Page 63 of Murder Island

CHAPTER 75

LIAL SCANNED THE surface of the lake, checked the direction of the ripples, and banked the floatplane for an upwind landing. She leveled off at three hundred feet and then throttled down slowly, slowly—until she felt the jolt of the pontoons on the water. Not as smooth as the minister’s landing, she thought to herself, but good enough.

She maneuvered the plane to the edge of the lake, where dark jungle foliage met the water, and cut the engine. She unstrapped herself from her seat, then grabbed her knapsack and slung it over her shoulder. She opened the door and started tugging the limp Joseph Kabera out of the rear of the compartment, legs first. She dragged him onto the left pontoon and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Not that it would have mattered. She pulled a folding knife from her bag and stabbed Kabera hard through both lungs and his gut and rolled him into the water. His wounds bubbled ashe started to sink slowly into the murk. The crocs would arrive soon enough. They would leave no trace.

Lial tossed her knapsack into the undergrowth on shore, then lowered herself off the pontoon into the warm, shoulder-deep water. Bracing her feet against a sunken log, she pushed hard on the right pontoon until the plane started to move out into the current. She watched it spin slowly on the water and drift off. By morning, it would be miles away.

Lial waded to shore, grabbed a thick vine, and pulled herself up onto the bank. It was covered with coarse wet grass and leathery fronds. A few yards in, she found a small, mossy clearing. She stripped off her wet party clothes, right down to the skin. She reached into her bag and grabbed a T-shirt, sports bra, underwear, and jeans. She slipped them on, then pulled out a pair of athletic shoes and a loaded Glock. She pulled her long dark hair into a ponytail and secured it with an elastic. She grabbed a cluster of wet leaves and scrubbed off what was left of her makeup. Then she checked the safety on her gun and stuck it under her rear waistband, feeling the cool metal against her back.

Deep breath. In and out. That’s better.

She was starting to feel like herself again.

CHAPTER 76

I WAS PAST the Mitumba Mountains, bouncing across the savanna. It was getting to be dusk. I knew I was in dangerous territory, for too many reasons to count. But I’d come this far, and I wasn’t about to slow down now. I’d drive all night if I had to. From what I’d learned from my friends at the bar, the Shaba legend had started in the Kolwezi region, a few hundred miles to the southwest. That was my destination.

I knew that even if I was headed in the right direction, finding one woman in the African wilderness would be nearly impossible. I just hoped that the reports would get more detailed the closer I got. That might increase my odds. All that really mattered right now was to find out if the demon they called Shaba was really Kira—and if she was still alive.

The savanna was flat and covered with hip-high grass. Here and there the landscape was broken bybushy-topped trees with skinny trunks. Over the past few hours, I’d seen herds of giraffes, antelopes, and zebras. I knew for sure there were lions and hyenas lurking out of sight. As long as I kept moving, I trusted that the engine noise would keep them at a safe distance.

I had my sack with the cutlass and what was left of my nest egg in the footwell of the truck. The Mauser was clipped into a gun mount on the dashboard. The extra ammo was rattling in the glove compartment. I had about twelve gallons left in my fuel tank and a twenty-gallon reserve strapped to the rear fender, along with a ten-gallon container of water.

I was moving along an old hunting trail—basically two deep ruts with grass in the middle. There were long stretches where I could chug along at forty miles an hour. Other spots were so sketchy that I could barely crawl. I was in one of those spots now.

The trail was so pitted and rough that the truck was rocking back and forth. The transmission was complaining. I’d been in low gear for the past five minutes.

All of a sudden, I heard weird screeching ahead. I looked to my right and saw a pack of vultures peeking above the grass about fifteen yards off the trail. I don’t know what made me stop. Maybe it was my old scientific curiosity—the research professor in me coming out. I kept the engine running, set the brake, and grabbed my rifle from the mount. As soon as I stopped moving, the smell hit me. Thick, musky, putrid.

The birds looked up as I walked toward them, but they didn’t budge. They had purple-pink jowls and massive black bills. One of them reared up and stretched out its full wingspan—about eight feet from tip to tip. Trying to intimidate me.

When I pushed through the final stand of grass, I gagged, then almost vomited. The vultures were standing on top of an elephant carcass. It was a large female, a recent kill. There was a hole from a large-caliber bullet in her forehead, with dried blood caked below. Both tusks had been sawn off close to the jaw. Her trunk lay like a huge gray worm on the ground. The grass near the carcass was pressed down and roughed up. I could see boot prints in the dirt underneath.

The screeching of the birds got louder as I got closer.

Then I heard something else.

Human voices.

They were coming from my truck.

CHAPTER 77

I CHECKED MY rifle and made sure there was a round in the chamber. I crouched low and crept as quietly as I could back toward the Land Rover.

When I was ten feet away, I pulled up short. Two scrawny Black teenagers were standing on the far side of the vehicle. They had machetes stuck through their belts and automatic rifles by their sides. One had two lengths of ivory over his shoulders. The other guy was holding my cutlass.

I stepped out of the grass with my gun up. I thought my guests would turn and run, but they didn’t. The guy with the ivory held out one of the tusks. “Trade!” he called out.

I shook my head. “No trade.” I said it three times. But I wasn’t getting through. The guy with the ivory held one of the tusks at its thickest point and tossed over the truck toward me, making his offer. The tusk spun in the air andlanded in the grass at my feet. It was about five feet long, bloody on the thick end and pointed at the tip.

The other guy was busy rummaging through my bag. He pulled out a wad of bills and held it up. His eyes widened. His buddy dropped the second piece of ivory. The two of them started pulling on the bag, bickering in Swahili. I only knew a few words, and they were talking too fast for me to catch the drift.

I was out of patience anyway.

I cocked the gun. At the sound of the bolt, they both shut up. I waved the barrel back and forth between them. I didn’t want to shoot anybody in cold blood, but I didn’t come all this way to be robbed by two skinny poachers.

“Nenda!”I shouted. “Go!”