The Delta Read Online Free PDF

balance and fell against another student in the aisle between the seats.
    He heard shots fired and saw, in his wing mirror, the Botswana customs and immigration people running from their office, then doubling back inside. He didn’t know bureaucrats could move that fast. A Botswana Defence Force soldier in camouflage fatigues was pulling on the zipper of his trousers as he stumbled from the blue-painted toilet block behind the border post.
    Mike changed up to second gear as he rounded a bend and gratefully put the diplomatic fracas going on behind him out of sight. The big truck lurched and slowed as he worked the gearstick, which gave Sonja Kurtz the chance she’d been praying for, to let go of the chassis and drop to the hot tar of the road. When the vehicle passed over her she rolled into the white powdery sand on the roadside, got up, brushed herself off, then fainted.

TWO
    Sam wiped his brow and replaced the wide-brimmed bush hat with the faux leopard skin puggaree on his head. ‘Out here, in the African bush, there’s no shortage of things that can kill you, and while they don’t cause nearly as many deaths as the humble mosquito or the lumbering hippo, these three-hundred-pound pussy cats are …’
    â€˜Kilograms,’ Stirling said.
    â€˜Cut!’ Cheryl-Ann screeched. ‘Stirling, please don’t interrupt when we’re filming, you know it puts Sam off his game.’
    â€˜Well, an adult male lion weighs up to three hundred
kilograms
, not pounds.’
    â€˜Well, we use pounds in the States, Stirling.’ Cheryl-Ann stood with her hands on her hips.
    â€˜Well then, at a conversion rate of two point two he should say six hundred and sixty pounds. It’s a big difference.’
    â€˜Stirling, I’m sure we all appreciate your expert guidance, but can we keep it to off-camera, please. Sam is the star of this …’
    Sam held up a hand. ‘It’s OK, Cheryl-Ann. Thanks, Stirling. I really appreciate you picking up the mistake. Let’s do it again.’
    Sam heard Stirling mutter something under his breath as the safari guide picked up a yellowed stalk of grass and bit down on it. He was sure Stirling didn’t like him, despite his efforts to make small talk and befriend him around the camp fire the past two nights. Sam knew that Stirling thought he had no right and no qualifications to be making a television documentary aboutthe Okavango Delta. What, Stirling must have wondered, was ‘Coyote’ Sam Chapman doing in Africa? Sam asked himself the same question, and came up with the same answer. He was here for the money. He sighed, took off his stupid hat, wiped his forehead again, took another look at the fake fur band and tossed it away.
    â€˜Sam, what are you doing?’ Cheryl-Ann asked. ‘Gerry, get the hat.’
    Gerry, the sound recordist, got up and picked up the hat from the long grass, treading gingerly as he did so. They had all, except Stirling, been freaked out by the sight of the cobra that had slithered from under Ray’s camera bag that morning. It wasn’t Gerry’s job to pick up after a petulant star, but Cheryl-Ann was the executive producer and when she was riled, as she was today, it was a brave man who said no to her.
    â€˜I don’t want the hat,’ Sam said to Gerry when he offered it.
    â€˜
Sam
,’ Cheryl-Ann said in her schoolmarm voice, ‘put the hat on. It’s important for continuity, and for your image.’
    Sam looked at Stirling and saw the guide rolling his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t wear a Stetson with a coyote skin on it in Wyoming, Cheryl-Ann, so why should I wear some big bwana hat with a dead cat on it in Africa?’
    â€˜Aaargh!’ Cheryl-Ann threw her production notes down on the ground and stalked past the camera crew until her nose was inches from Sam’s square chin. ‘Listen to me,’ she said in a hoarse whisper, ‘you may be the
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