Free Far Horizon by Tony Park

you mean?’
    â€˜We haven’t seen the end of this . . . incident. The higher-ups want to know what you and Carlos were doing digging around in the dirt in the first place. You’re a technical adviser, not a mine clearer.’
    Mike bridled at the comment, but he had no real quarrel with Jake. ‘You wanted us to find a place to take a bunch of glorified tourists, including the press. Carlos spotted a mine virtually on the cleared path. If he hadn’t got his hands dirty and lifted it you would have ended up with a dead dignitary – or worse, a dead reporter – on your hands.’
    â€˜And now I’m short one technical adviser,’ Jake said.
    â€˜He had a name. Carlos. And no, you’re short two technical advisers. I told you, I’m taking my leave and I’m getting out of the army as soon as I get back to Australia.’
    â€˜Then what?’
    â€˜I’m planning on coming back.’
    â€˜I’ll get you a job as a civilian contractor,’ Jake offered, his tone conciliatory now.
    â€˜Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, what I do will depend on someone else.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜A woman.’
    â€˜Ah, I see. Been holding out on us, have you? Local girl?’
    Mike shrugged.
    â€˜Anyway,’ Jake continued, ‘you’re going nowhere just yet. You’ve got to go back to the scene of the crime, and it’s not me, or the UN, that says so. It’s the cops. There’s some South African detective in town who wants to find out what happened to the elephant.’
    â€˜The elephant? For fuck’s sake, why?’
    â€˜He is, or was, a South African elephant. Something of a national treasure, or so I’m led to believe. One of the big tuskers of the Kruger park and there are some seriously pissed people over the border,’ Jake said, consulting a fax flimsy on his desk.
    â€˜What’s that got to do with me?’ Mike asked, annoyed. He wanted to get to the hospital in Maputo where Isabella worked. He had missed the chance to see her at Mapai at the weekend, even though they had only been a few dozen kilometres apart, but there was no phone at the clinic and no way for him to geta message to her, despite several calls to her hospital. He had called her home, a small apartment in the nicer part of town, that morning, but there was no answer. He assumed she was on her way to work.
    â€˜You hit that elephant with a round from an AK-47, unless my recollection of your statement is incorrect,’ Jake said.
    â€˜That round probably ricocheted off his skull, Jake. I might as well have been spitting at him for the harm it did him. And anyway, he was trying to kill me.’
    â€˜I know, I know. Take it easy. And I’ve already heard from your colonel that you’re bailing out. Anyway, you’re not leaving the country until you come and tell your story to the South African Police.’
    â€˜I’ve got more important things to do first, Jake. I’ll call you later.’
    He turned and walked out of Jake’s office and down the stairs. Outside, he hailed a battered Peugeot cab in the street and told the driver he wanted to go to the hospital.
    His first meeting with Isabella, not long after he arrived in Mozambique, was far from romantic. It was due to an ingrown toenail. He was a little embarrassed about the injury, but it was giving him hell and had flared up badly in the African heat.
    Before he had left Australia, a warrant officer who had just completed a tour with the mine-clearing detachment had given him some good advice about health care in Mozambique: ‘Don’t get sick.’ But Mike couldn’t put off dealing with his problem any longer.It was too tricky for the UN team’s own medic and not serious enough to warrant shipping him across the border to a nice clean hospital in South Africa.
    Like most of Maputo, the hospital was built by the Portuguese during their colonial