Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  Didn’t sound right.

  And then the big question: How did the Cobra – or the people who hired the Cobra – know that Adair was in a guesthouse on a wine farm in Franschhoek?

  If they knew where Adair was before his flight to South Africa, surely they would have kidnapped or murdered him there?

  But somewhere between last Monday and yesterday they found out where he was, and sent the Cobra from Europe to do his job.

  If Adair was lying low, with his false name, false passport, and false email address, how did they know?

  He put the pen down, opened his steel cabinet, and took out the rolled-up camp bed. He put it together, set his iPhone for seven, turned off the light, lay down on his back, and closed his eyes.

  He only wanted a few hours of sleep so that he could think this through with a clear head, do what he needed to do. Such as, that he must get a bulletin out to all stations to let them know, should the body of a white man in his fifties be found somewhere. Such as, the fact that someone must sit down and compare all the video material from Oliver Tambo and Cape Town International Airport since Friday with the old photo of Joaquim Curado.

  Perhaps luck would be on their side.

  18

  Tyrone Kleinbooi’s Casio G-Shock wristwatch woke him at 6.45.

  He had stolen it one Sunday morning last year on the common in Green Point, from a mountain biker whose attention was distracted by his sexy cycling partner.

  Tyrone tuned the radio to Kfm, because he wanted to hear the weather forecast. Isolated showers, clearing towards midday.

  That was a relief. For his industry.

  He made instant coffee. He ate Weet-Bix with milk and sugar. Brushed his teeth, showered, shaved, and dressed. Black, slightly faded Edgars chinos with deep open pockets. Old black T-shirt, reasonably new black polo-necked jersey. Black is beautiful, Tyrone. Smart. And invisible. You can be anything in black.

  He pushed up the sleeves of his jersey to just below the elbows, he could work better that way. He put the silver Zippo and the hairpin with the small yellow sunflower in his left trouser pocket. He picked up the light blue Nokia Lumia 820, put it in the small neat rucksack that he had bought, because the size and the material and look were important. It mustn’t rustle, mustn’t look cheap, and it mustn’t interfere with his hand movements. But it must be able to hold the loot, cellphone, and his rain jacket.

  He had taken the Lumia out of a businessman’s pocket up in Kloof Street – the man had been occupied with his coffee and croissant at Knead, reading the sports pages of the Cape Times, did not look like the Windows phone type. And no self-respecting fence was going to pay for a Windows phone, zero second-hand value, so Tyrone just kept it for himself. So he could at least phone Nadia, and she him.

  He locked his room and walked around the Slamse’s triple garage, along the wall to the gate. He typed in the security code. The gate clicked open. He walked out, to the city.

  Weather looking OK.

  He walked briskly. Tuesdays were not your best days of the pickpocket week, but the early bird catches the worm if you keep your eyes open between the suits in Strand, Waterkant, Riebeeck, Long and Bree, and you blend in with the office workers hurrying along in groups, late for work, take-away coffee in one hand, as you squeeze in through the doors with them, up the escalators or in the lifts.

  He was a man on a mission. Twenty-one thousand bucks by the end of Jan.

  Tall order.

  But every journey starts with one small step.

  That wasn’t one of Uncle Solly’s. He’d heard that one time in St George’s Mall, this pretty whitey girl trying to motivate her hangdog loser boyfriend.

  And he liked it. So he didn’t steal anything from her, except the quote.

  Out of habit he looked north, across Table Bay. He saw the cruise ship, beyond Robben Island. He smiled. Tin can full of marks, that boat would be here in an hour or two.

  Rich pickings.

  Griessel dreamed a giant snake was chasing him, the mouth agape, spitting, so that it dripped off the back of his head and he felt the sour venom burning down the back of his neck. The alarm was a sudden reprieve, catapulting him to the silent safety of his office.

  He folded up the camp bed and stowed it away, took the toilet bag and a worn old towel from the filing cabinet, and went to shower in the bathroom on the third floor.

  While he shaved, he realised he felt rested. Fresh. Just over two extra hours of deep sleep, and the cobwebs were gone.

  Perhaps because he knew he was alone for at least two nights. He and his rascal, solo.

  A little less pressure.

  He stood looking at himself in the mirror, and he felt the urge come over him. The urge to catch the Cobra.

  Something inside him revolted against the concept of a hit man with a trademark. It was sociopathic, arrogant, it represented everything that was wrong with this world. Everyone was obsessed with money and status and fame. More than ever, it seemed, it was the root of evil, the source of more and more crime.

  The murdered bodyguards, B.J. Fikter and Barry Minnaar, were former members of the Force, and not one of the highly advanced, First World detective services had been able to apprehend the Cobra so far. After all the mess of the past few months, with the SAPS derided as never before, it would be good to show the world . . .

  And catching men was what he did. At least, all that he did well. There was no denying that he often struggled, made mistakes, but that moment when you clicked the handcuffs around the fucker’s wrists and said ‘You’re under arrest’, there were few things that measured up to that, it was when the universe balanced out, just for a moment.

  He wiped off his face, packed his toiletries in the bag, checked himself in the mirror. One of his new shirts, only slightly creased, with the blue jacket.

  This morning no one would think he was drinking again.

  Just before seven he knocked on Nyathi’s door jamb.

  The Giraffe waved him in and said, ‘Benny, I think we should tell the team everything.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said in relief. He had been feeling guilty since yesterday about lying to IMC.

  Nyathi gathered up his papers. ‘I have to go and chair the morning parade. You get your guys into your office. Just your team, Bones, and Philip van Wyk. Make it very clear: we trust them completely, but they have to be utterly and completely circumspect. We cannot afford a single leak.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But we are going to need more people.’

  ‘Something happened?’

  ‘Interpol has a lot on the assassin. He’s called the Cobra.’

  Nyathi checked his watch. ‘Walk with me, please.’

  On the way to the morning parade, Griessel told him in broad strokes about the new information, the thirteen-year-old photograph, and what he planned to do.

  ‘Good,’ said the colonel. ‘Go ahead, and keep me posted.’

  ‘Just one more thing, sir. Philip says Sergeant Lithpel Davids can get into Adair’s email . . .’ And he left that hanging there so that the colonel could draw his own conclusions.

  Nyathi stopped and looked at Griessel. ‘Do it,’ he said, barely audibly.

  First he thanked the detectives who had worked very late. Then he

  told the team everything.

  They joked about the Cobra’s nickname.

  ‘The bastard probably has a Twitter account too,’ said a surly Cupido, his reproachful eyes on Griessel.

  They studied the photograph. Griessel explained his strategy. He asked Ndabeni and Radebe to liaise with the SAPS office at O. R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, and to fly up as soon as possible to study the video material of the Arrivals Hall. Liebenberg and Fillander must do the same at Cape Town International.

  ‘It’s a long shot,’ said Radebe.

  ‘It’s one of the few shots we have,’ said Fillander.

  ‘We are only looking at international flights since Thursday,’ said Griessel.‘We know he’s coloured, w
e know he will probably be wearing a hat or glasses, he will be aware of cameras, so he will look away or keep his head down. What we really want, is a name, because then we can link it to a passport, and the way he paid for the flight. Maybe a credit card number . . . That’s more than Interpol has now.’

  ‘If he killed Adair, he’s long gone,’ said Bones.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Griessel, ‘but someone searched Adair’s house in England, and his room in Franschhoek. I don’t think they found what they were looking for. I think that is why Adair could still be alive.’

  ‘That’s how a Violent Crimes cop thinks, Bones. Live and learn,’ said Fillander.

  ‘Touché,’ said Bones.

  ‘Don’t talk of my girl like that,’ said Mooiwillem Liebenberg.

  They laughed.

  ‘Bones, have you anything new on Adair?’

  ‘Now learn how the genius department thinks, nè. I looked at everything, and here’s the thing: daars niks nuut nie, absolutely nothing new. Now, for you hot-headed blood-lust cops that would mean nada. But look at the bigger picture: until about four weeks ago Adair was blogging and writing lots of letters to the press, and gave interviews, all about the Adair Protocol. And then he went quiet.’

  ‘So?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Why,Vaughn? Why did he stop agitating?’

  Cupido shrugged.

  ‘Something happened, nè,’ said Bones.

  ‘You don’t know what,’ said Cupido.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Bones. ‘Not yet.’

  When they were finished and walked out, Cupido approached Griessel. ‘I thought we were partners, Benna.’

  ‘Vaughn, I was under orders.’

  ‘But still,’ said Cupido, deeply wounded, ‘where’s the trust?’

  Tyrone was early enough, so he walked into the Parkade Mall in Strand Street, opposite the Cape Sun.

  Seven storeys of parking. A lot of cars, a lot of people. And they all had to go down in those lifts, to the street. And there were no cameras in the lifts.

  He rode them, up and down.

  Lots of coloureds. He didn’t steal from coloureds.

  Darkies and whiteys were fair game.

  He chatted up a sexy, slinky dolly on his second trip down in the lift, but she wouldn’t divulge her cell number.

  He talked to an aunty on the fifth descent. He made her laugh. He enjoyed that.

  He stole two cellphones and two wallets. He rode down to the first storey, and checked his loot in privacy behind a black BMW X5.

  A new BlackBerry. Worth three-fifty from the fence. An iPhone 4S. Eight hundred bucks. Three credit cards, fifty each. One driver’s licence, fifty bucks. Seven hundred in cash.

  Total of about two K. Not bad for an hour’s work.

  He dumped the empty wallets under the X5.

  Time to rob a shipload of tourists.

  19

  Griessel concentrated hard on understanding Sergeant Lithpel Davids. Cupido sat there too, arms folded, his mouth a straight, sulky line, saying nothing.

  ‘Cappie, you know it’s illegal. Fun, but illegal,’ said Lithpel. Just one ‘s’ in the entire sentence, easy to follow.

  ‘I know,’ said Griessel, ‘but Morris is not a suspect. We won’t have to explain it in court.’

  ‘Cool. Now to hack a Gmail account, that’s easy. You can phish, or you can download an app, or you can use your own Gmail account,’ was more or less the translated version, once Griessel had filtered out all the lisps.

  ‘OK,’ said Griessel.

  ‘Phishing does not apply, since the dude has been kidnapped, right?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And we don’t want comebacks, we don’t want to leave tracks, so I’m not going to use my own Gmail account.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Which leaves us with the app. And it just so happens lat ek een hier het, right here on my system. Keeping up with the dark side, Cappie, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You haven’t a clue what I’m on about, Cappie.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘No worries. Just sit back, relax, and watch me work.’

  Body language,Tyrone. Be a student of body language.

  That was how he spotted the woman. She came walking past the Cape Union Mart, in the direction of the V&A shopping centre on the Waterfront. She was somewhat lightly dressed for this weather, jeans, and a thin, blood red sweater. She gripped the handbag tightly under her arm as though it contained a fortune. She looked scared. She walked quickly, looking around as though she didn’t know where to go. In the crush of tourists from the ship.

  And she was pretty, Mediterranean dark. His age.

  What’s not to like?

  He kept behind her, two, three metres.

  She looked around once. He looked away.

  He would have to strike before she got too close to the shopping centre. There were cameras.

  He pushed his hand into this left pocket, grasped the hairpin. Increased his pace, caught up.

  Four women approached from the left, cutting between them, so that he fell behind again.

  She was only five metres from the amphitheatre.

  He must turn back, it was too near the cameras.

  She held the handbag, with its easy clasp, so anxiously. He knew that attitude. It usually meant there was something valuable inside. Cash? Jewellery? Carried by someone who was not accustomed to it.

  A real challenge.

  He jogged faster.

  Just before the steps to the rows of seats in the amphitheatre. There were a lot of people.

  He took a chance, tapped her on the shoulder, the hair clip held up in his fingers.

  She was startled, looked around at him in confusion. Scared.

  He smiled his most charming smile, relaxed and helpful. ‘I think you dropped this, ma’am.’ His shoulder against hers, his right hand at the handbag.

  She looked at the clip, then at him, frowning, not understanding.

  She was very pretty, he registered. ‘The hairpin. You dropped it.’

  His hand was at the flap of the handbag, while he twirled the pin in his fingers and kept on smiling.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘No . . .’

  His right hand was under the flap. He felt the leather of a purse.

  ‘You sure it’s not yours? Take a good look.’

  At that instant, when she gave her full attention to the hairpin, he bumped her with his right shoulder, just lightly, as though someone had pushed him from behind, as though he had lost his balance for a second, and he slipped the wallet out and pushed it, lightning fast, into his trouser pocket.

  ‘No,’ she said, looking left and right, worried.

  ‘Sorry, then,’ he said, and lowered the pin. He turned around and walked, away from the shopping centre.

  Only six paces away, the security man grabbed him from behind, a steely grip on his wrist.

  He jerked. His arm came free.

  He ran.

  Then the second security guard tackled him to the ground.

  ‘And we’re in,’ said Lithpel Davids.

  Griessel leaned forward to see.

  ‘Only one mail in his in-box,’ said Lithpel.

  On the screen, beside a yellow arrow, he read Lillian Alvarez (No Subject) Arrived in CT. Phone on and working. And to the far right: 8:12 a.m.

  ‘That bold means he hasn’t opened the mail yet,’ said Lithpel. ‘But no worries, we can open it and then mark it as unread again.’

  ‘OK.’

  Lithpel clicked on the message.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. Because there was nothing more than Arrived in CT. Phone on and working. ‘Sent about an hour ago. Do you want to look at his other mail, Cappie?’

  ‘Please.’

  On the navigation bar on the left, Davids clicked on ‘More’, and then ‘All Mail’.

  Only the single post from Lillian Alvarez appeared.

  ‘Talk about good housekeeping,’ said Da
vids.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he’s cleaned up everything. There is no other mail. Everything he sent or received, is gone.’

  ‘Fok,’ said Griessel.

  ‘Shall I try to find out who Lillian Alvareth ith?’ asked Lithpel Davids.

  The security guard with the pimples held onto his left arm and the one with muscles pulled his right arm painfully up against his back.

  ‘Let me go!’ said Tyrone, his voice shrill and frightened.

  ‘We’ve got him, control, we’re bringing him in,’ said Pimples, white and young, into his radio. Then to Tyrone: ‘Not as clever as you thought, hey?’

  They pushed and dragged him towards the shopping centre.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Tyrone tried to bring his fear under control, tried to sound indignant, but his heart beat in his throat. Deny, deny, deny,Tyrone. And when that won’t help any more, then you lie.

  ‘Maaifoedie, fokken pickpocket,’ said Muscles, the coloured one. ‘We’ve been after you for a long time.’

  Bystanders made way for them, staring.

  ‘Pickpocket?’ said Tyrone. ‘Where you come with that?’

  ‘No. It’s where you are going,’ said Muscles, and he pressed Tyrone’s arm even higher ‘Now shut up.’

  Through the pain he thought: They don’t have anything, the cameras were too far away. They must have been following him, he hadn’t spotted them in the crowd of tourists, he was too focused on the woman and the handbag. He must get her wallet out of his trouser pocket. It was the only evidence they had. But he wouldn’t be able to get his arm free.

  He was stuffed – that knowledge came down suddenly like a black curtain.

  Christ, what would Nadia say?

  Who would pay for her studies?

  A good thing Uncle Solly was dead. All that training, and he let himself get caught like an amateur. A total disgrace.

  Fear gnawed at his guts.

  They took him into the shopping centre via a service door, and down the stairs. Their radios crackled and rasped, excited voices echoing down the wide corridor. Two sharp turns, then he saw the sign: Security: Control Room. A security man came out, stood waiting. He had stars on his shoulders. A general probably. He was white. He smiled, but not in a good way. ‘Little shit,’ he said, ‘we’ve got you.’