Facets of Death

by Michael Stanley

  “Two oh three and two two seven to Joburg. Eight of the bags were on two oh three and seven on two two seven.”

  “And do you have any CCTV footage of the area where the bags are put on the carts to be taken to the plane?”

  “Yes. I’ve loaded it on a bunch of CDs for you, from the time the plane landed until it took off.”

  “Any footage of the bags being loaded on the plane?”

  “No. Only of the baggage area.”

  “And finally, I’m sure the passengers have given you descriptions of the missing bags. We’d like a copy of that too.”

  “We thought you’d want those, so we’ve already made a list for each flight.” She handed an envelope to Kubu.

  “Thank you. Very efficient!” Kubu smiled. “We won’t take much more of your time, but could we walk through the baggage area? It’s always good to see things for yourself.”

  * * *

  “Well, that was very helpful, don’t you think?” Kubu said as Neo drove them back to CID headquarters.

  Neo frowned. “What do you mean? There wasn’t any new information different from what I knew already.”

  “That may be true, but at least with the CCTV footage, we should be able to confirm that the bags left Botswana. Or not!”

  “But we know that already!”

  “No, Neo, we only have the manager’s word that they left, but we haven’t checked whether that’s actually the case. We’ll do that when we get back.”

  What an interesting first day, Kubu thought as Neo pulled into the police parking lot. And it’s not even lunch.

  Chapter 6

  Jake Oteng was already tired. He and his partner had done a morning shift in Gaborone, and then had driven their Cash in Transit vehicle for nearly three hours to Jwaneng. With the journey back to Gaborone with the cargo still ahead of them, he was going to be exhausted when he got home. Debswana had demanded only reliable, experienced teams, so there was no one who could substitute for them. And a fast-food lunch that he’d swallowed before they left was causing his stomach to complain.

  Salekany Kenosi was driving and was even more dour than usual, hardly saying a word. Oteng had never felt really comfortable with him. He wasn’t sure if he could rely on his partner to get his back if the chips were down.

  Just as well we seldom run into trouble with armoured vehicles in Botswana, he thought. Lucky we aren’t in South Africa!

  He wondered how Sheila Naledi was doing in the cargo section. Even when it was empty, they followed procedure. Only she could open the back door when they were in transit. Oteng had become used to having a woman on the team, even if she was the only one in the whole security industry. She was impossible to fault, but most of his workmates felt riding shotgun wasn’t a suitable job for a woman. She agreed with them. Her ambition was to own a security company, but she was willing to learn the ropes by starting at the bottom.

  They reached Jwaneng, turned right to the mine, and checked through the security gate. The guard directed them, and they parked on the apron outside the packing plant. Two more Gaborone Cash in Transit vehicles joined them after a few minutes, and finally the backup vehicle pulled in behind them.

  Three identical metal cases were waiting on the apron, with two armed guards standing next to them.

  A man met them, introduced himself as Eddie Tau, head of security at the mine, and explained what they had to do. Each vehicle would take just one of the boxes, and then they would leave at fifteen-minute intervals, with the backup vehicle bringing up the rear.

  “Which one do we take?” Oteng asked. “They all look the same.”

  Tau shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They are all the same. Just choose one.” He handed Oteng a clipboard and a ballpoint pen. “You need to fill out these forms first.”

  Without waiting for Oteng to work his way through the paperwork, Kenosi went over to inspect the boxes. They were black metal cases, about fifty centimetres long and fifteen by fifteen in cross section. The lids had three heavy hinges on one side and two top-security padlocks on the other, impossible to open with a bolt cutter. There were solid, padded handles on each end.

  The security guard told them to wait for the paperwork, and Kenosi nodded. But then he walked around the boxes, tugging at each lock. Immediately the guard rushed over.

  “I just told you! You can’t touch anything till the paperwork is done. You stupid or something?”

  “I was just checking they’re all secure. That’s all,” Kenosi replied.

  Oteng walked up with the paperwork for the guard. He shook his head, wondering why Kenosi was in such a rush.

  The guard signed the paperwork and watched as Kenosi lugged a case to his vehicle. From the way he handled the box as he lifted it into the cargo compartment, Oteng thought it must be heavy.

  Well, raw diamonds are rocks, he thought. That case is full of rocks.

  His mind whirled at how much that many gemstones would be worth. He had no idea, but it would be millions of pula. And there were three boxes of them!

  Naledi climbed in the back and closed the door. She locked it from the inside. It couldn’t be opened now unless she released it herself. That was a standard security feature.

  The two men climbed into the vehicle to wait their turn. The first vehicle departed and headed for the security gate and on towards the A2 to Gaborone. They would be the second to leave.

  “I wonder why they insisted on three vehicles,” Oteng said to Kenosi. “One could have taken all three boxes, no problem. Then there wouldn’t have been the panic about how to cover the deliveries in town and all the rest of it.”

  His partner shrugged. “None of our business.”

  Oteng sighed. Probably they wanted to spread the risk, he thought. Better to lose a third of their gems than the whole lot. He felt another twinge of indigestion.

  Precisely fifteen minutes later, they pulled off and headed out of the mine. This time Oteng drove, and Kenosi contacted Control on the two-way radio and confirmed the time of departure and the lat-long coordinates displayed on the GPS—a backup procedure in case the satellite link failed.

  Their estimated arrival time in Gaborone was just over three hours. Oteng sighed again. That would get them back around six. His wife wasn’t going to be happy. He was about to make a comment to Kenosi but noticed he was sitting with his jaw set and staring straight ahead, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

  Oteng swallowed. He’d been in security a long time, and his instincts were honed. He was getting a bad feeling about this trip. Maybe the twinges in his stomach weren’t coming from the food after all.

  Chapter 7

  When Kubu returned to his office after lunch, again wet through with sweat, he felt drowsy. He was beginning to regret having two bowls of pap and nyama. And that ice cream cone. He closed the door, sat down, and put his feet on his desk for one of his favourite pastimes—a ten-minute power nap.

  He was startled awake by the door opening. “First day and already sleeping on the job!” Elias sneered. “You’re not going to last long.” He dumped a pile of files on Kubu’s desk.

  Kubu grimaced as he pulled the files towards him. Of course, it would have to be Elias who caught him napping. No doubt he’d make it his business to tell anyone who would listen.

  The top file was a collection of APBs. None were recent, and many were long out of date, but a few were interesting. There was one from a month ago for a twenty-seven-year-old house breaker in Francistown, Nomedi Moseki, who’d been arrested and then managed to escape from the courtroom during his trial. He was 1.8 metres tall and of medium build.

  Kubu shook his head. How could they have let that happen?

  He looked carefully at the grainy photograph of the man and tried to memorise it, but the man had no distinguishing features.

  Then there was an older APB from the South Africa P
olice Service for an expert safe cracker, Vusi Tuelo, who was wanted for murder and armed robbery. He was armed and dangerous and believed to have fled the country. He was thirty-eight years old, 1.7 metres tall, and of medium build. The photograph showed a man with a narrow face with eyes that were too close together.

  Kubu flipped through a few more sheets, stopping when he saw one alerting the police to look for a black Cadillac hearse that had been used as a getaway car in a bank robbery in Molepolole. He laughed as he remembered the news coverage of the case—the hearse had been stopped less than an hour after the robbery, minutes after the APB had been circulated. The headline in one of the newspapers was “A Dead Giveaway.”

  He shook his head again. He hoped all the criminals he was going to look for were that stupid.

  He closed the file and went on to the next one, which contained the procedures specific to the Botswana Police Service. He’d covered most of the material at university, but in a more generic way. Mabaku had told him he needed to know what to do and what specific paperwork to file for all cases, so he paid close attention to the details.

  “And,” Mabaku had said, “you’d better know the mission of the police service inside out and backwards and forwards. The director and the commissioner both expect you to honour it throughout your career. And so do I.”

  Kubu looked up at the poster on the wall. The mission was embossed in gold:

  BOTHO

  EXCELLENCE

  INTEGRITY

  TEAMWORK

  Kubu was pleased that the mission included a Setswana word—BOTHO. It described well his parents’ view of the world and consequently his own upbringing: living a life of humility, dignity, courtesy, and respect for others, regardless of their status in life.

  Kubu also knew it had an even deeper meaning, one to which he fully subscribed: Motho ke motho ka batho, meaning “I am because you are,” and was a social contract of earning respect by first giving it. It was at the heart of Botswana culture and in Kubu’s heart also.

  As for EXCELLENCE, INTEGRITY, and TEAMWORK, Kubu believed in those too.

  Kubu was committed to living up to the mission, whatever it took.

  Chapter 8

  Oteng and Kenosi’s journey proceeded smoothly for the first hour, and Kenosi reported in and confirmed their position at regular intervals. As he drove along the two-lane A2, flanked on each side by a cattle fence, Oteng thought there had to be something wrong with the road’s design, judging by the number of decomposed cows lying on the side.

  He laughed. “The fence is better at keeping cows on the road than away from it. Must be hard to see a cow on the road in the middle of the night.”

  Kenosi didn’t respond.

  He’s in one of his moods, Oteng thought and concentrated on the road ahead.

  The traffic was light, and what there was passed them at the first opportunity, so it wasn’t hard for Oteng to spot the white SUV behind them. It kept its distance, dropping out of sight from time to time, but then it would appear again in the distance. Maybe it’s just travelling at the same speed as we are, he thought, but he was suspicious. It didn’t seem right.

  He glanced at Kenosi, who was staring straight ahead.

  “I think maybe we’re being followed. There’s a white SUV behind us. It’s been just keeping pace with us for five minutes or so.”

  Kenosi checked his watch. “We’re right on schedule. Slow down and see if it passes.”

  Oteng slowed down, and the SUV dropped back again.

  “You’d better alert Control,” Oteng said. “It’s just about time to report in anyway.”

  At first there was no reply. Then Kenosi said in a voice harsh with tension, “Slow down, Jake. Keep both your hands on the wheel. If you try anything, I promise I’ll kill you.”

  Aghast, Oteng glanced at him. Kenosi had his automatic pointed straight at Oteng’s head. Although it was almost impossible to believe, Oteng knew at once what was going on—Kenosi was hijacking the vehicle and the diamonds. The white SUV must be his support.

  Kenosi reached over and yanked Oteng’s gun from its holster.

  Oteng’s mind was racing. What could he do? Very quickly he decided that he shouldn’t do anything. The rules were clear—if you were in a life-threatening situation, cooperate. An agent’s life was worth more than the valuables being transported, even if it was a crate full of diamonds.

  “Why are you doing this, Salekany? You know you can’t get away with it. Everyone will know it was you. This is Debswana you’re robbing. They’ll hunt you down like a jackal!”

  “Shut up! Shut up and just do what I say.”

  Oteng could see in the mirror that the SUV was tailing them now, just a few vehicle lengths behind.

  “Slow down. We’ll turn off to the left just ahead here. Slow down!”

  Even with the warning, Oteng nearly missed the turn. It was just a dirt track leading off the main road into the scrub, probably heading to a cluster of homes too small even to be called a village. As he bumped off the main road, Oteng glanced at the control panel. Surely Naledi had realised by now that something was wrong? But there was no alert from her emergency alarm. With a sinking feeling, he realised it must have failed, or more likely, been disabled somehow. So, no alert had gone to Control. He could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead. He glanced at Kenosi and saw his face was also damp.

  Oteng drove down the track, through a gate in the cattle fence that hung open, and then had to wrestle with the steering wheel for a hundred metres or so of soft sand. When the track forked, Kenosi directed him to the right, where he was forced to stop by the wreck of a bakkie that had been dragged across the road. The SUV pulled up behind, and four men wearing ski masks and carrying automatic weapons jumped out. They’d covered any possible escape route. Kenosi released the door locks, and Oteng was pulled roughly out of the driver’s side.

  At once Kenosi called the control room and, after identifying himself, read off coordinates from a piece of paper. His voice sounded strained, but Oteng doubted Control would notice over this sort of radio connection. As soon as Kenosi disconnected, a man with a device that looked like a transistor radio climbed into the cab.

  It’s a blocker, Oteng realised, blocking the radio signals that would alert Control that the vehicle was being tampered with.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, the man gave the thumbs-up to one of the others who had been pushing a putty-like substance around the cargo door. Everyone headed away from the vehicle, and there was a loud crack and smoke as the plastic explosive did its job. One of the men yanked the door open just enough to throw in a stun grenade, and a few minutes later they pulled Naledi out. She was unconscious at best, but Oteng had an awful feeling it might be worse than that. A few minutes later, the case of diamonds had been transferred to the SUV.

  And what happens now, Oteng wondered. His stomach lurched. This time he was certain it had nothing to do with the food.

  Chapter 9

  The duty officer at the Control desk at Gaborone Cash in Transit was worried after the call from Kenosi came in. The coordinates Kenosi had given him looked about right, but the blip showing vehicle two on his screen had stopped moving. He wondered if there was a technical problem. However, the other two vehicles were both moving along as expected.

  The problem isn’t at our end, he thought. It’s at the vehicle. And that thought made him very uncomfortable. He tried to raise unit two on the radio but received no response. He tried again with the same result. He grabbed his handset and dialled his boss’s office. This was a shipment for Debswana, a big deal. Rra Henkel would want to know.

  A few minutes later, Pieter Henkel ran into the control room.

  “What’s happening? Any change?”

  The duty officer shook his head.

  “Get them on the radio.”

  “I’ve tried. Th
ere’s no reply.”

  “Try again.”

  “Unit two, come in for Control.”

  There was no response.

  “Unit two, come in.”

  Nothing.

  Henkel cursed. He knew he should have had a backup vehicle with each unit, but he just hadn’t had the resources.

  He took the microphone. “Backup unit. Come in.”

  “Standing by.”

  “Head up to unit two. Check it out.”

  “Roger. Out.”

  Chapter 10

  “Why shoot them?” Kenosi demanded as they moved off in the SUV. “I was told there would be no violence! No one gets hurt. That’s what he said!”

  The leader just looked at him. “They knew what you did. How could we leave them alive? Your share is a million pula. You think that would be enough to keep you safe from Debswana?”

  “But the woman? She knew nothing.”

  The leader ignored that. “We have a new plan, Kenosi, so listen carefully. When we’ve passed Kanye—in about fifteen minutes—you call in and tell them you’re having electrical problems, but all is well. Then we drop you off, rough you up a little. You say we made you call in and then threw you out of the car. You go find someone. Tell them what happened. Take your time. You’ll be a hero. Okay?”

  “And the money?” Kenosi asked, now doubtful if he’d ever see it.

  “You get it as soon as we move the stones. Just like we agreed.”

  Kenosi nodded. He realised he had no choice. The original plan had called for him to go with them, to hide out in South Africa. But now he had a strong suspicion the new plan was quite different from what the leader had just spelt out. He wished he’d kept his gun or Oteng’s, but the leader had taken them both—to get rid of the evidence, he’d said.

  They turned onto the main road and picked up speed. After about a kilometre, they came upon a large herd of cattle milling around at the side of the road. The leader told the driver to pull over. He opened his window and shouted for the herd boys. They ran up, and he shoved a handful of pula notes at them.