Burning Angels

48

Jaeger reached for a ‘havabag’, as they’d nicknamed them in the military – a brown paper bag stuffed full of food. There was a pile of them sitting in a cool box lashed to the HIP’s floor.

When serving in the British military, the best you could hope for from a havabag was a stale ham and cheese sandwich, a warm can of Panda cola, a bag of prawn cocktail crisps and a Kit Kat. The contents never seemed to differ, courtesy of the RAF caterers.

Jaeger peered inside: boiled eggs wrapped in tin foil; still warm to the touch. Pancakes, freshly fried that morning, and laced with maple syrup. Grilled sausages and bacon slapped between slices of buttered toast. A couple of crispy croissants, plus a freezer bag full of freshly sliced fruit: pineapple, watermelon and mango.

In addition, there was a flask of fresh coffee, hot water for making tea, plus chilled sodas. He should have guessed, given the care the Katavi Lodge caterers took of their guests and staff.

He tucked in. Beside him – hangover or no – Narov was likewise getting busy.

Breakfast was done and dusted by the time they hit the first signs of trouble. It was approaching mid-morning, and Konig had already flown a series of survey transects across the Lake Rukwa region, finding nothing.

All of a sudden he was forced to throw the HIP into a series of fierce manoeuvres, the noise from the screaming turbines rebounding off the ground deafeningly as the helo dropped lower and almost kissed the very dirt.

The loadie peered from the doorway and jabbed a thumb towards their rear.

‘Poachers!’ he yelled.

Jaeger thrust his head into the raging slipstream. He was just in time to see a group of stick-like figures being swallowed by the thick dust. He glimpsed the flash of a raised weapon, but even if the gunman did manage to unleash any rounds, they would be too late to find their target.

This was the reason for the ultra-low-level ride: by the time the bad guys had noticed the HIP, it would be long gone.

‘Cameras running?’ Konig came up over the intercom.

‘Running,’ his co-pilot confirmed.

‘For the benefit of our passengers,’ Konig announced, ‘that was a poaching gang. Maybe a dozen strong. Armed with AK47s and what looked like RPGs. More than enough to blast us out of the sky. Oh, and I hope you still have your breakfasts in your stomachs!’

Jaeger was surprised at how tooled up the poachers were. AK47 assault rifles could do the HIP some serious damage. As for a direct hit from an RPG – a rocket-propelled-grenade – that would blast them out of the skies.

‘We’re just plotting their line of march, and it seems they’re returning from a… kill.’ Even via the intercom, the tension in Konig’s voice was palpable. ‘Looked like they were carrying tusks. But you can see our predicament. We’re outnumbered and outgunned, and when they’re armed to the teeth like that, we have little chance of arresting them, or seizing the ivory.

‘We’ll be over the most likely area – a waterhole – in a matter of seconds now,’ he added. ‘So brace yourselves.’

Moments later, the helo decelerated massively as Konig threw it into a screaming turn, circling over what had to be the waterhole. Jaeger peered out of the starboard-side porthole. He found that he was looking down almost directly at the ground. Several dozen feet from the muddy gleam of the water, he spotted two shapeless grey forms.

The elephants possessed little of their poise or magical grace any more. Compared to the magisterial animals that he and Narov had encountered deep within Burning Angels cave, these had been rendered into unmoving bundles of lifeless meat.

‘As you can see, they captured and tethered a baby elephant,’ Konig announced, his voice tight with emotion. ‘They used that to lure the parents in. Both the bull and the mother have been shot and butchered. Tusks gone.

‘I know many of the animals here by name,’ he continued. ‘The big bull looks like Kubwa-Kubwa; that’s Swahili for “Big-Big”. Most elephants don’t live past seventy years of age. Kubwa-Kubwa was eighty-one years old. He was the elder of the herd, and one of the oldest in the reserve.

‘The baby is alive, but it’ll be badly traumatised. If we can get to it and calm it down, it may live. If we’re lucky, the other matriarchs should take it under their wing.’

Konig sounded remarkably calm. But as Jaeger well knew, dealing with such pressure and trauma day after day, took its toll.

‘Okay, now for your surprise,’ Konig announced grimly. ‘You said you wanted to see this… I’m taking you down. A few minutes on the ground to witness the horror close up. The guards will escort you.’

Almost instantly Jaeger felt the HIP start to lose what little altitude it had. As it flared out, the rear end dropping towards a narrow clearing, the loadie hung out of the doorway, checking that the rotor blades and tail were clear of the acacia trees.

There was a jolt as the wheels made contact with the hot African earth, and the loadie gave the thumbs up.

‘We’re good!’ he yelled. ‘De-bus!’

Jaeger and Narov leapt from the doorway. Bent double and heads bowed they scuttled off to one side until they were clear of the rotors, which were whipping up a storm of dirt and blasted vegetation. They went down on one knee, pistol in hand, just in case there were any poachers remaining in the area. The two game guards rushed over to join them. One gave a thumbs up to the cockpit, Konig flashed it back, and an instant later the HIP rose vertically and was gone.

The seconds ticked by.

The juddering beat of the rotors faded.

Shortly the aircraft was no longer audible at all.

Hurriedly the game guards explained that Konig was returning to Katavi to fetch a harness. If they could get the baby elephant darted and put to sleep, they could sling it beneath the HIP and fly it back to the reserve. There, they’d hand-rear the animal for as long as it took to get it over the trauma, at which stage it could be reunited with its herd.

Jaeger could see the sense in this, but he didn’t exactly relish their present situation: surrounded by the carcasses of recently butchered elephants, and armed with only a pair of pistols between them. The game guards seemed calm, but he doubted how skilled they’d be if it all went south.

He rose to his feet and glanced at Narov.

As they made their way toward the scene of unspeakable carnage, he could see the rage burning in her eyes.