by Deon Meyer
Three point two K was a lot of money if you wanted to buy friends. But he must spend the minimum, because if it all worked, he and Nadia would be on the run. And that was going to be expensive.
In his mind, he worked through the plan, and he thought, jirre, there are a lot of holes in this scheme.
But it was the only thing that could work.
They sat around Brigadier Musad Manie’s round conference table. Colonel Zola Nyathi twirled a pen thoughtfully in his hand. Griessel and Cupido looked like guilty schoolboys. Mbali looked angry.
‘Benny, did you remove or destroy evidence from the Waterfront scene?’ The Camel’s voice was heavy and solemn.
‘No, Brigadier.’
‘You did not delete the video material?’
‘No, Brigadier.’
Manie looked at Mbali. ‘Is this true?’
‘Yes, sir. Benny did not touch any evidence whatsoever.’ She said it carefully, as if choosing her words like steps in a minefield. Griessel felt a rush of gratitude towards her. He knew how painfully honest she was, how this technical skirting of the truth would conflict with her principles.
‘I want you to understand that this is a very serious matter. The national commissioner phoned. From the office of our minister. According to the Department of State Security you deliberately wiped out video material, and hindered a task team from SSA in their investigation of a matter of international importance. International security Mbali. There’s a lot at stake here. Not only the reputation of this unit and the SAPS, but of our country. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So I want to ask all three of you again: did you or did you not destroy evidence at the Waterfront?’
‘Brigadier, why would we do such a thing?’ asked Cupido.
‘Answer my question.’
‘No, Brigadier, not one of us did,’ said Griessel, following Mbali’s strategy. Because Lithpel Davids had deleted the evidence. And the brigadier hadn’t mentioned the sergeant’s name.
Manie looked at them, one after the other. ‘If I find out that you have lied to me, I will suspend all three of you. Is that clear?’
They confirmed their understanding with grave nods.
‘And do you understand that you are officially off this case?’
‘Which case, sir?’ asked Mbali.
‘Excuse me?’
‘There seems to be more than one case, sir. There is the Franschhoek case, and the Waterfront case . . .’
Griessel didn’t want her to say anything about the Schotsche Kloof case. Not now, not here. For various reasons, of which one was that all hell would break loose. And the other one was that Zola Nyathi had perhaps told Manie about possible bugging devices. And that Manie was playing along.
‘Both, Mbali,’ said Manie. ‘You are to hand over anything and everything that you think might aid our colleagues at the SSA, on both these cases. Am I making myself very clear?’
It was the emphasis on ‘both’ that gave Griessel hope.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mbali.
‘Benny? Vaughn?’
‘Yes, Brigadier,’ they said.
‘Very well. You are excused.’
Nyathi gestured to Griessel, an index finger pointing downwards.
Griessel understood.
Griessel led the way down the long corridor of the DPCI building. He was in a hurry, his mind on Nadia Kleinbooi. She was the same age as Carla, his daughter. Still a child, though students considered themselves adults. They would have to go and look for Nadia, and they would have to watch over her. They would have to use her as bait, because that was all they had. And time was running out, and there was so much uncertainty, because he didn’t even know if they really should drop it. Apparently, Musad Manie’s tirade had been for the benefit of the possible bugging devices. He hoped. Because if Manie was serious, they had a major problem.
And there was another thing gnawing at him, a profound sense of unease, a hunch, but he hadn’t had time to formulate it yet.
They walked down the stairs, and out into the basement. Griessel stood beside the clubhouse and waited for them all to form a circle.
‘Colonel, we need to tell you . . .’ began Griessel, but Nyathi stopped him with a ‘No’ and a shake of the head.
‘We’ll really have to let it go, Benny. The pressure on the brigadier is immense. Just let the whole thing go.’
Griessel wanted to tell him about Nadia Kleinbooi, but it was Mbali who said, ‘No, sir, we can’t let it go.’ Not in her usual decisive tone, the one that Cupido confused with arrogance. Her voice was strange now, almost despairing.
Nyathi looked at her with a frown. ‘I don’t think you understand, Captain. It’s a direct order.’
‘I am sorry, sir, but I am not going to stop investigating this case.’
All three men stared at her in disbelief. Nyathi was the first to come to his senses. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I am very serious, sir.’
‘Mbali, do you want to be suspended? Do you want to get the whole lot of us fired?’
‘Let them try.’
There was still no confrontation in Mbali’s voice. It confused Nyathi. ‘Captain, you are very, very close to insubordination. What the hell has got into you?’
‘Sir, I am wondering the same thing about you and the brigadier . . .’
‘Captain, I am now officially warning you that you are going too far. One more word, and you are suspended.’
‘Sir, you can suspend me or you can fire me, I don’t care . . .’
Nyathi’s eyes narrowed and he drew a breath to respond, but Captain Mbali spoke with a passion and conviction that none of them had heard before. ‘My father used to tell me stories of how he did not dare use his phone, because the security police were always listening. He was part of the Struggle, Colonel. Back when the secret services conducted all the important criminal cases, when they told the police what to do. When everybody was spying on each other. And everything was hushed up by the media. And the public knew nothing. Today it is happening again. Now Parliament is passing this Security Bill. Why? Because they want to hide things. Now this. State Security eavesdropping on us, and taking over a criminal case. Just like in the apartheid times. We are destroying our democracy, and I will not stand by and let it happen. And it will, if we let it. I owe it to my parents’ struggle, and I owe it to my country. You and the brigadier too. You owe it to all the comrades who gave their lives for the cause. So, no, I will not stop. And if you try to stop me, I will go to the press and I will tell them everything.’
31
Zola Nyathi, the inscrutable, stood there, his intense gaze fixed on the fat captain. For perhaps the first time Griessel saw emotion on the colonel’s face, rage that was gradually replaced with something else. Regret? Shame?
The Giraffe suddenly turned his back on them and raised his eyes to the stretch of Market Street that was visible between the rear wall and the vehicle entrance. He clasped his hands strangely in front of his chest, almost as if in prayer.
Silence, just far off the sound of traffic on Voortrekker Road, and an ambulance siren on the way to Tygerberg Hospital. Seconds passed while Nyathi stood stock still.
He turned back to them. ‘What do you think,Vaughn?’
‘I never thought I’d say this, Colonel, but I’m with Mbali.’
Griessel thought he actually had no right to ally himself politically with his colleagues. He had been a law enforcer under the former regime, and he couldn’t pretend he’d been something he wasn’t. But Nyathi did not spare him, he looked him in the eyes and asked, ‘And you, Benny?’
‘Sir, I don’t think we have a choice. There is a young woman in Stellenbosch who might be in real danger, and we are the only ones who know . . .’
‘What young woman?’
Griessel told him.
‘Jesus,’ said Nyathi. Another first, as far as Griessel could remember.
The colonel raised his hands in
frustration, and dropped them again. He looked at the three of them, then in the general direction of the entrance to the building. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .’
‘Amen,’ said Mbali.
‘And have you thought how you would approach this?’ Nyathi asked Griessel.
He hadn’t.
‘Sir,I . . .’ His thoughts raced as he spoke.‘I want Mbali and Vaughn on the team, sir.’ Then his discomfort and suspicions found words and he said, ‘And Bones. Because we need to try and find out why State Security wants control. It’s about Adair, that’s what this case is really about, and Bones is the only one . . . Just the four of us. We’ll report to you. Here, where no one can listen. But we need to get to Stellenbosch fast, and we need to get clean cellphones.’
‘I can get the cellphones,’ said Cupido.
‘Where from?’
‘You don’t want to know, sir.’
Nyathi was quiet. He shook his head as if he was about to do something crazy, like jump off a cliff. Then the expressionless mask was back, control restored. ‘This is not just about losing our jobs. If they find out, they will prosecute us. Aggressively. At worst, they’ll send us to prison. Or permanently ostracise us, at best. We will never work for the government again. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I have children. So do you, Benny.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m going to try and keep the brigadier out of this. For as long as I can. I don’t want to destroy his career as well. So you’d better get it right. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Switch off your phones. Check your cars for tracking devices. Get moving.’
Griessel told Cupido to go and buy the five cellphones, and bring one each for Nyathi, Bones and Mbali. ‘I’m going to drive to Stellenbosch so long, meet me at the girl’s flat. Vaughn, we don’t know if they’re following us. Just keep an eye on your rear-view mirror . . .’
‘Vigilant, pappie, that’s my second name.’
He asked Mbali to bring Bones to the underground car park and brief him fully. ‘You have to tell him everything, and you’ll have to give him a choice. He has a family too. Bones said he’d do more digging on Adair. Ask him if he’s found anything, and let me know on the new number. And I want you and Bones to start calling every hotel and guesthouse in the city. Use your land lines in the meantime. It’s a risk, but I’m sure they’ll be monitoring our cellphones, and there are simply too many Telkom lines going out.’ He hoped he was correct. ‘Check at the hotels if a Lillian Alvarez has booked in. She must be staying somewhere. Start with the City Lodges, that kind of place – she’s a student, she won’t be staying at the Cape Grace . . .’ He saw the misgiving on Mbali’s face, and then: ‘I know it’s a needle in a haystack, but if we find her it could help a lot. Our biggest problem is that we don’t know who we are chasing.’
‘OK,’ she said solemnly before she began to walk away.
‘Mbali,’ Griessel called after her.
She turned around.
‘Thank you for not saying anything. About the video. I know it must have been difficult.’
‘No, Benny. My father said he had to lie many times, under apartheid. He believed, most of the time, that the truth will set you free. But under certain circumstances, a lie can do the same thing. I often pray for the wisdom to know what circumstances those are.’
‘You’ve always been a wise woman.’
‘I know,’ she said in all seriousness.
He lay under his Hawks’ vehicle, the BMW 1 Series. He was looking for tracking devices. His cellphone rang and he nearly bumped his head on the undercarriage. He should have switched the damned thing off. Griessel wriggled out from under the car. On the screen he read UNKNOWN.
He had a suspicion who it might be.
‘Griessel,’ he said, as he straightened up.
‘There are bugging devices in Musad Manie and in Werner du Preez’s offices,’ said the woman’s voice. Joni Mitchell.
Colonel Werner du Preez was group head of the Hawks’ CATS unit, an abbreviation for Crimes Against the State. It made sense that the SSA would monitor him too, but Griessel was infuriated. Why was she still bothering him? She was part of the organisation that had taken over the case now.
‘And you people are listening to our cellphones,’ he said angrily.
‘We are?’ she asked, as if it were a light-hearted game.
‘You work for the SSA,’ he said.
‘Interesting conclusion. How did you arrive at it?’ Still playful and teasing.
‘My phone is bugged by the SSA, but you phone me on it. That means you know when it’s safe to call.’
‘I did hear that you’re not stupid.’
‘What do you want?’ He saw no point in this conversation, and time was short.
‘Information. I gave you something, now I want something in return. That was the agreement.’
‘And now we’re off the case. Your information is no use to me.’
‘I had hoped you wouldn’t be so easily discouraged . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. I hoped you would go on with the investigation discreetly.’
It made no sense. ‘Why would you . . . ?’ He’d had it with these games. ‘I can’t talk now, I’ve got work to do.’ He got into the BMW.
‘What work?’
He switched on the engine. ‘I have other cases too. Goodbye.’
He rang off. And he drove.
His cellphone rang again immediately.
UNKNOWN.
She had warned him, at the Waterfront, that the SSA were on their way. And now: I hoped you would go on with the investigation discreetly.
He stopped at the exit to Market Street, and answered.
‘Please,’ she said seriously, ‘we must help each other.’
‘What for?’
‘I know you found something at the Waterfront. On the video you deleted. I know all three of you turned your cellphones off after that, and you went somewhere where you were busy for more than forty minutes. I think it also had something to do with the investigation. Something tells me that you don’t so easily drop a matter just because another state department wants to take over.’
‘I really have nothing more to say to you.’
‘You don’t have to say anything to me. Just don’t drop the investigation.’ For the first time she sounded desperate.
He couldn’t understand what game she was playing.
‘Are you there?’ she asked.
‘Wait,’ he said, and dug the iPhone’s earphones out of his pocket, plugged them in, before he drove again.
‘I will lose my job if I investigate the case.’
‘They won’t know.’
‘Now who is “they”?’
‘I work for them. But I don’t share their agenda. Please.’
‘I don’t trust you.’
‘That I can understand. Ask me anything.’
‘What are you doing at SSA?’
She hesitated. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’
He didn’t answer.
‘I am head of the monitoring programme.’
‘And eavesdropping on us.’
‘Yes.’
That was why she could phone. ‘What is your name?’
Again a silence. Then: ‘Janina.’
‘And your surname?’
‘Mentz.’With a sigh of resignation.
Janina Mentz. Joni Mitchell. The same initials. Not very original. ‘Why does the SSA want us off the case?’ he asked.
‘I can’t put my head on a block, you must understand that. I am senior management, but not part of the top management, I don’t have access to all the information. But I have a theory, based on a strong rumour doing the rounds. That Adair wanted to embarrass the British government. Two years ago he published a memorandum on the Internet in which he said a new version of his algorithm could expose a whole string of
dodgy bank transactions, and that Britain and the USA had a moral obligation to implement it . . .’
‘The Adair Protocol,’ said Griessel.
She remained quiet for a moment. ‘I underestimated you. I won’t make that mistake again.’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘We suspect that he deployed this new algorithm on the SWIFT system without sanction. We suspect he gained access to information in this way about corrupt activities of British parliamentarians, of much greater scope than that which was already known. Bribe money from media interests, from weapons manufacturers, from interest and pressure groups. Large amounts in Swiss bank accounts. And it goes up to very high levels. Up to the cabinet. Then he tried to blackmail the British government. Something like “use the Protocol to fight organised crime, or I’ll make this public”.’
‘It still doesn’t explain why the SSA wants to take over the investigation.’
‘If we can get Adair, Captain, we can get all that information. And in the diplomatic sphere, that has incalculable value. You know that the British Department of International Development wants to halt their financial support to South Africa in 2015?’
‘No.’
‘Our government is very unhappy about that. And that sort of information could definitely make the Brits reconsider.’
He mulled over this for a moment.
‘OK. But what is your agenda?’
‘Are you familiar with the Spider-Man-principle?’
‘The what?’
‘The Spider-Man-principle. With great power comes great responsibility. That sort of information would give our government great power, Captain. I don’t think our government can be trusted with such great responsibility.’
32
Under normal circumstances Tyrone Kleinbooi liked Bellville Station. It reminded him of Uncle Solly’s stories about District Six – the mengelmoes of people and colours, the hustle and bustle, the music blaring out, competing from every point of the compass, the aromas of food stalls and takeaway cafés wafting at you as you walked by. His favourite clothing store just around the corner, in Durban Road: H. Schneider Outfitters. A continental name. And Outfitters. The sound of sophistication, just like their pinstriped suits and shoes and colourful waistcoats. And there, on the square at Kruskal Avenue and among the informal traders’ stalls in the alleyways and malls, you found more characters and shysters per square metre than any other place in the Cape. Look any which way and there’s counterfeit brand clothing and accessories from China, so much of it, such a racket, that you couldn’t even take a picture. If you took out your phone to snap something, the stall owners were on to you at once, ‘No, brother, please, no photos.’ They asked nicely, but there was a vague, veiled threat behind it.
