The Delta by Tony Park Read Free Book Online Page B

seen in so many men. It was as if they could never bring themselves to show true joy, because each time they tried, some memory or other returned, unbidden and unwelcome.
    She touched the bandage around her right thigh and saw the red spots. ‘My leg … what happened to it?’
    â€˜Through and through. If I’m not mistaken, a 7.62; the AK-47 being the preferred weapon of most shooters in this part of the world. I’ve seen worse wounds, but like I said, you lost a fair bit of a blood. Also, one side of you is covered in abrasions.’
    â€˜The bike …’
    â€˜Makes sense. I’ve also seen those types of grazes before.’ He prodded the fire, whose flames were now licking the old teapot. ‘I had a 1969 Triumph Bonneville when I was a wee bit youngerand I came off that thing more than once. I also plucked a few fragments of metal out of your side. You wouldn’t have been anywhere near a grenade explosion on your holiday, I suppose?’
    She ignored the raised eyebrows. ‘My stuff …’
    â€˜Aye, we’ll get to that soon enough. But you might consider a thank you, first. I kept that IV drip of saline for emergencies. You seemed to qualify as one.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    He nodded. Steam hissed from the kettle and he poured darkly stewed tea into two enamelled metal mugs. ‘NATO standard?’
    She nodded. ‘Please.’
    â€˜Aha!’
    Sonja frowned theatrically. ‘Oh dear. You got me. Or was it the assault rifle and the grenade that gave me away?’
    â€˜Well, I was in the intelligence corps for quite a few years before I retired. Tactical questioning of prisoners was one of my fortes, if I do say so myself.’
    â€˜Very intelligent.’
    He ignored the sarcasm and heaped two teaspoons of sugar into each mug and poured in generous dollops of long-life Sterimilk. He handed her one. Two sugars and milk – NATO standard, in British Army slang, had told him she had a military background, but not much more.
    He blew on his tea and took a tentative sip. ‘BBC World Service is carrying news this morning of a failed attempt on the life of the President of Zimbabwe. Seemed it happened not far from here, just across the border near Victoria Falls. The big man always likes to say the Americans and British are out to get him, and the so-called assassin apparently used a US military antitank weapon to attack the presidential convoy. Bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, I would have thought.’
    She said nothing.
    â€˜Of course,’ the grey-haired man continued, ‘the radio didn’t say the Zimbabwean police and army were looking for a woman.’
    He waited for her reply, but none came. ‘It’s Kurtz, isn’t it, if I’m not mistaken?’
    She sipped some more tea.
    â€˜Susie, Suzette … something equally German if I remember correctly. I was at Aldershot when they flew you back from Ulster for the board of inquiry. You won’t remember me, though.’
    Sonja was grateful for him picking her up out of the dirt, but she was suspicious of his prying and the fact he was from Northern Ireland, and she really needed to put some distance between them. He was fucking with her, and she was in no mood for games.
    â€˜Sonja! Yes, that’s it. I thought it was you, even before you woke. You haven’t aged much in, what, eighteen years?’
    That made her smile. ‘Something like that.’ She closed her eyes as she took another sip. It was a lifetime ago; someone else’s life. A pied kingfisher squeaked nearby. She knew this place, though the campground was better organised than the last time she and Stirling had stayed here. Simply being back in Botswana made her think of him.
    â€˜Stirling, I love you, too, but I want to see the world. I want to do something with my life.’
    He’d tried to be cool, busying himself by putting another worm on the end of his