by Paul Eksteen
“A farmer was murdered in Vivo two weeks ago, Lillynn. And my car was blown up two days ago. The farmer who was killed was innocent. So is his wife and children who have to cope without a father. And he was a friend of mine. A good friend.
“My car was blown up with my partner inside it. He was also innocent. Luckily, he was not killed, but he was badly injured and hospitalised. He might die. He has a wife and two children.” I whispered with my mouth close to her ear.
I could see her face flushing red. The colour was spreading from her neck upwards. It was at least some reaction. Maybe anger. Which was good.
She twisted on the bed to confront me. Her temper was scratched, a nail in the wood that the saw blade hits.
“You have killed harmless innocents in your fight to suppress the people,” she spat out.
Ignoring my frown, she carried on. “You are treating me like a juvenile, but it is you who are the scum. Your past caught up with you.”
She started coughing again and was gulping for air.
I looked at her with an amused look on my face. I was not going to defend myself. Not to this bitch and not to anyone else.
I had many thoughts about the war that I used to be a part of. Had my achievements been worth the blood and sweat and risk of death; did I regret being part of the history?
I smiled. Twenty years on, it didn’t matter. What the future made of the past was its own tragedy. What I did on the day was all that counted.
I am used to being accused by those with ambition and vanity and envy, but who do not have the guts or the honesty to assist in the dirty work to keep the machine moving. And I was sure this bitch did not all of a sudden decide to start taking SSA agents out as a path of righteousness.
But her answer was bothering me. Who was I in her eyes? She must be assisting someone. But why would she do that? What part of my past is she part of?
“What did you do with the information in my file, Lillynn? Who did you give it to?”
“I don’t know.”
I was thinking back to the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ which formed part of my training with the SSA years ago. I had a rope and a towel, and water was readily available to waterboard the bitch. And I would do it if needed.
I decided to try another method first. Sometimes if you empathise with the subject and make the wrongdoing sound like no big deal, they might open up somewhat.
My heart told me to go for the waterboarding option right away, but there were risks involved in that technique. Risks that I couldn’t afford at this stage. I needed the info. So, I followed my brain instead.
“I have no one to ask but you. You gained access to my file. Who are you assisting?”
“No one.”
“Listen, Lillynn. Let me explain to you the consequences of your lack of co-operation. On Monday you will go back to your office. My boss will inform your boss. You will lose your job and your husband and your fancy car and your fancy clothes. You will rot in prison. Or be deported back to Cuba where you came from. By telling me what I want to know, none of this will happen. I will leave here, and no one will know a thing.
“Who are you helping?” I grabbed the sisal rope behind her back and give it a gentle tug. “Do you know what waterboarding is? It is where I drown you to get the information I need. That is next. I advise you to rather start talking.”
Lillynn’s face was blood red now and she was struggling to catch her breath.
I pulled my Cold Steel folding knife from my pocket and flicked it open close to her face. I nicked her cheek lightly, using just enough pressure to draw a speckle of blood, then moved closer and cut the sisal rope behind her back.
Lillynn’s eyes were saucers and tears streamed from her eyes.
“Okay. Lillynn, let’s have a chat. You know who and what I am. Let me assure you, there is never anything unintentional or uncalculated about what a sniper does. I will ask you one more time. Was it a friend that you assisted?”
She nodded her head.
I took a wild guess. I was sure that she was not in on this on her own. Why would she be, after such a long time?
“Who is the friend?”
She was staring ahead of her, ignoring me.
I had to gather my wits and come up with the right questions now. She was not talkative yet but might give some answers.
“Is he in South Africa?”
She nodded her head and struggled to get to a seated position. The Cold Steel was still in my right hand and I moved in behind her and cut the cable ties around her thumbs.
She swung her legs around and placed them on the floor while she stayed seated, rubbing her thumbs and wrists.
“He is a doctor.”
“And why would he be interested in me?”
“You killed his father.”
It felt like Mike Tyson had given me a heavy blow against my chest. Shit. Deep inside me I always knew something like this might happen someday. But I never really believed it would.
“In Angola.”
I was still dumbstruck. This was something Nic should sort out. I couldn’t run around killing people without getting caught at some stage.
“And the bomb? Where would this guy get a bomb?”
“I gave him the name of two active agents to assist him. Their files followed after yours on the system. I did not know they would use a bomb.”
Ja right. As if that would make it better.
“What are their names, Lillynn?”
“I can’t remember. I took photos of the screen with my mobile phone and sent it as a message to him. Then I deleted it.”
“Please can you leave me now?” She started shaking and sobbing harder.
“One last thing. What is the name of the doctor? I won’t hurt him. There has been a huge misunderstanding and we need to resolve this peacefully.”
“I don’t know. He never told me. All I know is that you killed his father, a Cuban soldier in Angola. Please go now.” Tears were streaming down her face. “Please go.”
I cut the cable ties from her toes and removed all evidence of my presence from the room.
She was most definitely going to wear a polo neck top for the next few days.
In the meantime, I had lots to think about. I also needed to get hold of Nic to find out the names of the two agents whose files followed after mine.
I had to kill the serpent.
And I know the golden recipe that was taught to me by my dad years ago. “Want to kill snakes? Simple. Don’t give them a chance to bite you. Find the bush or the hole they hide in and set it alight. Then wait for them to slither out. Then you just whack their heads off.”
That’s what I was going to do. To set some fires.
As I moved down the stairs, a noise from the kitchen make me freeze in my steps.
***
Polokwane Medi Clinic
Retha and Hendrik had just arrived at the Medi Clinic in Polokwane and were walking up the stairs at the entrance. Retha was fuming about her brother, again.
“What is going on with him, Hendrik? I’ve phoned him three times already. This is becoming a habit. A bad one, that is!”
Hendrik was standing at the reception counter, ignoring his wife completely. He was used to her hysterics and had better things to do.
“Have a seat, Retha, and switch your phone off. You are not supposed to use it in here. You have left a message; he will phone you back.”
“His poor child. No wonder she moved away from him and into the hostel. He is totally irresponsible!”
“His child is already here, and so are we. We will do what we can and assist where we can. And no, we are not taking Danielle home with us. It is better if she stays here.”
Retha started to say something but saw the look on Hendrik’s face. She collapsed on a visitors’ chair and started fumbling in her handbag.
“Have you spoken to Lebo lately, Retha?” Hendrik enquired. “There is a good chance that Kwinzee might be here as well.”
“I wi
ll go outside and phone her, Hendrik,” she replied meekly and walked out. She had completely forgotten about Kwinzee with all the happenings of the last twenty-four hours.
Hendrik got the necessary information from the help desk and walked outside in search of his wife.
***
The Rainbow Lodge
“Lill, what has happened? Are you okay?”
The bloody husband must have returned earlier than I anticipated.
“Run, Louis, run!” Lillynn shouted from the bedroom.
By the time I got to the kitchen door, Louis was already going through the rear garden gate.
I decided to slow Lillynn down a bit and turned around. As I raced up the steps, she came running out of the room, still in her white robe.
She stopped when she saw me and turned around. She raced through the room into the bathroom. As she slammed the door shut, I kicked it open. She frantically looked around for something to attack me with. Before she could find a weapon, I grabbed hold of her and shoved her into the empty bathtub.
I then sat down on her and removed a bundle of cable ties from my backpack. I tied her in the same way as previously, and then took her out of the tub, and put her on the floor next to the toilet bowl.
I arranged her on the floor with her arms and legs hugging the toilet bowl, and then tied her hands and feet together. She was not going to be able to go anywhere without assistance.
I stuffed some toilet paper in her mouth and used duct tape to make sure that she was not going to scream for assistance either. I made sure I had all my gear and raced down the stairs again.
I saw the keys for the X5 on the kitchen table next to a mobile phone which was plugged into a charger. I grabbed both and raced out of the house. Louis had, in the meantime, disappeared from sight.
As long as he was on foot, I had time to get away. It would take him a while to get some assistance, and even then, they would be very cautious when approaching the house.
I raced back to where I left the BM near Santa Pass, and donned a red biker’s jacket before setting off for home.
Once on the bike, I decided to take the Lydenburg-Burgersfort route back to Polokwane, in case someone was on the lookout for me.
The countryside was green at the end of the rainy season with rolling hills and small trout dams splattered around. In this mountainous land, the various roads crossed many rivers and gullies. Traffic was almost non-existent, which made it easy for me to pull off into a grove of trees from time to time to make sure no one was following me. Not that I expected any one so soon.
My mind was processing the information I got from Lillynn, and it took a while for my heartbeat to drop down to a steady seventy beats per minute. Only when I drove through Lydenburg, I remembered the phone and the keys which I took from the lodge.
I decided to keep the phone, as Nic might be able to get some information from it. That is, if I were lucky and it belonged to Lillynn. If it was Louis’ phone, it was just bad luck for him and us. I dropped the keys with a back-handed throw with my left hand into the first river I crossed.
The trip to Burgersfort went without incident, and as I drove through town, I decided to pull off for lunch at the KFC. I ordered a Zinger meal and sat down on one of their red couches, waiting to be served.
My phone was still switched off, as I completely forgot about it with the quick rush out of Dullstroom. I switched it on at the same time my lunch arrived.
I had just finished my rounder when it started to ring. Damn. This can’t be — Retha again. Let’s hope it was good news this time.
“Tom!” she exclaimed.
My stomach turned upside down inside me. “What is it, Retha?”
“It’s Dirkie. He decided to go to Indermark and look for his dad’s killers.”
Oh shit. I could already see how that would end.
“How is he?”
“He was found next to a shebeen with his face covered in blood. Both his arms were broken. He’s got the hiding of his life. He can’t see out of his eyes. He also lost some teeth. He was driving his dad’s Cruiser which was set alight as well.”
“So he is still alive and in hospital?”
“Yes, he is at the Medi Clinic in Polokwane. They say he has to stay here for at least another three days. Mercia is a wreck. This is just too much.”
“I will be in Polokwane before dark, Retha. I will go to the clinic and give him a proper hiding”.
“This is not something to joke about, Tom!”
“Any news on Kwinzee?”
“Yes, he is also here, Tom. And so are we. Me, Hendrik and Danielle. And Lebo.”
“I’m on my way, Retha. See you later.”
It was a ninety-minute drive from Burgersfort to Polokwane. I made it in sixty.
***
Polokwane Medi Clinic
I walked into the Medi Clinic in Polokwane at two in the afternoon.
Dirk was lying in a ward with three other patients. I walked in and closed the curtains around his bed. Mercia was sitting next to him, fumbling with a tissue.
Dirkie was indeed a sight for sore eyes.
I greeted him with a, “Hi Dirk, you look a mess.”
He didn’t even try to smile. His right eye was swollen completely shut and the left eye was almost shut as well. He had purple and yellow bruises all over his face. Bloody patches of gauze on his forehead and cheek were hiding cuts from view.
“Hallo Oom Tom,” he got out through swollen lips.
Both his arms were covered in plaster of Paris.
“Hi Mercia,” I greeted and the next moment her arms were around my chest and her face buried in my shoulder.
“I’ve had enough, Tom,” she sobbed.
“It’s okay, Mercia. We will sort it out. Be strong. Let me have a chat with Dirkie.”
She held onto me for another two minutes and then turned around, gathering her handbag from next to the bed. “I’m going to freshen up, quickly.” And with that she left the ward.
The poor woman. Her husband got brutally murdered two weeks ago, and now her eldest son was almost killed. Presumably by the same people.
“Are you crazy, Dirk? Look what you did to your mother.”
He licked over his dry lips and gazed at a glass of water on the bedside table to the right of him, ignoring my scolding. He had a needle inserted in a vein in his left hand, with the drip hanging next to his bed.
I can just imagine what a struggle it must be for him to get hold of the glass of water with his right hand. I took the glass and let him sip some water through a straw.
Dirk lifted his head from the pillow and stared at me through his semi-closed left eye. “My dad’s killers are in Indermark, Oom.” He got the words out clearly enough for me to understand what he was trying to say, whilst struggling to lift his torso up from the bed at the same time.
“Relax, Dirk. Lie down. We can talk.”
He eased back on his pillows. “I will find them, Oom. Next time it will be my turn.”
I had to admit — the boy had guts. He was beaten half to death, and he was already thinking of having a go at them again.
“There will be no next time, Dirk. But tell me the whole story from the beginning. Who told you where to go?’
“I received a message from Kleinbooi on my mobile phone on Thursday night. When I was at home last weekend, I asked him to see what he could find out. The workers on the farm know what happened. They are just afraid to talk to anyone. But Kleinbooi is my friend. After Selina died on Sunday it made them talk. My dad’s killers are Zimbabweans.”
Selina’s passing away was news to me. No one had told me anything about that. The story that Zimbabweans were Jan’s murderers was almost certainly true. The story that Selina told Kwinzee, was now confirmed by Dirkie. It was more than a calculated guess. And time to retaliate. I just hope that Dirkie’s charade did not scare them away.
Kleinbooi was the son of one of the workers on Jan’s farm. He grew up with Dirk and was
still in primary school in Vivo with Dirk’s younger brother. He probably used his mother’s phone to send the message to Dirk.
A mobile phone was a status symbol in Africa, and it was the first thing to be bought when a worker started earning money. All the workers on the farms owned mobile phones. And a large part of their wages, were spent on airtime. It was not something they needed. But they had to have it.
“So how did you get to be in Indermark on Friday night, Dirk?” I enquired.
“I went home on Friday and told my mother that I was going to sleep over at the Groenewalds. I spoke to Kleinbooi who explained to me where to find the murderers. I then took my dad’s Cruiser bakkie and drove to Indermark.”
Dirk flinched when he mentioned his dad’s Cruiser. His words were slurring, but by using my imagination, I got the drift of what he tried to tell me. I will have to send a rollback at some stage to Indermark to collect the Cruiser. Hendrik had tried to tow the Cruiser back to the farm, but without success. The fuel tank exploded and, according to him, the Cruiser was good only as scrap metal. I had passed them on my way in. Retha gave me a hug and a cold shoulder. Hendrik filled me in with what he knew about the incident.
Dirk was making moves towards the glass of water again, so I let him take a few more sips. After licking his dry lips a few times, he slowly carried on with his story.
“I went into a tavern and asked the barman about Zimbabweans that might be for hire. He told me to come back in an hour. I then went to another tavern and asked the barman the same question. He chased me away. I then went back to the first tavern. I stopped the Cruiser behind the tavern and, as I got out, two black men attacked me with pick handles. I woke up here in hospital this morning.”
“Can you remember the name of the tavern, Dirk?’
“Nee, Oom. It is the first tavern on your right when you turn into Indermark.”
“So, did you go in there bare handed?”
“Ja, Oom. I wanted to find them first. Then later I would have asked someone from the farm watch to go arrest them. Oom you know how useless the police are. They will never arrest anyone.”
I decided rather not to comment on that.
