The most dangerous game, p.1
The Most Dangerous Game, page 1
The Most Dangerous Game
A P Bateman
Copyright © 2024 by A P Bateman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by A P Bateman
The Alex King Series
The Contract Man
Lies and Retribution
Shadows of Good Friday
The Five Reaper
Stormbound
Breakout
From the Shadows
Rogue
The Asset
Last Man Standing
Hunter Killer
The Congo Contract
Dead Man Walking
Sovereign Power
Kingmaker
Untouchable
The Enemy
The Rob Stone Series
The Ares Virus
TheTown
The Island
Stone Cold
DI Grant
Vice
Taken
Standalone Novels
Never Go Back
The Most Dangerous Game
Short Stories
The Perfect Murder?
Atonement
Further details of these titles can be found at:
www.apbateman.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Pollsmoor Prison,
Tokai, South Africa
Evanescent cloud scudded across a cold azure blue sky, glimpsed through the sliver of clear glass still afforded him by the weed-covered skylight. He guessed another year, another searingly hot summer and unrestricted growth and there would be no natural light in the room at all. Not that anyone seemed to care. Many of the men were so institutionalised that they had forgotten what daylight was. There was no exercise yard on this wing, and he had not taken a breath of fresh air in four years. Not since the judge had dropped his gavel and life had changed forever.
His tired eyes reverted to the ring of men, his gaze pausing on the two men opposite him, smarting at the memory of the last time he had seen them. He had been bloodied and bruised and they had raped him savagely. He had been in prison less than an hour and he had cried himself to sleep every night until the rapes became less savage and less frequent. They were members of ‘The Numbers’ the three gangs who collectively had the majority stake in running the prison. The prison’s gangs, the 26s, 27s, and 28s, and collectively referred to as ‘The Numbers’ were loosely affiliated with one another, each having its own hierarchy, leadership, and function within the whole gang culture of Pollsmoor. The 26s secured money via gambling and smuggling. The 27s served as gang enforcers. The 28s were the soldiers for all three groups and dealt with procuring and keeping sexual partners or ‘wyfies’. The 28s had merely got to him first. From that moment onwards he was a ‘wife’, and the other gangs were sworn off him or faced a gruesome death. The abuse had lasted a month and it had been a living hell. Only when he had sliced his own wrists open had the abuse stopped. He had been in the hospital wing for two weeks, where he had been given HIV drugs because as the nurse had said, “It was just a matter of time…” He had lingered for as long as he could, the hospital wing a lifeline in the stormy waters of the prison wing. Since then, he had been removed from his duties as a wife and had been teaching the young men who had foregone an education how to read. He had taught two of the men opposite him how to read and perform basic arithmetic and there had been no gratitude, merely sneers and looks that told him that they had power over him the day they raped him and relished the fear he lived with ever after.
“Why are you here?” the chaplain asked, addressing the group.
Nobody volunteered for anything in prison. If people knew something about you, then it could be used against you. To show fear or remorse was to show weakness and weakness in Pollsmoor ended ultimately with a man raping you in the worst possible way. ‘Wives’ were always raped face to face, often with another man holding your penis or scrotum in the opened blades of a pair of rudimentary scissors, sometimes a blade at your jugular. Men had been known to commit necrophilia before the guards could remove the body.
“Because I enjoy killing…” a large man replied. He was a Zulu from KwaZulu-Natal district 26. Every man in the room was a number either by the district they were born in, or by association. Wives were 26s as well. White, black, or Asian – colour or creed did not matter once inside. You either joined one of the three KwaZulu-Natal district codes, or you went without protection and found lesser gangs with pseudo power and standing. Being a wife to dozens of sadistic sodomists for a month at least granted you protection for the rest of your sentence.
“And why do you think you enjoy killing?” the chaplain asked, leaning forwards, and resting his elbows on his knees. The man had the chaplain’s undivided attention. Behind the chaplain was a steel gate with two guards lazily holding their shotguns while they smoked cheap cigarettes and chatted. If they had not been there, then the chaplain would soon have learned what it was to be a ‘wife’.
“I don’t think… I know…” the man corrected him.
“Power…” another man answered.
“Is that right?” the chaplain asked, looking at Grainger, the only white man in the room. “Because that power has ruined your lives…”
“I don’t know,” Grainger replied quietly. “I’m not in here for murder.”
The chaplain frowned. “But in a way, you are.” He paused. “Illegal game hunts and poaching violations. Many animals died.”
“I wasn’t aware that you were entitled to either know, or talk openly about my sentence,” he replied, but shrugged it off almost as quickly. Nothing was sacred in this hell hole on earth. Dignity and discretion were left far behind, along with your freedom. “Murder is a legal term for offending a human law - that law being killing another human. Since animals are most obviously not human, they can’t and should not be subjected to our human laws.” Grainger paused. “It’s a question for morality, certainly. However, killing an animal is not murder. The only crime that has been committed is sending me here, in this company…”
“The Cape Town High Court would disagree with that,” the chaplain replied matter-of-factly. “Mr Grainger, these sessions are about rehabilitation, and each one of you are due for probation within the next four years, so these sessions matter. If you do not meet the probation requirements regarding rehabilitation, then most of you will serve up to another ten years.”
“Always about the power,” another man interjected. “There is no feeling like beating another man to death. There is a point when you know that you are invincible, and you will take everything he has…”
“And everything he will ever have…” the chaplain finished the man’s sentence. The men seemed to like the observation, rather than feel humbled by its profound and absolute assertion. “Beating a man is one thing but taking it to the point of death?” the chaplain asked not hiding his disdain.
“Always to the death,” the man emphasised. “It is beyond that point where the power is found.”
“It’s how it makes you feel,” the big Zulu proffered. “There’s no feeling like it. I have killed animals for meat and to feed my family, and I have killed animals for the poaching of ivory and for the money. But to kill another man? That is to truly live…”
“The bible says…”
“Fuck the bible!” another man said, his voice so deep and resonating hate that Grainger, seated beside him, flinched. “That shit was just about controlling people and that is all you do now!”
“But we cannot go through life killing each other!” the chaplain replied, his tone too harsh and elevated for his own liking as he heard his voice echo around the room. He sighed, visibly calmer as he said, “Without morality, we are no better than the beasts…”
“The beasts do not need money. They do not have to buy their food. I killed a man for his mobile phone…” one of the men who had remained silent until now smiled toothlessly. “I sold it for food and beer. And if I needed to, I would do it again.”
“But you ended up in here…” the chaplain countered.
The man shrug
The chaplain could not imagine a life where it could possibly be worse than the hell that was Pollsmoor. He looked back at Grainger and said, “Do you feel powerful when you kill a majestic beast? An elephant or a rhino?”
Grainger shrugged. He supposed that he had done once, but in recent years he had merely appreciated the money that the safaris gave him. Rich Americans and Europeans who simply wanted to kill the Big Five. Grainger had charged a hundred-thousand dollars for someone to take down an elephant. Forty to fifty thousand for a lion. For someone to take the Big Five on Grainger’s last hunting enterprise a hunter could expect to part with a cool four-hundred thousand US dollars. These hunts were organised and involved drugging or tethering the animals to make the experience both easier for the hunter, and guarantee that they killed what they set out to do. Like fishing in a tiny, well-stocked pond. Grainger had run several of these ‘canned hunts’, but the South African government had been clamping down, and he knew that if he ever left this hell on earth, then the canned hunts would be no more. And with them, his investments and income. Several journalists and environmentalists had made it their mission in life to see that Grainger never ran another legitimate safari or canned hunt again. “Not me,” he replied. “Not anymore. But the hunters that used my services felt something close to power, I suppose. They were on cloud nine after a successful hunt. Occasionally, they would tip half as much again.”
“Imagine what some of these hunters would pay to kill another human being?” the chaplain mused. “Imagine people wanting to feel what you feel…” He swept along the circle with his hand, not pausing on anyone, but looking at each of them in turn. “… wanting to experience such a thing, the brutal, primeval power that you all described… Imagine a place where this could be made to happen.”
“Yes,” Grainger replied somewhat distractedly. “Imagine that…”
Chapter Two
Six years later
The Invitation
You are cordially invited to an experience like no other. I would be honoured if you graciously accept. I have included links to your first-class ticket with Emirates Airways, where you will have your own private suite, as well as unlimited access to the executive lounge when you transfer at Dubai Airport. I have taken care of hotels, internal flights, and overland transportation for your onward journey through the most beautiful country in the world – The World in One Country, as it is known – my beloved South Africa - where you will be my guest for a weekend. Here, I will show you an exciting future in nature conservation and invite you to take part in a unique and inspired business opportunity. No financial involvement is required, simply a weekend exploring your unique skillset as my guest, to aid my new venture. At the end of an exciting weekend, you will be financially compensated the sum of one-hundred-thousand pounds.
Your humble host,
Carl Grainger
Chapter Three
Mkuze, Northern KwaZulu
There was a chill to the night air at odds with the glistening bodies of the men in front of her. A sheen of perspiration making them seemingly glow in the flicker of flame. The muscled torsos, powerful chests, and sinewed arms, beaded with sweat on their dark skin, an emphasis on the whiteness of both teeth and eyes in the light of the open fire crackling with burning branches. The drumbeat grew in crescendo, and with it, the rhythm of the dancers and as she watched, she believed the men had entered a trance-like state, such was their focus. The rustling of grass skirts and colourful beads accompanied the rhythmic drums - a bush orchestra reaching its finale - as her fellow guests joined in clapping to the beat, some of them far too drunk to be in time. Then, just as the tribal dancers could seemingly give no more, they leapt in unison, high into the air and landed on their backsides, feet splayed in front of them, crashing to the dusty ground with a reverberating thump, and the drumbeat ceased at once. The crowd cheered, applauded, and turned to one another, marvelling at the sight, some pulling pained expressions at the thought of landing in such a manner so abruptly, so unexpectedly. The performance had certainly ticked all the tourist boxes.
Amber Byrne sipped her gin and tonic as the dancers gathered their shields and spears and the youngest of the men placed a wooden bowl on the ground before they left in unison through the wicker fence. The bowl was soon filled with money, some generous contributions of blue one-hundred-rand notes. As the guests made their way back to the bar, she drained her glass, unslung the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders against the chill and followed, dropping a few twenties into the bowl. She had plenty of elephants but wanted to hang on to the Cape buffalo in her purse. It amused her that South African banknotes depicted all the Big Five game animals, and she wanted to have one of each to give to her nephew when she returned to England next week. She had yet to see the two-hundred-rand leopard, the highest denomination, and still only around eight-pounds or ten-dollars in value.
Seated back at a small table outside the lodge, she ordered another gin and tonic. Doubles were standard out here, and it wasn’t long before she felt warmed and relaxed, enjoying the fresh night air, soft music wafting from the bar and the comforting warmth of the firepit. She had been to South Africa many times before, but in the summertime when temperatures had soared to a sweltering 45°c. This time, however, it was cold. Bone-chillingly cold during the night-time with hotel rooms and buildings designed for the hotter months, offering stacks of blankets and sheets to keep guests warm at night, and roaring fires and glowing firepits in the communal areas. ‘Dress like an onion,’ the hotel manager had told her when she had checked into her first hotel in Durban. And despite wearing skirts or cargo trousers with halter tops, she was never far away from a cardigan and a fleecy jacket for the multiple layers and ‘onion’ effect. Durban, however, had basked in pleasantly mild temperatures next to the Indian Ocean, and as she had travelled northwards, the temperature had dropped continuously. Elevation played a key part, and much of her journey now would be at two-thousand metres above sea level.
She stared at the fire almost losing herself in the flickering flames. How she adored Africa. Such a wild and masculine place yet full of feminine beauty, the trees, the flowers, all manner of flora and fauna, such beauty to behold. There was birth, and life and death in such abundance that if the country were to be compared to a human organ, it would be the heart. No, she thought. It would be even more than that. It would be the soul. When she had first travelled to Africa it was to cover war in Eritrea, and famine in Ethiopia. She had seen nothing but suffering, and pain, and life in its rawest, cruellest form. The mystery of two missing Swedish backpackers had taken her to Morocco and the Atlas Mountains. Cedar forests had grown tall, and it had snowed constantly, as thick as anything she had seen in the French or Swiss Alps. The weather had been so inclement in that country where she had previously thought only of Arabs and camels and bazaars, that she had to abandon the story and the fate of the two twenty-year-old girls had remained a mystery. A few years later she had returned to the continent to cover piracy in Somalia. Despite the West’s perception and Hollywood’s depiction of modern-day piracy, she had found that these desperate people were in fact fishermen who had found their livelihood pillaged by Chinese factory fishing ships. The ocean fished to near-emptiness using technology to harvest a never-ending demand for food on another continent. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and with the interior of their country overtaken by warlords and lawlessness, the Somalian fishermen had been left with no choice but to rob the heavily laden merchant vessels using shipping routes within sight of the Somalian coast. It had not been long before the pirates, as they were labelled by the Western media, had used kidnap and ransom as a means to an end. Later, gangs run by criminal warlords had capitalised on this and the money gleaned from ransom was soon redistributed into weapons, drugs, and other criminal outlets. Kidnapping had become big business in Somalia and Amber Byrne had been recognised globally for her serialised story which had later won her a Pulitzer Prize. Riding high on this achievement, she had written several pieces for both National Geographic magazine and The Times on the barbaric practice of canned hunts in Southern Africa. These hunts were organised for wealthy ‘blood tourists’ wanting to hunt with little effort to ensure a guaranteed kill. Lions bred from captivity, handled as juveniles, and released without any experience of fending for themselves, were often tethered or drugged and placed in pre-arranged locations for an easy shot. Many guests of these hunts would often pay upwards of fifty-thousand dollars to kill an adult male lion. The practice also extended to the other four members of the African Big Five game, with similar price tags, often much more for rhino and elephant. Later, using hidden recording equipment, she had filmed an exposé documentary for Netflix which had led to the South African government cracking down and banning the existence of canned hunts. And now as she sipped her gin and tonic under a clear South African night-time sky, in the warmth and comfort of the fire pit, she wondered why a man who had lost seemingly everything in his canned hunt enterprises across the continent, had met all her expenses and openly invited her to view his next business venture.
