'What's this kid's name?' Brand asked.

'Natangwe,' said the man.

Brand lightly slapped the wounded man on the cheek. 'Natangwe, Natangwe? Can you hear me?'

Natangwe opened his eyes.

'Talk to me, man. Can you hear me?'

'Yes, yes, I can,' he said weakly.

'You're going to be OK, buddy. We're going to get you out of here.' Brand knew it was important to rea.s.sure the patient, but he felt less than confident of his words. He looked to the other casualty, Sonja's daughter. 'What about her?'

'I don't know,' said Alex. Brand saw the pain in his eyes as the man took the woman's limp hand. 'She is breathing, but unconscious. The bullet didn't enter her skull.'

Brand put his fingers to Emma's neck and checked her pulse, which was strong and even. Her breathing was regular, as Alex had said. He peeled the bandage away from her head. Like all head wounds it had bled profusely, soaking the bandage, but the bleeding had all but stopped now. She had been lucky; the bullet had grazed her temple, though there was no way of telling yet what damage had been done. She was still out cold.

'Hopefully it looks worse than it is,' said the man with his hand on Natangwe's wound.

'And you are?' Brand asked.

'Professor Dorset Sutton,' the older man said.

'Hudson Brand.'

'Brand? H. Brand?'

'Yes.'

'That's the same name as the man we uncovered at a dig site near Etosha National Park.'

'Long story. Right now, we need to do something about Natangwe and Emma here. They need proper medical care. Matthew?'

Allchurch jogged to him, carrying the small first-aid kit from the Unimog. 'This is all we've got.'

Brand unzipped the kit, but the dressings in it were more for minor cuts and burns.

'I'll check inside the Dakota,' Matthew said. 'There might be a better kit in there, even if it's old.' Matthew disappeared into the dark hole of the open cargo door.

Sonja arrived at the crash site, breathing hard, but then put her hand on her mouth in horror as she saw her daughter lying on the ground. Stirling had freed the Amarok and arrived just after her. Sonja sprinted to Emma, dropping to both knees.

Brand went to Stirling. 'Have you got a decent first-aid kit?'

'I never head into the bush without one.' He went to the back of his bakkie and came out with a military medic's bulky field pack.

Sonja cradled her daughter's head in her lap. 'Emma! My baby, talk to me.'

'Sonja,' Brand interrupted. 'This young guy . . .'

'Natangwe,' Alex said.

'Yeah, Natangwe. He's. .h.i.t real bad. How are your medic's skills?'

Sonja was wide-eyed. 'Brand, this is my daughter.'

'Yes, I know,' Brand said. 'She's unconscious, but her airways, breathing and circulation are fine. It might just be concussion.'

'Just concussion? She's been f.u.c.king shot in the head, Brand.'

'Sonja, I know she's your daughter but there's nothing we can do for her right now.' He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. 'Natangwe, here, however, is bleeding out. He's going to die unless we do something soon.'

Sonja, still holding Emma's head, looked across at Natangwe, who groaned in pain. His eyes were heavily lidded and he looked like he might pa.s.s out at any second.

'Get out of the way, both of you,' Sonja said to Brand and Sutton.

Brand shifted himself to one side and Sonja gently laid Emma's head in the sand. 'Watch her,' she snapped at Alex. He took her position.

Sonja moved to Natangwe, brushed Sutton's hand out of the way and put her knee on Natangwe's groin, near where his wounded leg met his body. She put her weight on him.

Brand lifted the b.l.o.o.d.y shirt and took another peek at the wound. 'Pressure on the artery has slowed the bleeding right down.'

'We need a new, better dressing.'

'Coming,' Stirling called. He dropped his medical pack next to Sonja and unzipped it. 'Some serious dressings here.'

Brand moved in and sorted through the bag. He ripped open a bulky padded wound dressing and quickly replaced the sodden shirt with it. He tied it tight.

'Natangwe, can you hear me?'

He blinked up at Sonja. 'Yes.'

'I know you're hurting, but I need you to press down here, on your groin, where my knee is, as hard as you can. Can you do that for me?'

'Yes.'

She put her hand on his body and pressed down. 'Harder, Natangwe.'

'Here, I'll do it,' Alex said.

Sonja wiped her b.l.o.o.d.y hands on her shirt and looked at Brand. She raised her eyes and Brand knew exactly what she was trying to communicate. Natangwe would be dead soon if they didn't get him to a surgeon.

'We have to get him to a doctor,' Brand said. 'Stirling, where's the nearest town?'

'Wilfriedstein,' Stirling said. 'The Castle hotel there will know where the nearest doctor is.'

'Andre,' Alex said, pointing with a jab of his thumb, 'the dead guy over there had a satellite phone.'

'Get it,' Sonja said.

Alex went to Andre and patted down his body and found the phone. He punched some b.u.t.tons. 'Scheisse.'

'What's wrong?' Sonja asked.

'He put a security lock on it. I can't get it working.'

'Mum?' a faint voice said.

Alex, Brand and Sonja turned in unison.

'She's awake!' Sutton cried out. 'Thank G.o.d, she's awake.'

Sonja and Brand knelt either side of Emma and Sonja lowered her head and kissed her daughter. 'Can you see me, my girl?'

Emma blinked a few times. 'Yes. My head. Ow, my f.u.c.king head.'

Sonja coughed, choking back what looked to Brand like a mix of tears and laughter.

'Mum, you've gone blonde.'

Sonja took a breath to still herself, but didn't seem able to speak.

'How did you find us, Mum?'

Sonja exhaled. 'I'll tell you later.' She hugged Emma, holding her close to her breast. 'I'm just so glad you're alive. We have to get out of here.'

'How's Natangwe?' Emma asked.

'We need to get him to a doctor, as quickly as possible.'

'Mum,' Emma winced as she touched her head wound, 'there are people coming for the stuff from the aircraft. They're on the way. The others were waiting for them and they were just about . . . they were just about to . . .'

Emma started crying and Sonja hugged her. Brand noticed the two partially dug holes and the shovels. He could tell exactly what had happened at least he thought he could. Now that he could afford to shift his attention from the casualties he noticed the legs of a second dead man protruding from the Land Cruiser. He stood and walked to the first body, bending to confirm he was dead by checking his pulse. The man was his age or a bit older, his complexion fair. Brand thought of the blond-haired man who had tried to kill him on board the Dakota that night.

The man in the vehicle had been shot between the eyes. 'Natangwe do this?'

'No.' Brand turned. It was Sutton, the professor, who spoke. 'Emma got them both. She's a b.l.o.o.d.y heroine. Deserves a medal for bravery, she saved us all. They were going to kill us.'

Sonja looked up at the professor, as did Emma, who cuffed the tears from her eyes.

Sutton looked at Emma. 'I'm so sorry, for being so beastly to you on the dig, and since then. It's my way. I'm a silly old fool, drunk on my own power and standing. You've shown me the meaning of real courage, Emma. I was sitting there, praying we wouldn't die, and you and Natangwe put your lives on the line for all of us.'

'I killed them, Mum,' Emma said softly. 'But Natangwe's the hero, he saved my life.'

Brand saw the way Sonja hugged her daughter tightly. 'You did the right thing. But really, we must leave now.'

'Andre and Sebastian,' Sutton said, gesturing to the dead men, 'didn't load their vehicles because they knew someone was coming to pick up the cargo. They were going to use their trucks to get away. Emma's right. I fear whoever is coming to collect is on their way now.'

'All right,' said Brand, taking charge, giving Sonja time to comfort Emma. 'Professor, you'll drive one of the four-by-fours, the other we'll disable.'

Stirling had moved to the cargo crates and was prising open the lid of one of the wooden boxes in the unwrapped bundle with a discarded shovel. 'Hudson, this is rhino horn,' he said. 'Ma.s.ses of it.'

'I figured it might have been ivory at the time; no one was that het up about horns in those days. The guys shipping it wouldn't have imagined what it would be worth today.'

'No,' Dorset chimed in, 'but they know now, which was why they were prepared to kill for it. We can't leave it here, to be picked up by Horsman's partners.'

'Andre Horsman?' Brand asked.

'Yes, that was the man's name,' Dorset said.

'I met him once. A long time ago.'

'Andre?' Matthew said, overhearing them.

Brand nodded. Matthew walked quickly to the dead body on the sand, which he had so far avoided or not looked at closely. He stood over Horsman. 'He was the commander of my son's squadron,' he said quietly, almost to himself. 'I thought he was my friend. He was using me, all this time, waiting to see if one day my efforts to find Gareth would pay off for him.'

'It looks that way,' Brand said. 'He knew I was still alive, but he never came after me. I was on the front line for the rest of the war, far from him. If he checked up on me, which I'm sure he would have from time to time, he would have worked out pretty quickly I was too poor to have ever found his missing cargo.'

'Then he sends me to you,' Matthew said, 'to get you to come here with me, so he could get us both in the same place.'

'And kill us,' Brand said.

'All of us,' Sonja reminded them. 'Come on, let's get out of here. Brand, I don't give a f.u.c.k about all this rhino horn. What do you want to do with it?'

Stirling picked up the box he'd been inspecting and tossed it into the back of the still-open rear of the Amarok. 'We're taking it with us.'

'Why not burn it?' Allchurch said. 'The cursed stuff killed my son.'

'Shoot, I didn't think, Matthew,' Brand said. 'When I sent you inside the aircraft, did you . . . was Gareth in there?'

'No,' Matthew said. 'There's a body in there, a skeleton, but I checked the ident.i.ty discs. It was the pilot, Danie Bester. I know his parents. I'm afraid there's no sign of Gareth.'

'I'm sorry.'

Allchurch looked up, his face animated. 'No, don't be. I've been thinking about what Sonja said, about the man her uncle picked up on the salt road. We don't know who it was. It could have been Gareth.'

'Possible, I guess,' said Brand without conviction.

Stirling was working up a sweat, tossing boxes into the back of the truck.

'You sure you want to take all this stuff?' Brand said.

'We can't leave it here to be stolen, and it will take too long to burn it. Also, if we can hand it over to the Namibian authorities it will be great PR, showing how they've stopped all this falling into the wrong hands.'

'As long as your PR stunt doesn't cost Natangwe his life,' Sonja weighed in. 'You've got until we've loaded Natangwe, then we're going. You can catch up to us if you need to, you'll travel faster than the Unimog, but you'll have to take your chances.'

'I'll help you,' Sutton said to Stirling. 'I don't want these criminal b.a.s.t.a.r.ds getting a cent from the defenceless creatures that were killed for this horn, even if they are long dead.'

Alex had fetched a blanket from the Unimog campervan and together he, Emma, Sonja and Brand gently slid Natangwe onto it and then lifted him. They eased him into the camper, which was equipped with two single beds, and made him as comfortable as they could.