80
‘Hello, Mary, how have you been?’
Zalika Stratten smiled wearily as she greeted the woman she had last seen a decade ago. That day, the day her old world was destroyed, she had been a plain, gawky girl of seventeen and Mary Ncube a junior housemaid. Now Mary was the housekeeper, a plump, imperious woman who ruled her domestic kingdom with a warm heart for those who stuck to her rules and a tongue like a rhino-hide whip for those who did not. She had spent her whole working life catering first to her country’s richest family and then to its president, his family and his guests. Over the years, she had developed an air of haughty self-assurance that made her seem almost grander than the people she served. But when she caught sight of Zalika Stratten, all that was overwhelmed by a wave of emotion.
‘Miss Zalika!’ Mary cried, frantically trying to wipe away the tears that were flooding down her round cheeks. ‘It is so wonderful to see you again. Let me look at you.’ She stepped back and examined Zalika through watery eyes. ‘Oh, you are so pretty now. But so thin, and with such dark circles under your eyes. And what is this?’ Mary pointed at the scratches and bruises on Zalika’s upper arm, left by the nylon straps that had bound her tight to the stretcher on which she’d been carried on to the plane in Macau. ‘Have these jackals been mistreating you?’
Zalika looked wearily at the armed men, cradling their AK-47s, who were arrayed in a semi-circle behind her in the hall of the old Stratten house. ‘I’m sorry about my new boyfriends,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to get rid of them.’
She tried to smile. It was supposed to be a joke. But her brain was numbed by exhaustion, stress and the after-effects of the drugs still working their way through her system.
‘Pah!’ Mary jeered, dismissing the men with a single, withering sweep of her eyes. ‘Forget them. You come with me. I have made a bed for you in your old room. I am afraid it does not look the same any more. Our First Lady, Mrs Gushungo, insisted that she had to redecorate. But if you close your eyes, you can imagine that it is just the same, with all your tennis prizes and riding rosettes on the wall, and your pictures of pop stars who look like little white girls, even though—’
‘That’s enough!’
The slurring hiss of Moses Mabeki’s voice did not so much cut across Mary Ncube’s words as slide through them. But the effect was the same. Mary fell silent and the air in the room seemed to chill as Mabeki walked past his men and up to Zalika.
‘I must go back to Sindele,’ he told her. ‘I have a government to appoint. A series of incompetent, gutless buffoons will beg me for the chance to become President. They will all be wasting their time. I have made my choice, and once he has been announced, I will tell him what to say at his first press conference tomorrow. As for you, my dear, I have my best men guarding you. They are all armed and will use their weapons without hesitation.’
He bent down till his face was alongside hers, his gnarled and pockmarked skin brushing against her soft, smooth complexion. Then he whispered wetly into her ear, ‘Rest assured that I will be back, Zalika … my darling. I have spent the last ten years waiting for this moment, thinking of what I would do to you, planning every detail. I’ve got a very special night in store for you. And I want you to be ready.’
81
‘Shall I tell you one good thing about my job? No one ever gives any crap to the one guy in the company who wears a gun to work!’
Sonny Parkes roared with laughter at his own wit, the four men he’d picked for the mission chuckled dutifully, and Carver managed a grin. It was plainly a line that got used on a regular basis, but he wasn’t about to complain. Not when he was sitting in the cabin of the propeller-driven De Havilland Twin Otter that was currently flying him at a stately one hundred and ninety miles an hour over the southern African bush towards the Malemban city of Buweku.
‘What did you tell them?’ Carver asked.
‘The truth, or as close as I could get to it. I said I was urgently pursuing a lead on Mr Klerk’s murder. I also said that this was a matter that had to be handled independently. In our organization, Carver, the word “independent” has a very special meaning. And do you know who’s responsible for that meaning?’
‘No idea.’
‘You are. When you went into Mozambique ten years ago and got Miss Stratten the first time—’
‘I never thought there’d be a second one.’
‘I’ll bet. Anyway, Mr Klerk was very impressed. He realized that with Africa being the way it is – you know, total f*cking chaos nine-tenths of the time – there was no point even trying to rely on governments and official authorities to, you know, protect you or uphold the law. A man had to be able to act independently.’
‘Which is what you and your blokes do.’
‘Correct.’
‘Let’s get on with the independent plan for today then. Were you able to get what I needed?’
Parkes grinned. ‘You mean apart from the shower and the change of clothes? Man, you needed those. Smelled like a rotting warthog when you got off that flight!’
‘Apart from that …’
‘Yeah, I got most of it, and I got us a cover, too. Klerk’s still got – sorry, had – businesses in Malemba. They’re all run by locals these days, because that’s the only way you can keep the government from seizing all your assets. But they’re actually controlled by us through a bunch of shell companies and offshore trusts. Point is, no one in Malemba’s going to connect them with Wendell Klerk, which is good for us right now. Same with this plane. As far as anyone in Buweku is concerned, we work for an independent security contractor and we’ve come to pitch our services to a potential client in Malemba. When we get to the airport, I’ll show the customs people the flight cases containing all the fancy audiovisual equipment we’re going to use for our presentation. They’ll shake their heads and go tut-tut. Then they’ll explain that it is against government policy to allow the importation of such products because it makes it harder for local Malemban industry to compete. Of course, there is no Malemban industry any more, but I will nod all the same and say that I quite understand, and would one thousand US dollars cover the import duty? We will then be waved through. And so will the weapons – including, you may be pleased to hear, a couple of AA-12s – that are hidden in the cases beneath the projector, the lights and the PA system.’
‘You’ve got some non-lethal stuff, too?’
‘Yeah, yeah … I can’t believe you’re so p-ssy. What’s wrong with just blowing the bastards away?’
‘Nothing, when they’re the right bastards. But I don’t want to kill innocent people. I leave that kind of thing to people like Mabeki.’
‘That’s a very noble principle. I just hope it doesn’t kill you.’
‘Hasn’t yet. How about transport?’
‘A minibus to meet us at the airport; one three-ton truck; some anonymous Japanese four-by-fours to get us in and out of the target area; and three drivers who know their way through every rat-run in Buweku. Yeah, we’ve got transport all right.’
‘Outstanding,’ said Carver. ‘Right, let’s go over that plan.’
82
Justus Iluko dragged the back of his hand across his brow to wipe away the sweat. His lawyer had bought clean shirts for him and Canaan and a floral cotton dress for Farayi so that they would all look respectable in court. But the back of the prison van was like an airless steel oven and its twelve passengers, crammed on to the benches down either side, were roasting in the heat. Outside, they could hear the sound of engines idling, horns tooting and angry drivers shouting at the crowded street as if their righteous indignation could somehow ease the congestion.
Justus smiled at his daughter as the van jerked forward and started moving down the road. ‘Not much longer now, then we will get some fresh air.’
He waited for her reply, or even the faintest signal of acknowledgement, but none came. Farayi was sunk in depression so deep as to be almost catatonic.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Justus said. ‘We are innocent. Even if the police will not admit it, the judge will know and he will set us free. I am sure of it.’
He wished he could reach over to stroke Farayi’s head, the way he had when she was a little girl, but the chains that shackled his hands and feet made it impossible.
‘You know that is not true,’ said Canaan, bitterly. ‘The judges are as bad as the rest. Even if they know what is right, they are too afraid to do it. They do not dare make Gushungo angry.’
‘But Gushungo is dead.’
The words came from the only other woman in the truck. Her name was Winifred Moyo. She was a farmer’s widow and she was facing trial for attempting to silence her crying grandson by cooking him in a pan over an open fire.
There were gasps of amazement around the van, then a voice called out, ‘Do not listen to her! She is a madwoman!’
‘He is dead, I promise it,’ Moyo insisted. ‘The guard told me this morning.’
‘She is right, I heard this, too,’ another man said.
‘So who is in charge now?’ asked Justus. ‘Is Tshonga taking over? If he is, maybe we will get justice.’
‘Not from Patrick Tshonga!’ cackled Moyo. ‘They are saying he is on the run from justice. He is a criminal, just like us!’
‘Mr Tshonga is a good man,’ Justus insisted. ‘I am sure that—’
The van had come to a grinding halt again and the rest of his words were lost in another angry blast of horns. People were shouting up at the front of the van. Their voices were suddenly cut short, and then came the deafening percussive blast of an automatic weapon fired just a few feet away.
Farayi looked up, her eyes wide in terror. Winifred Moyo screamed, while male voices shouted for help and demanded to be let out. A second later, their wish was granted. There was another shot, and the inside of the door lock flew into the van and clattered against the bare metal floor. Then the doors were flung wide.
Two men were standing there. One of them carried a strange-looking black gun. The other clasped a vicious-looking pair of bolt-cutters. They were wearing facemasks and gloves but their eyes – one set blue, the other an eerie, clear green – made it obvious that they were whites.
‘Please remain calm,’ the man with the bolt-cutters shouted.
Justus frowned. That voice was familiar.
‘You are quite safe. We are not, repeat not, going to hurt you. Just stay where you are and let us into the truck.’
The man with the bolt-cutters stepped up into the van while the other man covered him with the gun. Winifred Moyo was thrashing on the bench, desperately trying to wriggle free from her shackles. The man ignored her and went straight to Justus.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I’m getting you out of here.’
‘Car—’
Carver put a hand over Justus’s mouth. ‘Shh, no names.’ He pointed at the two youngsters. ‘Those your two?’
Justus nodded.
‘OK,’ Carver said.
He got to work with the bolt-cutters, snapping chains and setting the Iluko family free. They rushed to the end of the van and were helped out by the second man.
‘Thirty seconds!’ the second man called out, as Justus scrambled down on to the road. His voice sounded South African.
‘Coming,’ said Carver.
He looked around for the least panic-stricken face he could find: a middle-aged man with flecks of grey at his temples. Carver cut the chain that linked his leather-cuffed wrists then handed him the bolt-cutters. ‘Free yourself, then pass it on,’ he said. Then he too raced from the van.
83
As he blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dazzling sunshine after the darkness of the van, Justus took in a scene of total pandemonium. All around him, drivers had abandoned their vehicles. Cars were slewed across the road. Not far away, passengers were fighting to get off a bus. Pedestrians were running for the shelter of shops and offices, or huddling for cover behind parked cars. The reason for their fear was apparent: the four men positioned around the prison van.
Justus felt a hand grabbing his wrist and pulling it hard.
‘This way,’ said Carver, leading him round the side of the van.
In the front seats, the driver and guard were slumped forward, unconscious. A dart was sticking out of the driver’s neck, exactly like the ones Justus had seen being used to sedate wild game when he worked at the Stratten Reserve. Up ahead, a truck had blocked the van’s way, stopping just before a crossroads.
‘Get in,’ said Carver, gesturing at the passenger door of a large white four-wheel-drive.
‘Where are my children?’ asked Justus, fear in his voice as he looked around the interior of the car.
‘Don’t worry, they’re safe,’ Carver replied, getting in the front passenger seat.
Two of the gunmen got in the back, squeezing Justus between them. Up ahead, the truck began rumbling over the crossroads, oblivious to the traffic coming from either side, forcing its way through. Another vehicle pulled in behind it, a four-by-four like the one Justus was in, but with an extra row of seats. Justus could see Canaan and Farayi sitting in the middle row. He wanted to cry out to them but bit his tongue. They would not be able to hear and he did not want to seem ridiculous in the eyes of the men around him.
‘Let’s go,’ Carver told the driver, and they set off, taking the third place in line, the speed picking up as they followed the truck.
Now they were racing through the middle of Buweko, passing modern office blocks and grand old redbrick colonial buildings, faster and faster, amid the roar of engines and the almost continuous blare of the truck’s own klaxon up ahead as it urged everyone else on the road to make way.
They crossed two full city blocks, then five … ten … and then came the wail of a police siren. Justus twisted his head to see a police car come speeding out of a side street, almost losing control as it skidded round the corner, then gathering itself and chasing after them. A few seconds later, a second police car joined the chase.
One of the men next to Justus said, ‘Cover your ears.’
The man turned in his seat and pointed his gun back down the road. Then he fired a single thunderous shot and the rear wind-screen simply vanished as if it had never been. He rotated his head to ease his neck muscles, settled over the sights of his gun and pressed the trigger. As the noise crashed round the four-by-four, the drum magazine rotated, cartridges were spewed from the side of the gun and a gigantic hammer of flying lead hit the leading police car and obliterated it.
Justus had fought in a long and bloody war. He had witnessed more slaughter and destruction than any human being should have to face. But he had never seen anything like that before.
The police car seemed to stop dead in the road. The car behind went skidding into its rear. A policeman got out of the passenger seat and ran away with his hands in the air.
The gunman let him go. He stopped firing and slipped back down into his seat.
‘Damn!’ he said. ‘That was fun!’
84
Half a mile up the road, the downtown area gave way to a district of low-rise industrial units, warehouses and open lots. The two four-by-fours pulled into a gated builder’s yard on the corner of an intersection. Parkes’s men spilled out and greeted one another with high fives and whoops of triumph. Justus ran straight to his children.
Carver let them be for a few seconds – enough time for Justus to be certain that his kids were unharmed – then put a hand on his old comrade’s shoulder and said, ‘I need a word.’
‘Of course, of course!’ replied Justus. ‘I cannot believe that you came for us. I do not know how I can thank you.’
Carver grimaced. ‘Well, that’s the trouble. I do.’
‘Anything, just say it.’
‘I need you to let Canaan and Farayi go with Sonny Parkes over there. He’s going to get them safely out of the country. I know you want to go with them. If you say that’s what you’re going to do, I’ll understand. But I really need your help.’
The exuberance left Justus like the light from a bulb. ‘What do you want?’
‘Mabeki has Zalika Stratten again. I know, it’s like some kind of sick joke: losing her once is a misfortune, twice looks like carelessness. And I was careless. It’s my fault. But the fact is he’s got her, she’s in danger, and without you I have no chance of getting her back.’
Justus did not waste time even pretending to reassure Carver. He got straight to the point: ‘Where is she?’
‘I think he’s taken her to the old Stratten Reserve. In fact I’m sure he has.’
‘But you do not know?’
‘Not for certain, no.’
‘And you need me because …?’
‘You can guide me in and out. We need to get to the house unobserved, then make a run for the border.’
‘It’s been a long, long time since I worked there. A lot has changed, I’m sure.’
‘Maybe, but you still know more about the place than any of us. And the land itself hasn’t changed. Look, I know this is a huge ask. But I’m not expecting you to get involved in any close combat. It’s not right to risk your life that way.’
‘So you want me to come with you, but you deny me the chance to fight?’
It took Carver half a second to spot the trace of humour in Justus’s voice.
‘So you’ll do it?’
‘Of course. I am in your debt, it is what I must do. And not just because of you. It is because of men like Mabeki that my beautiful Nyasha, the love of my life, is dead. For her sake, I must have my revenge.’
‘You sure? Your children have lost their mother. I don’t want them to lose their father, too.’
‘They are almost grown now, ready to make their own lives, whether I am with them or not. Better that they should have the memory of a hero than the presence of a coward.’
‘Then you’d better go and tell them that now. They’ll be on their way to the border in a couple of minutes. If all goes well, they’ll be waiting for us when we get Zalika out. One way or the other, it’ll all be settled tonight.’
Justus nodded and walked back to his son and daughter, passing Sonny Parkes, who was walking over to Carver.
‘He agree?’ Parkes asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘And it’s just going to be the two of you? Because if you want me or any of my guys to tag along …’
‘Thanks, but I’d rather you looked after the kids, make sure they get out of the country alive. I paid for their educations. I don’t want my money wasted.’
Parkes smiled knowingly. ‘Ja, that must be it. Don’t worry, bro, we’ll get them out in one piece. You decided on weapons? I’ve still got a couple of unused drums of ammo for an AA-12, if you want it.’
‘No thanks. For this kind of job I need precision more than power.’
‘Agreed, but I thought I’d ask, just in case the little demonstration back there made you change your mind. Anyway, I got you two M4 carbines with US Special Forces modifications: noise-suppressor kits and three thirty-round mags apiece. That’s what we use on operations like this and we like the results. I got you an M11, too. I heard on the grapevine that’s your handgun of choice. With a suppressor, of course.’
Carver nodded. ‘Thanks.’ The M11 was the US designation for the Sig Sauer P226. ‘I always feel cosier with one of them around.’
‘For me, what I like best is a good knife,’ said Parkes. ‘A nine-inch Bowie blade, black carbon steel, preferably. I assumed you and Mr Iluko would feel the same way. You may need them.’
Carver grimaced at the thought of a knife slicing through an exposed throat. There were few more horribly intimate ways to kill a man. But Parkes was right: there were also few more effective ways of silently eliminating one’s enemy.
‘The kit’s all in that Defender over there,’ said Parkes, nodding in the direction of a dusty olive-green Land Rover. It’s got a full tank of gas and an extra jerrycan in case you need it. Believe it or not, that gas was much harder to come by than your weapons. Anyway, I’ve got you water, rations, and there’s a winch fitted to the front bumper in case you need to pull yourself out of trouble.’
‘Looks like you thought of everything.’
‘Well, that’s my boss’s niece you’re going after. Nothing but the best, eh?’
‘I appreciate it. Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Parkes. ‘Well, I’d better get going. We’ve got a plane to catch.’
He turned to go, then paused for a second.
‘Hey, Carver … good luck.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘but actually there is one thing you forgot.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Beer, a cold one. It had better be waiting when I get across the border tonight.’
‘Count on it,’ said Parkes.