The Delta (28 page)

‘So, how do you know each other?'

She slumped into her chair and waved a hand in the air. ‘We were teenagers together. I thought I loved him and I thought he loved me, but I left, to … to go away.'

As always, she was holding back more than she was telling, but he was interested to learn more of the connection between her and Stirling. ‘Stirling thought I was hitting on his girlfriend, Tracey, and he whacked me. See?'

She leaned closer to see the discoloration on his cheek. ‘Were you? Hitting on her?'

Sam shook his head. ‘It was a misunderstanding. I don't want to talk out of school, but Tracey, well she kind of …'

Sonja nodded. ‘Stirling's an idiot to fall for her.'

‘If Stirling's an idiot it's for not wanting to see you again.'

She looked back at him and he couldn't read what she was thinking. ‘Thank you,' she said at last, and he breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

Sam reached his hand across the arm of his chair to Sonja. ‘With all that's happened I haven't had a chance to say a proper
thank you for saving my life in the bush, and getting me back to Xakanaxa safe and sound.'

She shook his hand and smiled, and he felt his heart start to pound. ‘Thank you.'

She held on to him and her grip was firm yet not manly. He didn't want to let go and waited for her to relax her hold on him. He looked into her eyes. He could see her chest heaving and wondered if she was still short of breath from her run.

‘It was nothing. And thank you, seriously, for my clothes,' she said, and pumped his hand up and down once, then let go.

Sam could still feel the burn of her on his fingers, like dry ice.

Sonja stood. ‘Thanks for the beer. I've got to go get some water now, and shower.'

With that, she walked away. Sam relaxed in his chair and enjoyed the rest of his beer, and the sunset, alone but with a secret smile on his face.

The guests at the wedding feast started singing again and their joyous harmonies pricked at Sonja like an annoying mosquito. Like Sam's remarks about what Stirling had said to him at Xakanaxa. She couldn't believe how childish Stirling had been, falling for his two-timing poppy yet still thinking he had some proprietary claim on his old girlfriend. It was maddening.

A yellow-billed hornbill sailed past her, wings spread straight and wide, and landed in the fork of a tree. She paused and watched him deposit a bug through a small hole in what appeared to be the tree's trunk. She knew that it was a facade, a wall of mud covering a much larger hole, inside which resided the bird's mate and their chicks. The male had probably spent the whole day shuttling from the ground to the tree, catching insects for his wife and babies. The female would have plucked out all her feathers and used them to line the nest as the male had walled
her in with lumps of wet clay. She and the chicks were safe inside from predators, but totally dependent on the male to keep them fed. Safety and security at what price? The ability to fly.

The other TV people seemed to have all gone to dinner when she returned to the camp site, which was just fine by her. Annoyingly, one of the men had ignored her warning about monkeys and baboons and left his tent flap open. She peeked inside and wrinkled her nose. It was Rickards's tent. An empty chip packet lay on his unrolled sleeping bag. Salt and crumbs covered the bag, but worse than that was a small turd, covered in bright green buzzing flies. As well as being expert thieves and wanton vandals, vervet monkeys liked to add insult to injury by leaving their small but disgusting calling cards. Sonja was tempted to leave the tent flap open, but she would hate it if a snake slid into Rickards's sleeping bag and bit him during the night. She paused to reconsider for a second, then smiled and zipped the tent closed. She left the monkey's dropping where it was – that would be enough of a reminder.

She unzipped her own tent and sat down on her mattress. A francolin strutted past her tent and squawked a few notes. The run hadn't cured her restlessness and if anything she felt more wound up after talking to Sam. She did fifty push-ups and a hundred situps to try to stop thinking about men and how stupid they were. The additional exercise speeded up the effects of the beer she'd drunk, so she finished off the bottle of warm water from her pack.

Sonja saw the rolled magazine protruding from a pocket of the rucksack. She pulled it out, along with her Surefire torch, which she switched on. She flicked to the article about Sam. There was a picture of him with an attractive blonde starlet, whose name Sonja vaguely recognised, and another one of him, much younger. It was a police mug shot and he stared back at the cameraman with a mix of shock, sorrow and defiance. She'd seen that stunned expression on soldiers after a fire fight.

STONED AND DRUNK CHAPMAN DID TIME OVER FRIEND'S DEATH
.

Sonja folded back the cover of the magazine and read on.

Wildlife World presenter Sam Chapman's image as a clean-cut all-American boy has been shattered with the revelation the handsome star did time in a juvenile jail over the death of his best friend
.

Chapman, aged seventeen at the time, stole a car with buddy David Rollins, also seventeen, and terrorised the streets of the quiet suburb in Butte, Montana, where they lived, on a high-speed drink- and drugsfuelled rampage
.

Police sources in Montana this week confirmed reports in
Entertainment Truth
magazine that Chapman lost control of the car and rolled it. Rollins, a high-school football hero, died instantly when the car came to rest against a streetlight pole
.

‘I'm glad the truth is out, at last,' said a still distraught Denise Rollins, the dead boy's mother. ‘Sam Chapman is living the life of a Hollywood star, but he robbed my David of his future. He killed my son and I will never forgive him.'

Chapman was convicted of the manslaughter of his friend and drink-driving offenses, and sentenced to two years in the Pine Hills Youth Corrections Facility. He also pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, which was found in the wrecked car
.

Wildlife World,
which produces Chapman's award-winning documentaries, refused to comment, as did the star's agent. Chapman is said to be filming in Botswana for a forthcoming series of specials for the cable TV company
.

Staff at the University of Montana were stunned to learn of Chapman's checkered past, with one former academic colleague, who asked not to be named, saying Chapman was well respected before leaving academia to pursue a career in television
.

A back-handed compliment, if ever she had heard one, Sonja thought as she lowered the magazine and leaned back against her pack. She'd thought Chapman just another perfect product of a soft, well-fed suburban life; a smart man who had capitalised on his good looks to find a shortcut to the American dream.

Chapman has had other contact with juvenile delinquents later in life, reportedly working as a volunteer at so-called ‘brat camps' where he teaches young inmates about survival in the wild. It's not known if he has ever shared his dark past with any of the kids he has worked with
.

There were several pictures of Sam with the article. There was a shot of him administering a drug or taking a blood sample from a sleeping coyote; a frame taken in front of Ayers Rock, now known as Uluru, in the middle of Australia; and another one of him walking from the surf at a beach. He had a perfect set of abs. She remembered the feel of his warm skin on hers as she took his hand. Her face reddened when she remembered how she'd held onto it for too long.

It was dark by the time she grabbed her towel and a bar of soap and headed for the small ablution block in the campground. Inside the ladies she stepped into the shower cubicle and stripped. Sonja turned the hot tap on, but no water came out. The pipes juddered and groaned somewhere behind the wall. ‘Shit,' she mouthed. She tried the cold and the same thing happened. She wrapped her towel around her and fastened it above her breasts and picked up her clothes.

Outside she paused outside the door to the gents side of the block. The light was out and there was no sound from inside. She pushed the door open and peeked inside. The curtain to the single shower stall was half open, but she could see no one inside. There was no one else in the campground, so there was little chance of
anyone disturbing her. She laid her clothes down on a bench and stepped further into the darkness.

Then she heard the breathing. It was deep, but rapid.

Next she smelled him, the strong rich odour of his body.

Shit! There was a man in there, behind the half-drawn curtain. Sonja bent to grab her things and only then noticed that hanging on the back of the door she'd just come in through were Sam's jeans and bush shirt.

Sonja took a step on tiptoe towards the door and reached for it, but recoiled as she saw movement in the half-light. Sam had turned and was leaning, with one hand up against the tile wall. She ducked backwards so that she was concealed by the wall of the toilet cubicle, but she could just see around the edge of the partition. Sam's arm was moving.

She caught her breath and dared not take another in case he heard her. He was breathing louder now. She rested her cheek against the wall and watched him through one eye. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw his hand, wrapped around his thick, engorged penis. She stared at it.

He worked his palm up high over the head, then squeezed as he slid it down his shaft. She could hear the slickness of his natural lubrication. Tearing her gaze from it she saw him lean his head back, his mouth half open as he breathed out.

The well-defined muscles in his back and shoulders glistened with perspiration as his hand and breathing increased their pace. He shifted again and moved his left hand from the wall to the shower tap. The water pattered on the plastic curtain and he replaced his hand on the wall. He'd shifted in the process so she could see more of him, though his back was to her now so she couldn't see his right hand or his cock.

Sonja felt the moisture seep from deep within her and her nipples strain against the weave of the towel. She swallowed and
allowed herself a half-drawn breath. Her face was on fire, and she wanted to run for the door. And she wanted to run for the curtain and rip it to one side.

Sam raised himself up on to his toes, his beautifully chiselled backside clenching in the process. He threw his head back further and let out a gasp of relief as his whole body shuddered.

Sonja darted to the door of the block, slipped outside and ran, barefoot, through the campground to her tent. She hastily unzipped, threw her clothes inside and lay down on her mattress. Her heart was racing as she stretched out, but it threatened to explode from her chest as she came in the darkness.

Sonja braked to let a trio of male kudus cross the road. The middle antelope paused and stared at them for a second, then gave a toss of his long curved antlers and leapt away, his white tail curled protectively across his rump.

It wasn't a close call as she had cut her speed to eighty kilometres after they crossed the border into Namibia at Shakawe. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were all part of a common customs zone, so there was no problem taking the vehicle across borders. Sonja held her breath while the African woman on the Botswana side scanned her passport, but the forgery was good – Steele maintained the best sources around the world – and the document passed inspection on both sides of the border. Sonja made a mental note of the Namibian Army
bakkie
parked behind the customs and immigration building, and the two soldiers who chatted to a cleaner leaning on her mop outside. The soldiers, in camouflage, were armed with AK-47s. It wasn't a large force, but nor was it common to see armed military men at a border post in this part of the world.

The country around Shakawe on the Botswana side was given over to commercial farming – crops and cattle – but as soon as
they crossed the line into Namibia they were in wilderness, with brittle bone-dry bush on their flanks. It was why Sonja took it slowly, as there was little warning if an animal wanted to cross. A yellow-billed kite wheeled above them patrolling the road in search of roadkill.

‘What's this place?' Sam asked from behind her.

‘The Mahango Game Reserve. It's about thirty thousand hectares. The Okavango River is off to our right and beyond that is the beginning of the much larger Bwabwata National Park, which was called the West Caprivi Game Reserve when I was younger.'

She watched him in the rear-view mirror, nodding at her explanation, then recalled the sight of him rising on his toes in the shower. She looked out the driver's side window in case Cheryl-Ann saw her blush. Sonja had imagined him on her, in her, as she'd touched herself in the tent and wondered if it was her he'd been thinking of in the shower.

Sonja pushed the distracting thoughts from her mind. She'd play the tour guide for the TV people, but her other job was to assess the landmarks they passed from a military planner's point of view. The Mahango Game Reserve extended north to within about twelve kilometres of Popa Falls, near where the dam was being built. If Steele's force infiltrated Namibia near Shakawe the reserve would provide cover for part of their journey, or perhaps a hidden bush base where they could group and prepare for an assault. There would be Namibian Wildlife Authority rangers patrolling the reserve, but not enough of them to pose a threat to a force of heavily armed mercenaries. Sonja would have liked to have taken a boat up the Okavango from Drotsky's Camp to the border, to see what kind of controls were in place on the river itself, but there was no way to justify the trip.

‘Big five country?' Gerry asked.

Sonja shook her head. ‘All the rhino were killed here decades ago, but there are still lion, buffalo, elephant and leopard, plus occasional sightings of wild dog and cheetah.'