Deon Meyer (7 page)

 

 

So, Mr. Director, she wanted it. She hungered for it. Because she was consumed by an anger that was fed by the rejection— oh yes, let there be no doubt. Fed by ambition, too, make no mistake; the only child of poor Afrikaners, she would pay any price to rise above the soul-destroying, pointless existence of her parents. Fed by frustration of a decade in the Struggle, and all she had to show for it despite her talents was a deputy directorship when she could do so much more; she could fly, she knew the landscape of her psyche, knew where the valleys were and where the peaks were, she was impartial in her self-awareness. She could fly— what did it matter where they came from, the winds that blew beneath her wings?

 

 

She did not say that. She had listened and spoken coolly and calmly at lunch and answered with quiet assurance, “Yes, I want it,” and then began the very next week to work out their vision: a First World intelligence unit in a country trying to drag itself up by its Third World bootstraps, a new independent unit with a clean slate.

 

 

And she still wanted it. No matter what price must be paid.

 

 

Her phone rang with the single ring of an internal call.

 

 

“Mentz.”

 

 

“Pop in for a moment, Janina, would you,” said the director.

 

 

* * *

He took a minibus to Bellville— the first opportunity that came up. He was driven to put distance between himself and the airport, regardless of the direction; ramifications were coming through to him one after another. He could not go back to Monica Kleintjes; they were surely watching her. He couldn’t phone her. He could not go home. He could not go back to the airport— by now there would be swarms of them. And if they were at all awake, they would be watching the station— bus or train travel was also out of the question.

 

 

Which left him with the big question. How to get to Lusaka?

 

 

He sat in the dark between the other passengers, domestics and security guards and factory workers on their way home, talking about the rise in the price of bread and the soccer results and politics, and he longed to be one of them. He wanted to leave the hard drive on Monica’s lap and say, “There is one thing that you didn’t take into account,” and then he would go to Miriam and Pakamile and tomorrow he would ride to work on his Honda Benly and during lunch he would walk up St. George’s to Im-manuel the shoeshine man and play a game of chess with him between his cell-phone-talking, wealth-chasing clients and all the while they would good-naturedly mock the whites in Xhosa.

 

 

But right now he had two Z88 pistols and a flat hard drive in a blue sports bag standing between him and that life.

 

 

“And what do you do for a living?” asked the woman next to him.

 

 

He sighed. “At the moment, I’m traveling,” he said.

 

 

How was he to get to Lusaka?

 

 

* * *

You wouldn’t say that he was in the office by six every morning— here it was nearly half past eight in the evening and the director, in his early fifties, looked fresh, rested, and alert.

 

 

“I had an interesting call, Janina. This afternoon our Tiger assaulted a Parabat at Tempe.”

 

 

“Assaulted?”

 

 

“Landed him in the hospital, and the commanding officer started phoning higher up. He wants justice.”

 

 

“I am sure there was reason for the fight, sir.”

 

 

“I am, too, Janina. I just want to keep you informed.”

 

 

“I appreciate that, sir.”

 

 

“Ask him about it when you see him.”

 

 

“I will.”

 

 

“Is that all, Mr. Director?”

 

 

“That is all, Janina. I know you are busy.” And he smiled in a fatherly way. She hesitated a moment before turning away; she willed him to say something about the happenings in the Ops Room, he must bring it up so that she could assure him that everything was under control, but he just sat there with his smile.

 

 

She took the stairs, stopped halfway.

 

 

I know you are busy.

 

 

He was weighing her, testing her; she knew it as an absolute truth.

 

 

She laughed softly. If only he knew. She took a deep breath and took the last steps one by one, measuring, as if enumerating a strategic plan.

 

 

Radebe began reporting the minute she walked into the Ops Room, his voice softly apologetic, explaining the redeployment of the teams— six of the best at the airport, six at the Cape Town station, in two teams of three each to watch the trains and the bus terminal. His three teammates beside him were busy contacting every car-rental business in the city, with instructions to let them know if someone of Mpayipheli’s description tried to hire a vehicle. They would also contact every private plane charter service. Three more teams of two each were in their cars, awaiting instructions, down below on Wale Street. There was no activity at Monica Kleintjes’s or at Miriam Nzululwazi’s.

 

 

She nodded. Quinn confirmed monitoring of the Nzululwazi phone. There had been no calls yet.

 

 

Rajkumar, ever sensitive, had a bearing of injured pride as he gave his report: “No record of Thobela Mpayipheli in the Um-khonto we Sizwe files. Mpayipheli’s registered home address is Mitchell’s Plain— the property belongs to one Orlando Arendse. Probably the same Arendse that Monica phoned this afternoon, looking for Mpayipheli. But Arendse’s registered home address is in Milnerton Ridge.” The obese body shifted subtly, self-confidence returning. “The interesting thing is Arendse’s criminal record— twice served time for dealing in stolen goods, in 1975 and 1982 to 1984, once charged and found not guilty of dealing in unlicensed weapons in 1989, twice arrested for dealing in drugs, in 1992 and 1995, but the cases were never brought to trial. One thing is certain: Orlando Arendse is organized crime. Drugs. Big-time. Prostitution, gambling, stolen property. The usual protection racket. And if I read the signs correctly, the Scorpions are looking very closely at his dealings. That Mitchell’s Plain address could be a drug house, seems to me.” Rahjev Rajkumar leaned back in satisfaction.

 

 

“Good work,” she said. She paced up and down the wall behind the Indian, her arms folded.

 

 

Organized crime? She grasped at possibilities, but it wouldn’t make sense.

 

 

“Organized crime?” she spoke aloud. “I don’t see it.”

 

 

“Money makes strange bedfellows,” said Rajkumar. “And if it’s drugs, it’s money. Big money.”

 

 

“Mpayipheli could be a dealer,” said Quinn.

 

 

“He’s a motorbike mechanic,” said Radebe. “It doesn’t fit.”

 

 

Mentz stopped her pacing, nodding. “Rahjev, find out who the owner of the bike shop is.”

 

 

“Company registrations are not up-to-date. I can poke around but…”

 

 

Radebe: “I’ll send a car over there. Sometimes there are emergency numbers on the door.”

 

 

“Do it.”

 

 

She tried to analyze the known facts, angles, and different points of perspective, stumbling on the crime bits of the jigsaw puzzle.

 

 

“No record of Mpayipheli with the ANC, MK, PAC, or APLA?” she asked.

 

 

“Nothing. But, of course, the ANC systems have had a few knocks. They are not complete. And the PAC and APLA never really had anything. All the PAC info came from the Boers. And there’s nothing on Mpayipheli.”

 

 

“There must be a connection between Mpayipheli and the Kleintjeses.”

 

 

“Hell,” said Quinn, “he could have been their gardener.”

 

 

Radebe, always careful with what he said, frowned deeply as if he had strong doubts. “She phoned the Arendse number to find Mpayipheli. Maybe Arendse is the connection.”

 

 

“Could be.” She was walking up and down again, digesting the input, weighing possibilities. Her thirst for information all-encompassing, they had to make a breakthrough, shine a bright light into the haze of ignorance. But how do you get a drug baron to talk?

 

 

Another cycle in her traverse of the wall.

 

 

“Okay,” she said. “This is what we are going to do.”

 

 

* * *

In the dirty toilets of Bellville Station, behind a closed door, he took the pistols out of the rolled-up magazines. Then he went out and placed the different pieces in separate trash cans. He began to walk toward Durban Road. He still had no idea where he was going. He was aware of minutes ticking by and was only ten kilometers closer to Lusaka than when he had been at the airport. The temptation to drop the whole mess and go home lay like yearning on him. But the question kept returning to him: Is that what Johnny Kleintjes did when Thobela needed him? And the answer was always no, no matter how many times he thought about it, no matter how little he wanted to be there, no matter how little he wanted the urgency and tension growing in his belly. He owed Johnny Kleintjes and he would have to move his butt. Turning the corner of Voortrekker and Durban Road, he saw the vehicles at the traffic lights and a light came on in his head, hurrying the tempo of his footsteps as he moved toward the office of the Revenue Services.

 

 

There was a taxi rank there. He must get back to the city. Quickly.

 

 

* * *

For the second time that day Captain Tiger Mazibuko cut his cellphone connection with Janina Mentz and began barking out orders to Team Alpha: “Let’s get these boxes open, there’s work to be done. Hecklers, handguns, smoke grenades, bulletproof vests, and night sights. And paint your faces.”

 

 

They sprang into action with a will, snapped open the equipment cases, flicking glances at him, curious at the type of order, but he gave nothing away while he reflected on his conversation with Mentz. Why had he assaulted an officer this afternoon? Because the fucker had set his German shepherd on Little Joe Mo-roka. What had Little Joe done? Didn’t salute the little lieutenant.

 

 

Why not? Because Little Joe is Little Joe. So busy inside his head sometimes that he doesn’t know what’s going on around him. In-a-fog negligence was all that it was. And when the lieutenant confronted him with a stream of obscenities, the outcome was inevitable. Little Joe takes shit from only one person and that’s me. That’s why we fetched Little Joe out of the MP cells in the first place. Little Joe told him to go do an unmentionable deed with himself or his dog, and the lieutenant encouraged the dog to bite him. Which in any case, militarily speaking, is a contravention of the worst degree. Did the dog bite Little Joe? Yes, the dog bit him in the trousers. Was Little Joe hurt? No. The lieutenant and the dog embarrassed Little Joe. And that is as bad as a bite that draws blood. Worse, in his case. An injustice was perpetrated, however you look at it. Tiger Mazibuko chose not to work through channels to restore the balance because then others would start taking chances with the RU. A point had to be made. And now the Bats were crying.

 

 

“Yes, indeed they are crying. They want disciplinary action.”

 

 

“Then discipline me.” Challenging, because he knew the RU was untouchable before he beat up the Bat.

 

 

“Not before you’ve earned your keep.” And she gave him the background, the task.

 

 

His team handed him his jacket and weapons, the night-sight headset and camouflage paint last. He prepared with deft, practiced movements till the RU stood in line before him and he walked down the row, plucking at a belt, straightening a piece of equipment.

 

 

“I have a new name for the Ama-killa-killa,” he said. “After tonight you will be known as the Gangsta Busters.”

 

 

 

7.

H
e asked the taxi driver to drop him off in front of the Media
24
building in the Heerengracht. He chose to go east through the Nico Malan, turning left onto Hert-zog. Traffic at this time of evening was thin. He deliberately walked without urgency, like a man going nowhere in particular, and turned left again onto Oswald Pirow. As he passed between the petrol pumps, greeting the petrol jockeys through the window of their night room, he saw the car in front of Mother City Motorrad. The lights were on, engine idling, and he saw the intelligence officers in the front seat and his heart sank.

 

 

Spooks. They were watching the place.

 

 

He opened the door of the petrol attendants’ room and went inside, knowing he would be spotted if he stayed outside.

 

 

The idling engine was a good sign. If they were keeping the place under surveillance, they would have parked in the cross street with lights and engine off. The attendants were glad to see him; any distraction at this time of night was welcome. What was he doing here, what was in the bag? He made up an answer, a client’s motorbike had not been returned after servicing and now he, Mpayipheli, had to sort out the whitey’s problems. He had an eye on the car outside, saw it pull away, and tried to keep track of it without raising the suspicions of the petrol jockeys.

 

 

Did he have to deliver the bike at this time of night?

 

 

Yes, the guy was angry, he needed the motorbike tomorrow morning and the whitey boss was too lazy to go out, so the Xhosa was called out, you know the story. What are you guys watching on TV a competition? Yes, see, every guy has to pick one of three girls, but he can’t see them, he can only ask them questions… .

 

 

The car had gone. He listened politely for a minute or two, then excused himself and left, looking up and down the street, but there was nothing. He crossed, went behind the building into the service alley. He took his wallet from the blue bag, sorting through the leather folds. The silver key to the wooden door lay flat and shiny where he always put it. He was the first one there every morning to sweep up half an hour before the mechanics arrived. He had to put on the kettle and the lights and make sure the display windows were clean. He unlocked the door and typed in the code on the alarm panel. He had to decide whether or not to switch on the lights. The guys at the garage would wonder if he didn’t, but he decided against it— he mustn’t attract attention.