Trackers (43 page)

Mentz nodded, slowly.

A knock on Masilo's door.

'Come in ...'

Quinn opened it and put his head through. He saw Mentz.
'Morning, ma'am.'

'Morning, Quinn.'

'Shall I come back later?'

'No,' Masilo said. 'Any news?'

'It's Miss Jenny. She is opening a bunch of reports and
documents on the system.'

'Which ones?'

'Shabangu, the Supreme Committee, PAGAD, Tweetybird, organised
crime. She seems to be following a trail.'

Mentz was the first to respond. 'That's good news,' she said.
'She's doing it for him. For Becker. That means he will contact her again.'

The PIA team following Shaheed Latif Osman, sitting a block
away from the Coronation Street mosque, beside the school grounds of the
Zonnebloem School for Girls, lulled by Osman's strict routine and the knowledge
that there was a GPS sensor on his car.

'Fuck,' the one with the binoculars said suddenly.

'What?' asked the driver.

'Start the car ...'

'What do you see?'

'There's a guy ... shit, call Quinn, someone just hijacked
Osman. Go!'

'Keep your distance,' said Quinn. 'We'll track him with the
GPS.'

He watched the flickering arrow icon on the Cape Town map,
saw that Osman's car was driving in the direction of Woodstock.

'Did you see what the guy looked like?'

'He's white. Dark hair, that's all I could see.'

'I'm going to send a photo to your cellphone. See if you
recognise him.' Quinn nodded at the operator beside him to get going.

'Roger.'

'It will take a little time, we have to reduce it first...'

'Roger.'

Quinn watched the progress of the car on the screen. They
seemed to be on the way to Chamberlain Street. Why?

But the icon moved north along Melbourne Street, past the
possible routes, into Victoria.

Where were they going?

Quinn spoke into the microphone. 'The photo has been sent,
let us know when you receive it.'

On the screen Osman was travelling along Plein Street, then
turned left into Albert.

To the
Nl?

'It might be this guy, I'm not sure,' the passenger in the
tracking vehicle said.

To get onto the
Nl,
the logical
route was from Albert to Church Street in Woodstock, but the GPS showed Osman
turning in the opposite direction.

Then left in Treaty. Inexplicable.

'Hang back,' said Quinn to the tails. 'It's circular, they
will have to come out the other side.'

The icon stopped.

Quinn stared at the screen, frowning.

'Is it an industrial area?' he asked.

'Arse end of the world ...'

Osman's car was still stationary.

Then
Quinn realised what Becker was up to, because he was certain it
was
Becker. He didn't curse, it wasn't his way. He
just said, into the cellphone, 'Go! Now, go to Osman's car. Hurry.'

Quinn's verbal report to Masilo was businesslike, he hid his
disappointment.

He said Osman and Becker had stopped in Treaty Street, right
beside the railway line. The surveillance team was just in time to see Becker
forcibly dragging Osman across four rows of railway track, the two men on foot
passing through previously prepared gaps in the high fences. Becker seemed to
have a rucksack, another carry bag over his shoulder, and a weapon in his right
hand.

They ran after them, but he had too much of a lead. At a
distance of a hundred metres, past factories and warehouses, they saw Becker
shove Osman into a car on the other side, at the Eastern end of Strand Street.
It was a blue Volkswagen Citi Golf of indeterminate model. It was too far off
to see the registration.

The Golf pulled away with screeching tyres and drove west,
since

Strand ran into a dead end to the east. Becker could easily
reach the N1 via Lower Church Street.

This, Quinn said in his calm way, is a well-trained man, a
man who planned intelligently, who knew that he and/or Osman were being
followed, who suspected Osman's car was being monitored. A man who wanted to
shake off the trackers, and knew how.

Milla Strachan was proofreading for Oom Theunie, a review of
South Africa's weapons transactions with Iran, Libya and Venezuela. She looked
up when both men came in with Mrs Killian, recognising one of them. It was
Nobody's Perfect, Advocate Masilo, the one wearing braces. She realised they
were focused on her.

'Milla,' Mrs Killian said.

She felt the sudden claustrophobia, the tightening in her
gut. 'Yes?' she said, alarm in her voice.

'They want to talk to you.'

'Would you come with me, please,' said the other man, the one
wearing the black polo-neck sweater.

'Why?'

'Nothing to worry about,' said Mrs Killian.

'We just want to talk,' said Polo Neck.

At Janina Mentz's insistence, as Deputy Director at the time,
the Presidential Intelligence Agency's interrogation room was pleasant. There
were three stuffed beige chairs, bolted to the floor. They formed an intimate
communication ring, a hospitable triangle. The floor was covered with
wall-to-wall carpet, unpatterned, unobtrusive. The microphone was hidden behind
the soft fluorescent light in the ceiling, and the CCTV camera placed in the
room alongside - the observation room, as it was called - its lens directed
through the oneway window at the three chairs.

Milla sat in one of them.

Masilo, Mentz and Quinn were in the observation room.

'Let her simmer,' Mentz said. 'For an hour or two, before you
talk to her. Quinn, send some people to her flat in the meantime. Bring back
everything that could be of value, let them go through it with a fine-tooth
comb. And it must be obvious they were there.

Let them mess it up a bit. Tau, you break the bad news to
her. And then let her go.'

Milla sat in the chair, her thoughts racing, panic inside, a
chorus that kept echoing in her head,
they know,
they know, they know ..
. until the questions took over: how long had
they known? How did they know? What did they know? What did they want from her?
What were they going to do with her? What was going on? This morning she had
feverishly read the reports, about Shabangu, PAGAD, searching for reasons why
the PIA was interested in Lukas. She had only seen spectres, ghostly
possibilities that evaporated when you looked too sharply at them. What had
Lukas done to them?

She still had no answers. She thought about what they would
ask her, thought about possible answers, and gradually realised she had only
done one thing wrong. She had not reported her contact with Lukas. Why not?
Because no one had said she must. Was it such a great sin? Truly? Because it
was not a crime, what could they do to her, what was the worst? Fire her?

Eventually she calmed down, and resistance grew in her: let
them confront her, let them question her, let them discharge her, she didn't
give a damn, she had committed no crime. Eventually Milla stood up and,
resolute, went to the door, tried to pull it open, only to find it was locked.
The sparks of anger leaped higher, who did they think they were? They couldn't
do this, she had rights, she was no imbecile, no fool who would reveal state
secrets. She was neither a criminal nor a child.

She sat down again, and heard the door open behind her. She
looked around and saw it was Mr Perfect, Mr Nobody, Masilo in his braces. 'You
don't have the right to lock me in here,' she said and stood up from the chair.

He smiled at her, locked the door behind him. 'Calm down,' he
said, smoothly, as though they knew each other.

'Unlock the door,' she said.

He went to a chair opposite her. She smelled the aftershave,
just a hint. 'That I cannot do.' He sat down. 'Please, Milla, let us talk, I am
sure you realise there is much to talk about.'

She stood beside the chair. 'No, I don't think so.' 'Oh?'

'I have done nothing wrong.'

'Even more reason to sit and have a chat with me.'

She knew he was trying to manipulate her, but her choices
were limited. She sat down reluctantly, and crossed her arms.

He said nothing, just smiled benevolently.

Until she could stand the silence no longer: 'What's going
on?'

'You know very well.'

'I have no idea.'

'Lukas Becker.'

'I've done nothing wrong.'

'Then why your reaction. Earlier on?'

'How would you feel if someone did that to you? Out of the
blue?' 'But I don't have secrets, Milla.'

'Everyone has secrets.'

He laughed softly. Then his expression turned serious.
'Milla, you're a pawn. A tool. He's using you, and I am sure you are completely
unaware of it.'

'Lukas?'

'That's right.'

'Oh, please!'

'There is a lot about him that you don't know.'

'I wrote his profile. He ... He doesn't even know where I
work.' Masilo laughed, long and heartily. 'You are very naive.'

'Why?'

'Milla, your Lukas Becker works for the CIA.'

It was her turn to laugh, uneasily. 'You're paranoid.'

'I must be honest with you, I was also sceptical at first.
Until we let the Americans know we knew about him. The same day, only hours
later, he suddenly disappeared. New accommodation, new car, new cellphone
number ...'

'And now you think ...'

He didn't give her a chance. 'Did you know he's a murderer?'
'Rubbish!'

'The Julius Shabangu you so loyally read up on for him this
morning. Who do you think eliminated him?'

'It wasn't him.'

'How do you know, Milla? Because he
said so? Is that the evidence you have? Because we have a whole lot more.'

'No ...'

'Milla, Milla, you trust so easily.
You know he was in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Turkey. But do you know why?
Think a little about the places in conflict with America. What about his bank
accounts? Doesn't that make you just a little suspicious? How does a man accumulate
millions of rands in just six, seven years? Doing archaeological digs for
universities? Look at the strange coincidence that he turned up at your dance
school. Twice. Look at how he took you somewhere else every time, somewhere in
the open, away from the microphones ...'

'Microphones .. . ?' She didn't
immediately grasp the full portent.

'Milla, we're not asleep ...'

'You have no right.'

'We have. This is national security
at stake, it is international...'

'You have no right.' There was a new
note in her voice, anger and shame combined, and she half rose from her chair.

'We have your diaries too.'

It sank down slowly inside her, like a depth charge. Then it
exploded. Milla Strachan sprang from the armchair, and leaped right at him.

'Thanks for returning my call,
Janina,' said Burzynski, the Bureau Chief of the CIA.

'Of course, Bruno. As a matter of
fact, we were just talking about you.'

'All good, I hope. Janina, I have a
report from Langley, and I'm happy to say we are making progress. Let me
briefly attempt to explain what they've tried to do. Step one was to make
absolutely sure
The Madeleine
is not running LRIT and AIS, and I
can confirm that it definitely isn't. The last record of a signal from this
ship was received on 22 September at 23.30, from waypoint S13 34.973 W5 48.366,
which is about one thousand five hundred miles west-northwest of Walvis Bay, in
the Atlantic Ocean. Then it just stopped transmitting.

Went off the radar completely. We've checked with the SOLAS
authorities, and they say they duly notified the owners of the vessel, but got
no response ...'

'It's a dummy corporation. All the registration details are
bogus.'

'So we gathered. Step two was to plot all LRIT-silent vessels
of the right size against possible matches for satellite imagery, and we identified
sixteen potential candidates, of which fourteen have already been vetted
through hi-res visual material - we've found some pretty interesting
specimens, some smugglers in the Andaman and South China Sea, one ship being
held by Somali pirates, but the majority are experiencing equipment problems,
and are all accounted for. The last two are a bit of a problem. Adverse weather
conditions, bad visibility from space ...'