Play dead! he thought, even as he was going down. His lower body was paralysed, but he forced his torso to relax. He hit the floor with the loose unresisting weight of a flour sack and did not move again.
His head was twisted to one side, his chest pressed to the cold cement floor. He lay still. He heard the gunman cross the floor, the rubber soles of the combat boots squeaking softly.
Then his boots entered Johnny's field of vision. They were dusty and worn almost through the uppers. He wore no socks and the stink of his feet was rancid and sour as he stood within inches of Johnny's face.
Johnny heard the metallic snick of the mechanism as the Zambian moved the rate-of-fire selector again, and then felt the cold hard touch of the muzzle against his temple as the man lined up for the coup de grace.
Don't move, Johnny steeled himself.
It was his last despairing hope.
He knew that the slightest movement must trigger the shot. He had to convince the gunman he was dead.
At that moment there was a burst of shouting from outside the room, and then a volley of automatic fire, followed by more shouting. The pressure of the rifle muzzle was lifted from Johnny's temple. The stinking boots turned away and retreated across the floor towards the doorway. Come on! Don't waste time! the scar-faced gunman yelled through the open door. Johnny knew enough of the northern Chinianja dialect to understand. Where are the trucks? We must get the ivory loaded! The Zambian ran out of the office leaving Johnny lying alone on the cement floor.
Johnny knew that he was mortally hit. He could feel the arterial blood squirting out of the wound in his groin and he rolled on his side and swiftly loosened the top of his trousers.
Immediately he smelled his own faeces and knew that the second bullet had ripped open his intestines. He reached down into his crotch and pressed his fingers into the wound in his groin. Blood spurted hotly over his hand.
He found the open artery and pinched off the end of the severe d femoral.
Mavis, and the babies! That was his next thought. What could he do for them? At that moment he heard more firing from up the hill, in the direction of the domestic compound and his own cottage.
It's a gang of them, he realised with despair. They are all over the camp. They are attacking the compound. And then, My babies. Oh, God!
My babies!
He thought about the weapons in the room next door, but he knew he could not get that far. Even if he did, how could he handle a rifle with half his guts shot away and his life-blood spreading in a pool under him?
He heard the trucks. He recognised the beat of the big diesels and knew that they were the refrigerator trucks. He felt a surge of hope.
Gama, he thought. David . . . But it was short-lived. Lying on his side, clinging to his severed artery, he looked across the room and realised that he could see through the open door.
One of the white refrigerator trucks pulled into his view. It reversed up against the door of the ivory godown. As soon as it parked, Gomo jumped out of the cab and began a heated, gesticulating discussion with the scar-faced leader of the gang In his confused and swiftly weakening condition, it took Johnny several seconds to work it out.
Gama, he thought. Gomo is one of them. He set it up.
It should not have come as such a shock. Johnny knew how pervasive was the corruption in the government, in all departments, not only the Parks Administration. He had given evidence before the official commission of enquiry that was investigating the corruption, and had pledged to help stamp it out. He knew Gomo well. He was arrogant and self-seeking.
He was just the type, but Johnny had never expected treachery on this scale.
Suddenly the area around the godown that Johnny could see was teeming with the other members of the gang. Swiftly Scarface organised them into a work-party. One of them shot the lock off the door of the warehouse and the bandits laid aside their weapons and swarmed into the building. There were shouts of greedy joy as they saw the piles of ivory and then they formed a human chain and began passing out the tusks, and loading them into the truck.
Johnny's vision began to fade. Clouds of darkness passed across his eyes and there was a soft singing in his ears.
I'm dying, he thought without emotion. He could feel the numbness spreading from his paralysed legs up through his chest.
He forced the darkness back from his eyes and thought that he must be fantasising, for now Ambassador Ning stood in the late sunlight below the verandah. He still had the binoculars slung over his shoulder and his manner was impossibly cool and urbane. Johnny tried to shout a warning to him, but it came out of his throat in a soft croak that did not carry beyond the room in which he lay.
Then to his astonishment he saw the scar-faced leader of the gang come to where the ambassador stood and salute him, if not respectfully, at least with recognition of his authority.
Ning. Johnny forced himself to believe it. It really is Ning.
I'm not dreaming it.
Then the voices of the two men carried to where he lay.
They were speaking in English. You must hurry your men, Ning Cheng Gong said. They must get the ivory loaded, I want to leave here immediately.
Money, answered Sali . One thousand dollars. . . His English was atrocious. You have been paid. Cheng was indignant. I have paid you your money. More money. More one thousand dollars. Sali grinned at him. More money or I stop. We go, leave you, leave ivory. You are a scoundrel, Cheng snarled. Not understand "scoundrel", but think you also "scoundrel", maybe.
Sali's grin widened. Give money now. I haven't any more money with me, Cheng told him flatly. Then we go! Now! You load ivory yourself.
Wait. Cheng was obviously thinking quickly. I haven't got money.
You take the ivory, as much as you want. Take everything you can carry.
Cheng had realised that the poachers would be able to take only a negligible number of tusks from the hoard. They could not possibly manage more than a single tusk each. Twenty men, twenty tusks, it was a small price.
Soli stared at him while he considered the offer. Clearly he had milked every possible advantage from the situation, so at last he nodded.
Good! We take ivory. He began to turn away.
Ambassador Ning called after him. Wait, Sali ! What about the others?
Did you take care of them? They all dead. The warden and his woman and children? Them too? All dead, Sali repeated. Woman is dead, and her piccanins.
My men make jig-jig with all three women first. Very funny, very nice jig-jig. Then kill . The warden? Where is he? Sali the poacher jerked his head towards the door of Johnny's office. I shoot him boom, boom.
He dead like a ngulubi, dead like a pig. He laughed. Very good job, hey?
He walked away with the rifle over his shoulder, still chuckling, and Cheng followed him out of Johnny's field of vision.
Anger came to arm Johnny and give him just a little more strength.
The poacher's words conjured up a dreadful vision of the fate that had overtaken Mavis and the children. He could see it as clearly as if he had been there; he knew about rape and pillage. He had lived through the bush war.
He used the strength of his anger to begin to wriggle across the floor towards his desk. He knew he could not use a weapon. All he could hope for now in the few minutes of life that remained to him was to leave some sort of message. Papers had spilled off his desk and littered the floor.
If he could just get to a single sheet, and write on it and hide it, the police would find it later.
He moved like a maimed caterpillar, lying on his back, still clutching the severed artery. He drew up his good knee, dug in his heel and pushed himself painfully across the floor, sliding on his back a few inches at a time, his own blood lubricating his passage. He moved six feet towards the desk and reached out for one of the sheets of paper. He saw then that it was a sheet from the wages register.
He had not touched it when the intensity of the light in the room altered. Somebody was standing in the doorway. He turned his head and Ambassador Ning was staring at him. He had come up on to the verandah.
His rubber-soled training shoes made no sound at all. Now he stood petrified with shock in the doorway, and for a moment longer he stared at Johnny.
Then he yelled shrilly, He is still alive. Sali, come quickly, he is still alive. Cheng; disappeared from the doorway and ran down the verandah still shouting for the poacher. Sali, come quickly. It was all over, and Johnny knew it. Only seconds remaining to him. He rolled on his side reached out and snatched up the register sheet. He pressed the sheet flat on the floor with one hand, and then released the severed artery and drew his blooddrenched hand out of the front of his trousers.
Immediately he felt the artery begin to pulse and fresh blood jetted from the wound.
With his forefinger he scrawled on the blank sheet of paper, writing in his own blood. He formed the letter N in a large lopsided character, and dizziness made his senses swirl. and It was more difficult to concentrate. The down stroke of the I was elongated and curved, too much like a J. Painfully he dotted the letter to Make its meaning clearer.
For a moment his finger was glued lightly to the paper with his sticky blood. He pulled it free.
He started on the second N. It was crude and childlike. His finger would not follow the dictates of his mind. He heard the ambassador still calling for Sali, and the poacher's answering shout filled with alarm and consternation. NIN, Johnny began the G but his finger wandered off at an angle and the wet red letters wiggled and swam before his eyes like tadpoles.
He heard running feet come pounding down the verandah and Sali's voice. I thought he was dead. I finish him good now! Johnny crumpled the sheet of paper in his left hand, the hand that was clean of blood, and be thrust his closed fist into the front of his tunic and rolled over onto his belly with his arm trapped under him, concealing the balled note.
He did not see Sali come in at the door. His face was pressed to the concrete floor. He, heard the poacher's boots squeak and slip on the blood, and then the click of the safety-catch on the rifle as he stood over Johnny's prostrate form.
Johnny felt no fear, only a vast sense of sorrow and resignation. He thought about Mavis and the children as he felt the muzzle of the rifle touch the back of his head. He was relieved that he would not be left alone after they were gone. He was glad that he would never see what had happened to them, would never be forced to witness the signs of their agony and degradation.
He was already dying before the bullet from the AK 47 tore through his skull and buried itself in the concrete under his face. Shit, said Sali . He stepped back and shouldered the rifle, a faint feather of gunsmoke still drifting from the muzzle. A hard man to kill. He made me waste mining! bullets, each one ten kwacha. Too much! Ning Cheng Gong advanced into the room. Are you sure that you've finished the job, at last? he asked. His head gone, Sali grunted as he picked up Johnny's keys from the desk and went to ransack the Milner safe. Kufa!
He dead, for sure. Cheng moved closer to the corpse, and stared at it with fascination. The killing had excited him. He was sexually aroused, not as much as if it had been a young girl who had died, but aroused, nevertheless. The smell of blood filled the room. He loved that smell.
He was so absorbed that he did not notice that he was standing in a puddle of blood until Gomo called him from below the verandah.
"All the ivory is loaded. We are ready to go. Cheng stepped back and exclaimed with disgust as he saw the stain on the cuff of his crisply ironed blue cotton slacks. I'm going now, he told Sali . Burn the ivory godown before you leave. In the safe Sali had found the canvas bank bag that contained the month's wages for the camp staff, and he grunted without looking up from the contents. I burn everything for sure. Cheng ran down the verandah steps and climbed into the Mercedes. He signalled to Gomo and the two refrigerator trucks pulled away. The ivory was packed into the holds and then covered with the dismembered carcasses of the culled beasts. A casual inspection would not reveal the hoard, but there was nobody to stop the convoy. They were protected by the badges of the National Parks Board painted on the trucks, and by the khaki uniforms and shoulder flashes of Gomo and David, the two rangers. Not even one of the frequent roadblocks was likely to delay them. The security forces were intent on catching political dissidents, not ivory-runners.
It had all gone as Chetti Singh had planned it. Cheng glanced at the rear-view mirror of the Mercedes. The ivory godown was already ablaze.
The poachers were forming up into a column for the return march.
Each of them carried a large tusk from the hoard.
Cheng smiled to himself. Perhaps Sali's greed would work to his advantage. If the police ever caught up with the gang, the disappearance of the ivory would be neatly explained by both the fire and the loads the poachers were carrying.
At Cheng's insistence they had left forty tusks in the burning godown, to provide traces of charred ivory for the police forensic laboratory. As Chetti Singh might have said, Another dead herring.
This time- Cheng laughed aloud. He was elated. The success of the raid and the thrill of violence and death and blood warmed his belly and filled him with a sense of power. He felt masterful and sexually charged, and suddenly he was aware that he had a hard throbbing erection.
He determined that next time he would do the killing himself.
It was quite natural to believe that there would be a next time, and many more times after that. Death had made Cheng feel immortal.
Johnny. Oh, God. Johnny. Daniel squatted beside him and reached out to touch the side of his throat just below the ear feeling for the pulse of the carotid. It was an instinctive gesture, for the bullet entry wound in the back of Johnny's skull was conclusive.
Johnny's skin was cool and Daniel could not yet bring himself to turn him over and look at the exit wound. He let him lie a little longer and rocked back on his heels, letting his anger flourish to replace the enervating chill of grief. He cherished his rage, as though it were a candle flame on a dark night. It warmed the cold empty place in his soul that Johnny had left.
Daniel stood up at last. He played the torch-beam on the floor ahead of him, and stepped over the pools and smears of Johnny's blood as he went to the armoury.
The remote control for the generator was on the mains panel beside the door. Daniel threw the switch and heard the distant clatter of the diesel engine in the power house down near the main gates to the camp.