His warning was and wasn’t fair. She did owe it to her children not to take unnecessary risks — and this assignment certainly fell into that category — but she resented the fact that Wessels had all but accused her of being a bad mother. He was kind, and a good boss, but, as far as romance went, there would never be anything again between her and Henk.
Tom’s phone rang again. He answered it, listened for a few seconds, and when he jumped up knocked over both of their drinks, spilling them all over the maps.
18
Tom swore again as the Volkswagen’s front wheels clanged in and out of a pothole as wide as the car’s axle.
‘Careful!’ Sannie reached out and braced herself on the dashboard with one hand.
He barely checked his speed, keeping the needle close to the one hundred and twenty mark. They raced along the darkened EN1 north of Xai Xai and Tom kept a close eye on the odometer, counting off the kilometres as they neared the thirty-five mark.
When he’d gotten off the phone with Bernard he’d taken down precise directions from the Afrikaner owner about how to get to the beach resort. He’d told Bernard to wait there — once he’d ascertained the man’s injuries weren’t life-threatening — rather than try calling a Mozambican ambulance or the local police. He wanted Bernard Joyce back under his protection as soon as possible and Sannie was a hundred per cent in agreement.
Tom braked hard as a truck loomed large in his windscreen. The vehicle was travelling with no lights. He cursed and swerved around it, his foot flat to the floor.
Tom recapped his brief conversation with Bernard as he shifted back down to fourth and revved the underpowered engine into the red before ramming the gearstick viciously into fifth. Bernard had already spoken to Greeves’s office — to Helen, the press secretary — and she had passed on Tom’s mobile phone number to him. Bernard’s next call, when Helen found the number, was to the SAS commander in South Africa. Tom hadn’t wasted time, or Bernard’s satellite phone battery, when they spoke. Bernard had been jogging along the coastline somewhere in Mozambique, his breath heavy from the exertion, and Tom had listened in silence as he explained that Greeves was alive, and the circumstances of his lucky escape.
‘I couldn’t overpower them, Tom. There were too many of them in the end and Robert told me to go… It wasn’t my choice…’
Tom cut him off, seeing where Bernard was heading. ‘You did the right thing, and Greeves was right sending you to get help, and we’re on our way but you have to give us an indication of where you are. I’ll stay online with you or you can call me back.’
At that point Bernard had reported that he could see lights in the sand dunes ahead and to the left of him. Tom waited breathlessly as Bernard laboured up a path through the dunes. ‘It’s a bloody pub!’
Dressed only in stained boxer shorts, his feet caked in sand and blood, and his eyes wild with relief and lingering terror, he’d stumbled into a beachside bar attached to a small coastal resort. Tom heard the amazed response — loud talking in Afrikaans — as Bernard burst in on the owner, who was tending bar, and a half-dozen fishermen on holiday. There had been a pause as explanations were given and Tom heard one of the men saying they had just been watching a news item on CNN about the abductions.
Bernard had passed the phone to the bartender, whose English was passable but halting, so Tom had transferred the phone to Sannie, who spoke rapidly in Afrikaans as Tom bundled their gear into the back of the Chico. It turned out the resort was less than forty kilometres from Xai Xai and while the owner had been about to close the bar — in order to send the drunken fishermen to bed — he would certainly wait for their arrival. Not only that, but he would have to meet them on the road into his encampment as the last kilometre was through deep sand.
‘This is it,’ Sannie said, spotting a property development sign and another marking the end of the Distrito do Xai Xai, which the resort owner had described. Tom swung hard and skidded into a right turn onto the unmarked sandy track. It seemed the lodge’s owner was happy to promote himself by word of mouth only as there was no sign to his property, which was called Paradise Cove.
‘The police would never have come down here looking for them,’ Tom said.
Sannie nodded in agreement. Their luck had been in, though neither of them dared predict what the kidnappers would do with Greeves now that they knew their hideout had been compromised. Tom’s very real fear was that even though Bernard had escaped less than an hour ago, his abductors might have already shut up shop and be on their way to a new location.
They had called in at Xai Xai police station, but the female officer on the night shift, who had been dozing at the front desk, spoke no English or Tsonga Shangaan. Sannie and Tom had said Capitao Alfredo’s name over and over again and pantomimed using the telephone, but the female officer had steadfastly refused even to try to understand them. ‘Fuck it,’ Tom had said at last, unwilling to waste a second more. They were on their own again.
The first six kilometres from the main road were on a sandy but firm track through gently undulating dunes which were well stabilised with grass and small trees. With his window down, Tom caught the sound of cattle lowing in the distance. They passed a coastal lake, the light from the now risen moon reflecting off its mirrored surface and illuminating a raft of water-lilies. At another time he might have slowed to admire the countryside.
‘Right fork here,’ Sannie ordered, but Tom had already seen the sign to Paradise Cove. ‘Another kilometre and then he should be there waiting to meet us.’
Lights flashed ahead of them and Tom slowed. There was a cluster of three mud huts with thatched-reed roofs, a sleepy-looking African man and a white man. The white man stood next to a rusting red Nissan Safari four-wheel drive, whose headlights were turned on. Squinting, Tom could make out another figure in the front of the vehicle. The passenger door opened and Tom saw Bernard Joyce step out, holding a hand up to his eyes. Tom switched off his own lights and coasted to a stop.
Bernard hobbled three steps towards Tom as he got out of the Volkswagen and put his arms around him and hugged him.
‘My god, Tom. I never thought I’d see another Englishman again.’ Tom felt the sting of hot tears on his cheek. They were Bernard’s, not his, though he felt a lump rise in his throat. Bernard was wearing a pair of garish board shorts and a golfing shirt with the name of the resort embroidered on the left breast.
‘Sarel Bezuidenhout,’ the big white man said as Tom eased himself away from Bernard. They shook hands and Tom introduced Sannie to Sarel.
‘Was that you chasing us in the bush, in the gun-fight?’ Bernard asked Tom.
Tom nodded.
‘Bloody good show, Tom. Too bad the bastards got away, but I can’t tell you how good that felt, to know someone was coming after us. Did you get any of them?’
‘Two,’ Tom confirmed.
‘Arseholes. Have you got a spare pistol with you?’ Bernard looked to Tom and then Sannie.
‘I’ve got a two-two in the bar for monkeys and a nine-mil for the human thieves,’ Sarel said in heavily accented English. ‘I come with you.’
Sannie held up a hand. ‘Look, this is not my decision to make, but I think we at least need a plan.’
Tom agreed and suggested they all get inside. He had already spoken to Shuttleworth on the drive to the coastal lodge and had been told in no uncertain terms that he was expressly forbidden from launching any ad hoc rescue mission.