The Delta by Tony Park Read Free Book Online Page A

above her head. When she kicked her feet out her toe stubbed something. She blinked a couple of times. It was gloomy, though she was aware of weak light above her. She craned her head back and saw a dull glow behind a translucent blue window. Her right arm ached in the crook of her elbow and when she touched it with her left hand she felt the tube. She grabbed it and ripped the long needle from her arm, gasping with shock. She was inside something – a vehicle, her brain slowly transmitted back to her. She had to escape. She rolled painfully onto her side, but when she tried to sit up she felt nauseous and banged her head on the roof. Cursing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand, but her right leg buckled under her.
    An onslaught of light blinded her as she dropped painfully to one knee. She crumpled, but then felt herself caught by strong arms.
    â€˜Steady, steady, girl.’
    Sonja swallowed hard, forcing back the bile.
    â€˜Back into bed with you, young—’
    â€˜Outside,’ she gagged. ‘I need some fresh air.’
    â€˜OK, OK, let me help you. I’m not here to hurt you.’
    She stiffened in his arms. The accent was from another world, another time in her life, and it frightened her. Soothing as the tone was, the off-kilter vowels with their jagged edges were from Ireland. Northern Ireland. Ulster.
    â€˜What … what do you want with me?’
    â€˜Sit. Sit yerself down.’
    Sonja shook her head but did as she was told. She lowered herself and found she was sitting on the floor of a Land Cruiser, at its split rear doors, with her legs out on a set of fold-down stairs. The sun was adding to her pain and she raised a hand to her eyes.
    â€˜I’d just gone to the gents. You’ve been out of it all night, and most of yesterday afternoon. Lost a lot of blood, you did.’
    Sonja looked up at the man. He had his back to the morning sun, and its rays shone through his wild, unbrushed grey hair like a halo, preventing her from seeing his face.
    â€˜You should lie down again.’
    She shook her head.
    â€˜Over here then.’ He took her arm and placed it over his shoulder and around his neck and supported her as she stood.
    She was too shaky to resist. Panic rose in her chest as she suffered the soldier’s special nightmare of suddenly realising she was unarmed. ‘Where’s my … my stuff?’
    He snorted back a laugh. ‘You’ll be talking about your M4 and your Glock, I suppose? Safely hidden away, along with the spare ammo and the fragmentation grenade. You’re the most heavily armed backpacker I’ve ever come across.’
    She let him lead her to a padded camping chair, low slung and covered in green canvas. It was a safari lounger and he lowered her into it carefully. She looked around at the thick tangle of bush and vines that separated this camp site from the others around it. Through the natural camouflage she noticed belltents and open-sided tour vehicles. A fish eagle called nearby, the piercing, high-pitched rise and fall telling her there was water nearby.
    â€˜Tea?’
    She nodded. He crouched in front of her and prodded and blew a mound of white coals into flame. On a
braai
grid above the fire was a battered black kettle. ‘Where are we? Botswana?’
    He nodded. ‘Kasane. This place is called the Chobe Safari Lodge. We’re not far from where you collapsed, on the side of the road. I found you near the border. Did you come from Zimbabwe?’
    Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips and started to speak, but as the fog slowly cleared from her brain she closed her mouth.
    â€˜I don’t need to know,’ he smiled.
    He was about twenty years older than she, nearly sixty, she reckoned. His body was lean under his tight T-shirt and his arms sinewy but muscled. He had blue eyes that glittered when he looked at her, but even when he smiled his mouth had that hard set she’d