The Devil's Breath (9 page)

And ten years ago Shaka Chang moved in.

He made it a modern outpost with every conceivable luxury. Now he stood in a vast room. Deep, cool shadows created an almost permanent chill, so there was no need for air-conditioning. The view from the panoramic window encompassed desert, mountain and an area of wetland, almost swamplike, which seeped away from the reed beds at the riverbank. When animals came to drink, there was no greater observation place in southern Africa. It also gave him a view of the crocodile sandbanks, where he liked to watch them bask and glide like assassins into the still waters to feed on unwary victims. Not all the prey were four-legged animals. A salutary lesson for all to see—anyone displeasing Shaka Chang made a serious mistake.

The driver who had led the chase earlier had been summoned. With one of his men dead, and himself still bleeding from Max’s whipping, humiliation competed with the physical pain that had been inflicted on him. The driver was thirsty but dared not ask for water.

Guards stood at the entrance as he awaited his master. He shifted nervously from foot to foot, his slashed T-shirt,
encrusted with blood, stuck to his dust-caked body and by now the cuts were itching furiously. Chang, by contrast, was dressed in a cotton shirt, handmade of the highest-quality materials in Jermyn Street, London. He reached for a bottle of water, the condensation on the blue glass clinging like frost. His tailor always cut the shirts loose enough so as not to stretch across Chang’s muscular frame, but nothing could deny that bulk and power. Black slacks and calfskin slip-on shoes completed the effect of a modern businessman—immaculate taste and informal appearance which stamped his authority.

To one side, in one of the darker corners, another man hovered, barely visible, which was the way he liked it. He was quite opposite in physique and style to Chang. Small and skinny to the point of being gaunt, with a gray pallor to his skin, Mr. Lucius Slye never went outside unless he had a big black umbrella to shield him from the sun and glare. Secretly, he was known as Mr. Rat to everyone who knew him, though they would never say it out loud—he was too dangerous. His pinched face, his pointed, sniffy, twitching nose and threads of hair pulled back across his balding head gave him a definitely ratlike appearance. A buttoned-collar black shirt, black suit, black shoes and socks heightened his anemic look. But he was essential to Chang. At every minute of every day he knew the status of Mr. Chang’s widespread business interests. A PDA never left his hands. And now as Chang spoke to his man in England, his gaze never left the wretched face of the driver. It was hard to tell whose eyes were more frightening—Chang’s deep brown pools of mystery or Slye’s soulless gray portals.

Chang spoke calmly as he gazed out across the vastness
that was a small corner of his empire. “This line will only be secure for a few moments more,” Chang said as he trickled water into a glass, “so what do we know?”

The voice from England was as clear as if the man was in the room himself, the speakerphone creating a slight echo within the confines of the fortress’s stone walls. “He’s a smart boy, and he’s tough. The training at school has given him a certain resilience. And he can look after himself. But …” The man hesitated, he was buying time. After all Max was on Shaka Chang’s territory now; he would know how resilient Max had been. The man went on, “… what we still do not know is whether he was given clues to where his father has hidden the information he discovered, or whether he is simply trying to find his father. Either way, obviously, that evidence must never reach the authorities.”

“And definitely no indication in England as to what might have been discovered. You have checked?” The veiled threat in Chang’s voice was unavoidable. If the man in England had missed something as vital as Max leaving the explosive information with anyone in authority and was on nothing more than an escapade to rescue his father, then Shaka Chang’s latest multibillion-dollar deal might already be compromised. And Chang’s man in England would have precious few hours left to live.

“He does not have the complete information. I would have found out,” the disembodied voice confidently assured Chang. “He needs to be stopped
before
he finds out more. I shall continue to do what I can from here.”

Chang nodded. “Wait,” he instructed the man on the phone.

Then he turned and faced the driver. The man flinched.

“Where are they?”

The driver tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. His voice croaked. “East of Camel Rock, they crossed into the valley. They could hide in those mountains for days, sir. We did all we could, Mr. Chang. The pickup, it just couldn’t follow them over that ground. But they won’t get far, their Land Rover is finished. I can promise you, sir, they won’t be going anywhere. And we tried to …” Chang raised a finger. Enough. He did not want to hear any more excuses.

He spoke again for the benefit of the speakerphone. “I do not think we need worry about this boy. He has gone into the Valley of Bones. If the lions or snakes don’t finish him, then the elements will. I think the matter is closed. Nonetheless, keep searching for his father’s evidence. If we can locate it, well and good; better if we could destroy it rather than run the risk of
it
destroying our plans.” Chang touched a button, disconnecting the link. He turned and gazed at the driver, who bowed his head, desperate not to meet Shaka Chang’s eyes.

“So. You let the boy escape?” Chang said quietly.

Max had clawed the Land Rover up a gentle incline, eased it onto a scrap of a track and stopped under an overhanging rock. Trees and bushes shielded them from the valley below, so Max decided that this was as safe as they could get.

But his sense of success quickly soured. Bullets had punctured the jerrycans of diesel, and if he was lucky he could drain off half a can at most. The provisions box had
somehow broken free during the chase and could be anywhere, many kilometers behind them. Worse still was the loss of water; those jerrycans had been on the front of the Land Rover and the initial collision with the 4×4 had pierced them. All they had now was a couple of water bottles between them. !Koga pointed to the way they had come. A persistent dribble of black oil followed to where the Land Rover was now hidden. Those boulders had ripped out something vital. No water, no food, and now no vehicle.

“We need help,” Max said as he locked and secured the radio’s aerial in its base. He flipped on the power switch. There was no gentle hum of life from the radio, the warm-up lights didn’t come on, there was no hiss or crackle through the headset. Then he spotted the neat hole drilled into the front of the radio set. A flared mushroom of torn metal told him that a bullet had punched the life out of their only means of communication. The frightening reality of a bullet’s damage struck home. If either of them had been hit …

“No water, no food, no transport, no radio. I think we might be in a spot of bother,” he said.

The shadow of night and a below-freezing temperature settled quickly. They needed warmth and nourishment. “We’ll light a fire and eat whatever is left,” he told !Koga. “You think we’re safe enough here, for tonight at least?”

!Koga nodded. “Those men would not follow us. There are lions and hyena out there. Tonight is all right. Tomorrow … tomorrow will be hard.” If !Koga thought it was going to be hard, Max realized he was in for a tough
time. !Koga gathered kindling while Max found a few tins of food that had not been shaken free during the chase. OK, so tomorrow would be tough—but that was tomorrow’s problem. He shivered, but he told himself it was because of the night air, not his fear.

Max built the fire: kindling, small twigs, then heavier wood. It was so dry it flared the moment he put the flame to it from a cheap plastic lighter. His dad had taught him the benefit of carrying a small emergency pack when heading out into the wilds: waterproof matches, a fishing line, hooks, a beta light—bits and pieces that could mean the difference between life and death. But Max had left Dartmoor High in a hurry and had not expected events to turn so quickly. The fluid-filled plastic lighter was a substitute bought at Windhoek Airport, along with a toothbrush and a tube of sunblock. He would need to protect himself in the severe heat, and if the English cricket team smeared sunblock across their faces when they played, then he felt no qualms about the warpaint effect. But brushing his teeth might have to wait.

They surrounded the fire with rocks. They would need the warmth these generated during the night, but Max was careful to use only heavy, solid stones. Softer rocks such as shale could explode when exposed to heat.

The evening meal was not a great success. They picked at the food, despite their hunger. Maybe the tins were old or perhaps it was the lack of salt but, whatever the reason, it tasted and smelled like dog food. Max decided they needed to cheer themselves up. A hot drink would combat the cold night air and ease the stress of the past few hours—it would
also help wash down whatever it was they had just eaten. Using some of the precious water, he made instant coffee, squeezing in half a tube of condensed milk that had miraculously separated itself from the missing box of provisions. He let !Koga drink first and watched his smile of satisfaction as he sipped the hot, sweet liquid. !Koga passed the mug back.

“Tomorrow we hunt. We must eat real food,” he said.

Max nodded. His survival depended on !Koga now. He hated feeling helpless but knew he had to stand back and let the Bushman boy lead them to safety. He watched as !Koga carefully laid out his handful of arrows.

From a small wooden tube !Koga spilled out cocoons he must have collected some time before Max had met him. After carefully selecting two larvae and returning the others for safekeeping, he picked the grubs from their cocoons, rolled them between his fingers until they cracked, then smeared the liquid just below the arrow’s metal point. Each arrowhead had a small, torpedo-shaped joint made of bone that connected to a reed collar which held the tip to the shaft. When the Bushmen shot an animal, the impact allowed the joint to separate arrowhead from shaft, leaving the poisoned point in the animal and the reusable shaft on the ground. Then they tracked the animal until the poison weakened it sufficiently for them to kill it.

Max held one of the arrows close to his face. He felt a fascination with the small metal point. It made him want to run his finger across the tip, testing its sharpness. !Koga snatched his wrist and, with what Max took to be a gentle admonition, took the shaft back. The boy clucked helplessly at Max’s ignorance.

Don’t touch !Koga’s arrowheads, whatever you do
. Kallie’s warning came back to Max. The poison is lethal, it’ll kill you.

The Bushmen, experts at using venom on the arrows, chose certain plants to extract their poison, as well as scorpion and snake venom, but they preferred the larvae of the chrysomelid beetle, something that looked like a ladybird and whose larvae could be found buried beneath dead trees. There is no known antidote to this poison. Nosy, adventurous schoolboys from England would be dead in minutes if they so much as scratched a finger on an arrowhead.

Tomorrow, they would hunt and begin their most serious test of survival. They would enter a hostile world on foot, with no weapons other than the knife Max carried and !Koga’s lightweight spear, bow and arrows. Max gazed into the fire, the flames shapeshifting, mesmerizing him as they snared his thoughts and gave life to the shadows—a macabre dance of imagined creatures.

Tomorrow seemed frighteningly close.

Far to the northwest of the Valley of Bones, beyond the hundreds of kilometers of red sand dunes that lay, scalloplike, towards the coastline, Atlantic fog sucked in by the intense temperature inland shut down any flying Kallie’s father had planned for the next few hours.

Ferdie van Reenen was a big man, with a wild beard and a battered face from being a boxer in his youth. He had survived war, flood and famine on his farm, but it would be his daughter Kallie who would break his heart one day, when she grew older and left home. But until that happened she could also raise his blood pressure. He was due to fly his clients further north, to the Kunene River on the Angolan border. His twin-engined Beechcraft Baron could do the trip comfortably with its fifteen-hundred-kilometer range, and he was all set, now that Kallie had delivered the additional
supplies he needed. She had also delivered the news about Max and !Koga.

Van Reenen secured the luggage net in the back of the plane. His voice was as rough as old desert boots, and distinctive: a mixture between a Dutch and a German accent.

“That was a stupid thing to do, my girl. Helping that boy will bring trouble down on our heads, you see if it doesn’t!”

Kallie ticked off the final item on the supply manifest; she always kept accurate records for the farm’s accounts. Legend had it that when her father served in the South African Air Force, he could fly a Hercules C130 transport plane through the eye of a needle at three hundred knots, upside down and with a full cargo; but money and income taxes presented a bigger challenge. And so, at times, did his daughter.