When the doctor had gone Matthew spoke up. 'They must know you have some piece of information that helps narrow down where the Dakota could be. They must know that you wouldn't have come all this way just to start randomly searching the desert. Did you mean it when you said you knew where Gareth's plane was?'

'I was bluffing,' Brand said. 'I know the coordinates for the rendezvous at sea and now that we know where Venter and I hit the deck, I can trace a possible flight path, a.s.suming Gareth and the other pilot were able to get their bearings and get back on track.'

Joao raised his bushy eyebrows. 'You looking for a plane?'

'Trust me, buddy, this is something you don't want or need to know about,' Brand said to him.

Joao shrugged. 'I've had enough trouble for one day. You can take my bakkie. I don't need to come with you, if you don't want me to save your lives again, but I'll have to charge you rent.'

Sonja found her aunt's house; it was hard to forget with its prime position and breathtaking view over the ocean. Ursula lived in upmarket Vineta, one of the earliest beachfront areas to be developed after Swakopmund reinvented itself from port to resort.

The house was also easy to find because it was still painted the same shade of pink as Sonja remembered from thirty or more years ago. She parked the Land Rover and got out, wishing now she'd brought chocolates or flowers, something other than beer. She walked along a flagstone path bordered with hardy cacti and succulents. With the wind and the sand not much greenery survived in Swakopmund. Sonja knocked on the door.

It opened a crack and a blue eye peered out at her. 'Ja?'

'Tante Ursula?'

'I am Ursula, yes. Is that you . . . is that really you after all these years?'

'Sonja.'

The door opened wide and a diminutive woman with white hair piled in a messy bun looked up at her through funky red gla.s.ses with a beaded chain attached to them. Ursula wore a paint-spattered white cheesecloth smock. She looked like an older, shorter version of the kindly woman Sonja remembered from her childhood. The eyes still sparkled, though.

'Of course I know who you are, Sonja. My goodness, though, I didn't know if I'd ever see you again.' Ursula reached up, wrapped her arms around Sonja and drew her face down for a kiss.

Sonja pecked her aunt on the cheek, but stiffened a little in her embrace. She was not a hugger or a kisser, and even Sam had playfully mocked her reluctance to show affection in public. 'h.e.l.lo, Tante. It's been a long time.'

'Too long, too long, much too long. Come in, my dear.'

Sonja followed her aunt through the doorway. While the house remained the same outside it was completely different inside. She remembered a place cluttered with photos of her aunt and uncle's travels abroad, and souvenirs they'd brought home with them from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Her father had called his sister a hippy and Sonja had, in her earliest memories of her only other relatives, detected a faint resentment of her uncle from her father. Her uncle Udo, Ursula's husband, had been a parks ranger and therefore exempt from military service; Sonja thought that was where her father's disapproval stemmed from. Now the house made minimalist look like a junkyard. Everything was cool and white, cold almost.

'The house has changed,' Sonja said.

'Ja. You move with the times, hey? In the old days, when you were a girl, this place was like a hippy house, you remember? It was full of clutter Persian rugs, fans from the Orient, and a shisha pipe that your father used to accuse us of smoking marijuana in.'

Sonja smiled. 'Hippy was the first word I thought of when I remembered the place, and you.'

Ursula laughed. 'Well, like I said, we all move on. I like being uncluttered now. It gives me a sense of peace. All the other stuff kept reminding me of . . . well, it kept reminding me of the past.'

'Of Uncle Udo?' Sonja said, regretting her words immediately.

Ursula smiled. 'Yes, of Udo. I do remember him, every day, but to be surrounded by so much of our early life became almost suffocating in a way. I knew that life needed to carry on, and Udo would have felt the same way.'

Sonja had a flashback to the last time she'd been in the house. Ursula hadn't been smiling, she'd been howling, and her mother had sat with her on the old sofa, covered in batik-printed sarongs, trying to console her, while Hans had stood behind them, in uniform, one hand tentatively on his sister's shoulder.

'I'm thinking the same thing as you,' Ursula said, breaking into her thoughts. 'His funeral was the worst day of my life. When they came with the news it took a while to sink in. I was in shock. But when I saw his coffin lowered into the sand, that was when I finally realised I would never see him again, he would never hold me again.'

Sonja looked out a big plate gla.s.s window, over the sea. 'It's a beautiful view.' Through an open door she saw an adjoining room with a drop cloth on the floor and an easel with a canvas on it. 'You're still painting, I see.'

Ursula touched her on the arm. 'I read about your boyfriend, Sonja. I am so very sorry. I tried contacting you, through Facebook. Emma said she pa.s.sed on my condolences.'

'Thank you. As you say, we must move on. Life doesn't . . . stop.'

'I'll put the kettle on, shall I?' Ursula said. 'I'd offer you a beer or a gla.s.s of wine, but I'm out of both at the moment. I find it more enjoyable to drink when I'm socialising, rather than sitting at home by myself getting p.i.s.sed.'

Sonja laughed out loud at the incongruous profanity. 'I've got a sixpack of oh-six-one in my truck.'

Ursula beamed. 061 was the area code for Namibia's capital. 'Tafel would have been better, but even Windhoek Lager is better than tea.'

Sonja walked out to the Land Rover, smiling again. She didn't want to talk about Sam with her aunt, though she wondered, now, if she'd subconsciously sought out the old woman because that was probably the one thing they had in common, apart from the bond of blood. She got the beers and took them inside. Ursula had opened the French doors that led from the lounge onto a sunny deck. She opened a market umbrella and set out a tray of drowors and biltong and two beer gla.s.ses.

Ursula put four beers in the fridge and went back outside to where Sonja was leaning with two hands on the railing. Ursula poured them each a lager. 'Prost,' her aunt said.

'To what shall we drink?'

Ursula shrugged. 'The future? Love? You tell me.'

Sonja shrugged and took a sip. 'My past doesn't really bear talking about, and I honestly don't know what my future will hold, Tante.'

'What about Emma?'

Sonja took another drink. 'She's all I have now. I was surprised to get your message from Emma about Sam. Thank you.'

Ursula laughed. 'Don't be so surprised. Just because you never send me an email or a letter or a Christmas card doesn't mean your daughter doesn't. We've actually been in touch for a couple of years now.'

'How did you find her?'

'She found me. Remember that thing called Facebook, Sonja?'

'I know it, I just don't like it. So, you know Emma's in Namibia?'

Ursula sat down in the shade, but Sonja stayed standing, her back to the sun and the ocean, enjoying the warmth and the smell of the sea.

'I do. She was planning on coming to see me after she had spent some time with you. It's you I wasn't expecting to see. I didn't think the Namibians would let you into the country.'

Sonja raised her eyebrows. 'You know about all that stuff in the delta, in Botswana?'

Ursula smiled. 'It's that thing called the internet again, Sonja. What I couldn't find online was a decent picture of you. It's why it took me a moment to recognise you. It seems you guard your privacy well you were even wearing a scarf and dark gla.s.ses when you punched that paparazzi photographer in Los Angeles. I thought you looked a bit like Angelina Jolie in that picture.'

Sonja laughed. Her aunt was as smart and as funny as she'd remembered her, apart from the bleak time after her uncle was killed. 'I'm keeping a low profile here in Namibia as well, Tante Ursula.'

Ursula waved a hand in front of her face, as though shooing away a mosquito, and took a long draught of beer and licked her lips. 'Are you in trouble?'

'No. I was worried about Emma for a while. She sent me an SMS saying she needed my help. I panicked and crossed the border from South Africa, but it turned out she just wants to pick my brains about military uniforms. Her archaeological dig uncovered '

'A man in a flying suit who appears to be the victim of an accident or military action during the bush war.'

'You don't miss anything, do you, Tante.'

Ursula waved towards her studio. 'My world revolves around painting and surfing the net. I have plenty of time to stay on top of current affairs. The story about the mystery airman got me thinking, about Udo.'

Sonja left the railing and took a chair under the umbrella. The sea breeze had taken the sting out of the African sun, but she could feel it starting to burn now. 'Really, why is that?'

Ursula looked out over the Atlantic; its glittering surface belied the cold dark waters beneath. 'Udo came across a stranded airman in the desert, in the Skeleton Coast National Park. It was a long way from where this latest body was found, but it got me thinking.'

'I don't remember hearing about that. I used to love his stories about his life as a ranger.'

Ursula sighed. 'And he used to love telling them to you, and embellishing the bits about his tangles with lions and rhinos and elephants. We were such a small family, and you may have guessed that I couldn't have children.'

Sonja nodded. Sometimes she wished she hadn't been taking the pill when she and Sam were living together. Maybe having a little piece of him would have dulled the pain. 'The airman?'

'Oh, yes,' said Ursula. 'It was only a few days before Udo died. He was patrolling the salt road, the one that runs along the Atlantic coast, in his Land Rover. He was heading north towards Mwe Bay and was between there and Terrace Bay when he found this guy staggering out of the desert. Udo called me from the park headquarters and told me about it. He said he was amazed the guy was alive. He was dehydrated and he had a head wound and he didn't know how long he'd been walking for.'

'The guy's lucky he came across Udo when he did. I don't imagine many vehicles use that road,' Sonja said. The coast was aptly named; it was littered with the rusting remains of numerous shipwrecks and the desert's relentless sands had been burying the sun-bleached bones of stranded mariners for centuries.

'Ja, you're right, and there were even fewer cars in the park during the war. It was a miracle. Udo told me the man said he had been flying a single-engine spotter aircraft that had suffered engine failure. He took the pilot to park headquarters where they patched him up. A military ambulance came and took him away.'

'Interesting,' Sonja said. 'Did it make the local newspapers?'

Ursula shook her head. 'When I next spoke to Udo on the telephone, two days later, he told me not to say anything about the mystery pilot. He said the man had been on a covert mission and Udo had been ordered by his superiors not to mention anything about it, to anyone.'

'What did you think about that?' Sonja asked.

Ursula shrugged. 'Nothing. It was the war. We all did as we were told.'

'Not you, from what I remember,' Sonja said.

Her aunt gave a little smile. 'I wasn't in favour of the war; your father was correct about me, I was no supporter of the government. The problem was that Hans thought I was against him and the soldiers; I hated the way things were, not the people in uniform.'

'I remember seeing you in the newspaper once, marching in protest about the South Africans siting their military bases next to schools as a tactic to prevent SWAPO from mortaring them.'

Ursula nodded. 'You're a soldier, Sonja, you know that even in war there should be honour, rules to protect the innocent.'

Sonja wasn't so sure about that. She had her own code that she tried to follow, but she'd done some things she would rather forget. There was nothing honourable about war. 'Udo never talked about the pilot again?'

Ursula looked out over the Atlantic again. 'No, and two days after our last conversation his Land Rover was ambushed on the salt road. According to the autopsy he was killed by a burst of fire from a Russian-made AK-47, the weapon of choice of the SWAPO guerrillas.'

'So tragic,' Sonja said, meaning it. Udo had served his country not by killing people but by trying to conserve its wildlife. She remembered him as a funny, kind, gentle man who, like his young wife, had probably been against the war.

Ursula reached across the table and put her hand on Sonja's. 'I loved him, Sonja, with all my heart, and I miss him every day, but I still have my life, I still carry on.'

Sonja nodded. Her aunt was getting frail, but there was still a light in her eyes, an innate goodness that kept her going, kept her optimistic. Unlike me, Sonja thought.

Chapter 16.

Emma looked out the Perspex window of the Beechcraft, scanning the endless red rocky desert ground below them.

'Giraffe, eleven o'clock,' Natangwe said, pointing out the window.

Emma was surprised. Natangwe was loving flying and was pointing out animals and places he recognised continually. He was wide eyed and grinning most of the time, like a kid on an amus.e.m.e.nt park ride. Alex, however, was as white as a sheet and, once more, dry-retching into a white paper bag. Poor guy, she thought.

Natangwe stole a quick glance away from the window across the aisle to Alex, and then back over his shoulder to Emma. He winked at her. He was poking fun at Alex, which was mean, but she was enjoying seeing this playful side of Natangwe, who always seemed so brooding and intense.

Emma unbuckled her seatbelt and, bent at the waist, moved forward between the two young men and past Sebastian, who grinned at her, to the c.o.c.kpit, where Professor Sutton sat in the co-pilot's seat next to Andre Horsman.

Professor Sutton looked back over his shoulder and held up a folded map. 'We're coming up to the area where your young man's lion was last recorded.'

Alex was not 'her' man, and the professor's condescending tone, as usual, didn't fail to annoy her. 'He's not well, I'm afraid.'

'He's not much of an a.s.set, either. So much for those eagle eyes.'

Emma felt defensive of Alex now.

'No harm done,' Horsman said. 'The lions are pretty much on our estimated flight path in any case. I've plugged in the coordinates Alex gave me for the lion's last known location and we should be over it soon. It'll be a bonus if we help the desert lion conservation program as well as find our missing aircraft.'

Emma thought he was a good man. She had a.s.sumed he'd be some arrogant rich fat cat, but he'd been happy to help unlike the stuck-up Sutton and had a relaxed, easy manner about him. 'It sure would.'

'I'm taking her down, now that we're over those last mountains,' Andre said.

Emma rested a hand on each of the pilots' seats. It was quite thrilling, seeing the nose of the aircraft dip and the ground coming closer. Horsman levelled out and he and Sutton continued scanning the dry landscape below. Emma knew she should return to her seat and a.s.sist with the search, especially if Alex wasn't capable of even looking out the window for his own lions.

She was surprised, however, to find when she got back to her seat that Alex was sitting up, his laptop open in front of him and a map spread out on his knees. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'We should be nearly over the lion's last position.'

'So Andre just said,' Emma replied. 'You're looking better.'

He looked away from her, out the window. 'This is important, Emma. These lions are the last of their kind in the area.'

'Smoke ahead,' Andre said to them all over the intercom. 'Seems odd out in the middle of nowhere. I'm going down as low as I can to have a look.'

The Beechcraft dropped and banked sharply to one side as Horsman pulled their aircraft into a wide turn. Emma saw Alex's left hand clamp down on the armrest of his seat. She thought the ride was a buzz. They were so low now it almost felt as though she would be able to touch the rocky ground below, if she could open the window.

'Campfire,' Dorset said.

Emma saw three men dressed in bright traditional clothing look up and point at them. She caught a glimpse of a cooking pot and a couple of dogs barking up at them as well.

'There's . . .' Alex swallowed, 'there's been another fire down there. Can you take us around again, please, Andre, to have a look at that burnt patch about fifty metres from the men?'

'Roger,' the pilot said. They levelled out once more and then Andre pulled into the steep turning pattern again. Alex had a pair of binoculars out, his laptop and map at his feet now. He scanned through the porthole.