Trackers (54 page)

'That's not going to cut it.'

Burzynski regained control, his body still.
He leaned back in his chair, visibly tired. 'I know.'

Extract:
A Theory of Chaos, Coronet, 2010, p. 317

The last half-hour before they came
was the most difficult.

The ache in my body from lying too
long on the invisible, unknowable discomforts of the grass tufts and stones,
the nagging, gnawing uncertainty, the doors opening in my head, unlocked by
Markus's half confession, so that I thought of my own sins, submerged for so
long.

On a grassy bank opposite a
small-boat harbour, in the middle of the night, I remembered Cassie.

Casper. Eighteen years ago. Ten
months before I met Frans. A year before I fell pregnant. Casper, the music
student, the cellist, taking the same extra class as me. Cassie the vulnerable,
Cassie the ugly, Cassie of the crooked teeth and small protruding ears, who
made advances like a whipped dog. Cassie the annoying, with his nervous chat
without context, his abrupt silences, yet I didn't have the courage to drive
him away. It made me feel good, there was something sacrificial, something
noble and altruistic in allowing Cassie his conversations, the development of
the appearance of a friendship.

Cassie, who wanted more and more, who
phoned, who followed me around, who asked for me at the hostel reception, until
it all became too much, saturation point, the night of craziness. I stormed
down the stairs, grabbed him by the hand, marched him off to his little flat. I
closed the door behind us, and standing there in front of him, I took off all
my clothes. Bare in front of him, naked, on display. I watched Cassie, his eyes
flickering from my breasts to my pubis, the slackness of his mouth, his
disbelief, his gratitude, his sudden lust, his transformation from lapdog to
guard dog. Like my mother, I had given expression to an impulse, a compulsion,
a liberation, and like her, I found pleasure in it. It was a moment of light
and darkness. And truth.

I would not let him touch me.

She saw the blue bakkie first, dark
blue, battered. It drove slowly past the gate twice, then went away. Towards
the Waterfront. Turned back. Two people in the front.

A quarter to one.

At five to, they were back again.
They stopped beside the fence, got out. Surveyed everything carefully. One had
a cellphone to his ear.

Milla tracked his every move.

At one o'clock the second wave
arrived. A panel van stopped in front of the gate. The passenger door opened, a
man got out, disappeared in front of the vehicle. Appeared again as he opened
the gates, first the right, then the left. He remained standing as the panel
van drove in, waited until the dark blue bakkie reappeared, then he also passed
through the gateway. He closed them again, but did not lock them.

The rear door of the panel van
opened. Six, seven, eight men climbed out, each holding a weapon. She
recognised the shape: AK-47s like the one that lay in front of her.

A big man stood and pointed, gave
orders, the others walked to the bakkie, offloaded some equipment, cylindrical,
big and bulky.

They moved purposefully, everyone
seemed to know what to do. Two of them walked left around the bay to the
breakwater, two to the right. The rest disappeared behind the building.

God, Lukas, they will see you.

The lights of the vehicles turned
off.

Silence. Nothing happened.

Seventeen minutes past one.

Mentz came into the coordination office. Both men saw the
smugness. 'I'm sure you've worked it out by now, Bruno. The bad news was that
Osman's laptop was severely damaged. The good news, I am happy to report, is
that the hard disk is in pretty good shape. We should have data access within
the next half an hour. So the question is, how are you doing, with your
satellites and stuff?'

The waiting, the endless waiting. She
felt hot in the jacket, she wished she could take it off, but dared not move. Her
hands perspired against the wooden butt of the AK, her eyes kept searching down
below, but nothing moved. She looked again and again at her watch, at the eternity
of minutes passing. Her mind asked, 'What if...' threatening to let loose the
anxiety over strange possibilities. Her lips formed the words, over and over,
silently:
just stay awake, stick to the plan.

At twenty-seven minutes past one she felt as if she was
levitating out of her body. She could see herself lying on the slope, the
forty- year-old woman with short, black hair, the mother of Barend Lombard, the
ex-wife of Christo, her life and
this
moment
unreal, belonging to someone else, she wanted to get up and go and find her
own. She wanted to stand up and scream, wave her arms. She wanted to stand up
and hold the AK aloft and pull the trigger, watch the trajectory of the
bullets, pretty bows, fireworks, celebrations.

Her heartbeat brought her back, beating too quickly, too hard
inside, so that it felt as though the ground was rising up to swallow her. She
knew it was the stress, two long days of stress, and she looked at her watch,
sixteen minutes to two, and she almost leaped with fright, a shock wave
rippling through her body, where had the time gone?
Just stick to the plan, forget about everything else, stay awake, and just
stick to the plan.

This was not her world. She knew that now.

Fourteen minutes to two.

Rajkumar's hands hopped across the keyboard like two fat
birds, 'We have the keys, we have the keys, I'm exporting now, start the
decryption, somebody call the Director.'

Then: 'Shit.'

The technicians, his hand-picked team, his good-natured
colleagues, all looking at him.

'There's email here. We might not need the decryption, motherfucker
has it password protected, let's see, you Muslim bastard, gimme what you
got...'

They laughed.

He
looked up fleetingly, said sharply and angrily. 'Call the Director. Now.'

At nine minutes to two the other vehicle arrived.

At first Milla didn't believe her eyes: that shape, those
markings. She shifted forwards, stared intently.

An ambulance. It had stopped in front of the gate.

Someone emerged from the darkness
carrying a gun, and opened the gates.

The ambulance drove through. Stopped
in front of the long building. The big man came walking around it, talked to
the driver. Then he walked back, out of sight again.

Why an ambulance?

Six minutes to two.

Janina Mentz watched the screen,
where the small program window flickered with files scrolling too fast to read,
searching for the keyword.

'Three, four minutes,' said Rajkumar.
'We're almost there.'

The telephone rang.

Rajkumar answered, listened. He held
his hand over the instrument, looked at Janina and said, deeply impressed: 'The
Director of the CIA wants to speak to you. From Langley. On the secure line.'

She must remember to check her watch
when Lukas fired, she must remember, she must concentrate. Movement down below.

The ambulance doors opened, a weak
beam of yellow light shining out. Someone moved in the interior. It was the
figure of a man, bent over a low stretcher. He was busy. Then he sat on the
bench next to it.

An ambulance. Camouflage. They were
going to put the missiles in there. Nobody stopped an ambulance.

Relief, she felt relieved, a riddle
solved.

'Please hold for the Director of the
CIA,' said a woman's voice.

Before Mentz could react, his voice
came over the line. 'Madam Director?'

'Yes.'

'I would have preferred our first
meeting to be face to face, and under different circumstances, please accept my
apology. As a fellow servant of the State, I am hoping for your understanding.
Sometimes, we have to follow orders.'

'I understand, and your apology is
accepted.'

'Thank you, madam. I have to tell you
about the cargo being brought to your shores, but first, I want to ask a favour
I have no right to. Would you please consider allowing AIC Burzynski to
accompany you when you intercept? It would mean a lot to us, and to our government.
And, in a minute, you will understand why.'

'We will gladly include Bruno.'

'Thank you very much. Now, allow me
to tell you ...'

The darkness below melted away, unexpectedly,
in slow motion, so that she thought she was imagining it at first.

Four lights, a soft glow. It was the
cylinders they had been carrying, two down at the quay, two further away at the
end of each breakwater, where Lukas was. Her heart lurched, paralysing her, her
body, her arms, her hands were as heavy as lead, her eyes were transfixed.

Light that made the small bay
visible, surreal, since the sounds of the night had not altered, there was no
additional movement, only the light.

Minutes dragged.

Then she heard the shout, faint and
far away against the white noise of the city and the sea. She saw two small,
dark figures leaping between the dolosse, impossibly long shadows fragmenting
against the hundreds of facets. She knew before she saw, before her brain could
decode the movements, knew it was Lukas, he had been seen, their dance was
towards him, weapons in their arms, aimed urgently.

Two stick figures became three: Lukas
with his hands on his head, the rucksack a small bulge at this distance. Milla
was turned to stone, everything flowed out of her, only her eyes followed
them, to the right, rifle barrels poking and prodding him like an animal, a
lamb to the slaughter.

Rajkumar uttered a shrill sound of
triumph. He opened the email program, a long list of messages in the inbox, the
subject indecipherable. He chose one halfway down the list, speed read, saw
references to the ship, nothing of use. Picked another one, scanned it,
another:

Shipment
arrives Monday 23 Shawwal 1430A.H. at 02.00 (GMT +2).

'Shit,' he said and looked up. Janina
Mentz wasn't back yet.

He read the next email.

We agree
with your assessment. Arrival of The Madeleine and Haidar ...

'Haidar?' he said aloud. 'Two ships?'

...
now 24
hours earlier at 02.00 (GMT +2) on Sunday 22 Shawwal 1430 A.H.

'Fuck,' said Rajhev Rajkumar, looked
at the wall clock. 'Where? Tell me where?'

He rose from behind the computer, he
must go and get Mentz, he moved towards the door. He saw her approaching.

On the concrete slipway they made Lukas
kneel, his hands behind his bowed head, two firearms aimed at him.

Four people came out of the building,
walked quickly to the ambulance, took out the stretcher and pushed it around
the corner.

The boat came through the gap, an
illusion unfurling from the darkness, white, sleek and lovely, with the lines
of a bird of prey. The deep, dull throb of the engines suddenly ceased.

Her eyes went back to Lukas, her
whole body paralysed.

A few of the men ran to the wooden
pier.

The big man appeared from behind the
building, walked up to Lukas with his hands at his sides.

The boat cut slowly through the quiet
water of the harbour, men on deck, ropes were thrown and caught. The vessel
bumped gently against the pier, the prow slid against it, ropes were tightened,
it came to a halt.

They all turned and looked to where
Lukas knelt.

Milla stood up, gravity seemed almost
too strong.

The big man in front of Lukas looked
down, said something to him.

Walked slowly around behind Lukas.
Stopped. Took a step back, stretched out his arm, to the back of Lukas's head.