Murderous

by David Hickson

  “Just a scratch,” he said, seeing my look at the blood oozing over his hand. “That man Kenneth cannot shoot for shit. Mind you, I don’t think his heart was really in it.”

  “You should have it seen to,” I said. “Let me go after Fat-Boy.”

  “Later,” said Chandler. “First, we get our boy back.”

  Twenty-Four

  The security gates at the northern entrance to the docks were abandoned, like a vengeful tornado had swept through and left no survivors. The booms had been cast aside like spent matchsticks, and the spikes were still up, but Robyn mounted the pavement and scraped the side of the jeep on the remains of the motor housing for the boom, and we got through with all four tyres intact.

  The only lagoon I could think of was to the north, a bird sanctuary and wildlife reserve called Rietvlei, well away from the gentrified and polished waterfront arcades and five-star hotels. The road travelled beside a stretch of beach battered by the winter winds from the north-west, which swept the sand up to form dunes that ominously spewed sand into the air like smoke from underground furnaces. The sand spread itself over the crumbling tar road that limped up the coast. As we drove, a thin layer of the stuff swirled about in our headlights as if the road was not solid at all.

  We drove on past warehouses and factories that belched dark smoke that spread over the reclaimed marshland beyond the industrial area. There were no signs anywhere of the truck. When we reached Rietvlei we had a good view of the beach. It was deserted. I had been wrong about the lagoon.

  “Keep going,” said Chandler, his voice tight with pain and frustration.

  We drove a further twenty minutes up the west coast before Robyn announced it was useless and swung us about in a tight U-turn. We headed back in silence, searching for some sign of where Hendrik could have taken the truck. Kenneth had mentioned a lagoon on a beach, but on the stretches of road that clung to the beach there was no lagoon, and the only patches of water that might be called a lagoon were away from the sea. I was wondering whether Hendrik had turned south instead of north when Robyn cried out, “There!”

  We were beside the Dieprivier, where the river widened because its mouth was silted up. Across the water a single blue light flashed.

  “Milnerton golf course,” said Chandler. “This must be the lagoon.”

  As we crossed the bridge over the river a helicopter approached along the shoreline, the bright beam of a spotlight connecting it to earth like it was a toy on the end of a shining metal pole. A glow of lights augmented the pink horizon beyond it. A string of flashing blue lights – police vehicles making their way along the small track that ran along the perimeter of the golf course. The helicopter circled above the glowing lights like an insect looking for a place to touch down. More police vehicles came from behind us. Robyn slowed and allowed them to pass, then pulled over onto a patch of no-man’s-land on the edge of the golf course. A huge gash had been ripped out of the fairway where the truck had ploughed across it, and into a sand dune.

  We approached the scene on foot. The police vehicles formed an outer rim, their headlights shining inward. The epicentre of the disaster was the huge semi-trailer. It was leaning forward like a wounded elephant on its knees, the front of the cab buried in sand. The crate with the lions had ripped free of the restraining straps and was tilted to the side, wedged into the sand at one corner. The lower section of the crate that had held the boxes of weapons was empty, a gaping black hole. Police officers were crawling over the back of the truck, stepping over the sprawled body of Kenneth.

  We stood outside the ring of light with a pair of early morning joggers who gaped at the scene of devastation. A police officer was standing beside his vehicle, speaking into the radio microphone, and gazing with morbid horror at Kenneth. Neither Fat-Boy nor Hendrik were anywhere to be seen. The driver’s door of the truck was hanging open. There was no unconscious figure slouched over the wheel. No large black man being treated for a gunshot wound. It had taken us too long to get here.

  “Where is he?” asked Chandler. “Did he run?”

  The helicopter suddenly produced a clattering of blades as it moved away from us, the solid beam of light focused on the road, and ranging from side to side. We watched it travel slowly along the coast.

  “They’ve taken him,” I said. “He wasn’t up to running.”

  “Why would they take him?” asked Chandler.

  I didn’t know the answer to that, but a nasty suspicion was nagging at me. There was only one reason I could think of that Hendrik or Roelof, or both of them, might take a wounded black man with them.

  “We’ll find him,” said Chandler, and he gave us an encouraging smile, although the strain in his eyes betrayed the truth. “We’ll find him.”

  “I didn’t realise you were such an early riser,” said Andile Dlamini when he eventually answered my call.

  “I need to know where those weapons are going,” I said. “Are you tracking them?”

  “Not me,” said Andile, as if such a thing was beneath him. But he heard the urgency in my voice. “They came in on schedule last night?”

  “They did.”

  “I’ll call in and see what they say.” He hesitated, then added, “What’s up, Gabriel? Why are you in such a rush?”

  “They’ve got someone with them,” I said. “A friend of mine.”

  “I’ll call back,” said Andile, and ended the call.

  We had parked in a gap between dunes from where I could see the wind flick white horses up from the waves where they flashed pink and orange for a moment as the sun crept through under the cloud. Robyn had been looking at Chandler’s arm and she said it didn’t look good. He was losing a lot of blood and couldn’t lift it.

  “It’s more than a scratch,” admitted Chandler. “I’ll need it looked at. You two go find our boy. I’ll get myself fixed. You drive, Robs; let’s keep moving.”

  We took the quickest route to the highway, catching glimpses of the wounded truck across the golf course and lagoon. A few more early morning joggers had gathered at the police cordon.

  “Singing like a bird,” said Andile when he called back a minute later. I heard the crackling sound of the end of his cigarette as he sucked the air through it.

  “Where are they?”

  “Southern suburbs.”

  “That doesn’t sound right, why would they be in the suburbs? Can you move on them now?”

  “Why would we do that? We’re waiting until they reach their concrete bunker.”

  “I’m not sure they’re going to their concrete bunker.”

  “What are you on about, Gabriel?”

  “The friend of mine they have with them is a black man.”

  “So?”

  “What would white supremacists driving a car filled with weapons want with a black man?”

  I heard the crackling of the cigarette again.

  “I’ll call back,” he said again, and ended the call.

  Robyn came to a junction and gunned the jeep away from the coast, into the desolate industrial zone that lay between us and the highway that ran down the Cape Peninsula like the gnarled spine of a crooked animal, all the way to the southern suburbs.

  Andile called back ten minutes later.

  “You were wrong about them not going to their concrete bunker,” he said. “They’ve reached it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “We’ve got a problem. It’s a big concrete bunker.”

  “Where?”

  “Newlands rugby stadium.”

  “Are your men moving in?”

  “They are, but that stadium’s about as big a concrete bunker as you can get.”

  “I could be wrong about what they’re doing with my friend.”

  Andile paused. More crackling and an exhalation.

  “I don’t think you’re wrong, Gabriel. It’s the Currie Cup final today, Western Province against the Golden Lions.”

  “So what?”

  “The rugby grounds will b
e crowded. They’re expecting a capacity crowd. You know what the two bastions of the Afrikaner culture are?”

  I didn’t answer that. I was thinking about the explosives Roelof had insisted should be added to their shopping list.

  “Their church and their rugby,” said Andile. “The two religions of the Afrikaans people.”

  “Why would white supremacists attack their own people?” I said.

  “It will be a mixed crowd,” said Andile. “In any case, there’s no time to figure it out. I’ve got a stadium to go to.”

  He ended the call. Robyn kept the accelerator pinned to the floor, and we drove in silence, aware of the ever-lengthening time it was taking us to catch up.

  “Of all people,” said Chandler a few minutes later, “you should know the answer to why they are doing it.”

  I turned to look at him. His face was pale, and his head was lolling back against the seat. “Sometimes,” he said, “the lives of a few must be sacrificed to save the lives of many.”

  He closed his eyes. I turned back to Robyn.

  “Drop me at the stadium,” I said, “and take him straight to that clinic. I’ll get Fat-Boy on my own.”

  I found a dirty cloth in the glove compartment of the jeep, spat on it and cleaned the blood off my face and hands. I had a nasty feeling this day was going to get worse.

  Twenty-Five

  Newlands Rugby Stadium crouched like a robotic spider dropped from above into the tranquil suburb of Newlands, which sheltered on the damp slopes of Table Mountain. In Lower Newlands there was a small river with a mill that crushed hops for the country’s biggest brewery. Beside that brewery was the hulking stadium. The blue and white colours of the Western Province rugby team loomed out at us from the aluminium cladding of the stadium as Robyn ramped the speed humps in the small streets leading up to it. The police had closed off the roads, waiting with glowing batons to direct the traffic into the parking, so we approached through the brewery. The upper levels of the stadium thrust out beyond the concrete buttresses, so that as we drove towards it, the sky was obliterated, and I had the sense the entire building could come crashing down upon us.

  “That’s just because you’ve not slept in twenty-eight hours,” said Robyn when I mentioned it. “You’d better watch yourself.”

  We continued to the railroad shunting area between the stadium and the brewery, where men were working fast to finish their loading before the yard was closed ahead of the game. A man in an orange vest and matching helmet waved us off to the side, and Robyn brought the jeep to a skidding halt beside stacks of empty pallets. Chandler’s eyes fluttered open.

  “This war the Van Rensburgs are fighting,” he said, “it’s not our war, Gabriel. It’s not Fat-Boy’s war. Get him out of here and let the police handle everything else.”

  I said I would. Chandler handed me his Glock, and they drove off, spraying dust over my filthy overalls. I tucked the Glock into my empty harness and looked up at the towering concrete structure. Somewhere in there was a homicidal maniac with a man I called a friend, and boxes of explosives kindly provided by me.

  The Northern stand of the Newlands Rugby stadium had been provided with glass-walled floating boxes in the early 1990s as the country prepared to host the World Cup. Over the years, those boxes had been expanded so that from the South stand one had the impression of witnessing an alien landing, with the reflective glass boxes hovering above the twenty thousand seats below them. The entrance foyer to the private suites in the Northern stand was full of people getting an early start on the day, greeting guests with loud voices and slapping each other on the back. I found a security guard and explained that I needed to perform some maintenance for the Van Rensburg family. He told me that only one member of the family had arrived, but I’d have to be quick as the warm-up matches were starting soon. The Media-Mark suite was on the top floor.

  I took the stairs and arrived at a plush, crimson-carpeted corridor lined with antique photographs of the humble beginnings of the stadium. The doors to the boxes were all fitted with discreet intercoms for requesting access. I pressed the button for the Media-Mark box, and a man with a tea towel over his shoulder and a handful of brandy glasses opened the door. He took in my blood-stained dockworker’s overalls and stepped back with surprise. I followed him in.

  The Media-Mark suite was all chrome and glass and near enough to the field it felt as if you could reach out and catch the ball as it came between the H-frame posts. The glass wall went from floor to ceiling and when play was on the far side of the field, there was a wide screen television suspended from the ceiling, close enough that you didn’t spill your drink as you turned to it. The television showed a well-known sports presenter smiling at camera and promising to be back soon. Beside him a retired rugby star with cauliflower ears filled what space was left in the studio, staring angrily at the wrong camera. There was a momentary jingle and then Melissa appeared in a bikini running along a deserted beach.

  Roelof tried to conceal his surprise at seeing me. He turned casually at first, expecting to see Piet perhaps. But his upper body jerked forward with surprise, and his glasses glinted. His pale eyes blinked as he took in my appearance. He was sitting on one of the plush leather couches, spinning what looked like Hendrik’s arm-sling with a lazy hand, his feet up on the low table in an uncharacteristic breach of convention. Although his pose was relaxed, there was something stiff and uncomfortable about him, as if he knew that this was how the cool people did it, but mimicking their actions was failing to induce the relaxed, confident mood that he was trying to achieve. His legs were bouncing slightly with impatience and his eyes were dancing with excitement, or perhaps madness.

  He turned back to the television to cover his surprise and watched Melissa on the beach.

  “It’s a violent game,” he said. “That’s why they love it so much. Like football, but with blood and the risk of serious injury.”

  “They?” I said. “You’re not a fan?”

  On Roelof’s lap was a tablet computer that showed an image of what looked like security camera footage of a storeroom. Concrete walls with metal cupboards. There were two people sitting on chairs in the middle of the room, both facing the same way, like students waiting for a teacher. Roelof turned and noticed me looking at the tablet; he flipped it face down on the couch.

  “I’ve never liked the game,” said Roelof. He gave a curt order to the man with the tea towel, who bowed to us formally and left the room. “No,” said Roelof. “Just a bunch of over-muscled, under-brained thugs chasing after a ball. When one of them gets the ball, the others all jump on top of him.” His nose twitched with disdain. “It’s idiotic.”

  “You had me fooled,” I said. “I thought you were a big fan.”

  “I’m an Afrikaner. You don’t understand. You will never understand what it means to be an Afrikaner. You’re a tourist here.”

  “My mother was an Afrikaner. Does that help?”

  Roelof’s eyes held me in their glare as he tried to decide whether I was mocking him.

  The TV ad reached its denouement and Melissa was glowing in the candlelight, stripped down to her lacy underwear and preparing to be taken by the shadowy man who had fallen prey to her scent. Her mouth opened with a little surprise, her blue eyes glistened and a small orgasmic gasp dissolved into the picture of a perfume bottle.

  “Have you come for the fat guy?” Roelof asked, silencing the television with a remote. “You’re too late if you have.”

  “He needs medical attention,” I said.

  “Yes, he does, but there’s no point now. Hendrik’s dumb as shit. He didn’t understand why I wanted the fat guy.” Roelof gave a short laugh that held no amusement. “He’s figured it out now.”

  He cocked his head to the side as if that angle might reveal something about me he hadn’t noticed before.

  “I don’t get it,” he said and pulled a small Ruger out of the holster under his arm. He pointed it at me. “I thought you guys would be
better than this. I really did. I realised you were just a bunch of grifters. Is that the word? Con men, tricksters, common criminals. Didn’t you realise the boss has the warehouse foreman on the payroll? He told us about the old guy and the girl hanging around, pretending to be customs officials.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Why have you come in here alone?” he demanded. “I can just kill you and be done with it.”

  “Would you want to do that here? Won’t your boss be arriving soon?”

  Roelof consulted a wristwatch and nodded. The muscles round his mouth tightened. The result was more of a grimace than a smile.

  “That’s right. We don’t have long, and then …” he looked at his shoes on the low table and gestured with his hand, “… boom,” he said.

  Beside his shoes there was a rough-hewn wooden bowl with a collection of brightly polished, export-quality apples. Nestling among the apples was something that looked like the handle of a joystick used for playing computer games. Roelof turned back to me to see whether I had understood its significance.

  “It’s latched,” he said, and removed his feet from the table and reached for the joystick device, which was moulded like a pistol grip to be held in the hand with the thumb on top, where it could press down upon a red button. The button was being held down at the moment by a swivelling latch. Roelof moved the latch to the side with his thumb and held the red button down. Then he lifted his thumb, and the button popped up with a small clicking sound. Roelof looked up at me.

  “Boom,” he said again, and his mouth tightened. “Dead man’s trigger … Anything happens to me and the fireworks start.”

  Roelof sat up as if he’d remembered something. He flipped the tablet over and activated the screen. I could see now that the two seated people were strapped to their chairs, their hands bound behind them. Roelof was relieved to see them.