Hunted (24 page)

Hex came out. 'One camcorder with recharged batteries, telephoto lens and night-vision adapter of my own design. It'll compensate automatically for lowering light levels. Don't worry about it - just film as normal.'

'I'll have my hands full,' said Amber. 'Someone else had better come to do the filming.'

Li took the camcorder from Hex. 'I'll do the filming.'

Paulo was stunned. He tried to search Li's face, but it was a mask. Had she managed to sort out her problems? Or was she forcing herself to be brave, like she had forced herself to go up to that tree house on her own?

'Good,' said Amber. 'It's better to have the two lightest people in the balloon.'

'Try to get pictures of the buyers as well as the poachers,' said Paulo. 'Then we can nail them all.'

Li nodded. 'Will do.'

The balloon was now fully inflated, straining at its tethers.

Gaston picked up the two packs. 'This is probably a silly question, but have you ever used a parachute? These are from when we used to have a plane here. I've checked them and they're fine. You'd better have them just in case.' He gave one to Amber and one to Li.

Paulo watched Li intently as she strapped hers on. She caught his eye and shook her head:
No, don't ask.
It didn't stop him worrying.

Amber shifted her shoulders to get comfortable with the bulky parachute on her back. She looked at Li adjusting the straps of hers. It was like a big rucksack. 'It's going to be a squash in the balloon with these on,' she muttered. 'I can see why we'll only get two of us in.'

'Put these on too,' said Joe. He handed helmets to Li and Amber.

The two girls climbed into the basket.

'Be careful,' said Joe. 'Those poachers are nasty.'

'We know,' said Amber. She smiled. 'This kind of thing is our job.'

Li agreed. 'Yes, this is our job. Let's go.'

24
SILENT SPIES

As Joe, Paulo, Hex and Gaston released the balloon, it rose quickly upwards. Within moments Amber and Li were three metres above the heads of their helpers.

Amber immediately checked the direction. 'That's the wrong way, so I'm going to go a little higher . . .' She opened the regulator on the burner, her eye on the instruments. 'If we aim for those clouds we can hitch a ride west. Li, how's the zoom on that camera? Is it going to be close enough?'

Li concentrated on the camcorder and nothing else. She deliberately avoided looking at the ground and zoomed in on a tree about four hundred metres away. The tree jumped close and came into focus. 'Yes, it seems good. But the closer we can get, the better.'

'I'll do my best,' said Amber. 'I'm taking us up to a thermal that's going our way.' She cut the gas to the burner. The silence was sudden, total and surprising. Amber checked the compass. 'We're on course. Shouldn't be long before we've got the airstrip in sight.'

Li relaxed a little. So far she felt OK. This was a job she had to do and her mind was totally focused on that.

Amber was enjoying the silence and the view. The trees below them cast long shadows, making dramatic streaks on the landscape. The sun slipped down to the rim of the horizon. 'Wow, what a place to watch the sunset. This is amazing, isn't it?' She spotted some animals and pointed to them. 'Look, there are some zebras hiding in the middle of that herd of wildebeest. They must be trying not to be seen. Not exactly inconspicuous, are they?'

Li looked out. Panic sounded in her head like a tom-tom drum, but after a moment it subsided. She began to take in what she was seeing. In the midst of the chocolate-brown wildebeest were two vibrant striped coats. 'That's surreal,' she said. 'As though someone has set it up for an advert about standing out in the crowd.'

'Take some film of it,' said Amber. 'It would make the cover of
National Geographic.'

Li started on a close-up of the zebra and panned out to the wildebeest around it. 'We could be award-winning wildlife photographers by day and secret agents by night,' she giggled. 'Better not use up all the batteries, though,' she added, and switched the camcorder off.

'Hey, look,' said Amber. Her voice was a whisper.

A black shape appeared out of the clouds, like an object surfacing from a lake. It became wheels, then an undercarriage, then the white belly of a light plane. The sound of its engines washed over them like a wave.

'Is that them?' whispered Amber.

Li put the camcorder to her eye and pointed it at the ground. 'I'll pretend to be filming animals,' she said, 'in case they can see us.'

Amber kept an eye on the plane. It was losing height rapidly. 'Looks like it might be about to land,' she said.

The balloon started drifting backwards, away from the plane. 'Darn,' said Amber. She opened the regulator. 'We've got caught in an air current. It's pushing us away. I'll have to get higher and hop on a current going back that way.'

'Is it the backdraught from the plane?' asked Li, still pretending to film wildebeest.

'I don't think so,' said Amber. 'A plane like that is too small to have much of an effect. It might be caused by the road, though; or the cleared area where the runway is.'

The plane slipped down between the trees, heading for the landing strip. But the balloon seemed to be drifting further away, like a twig in a stream whirling helplessly in the wake of a passing boat.

The mobile phone quivered in Li's pocket. She had set it to vibrate rather than ring, in case a call attracted attention. She put the phone to her ear. 'Yes?'

It was Hex. 'Alex just called. The plane's coming in. It's going to land at the north end.'

'We know,' said Li. 'We're trying to get over there but steering isn't that simple.'

'Hey, we've got ballast,' said Amber. She was holding a sandbag. 'Let's throw these out - we'll rise faster.'

Alex heard the plane before he saw it. For a while all he had been aware of was the dusk chorus of the animals and the ultrasonic squeaks of bats as they flocked to the long pods hanging from the sausage trees. Then the whine of the engine came as clear as day, getting lower and lower, like a descending scale on a piano. The plane was definitely coming down into the gap between the trees. He made his call to Hex then; the girls needed as much time as possible to get into position.

The plane landed at the other end of the strip. By the time the white fuselage glided past Alex, it was almost at a standstill. The tips of the wings nearly grazed the trees. That pilot must be very good, he thought, to bring the plane in so precisely each time in such a tight space.

Of more concern to Alex, though, the plane had stopped right opposite where he was hiding.

Alex's mind raced. Should he try to get further away? No, that would definitely alert them. He was wearing camouflage, he was high up in a tree with a good covering of leaves and those dangling sausage things. He just had to stay still. He cursed that he hadn't got a camcorder. He would have had an excellent view.

The plane had two occupants. One was the pilot. That figured: even if the buyer could fly, it was unlikely that he would have the kind of precision skills needed to land in a place like this.

The cockpit door opened and a figure stepped out. In the dusk it was hard to see him clearly but his build was slight. He looked up and down the airfield and checked the time. His diamond-encrusted watch caught the last rays of sunlight.

A vehicle was approaching. A Land Rover. Alex heard the handbrake rasp and the engine die. Two figures got out.

Their faces were in shadow but Alex recognized them by the way they moved. They were two of the poachers who had threatened them that first morning. He could see the stubby silhouettes of AK-47s swinging from their shoulders.

The poachers hefted a couple of sacks from the back seat of the Land Rover and walked towards the man who had climbed out of the plane.

Alex wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they weren't speaking English. He caught the odd word, more a flavour of the language than the language itself. It sounded like French. Didn't Amber say that quite a lot of people in Zambia spoke pidgin French?

The poachers handed over one of the sacks. The transaction was starting. Alex glanced up through the trees to the sky. He couldn't see whether the balloon was there or not. He hoped it was.

Amber watched the compass. They were drifting east and they needed to go north. The burner was on, taking them higher. Then suddenly their direction changed. 'That's it,' she exclaimed, and stopped the burner. She peered down. 'We should be over the runway in about thirty seconds.'

'I'm ready,' said Li. She was poised over the basket, the camcorder on pause and ready to film as soon as the poachers came into view.

Amber was studying the trees. 'It's quite still down there. I reckon as soon as we're over the road we could go lower.'

The runway appeared below them. The layout was so obvious from the air once they knew what it was; the trees widened like an avenue, split by the dusty ribbon of road. There was the plane, like a white cross in the middle. Tiny figures stood beside it, just visible in the gloom.

Amber pulled the vent and let air out of the top of the balloon. They were going in.

Li lost no time. She zoomed to maximum. The image appeared in monochrome as Hex's night-vision adapter kicked in. 'Two poachers,' she said quietly, 'with guns. One buyer - possibly oriental, as we suspected. Amber, how low can you go? I can't get their faces from here.'

Amber pulled on the vent again. The balloon plummeted. Li felt panic squeezing her heart. She was falling. She saw Dina and the rock face, the horrible silent vision from her dreams. The camera started to shake in her hands.

Amber closed the vent hurriedly. 'Sorry. Wind's a bit unpredictable between these trees.'

Li took deep breaths. Sweat ran in cold rivulets down her back. Concentrate on filming, she told herself. Do the job. The balloon will be OK. Amber knows what she's doing.

She steadied the camera on the rim of the basket and focused. She would be so very relieved when they were back on solid ground.

She filmed the buyer taking a sack from one of the poachers. He tipped it out onto the ground. The contents looked like a pile of pale blocks. They became ivory, hollow like sections of a pipe, some pointed at the end, some still bearing dark shreds of flesh. The balloon was still drifting down.

'Tell me when you've got enough,' whispered Amber. 'I daren't use the burner until we're finished because they might hear.'

'I've got their faces now,' said Li. She filmed the man with the scar like a crater in the middle of his cheek. His skin looked grey in the monochrome night-vision filter. Then she got the paler man wearing the hyena tooth around his neck.

Amber looked at the altimeter. They were at thirty metres. Even without the benefit of the zoom lens and the night-vision adapter, Amber had seen the black outlines of guns on the poachers' shoulders. The balloon was easily within firing range. She had her hand on the burner control, ready to lift the balloon out as soon as Li gave the word.

Li seemed to read her thoughts. 'I just want them to hand over the money,' she said. 'Otherwise we don't get the buyer.'

Now that Li was intent on filming, her worries had disappeared. The buyer was squatting on the ground, packing the hacked-up tusks into the sack. Li filmed his expensive watch, flashing diamonds even in the dim evening light. She caught his crisp suit - probably linen, and most likely hand tailored. She made sure she filmed the pilot, dressed in a pale safari jacket and watching every moment of the transaction. Was he a bodyguard? He had a short, stubby pistol in a holster on his hip - no doubt to discourage the poachers in case they tried to keep the ivory as well as the money. She also got a clear shot of the plane's registration number. All good evidence.