and the Society had calculated where Eloise had gone. The Society was, self-evidently, well aware of the GenoMap connection. The Society had killed Fazackerly in London, precisely because he was connected to GenoMap. They knew all about GenoMap, they were closing down GenoMap with extreme violence; just as they were killing anyone with a connection to Gurs, and the Cagots. At the church’s bidding?
So they were surely aware of the Namibian connection – the links with Fischer and Kellerman Namcorp.
Putting the simple sums together produced a fairly obvious answer: Nairn and Eloise were in Namibia. David and Amy too. And Miguel had come after them.
David stared around, teetering on the edge of despair. Would they ever be safe? Violet-black mountains shimmered on the horizon. Mirages came and went: lakes of illusion, glimmering in the imperious sun. The heat was already impressive. Everyone in the car was drinking plenty of water.
The mountains reminded him of the Pyrenees. The Pyrenees reminded him of the map, still in his pocket, still folded and faded. David reached in his dusted jacket and pulled out the map. Amy was half asleep next to him.
He unfolded some of the soft paper leaves. Every star on the map had been explained, even the one near Lyon. But there was still that tiny line of writing on the back. He flipped the map over and looked. It was so faded, so barely legible, so small. Not his father’s handwriting. David squinted as close as he could: was that maybe a German word? Strasse? As in street? Maybe?
Possibly. Or possibly it was just the Teutonic ambience of Namibia, leading him down that cognitive pathway.
Carefully, reverently, pensively, David folded the map. With its one last clue. And then he kissed Amy’s sweet, bare, sleeping shoulder, hoping she wasn’t dreaming of Miguel.
At length Hans turned, one hand on the wheel. He nodded at David.
‘Empty, right?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, Namibia is empty. You know why?’
‘No.’
‘My people did this. Emptied the damn country.’ He frowned. ‘The Germans. You ever heard of the Herero Holocaust?’
He apologized: no, he hadn’t.
Amy stirred on his left. Rubbing sleep from her eyes. And listening to Hans.
‘Incredible story.’ Hans glanced at Sammy. Who was silent. The big German driver turned and fixed his eyes on the potholed road, and gulped some more water from a little bottle, as he elaborated:
‘In 1904 the Herero people rebelled, and massacred dozens of German settlers. My great great great uncle nearly died.’ Hans suddenly pointed out of the window.
‘Ostrich!’
Amy and David craned to see: three or four large ungainly birds were running down the road in front of them. With their flustered big black and white behinds, they looked like alarmed Victorian spinsters fleeing a minor sex offender. The sight was comical. But Hans was not laughing.
‘Where was I? Yeah. The Germans saw this revolt as a serious threat to the potential of their diamond-rich colony, so they despatched a Prussian imperialist, Lothar von Trotha, to deal with the uprising.’ Hans drank some more water. ‘The Kaiser told von Trotha to “emulate the Huns” in his savagery. Von Trotha promised he would use “cruelty and terrorism”. Nice bunch of guys, the German imperial classes.’
Hans steered a left and a right. ‘And that’s exactly what happened. Cruelty and terrorism. And genocide. After several battles, where the Herero were slain in large numbers, lovely von Trotha decided to finish the job once and for all and destroy the entire Herero people. In 1907 he issued his notorious extermination order, or vernichtungsbefehl. He decided to kill them in toto. Every last one. An entire nation.’
‘Jesus,’ said Amy.
‘Yah,’ said Hans. ‘So the Herero were driven west, into the Kalahari desert, to die. Guards were stationed at water-holes so the people couldn’t drink; wells were deliberately poisoned. You have to remember this was desert, searing desert, the Omahake. They had no food and water, an entire nation of people with no food and water. They didn’t last long. Some women and children tried to return, but they were instantly shot.’
He jerked the wheel to avoid a small gaggle of little birds.
‘And there are eye witness accounts of this holocaust. Unbearably harrowing. Hundreds of people just lying in the desert, dying of thirst. Children going mad amongst the corpses of their parents; apparently the buzzing of the flies was deafening, paralyzed people were eaten alive by leopards and jackals.’
Amy asked, quietly: ‘How many died?’
Hans shrugged. ‘No one’s entirely sure. Reliable historians estimate that maybe sixty thousand Herero were killed. That’s seventy