The Delta (56 page)

‘Shit. We're sunk,' Sydney said.

The soldier smiled. ‘No. We are floating!'

Sonja fought the steering wheel continually to keep the truck more or less straight on the road. The second of her two right rear tyres was gone and the truck sagged and groaned as the bare rims scraped and sliced twin furrows into the dirt surface. As long as she was still moving she would be OK.

The gunfire behind her had faded to a desultory
pop-pop
now
and then and she knew she was out of effective range of whoever was shooting at her. She was only a few hundred metres short of the dam and the wall stretched away in front of her like a puckered white scar on the dark skin of the land.

Sonja blinked and held her left hand up as bright white light filled the cab of the truck. She swerved and then wrenched the steering wheel to the right to stop herself slewing off the road. Her vision was dazzled and she screwed her eyes tight for a couple of seconds as she felt the beam find her once again.

Pah-chunk, pah-chunk, pah-chunk, pah-chunk
…

She opened her eyes to the deep, rapid-fire sound and a green comet of tracer raced towards her from the left and then flashed past her windscreen. Another chased it.

‘Shit!'

Her brain tried to work out what was happening. The gunfire seemed to be erupting from the black nothingness of the Okavango River. The road surface was suddenly smoother underneath her three remaining sets of wheels as she finally hit the surfaced top of the dam wall, leaving the dirt access road behind.

Pah-chunk, pah-chunk, pah-chunk, pah-chunk
…

The lorry rocked on its springs as the first three of the rounds found their mark and punched holes through the rear of the cab, not far behind her back. Sonja swerved, though she was side-on to the weapon, so the evasive manoeuvre achieved little. The gunner was leading her, firing slightly ahead now so that his projectiles would intersect with the cab as she moved forward. She didn't know if a stray shot through the tank would ignite the store of granular explosives. It seemed the gunner was trying to kill her rather than set off a huge bomb on top of the dam. The safety wall on the water side of the dam wasn't finished yet and small cement blocks, each no more than a metre high, were laid like the crenulations on a medieval castle in order to stop
drivers going over the edge. Two of them were blasted away as she neared them.

Sonja had already identified the BTR 60's main armament as part of her reconnaissance for Steele. She hadn't expected at the time she'd first spotted the armoured car that it would one day be firing at her – or that her boss and former lover would betray her so comprehensively. A hit by just one of the 14.5-millimetre heavy machine-gun rounds would tear her apart. The gun was designed to shoot down an aircraft, so it would shred her in a puff of red mist.

The searchlight mounted on the top of the armoured car was shining on her again and the beam bobbed up and down. Likewise, the next salvo of fat slugs from the armoured car's gun zinged overhead. ‘It's on the water,' she said out loud as her brain assembled the pieces of the puzzle. The commander of the BTR 60 must have taken his amphibious vehicle into the water upstream to draw a bead on her a quickly as possible. Smart and gutsy. The gunner fired again.

The truck shuddered again as a round tore through the engine bay and she ducked behind the dashboard as the bonnet popped open and slammed against the windscreen before falling away. The next bullet entered the cab via the passenger side window and exited near the front door pillar above her right arm. If she hadn't ducked it would have torn her head and torso from her body. Sonja screamed as two more rounds shredded her seat back and the passenger side upholstery. A storm of foam stuffing swirled around her.

The steering wheel bucked hard in her hand and she felt the left front side sag. Metal screeched on tarmac as she realised the tyre had disintegrated. Sparks flew from the steel rim. She was driving on only two points of rubber now and the truck was just about uncontrollable.

Sonja was a third of the way across the dam now. She looked
to her left and spotted the BTR 60 when the night sky was lit up with an incandescent bloom. A flare slowly floated to earth under its parachute and picked out the armoured car's silver wake across the otherwise dark waters of the man-made lake. Mortars, she thought, firing illumination. High explosive would follow soon and if one of those hit the truck she would be vaporised.

The gunner on the armoured car kept the beat on his machine-gun, blasting chunks of concrete and more barriers from the wall. Masonry bounced off the holed panels of the truck, and smoke and dust filled the cab through the gap where the windscreen had been. Far off, she detected the feint
crump
,
crump
,
crump
of more mortar rounds leaving their tubes. Something fell off the vehicle with a loud clunk.

Steam sprayed from the truck's radiator and was blown back into the cab, stinging Sonja's face and arms. The truck was disintegrating around her. A geyser of water erupted ahead and to the left of her as a ranging high explosive mortar round detonated. The next mortar round exploded on the dam wall fifty metres ahead of her. The crews would know their bombs weren't strong enough to damage the dam wall, but a direct hit from one would be the end of her and the mobile IED. The Namibian commanders had obviously decided it would be safe to destroy her and the truck. If the Nitropril went off on the dam wall the force of the explosives would be directed up and out into the atmosphere. There might be a crater on top of the dam wall, but the structure would survive.

Sonja's father had helped her swap the barometric device on the high explosive charges for a radio-controlled command-detonated device, quickly fashioned by a Caprivian rebel who had once made a living in Katima Mulilo repairing mobile phones. Her plan was to drive the truck into the river and swim
clear, then detonate the charges once she had swum to land on the far side of the river. She couldn't be sure the explosives would detonate at exactly the right spot, but nor did she want to become a martyr. She loved the Okavango Delta, but not enough to die for it. Using her right hand she reached around for her seat belt, brought the strap across her body and clicked it home. A mortar bomb exploded in front of her and she swung the steering wheel to the left. Shrapnel peppered the dying lorry as Sonja launched the vehicle off the dam wall.

Sam saw the green tracer arcing through the blackness, then raised a hand to his eyes as night turned momentarily to day.

‘Illumination round,' Sam heard the pilot say into his headphones. ‘Someone's deep in the
kak
down there.'

Hans Kurtz had outlined Sonja's plan to him, which involved her quietly rolling the hijacked truck full of explosives into the waters of the lake forming behind the dam wall.

‘It's like bloody Baghdad down there,' the pilot said as he banked the helicopter to get a better view.

Sam saw two explosions, one in the water and one on the dam wall as a mortar bomb landed in front of a swerving truck. Sparks were trailing from the vehicle which looked like it was running on bare metal rims rather than tyres.

‘Holy shit! It's going off the edge.'

Sam watched as the lorry turned to the left and hurtled off the dam wall, nosediving into the water.

Sonja braced herself with her hands on the steering wheel but the force of the truck hitting water and the seat belt cutting into her chest took the breath from her lungs. She sucked and wheezed, trying to drag in some air as she fumbled for the belt release button. Water was rushing in through the shattered
windscreen and the film-coated remnants of glass crumbled like paper and wrapped around her. She brushed the glass blanket away from her and managed a ragged, painful breath as she freed herself from her seat.

With water rushing over her lap Sonja climbed out through the hole where the windscreen had been. She could see the silver moon, but it was eclipsed for a second by something flying by. The helicopter, she realised. Perhaps she might make it out alive after all. The gun on top of the BTR 60 commenced firing again. Splashes in the water around her and the ping of lead on steel told her she had no reason to be optimistic. Sonja took a deep breath and duck dived. As she swam away from the truck underwater she heard more heavy rounds slamming into the ruined cab.

Above her Sonja could hear the zip of bullets entering the water where she had last been. Her whole body shook and then felt like someone had squeezed her in a giant fist as a mortar bomb exploded somewhere nearby. She forced herself to keep swimming, even as the first signs of dizziness flashed a warning in her brain. She knew she had to get as far away as possible from the sunken vehicle and then get out of the water before she detonated the explosives. If she did it while she was still in the water there was no way she would survive. If the shockwave didn't kill her she'd be drowned as the water rushed through the breach – assuming the bomb worked.

When she couldn't take any more she forced herself to do a few more strokes and angled up towards the surface of the water. When she broke free she drew in huge rasping breaths of air, ignoring the residual pain from the seat belt. She looked around to get her bearings. The mortar had stopped firing high explosive, but another flare burst high above her. She heard the churn of the amphibious armoured car's engine and saw it, just
as the searchlight mounted on top of the BTR 60 found her. Its gun opened up an instant later and bullets smacked into the water around her. She drew a final breath and dived deep.

It would head towards her, she thought, and the crew would expect her to swim towards the shore or the dam wall.

‘Go lower! Get down there,' Sam shouted into the microphone attached to his headset.

The pilot shook his head. ‘No way. You see those glowing green blobs? That's tracer and I'm not flying into it. My orders were to stand off and wait for a signal from whoever's left alive down there. Every other bloody order I got has been changed tonight, but this is one I'm sticking to.'

‘Goddamn it,' Sam said, and banged his fist down on the top of the pilot's seat. He felt helpless, watching the floating armoured vehicle rake the water with machine-gun fire. So far the troops on the ground and the water hadn't noticed the helicopter, which was flying without its navigation lights turned on. ‘Look! There, in the water. That searchlight just found someone.'

‘Still no dice,' the pilot said as he banked away from the river to circle out over the bush of the Bwabwata National Park. ‘Even if you did spot someone down there in the water we'd be blown out of the sky – or they'd be killed – before we even got close enough to lower a cable.'

‘Take me down,' Sam said.

‘No way.'

‘The soldiers down there won't open fire on you. You're a civilian helicopter. They'll think you're a medivac.'

‘Wanna bet?'

‘Christ, that's Kurtz's daughter, Sonja, down there. Do you want to be the one to tell him you let her die?'

The pilot glanced back and Sam could see the concern on his face. He guessed the man felt bad about leaving someone stranded down there, no matter how tough his talk about following orders.

‘Come in behind the armoured car,' Sam said. ‘Low and fast. Drop me off in the water and you'll be gone before they even draw a bead on you. You'll take their attention off the woman.'

‘You're fucking crazy, man.'

‘Sonja might be injured. If we do nothing they'll find her and kill her. Just do it.'

‘This is madness,' the pilot muttered to himself. ‘Get ready. One pass and I'm not coming back until it's all clear. Take a radio with you.'

Sam took off his headset and moved to the jump seat where the two armed Caprivian rebels were staring apprehensively out each side of the open cargo doors. ‘Give me your radio!'

The senior of the two men unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and Sam stuffed it down the front of his shirt.

‘Take these,' the other man said. He pulled two hand grenades from pouches on his combat vest and handed them to Sam, who stuffed them in the pockets of his jeans, where they were held tight against his thighs.

The pilot looked back and caught Sam's attention. ‘Ready?'

Sam nodded and gave a thumbs-up. The helicopter banked sharply upriver of the dam and headed back towards the wall. The pilot pushed the nose down until the skids were almost touching the water's surface. Sam thought momentarily of the bird, the African skimmer, how it flew with effortless ease with its lower beak slicing the waters of the Okavango. If any part of the helicopter connected with the river they would all cartwheel to their death. Sam could see the dam wall ahead and the angular bulk of the amphibious armoured car. The searchlight mounted on top
of the vehicle stabbed the dark in search of Sonja. Another illumination round exploded high in the sky. The gunner was sitting on the sill of his hatch, perhaps to get a better view. The noise of the helicopter's approaching engine made him turn.

‘Ready …'

Sam stood with his feet on the left skid of the helicopter and one hand gripping the door pillar. He felt the nose lift slightly as the pilot bled off a fraction of his forward speed.

‘Go!'

As Sam jumped he tried to bring his arms up in front of his torso and face to protect himself, but he was so close to the water he hit before he could bring his body into a streamlined position. He bounced hard, like he'd done a couple of times when falling off waterskis, but this was more painful. He was vaguely aware of the helicopter disappearing low over the dam wall as he went under water. When he bobbed back up again, gasping for air, he saw the armoured car's turret was already swinging towards him, along with the searchlight's beam.

Sonja had swum towards, not away from the BTR 60. She heard the throb of its engine getting stronger then looked up to see its dark bulk churning towards her. It slowed, then stopped and she struck towards it. She broke the surface between two of its eight massive rubber tyres, hidden from view. She breathed heavily.