Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

clearing, a man in khaki clothes crouched beside a small fire. He must have been burning eucalyptus because there was a powerful scent in the air. He removed a battered metal kettle from above the flames and lifted an AK-47 to his shoulder and walked towards us.

“Boet,” said Hendrik in greeting, the Afrikaans word for brother, and he shook hands with the man. Then Hendrik pointed at me, said “Moss,” pointed at Chandler and said “Colonel”.

The man said “Hansie,” and we shook hands. He had pale blue eyes and dark hair above a face weathered beyond his years. He had a fresh, naïve friendliness.

“Showing them the wagon,” said Hendrik.

“Okay, boss,” said the young man. “I’ll make extra tea. The men are on a break.”

“No time,” said Hendrik. “Hansie’s in command today,” he explained to us. “We’re doing shifts out here.”

“Since the killings,” said Hansie, and he and Hendrik both looked down as if they were about to pray together.

“The war has started,” said Hendrik, then he looked up at us and added with some bitterness: “I’ll show you the guns.”

Hendrik strode away from the fire. A row of old-fashioned wagons defined the outer rim of the clearing across from the riverbed. They were in the style of the wagons found in museums showing how the Afrikaans Voortrekkers had travelled north two hundred years ago in search of better pastures, and better lives. Hendrik opened the canvas flap at the back of a wagon and waited for us to join him.

“It’s our laager,” he said as Chandler and I reached the wagon. “Know what a laager is, colonel?”

“I do,” said Chandler, finally deigning to speak. “Your forebears formed laagers by arranging their wagons in a defensive circle. Who are you defending against out here?”

Hendrik stooped to the ground and picked up a handful of dirt. He stood and let the dirt run through his fingers. “We’re defending my land,” he said. “It’s mine. No one is going to take it from me.”

“Not in a hurry at any rate,” said Chandler who was looking past Hendrik into the wagon.

It was filled to bursting with weapons. Neatly stacked piles of AK-47s, spare magazines, crates of ammunition and boxes with hazmat labels.

“Our guns,” said Hendrik unnecessarily.

There must have been close to a hundred of them. Not only AK-47s; I noticed several Vektor R5s and boxes of ammunition for larger calibres.

“This the full collection?” I asked.

“Only a small part of it,” said Hendrik.

“Where do you keep the rest?”

“Somewhere safe. Concrete bunker.”

I noticed that there were also boxes marked with the skull-and-crossbones hazmat labels indicating class A explosives.

“Some fireworks too,” I said.

“Not enough,” said Hendrik. “We need more.”

“You could do more than defend your farm with all this,” said Chandler. “Impressive.”

Hendrik pulled the canvas covering of the wagon closed.

“It’s a war,” said Hendrik. “That’s what it is. We’re fighting a war for our land.”

It took us ten minutes from Hendrik’s laager to the lodge, which stood high on a rocky hill like a fairy-tale fortress. As if inspired by the Sydney Opera House, it was a series of triple volume A-frame wood and thatch structures that reached out over the scrub like something sprouted naturally from the dry earth. The triangular shapes glowed with the reflected orange of the setting sun, and on an upper floor of the leading triangle Melissa posed at the glass balcony with a glass in her hand, a slim green highlight to draw our eyes. She raised a hand in greeting as Hendrik gunned the engine up the last fifty metres of track like he was bringing the jeep in for an emergency landing. The sight of Melissa didn’t improve Hendrik’s mood, and he gave the pedals a hard time about it, so we nearly catapulted through the front windscreen and over the bonnet of the car as we came to a halt in front of the reception area. Melissa dropped her hand and gazed down at us like she was thinking of letting her hair down and have us climb up to rescue her.

“Bitch,” said Hendrik under his breath, and he clambered out of the jeep and strode into the entrance as if forgetting he had passengers.

Two men in matching shirts with blocks of colour like patchwork quilts came out to greet us with wide smiles and they took a chrome-edged bag each as Chandler climbed out of the jeep and stood up with his hands behind his back and stretched as if his vertebrae had been displaced on the journey.

“Welcome to Ukuthula,” said the man with the broader smile. “The Place of Peace in Africa.”

“Let us hope so,” said Chandler, and the man laughed.

Fifteen

The uniformed men showed Chandler and me to our adjoining rooms with shared lounge area on the second floor of the main accommodation building, pointed to the side table of alcohol, waved at the panoramic view of wild African bush, and said our hosts would receive us on the upper terrace. Chandler gave them a large denomination note to double the size of their smiles. After they had departed, backing out of the room so as not to be rude and turn their backs on us, Chandler turned to me and his eyes narrowed.

“On my way, colonel,” I said. Chandler was in operational mode. He was Colonel Colchester, I was Freddy Moss and there wasn’t a glimpse of the real Steven Chandler, no flicker of conspiratorial collusion or relaxing in the wings between scenes.

“Before you go, Mr Moss.” Chandler’s eyes were grey with suspicion. “Mr Mabele’s young girlfriend. Has she been drinking?”

“I think she has,” I said.

“I had no idea it was that bad.”

“Neither did I,” I admitted.

We stood in silence for a moment.

“She won’t let us down,” I said.

Colonel Colchester did not look convinced.

Melissa was alone on the upper terrace when I arrived, standing silhouetted against the early evening panorama of wild bush. The sun was giving her a last poke before it disappeared, and she stood with her legs