The Elephant's Tale (8 page)

She hoped.

Martine became aware that the aircraft was descending. Her ears popped. She nudged Ben awake, marveling that he was able to sleep at such a time. His eyes opened and he stared around in confusion before recalling where he was. He smiled at Martine and, as always, that made her feel better. At least she wasn’t alone. At least she and Ben were together.

The ground rose unexpectedly to meet them, slamming into the plane’s underbelly. They bounced and shuddered to a halt. The engines shut down and all was quiet.

“A textbook landing, even if I say so myself,” remarked the pilot. “Not far to go now. We’ll refuel and clear customs and be on our way. Bet you’ll be relieved when this is all over.”

“Right now, I’m most relieved about being away from Sawubona,” responded Reuben James. “It was bad enough when that old battle-axe Gwyn Thomas was around, but her granddaughter is much more disconcerting. She has these green eyes that look right into your soul, like X-rays. She threatened me yesterday, basically said that there were people on the game reserve who had powers I couldn’t possibly understand, and that they’d stop me.”

He chuckled. “The idea that this skinny little kid or one of the game reserve staff could stick pins in a voodoo doll or stir up a magic potion to prevent me from fulfilling a plan that’s been years in the making is a joke, but she said it in a way that almost had me believing it.”

“What are you going to do about her?” asked the pilot, but before the other man could answer, a customs official was at the window. The next few minutes were taken up with administration and refueling.

After that the plane took off again and flew for another forty-five minutes. By then, Martine was so desperate for the bathroom she was prepared to give herself up in order to go. Fortunately the plane began its descent as she was trying to communicate this to Ben. They touched down shortly afterward.

“I’m glad this is our last journey with this type of cargo,” said the pilot when the engines had shut down. “I don’t think my nerves could stand another one. If that customs official had searched the plane, my life would not have been worth living.”

“Think of your Swiss bank account,” Reuben James reminded him.

“It’s not going to be much use to me if I’m behind bars.”

“You should have thought about that sooner. In any case, we’re not breaking the law, merely bending it. As Callum always says, we’re performing a national service.”

“Do you think the . . . will see it that way?” Martine missed the word or name because a vehicle drove up outside.

“Sure they will,” said Reuben James. “Where else are they going to get access to three square meals and fresh water every day?”

He and the pilot greeted the driver of the vehicle and the pair of them clambered out of the plane. An engine revved and faded into the distance.

Martine and Ben climbed stiffly to their feet. They opened the door cautiously and stepped out into a wall of heat.

As far as they could see there was nothing but desert. Not a desert with rippled gold sand, but one with sky-scraping red dunes. It rose around them in mountainous peaks of burnished umber, sculpted by the wind into knife-edged cliffs, ravines, and valleys, and thrown into sharp relief by the morning sun. It was a scene of immense beauty, but it was a desolate one.

Martine felt faint. She put a hand on the wing of the plane. Ben met her gaze and she could tell he was thinking the same thing. They were alone in the desert, thousands of miles from home, with two cheese sandwiches and a bottle of water.

“N
ow what?” said Martine. It was a relief to say the words out loud after lying on the shuddering floor of the plane for several hours thinking them.

Ben ran his fingers through his black hair. “Good question. What’s the first rule of survival in any situation?”

“Don’t panic.”

“So let’s not panic. Before we move, let’s go over the plane inch by inch and see if there is anything on it that might be of use to us. First, though, we should eat something.”

They shared the sandwiches and half the bottle of water, reasoning that the cheese would melt and go moldy in the heat and then it would be no use to anyone. After that, they returned to the plane and examined its contents meticulously.

There wasn’t much
to
find, particularly since they couldn’t remove anything that would be missed. They did take two small cartons of juice from a cool box, and some glucose and water-purification tablets and a blanket from the first aid box, but they drew the line at going through the suitcases.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Ben said. Martine was of the opinion that Reuben James was guilty until proven innocent, but she agreed that going through his belongings should be a last resort.

They did investigate the cargo in the hold. Most were boxes, tightly sealed, but the name of the manufacturer on the exterior and the smell coming from one with a missing corner made Ben fairly certain they were mining supplies.

“Mining supplies?” said Martine. “Is that how Reuben James is making his millions then? From diamonds or platinum?”

“I’m not sure. I asked Tendai about it and he thought James was in the business of developing luxury tourist lodges. But he didn’t really know.”

He shoved the boxes back into position and the two of them hopped out of the plane and closed the door. Martine caught sight of the four-leaf clover on the belly of the aircraft again and remembered Grace’s prophesy.

The four leaves will lead you to the circle
. What circle?

“Could you make any sense of the conversation on the plane?” she asked Ben. “What do you think Reuben James meant when he said that they were not breaking the law, just bending it? Who’s Callum? And what was all that talk about Swiss bank accounts and jail? The pilot said that if the customs officer had searched the plane his life would not have been worth living. So they must be doing something at least a bit illegal.”

“It was when Mr. James made out that someone, somewhere, should be grateful that they were getting three square meals and water every day that I really started worrying. It almost sounded as if he was referring to slave labor. It’s all very mysterious, but I think we can be certain of one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“This is about something much bigger than Sawubona.”

They had no way of knowing when the pilot and/or Reuben James would return to collect the cargo, but they guessed that at the very least the men would be off eating breakfast somewhere. And it was vital that they try to get their bearings before it got any hotter. They were uncomfortably conscious of how little liquid they had.

Within minutes of starting to climb the dunes, Martine would have killed for something sweet, fizzy, and ice-cold. She and Ben were barefoot, having taken off their boots and slung them around their necks, and their toes sank deep into the red sand. On and on they slogged, muscles burning. Halfway up, they shared the remainder of the water. Neither of them said anything, but both of them knew that once the apple juice was gone they’d be in trouble.

“I bet you we get to the top and find there’s a lovely hotel with shady palms and a sparkling blue swimming pool on the other side,” Ben said hopefully.

“I bet you we get to the top and there’s an air-conditioned shopping center offering free chocolate chip ice cream and all the lemonade we can drink!” said Martine.

That cheered them up and they resumed their struggle to the top of the dune. Ben, who was a lot fitter than Martine, made it there first, with a lot less panting. She joined him a minute later, but took her time getting her breath back before looking around. Ben’s expression had already told her what she was likely to see, and she was in no hurry to have it confirmed.

From horizon to blue horizon stretched layer upon layer of red dunes, tossed and scooped like some gigantic desert dessert. There was no sign of life. Had it not been for a tar road that tapered away in the haze, and the plane, toy-sized on the distant runway, they could have been on Mars.

“If it helps, we’re in Sossusvlei,” said Ben. “I recognize these red dunes from photographs. We’re at least six hours by car from the nearest big town.”

“Great,” said Martine, shielding her eyes from the glaring sun. “Let’s hope we don’t have to do it on foot.”

She sat down on the dune. “Ben, I’m so sorry. As usual, this is my fault. I was in such a state at the possibility of losing Jemmy and Khan and Sawubona, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was sick of feeling helpless. I wanted to do something. It didn’t occur to me that Reuben James would be doing business in the middle of the Namib desert. I thought we’d be in a proper place with cars and roads and houses, where I could do some investigating. But this is a disaster. And the worst part is, I’ve dragged you into it.”

Ben flopped down beside her and opened one of the little cartons of apple juice. He offered it to her before taking a sip himself. “You didn’t drag me into it. I came because I wanted to, remember? Anyway, you need to take your own advice.”

“What advice is that?”

“What you said to your grandmother. We can’t give up. Let’s do what we came here to do. Let’s get to the bottom of what Reuben James is up to and find enough evidence to prevent him from taking over Sawubona.”

Martine looked at him. “There’s something else.”

Briefly, she told him about Grace’s prophesy, about the northwest-facing tusks and finding the four-leaf clover on the belly of the plane. She also relayed her grandmother’s conversation about the Damaraland map in the safety-deposit box, and told him of the strange coincidence of Angel being from that exact place. “Grace always says that there’s no such thing as a coincidence. So it’s a bit odd to find two sets of coincidences in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Mmm,” murmured Ben. “And there might be a third. What if the reason Angel attacked Lurk was that she knew him from Damaraland and that he did something to anger her back then? I think we owe it to Angel, your grandmother, and everyone else at Sawubona to investigate this a bit further. We need to find a way to Damaraland.”

For the first time in days Martine felt hope stir in her veins. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do what we’ve come here to do. We’ve been in worse situations than this. Let’s hide near the plane until they return for the cargo and then see if we can sneak into their vehicle.”

They soon found that the easiest way down the steep dunes was to slip-slide on their behinds as if they were tobogganing. Descending was a whole lot more fun than going up. They were almost at the bottom when they spotted a swirl of dust on the road. The safari vehicle was returning.

They were completely exposed on the slope and hundreds of yards from the nearest cover, so they skidded to a halt where they were and buried themselves in the powdery red earth until only their heads were showing. Below them, the safari vehicle halted beside the aircraft. The pilot and Reuben James unloaded several long wooden crates, hoisted them onto the plane, and climbed in after the cargo. Five minutes later, they still hadn’t emerged. The propellers on the plane started whirring.

“They’re leaving!” cried Martine, half sitting up. “Ben, they’re leaving us! I assumed that this was their final destination and we’d have ages to return to the plane. I thought Reuben James either lived near here or had business around here, and that the plane wouldn’t be going anywhere for days.”

“So did I,” said Ben grimly. “I guess we assumed wrong.”

The drone of the engine grew louder as the pilot prepared for takeoff. The driver of the safari vehicle waved and sped away.

Martine and Ben watched as the white aircraft taxied down the runway and shot into the blue. Moments later, the sky was empty. It was as if the plane and the men on it had been a figment of their imagination.

A silence in which the only sounds were the whisper of sand and their own short, frightened breathing seemed to swoop down and chill them, in spite of the heat of the day.

“Now what?” said Ben.

“S
TOP,” said Martine. In everyday life she was quick to anger and quick to cry and she definitely felt like doing both now, but when faced with a survival crisis she’d learned the importance of listening to her head and not her heart.

Ben stared at her in surprise. “Stop what?”

“STOP. It’s an anagram for Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. I read about it somewhere. It’s a way of staying focused and not having a meltdown when you’re in a really desperate situation.”

“Which we are,” Ben said with feeling. “A
really
desperate situation.”

Martine stood up and shook red sand from her clothes and cropped brown hair. “In a way, this might be a blessing.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, supposing we had been on board that plane. Odds are, the longer we were around Reuben James, the more chance there was of us getting caught. All it would have taken is for one of us to sneeze. But now we’re free agents. We’re in Namibia and on his trail, but we get to say how and when we do things.”