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
