Dark Intent (9 page)

Moses Shozi’s house

Setlaba had never seen Shozi in such a rage.

‘You let them get so close they nearly killed me,’ ranted the warlord. ‘It happened last night and again today.’ It was shortly after his lieutenant had ordered his men into the grass and the two of them were in the lounge.

‘It was a rifle bullet, fired from a distance,’ said Setlaba.
‘I haven’t enough men to station all over the place away from the house.’

‘You only need a few to cover the main points,’ returned Shozi.
He touched the plaster on his neck, remembering how near he had come to death. ‘The enemy is getting stronger and more organized. Yesterday they were persecuted by the whites, today they have the freedom and the vote to behave as they wish. If you can’t accept these changes I must replace you.’

Setlaba bowed, the words shaming him.
‘I misjudged them,’ he said, ‘their determination to kill you.’

Shozi took pleasure in seeing his subordinates squirm as they begged for life.
Sympathy was not one of his virtues.

‘Your men won’t catch them,’ he said emphatically.
‘When they return, I want two men to be placed in the
kopje
. That’s where the shot came from.’

Setlaba lifted his head a little.
He was glad the warlord had come to the same conclusion. He couldn’t then be faulted on where he had sent the guards.

‘There mu
st also be a man patrolling round the house,’ continued Shozi, ‘with two men at the front.’ He went into the kitchen, observing the empty yard. ‘Bring me some food,’ he said, his appetite returning. He hitched up his trousers. ‘The visit to Malakazi will be tomorrow. Dhlamini must also die, alongside those he has harboured on our land, knowing who they are and the evil scheming that peppers their hearts.’ His hand went to his waist and drew the knife Ngubane had used to try and kill him. He held the weapon at chest height, the beautifully honed edge uppermost, and stroked the metal with his thumb. ‘The guerilla’s got good taste. I wonder where he got it.’ He slashed it through the air, admiring the magnificent Bowie shape and the texture of the high-quality stainless steel. ‘He would like this returned and I’ll take satisfaction burying it into him.’ He put the knife on a shelf above the fridge as Setlaba walked off into the yard. The lieutenant could imagine the look on his master’s face when he embedded the blade in the Xhosa.

Shozi ate alone in the kitchen, intent on the men he wanted to ki
ll. A few of the guards came back and he saw them go to Setlaba before helping themselves to food from the pots. He hadn’t expected them to be successful. The man who had fired the rifle was skilled, whoever he was. It could have been any one of his enemies, from the ANC or even from the other the group, the Pan Africanist Congress or PAC. He slid the plate from him and went into the lounge eager to get a report from Setlaba, whatever it was worth.

When it was dark Shozi switched on the lights downstairs and pulled the curtains over the French doors and the temporary plywood he had stuck on with tape.
The cast iron figurine was back on the table, the thin horns undamaged by the blow. As the curtains came together he glimpsed the plantation of trees and wondered who was out there, if the rifleman had returned and if he was even now planning another attack. He moved quickly away and went into the yard. Most of the guards had ventured in and they were talking amongst themselves.

Setlaba saw his master and ran to him.
‘There’s no sign of the marksman. The men searched the grounds and the rocks and the valleys towards Umbali and Malakazi.’ The stress of having to please Shozi in circumstances that were out of his depth was beginning to tell.

‘
Have all the men returned?’ asked Shozi.

‘Two are still out there.
They must have gone further afield.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Shozi,
his eyes darting daggers. ‘Let the men eat then give them their orders.’ He wished it was full moon. ‘I hold you personally responsible.’

He went indoors
his instinct telling him the gunman wouldn’t give up. He picked up the knife and took it into the lounge, placing it on the cushion next to his gun. Setlaba’s ignorance and inability to perform as required under pressure worried him, especially now when animosity between Xhosa and Zulu was at its most volatile since the legendary kaffir wars of the nineteenth century. He sat on the sofa, switching on his prized sound system and tuning in to the deep chanting of Ipi Tombi.

The music lulled him into a doze and he woke with a start when the machine automatically cut itself out at the end of the tape.
He turned off the power, angered by the uncertainty and scratched his crotch thinking it a while since he had last had a woman. They held his interest for only days and he had contacts in Umbali who kept him informed of the pretty girls, young ones in their late teens, preferably virgins. It was never difficult persuading them to come to the house and he did what he liked with them, frequently humiliating them and resorting to depraved acts until he was sexually drained.

He went up to his bedroom and languished in the dark next to the window thinking of the two guards, if they had come up with anything.
He doubted it.

Moses Shozi’s house

Krige
prepared himself in the shadows of the house, the safety on his pistol showing off. Faint voices from the quarters carried to him and he went to the porch. But before he could go further a man appeared from the yard wide of the house, first visible and then masked by a tree.

Krige
froze, hugging the wall. He laid the pistol on his stomach, lining it to where the guard would emerge. The man reappeared, his
knobkerrie
resting on his shoulder like a rifle. He kept coming, his bearing relaxed. Then he stopped, taking the stick down so it jutted out like a horn.

Ahead of him, the guard saw the amorphous shape of
Krige obscuring the line of brick.

He was not sure. He told himself to be cautious and he wanted to call for assistance but the
disgrace of a false alarm made him do otherwise and he went on, crackling parched leaves and hoisting the weapon above his head.

With little separating them
Krige came from the wall, landing off-balance. He regained his posture rapidly and raised the gun high to get the best aim. He fired and as the guard received the bullets in his chest he came in low, grabbing the body and controlling its descent. He listened for a moment then took the corpse into longer grass. He moved back and onto the porch where he could see between the curtains. He pressed the board from the glass on the hinge of tape until it touched the fabric. His view covered most of the room, the empty sofa and chairs. He opened the curtains and went in, taping the board loosely on the glass. He considered the stairs and was about to go to them when he heard someone coming through the kitchen. He had just made it behind a chair when Setlaba marched in and called up the stairs.

Almost immediately Shozi showed
, bare to the waist. He prompted Setlaba to speak and began to descend.

‘The two men have not returned.’ said Setlaba, putting his heels together to improve his bearing.

‘I knew they wouldn’t,’ said Shozi. ‘They’re probably dead. Have you posted the others?’

‘Yes, they’re in position now.
The house is secure.’ He remembered the rocks and rebuked himself for forgetting them.

‘The curtains are not together,’ said Shozi, only half
-listening. ‘Anyone can see in here.’ He went to the French doors and took the cloth. With a cry he let go, back pedaling hurriedly, a swell of paranoia throttling him. ‘Someone’s freed the tape,’ he shouted, snatching the pistol and fanning the hammer.

As Shozi took the gun,
Krige came out, alternating the Beretta between the two men. ‘Leave it,’ he said.

Shozi kept the revolver vertical, calming himself now that
the intruder had exposed himself. ‘Who are you?’ he asked in English. ‘Why have you broken into my house like a common thief? You’re white.’

‘Makes no difference,’ said
Krige. ‘Your rule of terror is over. You got away with it.

Welcome to hell.’
He hesitated fractionally then pulled the trigger.

But Shozi’s native reactions were untarnished and he was already ducking when the pin on the Beretta detonated the first charge. The bullets pierced the balustrade, decelerating as they tore at the grain. Like the canny fighter he was he weaved to avoid the succeeding shots, getting closer to
Krige all the time.

Seizing a chance to kill Setlaba,
Krige fired at the lieutenant before leaping out of Shozi’s path. The lead blew Setlaba’s head apart, sending him nervelessly into one of his master’s speakers, speckling the box with blood.

Heckling crazily Sho
zi changed his line and lunged. The two men collided, wrestlers, the gangster immediately feeling the power of his extra weight. He threw away the Webley in a fit of confidence, enjoying the combat and wanting to see the white subdued before a prisoner’s death. Artfully he trapped the Beretta between them and got hold of it, then letting it go as he swept Krige’s feet from under him.

They fell as one, the black on top, emptying
Krige’s lungs like a punctured balloon.

For long seconds
Krige lay still, his mind wandering in a maze, his mouth open, ready for his lungs to pull in precious air. It came like a charge of new life and then Krige saw the gloating black. With a Herculean effort, his spirit suddenly inflamed, he came up, driving his fist at the grizzled skull.

Taken by the blow Shozi howled like a dog
, his head feeling as if it had been split by an axe. He fell near the chair where he had left Ngubane’s knife. Then he remembered it. Through half-shut eyes he saw the hilt overlapping the edge. The guns were somewhere else and the knife was a weapon he loved, if he could get it. Reaching out, he was nearly there when his arm was kicked aside, unrewarded. Towering over him was Krige. ‘You nearly got it,’ said Krige. ‘But that against this is no match. You should’ve made sure I couldn’t get it.’ He revealed the Beretta, removing himself from the Zulu with the chilled articulations of a judge in a barbarian court about to pronounce sentence.

‘Why does a white want to kill a Zulu?’ said Shozi, recovering. ‘We have a common enemy. Unkhonto we Sizwe will never give up until Zulu and white lick the filth from their boots.
Chris Hani was their supreme commander, a folk hero, a communist to his bones. His followers want revenge and nothing less than absolute control of this country. Being part of a new government is trivial.’

‘I have orders,’ said
Krige tersely. ‘Your death is one of them.’

Shozi wrinkled his nose.
‘For what cause do you say that white man? I’ll call off my men and let you go in peace. We are brothers.’

‘You’re a murderer,’ said
Krige quietly, as if trying to justify taking the Zulu’s life. ‘You should have been hanged.’

‘Without Inkatha you’ll be destroyed by ANC militants,’ said Shozi, noting how
Krige hesitated and feeling a vestige of hope. ‘They’re your killers. You haven’t told me who you work for.’

‘It’s not important,’ said
Krige. ‘This is the end.’ A bullet ran with the words. For a terrifying infinitesimal moment Shozi knew it was coming but he couldn’t avoid it and he collapsed onto his chest, his nose reconfigured by the green pile, the tiniest secretion of blood innocently irrigating his skin from behind his ear onto his neck.

Krige
moved from the corpse, still carrying his Beretta as he went to the stairs. He climbed them to Shozi’s room and studied the view from the window, delving into the recesses for Setlaba’s guards. There were two he could see, each near the corners. A third man walked up and, after talking to the other two, went on his circular path.

Krige
turned the light on and returned to the lounge. He could hear the men out the back, getting nearer and he extinguished the overhead beam and lamps. He shifted one of the curtains, millimetres, looking for the guards he had seen. One was visible, the other blanked out by the end of the porch. He thought it unlikely they were carrying guns, if the three he had encountered were typical. He was surprised Shozi hadn’t provided his men with arms; AK47s were easily procured. They might have saved his life.

Krige
gave the third man he had seen time to walk around the building but he did not appear. He parted the centre of the curtains and opened the board, going onto the grey slate. He thought of picking off the two guards with the silenced gun but the light and range were against him and he left the porch at a run, bisecting the distance between the two men. He was almost through the gap before they saw him. They hesitated under the inertia of surprise then shouted and set off in pursuit, waving their long knives, their powerful legs driving them on swiftly. They were ten years younger, used to arduous journeys on foot and he could feel them gaining on him. Their cries aroused others, who also joined in the chase, coming in a swathe past the house with the noise of an infantry charge.

Near the
kopje
, with the two men closing in, Krige stopped, realizing he wouldn’t make it into the rocks, and whipped up the gun, steadying himself. But he had left it late and they were quickly within striking range, scything the blades in large circles. Miraculously he evaded the steel and with the others arrowing in he danced out of reach. The gun popped, spewing out a fusillade that brought them down. Going low, he prepared for the attack from behind. There were five, three bunched together and the others to his left. Choosing the group of three he fired again, intermittently spraying their bare bodies with the bullets, killing them as they tumbled, skittles in an alley. He turned on the last two. They were nearly on him, their
pangas
poised in readiness. His finger tensed again but before he could fire there were two shots behind him, fusing together to be almost one and they threw their arms into the air, harmlessly releasing their
pangas
and sticks as they fell. Stunned, Krige saw Dalton appear from the rocks, as calm as if he had just come in from an afternoon stroll.

‘They nearly had you Major.’

Krige got up. ‘Two more to your score,’ he gritted acidly. That Dalton had possibly saved his life angered him and there was no place for gratitude.

Shouts came from the house and the lights went on downstairs.
The verandah doors were opened and the remaining men came out. Krige started running from the scene. ‘Get the rifle. Our work here is finished. Shozi’s dead.’ He followed Dalton through the rocks and after retrieving the rifle they went along the stream for Malakazi, finding their way without difficulty in the dark.

They took the trail used by the guerillas and pushed hard over the rough terrain, alternately walking and running for thirty metres at a time.
Behind them the voices of the guards slowly died as they lost their quarries and after an hour they stopped, leaving the trail and taking refuge in the grass.