest bulging with curved magazines for the AK-47 that was slung over his right shoulder. Sonja guessed he had been, or would soon be, test-firing his rifle, psyching himself up for the coming battle. Sonja looked back at Martin Steele, who was wearing his old British Army disruptive pattern camouflage uniform, which he always wore on operations. Sonja knew both men had dressed for a private war. She gave her head an almost imperceptible shake at the theatre of it all.

Her father was the training officer for the CLA but she guessed – and the general had just confirmed it – that he also acted as a military adviser to the commander. Hans always claimed Sonja had inherited her stubborn streak from her mother, but in fact her parents were as intransigent as each other. By all accounts her father had been an excellent leader of men in the field in his day, as well as a ruthlessly efficient killer, and she was sure he resented the presence of Steele in the CLA camp. He may have even seen the mercenary as a threat to his position in the chain of command. Also, as an Afrikaans-speaking German from the old South-West Africa, he was, she knew, no fan of Englishmen.

‘General,' Martin said, ‘when we take Katima Mulilo and we blow the dam, the rest of the world will turn its attention to the Caprivi. Without pictures – video – of our actions, which will mostly occur at night, your victory will gain a few seconds of air time at best or a news crawler at the foot of a CNN bulletin. With some high-quality images of your success and an interview with
yourself, the world will know not only who you are and what you have done, but why you have done it.'

The general pursed his lips and nodded, contemplating both sides of the argument. Sonja hadn't missed Martin's careful use of pronouns. ‘
Our
actions', as though he would be in the thick of the fighting – which she doubted; and ‘
your
victory' – a deliberate sop to the bombastic little man's ego.

‘We understand, Major Steele, but Major Kurtz has a valid point about the unpredictability of the media. What guarantee,' he asked everyone in the command tent, ‘do we have that we will not be portrayed as criminals or terrorists?'

‘General … sir,' Jim Rickards said, ‘as an accredited news cameraman I give you my word that Sam and I will report fairly and objectively on what we see. I can't tell you what the world will think of whatever it is that you have planned, but I can tell you that without the words and images we want to take to the world they will have made up their minds by the end of the first Namibian government press briefing. The world can either see you explaining that you're blowing up the Okavango Dam to save the environment, or they can see pictures of little babies dying because their mothers can't get enough clean water to drink or electricity to lead a decent—'

‘What?' Sonja's father exploded. ‘Why is this
bladdy
TV man talking about an attack on the dam?' He stared accusingly at Steele. ‘What have you told these people?'

‘Nothing,' Steele fired back. ‘But they're not stupid. They know the strategic and political importance of the dam, and so too does the Namibian government. That's why they've got the dam protected by mortars and armoured cars. The Namibians know we want it – you
tried
once before, after all.'

Sonja saw the red fill her father's face and his hands ball into fists. For a moment she thought he might grab his AK and shoot
Martin. Kurtz gritted his teeth, biting back the anger, and exhaled, slowly. There was no hiding his attempt to control his rage. He fixed Steele with his green eyes. ‘Yes, we tried, and we failed, thanks to a traitor.'

The general tapped his swagger stick lightly on his desk. He, alone, was seated. ‘Please, gentlemen. We are all on the same side here. Major Kurtz, you know we dealt with four traitors who supplied details of our attack plans to the NDF.'

Kurtz squared his shoulders. ‘We don't need you, Steele.'

‘No, but you do need the grenades, RPGs, mortars, other heavy weapons, uniforms and helicopters I've brought with me. This offensive wouldn't be happening without me and my backers from the Okavango Delta Defence Committee.'

Sonja wondered if her father would explode, or if he had truly learned to control his temper. She saw the rage bubbling beneath the tight skin of his hard-set face. Her father and Martin faced each other off, but they were at a stalemate.

The general slapped his cane hard on the desk this time. ‘Enough! We are not amused.'

Out of the corner of her eye Sonja saw Jim Rickards quickly raise his hand to his mouth and fake a cough to cover his laugh. Sonja turned away until she could force the smirk from her face.

‘We have made our decisions.' The general cleared his throat. ‘Major Kurtz will lead the attack on Katima Mulilo and the M'pacha airport and air base. Major Steele will coordinate air support, as previously agreed, and assume command for the covert team that will target the Okavango Dam.'

Sonja's eyes flitted from man to man and she saw that both Steele and Kurtz seemed placated.

‘Mr Rickards and Mr Chapman will be travelling with neither assault force,' the general said. Rickards began to speak, but the
general silenced him by lifting and pointing his swagger stick first at the cameraman and then at Martin. ‘Major Steele will assume responsibility for our television crew. Mr Rickards and Mr Chapman will be flown to Katima Mulilo when and if Major Kurtz deems the situation safe enough for a helicopter to land. You will film our valiant troops moving through the town and taking control of the police station, government offices and the NBC broadcasting studios.'