She looked down at the page again. There was another article, presented in box form beside the picture of a man standing next to a motorcycle.
By Jannie Kritzinger, Motoring editor
This is the motorcycle that created a sensation last year by beating the legendary sports models like the Kawasaki ZX-6R, Suzuki SV 650 S, Triumph Sprint ST, and even the Yamaha YZF-Ri in a notorious alpine high-speed road test run by the leading German magazine,
Motorrad.
But the BMW R1150 GS is anything but a racing motorcycle. In truth, it is the number one seller in a class or niche that it has created the so-called multipurpose motorcycle that is equally at home on a two-track ground road or the freeway.
While the GS stands for Gelä;nde/Strasse (literally veld and street), the multipurpose idea has expanded to include models from Triumph, Honda, and Suzuki, which all use drive-chain technology.
She scanned the rest, wanting to turn to the promised article on page two (MOTORCYCLIST IS PSYCHOPATH, SAYS BRIGADIER and MPAYIPHELI MUTILATED ME REH ABILITAT ED CRIMINAL TELLS ALL and THE BATTLE OF KIMBERLEY! BIKER GANGS HAND-TO-HAND), but her cell phone rang in the bedroom and she ran, praying,
Please, let it be him.
Allison, I have a guy on the phone who says he rescued the boy last night. Can I give him your number?
* * *
Thobelas plate was filled with sausage and eggs, fried tomato and bacon, beans in tomato sauce, and fried mushrooms. Hot black bitter coffee stood steaming on the starched white tablecloth, and he ate with a ravenous appetite.
He had overslept, waking only at twenty to seven, his wounds excruciating, wobbly on his feet, hands still trembling but controllable like an idling engine. He had bathed without haste, carefully inspected the bloody mass, covered it up again, taking only one pill this time, dressed and come down to eat.
In the upper corner of the dining room the television was fixed to a metal arm. CNN reported on share prices and George Bushs latest faux pas with the Chinese and on the European Community that had turned down yet another corporate merger, and then the newsreader murmured something about South Africa and he looked up to see the photo of his motorbike on the screen and froze. But he could not hear, so he went forward till he was directly under the screen.
the fugitives common-law wife and her son have since gone missing. Mpayipheli is yet to be apprehended. Other African news: Zim babwean police arrested another foreign journalist under the countrys new media legislation, this time the
Guardian
correspondent Simon Eagleton
Gone missing?
What the fuck did they mean by gone missing?
Captain Tiger Mazibuko ate in the Golf. He had pulled off the road two hundred meters south of the Zambezi bridge and he had the tasteless hamburger on his lap and was drinking out of the Fanta orange can. He wished he could brush his teeth and close his eyes for an hour or two, but at least he was reasonably sure the dog had not passed there yet.
He had stopped at every filling station, Mahalapye, Palapye, Francistown, Mosetse, Nata, and Kasane, and no one had seen a motorbike. Every petrol attendant he had gently nudged awake or otherwise woken had shaken his head. Last week, yes, there had been a few. Two, three English but they were going down to Johannesburg. Tonight? No, nothing.
So he could wait, his furry mouth could wait for toothpaste, his red eyes for healing water, his sour body could wait for a hot, soapy shower.
When he had eaten, he unlocked the trunk, lifted the cover of the spare tire, loosened the butterfly nut, lifted the tire, and extracted the parts of his weapon.
It took two trips to transfer the parts of the R
4
to the front seat without obviously holding a firearm in his hands. There were people walking and cars passing continuously between the border post a kilometer or so north and the town of Kasane behind him. He assembled the assault rifle, keeping his movements below the steering wheel, away from curious eyes.
He would use it to stop the cunt. Because he had to come this way, he had to cross this bridge, even if he avoided the border post.
And once he had stopped him
39.
T
he battle raged in him as he stood in front of the hotel, booted and spurred, ready to ride. The urge to turn around, to go back, was terrifically powerful. If they harmed Miriam and Pakamile
Gone missing.
He had tried to convince himself that she could have taken her child and fled; if the media knew about them, there would be continuous calls and visitors and he knew Miriam, he knew what her reaction would be. He had phoned from his hotel room, first her house, where it rang without ceasing. Eventually he gave up and thought desperately whom he could call, who would know at eight in the morning. Van Heerden he could not remember the number, had to call international Information, give the spelling and hold on for ages. When it came he had to write hurriedly on a piece of torn-off hotel stationery. He phoned but Van Heerden was not at home. In frustration, he threw the phone down, took his stuff, paid the account, and went and stood by the motorbike. Conflicting urges battled within him, he was on the point of going back, Lobatse, Mafikeng, Kimberley Cape Town. No, maybe Miriam had fled; it would take him two days, better finish one thing, what if
Eventually he left, and now he was on the road to Francistown, barely aware of the long straight road. Worry was one traveling companion, the other was the truth that he had uncovered through an African song under the Modder River bridge.
* * *
I want to bring the boy to you, said Vincent Radebe to her over the phone.
Where is he?
Hes waiting in the car.
Why me?
I read your story in the paper.
But why do you want to bring him to me?
Because it is not safe. They will find me.
Who?
Im in enough trouble already. I cannot tell you.
Do you know where his mother is?
Yes.
Where? He answered so quietly that she could not hear. What did you say?
His mother is dead.
Oh, God.
I havent told him yet. I cant.
Oh, my God.
He has no family. I would have taken him to family, but he says there is no one. And he is not safe with me; I know they will find me. Please help.
No, she wanted to say, no, she couldnt do this, what would she do, how would she manage?
Please, Miss Healy
Say no, say no.
The newspaper, she said. Please take him to the office, I will meet you there.
* * *
All the directors were there NIA, Secret Service, Presidential Intelligence heads of Defence and Police, and the minister, the attractive Tswana minister, stood in the center and her voice was sharp and cutting and her anger filled the room with shrill decibels because the president had called her to account, not phoned but called her in. Stood her on the red carpet and dressed her down. The presidents anger was always controlled, they said, but it had not been that morning. The minister said the presidents anger was terrible, because everything hung in the balance, Africa stood with a hand out for its African renaissance plan and the USA and the EU and the Commonwealth and the World Bank had to decide. As if all the misunderstandings and undermining with the whole AIDS mess was not enough, now we are abducting women and children and chasing war veterans across the veld on a motorbike, of all things, and everyone who has a nonsensical theory about what is on the hard drive is creeping out of the woodwork and the press are having a field day, even the
Sowetan,
that damned assistant editors piece, he was with Mpayipheli at school, he talked to the mans mother. How does that make us look?
The minister was the torchbearer of the presidents anger and she let it burn high, sparing no one, focusing on no one; she addressed them collectively, and Janina Mentz sat there thinking it was all in vain because there were twenty agents in Lusaka and within the hour they would storm the Republican Hotel and put an end to it. And sometime today, Tiger Mazibuko would shoot the big, bad biker from his celebrated fucking BMW and then it would no longer matter that the woman was dead and the child gone and it would be business as usual again in Africa. Tomorrow, the day after, there would be other news, the Congo or Somalia or Zimbabwe, it was just another death in Africa; did the minister think America cared? Did she think the European Union kept count?
The telephone rang on the ministers desk and she glared at it; Janina was amazed that the phone neither shrank nor melted. The minister went to the door and yelled, Did I not tell you to hold all calls? and a nervous male voice answered. The minister said, What? and an explanation followed. She slammed the door and the telephone continued to ring and the minister went to her desk and in a tone lost between despair and madness said, The boy. They have the boy. The newspaper. And they want to know if the mother is dead.
CIA
EYES ONLY
FOR ATTENTION:
Assistant Deputy Director (Middle East and Africa) CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia
PREPARED BY:
Luke John Powell (Senior Agent in Charge Southern Africa) Cape Town, South Africa
SUBJECT:
Operation Safeguard: the loss of four agents in the protection of South African source Inkululeko
I. BACKGROUND TO OPERATION SAFEGUARD
Inkululeko is the code name for a source the CIA acquired in 1996 in the South African government. The source was secured after tentative signals from subject during an embassy function were explored. Subjects motivation at the time was stated as disillusionment with SA governments continued support of rogue states, including Iraq, Iran, Cuba, and Libya. This author recruited subject personally, as it was the first acquisition inside the ANC/Cosatu Alliance that was not previously Nationalist government-aligned. Subjects motivation was suspicious at the time, but has since proved valuable as a source.
Exact motivation still unknown.
It took the leader of the operation seven minutes and five thousand American dollars to buy over the manager of the Republican Hotel and pinpoint the room where Johnny Kleintjes was being held.
He had a team of twenty agents, but he chose just five to accompany him to 227. The others were ordered to man the entrances, the fire escape, and elevators, to watch windows and balconies from outside, or to sit in one of the vehicles with engines idling, ready for the unpredictable.
The leader had a key in his hand, but he sprayed silicon in the keyhole, using a yellow can with a thin red pipe on the cap. His colleagues stood ready at his back with firearms pointing at the roof. The leader fitted the key carefully and quietly turned it. The lubricated mechanism opened soundlessly. The leader gave the signal and opened the door in one smooth motion, and the first two agents rolled into the room, but all they saw was the body of an old colored man with gruesome wounds all over his body.
On Johnny Kleintjess lap lay two hard drives and on his chest a word was carved with a sharp instrument.
KAATHIEB.
Leave him with me, said the black male secretary of the minister, and Allison Healy bent down and said to Pakamile Nzulul-wazi, who gripped her hand, We have to go and talk in there, Pakamile. Will you stay with this nice man for a while? The childs body expressed anxiety, and her heart contracted. He looked at the secretary and shook his head. I want to stay with you. She hugged him to her, not knowing what to do.
The secretary said something in Xhosa, in a quiet voice, and she said sharply, Talk so I can understand.
I only said I will tell him a story.
Pakamile shook his head. I want to stay with you. She had become his anchor when Radebe handed him over to her; he was confused, afraid, and alone. He had asked for his mother a hundred times, and she didnt know how much more of this she could stand.
He had better come along, said her editor to the secretary.
They were a delegation of four, not counting the boy. The editor and her and the managing director and the news editor, not one of whom had ever been there before. The door opened and the minister stood there and looked at Pakamile and there was so much compassion in her eyes.
She held the door for them, and Allison and the child walked ahead, the men behind. Inside, a white woman and a black man were already seated. The man stood up and she saw he was small and there was the bulge of a hump at his neck.
* * *
He stopped at Mahalapye for petrol and crossed over to the small café in search of a newspaper, but the small local paper had nothing and so he went on. The African heat reflected sharply from the blacktop and the sun was without mercy. He ought to have taken more pills, as the pain of the wound was paralyzing him. How badly was he damaged?
