His headlights cut through the night, but the big klieg lights on the back of a nearby flatbed truck plucked him out of the darkness like he’d been set on fire. Simon slowed and pulled over to the side of the road.
“What’s going on?” That was from one of the clients, packed in the back with the corpses and the elephant tusks. The smell inside the Land Rover had turned ripe. Traveling during the heat of the day hadn’t helped.
“I don’t know.” Simon peered through the bugencrusted windshield as the policeman, flanked by two soldiers carrying assault weapons, closed on the Land Rover.
“I need your papers.” The policeman was middle-aged, carrying a gut and a no-nonsense approach. His gray-flecked beard stood out against his ebony skin. He kept his hand on his holstered pistol.
As he handed the papers over, Simon felt Saundra tense against him. They sat three abreast in the front seat. None of them had enjoyed a comfortable ride.
One of the men with the assault rifles played his flashlight through the windows. The light kept reflecting from the side mirror into Simon’s eyes. It didn’t take the man long to find the tusks. He spoke to the policeman rapidly. The bits and pieces of the dialects Simon had picked up over the last two years weren’t enough.
But he knew what was coming when the policeman freed his sidearm and pointed it in Simon’s face.
“Out of the vehicle.” The policeman signaled the other men to close in.
Simon opened the door and stepped out. One of the men grabbed him and slammed him up against the Land Rover. He felt the muzzle of a gun burrow into the back of his neck. Confusion swept over him. He’d never been stopped outside the city like this before, and papers were seldom checked inside Cape Town except for foreign vendors and merchants.
It was bad enough when they’d found the tusks, but when the soldiers found the bodies, things really got ugly.
“That’s quite a story, Mr. Cross.”
Seated across the long table from a lieutenant in the Cape Town Police Department whose name he hadn’t quite gotten, Simon massaged his bruised wrists. The men who had brought them in for questioning hadn’t been gentle. “I don’t know if I’d believe it myself.”
The lieutenant smiled, but he looked tired and worried. “Luckily, you have the corroboration of several witnesses. And these men you killed were known poachers.”
Simon nodded. He’d been in holding for hours, crowded in with several other stinking, sweating prisoners. He’d kept his clients separated from the riff-raff and out of harm’s way. Then they’d brought him in to be questioned. He hoped his clients were still all right.
“Those witnesses aren’t used to jail,” Simon said.
“I understand. I had them taken from holding shortly after I sent for you. Their statements will be taken, identification confirmed, then they’ll be released. Just as you are.”
Getting released sounded good. Simon wanted a bed in a semi-adequate hotel and a few beers and shots to tuck him in.
“Why was there so much security along the road?” Simon asked.
The lieutenant’s forehead furrowed. “How long were you out in the bush, Mr. Cross?”
“Nine days. We were scheduled out for two weeks.”
“I see. Then you missed all the furor.”
Fear tightened inside Simon again. During the long drive back to Cape Town he’d almost convinced himself that the poachers had taken a small story and blown it out of proportion. No one had talked to him at the police station, and none of the prisoners they’d been jailed with had been overly friendly after Simon had knocked two of them senseless for trying to intimidate his clients.
“What furor?”
“Apparently aliens have landed in London,” the lieutenant said. “The story is all over the news.”
Aliens. “Are you sure they’re aliens?”
The lieutenant looked at Simon curiously. “I haven’t seen them myself, but I’ve seen them on the news channels. I’d call them aliens. What would you call them?”
“I don’t know. But it just sounds…strange.” Simon sat back in the straight wooden chair and wished he were home. He had no doubt that if he told the lieutenant what he suspected, though, he’d be kept for observation and not let out around sane people.
“There’s not much footage of them beasties,” the bartender said.
Simon vaguely remembered that the man’s name was Flynn. He was an Irishman, but he’d come to Cape Town as a mercenary nearly twenty years ago, lost a leg, and fallen in love with an Xhosa woman. They’d started Walter’s, a bar that catered to the locals and tourists, and provided back rooms for mercenaries.
They were watching old footage on CNN on the tri-dee over the bar. According to the anchorman, nothing new had come out of England for the last fourteen hours. All electronic communication in the area had been cut off.
Simon felt the need to get up and move, to be there instead of Cape Town. He’d already called the airport, but no one there knew when flights would be headed into Europe. So far, everyone wanted to stay home.
And that was where Simon wanted to be: home. It surprised him that he felt so strongly. He hadn’t been back in two years, and hadn’t missed it. He’d made more friends and had more freedom in Cape Town than in London.
The bar was a mixture of recycled, mismatched furniture. None of the pieces looked like they fit together, but the place was packed. Servers hustled between the tables and beer was served in bottles and cans.
After leaving the police station, Simon had checked on Saundra’s whereabouts and discovered she was still giving her statement. He’d left a message that he would be at Walter’s.
As soon as he’d hit the street, Simon had heard bits and pieces of the stories of the invasion that had taken place in London. If everything was to be believed, nearly everyone there had been killed and half the city destroyed.
Simon kept his eyes glued to the tri-dee holo broadcast above Flynn’s
