Elephant Song

The diesel engine ran up to speed an settled at a steady beat, then the generator kicked in and the lights flickered and bloomed.  Through the window he saw the street lamps lining the driveway light up and in their glow the Casia trees were vivid green and shiny with raindrops.

Daniel fetched the bunch of keys that still hung in the lock of the Milner safe and strode through into the armoury.  Along with the .  375

culling rifles, there were five AK47 assault rifles on the rack.

These were used on anti-poaching patrols when the rangers needed equivalent fire-power to take on the gangs of poachers.  Ammunition was stored in the cupboard below the gunrack.  He unlocked the steel door.

There were four magazines of AK ammunition in each pouched webbing belt hanging.  on the hooks.

He slung one of these over his shoulder, then lifted an automatic rifle down from the rack and loaded it with deft movements; the old warlike arts once learned were never forgotten.

Armed and angry, he ran down the verandah steps.  Start with the ivory godown, " he decided.  They'll been there for sure.  He circled the burned-out building, searching for sign by the light of the street lamps, flashing his torch at anything that caught his attention.  If he had allowed himself to think about it, he would have realised he was wasting his time.  The only prints that had withstood the erosion of the rain were those protected by the overhanging verandah roof, a set of heavy tyre tracks in the mud at the front entrance to the ivory godown.

Even these were almost erased and only just recognisable.

Daniel ignored them; he was after the gang and they would not be using vehicles.  Quickly he widened the circles of his search, trying to pick up an outgoing set of tracks, concentrating on the northern side of the camp's perimeter, for the gang would almost certainly head back to the Zambezi River.

It was useless, as he had known deep down that it would be.

After twenty minutes he gave it up.  There were no tracks to follow.

He stood under the dark trees and raged with frustration and sorrow.

If only I could get a shot at the bastards, he lamented.

It meant little to him in his present mood that he was one man against twenty or more professional killers.  Jock was a cameraman, not a soldier.  He would be of no help in a fight.  The memory of those mutilated bodies in the bedroom of the bungalow and of Joh

He knew that speed was vital now.  Within the next ten hours the gang would be back across the river.  However, he could not leave Joh

Daniel paused in the doorway to Joh

Joh

Joh

He stood up, crossed to the desk and spread the paper on it.

He saw at once that Joh

NJNC.  The letters were childlike and crude, smeared and barely legible.

They made no sense, although perhaps the J was an I. Daniel studied it.

NINC.  Still there was nothing obvious in the message.  Either it was gibberish or had some obscure meaning that only made sense to a dying man.

Suddenly Daniel felt a stirring in his subconscious, something was trying to surface.  He closed his eyes for a minute to give it a chance. Often it helped to let his mind go blank when searching for an elusive idea or memory, rather than to harry the point and drive it further under.  It was there, very close now, a shadow just below his conscious mind like the shape of a man-eating shark under the surface of a turgid sea.

NINC.

He opened his eyes again and found himself looking at the floor.

There were bloody footprints left by his own boot soles and by those of the killer.  He was not thinking about them; he was still grappling with that single cryptic word that Joh

Then he found his eyes had focused on one of the footprints, and his nerves jumped tight and shrieked like the strings of a violin slashed with the bow.  The footprint was chequered with a fish-scale pattern.

NINC.  It resounded through his mind and then that distinctive footprint turned the sense of it and the echo came back, altered and compelling.

NING.  Joh

The blood on the cuff of the blue cotton slacks, the tracks of Ning's training shoes and the blood, Joh

I'll get the bastard for you, old friend.  For you and Mavis and the babies.  I promise you, Joh

In the few seconds that it took him to reach the truck, the last details fell into place in his mind.  He remembered Cheng's perturbation when he thought Daniel might be staying longer at Chiwewe, and his obvious relief when he learned that Daniel was leaving.

He glanced back towards the ruins of the ivory godown and the tyre treads were still just visible in the mud.  It was simple and ingenious. Let the gang of poachers draw the pursuit, while they ferried the ivory out in the Parks Board's own trucks.