Duty and Honor

37

René monitored Effrem’s condition through the night and shortly after dawn proclaimed him fit to travel. To assuage his conscience, Jack tried to convince Effrem to take the Hilux back to Windhoek for medical treatment, but Effrem dismissed the idea even before all the words had left Jack’s mouth.

After stripping the two dead Germans and their Hilux of anything of use, Jack and the others piled back into the Land Cruiser, left the lodge, and made their way back to the Western Bypass.

According to the coordinates in the Hilux’s navigation system, Kavango Dam lay 110 miles to the northeast, but neither Jack’s phone map nor René’s paper map showed any sign of the structure, or of any body of water. Worse still, though the dam lay just thirty miles west of the Western Bypass, the only access road snaked its way through 150 miles of Otjozondjupa Region’s most rugged terrain.

By mid-morning, having traveled as far north as possible on the Western Bypass, Jack turned off the blacktop and headed east on a dirt track that was little more than twin wheel ruts worn into the earth. After four hours they’d covered only eighty miles and the road was worsening as it zigzagged deeper into the hills. By nightfall they were still forty miles from their destination. The road narrowed until the view out Jack’s window was blocked by a sheer rock face.

From the backseat Effrem said, “The other side’s even worse, Jack. About three feet from our tires there’s a drop-off. I can’t even see the bottom.”

René asked Jack, “Push on or stop and set up camp for the night?”

“Push on,” Jack replied. “Möller has a good eight-hour head start on us. For all we know, they’re already at Kavango.”

“Yes, but doing what?” asked René.

“Effrem, check your phone,” Jack said. Since they’d left Khorusepa Lodge, their reception had been wildly sporadic. Any headway Effrem made into researching Kavango Dam was maddeningly short-lived. Despite the pain, he had been working hard to assemble these information snippets into something cohesive.

So far all they knew was that the Kavango Dam had been completed just two months earlier at a half-mile-wide section of the Omatako River. Since then a massive reservoir had been filling behind the dam. Downstream from the dam were nearly twenty villages and farms.

Effrem said, “I’ve got a bit of signal. Let me see what I can do with it.”

After another ninety minutes and ten miles the road widened and began descending. Jack was able to pick up some speed. By midnight they were within eight miles of the dam.

“It turns out Kavango’s a regulator dam,” Effrem said from the darkness of the backseat.

“Which is what?” asked Jack.

“Regulator dams are built upstream from hydroelectric dams. They’re designed to control the volume of water flowing into a hydro.”

“Is there a hydro around here?” asked René.

“Not yet. Evidently Kavango’s a sort of trial balloon for something called the Otjozondjupa Renewal Project. By 2028, the Namibian government wants to be exporting electricity to its neighbors. If Kavango works, they’re planning to build a hydro a mile downstream.”

René said, “What’s that mean, ‘works’? Either it holds back the water or not, yes?”

“No. Apparently, regulator dams require some pretty sophisticated hydraulic control systems. They’re due for a ‘proof of concept’ test in two days.”

Effrem’s words struck a chord in Jack’s brain. “Systems,” he repeated. “As in computer-controlled systems?”

Effrem was silent for a few seconds. “Shit, that’s it.”

“What?” René said. “I don’t understand.”

“Effrem, who installed the Kavango control systems?”

“Uh… a British company called Mondaryn Engineering.”

“Was it an open-bid process?”

“I don’t know for sure. Probably so.”

That was the connection, Jack realized. Rostock had been hired by one of Mondaryn’s competitors to sabotage Kavango’s flow-control systems. Jack explained it to René, who asked, “Effrem, how many people live downstream from Kavango?”

“Hundreds, maybe a thousand.”

Jack steered the Land Cruiser over a rise and stopped. He shut off the headlights.

Below them, running from east to west, was a curved line of pole-mounted sodium-vapor lights. Beneath these Jack could make out the dam’s faded ochre-colored concrete parapet. Rising from its midpoint was a bunkerlike structure that Jack assumed led to the dam’s interior.

Jack got out his binoculars and scanned the length of the parapet. At the far end, barely visible in the shadows, was a trio of black pickup trucks. Jack handed the binoculars to René, who looked and then nodded: “Möller’s Hilux.”

“Yes, that’s them. I don’t see anyone about.”

“You think they’re already inside?” asked Effrem.

“I’d put money on it. Klugmann has to work his voodoo from the control room or else he wouldn’t be in Namibia.”

Jack put the Toyota in neutral, took his foot off the brake, and let gravity carry them down the hillside to the dam’s access road. When they were fifty yards from the parapet he braked to a stop.

René said, “I wish we had more time to plan this, Jack.”

“If wishes were horses we’d have an Apache providing air cover for us. Effrem, get out and come around to my side. You’re driving.”

“What?”

“You’re going to find some high ground and start video recording.”

“What good will that do?”

“Maybe none, but you’re doing it. If René and I don’t come back out, you need to get to Windhoek and contact Mitch. He’s got an e-mail address you’re going to need. Tell the person on the other end the whole story and they’ll take it from there.”

Jack felt a vibration rising through the Land Cruiser’s floorboards.

“What is that?” asked René.

Down the length of the dam, red strobe lights began flashing.

A pair of men emerged from the parapet’s access bunker and began jogging toward the Hiluxes at the far end.

“Time’s up,” Jack said.