Whispers in the Forest
Copyright© 2025 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 2
Johannesburg Centre Airspace Class C.
We reached FL200 just south of the suburbs of Coronationville and Westbury Extension Two. I levelled out cleanly and thumbed the autopilot on, setting it to hold altitude and maintain 270 knots indicated. The cabin pressure was dialled in for six thousand feet, and the moment the aircraft equalised I could feel the subtle shift in my sinuses and the soft pressurisation hissing fade away into the normal background of avionics.
“Nice and comfortable,” I muttered to myself, watching the cabin differential settle. The cockpit was warm, the lighting dimmed to a calm glow of amber and green. Behind us, the cabin would have felt the same — no vibration, no harshness, just the soft suggestion of speed.
We were cleared through the Class C airspace, and the departure had gone like silk. After takeoff I held runway heading until the hand off came, the ATC instructions smooth and precise:
“Turn left heading two-two-three magnetic, climb and maintain Flight Level two-zero-zero, maintain own navigation, contact Johannesburg Center one-two-zero decimal three for flight following...”
Music to a pilot’s ears.
Now, settled at twenty thousand feet MSL, the aircraft rode the sky the way a well-trimmed yacht rides long ocean swells — steady, rhythmic, confident. The autopilot — good old George — held the airplane on altitude like a stubborn bulldog, fluctuating no more than four feet above or three feet below. As close to perfect as you get outside a textbook.
Night had taken full possession of the world outside the windshield. A thin sliver of moon hung low to the west, not illuminating much — just enough to make the clouds below look like torn pieces of silver paper scattered over the darkness. The city lights of Johannesburg were already fading behind us, dissolving into the deep rural dark. Occasionally, a lonely pinprick of light from a farmhouse blinked up at us from the ground. Up here, though, it was quiet. Beautiful. Infinite.
Lena was in the right seat, leaning in slightly toward her display screens, the soft glow painting highlights on her cheekbones. She was scanning the glass cockpit instruments like she was born to sit there. By now she had taken the green hoodie sweater off and was comfortable in the room temperature of the cabin with only a blue t-shirt, denims and ladies leather sandals.
I caught her staring past glass panel, at the stars. Her face reflected faintly on the Plexiglas — two versions of her superimposed: the real one, and the ghost in the window. The adrenaline of our departure and escape had finally drained out of her, leaving her in the hollow aftermath of exhaustion.
I wasn’t going to let her fall asleep just yet. Not on me. Not on the first calm moment of the night.
I grinned.
“The bar service opens at flight level two-zero-zero, Princess,” I said over the low drone of the engines. “Time for coffee in the cabin. And you are the stewardess.”
She turned her head very slowly and fixed me with a stare that could have frozen the Sahara at high noon.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on,” I said, popping my harness and standing. “Let’s go make some coffee. George can earn his salary for a few minutes.”
“You call your autopilot George?”
“Standard nickname in the Western side of the planet,” I said, stretching my arms as the seat gave me back my circulation. “Now let me show you the galley and the ‘John,’ for when you need it.”
She frowned. “John? That is a person’s name?”
“Also slang for a toilet,” I explained, stepping into the cabin.
She muttered in Russian under her breath, sharp and low: “Vozmutitel’nyy muzhik. Grubyy, kak traktorist.” (Outrageous man. Rude, like a tractor driver.)
Maybe she thought I wouldn’t catch it. Maybe she forgot what languages I’d learned in the places I’d been.
“Spasibo, Vashe Vysochestvo,” I answered calmly. (Thank you, Your Highness.) “And for the record, tractor drivers run the world’s economy. I take it as a compliment.”
She stared at me, that hard expression slowly cracking. The corner of her mouth tugged upward into the shy beginnings of a smile.
“You,” she said, “are a work of art. Come. Show me the toilet first. I think I might need it.”
“Follow me.”
I gave her the three-second tour of the cabin: seating, galley, emergency gear, lavatory. Small aircraft, simple luxuries.
“Will you excuse me,” she said, stepping inside.
“Take your time, Your Highness. Coffee will be ready when you get back,” I answered, filling the water boiler and listening to the faint singing as it began to heat. The King Air did not have the luxury of a kettle. Normally I carry hot water in thermos flasks, but the galley had the luxury of a small water boiler for emergency purposes. It works off an inverter of its own.
She paused in the doorway. “Ruan ... please stop calling me that. My name is Lena.”
I turned, met her eyes across the narrow aisle. “I don’t want to be rude.”
“No. You’re not rude,” she said softly. “I consider you a friend.”
I nodded once. “Thank you ... Lena.”
And for the first time that night, I realised the aircraft wasn’t the only thing levelling out.
She stepped out of the toilet a few minutes later looking like she had hit a reset button on herself. The panic that had clung to her earlier was gone, washed away with cold water and sheer willpower. She had tied her hair back into a loose knot, and for the first time that night she didn’t look like a hunted royal or a fugitive. She just looked like Lena — tired, human, but composed.
I held out a mug. The steam curled upward into the cabin light.
“Two sugars. Stirred, not shaken.”
She accepted it with a small, crooked smile. “You’re enjoying this far too much. This is just a coffee, not a Dry Martini...”
“It’s not every day I get to abduct royalty,” I said as I leaned back against the galley counter. “Most days I’m hauling silent passengers or crates of mining equipment.”
She picked one of the club seats and folded herself into it, knees tucked under, coffee cupped in both hands like it was the only warm thing left in the universe. The steam fogged briefly against her chin as she blew on it, staring into it as if it held answers.
“So,” I began, letting the teasing fall away. “We’ve got two hours of nothing but smooth air. No Volkov. No black SUVs. Just altitude and quiet.”
She lifted her eyes to mine. No defensiveness, no mask — just waiting.
“You told me about the ‘Thorn Regent’,” I continued. “You told me about the marriage trap. But you left out one thing.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What thing?”
“Why my house?” I asked. “Why is Château Falaises Brumeux the key to stopping him? I’ve owned that place for three years now. I’ve crawled over every beam and into every rotten crawlspace. I’ve replaced gutters, fought off termites, sworn at every leaking roof tile. It was a ruin, Lena. A beautiful ruin. Now the east wing is restored. Only the clock tower and the west wing remain to be restored, So what could possibly be hidden there that terrifies a man like Zoryanovich?”
She took a long sip before answering, eyes drifting to the window. The world outside was nothing but darkness and starlight reflected off the wing. When she spoke again, her voice was soft but steady.
“My grandmother,” she said. “Grand Duchess Tatiana.”
“The young girl in the photo?”
She nodded. “During the Second World War, when everything in Europe was collapsing, she was sent to the Union of South Africa, to the Château, for her own safety. Back then, the estate was an orphanage. A sanctuary for those who had no place else to go. And a lot of European children were sent there to escape the war. Some were not orphans, but from wealthy British families. My Great, Great grandmother was related to the Earl of Pembroke, and married my Great Great Grandfather to become the Dutchess of the Kingdom of Volynia. She and the Duke had a daughter – my grandmother.”
She turned toward me again, and the warmth of the cabin lighting brought out the green in her eyes — clear and determined.
“On her deathbed, she told me she hid something before returning to Europe,” Lena said. “Something she could not take back into the chaos that came after the war. Something my Great Great Grandmother sent with her to the then Union of South Africa. A small box. About the size of an A4 sheet of paper and twenty-five centimetres wide and high on the sides.”
“Where did she hide it?” I asked.
“In the West Wing,” she replied. “Or inside the Clock Tower.”
I gave a short, dry laugh. “Lena, that whole wing is condemned. The floors are rotted through. Half the roof is gone. And the Clock Tower? The stairwell collapsed decades ago.”
“It has to be there,” she insisted. I heard it in her voice — fear and hope fighting for space. “She said, ’Time will show the way to where the truth begins.’ She was specific.”
“So we’re basing our survival on a riddle,” I muttered, rubbing my temple.
“It’s more than a riddle.” She opened her bag and tapped a hidden compartment where she kept those old photographs. “It’s a legacy. The original Royal Deeds are hidden there. Proof that Zoryanovich’s family were never Dukes. They were servants. Stewards. If I recover those documents, his claim to the Regency — and to the oil fields — dies with it.”
I didn’t say anything for a second. Everything lined up suddenly — the assassins, the money, the desperation. It wasn’t just a political game. It was a decades-old power grab finally coming full circle.
“So,” I said slowly. “I’m not just flying you to a hideout. I’m flying you to a revolution.”
“Something like that,” she whispered.
I drained the last of my coffee. It tasted like burnt metal and adrenaline, but it hit the spot.
“Well,” I said, “I hope you’re good at climbing. Because if we’re going up that Clock Tower, we’re going to need ropes, abseiling gear. And if you suspect the time piece has something to do with it, remember there are four clock faces. One for each side of the tower.”
Back to Volkov, Dmitri and his team.
Colonel Volkov paced the length of the hotel suite for the twentieth time, the carpet already showing the worn path of his agitation. The room had been transformed from a luxury suite into a command post — laptops on every table, comms equipment snaking along the floor, maps taped to the walls like the skin of some hunted animal.
Two of his men stood rigidly near the windows, wisely silent, eyes lowered as the Colonel stalked by them again. His breath came in short, controlled bursts; his fists opened and closed like pistons. Every movement radiated a fury barely held in check.
How had she escaped? The question hammered in his skull with every step. He replayed the timeline in his mind, the checkpoints, the guards, the surveillance feeds. Princess Elena should have been secure in her suite, surrounded by armed protection and more cameras than a bank vault. Yet she had slipped through his perimeter as though it were made of mist and rumours, leaving nothing but silence and confusion in her wake. The idea that she had made a fool of him festered like poison. His men had failed him, and failure was not something Volkov tolerated.
He stopped suddenly, staring out through the tall windows at the city lights below. Johannesburg glittered innocently, oblivious to the storm brewing above it. Volkov allowed himself a moment of stillness, jaw tightening as the weight of the situation settled into his bones. If she had run, there was a reason. She was intelligent, strategic — too much like her mother and grandmother for his comfort. Something had spooked her. Something had forced her hand. He needed to know what it was, and he needed it fast.
The Colonel turned on his heel and faced his men.
“Find out who helped her. How she got out. Every second we waste, she gets farther away.” His voice was low and deadly calm, colder than the steel tucked beneath his uniform jacket. He didn’t believe in coincidences or miracles. Someone had opened a door for the princess, and Volkov intended to slam that door shut. She wasn’t running from him, he decided. She was running toward something. And whatever it was, he would catch her before she reached it.
“Colonel,” Dmitri spoke up.
“What?”
“We’ll have to wait for her to make a mistake. There are over 1780 places of accommodation in Johannesburg, and she could also just hide out with that guy she ran off with. The guy with the Land Rover.”
Volkov looked at Dmitri with a frown. The man is right. They will be wasting time by searching the hotels, guest houses and B&Bs in Johannesburg.
We need to find that Land Rover. Did you get the licence plate of it?”
“Yes. Sir! We did,” Dmitri started. “But only a partial of the plate. The camera angle at the exit was in the wrong place and low quality. We could just get LW 23 and nothing more.”
“LW23?” Volkov asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
For a long moment Volkov looked at Dmitri. Then he sighed and sat down on a chair.
“Get me the surveillance footage of her room. Someone had to help her. I want to know who, when and how. Get on with it!”
“Yes, Sir!”
Volkov looked at his watch. 20:55. Nearly 9 PM. She has been gone now for three hours!
Three hours is a long time for someone who does not want to be found...
How had she escaped?
“Run the plates again...”
Dmitri repeated it, testing every fragment. “Matches the Gauteng pattern but without the full sequence, it could be thousands.”
“Get me the footage from her room,” Volkov ordered. “Someone helped her prepare.”
The feed appeared. Clean. No visitors. But she had taken only a small leather satchel and an envelope hidden in her suitcase lining.
“What the...” Volkov thought. “What is in that envelope that she had to hide it inside the lining of her suitcase?”
“The grandmother’s papers,” Volkov murmured. “She’s going for the Château on the photographs! But where? Here in Gauteng?”
At time-stamp 17:23:07 the footage showed Lena going out the door of her suite. She was dressed in a green sweater, denims, and sneakers, carrying a brown leather handbag and her ever present file satchel as if going out to the conference. Volkov frowned. The conference was concluded for the day. He watched her closely. She looked relaxed.
Elena spoke to the guard at the door, even smiled at him, and walked off along the corridor. She rounded the corner out of sight of the guard, and out of sight from any camera.
Volkov froze. She turned left into a short hallway. Only about seven or eight paces. No rooms there, BUT A FIRE ESCAPE IS AT THE END!
He moved to the map on the wall. His finger tapped Sandton. Then traced a line to Midrand. “The vehicle was a Land Rover. Rugged. Expensive. Run the sequence again.”
Dmitri ran the search. Four hits: a motorcycle, a stolen Corolla, a construction truck, a Hyundai.
“Useless!” Volkov slammed the table. Dmitri zoomed in on the blurred screenshot from the mall exit. The rain and glare distorted the plate, but Volkov leaned in and traced the shapes with a fingernail.
“That isn’t a ‘W’,” he hissed. “The spacing is wrong. It’s LVV. Lima–Victor–Victor. Gauteng changed to a three alphanumeric sequence for their number-plates a year or two ago!”
Dmitri typed furiously. “Correcting search. LVV 23.”
The system began filtering, then stalled. “Database time-out,” he muttered. “We need the physical records. Could take hours.”
“We don’t have hours,” Volkov said. He stared at the map. “She’s not hiding. She’s moving. And the man driving didn’t hesitate.”
He followed the highway routes with a fingertip.
“North. Toward Pretoria. Or...” His finger stopped just off the highway. “Grand Central Airport.”
“Cross-reference LVV 23 with registered pilots or aviation companies,” he snapped.
Dmitri typed. His face drained of colour. “Hit, sir. Land Rover, LVV 238 GP. Registered to a Gert Johannes Van Deventer, owner of Van Deventer Construction CC, Gezina, Pretoria.
Volkov’s smile was slow and wolfish. “She didn’t go to ground, Dmitri. She went to Pretoria. Let’s go visit Mister Van Deventer.”
Inside the hangar at Grand Central airport a security guard checked the open door of the hangar and noted there were no aircraft inside. He checked the only vehicle parked inside. A Green Land Rover registration number LVY 231 WC. He shook his head and smiled, thinking; “With all these aircraft around, who would drive that old tank all the way from somewhere in the Western Cape to here.”
Then he clucked his tongue and moved on...
Back at twenty thousand feet MSL over the Karoo.
The instruments held steady: ground speed 307 knots. Altitude rock solid. All engine and fuel indications in the green. The whine of the turboprops was smooth, almost sleepy. On the PFD the little TCAS diamond tagged ZS-ZGL closing in from the west, slightly above our horizon — twelve o’clock high and just off our right forward quarter. The altitude readouts confirmed it: we were skimming along at flight level two-zero-zero, and ZS-ZGL cruised at thirty-two thousand feet. South African Airways, almost certainly. Probably one of their late Johannesburg legs pushing in from Cape Town or Kimberley. Commercial traffic blissfully predictable.
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