‘What if the noise brings those bird things running?’ said Luke. ‘If we try and land, it could be a bloodbath.’

  ‘I can’t believe those things are real,’ said van Rok, shaking his head. ‘In any case, we’ll check out the area. See how close they are to the landing site.’

  Ralph watched him talk calmly to the pilot. ‘Just do it!’ he wanted to scream. ‘I just want the rest of my family safe!’

  The helicopter dipped down lower. Robyn’s voice sounded again, excited, over van Rok’s mobile phone. ‘Ralph, I can see you! Wait, I’m going to . . .’ Her voice dropped to a hoarse, frightened whisper: ‘No. No, back up. Ralph, get away.’

  Ralph banged on the partition between him and the pilot. ‘Hank, take us up again!’

  ‘Do it,’ van Rok snapped.

  Ralph clutched the phone like it was precious metal. ‘Robyn, what is it?’

  ‘More terror birds,’ came the trembling whisper. ‘Right beside me.’

  15

  Robyn stood frozen in fear. Through the young tree ferns beside her she could see three of the monstrous bird‑creatures they’d fought earlier. They weren’t heading for Grant, Niko and Tanky, but they were surely close enough to smell her. She breathed shallowly through her mouth so as not to alert them to her presence.

  After a few seconds, though, Robyn realised that the terror birds were behaving oddly. They were moving stiffly, slowly, almost mechanically, in single file, as if to a pre‑set pattern: puppet sentries in a dead march. Their heads swivelled from left to right and back again, first one, then the second, then the third. They were behaving like no wild animal she’d ever seen.

  What’s wrong with them? she thought, with a glimmer of pity for the monsters. The other ones were ready to tear us apart . . .

  Robyn felt the red glare of one of the terror birds through the bracken. As soon as it looked away, she couldn’t help taking a step back. A twig snapped under her foot like a gunshot, and she froze, rigid, waiting for the exultant screech and the ravening attack that would surely follow.

  But the creatures lurched on. One paused in front of a tree that blocked its way, then sidestepped to the left to avoid it and kept going. The other two terror birds copied it.

  ‘Rob,’ came Ralph’s voice, low in her ear over the sat‑phone. ‘What the hell’s happening down there?’

  ‘Terror birds, but it’s like they’re in a trance,’ Robyn said. ‘I made a noise, but they didn’t react. They’re just . . . walking. Slowly.’

  ‘Stalking something?’ Ralph suggested.

  ‘No. They’re not alert like that.’ Robyn struggled to make sense of it. ‘It’s more like . . . they’re on patrol. Hypnotised, or something.’

  ‘Or programmed?’ Ralph said slowly. ‘Like those giant snakes I saw outside the mine, patrolling the perimeter. Gerhard called them his guard dogs.’

  ‘The “guard dogs” that attacked us when we picked up the jeep were off the leash,’ Robyn said with a shudder. ‘They tried to tear us apart; they came for us like real predators.’

  ‘When the titanoboa saw me at the mine, it kind of snapped into life and came at me,’ Ralph reminded her. ‘When I retreated a certain distance, it ignored me. Maybe these terror birds have the same kind of conditioning . . .’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Robyn. ‘Gerhard must have left them here to frame Dad.’ The terror birds had crashed away through the bushes. ‘Can you see any more?’

  ‘Probably, if we drop lower. But I don’t know where you are. There are lots of clearings, and I can’t tell which is which from the air.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Robyn. ‘I’m just going to find Dad.’ She looked down at the rear‑view mirror she clutched. ‘And don’t worry. You’ll be able to find me.’

  ‘I’m looking . . .’ Ralph craned his neck, scanning the bushveld below through the helicopter window. Suddenly he was blinded by a coruscating flash. He flinched. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Whoa!’ Luke had seen it too, and sat bolt upright. ‘Someone’s shooting at us?’

  ‘I guess you’ve found me,’ Robyn said over the phone.

  ‘Wait.’ Ralph released a long breath. ‘We’re OK – that’s just reflected sunlight!’

  His dad came on the line. ‘Right first time, Ralph,’ he said. ‘Drop down lower and you can check your reflection in the jeep’s rear‑view.’

  ‘Dad!’ Ralph closed his eyes and hugged the phone, full of relief to hear his father’s familiar voice. But then tears rose in his eyes at the thought of having to tell him about Xai. He quickly changed the subject. ‘It’s an old army comms trick, right? Sending a secure signal that can only be read by someone in line of sight of the mirror.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Xai for too long,’ Roland said. ‘How is the little rogue?’

  Ralph could hear the smile in his dad’s voice, and it felt like a pointed blade stabbing him. He struggled for words, but none came.

  ‘And Luke?’ Roland prompted. ‘Things all right?’

  Luke leaned forward. ‘All good up here, Mr Ballantyne.’

  ‘Uh, Dad, wait a second.’ Ralph turned to Mr van Rok. ‘Can we land?’

  ‘Not here,’ Karl said firmly. ‘We need an area at least the size of a tennis court to touch down safely.’

  ‘There’s too much detritus on the ground,’ the pilot, Hank, called back. ‘Leaves, dirt. If that debris blows up into the rotor system, we could be in trouble.’

  Ralph nodded tersely and spoke into the phone. ‘Dad, which way is the jeep from your position?’

  ‘North‑north‑west,’ came the instant answer.

  ‘That looks to be clear. If you and Rob get back to the jeep and signal me, I think I can guide you to the Lodge.’

  ‘What about the Lodge itself?’ Roland broke in. ‘Any vehicles there? Signs of movement?’

  ‘No signs,’ Luke reported. ‘Looks like Big Bird’s sticking to the forest.’

  ‘Well, we’re not out of the woods yet,’ Roland said wryly. ‘The battery’s low on this phone, but we’ll stay on the line. Robyn, let’s move.’

  Robyn would never forget that fraught ride to Crocodile Lodge: her father at the wheel, steering steadily through patches of mopane and acacia; Ralph’s voice, guiding them like the world’s weirdest satnav – ‘Terror birds on intersect course, two hundred metres east. Reverse into cover, and I’ll tell you when the path’s clear.’ The distant noise of the helicopter above became a kind of comfort.

  But the tree cover was dense, and Ralph couldn’t spot all the dangers.

  Once, Roland stopped the jeep in a thicket before a wide stream, ready to get out and test the integrity of the soil around the bank.

  ‘The rhino is a hell of a weight on that trailer,’ he’d said. ‘If it gets stuck in the mud, we could be in trouble.’

  Robyn nodded, distracted. The rank, sickly‑sweet odour of death hung in the air. The corpse of something big must be hidden beneath the glossy leaves of the waterberry trees on the far side of the stream: something that had been ambushed while drinking, perhaps.

  Robyn saw a lifeless paw poking out from the undergrowth with distinctive leopard’s spots and turned her head away.

  Just as Roland opened the door, Grant slammed a hand down on his shoulder to stop him.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Niko breathed. ‘Look.’

  The sinister bulk of a terror bird came into view, stalking through the undergrowth. Another, identical in height and build, followed, their heads turning from side to side in unison, scanning the area. Robyn found it deeply disturbing to see them act so robotically. She wondered how much of the jeep was visible. Would the terror birds pick up on them?

  Suddenly she heard snarling. A spotted hyena ventured out from behind the waterberries. Of course, she thought, any corpse brings carrion. The whole clan came into view, a show of strength to ward off the possible threat to their feast. Perhaps the hyena mistook the terror birds’ slow, robotic movements for age or infirmity, or maybe they were just spooked by the strangeness of the prehistoric predators.

  A third bird‑monster lumbered into view with its clockwork gait. Its presence pushed the hyenas into violence; Robyn held her breath as the clan made a coordinated run at the last terror bird, determined to pick off what they saw as the oldest and weakest, trailing behind.

  But the instant the hyenas came snapping up to the predasaur, its robotic movements changed. With a screech, the bird lifted a hyena into the air and stamped its huge‑taloned foot down on another, crushing it into the dirt. Robyn covered her eyes as the other two terror birds doubled back and turned on the hyena clan, attacking them with rampant ferocity. The air was filled with the choppy laughing noise that hyenas used to signal danger to the clan; then the wet crunch of claw on flesh; the snap and thud of beak on bone; the mournful howl and whine of the dying; and the patter of paws as the survivors fled.

  When Robyn opened her eyes again, the carnage was over. The stream was crimson with blood, and dismembered hyenas were strewn over the bank. The terror birds didn’t feed on the bloody carcasses. After they preened and drank from the stream, their behaviour grew progressively more robotic again.

  ‘Look at that,’ Roland murmured. ‘Conditioning taking over again. Like a switch has been flipped.’

  ‘They’re predators,’ said Niko quietly. ‘They might have been programmed to patrol, but when they come across prey, the instinct to kill overrides everything.’

  ‘And all humans count as prey. That’s what Gerhard has them looking out for,’ Grant added. ‘But why don’t the predasaurs eat what they kill? They didn’t even eat the leopard carcass.’

  ‘This way they stay hungry,’ said Robyn. ‘Always in pain. Angry. Ready to kill, but never satisfied.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ said Roland. ‘But perhaps we should be grateful that his control over them is quite crude. The terror birds seem triggered by sight, rather than scent, until they get stirred up by aggression.’

  ‘Noise doesn’t do it for them either,’ Robyn put in. ‘I cracked a twig near one and it didn’t even blink.’

  Ralph spoke up on the phone. ‘The kelenken I saw was marked a failure; it couldn’t be controlled,’ he said. ‘But maybe he was terror bird 1.0?’

  ‘And we’re seeing the next generation,’ Grant concluded. ‘In these things, it’s only sight that triggers the attack response. But maybe Gerhard’s working towards bigger and better things.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Niko.

  Roland sneered. ‘With the president in his pocket, he can violate every law of the land, as well as every law of nature.’

  ‘Guys, you’d better press on,’ Ralph said. ‘Zuma could be right on our asses. Can you keep heading north?’

  From the way the hyenas’ blood soaked only slowly into the earth, Roland decreed it hard enough to support the weight of the trailer, and they continued on their way.

  After what felt like a lifetime, the Lodge and its outbuildings appeared through the trees. It was all Robyn could do not to cry. She was home, and everything looked so comfortingly familiar. But after all she’d been through, it was herself she didn’t recognise. She felt as though her old life had happened to somebody else.

  Roland pulled up on the concrete driveway and drove around to the animal pens at the rear of the property. If he too was affected by their homecoming, he masked his feelings. Robyn found herself marvelling at how smooth and level the concrete felt under the tyres after so long driving over wild country.

  ‘A house,’ said Grant, almost dreamily. ‘Not an underground lair. Not some weird Frankenstein lab. Not a cramped truck or a forest of fear or some camp full of poachers, just an actual, normal, proper house.’

  ‘I’ll sort Tanky out straight away,’ Niko declared.

  ‘Aaaaand we’re back.’ Grant sighed.

  ‘Ralph,’ Roland said into the phone, ‘perhaps Mr van Rok could put the copter down on the back lawn?’ He craned his neck to look behind him. ‘Grant, help Robyn and Niko with the rhino, can you? I’ll meet Ralph and Xai at the copter and we’ll check the house. I want to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us.’

  Ralph closed his eyes as the copter touched down on grass that had been uncut for weeks. The whirr of the rotor blades finally powered down.

  Home.

  The late afternoon sun was slowly sinking behind the trees. How many times had he watched it set, shooting at targets and dreaming of adventures? Longing to live up to the long list of ancestors who had burned the Ballantyne name into history.

  Now he had returned here, the boy who’d got his father’s best friend killed. If he and Robyn had never set foot in Josef Gerhard’s reserve, if they’d never got involved in this whole nightmare, if they’d stayed blissfully ignorant of the corruption growing at the heart of their country . . .

  He could almost hear Xai’s voice: You did the right thing.

  Or was that wishful thinking?

  With a lurch, Ralph saw his dad running over the lawn to greet the copter. Mr van Rok pushed open the door, jumped down, then gestured for Roland to come inside. Ralph saw the sheer delight on his father’s face as he approached, his arms open wide. Then the puzzlement as he saw Ralph, and Luke, but not . . .

  ‘Xai?’ Roland hesitated, looking around. ‘Where’s Xai?’

  Luke stared down at the floor. Ralph drew in a breath that seemed to take forever to arrive. And he saw, hardening on his father’s face, the shock of understanding. The silence drying on his lips.

  Ralph just nodded a fraction.

  The rotors stopped whirring, and the Earth’s spin with them, as silence settled over the garden in the fading light.

  16

  ‘Where are all the animals?’ Robyn asked, staring around the empty stalls in the animal health centre. As soon as the automatic door had opened, she’d rushed inside. There had been several animals in the holding area and recovery pens when their nightmare had started. ‘I know Jari was released, but . . .’

  ‘The staff must have stayed here for days after we left.’ Niko was already looking through the racks of bottles, canisters and IV bags. ‘I’m sure the injured were either transferred or released back into the reserve.’

  ‘To be hunted by terror birds,’ said Robyn angrily.

  ‘Wish we could train a couple of them to lift Tanky out of here,’ Grant said, studying the juvenile rhino in the back of the trailer. ‘Save us a job.’

  ‘Not funny.’ Robyn closed the automatic door to the health centre and eyed Niko as she crossed to the lab and opened the door.

  ‘What are these facilities used for, Robyn?’ Niko asked.

  ‘Nothing too fancy,’ she replied. ‘Blood work, diagnostics. Faecal studies.’

  ‘Cut the crap,’ Grant joked, earning him a look from Robyn.

  ‘Then I’m guessing the molecular biology equipment, fluorescence microscopes and bioinformatics tools are recent additions.’ Niko turned back to Robyn, looking troubled. ‘All the props to set us up as the monster‑makers, I guess.’

  Robyn nodded, watching Niko select different phials and bottles from the shelves. ‘Niko, are you even qualified to work on animals?’

  ‘As a med student, I used to help a vet in Gauda,’ she said. ‘I’m no expert. But this is an emergency.’

  ‘How can you operate without veterinary nurses?’ asked Robyn.

  ‘I have you two, don’t I?’

  Grant closed his eyes and groaned. ‘I guess.’

  Niko tapped her fingers against some thick books with cracked spines. ‘And I have these manuals, so I can work out the correct doses of butorphanol and midazolam to send Tanky to dreamland.’ She selected a book, checked the index, then turned to a page. ‘What I haven’t seen is any pure oxygen to deliver sevoflurane, to keep Tanky safely asleep while I cut him open.’

  ‘Funny.’ Robyn frowned. ‘We used it to put Jari under for operations on his injuries. There was plenty.’

  ‘Well, there’s not now.’ Niko turned to another shelf. ‘Hopefully I can find an alternative approach. Medetomidine hydrochloride? Ketamine . . . Oh, Robyn, have you got a universal scanner? While I do this, you could find the microchip for me. It’d be good to know the bullet didn’t damage it.’

  ‘On it.’ Robyn crossed to a drawer and pulled out the scanner, a handheld device the size of a large TV remote.

  ‘What if it can’t read the microchip’s frequency?’ Grant wondered.

  ‘There aren’t that many options,’ Robyn said simply. ‘Keep your fingers crossed. A chip will likely be placed between his shoulder blades . . .’ She reached between the bars, playing the device over Tanky’s back, not quite touching his matted woolly fur. The device’s screen lit up green and it gave a victorious chime. ‘There you go! Looks like it’s in one of the neck folds.’

  ‘The bullet didn’t miss by much,’ said Niko gravely.

  The juvenile’s eyes were open now, glaring, and in the electric light of the recovery pen, they looked way more red than pink. Robyn suddenly recognised that giving the rhino a cute name had been foolish; any animal as powerful as a rhino had to be respected and this one had almost killed Ralph, despite its age. And after being cooped up for so long . . . Robyn wasn’t sure if she’d be able to soothe the rhino as she had before, nor how cooperative he would prove to be.

  ‘How do we even get him out of the trailer?’ Grant asked. ‘It took a block and tackle to get his crate into it, back at the mine.’

  ‘We have an adapted forklift here,’ Robyn explained. ‘We can sedate him, then take the cage down to floor level. We’ve got a soft harness that’ll fit around his jaws with a rope attached, so we’ll be able to lead him out.’

  Grant grimaced. ‘Sure he won’t be leading us?’

  ‘I’ll give him enough tranquiliser to make him docile,’ said Niko, loading a dart gun. ‘Then we’ll open the side of the cage and help him to his deluxe hospital suite. Or the holding pen, anyway.’ She nodded to a bed of cement with a drainage channel and hefty restraint straps. ‘Now I know the proper doses for a juvenile rhino of around Tanky’s weight. We’ll have to hope it’s similar for its prehistoric cousin.’