Free The Prey by Tony Park

him, and Jessica’s mother had abandoned her. He thought he’d been a good husband; he’d never cheated. Jess and Tania had fought like cats, but it wasn’t the kid’s fault and nor was Tania the only one to blame. Tania hated their life. The mine provided them a good wage, a good house, stability, a cocoon from some of the bigger problems people in South Africa had to face. And maybe that was the problem. It was another world, living and working on the mine, and it just wasn’t for Tania.
    ‘No, it’s finished, Petty.’

6
    W ellington looked down at the dishevelled figure at his feet. He felt no pity for the Afrikaner.
    Wellington Shumba had worked the mines since he was seventeen and had risen to the position of shift boss in his native Zimbabwe, until the mine he worked for at Bindura closed. The owners had been negotiating to sell the mine to a Canadian company, but the imbecilic government had become greedy and insisted that all overseas companies wanting to invest in Zimbabwe had to be fifty-one per cent locally owned. The Canadians had got cold feet and walked away from the deal. The owners had had to sell their gold through the government’s foreign exchange bureau and had been paid so little for it that the mine had stopped being viable. Wellington and hundreds of other miners had been laid off and he’d made his way south, joining the three million-strong Zimbabwean diaspora.
    ‘On your feet,’ Wellington barked at Loubser.
    The man looked up at him and Wellington, who wore a miner’s lantern, saw the streaks of tears that cut the grit on the man’s face.
Pathetic
, he thought. He wouldn’t last a week here as a
zama zama
. Wellington nodded to Phineas, his trusted lieutenant and, likeWellington, a Shona from Zimbabwe. ‘Keep an eye on this
mukiwa
while we walk. It’s time for the scared little white boy to go to work.’
    Wellington had expected more of the man. The Afrikaners he knew were tough men. This one, however, had the look of a frightened girl the moment before she was taken. Wellington reached out to pull Loubser to his feet. The man recoiled in terror. Wellington laughed, deep and loud. ‘Come with me and I’ll introduce you to the Professor.’
    Wellington led, shining a path for them through his underground kingdom with the lamp on his hard hat. He may have been a shift boss when he’d still had a job in Zimbabwe, and a lowly miner again when he’d crossed the Limpopo illegally into South Africa from his homeland, but down here he was the mine captain, the ruler of this netherworld.
    And he loved it.
    He made more money in a month, leading his workforce of two hundred and twenty-three
zama zamas
, than he could in a year if he was working for Global Resources, or Anglo Gold Ashanti or Harmony. Above ground he kept a house and a shiny black BMW Z4 at a house in Emjindini township, near Barberton. When he travelled across the border to Mozambique to sell his gold he stayed at the best hotels in Maputo. He drank VSOP cognac when he partied and had women waiting for him in different countries whenever he surfaced.
    He was due back in the daylight within the next few days, but he could not leave while they still held the Afrikaner captive. Loubser would have to prove his worth to them, and if he refused to play along, or if he had some kind of nervous breakdown, then Wellington would be faced with the choice of ransoming him sooner than expected, or killing him and dumping his body at the shaft before mine security came looking for him.
    The deaths of the other two mine employees concerned him. They should not have happened, but he was ready to deal with the retaliation if and when it came.
    ‘Phineas, have you prepared the defences?’
    ‘Yes, boss,’ Phineas said as they walked. He prodded Loubser with the barrel of his AK-47.
    ‘Good.’ Wellington had ordered booby traps set at the entrance to the old tunnel where the two mine employees had been killed. He’d had Phineas place