The Cuban

by Paul Eksteen

  “Okay, Dirk. Now you start behaving like a grown-up person. Your mother and brother look up to you. You can’t keep on doing silly things like this. Next time you hear something, you contact me. I will not tell your mother. And two people are always better than one.”

  I gave him some more water to drink and winked. “Don’t you worry; I will send someone to Indermark to find out what is going on there. Your dad will be avenged. I just hope that you didn’t scare the culprits away.”

  I had to get to Kwinzee and find out what was going on in Vivo. It seemed that I had missed some pages of the last chapter. Not that it was going to be difficult to get to Kwinzee. I phoned Lebo before I left Burgersfort and she told me that she had Kwinzee transferred to the Medi Clinic this morning. He was lying in a private room in the next ward.

  I was sitting next to Kwinzee’s bed in his private room five minutes later. To have two acquaintances in hospital at the same time was distressing, to say the least. I hoped that this would be the last of it.

  Kwinzee had recovered from his head injuries and the doctor planned on discharging him on Monday, should there be no further complications.

  ***

  Lebo had just left when I turned up — she was going to return at six with a list of things Kwinzee needed.

  There were a number of things that we had to discuss, and I did not need an audience.

  I closed the door to his room and asked the nurse not to allow any visitors until I was done. We needed to chat about what happened in Vivo and Indermark and also about the bomb.

  I had to tell him about Dullstroom and what I found out from Lillynn Camila Garcia.

  Kwinzee was not an employee of the SSA, but he assisted me from time to time in my jobs at a pre-arranged fee.

  A strange mixture of emotion swirled through me. To see Kwinzee tied to tubes, lying helpless in a hospital bed, was more than disconcerting.

  I had few close friends in the world. Most of the people I met were around for a short while, then gone. Sure, some relationships lasted, but they were more acquaintances than friends. Jan Steyn had, perhaps been the closest person to me in the old days.

  Now my closest friend in recent years, a man I’d known for a long time, someone who’d watched my back on more than one occasion, almost died in a car bomb. Why had this happened?

  “Kwinz, this VS-50 bomb bothers me. It was definitely not the work of the two killers from Zimbabwe or friends of them.”

  “I know DC. I have had lots of time to think, lying in this hospital bed. A bomb is the work of a professional. Or someone with contacts. The Zimbos neither have the contacts nor the knowledge to obtain or handle such a bomb.”

  I had also been thinking about the bomb. And about what I had found out from Lillynn. “I got hold of the SSA lady and asked her some questions. She admitted that she stole my file from her boss’ computer. She then gave the information to a doctor who is somewhere in South Africa. He somehow got hold of her and asked her for the information.

  “She also gave him information of two more agents with the SSA. Maybe he contacted one of them. You know that not all agents are above board.”

  I could see the frown on Kwinzee’s face was getting deeper. I carried on before he could interrupt. I wanted to finish this discussion before six.

  “It seems that I killed this doctor’s father in Angola, years ago, Kwinz. He is here for revenge. If his father was a Cuban, then he most probably also is Cuban.”

  I could see a light going on in Kwinzee’s eyes. And the next moment he had a huge grin on his face. “Those were the days, DC. Those were the days.”

  I smiled back at him. We went back a long way, Kwinzee and me. And I will make damn sure that no Cuban doctor is going to put an end to our camaraderie.

  “How many missions did you do without me, DC?” Kwinzee asked.

  Kwinzee looked at my startled face and continued. “I mean in those days, DC. In Angola.”

  “None, Kwinz. You know that. You were my spotter.”

  “But then we both killed this doctor’s father, DC. We are both responsible.”

  Which was true. But these things had happened ages ago. And for a cause. Kwinzee was innocent now. He was following the straight and narrow road.

  “I need to tell you something else, DC. I took care of that evil nanny and her fake sangoma in Vivo as well. I didn’t tell you about it last Monday. They were scum that had to be cleared away.”

  I just shook my head. Kwinzee had obviously decided that the loose ends must be tied together and did it on his own initiative.

  Well, there was not much I could do about it now, anyway.

  But we had to discuss the bomb. Obviously, the bomb was intended for me. By someone hired by the doctor. Kwinzee and his family were safe. I was the target. Not him.

  I explained all of this to Kwinzee in as few words as possible. I told him that I would be going to Vivo the next weekend to get out of the limelight. In the meantime, I would try to lie low.

  I had to speak to Nic Badenhorst and fill him in on the Cuban doctor and the other two SSA agents. Maybe he could assist.

  I could see that Kwinzee was much more relaxed after our talk. I stood up. “Cheers, old man. Make sure you get out of bed tomorrow; I need you at the office.” I winked and turned around.

  I opened the door and went out into the hallway where I bumped into Lebo. She was standing outside the room with tears streaming down her face. I was sure that she had heard most of the conversation.

  She wrapped her arms around me and held me close. “Thanks for everything, Tom,” she sobbed.

  Her arms were wrapped around me so I couldn’t really do anything but stand and wait. After a few awkward moments, she let go of me.

  “Go inside and take care of Kwinz, Lebo. He is a good man and he needs you. You know that I love you both and can’t do without you.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Pringle Die-Casters, Springs — Monday, 23 March

  Marc Robinson was sitting behind his desk at his office at Pringle High Pressure Casting in Springs.

  He was very happy with business in general. On the die-casting side business was picking up by more than twenty per cent per year, and his extra-mural activities over the past few years added a nice bonus.

  Marc had taken over the die-casting business from his father eight years ago and expanded the business from only doing zinc die- casting to aluminium die-casting as well.

  He had a good relationship with his zinc suppliers who used his zinc die-casting plant to develop a new zinc alloy. The alloy had a slightly higher magnesium percentage than the standard alloys used for die-casting and the extra magnesium gave it better flow qualities when doing low pressure castings.

  It was from his zinc supplier that he heard about the doings and screwings of one of the high-flying Italians in Nigel.

  The Italian had an engineering works with a hot dip galvanising plant on his premises. He bought his virgin zinc, used for galvanising, from the same company who supplied Marc with his zinc alloys.

  ***

  Marc’s father was the owner of a few racehorses, some as sole owner and some with partners. One of his racehorse partners used to work at the National Intelligence Agency in the late 1990s. When Marc finished school, his father arranged for Marc to go for an interview at the NIA to keep him busy for a year or two.

  The new government cancelled compulsory military service and many of the post-matrics would take a gap year after finishing school to decide what they wanted to do with their future.

  Some of Marc’s friends went to work on international cruise ships, others went to work on a kibbutz or dive in the Gulf of Eilat, and some even went to work as farm hands in either Texas or Australia.

  Marc’s father decided that it might benefit Marc, and the business, if Marc could build some contacts with the people of the new government. And the NIA was just the right place for him to go.

  Marc was successful in his application and worked at
the NIA for a period of eighteen months before getting bored. He then did a course to qualify as a ‘contract worker’ for the NIA and, after he completed the six-month training course, joined his father in the die-casting business.

  Three years later, Marc became bored with the die-casting business and the one or two nondescript contracts that he got from the NIA, now called the SSA. He was not one of their top men, and they would feed him scraps from the table.

  He loved working for the SSA. To be a mercenary backed by the government involved very few risks. And once you become used to killing, you crave for the next contract.

  You sit and wait like the mercenary who sits on his own, smiling, with oil and stone, putting an ever-finer edge on his combat knife, waiting for the next mission.

  And with Marc, he was never given enough missions to satisfy his need. It was, therefore, not quite by accident that he became an extortionist.

  One year, he travelled with his retired father to Durban, a week before the Durban July Handicap would take place. His father wanted to make sure that the horses travelled down well from Johannesburg for the races.

  On their second night out, his father pointed out one of the breeders from Cape Town with a stunning young model from Durban. He was married and his wife was only going to join him a few days later.

  Marc saw an opportunity and planted a hidden video camera in the breeder’s hotel room the following day. It was not difficult to obtain the camera in a spy shop in Durban’s Indian community.

  He already had false identities supplied by the NIA as well as offshore bank accounts. To get the Capetonian to pay the money for the video footage of him and the girl did not prove to be too difficult.

  Since then, it became a hobby for Marc. Wherever he went, he would have his gear with him and he would be looking for victims.

  He was very cautious about getting caught, and always only blackmailed a victim once as a rule.

  But then things went wrong.

  His first mistake was to break his golden rule.

  He took video footage of two senior managers of Nedbank at the yearly golf tournament at Sun City and decided to blackmail both of them.

  His second mistake was to take on the Italian mafia.

  And his third mistake was to take on a job where he had to eliminate a fellow employee at the SSA.

  By doing this, he had reached out and taken death by the hand.

  It was just a matter of who would kill first.

  CHAPTER 19

  Karlien’s Town House — Tuesday, 24 March

  Karlien du Plessis walked into her town house just after five in the afternoon. She had had a hectic day at the office and couldn’t wait to kick off her shoes and pour herself a glass of wine.

  She picked Corlea up after her netball practice and was informed on the way home about her day at school. Corlea was busy unpacking her school case at the dining table to start with her homework.

  Karlien was a broker at a very successful agency in town and was very good at her job. Even though she had sold the house in which she and her husband used to live and moved to the smaller town house, she was earning a good salary and was financially independent.

  After her husband, Herman, passed away, she found two illegal firearms and a stack of very interesting documents in a hidden safe in the garage.

  Her husband believed in conspiracy theories and had stacks of correspondence with underground right-wing groups stashed away.

  She knew that he was a member of the Freemasons in Polokwane and attended their meetings on a regular basis. But she never suspected right-wing activities from him.

  She had to get away from her past and moving to the town house with her daughter was the first step.

  It was three years since Herman passed away and just over a year since she started dating Tom Allen Coetzee. She was too afraid to ask Tom to get rid of Herman’s illegal stash, but after mentioning it to Lebogang, Kwinzee took care of it.

  She felt a heavy weight lifted off her shoulders the day she handed Kwinzee the tog bag with guns and papers, and was relieved to get rid of another bad part of her past.

  She was initially afraid of getting into a serious relationship again, but after she met Tom, she had a change of mind. She was afraid of a complicated relationship and decided to go very slowly in the beginning. Women were good at the waiting game. But Tom was better. She almost mistook his non-commitment as him not really being interested in a relationship with her, but after having a few chats with Lebogang, she started to understand Tom better.

  Their relationship grew at a steady pace and it was getting close to the point where she could expect Tom to propose to her.

  Tom had asked her and Corlea to join him and Danielle for the weekend, and they would be visiting Tom’s farm, where he bred special eland, on Sunday.

  She had been invited to visit Tom’s sister in Vivo a few times, but this weekend would be the first time visiting Tom’s game farm, further north.

  To her, it felt like she had peeled another layer off Tom’s hard-core interior. This made her feel excited and also very special. She almost felt like a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, falling in love for the first time.

  Tom was a very difficult person to get close to, and she knew that deep inside he was just a soft puppy, very afraid of getting hurt. To Tom, the bushveldt acted as some sort of medication. He could relax and clear his head when on the farm. It was something she, as a city girl, was still trying to relate to.

  She also knew that she would never be able to replace Antoinette, Tom’s first wife and the mother of Danielle. Antoinette was also a farm girl and had understood Tom much better.

  This made her feel a bit sad, but she also knew that Tom needed someone in his life, just like she needed someone. She needed to tie him down. Like the guy in the book — Gulliver. But he must not feel tied down. A very delicate situation indeed. She was also not sure how her moving in with Tom would play out. But she was willing to give it a go.

  Danielle and Corlea were good friends, even though Danielle was a few years older. Danielle grew up as a very self-reliant child and it was Danielle who proposed moving to the hostel when she started with secondary school. She was sure that it would not be very difficult to convince Danielle to move back to the farm once she and Corlea moved in.

  They could be one happy family again. They could even get a few dogs. Irish terriers. She would rather not get Airedales as she knew Antoinette had been very fond of them.

  She knew that Tom worked for the government in Pretoria from time to time. Initially she was a bit worried, especially after what happened to her husband and his conspiracy theories.

  She had again confided in Lebogang and Lebo set her mind at ease. Lebo’s advice to her was to relax, take a few deep breaths, and enjoy life.

  But strange things happened in the past two weeks and the uneasy feeling returned. She was born with a caul and was seldom wrong with her feelings.

  And she had a foreboding about the next two weeks. She just hoped that she was wrong this time.

  ***

  Godfather Restaurant, Centurion

  I was sitting at The Godfather restaurant in Centurion, deep in thought. I was twenty minutes early and asked Anne, the owner, to give me a booth at the back and to send Nic there as soon as he arrived.

  Nic limped in and slid into the booth across from me, early for a change.

  “Good timing,” I said. “Your message got to me a few minutes before I could send you one.”

  “I gather that you have good news then?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad, but at least some things start making sense now.”

  The waitress arrived and we both ordered draught beers.

  I gave Nic a short summary of what had happened in Dullstroom the previous week.

  “So, this doctor roped this Lillynn bird into the whole thing. Why? Money?”

  “I would assume so, yes,” I answered. “I’ve run i
nto very few people that don’t like money. I’m sure it was not because she was a patriotic citizen of Cuba.”

  “But to give out information and stand the chance of losing your job? I know she was not born in this country, but she did fight the freedom struggle.”

  “Don’t be naïve. And besides, I was the only one who was supposed to get hurt. Once she did it, there was no turning around. She couldn’t confess, she’d be admitting to not only being a traitor but also an accessory to murder.”

  The beers arrived and we both ordered the house specialty of rump steak with black mushrooms, spinach and feta. Draft beers from a bottle. I watched as the waitress tilted the glass and slid the beer down the side to minimise the foam. She placed the two glasses on coasters in front of us and disappeared.

  I removed the mobile phone which I took from the Rainbow Lodge. “I took this phone when visiting the Cuban lady, on my way out. It is either her phone or her husband’s. See if you can get something from it.”

  I then told Nic about the car bomb and Kwinzee.

  “Something doesn’t sound right, Tom. Thanks for the phone, but I don’t really need it. I’ll pull Lillynn’s mobile phone records and see what they come up with. We have to find the doctor. He is the key to this mess.”

  I had to agree with Nic. “We must also find the agents whose details Lillynn got from the server. Lillynn might be involved with the farm murder, but most probably not with the bomb. The only thing that makes sense is that the doctor hired someone to assist him.”

  “And you killed his father.”

  “Yes, Nic. That’s what Lillynn said. I thought about it. I did kill a Cuban on a mission years ago. But I can’t even remember his name. Maybe you can check on that. It was one of my last missions in Angola.”

  Half an hour later Nic stood up and left the restaurant.

  I stayed behind and ordered a coffee.

  CHAPTER 20