Sifiso’s tiny shack was in the very worst part of the very worst area. Next to the Jukskei River, wedged between two larger dwellings and perched precariously on the edge of the water. To call the Jukskei a river was to be euphemistic in the extreme. Open sewer would have been a far more accurate description. Filled with industrial waste, human excrement and rotting garbage, it was less a source of water and more a source of disease, illness and infection. In winter it froze and in summer it flooded.
But one thing about it remained constant no matter what the weather. And that one thing was the smell. The Jukskei River stank like the very carrier of filth that it was. A sickening stench. A physical presence. A playground bully.
But as Kobus stumped towards little Sifiso’s shack he became aware of another odor. A smell that cut through all of the others. A smell that took him back in time. To the killing fields of Angola. The wastelands of South West Africa. The burning villages of Mozambique.
It was the smell of death.
He hurried to Sifiso’s shack and pulled aside the sheet of plywood that formed the opening. It took a full two seconds for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.
In the corner sat Sifiso. Knees pulled up to his chest. Hands woven together around his knees. Eyes wide and staring. Trancelike.
In the other corner lay a body. It was covered in wild flowers. Hundreds. Thousands of them. Most were shriveled to nothingness. But there were still some live blooms. Tiny splashes of purple and silver and white amongst the gray and black of the body’s putrefaction. The smell of the dying blooms in direct competition with the stench of physical corruption.
Kobus crouched into the shack and squatted down next to Sifiso. The boy turned his head to look at him.
‘Hello, Big Man.’
‘Hello, Sifiso.’
‘My mama is dead.’
‘Yes.’
They sat together for a while. Silent. Respectful.
Then Kobus said. ‘We must go now. Come to my place. We will get some food.’
‘What about mama?’
‘After we have eaten, we will take care of mama.’
‘Promise?’
‘Yes, Sifiso. I promise.’
The two of them left the shack and walked to Kobus’ dwelling.
Behind them the river continued to flow.
Sluggish.
Filthy.
Uncompromising.
Chapter 16
Freedom finished his oat porridge and placed the empty bowl on the floor next to his bed. He was incapable of eating anything more substantial. The beating had knocked out his two top front teeth and loosened the bottom two. His lip had been savagely split and stitched up by Pete. The stitches clumsy but adequate. Another row of Frankenstein stitches ran across his forehead, closing the long cut above his brows. He was missing the bottom of his left ear.
Pete opened the door and walked in.
‘How are you feeling?’
Freedom said nothing. Stared at the floor. Not even acknowledging the Afrikaner.
Pete sat down on the room’s single chair, reversing it so that he lent forward against the back, legs straddled.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’d also be pissed. It was a necessary evil. It is not my habit to injure without reason. I find no pleasure in causing hurt and I despise people that do. To harm any of God’s creatures for no other reason than one’s own personal gratification is sick in the extreme. Random violence, bullying, hunting for trophies as opposed to the pot. Sick.’
Still Freedom said nothing.
‘Here,’ Pete held out his hand. Freedom looked. Four white pills.
‘It’s codeine,’ said Pete. ‘For the pain.’
The young Zulu shook his head.
‘Don’t be stupid, boy. Take them. I know that I would in your position. There is no shame in it.’
Pete held them out again. Freedom lent forward, half off his bed. Took them. Swallowed them dry.
‘Drink some water, boy,’ said Pete. ‘You should always drink a full glass of water with pills. Helps the body to process the chemicals.’
Freedom filled a tin mug with water from a bottle next to his bed. He drank painfully. Water dribbled from his swollen lips, mixed with blood. Dropped pinkly to the floor.
‘Don’t call me boy.’
‘You are a boy,’ responded Pete.
‘It’s racist.’
Pete laughed. ‘Get off your high horse, boy. If you look hard enough you can find racism everywhere. However, if it offends you, I shall call you man. Or Freedom.’
‘And what do I call you?’
Pete studied the young man for a while before he spoke. ‘You can call me mister Vermuelen. Or sir. Or Uncle.’
‘I will call you madota, man.’
Pete nodded his approval.
‘So, madota, what am I doing here?’
‘You are a hostage.’
‘But my father is not a rich man.’
‘True. But he has knowledge. We are holding you in return for that knowledge.’
‘No. My father knows little. He is just a man who goes to work and does his thing. Normal. Boring.’
‘Past knowledge,’ said Pete.
‘How?’
‘During the war. Your father was a soldier. He fought for Inkatha. High up the chain of command.’
Freedom shook his head. ‘No. My father hates violence. He is a mouse.’
Pete laughed. ‘Ah yes, the certainty of youth. You know nothing, Freedom.’
‘I know what makes a man. My uncle is a man.’
‘Oh yes, and who is your uncle?’
‘Petrus Dlamini. And he will come for me.’
Pete’s grin faded. He sighed. ‘I have heard of him. I did not know that he was your uncle.’
‘Few do. The family is ashamed of him. Scared of him. They deny him. But he will come for me. And all of this, all these people, they will count for nothing against him.’
‘Yes,’ said Pete. ‘I think that you are right. From what I have heard of the man he will come for you. And then we will kill him. Because we are many and he is one.’
‘No,’ said Freedom.
‘Even if I was alone he would not prevail. I am too good at what I do. No one can get close to me.’
‘Someone did,’ disagreed Freedom. ‘Gave you that scar.’
Pete touched the massive scar that ran down the side of his face. ‘That was different.’
‘How?’
‘It was a friend.’
Freedom snorted. ‘Not much of a friend.’
Pete shook his head. ‘You know nothing. He was the very best of friends. The very best of men. Honorable. True. I loved him like a brother.’
‘Where is he now? This brother of yours.’
‘He is no longer here.’
‘You killed him?’
‘No. Never.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Leon. Leon Povall. He lived for Africa but he went far away to fight in the wind and the rain and the cold.’
‘And soon my uncle will come. And you too shall die.’
Pete stood up and walked to the door. He turned to face the young Zulu before he closed it behind him. His eyes glinted in the weak light. Not human. Like wet river pebbles. Dark. Dead.
‘No, Freedom, he cannot kill me, for I died a long time ago. A long time ago.’
The door clicked shut.
Chapter 17
They had slept in the front of the pick-up, about a hundred yards off the road in a copse of trees. Three hours of uncomfortable semi-rest spent on the very edge of sleep.
The sun rose at five o’clock, Garrett started the pick-up and headed for a truckers stop where they could clean up and get some breakfast. They both ordered something called a belly-buster breakfast and a pot of coffee. Eggs, beans, bacon, lamb chops, sausage, fried onions, mushrooms, hash browns, kidneys and piles of toast were laid before them and they set at it with a purpose.
Afterwards
they went outside and sat on a bench. Garrett took out a pack of Gauloise plains. Offered. Petrus accepted. They lit and sat for a while in the still morning air. The smoke hung above them, creating gossamer patterns of lace and web.
‘We need to find this character that’s holding Freedom,’ said Garrett.
Petrus exhaled through closed teeth, spreading the smoke into tiny tendrils. ‘That will be easy, someone always knows where that madman is.’ The Zulu stood up, stretched his back. ‘Listen, my friend,’ he continued. ‘This Pete Vermulen, they call him “The Prophet”. He’s a bad dude. Seriously bad. Look, what I’m saying is, you don’t need to come with me when I find him. I had no idea that he was involved and, frankly, I don’t rate our odds against him.’
Garrett raised an eyebrow. ‘Come on. No one is that bad.’ And deep down The Beast growled. Sensing an adversary. Another alpha to fight.
‘They say that he can’t be killed. Many, many have tried. He has been shot over twenty-seven times. He died once and came back to life. He has killed hundreds of people. He is insane. I met him once, long ago, during the apartheid war. He is the only man that I have ever been truly scared of.’
Garrett shrugged. ‘Whatever, I’m still going with you. We’re a team. And anyway, if he’s so bad then we’ll simply find a way to sneak in and steal Freedom from him. Avoid confrontation.’
Petrus grinned. ‘Thanks, my friend. Now, let me make a few calls and we’ll track this motherfucker down.’
Garrett lit another cigarette while Petrus dialed out on his cell phone. He made six calls in the next ten minutes then pocketed the cell.
‘Now we wait,’ he said. ‘Someone will phone with his whereabouts in the next hour or so.’
Garrett tossed away his cigarette butt. ‘Should we have another breakfast?’
‘Yep,’ agreed Petrus. ‘Why not?’
***
Kobus fashioned a litter from two branches and a length of frayed tarpaulin. Then he and Sifiso wrapped mama in an old blanket. After that the two of them dragged the body six miles to the nearest cemetery.
However, when they got there they were turned away. To qualify for a pauper’s burial they were told that they needed a certified death certificate. They would also need financial position statements with affidavits from the SAPS to prove they could not afford to pay. Letters from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, relevant Ward Councilor and or the Church leader, confirming the poverty conditions being experienced.
So they turned and started to drag the putrefying body back to the squatter camp. After two miles Kobus had to stop. His arms were burning from the effort and his stump was chaffed raw against his wooden prosthesis. He sat down next to the dirt road, sweat drying into patches of salt on his shirt. He had no idea what to do next. But he had promised Sifiso that they would take care of mama, so, somehow, he would.
He took out his cigarette packet and withdrew the last cigarette. Lit it and inhaled. The smoke helped to drive away the stench of the rotting body and he drew deeply.
Little Sifiso had pulled up some dry grass and was weaving a bracelet out of it. It was late afternoon by now, almost early evening, and the sun had drenched the skies in a wash of red and purple and gold. Flocks of Mossie Sparrows flitted through the dusk in groups one hundred strong. Flicking through the air and turning in synchronicity. A poetry of flashing wings and shining feathers.
A car approached them, coming from the direction of the city. A large luxury automobile. Traveling fast. Dust boiled around it and hung in the still air like a battleship laying down a smoke screen. The driver braked hard and it slew to a stop opposite them.
The back door opened and a man stepped out. Medium height. Dark suit, white shirt, red tie. Expensive. His skin shone as if polished. Sleek and well fed like a racehorse. He walked across the road towards them. Fine dust settled on his shoes, dulling the shine with red talc.
‘Is that a body?’ He asked.
Kobus said nothing.
‘It’s mama,’ said Sifiso. ‘She is dead. We were taking her to be buried but they sent us away.’
‘Why?’
Kobus stood up and answered, explaining about the red tape, the hoops that needed to be jumped through. The stupidity of the whole thing.
‘That’s bullshit,’ said the man. ‘Did you try to bribe them?’
Kobus shook his head. ‘No money.’
The man pulled out a money clip. Unfolded it and pulled off notes.
‘Here,’ he held it out to Kobus. The tall man took it, using both hands as a sign of respect. ‘Give that to them,’ continued the man. ‘And tell them that colonel Zuzani orders them to accommodate you. And not in the paupers section. Tell them that the colonel wants a cross above the grave. Tell them that the colonel will be checking up on them.’ He shook his head. ‘Fucking basterds, turning away a motherless child.’
He turned and walked back to his car. Got inside. The car accelerated away. Huge and expensive.
Kobus pocketed the money, picked up the litter and, like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill for all eternity, trudged back to the cemetery.
In the car sergeant Fumba stoked his cat and said. ‘Hey, that was a nice thing that you did there, boss.’
Zuzani turned to look at him. ‘Shut up, sergeant. And if that cat gets any fur on my suit I swear to God that I will shoot it.’
Chapter 18
They had been driving for over four hours.
Petrus’ contacts had informed him that the Prophet was living on a large farm in the Northern Cape. Near the town of Postmasburg. Almost five hundred miles by road.
Before they had set off they had stopped in at an Internet café, printed off a selection of aerial views of the area courtesy of Google Earth and written down the latitude and longitude. Garrett had also visited a hiking shop and purchased a set of ordnance survey maps of the district and a pair of Nikon binoculars.
Neither the Google images nor the maps showed much. A farmhouse surrounded by a number of outbuildings in the middle of thousands of acres of nothing. But at least they could pick out where the tracks were as well as the lay of the land so that they could work out where hills and tree cover lay.
It was late afternoon by the time they made the district. They decided to leave the road and use the GPS facility on Petrus’ cell phone to get as close to the farmhouse as possible without detection. Then they would recon the place and take it from there.
Garrett jammed the gears into 4WD and took the pick-up across country, describing a large arc that brought them in from the East side of the farmhouse via a gaggle of low hills and shallow valleys that he hoped would hide their approach.
After forty-five minutes of hard off-roading they stopped the pick-up in a valley less than a mile from the homestead. They exited and walked up to the top of the hill in front of them, keeping low as they approached the crest so as to avoid being silhouetted against the lowering sun.
Garrett focused the binoculars on the homestead.
‘One main building,’ he murmured to Petrus. ‘Bungalow. Looks like three or four rooms. Not large. Two barns. One very dilapidated, the other, fresh paint. Lots of people going in and out of the renovated barn. Looks to be a dormitory of sorts. Chow house, latrines.’
‘Where do you think Freedom is?’
Garrett scanned the buildings again. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Second window from the front door. On the right. It’s boarded up. That would be my guess.’
‘Any ideas?’ Asked the Zulu.
‘I’m thinking,’ answered Garrett.
‘I say we wait until dark, sneak down there, kill everyone, get Freedom, go home,’ suggested the Zulu.
Garrett grinned. ‘It has its merits.’
‘But?’
‘But…there’s thirty, forty, maybe fifty people down there.’
‘So? We work fast. Kill quick.’
Garrett didn’t answer. He stayed glued to the binoculars. Adjusted the focus slightly. ‘The
window is boarded up from the outside. Nailed into the frame. Do you think that you could lever it off with your assegai?’
Petrus nodded. ‘Easy.’
‘You sure?’
‘Sure,’ confirmed Petrus.
‘Right. We wait here until dark and then we get closer. We hide up until later. Then we sneak down. I take up position in front of the barn doors. Shotgun and rifle. You get Freedom’s window open. Quietly. If we can get away without a fight, all the better. But if things go wrong I’ll open up on the barn. You get Freedom away. We meet back here at the pick-up.’
‘Good plan,’ agreed Petrus.
‘But first,’ continued Garrett. ‘We find the guards.’
‘What guards?’
‘There’ll be guards,’ said Garrett. ‘Trust me.’ He continued scanning the surrounds. Searching. Probing. Seeking.
Finally. ‘There. To the left of the water tower.’ He passed the binoculars to Petrus.
‘Well spotted. Some sort of bunker. Two people inside. Do you think that there are others?’
Garrett shook his head. ‘I don’t think that they expect anyone. I reckon it’s some sort of training camp and sentries are set up as a matter of course. We keep an eye on them. After they change shifts we wait ten minutes and then kill them. Blades. Quick and quiet. Then we go in.’
The two of them lay still. And slowly, all around them the land shrouded itself in shadow. Gold turned to red then to purple and finally, blue-black.
The moon was close to full. An artist’s palette rendered all in the various shades of death.
And through the muted landscape crawled two warriors. Come to claim their own.
***
Manhattan Dengana stood and let the applause wash over him. He had just been awarded the Order of the Baobab, Supreme Councilor class.
It hung around his neck on its cream and gold ribbon. A large, rough rectangle of gold with a graphic of the Baobab tree in the middle. For exceptional service in industry and economy.
Although the medal had been granted by the president himself, he had not actually attended the award ceremony. Dengana was too hot a political potato for that to ever happen. Ever since he had supported the new police commissioner, Bheki Cele in openly attempting to change the law to enable policemen to shoot to kill suspects without comeback or worry, he had been pushed to the side of the president’s inner circle. This despite the fact that the president himself had announced a range of "tough" measures to deal with citizens protesting against poor services, and this year alone over one thousand people had died in police custody.
Garrett & Petrus- The Complete Series Page 32
