I’ve got no idea how long the battery will last on this thing. Stay at your desk, Helen, and I’ll call you as soon as I find someone to tell me where the hell I am.’
‘I’m going nowhere.’
He told her to get a pen and paper, then gave her a quick briefing about the number of men who had kidnapped them, their weaponry and a rough layout of the house where Greeves was still held prisoner.
‘Okay, got all that,’ she said when he paused for breath again. ‘There’s an SAS team in South Africa waiting to move as soon as they get the word. Blast, but I don’t have their numbers. Furey ended up in Mozambique somewhere — and caused a hell of a fuss in the process. By the time you call back after phoning him, I’ll have all the contact details you need. Are you all right, Bernard?’
His feet felt like raw meat and his whole body throbbed in pain, but he was alive and doing something. ‘I’m fine. It’s Robert we have to worry about.’
Tom sat at the tiny dining table in the camp-ground chalet and pored over their simplistic tourist map of Mozambique. He slapped at a mosquito that had landed on his neck.
Sannie saw the stress in Tom’s knotted shoulders. Despite the killer insects, he was shirtless in the evening heat. She set a can of cold Coke down on the table beside him and he opened it without taking his eyes off the map.
‘That was nice of you before,’ he said, sipping the drink.
‘What was?’
‘When you prayed with the old couple.’
‘I’m not overly religious, but my mom takes the kids to church and Sunday school. I go when I’m not working.’
She thought he was probably referring to the way in which she had taken his hand, but there was nothing intimate or sexual in the gesture. It was the way her mother prayed when they ate their meals together as an extended family, though, with her dad and her husband gone, it never really felt as though the circle of hands was fully joined. It had been nice, though, to hold Tom’s hand, if only for a minute. It was as if she was sharing some of his burden, letting some of his pain and angst flow into her. From the look of him she thought he could do with a neck and shoulder massage as well, but she didn’t want to risk touching him. ‘At least we know whose side Carla was on now,’ she said, changing the subject.
In Xai Xai both of their cell phones could get reception and Tom had spoken to the commander of the hostage recovery force, an SAS major, and his superior, Shuttleworth, a short time ago. Although for security reasons they were careful about how they described the rescue force in their telephone conversation, he had told her after he got off the phone that the special forces team was at Hoedspruit in case the terrorists’ location was pinpointed. Shuttleworth had also relayed from Isaac Tshabalala, for both their benefits, that Carla Sykes had boarded a flight to Maputo, Mozambique after leaving Tinga.
‘I know the police here have been alerted, but she was probably a long way from Maputo by the time they got the word. You know, Sannie, it was all a bit hazy for me the other night, but nothing — ’
‘Tom, this isn’t the time or the place. I can accept that Carla probably drugged you, but the fact is that you let her come to your room voluntarily and, whether anything happened or not, there was intent. As I told you after the first time, what you do in your own time doesn’t concern me. The fact that it looks like Carla was working for the terrorists changes nothing.’
He started to say something else, but she knew the look on her face was enough to silence him. It worked on her kids and it used to work on Christo as well. He had laughed about it often enough. Besides, she didn’t want to go over old ground with Tom now. Part of what she said was true — what concerned her was that, drugged or not, he had not resisted Carla. However, she realised that what he did on his own time actually did concern her. Her feelings for him were growing stronger — she couldn’t deny it. She admired his doggedness, and whether it was the tension, the excitement, the adrenaline of the pursuit or just his physical presence, right now she felt more alive by his side than she had since Christo’s death. Her husband would have liked Tom, she decided, and was pleased she could think of the two men without feeling that she was betraying her husband.
Her heart went out to Tom, too, seeing him sitting there, staring at the map as though it would suddenly yield some previously unthought-of solution. As with any police investigation, what they needed was a break — some vital clue to fall into their laps — and there was little use driving endlessly up and down the Mozambican coastline while they waited for it, even though that would give them something to do in the morning.
Sannie rested her chin in the palm of her hand as she sat at the table, looking at Tom. She was angry at herself, but there was nothing she could do to stifle the realisation that she hadn’t only crossed the border with him because she empathised with his living through the worst scenario a protection officer could face. She was also there because she cared about and wanted to be with him.
When Sannie had checked her messages she found she had two missed calls from Isaac Tshabalala. She had taken a call from her boss. Wessels had told her that she was officially reprimanded for ignoring the Skukuza police commander’s orders and she could expect a slap on the wrist from him for crossing the border with a foreigner suspected of drug possession on an unofficial investigation. Unofficially, he wished her luck, told her to come home as soon as she could, and to make sure she kept herself safe. ‘Think of your kids, Sannie. Don’t let that Englishman put you in danger.’
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!’
