Trackers (35 page)

The big electronic clock on the Ops Room wall read 23.35.

They were tired and fed up, because they knew it would fail.
Not one of the PIA's seven teams on the Zimbabwe and Botswana borders had seen
a Bedford truck.

Masilo did not hide his disappointment. In them, in
everything.

Suddenly in a clear, optimistic tone an operator said:
'Shabangu is back on-line.'

'Thank God,' said Rajkumar and took another bite of his
hamburger.

'Amen,' said Quinn, quietly.

'SMSs coming in.'

'Read them to us.'

'The first says,
"Mercedes 1528".'

Quinn Googled the message. 'Second SMS is just numbers.'
'Read them!'

'S23 54.793 E28 27.243.'

'Jesus,' said Masilo, and looked at Quinn: 'GPS coordinates.'
'Mercedes 1528 is a truck ...' Quinn added. 'Shit,' said Rajkumar, putting his
hamburger aside hurriedly, his fingers dancing across the keyboard to pinpoint
the coordinates. 'The coordinates are way south of the border ... way south,
shit, T-junction where the R518 and the D579 join.'

'Then let's get people down there. Now.' Masilo leaped up and
began pacing up and down.

Quinn
barked orders over the radio.

27
September 2009. Sunday.

Masilo got to bed at four in the morning. At 08.07 Rahjev Rajkumar's
phone call woke him. 'The boss says she wants to see us and our department
heads in the Ops Room at 10.00.'

Masilo rubbed his eyes, cleared his throat. 'I'm not going to
accept unfair criticism.'

'We will have to accept whatever we get,' said Rajkumar
soothingly. 'No,' said Masilo.

The informant and the agent had their heads together as if
they were gossiping. They stood in an alley near the pavilion of the De Grendel
sports complex in Parow, only 300 metres from the station where the informant
had got off the train.

'Tweetybird's wife and children are gone, my
bru’,
got on a plane yesterday, to Paraguay or
Uruguay. And everyone's saying The Bird will fly tomorrow, false passport,
permanent exile. And now they say, it's Terror versus the Money Man, it's gonna
be a war, I'm telling you.'

'Hang on. Terror Baadjies. He's the Restless Ravens'
strongman, the Enforcer.'

'Yes.'

'And the Money Man is Moegamat Perkins. Tweetybird's
accountant.'

'Yes.'

'Where is Tweetybird now?'

'He's lying low.'

'But where?'

'Not a clue, he's afraid the Prosecutor will lock him up for
tax evasion before he can leave the country.'

'And Terror Baadjies? We can't find Terror.'

'They say he's the one who has to see that Tweetybird gets safely
on the plane. They are hiding somewhere, but nobody knows where.'

The agent took five 100-rand notes out of his pocket and
slipped them into the waiting hand of the informant. 'If you can tell us where
they are I will give you 5,000.'

'Jissis
, my
bru'
...
I'll try ...'

Late that morning Mrs Killian phoned Milla. 'I know it's
Sunday, but we need you. Can you come to the office, please?'

'Of course.'

Half an hour later she walked into the Report Squad. With the
exception of Jessica, all the others were there.

'What's going on?' Milla asked.

Donald MacFarland sighed deeply, looking worried. 'If they
call us in on a weekend, the shit has hit the fan.'

The Goddess only arrived an hour later. 'I was on a yacht,
for God's sake. Don't these people have a life?'

'Welcome to my world,' said Mac the Wife.

It was a day of whispering about The Great Confrontation. It
was a day of writing short reports, slowly, with odd fragments of information
that trickled in hour after hour.

Oom Theunie was working on the profile of a young woman.

'Where do they
find
these
people?' he asked. Later, shaking his head, he tested aloud the phrase
'disappeared without trace'.

'What?' asked Mac, irritated.

'Cornelia Johanna van Jaarsveld seems to be a professional
tracker, Mac. But the irony is that she has disappeared without trace herself.'

Milla smiled. She was busy with a report on one Ephraim
Silongo, also known as 'Snake'. She added to it systematically as the agents'
reports were sent in. Snake Silongo's body had been found on a deserted gravel
road in the Waterberg of Limpopo Province, bones broken, bullet wound to the
head. Police information was that he was an armed robber, part of Julius
Shabangu's syndicate.

'Didn't we do something recently on a Julius Shabangu?' she asked.

'We did,' said Oom Theunie. 'It will be in the database.'

While she searched, she thought again about the bubble she
had lived in, her ignorance of the undercurrents in this country.

It was Donald MacFarland who told them, after a whispered phone
call, about The Great Confrontation. 'I hear the Iron Lady exploded this
morning,' he said.

'What?' asked The Goddess, always inquisitive when she heard
Mac's gossipy tone.

'Apparently, my dear, the much venerated Director threw a
tantrum, amongst other objects ...'

They all huddled around, and in muted tones and with frequent
glances at Ma Killian's door, Mac repeated the rumour with as much verbal
embellishment as possible. Something that happened last night, an operation had
gone horribly wrong. And this morning Janina Mentz had called all senior
personnel into the Ops Room, Mother Killian included. She stood in front of her
audience, glared at the latecomers, waited till everyone was seated. Then she
began to berate them. '"Never in my life have I seen such mediocrity, such
inept imbecility," that's how she started, and it went downhill from
there,' said Mac with great relish. 'She really
did
throw things. And then Mr Nobody dared to take her on, and she asked the rest
to leave, and then the two of them had a showdown behind closed doors, they say
you could hear them shouting at each other down the hall.'

Masilo walked into Janina Mentz's office with a single sheet
of paper in his hand. He stood in front of her desk and said: 'Here is my
letter of resignation. It is dated the fourteenth of October. If I can't
prevent the terrorist attack, I will leave. If I am successful, it will be up
to you to decide whether you accept this or not.'

Mentz stared at him, her expression impenetrable.

'We can't trace Willem de la Cruz or Terrence Richard
Baadjies.' Masilo's monotone betrayed his weariness, his resignation. 'We
suspect they have gone somewhere to receive the consignment of diamonds. We
also suspect that de la Cruz is only waiting to complete the trade with the
Supreme Committee before he flees to South America. Consequently, we are
monitoring all international flights from Cape Town and Oliver Tambo Airport.
We have liaised with traffic authorities in the Western Cape; they will hold
every Mercedes 1528 truck that stops at a weighbridge on the way to Cape Town,
until one of our agents has searched it. We have intensified the surveillance
and tracking of Suleiman Dolly, Shaheed Latif Osman, Ebrahim Laattoe and Baboo
Rayan. The reaction unit is ready if there is any contact between the Supreme
Committee and the Restless Ravens. The operation to gain access to the computer
system of Consolidated Fisheries will take place on Monday just after
midnight.'

Still Mentz sat there, sphinx-like.

'Currently, we are investigating the feasibility of a plan to
insert an electro-acoustic microphone in the cellar of 15 Chamberlain Street.
The only way is to keep Baboo Rayan away from the house for at least an hour,
possibly by a sham robbery of the cafe he visits every morning. It will have to
be done with great circumspection as we don't know what security measures are
in place inside the Committee's house. Finally: we will maintain the
surveillance of Julius Shabangu until the thirteenth of October.'

Then he turned and walked out.

Photostatic record:
Diary of Milla Strachan

Date of entry:
27 September 2009

Leaving tracks, creating some impression on the surface of
this earth, is a way of saying 'I was here'. Something to give meaning to this
fleeting existence.

How do you leave a track, a trail, a spoor?

And what sort of spoor do I want to leave? What sort of
traces
can
I leave? Why would I want to leave my mark? Is it just fear,
fear of being forgotten, since being forgotten makes a whole life pointless. Is
that my actual fear? Is that why I want to write a book, my only (last!) chance
to leave something tangible, a small scrap of evidence that I was here?

And what is the point of that?

I should also ask, then, what is the point of this diary? Is
this not evidence? I was here, this is what happened to me. And how many of my
journals are merely the writing down of nothing. Thoughts, sighs, murmurs, but
nothing happened, nothing was done.

Because some days leave no tracks.

They pass as though they never existed, immediately forgotten
in the haze of my routine. Other days' tracks are visible for a week or so,
until the winds of memory cover them in the pale sand of new experiences.

How many of the average 22,000 days of our lives do we
remember, date and day? Maybe ten or twelve, birthdays, weddings (desertions
and divorces!) and deaths, a few of the First Times. The traces of the others
wear away, so that a life really only consists of a month of specially
commemorated days and a host of dateless recollections.

We must live so that we leave tracks on every day.

But how?

The Pilatus PC-12 landed at Walvis Bay at 13.52. It was the
'Combi' model, fitted out for four passengers and considerable cargo - in this instance,
200 kilograms of computer hardware.

The four men, respectively, two break-in specialists and two
of Rajhev Rajkumar's best technicians, climbed out, offloaded the crates

of equipment and waited for Reinhard Rohn, who came towards
them over the tarred surface, with an import permit in hand and two customs
officers at his side.

It took
ten minutes to deal with the formalities. Rohn fetched his bakkie to transport
the crates. Once they were loaded, the break-in specialists and technicians,
each with an overnight bag slung over the shoulder, walked off to the car hire
section. Rohn watched them go, noting the lean bodies, the brash
self-confidence. I was like that too, he thought. Long ago.

Operation Shawwal

Transcription:
Audio surveillance, J. Shabangu and L. Becker, cellphone
conversation

Date and Time:
27 September 2009. 17.21

JS:
I don't have your fucking money and I'm telling you now, if
I
get my
hands on you, you are going to bleed . . .

LB:
Ay,
Ouboet,
that won't get us anywhere. Who has my money then?

JS:
Fuck off.

(Call terminated.)

Operation Shawwal

Transcription:
Audio surveillance, J. Shabangu and L. Becker, cellphone
conversation

Date and Time:
27 September 2009. 17.29

LB:
Ouboet,
what a surprise .. .

JS:
I'm going to tell you who has your money. Then you leave me alone.

LB:
On my word of honour.

JS:
Shaheed Latif Osman. Go and ask him.

LB:
Who is Shaheed Latif Osman?

JS:
He's a fuckin'
isela,
he lives in the Cape. He's got your money. Every fucking
cent. I'm going to SMS you his number. You tell him, he and Tweety the Bird
must give you your money. Tell him I said they should do it.

LB:
Ouboet,
I thank
you ...

JS:
Don't phone me again, fucking never again!