The place is lousy with lions. What happens to me? That's your problem, mate. Are you coming or going. Okay, go ahead! Drown us!
Jock capitulated and grabbed the sides of his seat.
Daniel rolled the Landcruiser down the steep approach to the ford, and into the brown waters. He kept her rolling at an even pace and within a few yards the water was above the level of the wheels, but still the nose of the truck was tilted steeply downwards as the bottom fell away.
There was a whoosh of steam as water rushed through the engine compartment and swamped the hot metal of the block.
The headlights were obscured as they sank below the surface, becoming two luminous glows in the turgid water. A bow wave rose ahead of the bonnet, as the water came up to the level of the windshield. A petrol engine would have swamped and stalled, but the big diesel pushed them stolidly forward into the flood. Water was pouring in around the door posts.
They were calf-deep where they sat. You really are crazy, Jock yelled, and put his feet up on the dashboard. I want to go home to mother! Now even the Landcruiser was faltering as the air trapped in the body floated her high and her spinning tires lost traction on the rock-strewn bottom.
Oh, my God! Jock cried, as a huge up-rooted tree came hurtling down upon them out of the darkness.
It crashed into the side of the truck, hitting one of the windows, and stewing the whole chassis around. They were hurled downstream, spinning slowly under the weight of the floating tree. As they made one full revolution the mortal embrace of the tree mass was broken.
Released from its grip, they floated free, but they were sinking fast as the trapped air was expelled from the Landcruiser's body. Water began to seep in, and soon they were sitting waist-deep. I'm getting out, Jock yelled, and threw his weight against the door. it won't budge. He was panicking, as the pressure of water held the door tightly closed.
Then suddenly Daniel felt the wheels touch bottom again.
The flood had swept them into a bend of the river and pushed them in against the far bank. The engine was still running. The modified airintake pipe and filter reached up as high as the cab roof. Daniel had installed it for just such an emergency. In the shallows, the wheels caught at the jagged rock bottom and heaved the Landcruiser's bulk forward. Come on, darling, Daniel pleaded. Get us out of here.
And the sturdy truck responded. She shuddered and bounced and tried to drag herself from the waters. The headlights pushed through the surface and blazed out suddenly, lighting the far bank. The flood had cast them up on the shelving mudbank and the truck canted steeply nose-up as her spinning front wheels clawed up the slope.
Ahead of them was a low spot in the riverbank. The Landcruiser slipped and slewed and crabbed up it, the engine roaring, ferociously tearing out small bushes that had survived the flood and ploughing deep ruts in the soft earth, until suddenly her lugged tires gained full purchase and hurled her for-ward up out of the flood. Sheets of water streamed from her bodywork like a surfacing submarine and the big diesel engine bellowed triumphantly as they roared into the mopane forest. I'm alive, Jock whispered. Hallelujah! Daniel turned parallel with the riverbank, weaving the Landcruiser back and forth between the tree-trunks of the standing mopane until they bumped over the verge on to the roadway.
He kicked her out of low ratio and gunned the motor. They sped away towards the Mana Pools turn-off. How many more like that?
Jock asked with trepidation. For the first time since Johnny's death Daniel smiled, but it was a grim little smile.
Only four or five, he answered. A Sunday afternoon stroll.
Nothing to it. He glanced at his watch. Cheng and the refrigerator trucks had almost four hours start on them. They must have got through the fords before the drainage of storm waters off the slope of the escarpment had flooded them. The earth beneath the mopane trees was melted like warm chocolate by the rain.
This black cotton soil was notorious for bogging down vehicles when it was wet. The Landcruiser slithered and laboured and left deep glutinous ruts behind the churning wheels. Here's the next river.
Daniel warned, as the road gradient altered and thick dark riverine bush pressed in close on each side of the narrow track. Get your life-jacket on. I can't stand another one like the last. Jock turned to him, pale-faced in the glow of the instrument panel. I promise ten "Hail Mary's" and fifty "Our Father's" . The price is right, it'll be a breeze, Daniel assured him as the headlights lit the ford.
In Africa a flash flood drops almost as abruptly as it rises.
The rain had stopped almost two hours earlier, and the slope of the valley was by now almost drained. There was a high-water mark on the far bank of the river almost six feet above the present surface of the shrunken waters, to show how swiftly they had subsided. This time the Landcruiser made light of the crossing. The waters did not even cover the headlights before she triumphantly climbed the far bank.
The power of prayer, Daniel grunted. Keep it up, Jock. We'll make a believer of you yet. so The next river had fallen even lower, to the level of the tops of the wheels, and Daniel did not bother to change gear ratios as they splashed through. Forty minutes later, Daniel parked the truck at the front door of the warden's bungalow at Mana Pools Camp.
While Jock leaned on the horn button and sounded a long urgent peal, Daniel pounded with both fists on the warden's door.
The warden came stumbling out onto the screened verandah, dressed only in a pair of underpants. Who is it? he called in Shana. What the hell is going on? He was a lean, muscled forty-year-old named Isaac Mtwetwe.
Isaac? It's me, Daniel called.
There's big trouble, man. Get your arse into gear. You've got work to do. Danny? Isaac shaded his eyes against the glare of the Landcruiser's headlights. Is that you, Danny? He flashed his torch into Daniel's face. What is it? What has happened? Daniel answered him in fluent Shana. A big gang of armed poachers has hit Chiwewe camp. They wiped out Johnny Nzou and his family, and the entire camp staff. Good God! Isaac came fully awake. My guess is that they're from the Zambian side, Daniel went on. I reckon they're heading back to cross the Zambezi about twenty miles downstream from here. You've got to get your antipoaching team there to head them off. Swiftly Daniel gave him all the other information he had gleaned, the estimated size of the gang, their weapons, the time that they had left Chiwewe and their probable line and speed of march. Then he asked, Did the refrigerator trucks come through here from Chiwewe on their return to Harare? At about eight o'clock, Isaac confirmed. They just got through before the rivers flooded. There was a civilian with them, a Chinese in a blue Mercedes. One of the trucks was towing him. The Mercedes was no good in the mud. Isaac was dressing as he spoke. What are you going to do, Danny? I know Johnny Nzou was your friend. -If you come with us you might get a shot at these swine. Although they had fought on opposite sides during the bush war, he knew Daniel's reputation.
However, Daniel shook his head.
"I am going on after the trucks, and that Mercedes. I don't understand.
Isaac looked up from lacing his boots and his tone was puzzled.
'I can't explain now, but it's all part of Johnny's murder.
Trust me. Daniel couldn't tell Isaac about the ivory and Ambassador Ning, not until he had proof. Trust me, he repeated, and Isaac nodded.
Okay, Danny, I'll get those murdering swine for you before they get away across the river, he promised. You go ahead.
Do what you have to do. Daniel left Isaac on the Zambezi bank, assembling his strike force of anti-poacher rangers and embarking them into the twenty-foot fast assault craft. There was a big ninety horsepower Yamaha onboard on the stern. Like the rest of them, the boat was a veteran of the bush war.