The Delta (48 page)

Sonja had been surrounded by men in disproportionate numbers all her adult life, yet she had nearly always been alone, romantically. Except for the brief periods in her life when she had let Martin Steele into her world – times as disastrous as they were passionate and fun – and a few one-night stands, she had been alone. But never lonely. All she wanted now was to be wrapped in someone's arms and be told that everything was going to be all right.

Stupid. She didn't know why she felt so emotional all of a sudden. It wasn't time for her period. Perhaps, she thought, it was seeing little Frederick that had reminded her of her guilt at missing so much of Emma's childhood. It took too little, at the best of times, for her to convince herself she'd been a crap mother.

She placed the working parts of the pistol down on the canvas and assembled the brass cleaning rod, screwing the pieces together and attaching the bristly brush at the end. She pushed the rod down the barrel and drew it back and forth, cleaning the inside. She pulled the rod clear and wrapped a small square of flannelette around the brush, then squirted some OX 18 gun oil on the material. Sonja heard a footfall on dry leaves outside her darkened tent. Working quickly, she reassembled the pistol, slapped the magazine back into the butt and cocked the weapon.

‘Don't shoot!' Sam stood at the opening of her tent.

She lowered the pistol. ‘Sorry, force of habit.'

‘I just wanted to say goodnight,' he said.

‘Where's your chaperone?'

Sam looked back over his shoulder, ‘With Jim, and a couple of ladies of the night, getting drunk on something called palm wine.'

Sonja winced. ‘That stuff will kill him before he gets near his first war.'

‘The CLA guys think he's on their side.'

She motioned to a fold-out camp chair that had been leaning against the back wall of the tent. She didn't want to do the thing with the stretchers again; she knew she wouldn't be able to trust herself if he sat close to her again.

‘Thanks,' he said, sitting in the chair. ‘I interviewed a couple of them. They've got some sad and scary stories about the way they've suffered at the hands of the Namibian authorities.'

‘Be careful, Sam. Africa can be a sad and scary place. Different tribes screw each other all the time on this continent, and the Namibian government happens to be one of the better-run and most honest.'

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘Yet you're going to war against them.'

‘It's the dam I don't agree with.'

He nodded. ‘Yeah, there was something about that German guy from GrowPower on the video that gave me the creeps. That whole “good afternoon ladies and gentlemen …” was kind of like “welcome to my web”.'

She thought about the presentation and what Klaus Schwarz from GrowPower had said. A chill ran from her heart to her fingertips. ‘The Botswana government doesn't want that dam to go ahead any more than the landholders in the Okavango do. They won't go to war over water and wildlife, though.'

‘Is the environment a good enough reason to go to war?' Sam asked.

‘It's better than religion – that's what most wars are fought over these days.'

He smiled. ‘That's true, I suppose. Hey, about before …'

‘Yes?' She pressed the magazine release button and it slid out into her left hand. She set the bullet-filled magazine down and racked the pistol, catching the ejected round in midair. She pointed the pistol at the ground and pulled the trigger.

Sam flinched as the firing pin struck nothing. ‘If it seemed, when I was sitting next to you, that I was coming on to you, or …'

‘Or?'

His face coloured a little. ‘I just … I just wanted to let you know that …'

She leaned across and put the unloaded pistol on the other cot, then reached for his hand.

He rose and moved to her, sitting down on the stretcher beside her, where he'd been before Steele had interrupted them. She moved to him and their kiss was like the first electric storm of the rainy season. Longed for, wished for, but terrifying when it came. He encircled her in his arms as their mouths melded.

‘Ow.' She reached under her bottom and slid her Leatherman out of the way. Sam laughed and it set her off. When he reached for her again the springs supporting the cot screeched loudly. ‘We'll wake the camp.'

He stood and took her hands, lifting her to her feet. They kissed like that, standing. She tugged at his T-shirt and he backed off half a pace and whisked it over his head. He reached for her tank top, but she placed a palm on his chest and pushed him gently but firmly back into the camp chair. When he reached out to her she grabbed his wrists and placed his hands on his knees. Her look told him to sit still.

She stood in front of him and slowly pulled the green singlet over her head. She turned her back to him and undid the button at the top of the shorts – the ones he'd bought for her. Sonja felt a rush of pure sexuality flow from her core, as if the force of it was taking over her body, directing her movements. She unzipped halfway and lowed her shorts just a couple of inches, so that they hung low on her hips. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the wonder, the longing in his hungry eyes. She gave him a little smile and reached behind her for the clasp of the black bikini top she'd worn as a bra. One shoulder strap at a time, she removed it, but kept her back to him.

‘Sonja …' he whispered.

‘Shush.' She took a pace backwards, then turned and placed one hand on his shoulder. Her other arm covered her bare breasts, hiding them from him. His knees were wide apart and the sight of the bulge in his shorts made her lick her lips in anticipation. She lowered herself onto one of his legs and he snapped his hand out of the way – perhaps worried the show might stop if he touched her. Sonja slid herself slowly down the length of his muscled thigh, the movement grinding the fabric of her pants against her. She closed her eyes as she
leaned over him. She kissed him again, then stood.

Sonja started to move her hips, slowly, rhythmically and then changed her stance so that her khaki shorts started sliding down her legs. She arched her back as they fell to the floor of the tent and looked down over the mounds of her breasts to see him leaning closer to her, his mouth now close enough for her to feel his breath on her belly.

She hooked her thumbs in the elastic of her waistband of her briefs and slowly started to lower, once more stopping after just a few inches. If he didn't make a move soon, then she would …

Sam stood and embraced her, then lifted her off her toes, his hands cupping her arse. She wrapped her legs around him as his tongue invaded her; claimed her. He turned around and she wondered if he would fuck her, like that, standing. It looked good in the movies, and men loved the idea, but she knew the reality was often different to the Hollywood fantasy. Instead, he lowered her. He was strong and she realised the hours he'd spent in the gym didn't only make him look good on television. Effortlessly, he placed her down on the chair where he'd just been sitting. His hands were in her pants now, tugging, and almost ripping them off her. He dropped to his knees and placed his hands on her legs, parting them. He lifted her legs so they were over his shoulders and he opened her with his fingers. She slid down a little, offering herself to him.

She knew how wet she was, but the length and certainty of his finger sliding into her took the breath from her. She groaned as his lips formed a perfectly sealed ‘O' around her clitoris and he drew her into his mouth.

He kept her there, not from lack of experience or knowledge, but almost as a payment for the teasing she'd subjected him to. She felt the crescendo growing, slowly at first, then the sensations
rushed up, threatening to overwhelm her. ‘More, Sam … please.'

At that point he removed his tongue and fingers and went back to kissing her puffy flesh, running his lips over her screaming, sensitive nerve ends. She grabbed his head in her hands and tried to pull him closer. When he plunged his tongue into her she thought she might slide off the chair into him.

He stood and reached into his pocket, fishing out the foilwrapped packet. She grabbed for his shorts, pulling them down with the same force and speed he'd used on her. His cock sprang free, hard and purpled with anticipation.

‘Let me,' she said, reaching for the condom. She took it, ripped it open with her teeth and rolled the latex over him, fingers sliding down his shaft. She looked up and loved the way he shivered and half closed his eyes.

‘Stand,' he ordered, once more in control.

Her legs felt like rubber and he had to hold on to her hands to steady her as he took her place in the chair and she lowered herself onto him. She wanted to hang on, to draw it, to tease him as he had her, but the games were over between them now. She wanted him, like she'd never wanted anyone so much before in her life. Not even Stirling.

His kiss muffled her cries and she felt herself begin to clench, hard, before she had lowered herself all the way down, all the way home.

Sonja reached up over him and underneath her daypack, which he was using as a pillow. She pulled the Glock out and his eyes widened theatrically.

‘I won't tell anyone, you know. You don't have to kill me.'

‘Hah, hah.' She lay half on and half off him, their bodies slick with sweat. It was hot in the tent, he thought, and hotter still inside her. She slid the magazine into the butt of the pistol.

‘Come back to the States with me,' he said surprising himself almost as much as he surprised her, judging by the look on her face.

‘I won't hold you to that.'

‘I'm serious.' And he realised he was. He wanted this beautiful woman to grow old enough to forget how to handle the tool in her hands.

She shifted herself and relaxed on him again and reversed the pistol, offering it to him butt-first. ‘Take this, Sam.'

He shook his head. ‘I don't want to go there again.'

‘Things can go wrong. Things will go wrong. You're going to need this.'

He looked into her eyes. ‘You said I should leave. We can leave.'

‘
You
should leave.'

‘Usually it's the guy telling the girl to leave before the gunfight.'

‘I'm a new-fashioned girl and I know what I'm doing.'

‘And I don't? Is that it?'

‘Yes. Rickards is crazy, but you aren't. I can get you out. Now. Take the gun. I'll talk to my father – Lord knows he owes me one – and I'll make sure they don't come after you. Besides, this madness will be over before you find your way to a telephone.'

He shook his head. ‘No. I'm staying with this. You're right, it is madness, but it also seems somehow right.'

‘Don't kid yourself, Sam. What we – my father and I – are doing is wrong. He's fighting for a lost cause and I'm here for the money. He's the idiot and I'm the whore – neither of us is right, but we do what we have to do. You have to go and make documentaries.'

He was getting annoyed now. ‘No. Jim's right. Someone needs to be here to report on your father and his men – to explain their cause to the world. Also, someone needs to show that
dam being breached, and explain it was done for the right reasons.'

‘Don't fall for Jim's bullshit, Sam. Journalism isn't about right and wrong and balanced reporting. It's about a three-second clip of a big explosion or some guys firing their guns and running past the camera. We'll be a blip on the hourly satellite news channels until some celebrity gets caught fucking someone else. Oh, sorry …'

‘What?' He suddenly realised she was talking about him. He waved her apology away. He realised now how pointless and frivolous his time in the public eye – his life – had been so far. Who cared about who his ex-girlfriend was sleeping with? He was among people fighting for their freedom, and the future of one of the world's remaining natural treasures. He knew Sonja was trying to sound more detached than she really was. ‘Will you follow me, to the States, if I leave now?'

She laid her head on his chest so she wouldn't have to look him in the eyes. She placed the gun on the bed beside his head. ‘I will.'

‘And you'll bring your daughter?'

‘I will. But she's a pain in the arse.'

He laughed.

‘You'll leave?' she asked.

‘I'll think about it.'

She sighed and he felt her body relax against his, so that even more of her was touching him. He wished they could stay like this forever, and that at least one of them would do as they'd just promised.

There were too many loose ends. Too much unfinished business. Too many ifs.

Sonja punched in the number and waited for the call to be relayed by satellite.

‘Xakanaxa Camp, good day. How can I help?'

‘Tracey, it's Sonja Kurtz.'

‘Oh. Right.'

‘I need to speak to my daughter. Please fetch her.'

There was no pretence of civility between them and Tracey put the phone down on the desk with a thunk. Sonja heard muffled voices – one of which she recognised as Stirling's. Then a high-pitched whine from Tracey, summoning a staff member to fetch Emma.

‘Sonja? Is that you?'

Stirling's voice was hushed, as if he didn't want Tracey to overhear him. Perhaps she'd gone out of the office. ‘Yes.'

‘I don't have much time. I didn't have your number, but I told Emma to tell me the moment you called. I hoped you would.'

‘What is it, Stirling?'

For a moment she feared he was going to apologise, to tell her it had all been a mistake – him and Tracey – and that he wanted her to come and live with him at Xakanaxa. She would feel no remorse about telling him no. It wasn't that she wanted to get back at him, just that things had changed overnight.