Elephant Song

Daniel barely noticed the change.  He left the truck and ran up on to the wide verandah.

The exterior wall was decorated with the skulls of the animals of the Park.  Their empty eye-sockets and twisted horns in the torch-beam gave a macabre touch to the scene and heightened Daniel's sense of doom as he strode down the long covered verandah.  He now realised that he should have searched here first, instead of rushing up to the bungalow.

The door of Joh

A snowstorm of papers covered the floor and desk.  They had ransacked the room, sweeping the stacks of forms off the cupboard shelves and hauling the drawers out of Joh

The keys were still in the lock but the safe was empty.

Daniel's torch-beam darted about the room and then settled on the crumpled form that lay in front of the desk.  Joh

Oh, Christ, no!  I thought that while I was waiting for the refrigerator truck to be repaired, I might as well go down to the water-hole at Fig Tree Pan.  Ambassador Ning's voice interrupted Joh

In Joh

He rose from his desk, glad of the excuse to escape from the drudgery of paperwork and went with the Ambassador out on to the verandah and down to his parked Mercedes, where he stood and chatted to him for a few minutes, making suggestions as to where he might get a glimpse of the elusive and aptly named gorgeous bush shrike that Cheng wanted to observe.

When Cheng drove away, Joh

One consolation was that the elephant meat would keep indefinitely in the cold storage of the hull.  The truck's refrigerating equipment was plugged in now to the camp generator and the thermometer registered twenty degrees below freezing when Joh

Joh

Back in his office Joh

He smiled in anticipation of their arrival as he heard a sound at the door and looked up.

The smile faded.  A stranger stood in the doorway, a stocky man with bow legs, dressed in filthy rags.  Both his hands were behind his back as though he was concealing something.  Yes?  Joh

Who are you?  What do you want?  The man smiled.  His skin was very dark with purple black highlights.  When he smiled the scar that ran down one cheek pulled his mouth out of shape and the smile was malicious and humourless.

Joh

he repeated, and the man in the doorway said, You!  From behind his back he brought out an AK 47 rifle and lifted the barrel towards Joh

Joh

However, his recovery was almost instantaneous.  His reflexes were those of a hunter and a soldier.  The armoury door was ten paces to his left and he went for it.

The Parks weapons were kept in there.  Through the door he could see the rack of firearms on the far wall.  With despair turning his legs as heavy as concrete, Joh

All this passed through his mind as he leaped for the door.

From the corner of his eye he saw the scar-faced brigand swing the AK on to him and halfway across the room Joh

As he rolled smoothly to his feet he heard the- man curse and Joh

The air was filled with a haze of plaster dust that the bullets had battered from the wall and Joh

The clock in Joh

always rode up uncontrollably in automatic fire; it would take him the major part of a second to bring it down, and line up for the second burst.

Joh

The gunman aimed low to compensate for the rise of the AK.

One bullet sliced through the flesh of Joh

The other three bullets of the burst flew wide as Joh

Still smiling, the gunman clicked the rate-of-fire selector on to single-shot.  He wanted to conserve ammunition.  A single round cost him ten Zambian kwacha, and had to be carried hundreds of miles in his pack.

Each cartridge was precious, and the warden was maimed and completely at his mercy.  One more bullet would be enough.  Now, he said softly.

Now you die.  And he shot Joh

The bullet drove the breath from Joh