The Pride, page 34
Sonja closed her eyes and went limp in Emma’s arms. Her face was serene, washed white by the spotlight and blood loss, and it almost looked to Emma as though she was a different person. She was smiling.
Epilogue
Intensive Care Unit, Mediclinic Nelspruit, South Africa
Emma left the ICU and walked out into the hospital corridor, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor.
Hudson Brand was walking up the hallway, on crutches. Emma ran to him and enfolded him in a hug. She started crying again.
‘Mum died on the chopper, Brand,’ she sobbed into his chest, ‘in front of me.’
Hudson held her at arm’s length. ‘What? I thought . . .?’
Emma wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Sorry. Kelvin resuscitated her, gave her mouth-to-mouth in the helicopter, and plugged the hole in her chest with a piece of plastic bag. He was amazing.’
‘But she’s alive, now, right?’
She saw the panic in his eyes. ‘Yes, yes. She is. I’m sorry, that came out the wrong way. It’s just that – we came so close to losing her, Brand.’
He held her close again. ‘I prefer Hudson, for the record. Can I see her?’
‘Yes.’ Emma sniffed, composing herself as she showed Hudson the way.
‘Who’s Kelvin?’ Hudson asked.
They reached the entry to the ICU, where Kelvin was sitting on a row of chairs; he had a fresh bandage on the wound on his arm. He stood and put out his hand. ‘Kelvin Hendricks, Mr Brand. Emma’s told me about you. A pleasure to meet you, sir.’
They shook. ‘Pleasure’s mine, son, sounds like we owe you.’
‘It was just good to use my training, sir.’
Emma put a hand on Kelvin’s arm and beamed. ‘He’s studying medicine, Hudson.’
Hudson nodded, then pushed open the swinging door. ‘You joining us, Kelvin?’
‘The patient should have no more than two visitors at a time, sir.’
‘Listen to you,’ Emma said, kissing him on the cheek, ‘you sound like a doctor already. I’ll be out soon.’
Emma followed Hudson into the ICU. He made his way to Sonja, hopping on one foot as he sat on the edge of the bed. Emma took his crutches and rested them against a lounge chair.
‘She hasn’t said much, she only came out of surgery an hour ago. She’s drugged up, still coming to,’ Emma said.
Hudson took Sonja’s hand, gently; there was an IV line coming out of her, connected to a bag overhead. She had a chest tube, and an array of other wires, attached to her; an ECG monitor beeped softly.
Sonja licked her lips. ‘She . . . has a name.’
Emma rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, and she must be getting better.’
Sonja blinked and looked up at Hudson. ‘I love you, Hudson Brand.’
From behind, Emma saw Hudson’s broad shoulders rise as he took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Told you,’ Emma said, ‘high as a kite.’
Hudson leaned forward and kissed Sonja, reverently, on the lips, then whispered in her ear. When he raised himself again, Sonja flicked her chin up – a sign, Emma thought, that she wanted Emma to come to her side. She walked around the bed and sat opposite Hudson.
Sonja looked up at Emma. ‘Fiona?’
Emma sighed. The news was still sinking in and she didn’t know how to feel about having a twin sister, nor the fact that having just regained consciousness, one of Sonja’s first thoughts was about the daughter who had shot her in the chest. ‘She got away, Mum, in Wu’s cruiser.’
Sonja nodded. She took Hudson’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You look broken. When did you get here?’
‘I’m fine. I just arrived,’ Hudson said. ‘As soon as Emma called me, I got a lift to Victoria Falls and caught the direct flight to Nelspruit. While I was waiting for my flight, and then in the car on the way here, I’ve been getting updates from Jed Banks. The CIA and MI6 have launched a joint operation to track down Fiona – they both want to talk to her. The British are sending people from their embassy to question a David Rafferty, Fiona’s partner, who’s apparently here in the Mediclinic as well and doing OK – seems y’all had the same aeromedical evacuation insurance. They’ve figured out Fiona’s whole undercover operation was a ruse to divert attention away from the fact that she was X, the international arms and drug dealer the Americans and the Brits have been after for some time. Jed’s going to want to question you when you’re up to it.’
Sonja gave a small nod then rocked her head to look at Emma again. The small movement seemed to exhaust her and she closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them.
‘Where’s your boyfriend, or whatever he is? How is . . .?’
‘Kelvin, Mum. He’s fine. He saved your life. I’ll tell you all about it later.’
‘All right,’ Sonja took a deep breath, then exhaled. ‘I wanted to tell you, both of you, about Fiona, for so long. I was so ashamed of the decision I made and it’s been eating me up. Emma, I think it was finally being able to spend some time with you, just doing normal stuff, that made all those feelings come back to the surface again. I was thinking what life could have been like, if I’d raised you both properly, if we’d been a family, the three of us, and . . .’
Emma swallowed. ‘It’s OK, Mum. You raised me just fine.’
‘Liar.’ Sonja gave a little smile. ‘Give me your hand.’
Emma reached out, took her mother’s hand and gave it a weak squeeze.
‘I fucking love you as well,’ Sonja said.
Emma sniffed. ‘I want whatever you’re on.’
‘Don’t joke,’ Sonja whispered. ‘I want to go on holiday with you.’
Emma wiped her eyes, and started to laugh.
Acknowledgements
Several people over the years had suggested to me that I write a novel exploring abalone poaching in South Africa. One, in particular, Brenton Scott, a passionate advocate for these endangered creatures, continually kept me updated with media and scientific reports about the state of the species.
As crazy as some of the observations I’ve made in this novel seem, they are based on fact. Abalone is poached from South Africa’s waters and illegally shipped to neighbouring countries, where it is then legally exported to markets in Asia.
Figures for 2016 give a snapshot of the trade and the problem. The quota for legally harvested abalone that year was 96 tons. However, that year 1,700 tons of abalone, worth more than US$100 million, was imported into Hong Kong. In other words, according to journalist Kimon de Greef, the illegal trade in abalone is 30 times the size of the legal trade.
I started my research by reading an excellent book on the abalone trade, Poacher: Confessions from the Abalone Underworld by Kimon de Greef and Shuhood Abader. The authors tell Abader’s confronting story of the risks and rewards of diving for abalone.
On the ground in South Africa, I was helped by several people. Dr Tony Cunningham, who also helped me with the research for my last novel, Blood Trail, showed me around Silver Sands and gave me a fascinating insight into the current state of poaching. Likewise, Garth Jenman and his mother, Barbara, provided invaluable first-hand information and images about the brazen activities of poachers (the conga-line of divers and carriers that Sonja encounters happens in real life). Brett McDonald, Cape Town resident and managing director of Flame of Africa tours, filled in the gaps in my knowledge of his city’s waterfront areas. Thank you, all.
As usual, I must thank my eagle-eyed Afrikaans-speaking friend Annelien Oberholzer, who checked and corrected my incorrect use of her language and, as a keen diver, also helped me fix the underwater scenes, and a few other errors. Thanks, once again, to my go-to firearms expert, Fritz Rabe, and also to pilot guide, Izzy Mok, who taught me how to take off from a darkened airstrip at night.
As in my previous books, good people paid good money to good causes to have their name, or the name of a friend or relative assigned to characters in this story. Thank you to David Rafferty, who made a donation to the International Fund for Animal Welfare; and Pat Musick, who donated to the Conservation and Wildlife Fund in Zimbabwe on behalf of Fiona Stewart. I hope you enjoy your fictitious selves.
Thanks also to my tireless team of unpaid first readers and editors: my wife, Nicola, mother, Kathy, and mother-in-law, Sheila. And to my wonderful publishing team in Australia and South Africa: Alex Lloyd, Danielle Walker, Brianne Collins, Terry Morris, Andrea Nattrass, Veronica Napier, Eileen Bezemer and Gill Spain.
Last, but not least, if you’ve made it this far then thank you. You’re the most important person in this business.
Tony Park
www.tonypark.net
About the Author
© Annelien Oberholzer
Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, a press secretary, a PR consultant and a freelance writer. He also served 34 years in the Australian Army Reserve, including six months as a public affairs officer in Afghanistan in 2002. He and his wife, Nicola, divide their time equally between Australia and southern Africa. He is the author of nineteen other African novels.
www.tonypark.net
Also by Tony Park
Far Horizon
Zambezi
African Sky
Safari
Silent Predator
Ivory
The Delta
African Dawn
Dark Heart
The Prey
The Hunter
An Empty Coast
Red Earth
The Cull
Captive
Scent of Fear
Ghosts of the Past
Last Survivor
Blood Trail
Part of the Pride, with Kevin Richardson
War Dogs, with Shane Bryant
The Grey Man, with John Curtis
Courage Under Fire, with Daniel Keighran VC
No One Left Behind, with Keith Payne VC
Pan Macmillan acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. We honour more than sixty thousand years of storytelling, art and culture.
First published 2022 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Tony Park 2022
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781761262746
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Cover design by www.blacksheep-uk.com
Cover images: Alamy Stock Photo
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Tony Park, The Pride
