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and yawned. He looked at the game-viewer, considered moving, but couldn’t be bothered. He fell asleep again.
    Chris knew most of the safari guides and rangers in her part of the park, including the ‘jeep jockey’ driving this vehicle, a South African guy named Jan. He was young, blond and attractive. Not her type, but he looked good in his short khaki shorts. Jan was sitting up on the backrest of his seat, facing his passengers and explaining some facts about lion behaviour to them.
    ‘We’re safe as long as we stay in the vehicle, but if you got out and tried to pat the big kitty it would be the last decision you ever made in your life,’ Jan said. There were a few nervous laughs from the crowd.
    Jan started his vehicle and edged it around Chris’s until he was parked beside her window.
    ‘Morning, Professor,’ he said, smiling.
    ‘Had much luck, Jan?’ Sometimes the jeep jockeys were a pain in the ass, getting too close to animals in order to present a better photo opportunity for the tourists, and scaring off the game in the process. Jan, she recalled, was studying zoology and seemed to have a genuine respect for wildlife.
    ‘Only need a leopard and we’ll have nailed the big five this morning.’
    ‘Head via the Klipspringer kopjes on your way back to camp. That big male was out on a rock sunning himself this morning.’
    ‘Thanks, Professor. I’ll buy you a beer with my tips if we catch up with him. Hey, how’s Miranda doing up in Zim? You heard from her lately?’
    ‘She’s fine. Working hard and much better able to concentrate on her studies now that she’s away from you guys.’ Chris attracted her fair share of attention from the men in the national park, but Miranda, blonde, blue-eyed, gorgeous and thirteen years her junior, sent the South African young bloods into a frenzy of competition for her affections whenever she passed through Kruger.
    Jan laughed. ‘She wasn’t interested in any of us last time she was here. Oh, by the way, I nearly forgot. The gate guard said there’s a message for you at reception.’
    Chris checked her mobile phone. She was out of range, even though much of the park was now covered by the cellular phone network. ‘Thanks, Jan. I’d better be getting back, then. Good luck with your spotting.’
    She followed the game-viewer back onto the main tarred road running through the park, then overtook Jan and drove as fast as she dared back towards Pretoriuskop camp. When she was close to the camp and its tower, her mobile phone beeped. Chris pulled over, ignoring the bull elephant snapping branches from a tree a scant fifty metres from her. She dialled the number to retrieve her message.
    It was the embassy. A female secretary started to dictate the number for her to call, but she cut the woman off, ended the call and started to dial again. She knew the number by heart. Bad news, Chris thought. The embassy only ever called when something terrible had happened.

Afghanistan

    Jed’s spirits were high as he walked down Disney Parade, the main thoroughfare through Bagram Air Base. The road was named not after the cartoon creator, but a US Army soldier who had been killed in a welding accident in the early days of the American occupation of the old Russian base.
    The jet engines of a C-17 transport aircraft screamed at full pitch and the fat-bellied bird roared down the runway Jed smiled. He had just visited the APOD, the aerial point of debarkation, and confirmed his seat on a flight out of Afghanistan that night.
    The dust by the side of the road was ankle-deep and as fine as talcum powder. It broke over his boots like the foamy edge of an ocean tide. The wind picked up and he shielded his eyes from the flying grit. He could no longer see the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains, couldn’t even see two hundred metres down Disney A convoy of Hummers rumbled down the road, stirring up even more dust. The paratroopers manning the .50 calibre machine-guns and Mark 19