Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (97 page)

Then the next wild swing of the vehicle flung him back, only semi-conscious, into his seat. Daniel reached across him and seized the steering-wheel. He held the truck straight until it came to a halt, half off the highway, with its offside wheels in the drainage ditch.

Daniel switched off the ignition and reached across Gomo to open the driver’s door. He grabbed Gomo’s shoulder and shoved him roughly out of the cab. Gomo fell the six feet to the ground and ended up on his knees. There was a lump the size and colour of a ripe fig in the centre of his forehead where he had hit the windscreen.

Daniel jumped down and stooped to catch hold of the collar of his uniform tunic. “All right.” He twisted the collar like a garotte. “You killed Johnny Nzou and his family.”

Gomo’s face was swelling and turning purple black in the vague light reflected from the truck’s headlamps. “Please, Doctor, I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” His voice was a breathless whine as Daniel choked him.

“You lying bastard, you are as guilty–”

Gomo reached under the hem of his tunic. He wore a skinning knife in a leather sheath on his belt. Daniel heard the snap of the buckle as he released the retaining strap and caught the glint of the blade as it came free of the sheath. Daniel released his collar and jumped back as Gomo slashed upwards.

He was only just quick enough, for the blade caught in a loose fold of his shirt and sliced it like a razor. He felt the sting of it as it nicked his skin and left a shallow graze across his lower ribs.

Gomo came to his feet, holding the knife in a low underhand grip. “I kill you,” he warned, shaking his head to clear it, weaving the glittering blade in the typical knife-fighter’s on-guard stance, aiming the point at Daniel’s belly. “I kill you, you white shit-eater.” He feinted and cut in a sidearm slash and Daniel jumped back as the blade hissed an inch from his stomach.

“Yah!” Gomo chuckled thickly. “Jump, you white baboon. Run, you little white monkey.” He cut again, forcing Daniel to give ground, and then rushed at him in a furious prolonged attack that forced Daniel to scramble and dance to keep clear of the darting blade.

Gomo changed the angle of his thrusts, going lower, trying to cut Daniel’s thighs and cripple him, but always keeping the knife well covered so that Daniel could not grab at his wrist. Moving backwards, Daniel pretended to stumble on the rough footing. He dropped on one knee and put his left hand to the ground to regain his balance.

“Yah”Gomo thought he saw his opportunity and came in to finish it, but Daniel had snatched up a handful of gravel and now he pushed off and used his momentum to hurl the handful into Gomo’s face. It was an old knife-fighter’s trick, but Gomo fell for it. The gravel slashed his eyes, and deflected his thrust. Instinctively he threw up his hands to cover his face, and Daniel seized his knife-hand and wrenched it over.

They were chest to chest now, the knife held above their heads at the full stretch of their arms. Daniel snapped his head forward, butting for Gomo’s face, and caught him with the top of his forehead across the bridge of his nose. Gomo gasped and reeled backwards; and Daniel brought up his right knee into Gomo’s crotch, catching him squarely, crushing his genitals.

This time Gomo screamed and his right arm lost its force.

Daniel swung it down and slammed the knuckles of the clenched knife-hand against the steel side of the truck. The knife spun from Gomo’s nerveless fingers, and Daniel hooked him behind the heels with one foot, and heaved him backwards so that he tripped and went sprawling into the drainage ditch beside the highway.

Before Gomo could recover his balance and rise, Daniel had snatched up the knife and was standing over him. He placed the point of the blade under Gomo’s chin and pricked the soft skin of his throat so that a single droplet of blood welled out on to the silver steel like a bright cabochon ruby.

“Keep still,” he grated, “or I’ll cut your gizzard out, you murdering bastard.” It took a few seconds for him to recover his breath. “All right. Now get up, slowly.”

Gomo came to his feet, clutching his injured genitals. Daniel forced him back against the side of the truck, the knife still pressed to his throat. “You’ve got the ivory in the truck,” he accused. “Let’s have a look at it, my friend.”

“No,” Gomo whispered. “No ivory. I don’t know what you want. You are mad, man.”

“Where are the keys to the hold?” Daniel demanded, and Gomo swivelled his eyes without moving his head.

“In my pocket.”

“Turn around, slowly,” Daniel ordered. “Face the side of the truck.” Gomo obeyed Daniel whipped his arm around his throat in a stranglehold from behind and shoved him forward so that his lumped forehead cracked against the steel hull. Gomo cried out with the pain. “Give me an excuse to do that again,” Daniel whispered in his ear. “The sound of your pig squeals is sweet music.”

He pressed the knife into Gomo’s back at the level of his kidneys, just hard enough to let him feel the point of it through the cloth of his tunic. “Get the keys.” He pricked him a little harder and Gomo reached into his pocket. The keys tinkled as he brought them out.

Still holding him in a strangler’s grip, Daniel frog-marched him to the rear of the truck.

“The lock,” he snapped. Gomo fitted the key and the open mechanism turned easily. “Okay, now get the handcuffs off your belt,” he ordered. The steel manacles were regulation issue for all rangers on anti-poaching duty. “Snap one link over your right wrist,” Daniel told him. “And give me the key.”

The cuffs dangling from his wrist, Gomo passed the key over his shoulder. Daniel slipped it into his pocket, then snapped the second link of the handcuffs over the steel bracing of the hull. Now Gomo was securely chained to the bodywork of the truck and Daniel released his grip on him and turned the locking handle of the rear double doors.

He swung them open. A gust of icy air flowed out of the refrigerated interior and the smell of elephant meat was gamey and rank. The inside of the hold was in darkness, but Daniel jumped up onto the tailgate and groped for the lightswitch. The striplight on the roof flickered and then lit up the refrigerated compartment with a cold blue glow. Hunks of butchered carcass streaked and marbled with white fat hung from the rows of meat-hooks along the roof rails. There were tons of flesh, packed in so closely that Daniel could see only the first rank of carcasses. He dropped on his knees and peered into the narrow space below them. The steel floor was puddled with dripping blood, but that was all.

Daniel felt a sudden swoop of dismay in his guts. He had expected to see piles of tusks packed beneath the hanging carcasses. He scrambled to his feet and pushed his way into the compartment. The cold took his breath away, and the touch of the raw frozen flesh as he brushed against it was loathsome and disgusting, but he wriggled his way deeper into the hold, determined to find where they had concealed the ivory.

He gave up after ten minutes. There was no place where they could have hidden such a bulky cargo. He jumped down to ground level. His clothing was stained from contact with the raw meat. On hands and knees he crawled under the chassis of the truck, searching for a secret compartment.

When he crawled out again, Gomo crowed at him gleefully, “No ivory, truck. I tell you, no ivory. You break government. You beat me. Plenty trouble for you now, white boy.”

“We haven’t finished yet,” Daniel promised him. “We haven’t finished until you sing me a little song, the song about what you and the Chinaman did with the ivory.”

“No ivory,” Gomo repeated, but Daniel grabbed his shoulder and swung him around to face the side of the truck.

With one deft movement he unlocked the link of the cuffs from the bodywork, twisted both Gomo’s wrists up behind his back and locked them there. “Okay, brother,” he muttered grimly. “Let’s go where we have a little light to work in.” He lifted Gomo’s manacled hands up between his shoulderblades and marched him to the front of the truck. He handcuffed him to the front fender between the headlights. Both Gomo’s hands were pinned behind his back. He was helpless. “Johnny Nzou was my friend,” he told Gomo softly. “You raped his wife and his little daughters. You beat his son’s brains out all over the wall. You shot Johnny–”

“No, not me. I know nothing,” Gomo screamed. “I kill nobody. No ivory, no kill.”

Daniel went on quietly, as though Gomo had not interjected. “You must believe me when I tell you that I’m going to enjoy doing this. Every time you squeal, I will think of Johnny Nzou, and I’ll be glad.”

“I know nothing. You mad.”

Daniel slipped the knife-blade under Gomo’s belt and sliced through the leather. His khaki uniform trousers sagged down around his hips. Daniel pulled the waistband open and thrust the blade into his trouser top. “How many wives have you got, Gomo?” he asked. “Four? Five? How many?” He slit through the waistband and Gomo’s trousers slid down around his ankles. “I think your wives want you to tell me about the ivory, Gomo. They want you to tell me about Johnny Nzou and how he died.”

Daniel pulled the elasticised top of Gomo’s underpants down around his knees. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got.” He smiled coldly. “I think your wives are going to be very unhappy, Gomo.” Daniel took the front tails of Gomo’s tunic and ripped them apart so violently that the buttons popped off and flew away into the darkness beyond the headlights. He pulled the separate flaps of the tunic back over Gomo’s shoulders, so that he was naked from the throat to the knees. Gomo’s body hair covered his chest and paunch with tight black balls of wool.

His genitals were massively bunched at the base of his belly, nestled in their own flocculent pelt.

“Sing me a little song about the ivory and Mr. Ning,” Daniel invited, and used the flat of the blade to separate Gomo’s dangling penis from the bunch. Gomo gasped and tried to shrink away from the cold metallic touch, but the radiator grill pressed against his back and he could not move.

“Talk, Gomo, even if it is only to say goodbye to your own matondo.”

“You are mad,” Gomo gasped. “I don’t know what you want.”

“What I want,” said Daniel, “is to cut this off at the root.” The thick tube of flesh was draped over the flat of the blade. It looked like the trunk of a new-born elephant, long and dark, knotted with veins and with a wrinkled and hooded tip. “I want to cut this off and force you to kiss it goodbye, Gomo.”

“I didn’t kill Johnny Nzou.” Gomo’s voice broke. “It wasn’t me.”

“What about his wife and daughters, Gomo? Did you use this big ugly rod of yours on them?”

“No, no! You are mad. I didn’t…”

“Come on, Gomo. All I have to do is turn the knife a little, like this. Daniel rolled his wrist slowly, bringing the razor edge uppermost.

Gomo’s organ was dangling over it, and then the thin skin split. It was just a scratch, but Gomo screamed. “Stop!” he bleated. “I will tell you. Yes, all right, I will tell you everything I know. Stop, please stop!”

“That’s good.” Daniel encouraged him. “Tell me about Chetti Singh…” He introduced the name with assurance. It was a flier, but Gomo accepted.

“Yes,” I tell you about him, “if you don’t cut me. Please don’t cut me.”

“Armstrong.” Another voice startled Daniel. He had not heard the Landcruiser come up. It must have arrived while he was searching the cold compartment of the truck, but now Jock stood in the peripheral shadows of the headlights. “Leave him, Armstrong.” Jock’s voice was rough with determination. “Get away from that man,” he ordered.

“You keep out of this,” Daniel snapped at him, but Jock stepped closer and with a start Daniel saw that he carried the AK rifle. He handled it with surprising competence and authority.

“Leave him alone,” Jock ordered. “You’ve gone too far much too far.”

“The man is a murderer and a criminal,” Daniel protested, but he was forced to step back before the menace of the AK 47.

Jock was pointing it at his belly. “You haven’t any proof. There is no ivory,” Jock told him. “You don’t have anything.”

“He was confessing,” Daniel told him angrily. “If you just keep out of it–”

“You were torturing him,” Jock answered as angrily. “You had a knife to his balls. Of course, he was confessing. He has rights; you can’t abuse those rights. Unchain him now; let him go!”

“You are a bleeding heart,” Daniel turned. “This is an animal–”

“He is a human being,” Jock contradicted. “And I have to stop you abusing him, or else I’m as guilty as you are. I don’t want to spend the next ten years in prison. Turn him loose.”

“He will confess first, or I’ll cut his balls out. Daniel seized a handful of Gomo’s genitals and pulled. The loose skin and flesh stretched like shiny black rubber and Daniel held the knifeblade threateningly over it.

Gomo screamed, and Jock lifted the AK 47 and fired. He aimed a foot over Daniel’s head. The muzzle blast whipped through Daniel’s thick sweatsoaked curls and sent him reeling backwards clutching his ears.

“I warned you, Daniel.” Jock’s expression was grim. “Give me the keys of the handcuffs.”

Daniel was dazed by the blast, and Jock fired again. The bullet ploughed into the gravel between Daniel’s boots. “I mean it, Danny. I swear it. I’ll kill you before I let you suck me any further into this business.”

“You saw Johnny…” Daniel shook his head and held his ears, but the muzzle blast had temporarily stunned him. “I also saw you threaten to emasculate this man. That’s enough. Give me the keys or the next shot is through one of your knee-caps.”

Daniel saw that he meant it and reluctantly tossed him the keys. All right, now stand well back, Jock ordered. He kept the rifle pointed at Daniel’s belly as he unlocked one of the cuffs from Gomo’s wrist, and handed him the key.

“You bloody idiot,” Daniel swore with frustration. “Another minute, and I would have had him. I would have found out who killed Johnny and what happened to the ivory.”

Gomo unlocked his other wrist and swiftly pulled up his trousers and closed his tunic. Now that he was unchained and dressed, Gomo recovered his bravado. “He is talking shit!” His voice was loud and defiant. “I didn’t say nothing. I don’t know about Nzou. He was alive when we left Chiwewe.”