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‘exclusive’, which he took to mean expensive, guided tours into the Zambezi River Valley and Mana Pools National Park.
    He took out his hardcover Army notebook and a pen and started writing. He didn’t know how long he would be in northern Zimbabwe. As a military man, he did his best to make a logical judgment of the situation and what he was setting out to achieve. His mission was to find out what had happened to his daughter and discover some concrete evidence of her fate. From the scant information available to him, it seemed there was little reason to be optimistic.
    Under the heading Police he made a note to contact the local station. From his brief internet surfing he deduced the cops who investigated Miranda’s death would most likely be based at either Kariba or Chirundu, the two towns nearest the national park. Kariba was further away from Mana Pools, but appeared to be the larger centre.
    Miranda was his next entry He needed to find out her movements in and around the park, to talk to other people she would have come into contact with. Rangers? Colleagues? Prof Wallis – visiting Zimbabwe?
    Scene . He wanted to see where Miranda had been camping and to conduct his own investigation there. He had done tracking courses in the jungles of Central America, but he knew there was never a substitute for local knowledge and skills. Hire local guide/tracker .
    Logistics . He needed to be flexible and self-sufficient. He would have no choice in Mana Pools, as there appeared to be no shops or restaurants in the park. He needed a vehicle, tent, camping gear, food, water. Some of the basics were in his Alice pack – the common name for the capacious US
    Army-issue LC-1 rucksack – which was with his checked-in luggage. He had a sleeping bag, fatigues, mess tins, water bottles, combat boots and other odds and ends that would come in handy. He wished he could take a weapon with him, but from what he had read he would have to surrender any firearms on entering the national park, or risk being shot on sight by an anti-poaching patrol.
    His mobile phone chirped and he fished it from his uniform coat pocket. He made a mental note to call his service provider before he got on the plane to check whether the device would work in Africa.
    ‘Banks,’ he said.
    ‘Jed, glad I caught you. It’s Tom Cookson. How are you keeping, buddy? I’m so sorry to hear about Miranda.’
    Jed was surprised. Tom Cookson was a retired lieutenant colonel, an ex-Green Beret officer who had been invalided out of the military due to injury. Jed recalled he had taken up a civilian analyst’s position of some sort with the defence department and was working in the Pentagon. ‘How did you find out, sir?’
    Cookson hesitated. ‘It’s been in all the papers. Where are you, Jed?’
    The last time Jed had seen Cookson was inside Iraq. Tom, then a captain, had been in charge of Jed’s patrol, until he had trodden on an anti-personnel mine. The last Jed had seen of him was when he slid him into the medevac Black Hawk.
    ‘Her name hasn’t been released – at Patti’s request,’ Jed said, immediately curious.
    ‘Aw, hell, Jed, I’ll level with you. I saw a report from State. Her name was in the regular sitrep out of the Africa desk. I’m so sorry. She was such a bright kid.’
    ‘You’re talking like she’s dead, sir.’
    ‘Cut the “sir” crap, Jed. The report was pretty conclusive.’
    ‘Yeah. Well, thanks for the call. I’ll be sure and let you know if I find anything different.’ Jed was irrationally angry at the man. He knew Miranda probably was dead but, like Patti, part of him refused to accept what he had been told.
    ‘Hold on, Jed. What do you mean, “if you find anything different”? You’re not going to Africa, are you?’
    ‘What if I was? Is this you or the Pentagon asking?’
    ‘Jed, I owe you one. I would have died if you’d followed my orders and left me in the minefield, but you crawled through and dragged me