The Devil's Horn (32 page)

Chapter 40

Wally slowed them down, but they did not stop until they reached the border at sundown.

Karskie brought them to a spot where the fence still stood. The three trudged south under the bruising dusk. A starry hour later, in full darkness, they found a fallen patch of fence and stepped through to the greeting calls of the Kruger’s monkeys and beasts.

Wally ran out of steam only a hundred yards into the park. He found a rock large enough to sit on. LB took his first sip from the canteen, saving the rest for Wally and Karskie. The big boy had done well, uncomplaining.

LB took Wally’s pulse and checked his bandages. Wally was fatigued but in no peril; the wound wasn’t weeping, his color was fine. Fumbling one-handed with his vest, Wally asked LB and Karskie for some time to himself. LB left him the canteen.

The moon hadn’t risen yet, and the Milky Way was so bright it almost hummed above the bush. Karskie and LB hadn’t talked much on their exit from Mozambique, they’d focused on keeping Wally moving. LB had kept an eye and ear over his shoulder for pursuers.

“I don’t think he can go any farther. Not tonight.”

Karskie took a seat on the open ground.

“Me neither.”

“Can you call somebody to come get us? A car, a chopper?”

“Our copters don’t fly in the park at night. And we don’t drive off the paved road.”

“Why the hell not?”

“The Kruger belongs to the animals. We take that seriously.”

“So we’re stuck out here again.”

LB turned a circle. The bush lay unchanging in every direction, stretching into the hills beyond the fence and the South African plains west. The land was little different from the night sky, a dark world above and below. The bush was going to be a hard place for him to shirk. LB knew that, he felt the seed of it as he pivoted in place. He’d left things here, and they would stay here forever.

“What’s on the menu tonight? Ants? Bees?”

Karskie shrugged his big, soft shoulders.

“I’m not a ranger. I don’t know.”

LB could have told Karskie that he was a ranger, but it would have been a lie. Karskie wasn’t cut out for it. A man could only be what his nature dictated, what his talents allowed. Everything else, he was not, and would not be.

LB dropped the rifle into his hands.

“I could fire off a few rounds. See if that clandestine patrol finds us.”

“Don’t do that. They will find us, and they won’t know who we are or why you were shooting. We’re near the border. Keep in mind, Neels trained them. Best leave them alone. We’ll get out in the morning.”

Karskie gazed out into the bush with LB, and he seemed less afraid. This was not the same boy who’d crept up on the drone last night.

Who else had changed, and how much? Promise, Juma, Lush Life, the women?

“Where’s Neels, do you think?”

“Dead or out here somewhere.”

Karskie made it sound like they were the same.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“For shooting your captain?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing. No one’s going to prosecute him, especially if Juma’s dead. Neels is a ranger. He was in Mozambique legally, doing his job. Frankly, doing yours. He’ll claim one thing, you’ll claim another, and there you have it.”

“What’ll you claim?”

“No one will ask. As I said, I’m not a ranger.”

The boy was right. No one was going to ask him, or LB and Wally. This was a covert mission, and it was going to stay that way. LB wasn’t going to be allowed to push this. He’d be forced to just bury it.

“What about you?”

The boy laughed. The bush, vast and teeming, seemed to answer. Far away, or maybe close, a creature howled. Karskie’s smile was starlit.

“Apparently, I’m buying a house.”

LB left him sitting with the night. The boy didn’t look like he would move for hours, listening to his park, at ease.

Wally beckoned LB over. He held up the sat phone, dials glowing in the dark.

“Torres wants to talk to you.”

LB took the phone.

“Major.”

“LB. I’m on a plane inside the hour. I’ll be there by sunup.”

“Wally’ll be glad to see you. He’s going to have a long night.”

“I’ll escort you both back to Lemonnier. We’ll start the debrief.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your cover story is you were on a survival course in the Kruger. Ran into some poachers. Wally got shot.”

Karskie’s prediction about this mission disappearing took no time at all to come true.

“LB.”

“Ma’am.”

“I just want to say.”

“Don’t.”

“I want to say thank you.”

“Just a sec.”

LB walked away with the sat phone, moving far enough from Wally to not be heard.

“Major.”

Torres gave him no chance to speak first.

“You saved his life, LB. He said so. Straight up. You saved him.”

“Major, you need to stop talking.”

This flummoxed Torres. LB wedged his voice in.

“Saving him wasn’t my job. And it wasn’t his. Wally knew it. He tried, and I stopped him. That’s what happened.”

The satellite line hovered silent. LB walked farther from Wally into the bush, what felt like a long way, until Torres spoke.

“You did the right thing.”

“Did Wally say that? Or is that you?”

“It’s me.”

“Okay. I need you to do me a favor.”

“If I can do it. Anything.”

“Send me home. To Nellis. I got six months left on my contract. Get me a job in logistics. I want to drive a truck. Then I’m done.”

Above the bush one shooting star coursed and blinked out. Tonight would be hungry, but they’d eat bugs and leaves and drink dirty water, and they’d see tomorrow.

LB crossed one arm over his chest, lapping his hand across the sleeve where the Guardian Angel’s patch, “That others may live,” had been for so long, and would not be again.

Acknowledgments

I am the creator of this book only in the sense that I’m at the center of a great many creators. Each individual thanked below told me one stunning story or another, and all I did was make furious notes, then later, at my keyboard, choose the parts that fit the whole.

How do you thank a person for something as singular as his or her life’s story or the wisdom and recollections of his or her life’s work? Appreciation pales if the finished product, the full novel, doesn’t hold. So, in no small part because I’m deeply indebted to so many, I wrote this novel hard, with an intensity born out of fear that my treatment of their lives would fall short of the original versions.

I start with retired USAF Maj. Scott Williams, the real LB, who hosted me in Port Elizabeth and let me grow close to his great wife and kids. Scott, a former USAF pilot, loves the Guardian Angels as much as anyone and is mainly responsible for bringing me into the pararescue community. A lot of Wally and LB grew out of him. I can’t repay Scott, but I can do my job as well as he demands.

Scott introduced me to Brian Bailey, who then linked me to his father, Don. The Baileys own a lot of stuff in South Africa, and all of it was made available to me, including marvelous time spent with these two gentlemen. The core of Kruger Ranger Promise comes from Brian’s work with a township orphanage and his own experience as a wildlife ranger. Much of Allyn’s character comes from late-night cigar and brandy sessions with Don on his veranda in Plettenberg Bay, where he told me of his past with courage and candor. Don showed me penguins, Finagolo (the pidgin language of the Zimbabwean mines), the joys of cricket, and an unmatched English elegance. I received from the Baileys more kindness and gifts of the heart than any traveler could hope for. I trust I have made lifelong friends.

Lt. Col. John McElroy, former combat-rescue officer with the GAs, claims that I write no more or less than what he dictates. I call him a liar publicly and privately acknowledge the truth of that. I’ve made my peace, Mac. These are your stories. Mac makes up the largest slice of Wally. He is cheerful, a beautiful athlete, brave, and loyal. The image on the cover of
The Devil’s Waters
, a skydiver in scuba gear, is based on Mac.

My first cousin Bob Bigman served in an unnamed US government agency as a cybersecurity chief for thirty-one years. The craziest plot twists in these GA novels, the head-scratchers, are Bob’s. He winks and grins when he tells me, “I didn’t say we did that. I only said we could.”

USAF Capt. Chris Baker of the GAs never fails to take my calls, get me back on the proper track, and make me laugh. Chris knows almost as much as McElroy. That ought to be worth a few more hours of debate on my sailboat.

Will Fowlds is a world-renowned veterinarian and warrior in the rhino-conservancy battle. He took me into the bush to dart a rhino at the Amakhala Game Reserve and spent hours teaching me the intricacies and horrors of poaching. Also at Amakhala, Simon Allen, a naturalist, let me come on long walks in the veld and showed me how to track, what to eat (ants!), and how to survive on foot among creatures that might have different notions. With both Allen and Will, I saw true marvels.

Marius Roos paved the way for my time in the Kruger. Because of him, I was able to travel over the same ground as the poachers, see their terrible spoor, and learn firsthand the hatefulness of their works. Also, because of Marius, I rekindled my dislike for rum and Coke.

Big Willem Geel took much time with me in the Kruger, though he claimed to never warm up to me. Chopper pilot Ian DeBeer showed me not only rhino carcasses so awful as to be netherworldly but also many splendors of the bush. Imagine being charged by a black rhino while sitting in a helicopter, or buzzing a herd of eland to make them stampede. Good times.

Gen. Johan Jooste, the man in charge of the entire Kruger National Park, gave me an unforgettable hour of advice and quotes. Ansi Venter, special prosecutor with the Organized Crime Unit of the Office of Public Prosecutions (she’s in charge of prosecuting South Africa’s racketeers, including poachers) told me enough to fill five legal pad pages and scare me about the current state of poaching in South Africa. Ansi convinced me that the poachers are stoppable, but that will require more than the resources available in her country.

Johan Brits of the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation, Organized Crime Unit, coined the beautiful phrase “children of the bush,” speaking of the rhinos. He, too, gave me unfettered time and advice.

Driver Glenn Batcheller-Adams is an example of the sublime being handed to the writer who listens well. In his van, headed to the airport, he told me of his time in the Angolan Civil War as a member of the Selous Scouts. Glenn regaled me with stories of fierce training, shocking combat, and a dead baboon nailed to a fence with a cigarette in its mouth.

Likewise in the serendipity department, Trecy Kent III sat next to me on a flight to LA. Turns out Trecy was an armorer in the USAF for a dozen years. There I was, writing a book involving a USAF missile. Trecy went far beyond the expected bounds of a well-met stranger on a plane and has become a friend and go-to adviser.

Kruger Chief Ranger Maj. Jack Greeff avoided me for a week, until I plugged a practice target between the eyes from seventy-five meters with his rifle. Jack took me seriously after I repeated the feat and gave me a seminar on policing the bush. He’s hunted poachers in the Kruger for thirty years, knows every poaching trick, and seethes at the thought of them. Jack became the bedrock of Neels.

Lastly, the most blatant theft of character I committed for this novel is from my good comrade David Barske; I barely bothered to cover up his name. David is shameless and brilliant, a big, likeable kid with a crazy streak as broad as his toothy grin. Together, we chased bushpigs over the Skukuza golf course, drank from boots and cans, listened to lions roar and rangers brag and bitch. David gave me priceless time, documents, advice, and insights into the hunt for the Kruger’s poachers. David is a brave young man on the front lines of the dire fight to save the rhino from extinction. He’s one of many.

On the business side of this book, I thank first, and again, my agent, Luke Janklow of Janklow Nesbit. Luke and his assistant, Claire Dippel, are my irreplaceable teammates. I actually look forward to having something to complain about so I can talk with them. I sometimes make things up.

The reason I have to pretend things are wrong is Alan Turkus of Thomas & Mercer. Alan treats my work with respect as art, and value as a product. He’s a gentleman, and he runs a classy outfit, Thomas & Mercer, which has never failed to regard me with friendliness and a professional level of courtesy. I’ve been published by quite a few houses, and never by such competent, collegial people who believe their writers are customers and act accordingly.

David L. Robbins

Richmond, VA

About the Author

David L. Robbins currently teaches advanced creative writing at VCU Honors College. A
New York Times
bestselling author, he has written twelve action-packed novels, including the pararescue novels
The Devil’s Waters
and
The Empty Quarter
, as well as
War of the Rats
,
Broken Jewel
,
The Assassins Gallery
, and
Scorched Earth
. An award-winning essayist and screenwriter, he has also had two stage plays successfully produced. In his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, where he lives, Robbins founded the James River Writers, an organization dedicated to supporting professional and aspiring writers. He also cofounded the Podium Foundation, which encourages and supports artistic expression in Richmond’s public high schools. His latest nonprofit effort is as creator of the Mighty Pen Project, a veterans writing program in partnership with the Virginia War Memorial. Robbins extends his creative scope beyond fiction as an accomplished guitarist and student of jazz, pop, and Latin classical music. When he’s not writing or teaching, he’s often found sailing, shooting sporting clays, weight lifting, and traveling the world for his research.