Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  47

  Lillian Alvarez did not start talking again immediately. She sat there as though gathering her strength. And when she told the story, the subtle signs of lying were gone for the first time.

  She said the last thing she expected was a love affair with her supervisor. She was so grateful and happy when she was accepted by DAMTP for her Masters degree, she looked forward to Britain, to the whole English experience. She wasn’t well travelled. Not then. No one in her family was well travelled. Her father had been to Washington, DC. She did graduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles campus. She had been to Vegas and San Francisco with her student friends, but no one in her middle-class family had even been in New York or Chicago. Never. Not to mention crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

  And then she was accepted at Cambridge. Cambridge! One of the best universities on the planet. Another country, another culture, with a history that stretched back thousands of years. The world of the Beatles and Princess Di and the Queen and Prince William and Kate. On the edge of the European continent, with the opportunity of weekends in Paris or Milan or Madrid.

  Cupido began to listen. He knew the art of being father confessor. As people started spilling all, you had to shut up, and let them talk, let them free themselves. Sometimes they needed to take long detours.

  The university was everything she had dreamed of. The first time she saw King’s College Chapel – nearly six hundred years old – it had taken her breath away. To study mathematics at the same institution that produced Newton and Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh. And Charles Babbage, the father of computers . . .

  And then, as she knew she could not put it off any longer: ‘A week after I arrived, I walked into David Adair’s office and I fell in love. Just like that,’ with a soft snap of her thumb and middle finger. There was still a sense of amazement to how she said it. It was such a shocking joy, that moment. It was a first. She had waited so long to fall head over heels in love that she had begun to suspect it would never happen to her. She had had relationships before – a school romance, and two friendships of more than a year each at UCLA. She loved them, for sure, but was never intensely in love. And then she said pensively, and without any arrogance, that perhaps it was because neither of them was her intellectual equal.

  And then David Adair happened.

  She only realised much later that he was actually twenty-five years older than she was. He could have been her father (said with the easy irony and self-mockery of someone who had verbalised it before). But it was never relevant, because their souls were equally old. She said that twice.

  They couldn’t stop talking. About mathematics, about the world, about life. About people and their ways. About food. Did they know he was a foodie? He was a good cook too, at weekends he prepared them the most delicious meals, just the two of them, Chopin on the hi-fi, the Sunday papers, a good bottle of French wine, and David busy over the cooking pots.

  But that was later. She guarded her love for him closely. Thought it was one-sided. It took him nearly two months to confess that he had ‘feelings’ for her.

  She relived it all with a strong voice, with the self-confidence that it was good and right, clearly also trying to portray him as a true gentleman: he had asked her to drive with him, please. He took her to a restaurant in Huntingdon, he didn’t want to do this in his office where the power balance of lecturer and student reigned. He bought her lunch. They finished eating. His face grew suddenly serious. He said he had thought over the matter for a long time, but he could no longer remain silent. He had feelings for her. She wanted to respond in jubilation, she said his name, and he stopped her with a hand on hers. He said, please, let him finish. He was sincerely sorry. He would absolutely understand if she wanted to change supervisor. He would help her to make the change, he would take responsibility, he would explain that his schedule had become too full. There would be no embarrassment for her. But his feelings were so strong that sooner or later he was going to do something stupid. That was why he was telling her now, before he humiliated himself and put her in an impossible situation.

  ‘And when he was done, I said, “David, I love you very much”.’

  While Mbali tried to get the best possible descriptions of the four ‘Frenchmen’ out of Nadia Kleinbooi, Griessel walked out into the hospital corridor and phoned the colonel. He explained what had happened. That there was a chance that the Cobras were still in the Cape, and that they still hadn’t got what they were looking for. And that David Adair might still be alive.

  Nyathi was businesslike, and Griessel wondered if someone was there with him. ‘Let’s meet as soon as you’re back, Benny.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He stood in the corridor and tried to process that odd feeling – half an hour ago he was resigned to the fact that the Cobras were going to get away. Now there was a chance.

  Tyrone Kleinbooi had bought them time. How much, he didn’t know.

  And the chances were slim. To track someone down quickly in this city, someone with false passports, who took professional precautions, who did not want to be found, was well-nigh impossible.

  But there was another possibility. The chances were marginally better.

  It depended on what Nadia could remember.

  He took a deep breath and walked back into the ward to go and ask his questions.

  Cupido thought she was a kwaai smart girl, so pretty, but emotionally so immature. Still he said nothing, let her tell the whole story. Alvarez said she and David Adair agreed to keep their affair secret until she attained her degree. Because, although they were both adults, morally unencumbered and not involved with third parties, a relationship between a middle-aged lecturer and a much younger student remained a serious and thorny problem in the corridors of academia. In addition, he was the DAMTP study leader who could best support her with her specific thesis. The most logical alternative was a transfer to another university, but neither of them wanted that. He insisted on the appointment of a fourth external examiner for her degree, and got one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So that no fingers could be pointed when she graduated in a year and a half, and their relationship became public.

  And then there were serious problems from what she described as ‘his position’: on the one hand, his work with highly secret anti-terrorism algorithms, and on the other hand, his protests against the British and European authorities and the banking industry. The ‘position’ meant that for security reasons he was watched like a hawk, but also that different factions would very much like to shut him up, muzzle and control him, should they get the right sort of ammunition.

  ‘What factions?’ Bones interrupted her for the first time.

  She answered quickly. Her haste, the tone of her voice betrayed something again. ‘Well, politicians, to start with. He had been fairly vocal in his opposition of privacy intrusion, and had been publicly criticising the government for not going far enough in fighting organised crime, for instance. Then there’s organised crime itself. You should see the threats he received . . .’

  ‘What threats?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Death threats.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘They didn’t exactly sign their names, but he knew it was from people in organised crime. He just laughed it off as scare tactics, and posturing. He said they would not dare, because if they killed him, the government would be forced to act. So it wasn’t in the Mafia’s interest to carry it out.’

  ‘Anybody else? The factions, I mean.’

  ‘Just every terrorist organisation in the world, of course . . . You know . . . You can imagine, I’m sure. Anyway, a lot of factions, so we had to be very careful with our relationship.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re telling us everything,’ said Cupido.

  ‘I swear I’m telling you everything.’

  He let it go for now.

  ‘So you had to be very secretive in your relationship.’

  ‘Very.’

>   ‘How did you know which bank he usually used?’

  ‘David would transfer money for a plane or train ticket to Brussels or Paris or Zurich, for me to spend a weekend with him.’

  ‘OK, getting back to the past week, could you now tell us the whole truth?’

  ‘There really isn’t all that much to say that will make a difference. I lied about last seeing him at the department Thursday a week ago. We actually spent that following Sunday in Ipswich, and much of the Monday night in my apartment. David left just after twelve o’clock that night . . .’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘To his place. That’s why I was so surprised when I went to see him at the office the next morning – we had an official appointment – and he wasn’t there. I mean, he always told me if he had to travel. But he did mention that it might happen, you know, with all his responsibilities, that he might be called away at short notice. So I wasn’t really worried then. But when there was no contact for four days . . . We’ve never been apart for that long . . .’

  ‘But you had no idea where he was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the call on Monday morning?’

  ‘OK, that wasn’t the first call. David called me last Friday night, at about eleven. It was a very short, hurried call. He just said he was fine, he had to rush off on security business, and he might be away for a while. And he said I mustn’t tell anybody that he had called.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘He did say he loved me. That’s it.’

  ‘And the Monday morning call, the early one?’

  ‘It happened almost like I told you. I did ask him where he was, and said that I had been worried, and he replied that he understood, but it’s his anti-terror work, he can’t talk about it, and everything is fine. But he said that he needed my help. And then he told me about coming to Cape Town.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Before he rang off, I told him that I loved him. And he said he loved me too. But . . .’ She shook her head slightly, as if she was unsure.

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said he loved me, but there was something . . . As if he was the tiniest bit embarrassed. As if . . . I don’t know, as if someone was listening?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. And the second call?’

  ‘I asked him where he was staying, because usually he booked us into a hotel, you know, in Paris . . . And he said he has official accommodation. So I asked when I would see him, here in Cape Town. And he said perhaps on Tuesday, if he could conclude his work. Oh, and when I was on the plane, I . . . I know I shouldn’t have, but I thought nobody would know, and I was just so damn curious. I mean, I . . . Look, if you’re really into what I’m studying, the Adair Algorithm is like the Holy Grail. It’s bleeding edge, and it must be brilliant, because David is just so . . . Anyway, I thought, maybe if I can just look at the code, what harm could there be? So I popped the memory card into my Air. And there was a ZIP file. Password protected. So I took it out again. I really don’t know what’s on the card.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s about it, really.’

  ‘You didn’t think it was a little strange that he wasn’t going to be able to see you in Cape Town?’

  ‘Of course I did. But this was the first time that David had involved me in his other work. I thought, maybe that’s just how it was . . . How he was, when he was busy with the security stuff.’

  ‘Who kidnapped him?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, too vehemently.

  ‘I think you suspect a specific . . . faction.’ Cupido put the last word in quotation marks with his fingers.

  ‘No, I don’t—’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is life and death, Miss Alvarez,’ said Bones. They could see her internal struggle. Her fists were balled, her lovely mouth pinched, her eyes darted.

  ‘The life and death of the man you love,’ said Cupido.

  ‘I . . . can’t tell you.’

  ‘Even if it means David Adair gets killed?’

  ‘Oh God . . .’

  ‘We’re on your side, Miss Alvarez. We are the good guys.’

  ‘I’m really not sure I can share this with you. It’s . . . very, very delicate.’

  ‘Do you think this delicate group is behind his kidnapping?’

  ‘I . . . maybe.’

  ‘Do you want to save him?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said emphatically. ‘But he trusted me with some very secret information, and I . . . I just don’t know . . . I mean, this is the sort of thing that could . . . It has very big implications. Internationally.’

  ‘Do you want to save him?’ asked Cupido, slow and measured.

  She began to cry. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Just do what you think is right,’ said Bones.

  ‘Oh God . . .’ Her head drooped so that the thick black hair hid her face.

  Cupido knew there was nothing he could do. They would just have to wait.

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were still filled with tears.

  48

  Tyrone bought a packet of Panados, two chicken-mayo sandwiches, and a half-litre of Coke at the BP service station’s Pick n Pay Express on the other side of Somerset Road. Then he walked in the strong, chilly northwester, to the front of the Rockwell All Suite Hotel. He sat down on the low wall between the hotel and the service station, beside the big green recycling bin, where the wall of a storeroom provided shelter from the wind.

  The pistol pressed against the small of his back and he had to shift it so it didn’t chafe him. He liked the feel of the gun there. Very empowering, he thought, and he grinned in the half-dark.

  Pickpocket with a pistol. Uncle Solly would turn in his grave.

  He swallowed two Panados with a mouthful of Coke. The wound across his shoulders throbbed with a dull, growing pain.

  From here he could see the entrance to the Cape Quarter Lifestyle Village. So he could see how long it was going to take before the cops arrived.

  He ate and drank. And he thought.

  How was he going to get the money? Conclude the transaction without getting shot in the head.

  The easy way would have been an electronic transaction, but Uncle Solly taught him long ago: Stay away from banks,Ty. They have tentacles that pull you in, you don’t want to leave tracks, you don’t want to be connected with a paper trail if a fence is prosecuted, you don’t want the tax man to come asking questions. Cash is King.

  There would be a lot of questions if a coloured outjie, formerly of Mitchells Plain, suddenly got two point four million in his bank account.

  The exchange would have to be manual. Hard cash, the hard way. But how? He couldn’t involve anyone else, because these guys were bent on murder. Look what they did at Bellville Station, even after he gave them the card. And how stupid was that? If he had been lying dead now, all they would have would be a card full of Cape tourist pics.

  ’Cause they underestimated him, thought he was just a local yokel, too stupid to be a player. Surprise, surprise, motherfucker, ma’ nou weet hulle. They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  But the fact remained: he would have to be extremely clever if he was going to get out the other end alive. He had made one big mistake himself. He thought the guy with the eyes was a lone operator. Now he knew there might be four of them.

  Four. Against one.

  Bad odds.

  He would have to be smart.

  He thought for an hour, while the wind blew stronger, and fatigue crept up on him again. Slowly he began to formulate a plan. Until the wind became too cold and miserable, and he knew the cops were not too fast when it came to cellular tracking. He stood up, walked west on Somerset, to the corner of Ebenezer. He walked into the Victoria Junction Hotel, past reception as if he belonged there, into the bar and lounge.

  He enjoyed the warm interior for a moment. There were only a few g
uests – three businessmen at the bar, a group of four men and women in a square of couches and chairs in the middle of the big room.

  He sat down at one of the small tables against the wall, where he knew no one could hear him. He took out Cellphone Number Two.

  A waiter approached, brisk and friendly. Tyrone shook his head to show he didn’t want anything.

  He watched until the waiter was far enough away, then he turned the phone on and waited for a signal.

  He called his old cellphone number.

  The guy answered a little faster this time.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hello, motherfucker, how are you?’ asked Tyrone.

  ‘I am good, because I have a future. But not you.’

  ‘Do you want the original card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have the money?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘When will you have it?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Maybe nine o’clock.’

  ‘OK, motherfucker, here is what you are going to do: tomorrow morning you are going to stack that money on a table, and you are going to take a photograph. And then you are going to take a bag, and put the money in the bag. Then you take another photograph, of the bag with the money in it. And then you are going to get your buddy to take a photograph of you and the bag. Full length, so I can see exactly what you look like and what you are wearing. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you are going to MMS me those photographs to this number. And when I receive them, I will call you with instructions.’

  ‘You will not call on this number again. We will break this phone now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. I will not negotiate on that.’

  ‘So how do I contact you tomorrow?’

  ‘On the number we send the photos from.’

  Tyrone thought. That should be all right.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘We know your sister is in hospital,’ said the guy.

  ‘If you go near my sister again, I will destroy the card,’ he said, but he had to concentrate to keep the panic out of his voice.