Once safely across the river Ingrid felt that they could finally relax. Even if the relentless Molé was somehow still on their trail he would not be able to get across the major, croc-filled waterway unless he paused to build a raft or a boat. Knowing what she did about the assassin it was probably unwise to think that a little water would stop him, but she preferred a false sense of security to none at all. Anyhow she was too exhausted to worry any longer.
“Could we—do you have any food, Josini? My friend and I haven’t had anything to eat in a long time.”
“Food? Sure! I got food—and I give you good price.” Leaving the elephant to navigate on its own he turned in his seat and reached down to open a storage bin built into the upper jaw. As Ingrid’s eyes grew wider with each successive withdrawal he extracted apples, bananas, mangoes, self-chilling bottled drinks, and strips of what appeared to be antique wall siding.
“Biltong,” he explained to a curious Whispr. “My Aunt Sophie make it herself.”
Handed a strip of the brown material, Ingrid eyed it dubiously. “What’s it made from?”
“Whatever’s handy and dead,” Umfolozi explained with a smile. “You are holding some eland. That the best, I think. Mr. Whispr, you have some duiker and some giraffe.”
Ingrid swallowed. “You eat giraffe?”
Their host looked at her in surprise. “Meat is meat. Especially when it has been turned into biltong, py damn. Try it.”
Whispr bit down tentatively on his strip of duiker, strained his jaw muscles mightily, then removed the curled brown strip of desiccated protein and examined it thoughtfully. Very little seemed to have vanished.
“Where’s the laser you use to cut it with?”
Umfolozi nodded encouragingly. “Just keep chewing. Eventually it come apart in your mouth. Then you can swallow. Or else you pass out from the effort. Either way, your hunger go away.”
As they lumbered northward they were able to view their surroundings through pinhole pickups concealed in the pores of their transport’s synthetic skin. They strode unchallenged through herds of giant camels and other extinct ungulates. The matriarch of a group of mastodons made a couple of fake-charges in their direction but her heart clearly wasn’t in it. Quickly perceiving that the strange-smelling modern visitor posed no threat to her juniors or their offspring she allowed the intruder to pass in peace.
“Modern elephants mix comfortably with their resurrected relatives.” Now that they were nearing the northern boundary of the Preserve Umfolozi had eased back in the driver’s seat. “Not so with many other species. Lions and Smilodons will fight over territory.”
“What about the giant sloths?” Ingrid was eyeing a herd of waist-high ancestral horses as they galloped across the vehicle’s path like so many painted toys escaped from a girl’s playroom.
“Nothing big enough to challenge them,” their host explained. “Even elephants give way.” He sighed. “I dream that one day they put some Indricotherium here even though would be hard for me to smuggle out anything bigger than the teeth.”
They exited Sanbona through a restricted-use supply gate whose electronic seals Umfolozi had hacked. As they continued to move northward Ingrid could not help but wonder how far they were from the N1 highway. Wouldn’t the sight of an elephant outside the Preserve’s boundaries draw notice? North of the Little Karoo lay the Swartruggens, which according to the map she remembered was even more empty than the protected region they had just traversed. Once there they ought to be safe from unwanted attention. But surely a pachyderm spotting on the country’s main highway would be cause for an excited exchange of communication on the part of passing drivers. She said as much to their elderly driver.
“Of course it would, but we not going to cross highway in this. You see very soon.”
The big cross-country truck was parked on the dirt pull-out with its back door down. As they drew near Ingrid was able to see via one of the elephant’s internal screens a single well-built young man waiting by the gaping opening. His unnaturally thick legs and arms marked him as a hardworking Meld. Operating a remote he deployed a sturdy loading ramp. Without hesitation Umfolozi drove his camouflaged poaching machine up the waiting platform, into the belly of the truck, and parked the elephant. As they descended the belly stairs and walked outside Ingrid and Whispr gratefully inhaled the fresh, uncontaminated air. Halting before the young man their host introduced them to his nephew Vusi.
“This is a family business.” The nephew chatted amiably as they made their way toward the front of the truck. “Everyone helps out and everyone shares in the profit.”
“And you run the business.” Whispr was always interested in such matters.
“No,” Umfolozi corrected him. “I run the family.” He smiled at the thinner of his guests.
After the cramped, smelly quarters inside the elephant, the truck’s modern climate-controlled cab was a veritable mansion. Boasting vit projector, two inflatable beds, opposite-facing massage chairs up front, and much more, it was a veritable traveling apartment. The tinted windows allowed driver and passengers to see out while being screened from the view of passing travelers.
“Vusi makes the triangle run on a regular basis between Cape Town, Durban, and Joburg.” Umfolozi enlightened his guests as he waited for the truck’s automated food server to mix his favored libation. “Sometimes he go to Maputo, sometimes as far as Nairobi.”
“One time I took a cargo all the way to Jeddah.” The nephew spoke as he guided the nearly silent big rig down what looked like nothing more substantial than a goat track. “Stopped on a pull-out halfway across the Fagal-Mayyun bridge to watch the boats.”
With some real food in her stomach and a growing conviction that their nightmarish pursuer was now far behind them, Ingrid’s mind had begun to ponder other matters again. Open country trekking in the elephant had alternated between uncomfortable and dangerous. In complete contrast the cross-continent truck was modern, clean, comfortable, and designed for long-range travel. And hadn’t Umfolozi said that it was part of a family business?
Still, the day was nearly done before she felt sure enough of herself to broach the idea.
“We’d like to hire this truck and its most congenial young driver. If they’re available, that is.”
Reaffirming Umfolozi’s claim to be head of the family business, the younger man looked wordlessly at his senior relative. After a moment’s consideration the old poacher gestured his acquiescence.
“Uncle says it’s okay, so sure, I can take you. But wherever you’re going you’d probably get there faster in a normal rental from the Cape.”
Whispr stepped in to explain. “We already rented a vehicle at the Cape—and crashed it. I’ll bet all the rental companies in this part of the world are just like they are back home: linked together to share information. It would look more than suspicious if we tried to rent another vehicle without returning the first one—it would set off alarms throughout the industry. Also, as we told your uncle, there are some unpleasant people looking for us. If we don’t rent transportation they can’t track us through nonexistent records. And the last sort of transport they’ll expect us to be traveling around in is a big rig like this one.”
“Just give us a price,” Ingrid coaxed the younger man. “I can pay you through indirect electronic satellite transfer.”
Four handshakes sealed the arrangement.
The high and wide front window offered an uninterrupted view forward as they pulled into a small village late that afternoon. Neat, compact houses lined the unpaved main street. It was a tranquil, rural scene. A few oldsters sat chatting on screened-in porches while a younger couple crossed the thoroughfare hand-in-hand. There were no children in view. Most likely they were in their homes, Ingrid suspected, attending to school lessons transmitted via private boxes.
Vusi ran a finger across one greasy control screen and the truck turned sharply to the left. As it slowed to a stop outside an oversized prefab barn, several men a
nd women appeared as if out of nowhere. All of them waved excitedly at the cab while moving quickly to the big rig’s stern.
As they unloaded the elephant and carried the product of Umfolozi’s poaching into the barn, the truck’s driver swiveled his seat to face his uncle’s guests.
“Now then my new friends: we still need to discuss where is it you wish to go? If not back to Cape Town, then maybe to Joburg? Or perhaps farther north? Gaborone? Harare?”
“North, yes, but much more to the west,” Ingrid explained. “A little place in the Namib, called Nerens.”
How Umfolozi had kept a personal weapon concealed for so long and so invisibly on his aged person not even Whispr could explain, but it loomed very large as the old man now pointed it straight at the center of his guest’s startled face.
The nephew’s own handgun made its appearance seconds after that of his uncle. With a barrel the size of a drink container it was much more impressive than that of the older man, though a startled Ingrid had no doubt that in their respective fashion each could accomplish the same lethal end. Expecting Whispr to respond, she was more than a little flummoxed when instead of objecting to the disquieting appearance of all the hardware her street-wise companion shrank back against his seat and said nothing. The look in old Umfolozi’s eyes indicated that one of them had better say something, and fast, or the offer to hire his nephew’s truck would be rendered swiftly and violently moot.
“You are with SICK!” The old man’s voice was heavy with accusation. “You are here undercover to take down my family and our livelihood!”
“What? We’re nothing of the …” Ingrid choked, regained her voice, and started over, struggling to maintain her emotional balance.
“Be reasonable, Josini! I don’t know what I said to set you off, but if I’d known that it might have provoked this kind of reaction then I wouldn’t have said it, now would I?”
Their abruptly less than hospitable host hesitated. The muzzle of his pistol wavered. Ingrid’s gaze flicked to her left. She was more worried about the nephew. It was a medical fact that rational action in the human male is inversely proportional to his age. Plainly unsettled, Vusi’s attention kept switching between his uncle and the two passengers.
After a moment that had begun to stretch into eternity, the old man relented. The pistol disappeared into his vest and his smile returned. It was as if the frightening confrontation had been a fleeting bad dream, like a sharp pain shooting through the skull that for a few seconds causes everything to go black.
“Uxolo—I am sorry, my friends.” His tone had gentled, but the gaze he focused like a laser on Ingrid had not. She supposed she should have been flattered. In a country still fraught with custom, challenges and queries would traditionally have been directed at her male companion and not at her. In defiance of convention Umfolozi was enlightened enough to address his queries to the more intelligent of his guests. He glanced over at his nephew.
“Vusi! What’s the matter with you? Put that gun away.”
“Yebo, Uncle, but you …”
“Put it away.” The old man indicated the ebb and flow of the excited human tide that was lapping at the sides of the big truck. “Go and help your brothers and sisters and cousins with the goods. I will be out in a moment.”
The younger man eyed the two visitors uncertainly. “Are you sure you will be all right, uncle?”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Turning away from his nephew, he smiled anew at Ingrid. “I make a little mistake, that’s all. Weeks alone in the Karoo will do that to a man. Especially if he is living all the time in the belly of an elephant, py damn! Everybody make mistakes, yebo?”
“Sure. Sure.” Still wary, Whispr peeled himself off the back of the transporter cab. “I’ve made plenty.”
“I still don’t understand.” Ingrid’s confusion was genuine as she watched Vusi exit the truck. With the door open and the integrity of the vehicle’s advanced soundproofing violated, the carnival laughs of women and children filled the cab. “What did I say to set you off? What’s wrong with wanting to go into the Namib?”
Having shoved a gun in her face only moments earlier, their host was now all smiles and chuckles as the door closed behind his nephew. “You said you wanted to go to Nerens, in the Namib. First of all that is little bit of a redundant request. The Namib is already nowhere. Oh, I forget—no Afrikaans in Namerica. ‘Nerens’ is old Afrikaans word meaning ‘nowhere.’ So what you asking Vusi is to take you to Nowhere in the nowhere.”
“Okay.” Whispr nodded his understanding. “I can see why the request would produce some giggles at our expense. What I don’t see is why it would bring forth guns.”
Umfolozi’s laughter faded away. As quickly as a classical Greek tragedian swapping masks he turned deadly serious. “Nerens is a SICK company town. Nobody but vetted employees allowed near it, much less inside. Not many people even known there is anything there.”
Having survived multiple encounters on the street by learning instinctively that the best defense is a good offense (except for the offenses that get you killed), Whispr asked challengingly, “Then how come you know about it?”
Their elderly host took no offense at his guest’s insinuating tone. “Is part of my business to know about places others do not know about. I have never been there myself, but I have heard stories about it. I trade in many things, including information.”
Ingrid quickly forgot all about the guns that had been waved in her face, about the grueling past few days, even about the shocking and near-fatal appearance of Napun Molé in South Africa. The sangoma Thembekile’s information notwithstanding, this was the first confirmation that the destination they sought actually existed. That it was a real place and not just a few buildings on a satellite map.
“What kinds of stories have you heard about it? Tell us, Josini! Don’t omit even the smallest, seemingly most insignificant detail.”
“That will not be a problem, pretty lady, because I have no details. Nerens is not the sort of place that readily relinquishes details about self. What I do know is very inconsequential and very general.” Seeing that she would not be denied, he proceeded to relieve himself of what little information had come his way.
“All I really do know, if story can be believed, is that Nerens is a research facility for SICK. Very important place.”
Whispr sniffed derisively. “We already knew that.”
“Then, smart fella, you probably also know that it is more than a hundred kilometers from anywhere, the nearest anywhere being the little town of Orangemund near mouth of Orange River. In olden days was a crossing point between two countries, Namibia and South Africa, that all now part of SAEC. Is still crossing point—into Sperrgebeit.”
Ingrid was nodding eagerly. “The restricted diamond area.”
Umfolozi’s tone grew more solemn than ever. “ ‘Restricted’ is exceedingly polite word. Except for the small park section, Sperrgebeit is like separate country, separate even from rest of SAEC. Has own internal administration, police, customs, everything. You found there without authorization, company security can shoot you for trespassing. No questions. Maybe in twenty years you family’s lawyer wins case for unjustified homocide. Does you lot of good, py damn.” His gaze narrowed as he shifted his attention to his slender male passenger. “You two maybe hoping to look for illegal diamonds? Many talk the talk. Those who walk the walk end up dead the dead.”
“No.” Whispr spared a glance for his companion. “You won’t believe this—I don’t always believe it myself—but we’re trying to find an explanation for an inexplicable phenem—phenomenon.” He fought hard to maintain a serious mien. “It is, um, a matter of scientific curiosity.”
Umfolozi drew back, his expression one of exaggerated surprise. “Oh, so? You scientists?” He turned to Ingrid. “You maybe I can imagine as scientist. This one”—and he gestured dismissively at Whispr—“I see maybe as subject of experiment, but not as experimenter.”
The slen
der subject of the slur did not react. Being persistently underestimated by others had been a key to his survival since childhood. The more people who thought him stupid, the better his chances of surprising them when he revealed that he was not.
“Whispr’s telling the truth.” Ingrid shifted her position on the transporter seat. “Our journey is all about science.”
Leaning back in his swiveling seat Umfolozi stroked the white bristle that sprouted from his chin. “But not straight authorized academically all right-and-proper legal science, I think. If that were so I think maybe you would indulge your curiosity through proper channels and journals. Not by risking your life on the ground in places like Sanbona or the Namib. Because if you try to go to Nerens that for sure what you will be doing.”
“Look, can your nephew take us there?” With an encompassing gesture the increasingly impatient Whispr took in their immediate surroundings. “We could fill the truck with some kind of cargo. That’d make a great cover for why we’re in the area, and he could sell it later and pocket the subsist.”
“Is a good idea,” Umfolozi seemed to agree, “except is not possible. Are no roads to Nerens. Is only one ancient stinking-bad dirt track running north–south in all of the Sperrgebeit, from Orangemund to Lüderitz, and needless to say but I say it anyway it does not go through Nerens. Even this terrible road that doesn’t go where you want to go is closed and guarded. No gypsy cargo truckers allowed. No tourists. No scientists. No nobody.”
“How does the research station get its supplies?” Ingrid’s mind was working furiously. There had to be a way in. “Maybe we could slip inside the same way?”
Their host frowned. “I imagine a lot of supplies, including personnel, come and go via heavy-lift floaters. Really big stuff probably uses private dock at Chamais Bay.” His tone had turned sympathetic. “Listen to me, pretty big-brain and other nice parts lady. You try to drive in, they blow your car off the road. You try to fly in, they blow your aircraft out of the sky. You try to sneak in with boat, sensitized radar and other detectors pick you up and you find youself swimming with the white pointers. Maybe you can fake youselves. They still find and kill you ass.” He gave this unpromising assessment time to sink in before sitting up straight and concluding importantly.