by Paul Eksteen
I will have to transfer funds from Malta for that purpose, but it will be a loan to Papillon. I will inform Kwinzee afterwards, as he will not accept a loan readily.
“These young people are not happy, DC,” Kwinzee continued. “They voted for the ANC and expect something in return. But nothing is coming their way. They are frustrated. They are not allowed to live with their parents on the farms any more. They hang around in bars in the townships, looking for opportunities. That is where I have to go to get more information.”
***
My nickname, DC, had been with me for more than twenty years. One day during shooting training whilst busy with my junior leadership course, my sergeant took a bet with our officer in command about my shooting abilities.
The OC had heard about the Boerseun who was outshooting most of the other recruits and he wanted to see this for himself.
The bet was for a case of Lion lager beer. The target: a one metre by one metre steel plate at a thousand metres. The rifle was to be a stock standard FN FAL 7.62 x 51 military issued service rifle. The shooter: Tom Allen Coetzee.
To win the bet for my sergeant, I had to shoot five shots at the plate from prone position and had to hit the target at least three out of five times.
I nominated Kwinzee as my spotter.
I met Kwinzee during the junior leadership course. He was a member of the Venda Defence Force and was sent on the course to qualify as an instructor for further use back at his unit near Thohoyandou in Venda.
Kwinzee’s father was a staff sergeant in 112 Battalion from Madimbo near Messina. This battalion was disbanded from the SADF and re-established in 1982 to form One Venda Battalion at Manenu in Venda. He was very proud of the Venda Defence Force and urged Kwinzee to become a member as well.
We became friends and soon became an unbeatable combination. I taught him the finer points of marksmanship, and he taught me all he knew about tracking and survival in the wild. He decided to stick to my side and qualify as a sniper.
He never returned to Venda and fought alongside me for more than ten years.
I was one of only six Afrikaans-speaking recruits in our bungalow of thirty. The rest of the recruits had had an English upbringing and came from mostly private schools in the more affluent parts of Johannesburg. Souties, as we called them.
The souties had never handled firearms before in their lives and had difficulty in disassembling and cleaning their issued FN FAL rifles.
A month into our JLs we came to the agreement that I would clean seven rifles every time before an inspection. Mine and six others. The six other recruits (all souties) would wash and iron my browns, polish my boots and make my bed as payment.
Due to this agreement, I got to know all the rifles in my section. I immediately identified Wayne Ryan’s FN as the cream of the crop. The rifle was very little used, with perfect rifling in the barrel and a tight fit. This rifle would be able to shoot perfect groupings in the hands of the right person.
On our second range session, I swapped rifles with Ryan and zeroed his rifle at a hundred metres. From then on, I would always use Ryan’s FN at target shooting exercises.
We were executing Table Two of the basic combat marksmanship evaluation a few weeks later, and I was one of two recruits achieving my First-Class Marksmanship Proficiency Badge.
Therefore, I decided to use Ryan’s rifle when the sarge and the OC commandeered me to finalise their bet.
Our whole platoon was lined up behind me with the sarge and the OC standing next to us on the shooting line to witness the outcome of the bet.
I missed the plate with the first shot but, with corrections from Kwinzee, was spot on with the remaining four shots.
“Fuck me sideways, Davey Crocket. Where did you learn to shoot like that? You just cost me a case of beer!” the OC exclaimed and walked away.
Davey Crocket became DC and the name stuck for the rest of my time in the force.
After completion of my junior leadership course, four of us were sent to sniper school, including Kwinzee and myself, and we both ended up as joiner recces with the Special Forces a few months later.
***
Mooikloof Equestrian Estate
Koert was returning to his house in the Mooikloof Equestrian Estate in Pretoria on Monday afternoon after a very successful concert in Nelspruit over the weekend.
He was driving down Atterbury road in his red convertible 911 Porsche towards the northern entrance gate of the estate whilst whistling to the tune of his latest chart topper. Life was good.
As he turned off the main road and stopped at the ‘Residents’ gate at the estate to swipe his access card, one of the security guards at the gate flagged him down.
“A moment, sir,” the guard called out to him. “I’ve got an envelope for you.”
Koert drove through the hoisted boom and waited on the inside.
A hand delivered parcel? That sounded very strange. Well, there’s always a first time for everything. It was probably a card from a fan, he thought.
A few minutes later the guard strolled up to the car. “This was left for you over the weekend, sir,” he said and handed Koert a white A4-sized envelope.
As his house was not too far away, he decided to open the envelope once he got there. He drove down Jollify Main Road and, a hundred metres further, turned left into Jollify Ring Road. His house was another six hundred metres down the Ring Road.
He was fifty metres from his house when he decided to stop on the side of the road. Something was nagging in the back of his head.
His wife and two daughters would most probably be at home, and something about the white envelope lying on the passenger seat made him feel uneasy.
Something was not normal here. And maybe he shouldn’t expose his wife and daughters to what might be in the envelope.
He grabbed the envelope from the seat next to him and tore it open.
Inside were three A4-size glossy photos, a DVD and a sheet of paper.
In one photo he was standing on the side of a swimming pool wearing only his baseball cap and holding a bottle of champagne in one hand.
In the next photo he was drinking champagne in the same swimming pool whilst two young girls dressed in white see-through Koert Meyer T-shirts, poured it into his mouth.
He recognised the girls and the pool immediately. He was still trying to keep the press away after the casino called security to his room a week ago.
Shit!
The last photo was of him pulling a sobbing girl by the hand into his hotel suite.
On the sheet of paper were a name and the bank details of a bank in Malta with an amount.
Steven Smith.
Two hundred thousand rand.
He slumped back in the leather chair of the Porsche. He needed to see what was on the DVD. But he could not do it at home.
His manager lived in a security estate close by: Woodhill. He made a U-turn and drove back towards the entrance gate and out onto Atterbury Road. He needed help.
He drove back towards Pretoria and turned left into Hans Strijdom Drive. A hundred metres further on, he turned left again in Saint Bernard Drive towards the northern entrance gate of Woodhill Estate.
On his way there he phoned his manager. He had a problem. A big one. And his manager must tell him how to resolve it. He got paid a lot of money by Koert, and now it was time to earn it.
CHAPTER 12
Italian Club, Nigel — Wednesday, 11 March
Mario Canossa was driving his red Ferrari from his office in Nigel towards the Italian club on the Springs-Heidelberg Road.
He had missed the last two Wednesday meetings with his Italian friends at the club due to an excessive workload. But he had to admit to himself — he was a very happy man. The hard work paid off. He had tendered on six huge contracts to build and erect new mobile phone towers in Namibia and Botswana, and he was awarded four of the six tenders.
He geared the Ferrari down and opened the throttle to enjoy the roar of the
V12 motor behind him.
As he turned into the driveway at the club, he saw that most of the clan was already there. They were a bunch of businessmen who worked and played closely together in Nigel and Springs.
The four contracts that he had been awarded for the towers would benefit all of them directly.
He stopped next to the flagpole with the tricolore italiano of green, white and red flapping in the light breeze.
Their group consisted of eight Italian business associates who would meet every Wednesday afternoon at the club, to lunch and to gamble on the coming weekend’s sports results.
As he walked into the restaurant, the club manager, Vito, welcomed him by kissing him on both cheeks. Vito’s wife, Stefani, was not far behind Vito and she ran to Mario with open arms and hugged and kissed him welcome.
Mario joined his friends at a round table in the smoking section of the restaurant.
Guiseppe Roselli was a seventy-two-year-old spin galvaniser in Nigel and the consigliere, the family adviser. He was always consulted before serious decisions were made. He sat with a little black book in front of him on the table. He was the bookie for the clan. He never missed a meeting.
“Mario, you are twenty-five thousand up as to three weeks ago, not like Mickey Cigars who lost his shirt last week. Unfortunately, you didn’t place any bets in the last two weeks, otherwise Mickey might have gotten the chance to make some of his money back,” Guiseppe said and laughed out loud.
“No problem, Guiseppe,” Mario replied. “I am in a mood for gambling today. Maybe we must play an executive game.”
They were all standing by this time and hugged Mario.
“I’ve heard the good news from Chicco about the tenders, Mario,” Mickey Favo said with a huge grin. He supplied most of the steel to Mario to manufacture the towers. He was never seen without a cigar in his mouth. It was said that he slept with a cigar clamped between his teeth.
“Yes,” Mario replied. “Unfortunately, Chicco won’t make it today. Someone must do the work,” he said and winked at the others. “But Chicco and I will have a little break-away this weekend to spoil ourselves a bit.” He laughed out loud and the others joined in the laughter.
“Vito, bring a round of bellini. We have to celebrate. It takes a lot of negotiating in the New South Africa to land four tenders.”
Stefani was already serving antipasto to the table. It consisted of a variety of cheeses, hams, sliced sausages and bread rolls. She knew what they liked and, as Vito rushed in with the round of bellinis, she enquired about their choice of ‘second’ dish consisting of veal, pork or chicken.
As she left, Guiseppe opened his little black book and started calculating the gains and losses of the previous weekend. He could sometimes be a bit of an irritation with his black book, Mario thought.
Mario finished his bellini and looked around the restaurant. He was not interested in the last weekend’s bets as he had not participated. He sat back in his chair, lit a small black cigar and relaxed.
He was one of the main benefactors to the club. He thought the club to be a good thing which brought Italians living in the East Rand together.
The club was founded in 1971 and was located on the Old Johannesburg Road, but moved its location eight years later to the current address on the R42.
Mario and his friends gambled on any sporting event that would take place in the following week. Big bets would be placed on the results of the Super Rugby matches between the teams of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
Should any of the group play golf over the weekend, bets and side bets would be placed on the outcome of that as well.
And then their favourite, of course: soccer. They would bet on local club games, Premier Soccer League in South Africa, English soccer, European leagues and any other soccer events worldwide.
Mario was thinking of his plans for the weekend. He and his partner, Chicco, would fly with the business airplane to their game ranch near Ellisras in the northern part of South Africa.
He had phoned Camilla from Elite VIP in Sandton earlier in the day and booked two young Russian girls to accompany them to the ranch.
The girls would be delivered to the Rand airport at eleven o’clock on Friday morning and would be collected again on Sunday at five in the afternoon.
CHAPTER 13
Dullstroom, Mpumalanga — Friday, 13 March
It was three in the afternoon when I drove through Dullstroom in Mpumalanga. I drove south from Polokwane via Roedtan until I reached the N4, then from there east towards Belfast and eventually to Dullstroom.
I knew the area fairly well and it took me less than ten minutes to identify the Rainbow Lodge, eight kilometres down the N540 to the north-eastern side of town.
The lodge was situated on the left side of the road between some rolling hills and a number of trout dams.
I drove past the lodge and, a kilometre further, took a dirt road that turned off to the left. A few hundred metres further I found a copse of trees, some thirty-odd metres from the road.
I was driving one of the shop’s rebuilt four-wheel drive Toyota bakkies and, as I drove off the road into the trees, I had to engage the four-wheel drive to get the bakkie out of sight from the road.
I removed the temporary number plates from the rear window of the bakkie and grabbed my rucksack from the passenger seat.
There was a hill between me and the lodge and it took me thirty minutes of cautious stalking, using shadows as much as possible, to reach the hill behind the lodge. I went through a valley to the lodge’s side of the hill, and then moved back up the hill, staying below the ridgeline to a position where I had a clear view of the lodge.
I settled in next to a large boulder and prepared myself for a long wait. Through my binoculars I could clearly see the entrance road to the lodge from the N540.
The lodge was situated five hundred metres from the road and was surrounded by a five-foot-high hedge. There was an entrance gate for vehicles from the main road and a pedestrian gate at the back of the lodge. A footpath from the pedestrian gate led to a series of trout dams down the valley. There was a cattle grid at the entrance to the property with a gravel driveway leading back to a purplish-black face-brick house with a garage to the rear back. Unkempt ivies were climbing the side wall of the house.
The weekenders normally leave Gauteng at around lunchtime for the two-hour drive to Dullstroom. My friends should be here before dark if my calculations were correct. According to the file, they had no pets and lived in a security village in the east of Pretoria. Easy to lock up and go.
The hands on my watch formed a vertical line — six o’clock, which left the Rainbow Lodge in darkness. Not one single light burning. Maybe my quarries would arrive in the morning. From the trout dams down the valley, toads were beginning to tune up for evening.
I was thinking of lessons taught to me by my father on the farm. From age five I was taught the basics of hunting. And those lessons formed the basis for my sniping days later in the military.
Throughout history, the best snipers have been experienced hunters. Of course, there are also many other requirements for a sniper than just the skills of a hunter and shooter.
A hunter must have sharp vision. And he must be patient. He must spot the target and recognise it. After that comes the decision of shooting from the current position or whether it would be better to approach the target from another angle.
I had already decided to talk to Lillynn and gather information from her; killing her was not an option. Even though it was my specialty.
I was armed only with a pocketknife and my pistol. I would wait for an opportunity to talk to Lillynn without her husband present.
I had had a quick chat with Kwinzee in the morning. He was planning to visit Vivo again this weekend. He informed me of his plans to visit a few pubs in Indermark to see if he could pick up some gossip. I told him to be careful; these farm murders were well organised crimes.
“Leave it to me,
DC,” he told me. “You’ve got things to do and so do I. We will talk on Monday.”
I waited until eight o’clock and, when no one arrived, moved cautiously back to my bakkie to fetch my sleeping bag and pillow. I ate my supper in the dark — a scrumptious meal made up of a semi dried out bread roll with canned baked beans and viennas from a tin, washed down with half a litre of long-life milk from a carton. I dumped the empty containers on the back of the bakkie and moved back to my observation post.
An hour later, I crawled closer to the lodge, making sure I kept a low profile; I did not want to be observed in the headlights should a car suddenly come driving down the driveway.
I curled up in my sleeping bag fifty metres from the rear fence of the lodge, with the garage blocking me from being observed from the entrance gate. I settled in for a chilly, uncomfortable few hours of sleep. I was lying on my back looking at a starry sky, deep in thought when, finally, I fell asleep.
I slept with my Sig P228 pistol in my right hand. The only deference to safety was that even though there was a round in the chamber, I had used the hammer-drop feature to lower the hammer of the pistol, converting it to double-action-only first shot.
The Sig P228 is essentially a Sig P226, shortened at the muzzle and butt for easier concealed carry purposes. Despite the slightly shorter barrel, the P228 delivers the same excellent accuracy and reliability as the P226. The P228 comes in 9mmP calibre and is called the M11 by the US military, who issued them to the CID and many other Federal Divisions. It was rated as one of the best service pistols ever made, and, therefore, also my first choice.
***
I woke at five o’clock the next morning, just before sunrise, feeling the aches in my back where I lay on tufts of grass and humps on the ground. I was slightly irritated and the itch of the small indent on my right upper arm did not make matters better.
I moved back uphill and settled sixty metres past the boulder used the previous day. I rolled my sleeping bag out behind a dead tree stump on the ground and took position looking through a gap in its roots.
