And the sturdy truck responded. She shuddered and bounced and tried to drag herself from the waters. The headlights pushed through the surface and blazed out suddenly, lighting the far bank. The flood had cast them up on the shelving mudbank and the truck canted steeply nose-up as her spinning front wheels clawed up the slope.
Ahead of them was a low spot in the riverbank. The Landcruiser slipped and slewed and crabbed up it, the engine roaring, ferociously tearing out small bushes that had survived the flood and ploughing deep ruts in the soft earth, until suddenly her lugged tires gained full purchase and hurled her for-ward up out of the flood. Sheets of water streamed from her bodywork like a surfacing submarine and the big diesel engine bellowed triumphantly as they roared into the mopane forest. I'm alive, Jock whispered. Hallelujah! Daniel turned parallel with the riverbank, weaving the Landcruiser back and forth between the tree-trunks of the standing mopane until they bumped over the verge on to the roadway.
He kicked her out of low ratio and gunned the motor. They sped away towards the Mana Pools turn-off. How many more like that?
Jock asked with trepidation. For the first time since Johnny's death Daniel smiled, but it was a grim little smile.
Only four or five, he answered. A Sunday afternoon stroll.
Nothing to it. He glanced at his watch. Cheng and the refrigerator trucks had almost four hours start on them. They must have got through the fords before the drainage of storm waters off the slope of the escarpment had flooded them. The earth beneath the mopane trees was melted like warm chocolate by the rain.
This black cotton soil was notorious for bogging down vehicles when it was wet. The Landcruiser slithered and laboured and left deep glutinous ruts behind the churning wheels. Here's the next river.
Daniel warned, as the road gradient altered and thick dark riverine bush pressed in close on each side of the narrow track. Get your life-jacket on. I can't stand another one like the last. Jock turned to him, pale-faced in the glow of the instrument panel. I promise ten 'Hail Mary's' and fifty 'Our Father's' . The price is right, it'll be a breeze, Daniel assured him as the headlights lit the ford.
In Africa a flash flood drops almost as abruptly as it rises.
The rain had stopped almost two hours earlier, and the slope of the valley was by now almost drained. There was a high-water mark on the far bank of the river almost six feet above the present surface of the shrunken waters, to show how swiftly they had subsided. This time the Landcruiser made light of the crossing. The waters did not even cover the headlights before she triumphantly climbed the far bank.
The power of prayer, Daniel grunted. Keep it up, Jock. We'll make a believer of you yet. so The next river had fallen even lower, to the level of the tops of the wheels, and Daniel did not bother to change gear ratios as they splashed through. Forty minutes later, Daniel parked the truck at the front door of the warden's bungalow at Mana Pools Camp.
While Jock leaned on the horn button and sounded a long urgent peal, Daniel pounded with both fists on the warden's door.
The warden came stumbling out onto the screened verandah, dressed only in a pair of underpants. Who is it? he called in Shana. What the hell is going on? He was a lean, muscled forty-year-old named Isaac Mtwetwe.
Isaac? It's me, Daniel called.
There's big trouble, man. Get your arse into gear. You've got work to do. Danny? Isaac shaded his eyes against the glare of the Landcruiser's headlights. Is that you, Danny? He flashed his torch into Daniel's face. What is it? What has happened? Daniel answered him in fluent Shana. A big gang of armed poachers has hit Chiwewe camp. They wiped out Johnny Nzou and his family, and the entire camp staff. Good God! Isaac came fully awake. My guess is that they're from the Zambian side, Daniel went on. I reckon they're heading back to cross the Zambezi about twenty miles downstream from here. You've got to get your antipoaching team there to head them off. Swiftly Daniel gave him all the other information he had gleaned, the estimated size of the gang, their weapons, the time that they had left Chiwewe and their probable line and speed of march. Then he asked, Did the refrigerator trucks come through here from Chiwewe on their return to Harare? At about eight o'clock, Isaac confirmed. They just got through before the rivers flooded. There was a civilian with them, a Chinese in a blue Mercedes. One of the trucks was towing him. The Mercedes was no good in the mud. Isaac was dressing as he spoke. What are you going to do, Danny? I know Johnny Nzou was your friend. -If you come with us you might get a shot at these swine. Although they had fought on opposite sides during the bush war, he knew Daniel's reputation.
However, Daniel shook his head.
'I am going on after the trucks, and that Mercedes. I don't understand.
Isaac looked up from lacing his boots and his tone was puzzled.
'I can't explain now, but it's all part of Johnny's murder.
Trust me. Daniel couldn't tell Isaac about the ivory and Ambassador Ning, not until he had proof. Trust me, he repeated, and Isaac nodded.
Okay, Danny, I'll get those murdering swine for you before they get away across the river, he promised. You go ahead.
Do what you have to do. Daniel left Isaac on the Zambezi bank, assembling his strike force of anti-poacher rangers and embarking them into the twenty-foot fast assault craft. There was a big ninety horsepower Yamaha onboard on the stern. Like the rest of them, the boat was a veteran of the bush war.
Daniel drove on westwards into the night, following the track that ran parallel to the Zambezi. Now the tyre tracks of the convoy were even more deeply ploughed into the muddy earth. In the headlights they looked as fresh as if they had been laid only minutes before.
Certainly they had been made since the last downpour of rain. The pattern of the treads was clearly moulded in black cotton clay of the roadway.
Obviously one of the trucks was still towing the Mercedes.
Daniel could pick out the scuff-marks where the tow rope had touched the earth at intervals. The tow would slow them down considerably, Daniel thought with satisfaction. He must be gaining on them rapidly now. He peered ahead eagerly, half expecting to see the red glow of the Metcedes's tail-lights appear out of the darkness, and he reached out to touch the AK 47 rifle propped between the seats.
Jock noticed the gesture and warned him softly, Don't do anything stupid, Danny. You don't have any proof, man. You can't just go, blowing the ambassador's head off on suspicion.
Cool it, man. It seemed that they were further behind the convoy than Daniel had hoped. It was after midnight when they intersected the Great North Road, the metalled highway that crossed the Chirundu bridge over the Zambezi to the north, and to the south climbed the escarpment of the valley on its serpentine route to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
Daniel pulled the Landcruiser into the verge at the road junction.
He jumped out with the Maglite in his hand.
In all probability the convoy would have turned south towards Harare.
They couldn't have hoped to get two huge government trucks loaded with fresh game meat and ivory through both the Zimbabwean and Zambian customs posts, not even with the dispensation of the most princely bribes.
