by Reapers
“Empty your pockets.”
Harvey did so as slowly as possible, making sure the men saw each item as he removed it. The searcher inspected each item and then laid it on a wall next to the car. He made a particular show of removing the phone, wagging it about so it caught the light.
“This is all I’ve got.”
“Put all that on the wall with the rest.”
Harvey stepped to the wall, his back to the speaker. With the best bit of sleight of hand he could muster, he slipped the GPS out and placed it with the items on the wall. Without a glance at the wall or its display, the man stepped forward and patted him down.
“Nothing more.”
“Look at the stuff on the wall.”
“I saw him empty the pockets. There’s nothing.”
“Check anyway.”
Harvey’s heart sank. The game was up. The man walked to the wall and stared at the items. Keys, wallet, coins, the cell phone, and something else.
“So, what is this?” He leaned closed and read the label. “Garmin etrex H GPS. It is the tracking device.” He reached out to pick it up and at that moment it disappeared in a gray blur. The monkey, who’d evidently been attracted by the earlier flicker from the phone, had sailed out of the trees, scampered across the wall, and snatched the largest of the items in the collection.
“Chrissake, stop him.”
The man holding the gun spun and snapped off three shots at the monkey who had by then attained the tree limbs and was moving rapidly away. Had the shooter used the rifle which he had secured behind the seat, he might possibly have brought the monkey down, but with a nine millimeter pistol fired at a moving target at a distance of fifteen meters and growing…not going to happen.
“You idiot, you can’t shoot a gun here.”
“What am I to do? The monkey took the thing and is getting away.”
“They will have a backup, yes?” The taller Boer swung back and started at Jack.
“No, sorry, no time to make one.”
“We are stupid, you think?”
Harvey began to laugh. “No, we’re the stupid ones. That monkey just ran off with a half million Euros we expected to make and we still owe half of that to some of your people, I’m guessing. We couldn’t find the muck without it if we wanted to. We’re all done for now.”
Chapter Forty-nine
Gun shots are a rarity in Kasane. Heads turned. Some hearers unfamiliar with the sound assumed one of the huge tractor-trailers passing along the main highway to the ferry must have backfired. Others flinched. How to react? At that precise moment Modise had completed his call to Sanderson and laid his phone down on the seat beside him. He lifted his foot from the brake pedal and started wheeling from the curb to the road. Certain that the shots originated from somewhere close by and in front of him, he punched the accelerator. The car jerked forward. As it happened he didn’t have far to travel. At the next slight bend in the road he spotted the four men, two he recognized from Sanderson’s video tape of the incursion into the park. The other two could very well be the Boers the local police had been searching for. One of them still held a pistol up in the air and gesticulated at the fourth man.
He pulled up behind the sedan and, keeping his door between him and the shooter, he stepped out.
“Police,” he shouted and flashed his ID. “Drop the gun and put your hands on your head.”
Modise had been issued a hand gun. DIS officers and special units were usually armed. Ordinarily, like most police personnel, he did not carry it except in those rare circumstances which might warrant the use of deadly force. Traveling to the police station to confer with Superintendent Mwambe probably did not qualify as such an occasion. But so much had happened in the last few days he had clipped his to his belt. The man holding the pistol turned and took aim.
“Jan,” his companion yelled, “don’t be a fool. Not to shoot. It’s a police.”
“Kill one of them, kill two of them. What is the difference to us now?” He fired at Modise. The bullet missed by millimeters. Modise felt a tug on the fabric of his jacket. The car door window exploded into a thousand pieces. Modise felt his hands and face sting as some of the shards flew up and away. He ducked behind the panel. All of his experience with the government issued Glock had been on the gunnery range and at targets. Modise had never shot at a man. He jerked his pistol free. This would be a first.
In the cinema, he thought irrelevantly, this scene would be shown in super slow motion with people moving as if underwater. In reality he knew if he did not do something and quickly he had only seconds to live. He heard shouting, the pop, pop from the other pistol. The car rocked. By now the man opposite, whose face he noticed for the first time was fiery red, had realized he would not get his target through the door and advanced on an angle toward the car. In the adrenalin rush of the moment neither he nor Modise heard the hee-haw, hee-haw of police sirens.
Not only had everyone in the area heard and reacted to the gun shots, Superintendent Mwambe had as well. He had no doubts as to what they were and what they meant. He quickly marshaled three cars and six constables, two of whom were armed. They were on the road and on the way to the shooting scene in what seemed seconds. The police vehicles screeched up to the scene and all seven men tumbled out. Modise stood and sighted down the barrel of his gun. This was not target practice. The shooter spun, aimed at the nearest police vehicle and squeezed off a single round. A dozen shots from Modise and the police marksmen followed and the shooter dropped in his tracks.
Modise climbed out from behind his car and exhaled. He realized he hadn’t taken a breath since the first shot had been fired in his direction. He checked status of the remaining three men. The two he’d recognized from the tape were backing away, hoping to slip off in the confusion, he supposed.
“Stop those two,” he said and pointed in their direction. Three constables stepped over and blocked their escape. One of them seemed to be laughing. From relief or hysteria? Modise wondered what anyone could find amusing in this situation.
The police established a cordon around the area and attempted to wave bystanders on their way. An ambulance arrived and attendants gathered up the bleeding but apparently still living shooter. The remaining three were taken into custody and placed in cars to be transported back to the police station. Slowly the area returned to normal. Mwambe strolled over to Modise and handed him a handkerchief.
“You will need this. Your face looks terrible but I think it is not so bad. You should have someone look at those cuts, though.” Modise thanked him and mopped at his face and hands and made a face at the blood on the cloth. “Now I think we need to go back to my office and have a conversation about these events, Modise.”
“Yes, we should. Your people probably saved my life, I think, Superintendent.”
“Perhaps yes. Who can say? But it is not something we need to waste time speaking about. It is what we do. We are all policemen, are we not?”
“We are, Superintendent. We are indeed.”
Modise took one more look around the area. He realized he still held his gun in his hand. He cleared the breech, ejected the clip, and returned it to his holster. He would not need it any more this day, he hoped.
“Okay, Superintendent, let’s go.”
Chapter Fifty
A constable with paramedic training cleaned up Modise’s cuts and applied some disinfectant. Mwambe watched with a satisfied look on his face. Modise wondered if he would gloat over his success at apprehending four criminals and saving his life.
“You were very brave, Modise,” he said after the constable had excused himself and left.
“How is that?”
“If you had not confronted those men, I do not know what might have happened. I think we might have arrived to find three corpses.”
Modise shrugged. Was this true or did Mwambe have something else in mind?
“We found a high powered rifle and sniper attachments in the Boers’ automobile. I am almost
sure the ballistics will show these two were responsible for the killing in the park and the shooting of Sergeant Kgobela and the other man, him certainly”
“That will tie up some loose ends. Will the shooter live do you think?”
“It is in the hands of God. We will save the government some money in care, incarceration, and trials if he dies. Perhaps he will make a contribution to our national economy by doing so.”
“Maybe. I hope he lives long enough to tell us who he works for. I do not believe he and his partner came up here from South Africa to start this sort of trouble on their own.”
“If he doesn’t, we still have the other one. So, what do we do with the two white men who were party to this fiasco?”
“I don’t know. All we have on them at the moment is a successful but illegal entry into the park. It seems they were planting that orgonite rubbish. Oh, I am sorry, Mwambe. I forgot you are a believer in that business. I will concede it would be nice if it were true, but…”
“Never mind that now. We cannot link them to anything else in the area. It would be nice to know what they were doing with the two killers. If we question them on the reasons they ended up in that shooting spree, they will surely lie. Is there any real reason to hold them?”
“Your colleague, Sanderson, will be unhappy if we let them go, but no, I don’t see any reason to clutter up the jails with them. We have bigger problems on the horizon to concern us I’m afraid. Sweat them a while. If they don’t tell us what they were up to with the two South Africans, cut them loose.”
Mwambe snorted at the mention of Sanderson’s name. Modise let it go.
“I will interrogate them with some hard words and then release them tomorrow with the strong insistence they leave the country at once. Perhaps they will have greater luck across the border in Zimbabwe with Uncle Bob, but I doubt it.”
Modise nodded and considered how best to broach the business of the Bratva’s appearance in the area. Mwambe shuffled some papers on his desk and held one up as if to read.
“We had a fire at the home of Rra Botlhokwa. It seems suspicious. Also, we cannot locate either him or any member of his family. Can you offer any suggestions as to this?”
“Suspicious? How so?”
“Besides the evidence of petrol which points to arson, his office was completely gutted including his filing cabinets. They should have been locked if he was away, but they were open and every piece of paper in the place was burned. Also, his computer had been disassembled and its hard drive removed.”
“Someone wished him erased, it would seem.”
“Precisely. And his man Noga has dropped out of sight as well. We think he left the country.”
“Really? It is a thought or confirmed? Sanderson will want to know.”
“A source at the border said he was seen passing through the crossing into Zimbabwe this morning. I am guessing he has relatives or at least friends there.”
“Okay, that will have to do for now. I assume your source is generally reliable. Well, I do not know if this is connected or not, but there have been some serious developments in the last several days that could be related to all this.”
Modise filled the superintendent in on the bugging at the hotels, the involvement of the intelligence community, and the threats made to Greshenko and Painter. He couldn’t be sure just how much he ought to tell the superintendent, what would be his “need to know” level. He kept it simple and vague. He could fill in the details later if he needed to.
“What do you wish us to do?” Mwambe did not seem eager to be involved in international intrigue.
“For now, nothing. Leave it to us. The less you know the better. This is merely a heads-up because the American and his colleague may behave strangely for a while.”
“You mean the Russian, Greshenko. What do we do about him?”
“We will keep a close eye on him. The future? Who knows? People with associations to criminal organizations are hard to trust no matter how they protest they have reformed. For now, we just watch and wait.”
Mwambe nodded agreement. Whether he agreed with the plan or not, Modise could not say.
“As part of the surveillance and so on, there may be some clandestine meetings set up in the park which will require you and your constables to facilitate. Our concern is with the press which will be dogging the American Secretary of State during her visit. If our negotiations go well, she will meet with the North Koreans at a designated camp site in Savuti, or some similar venue. We cannot say for sure just now.”
“This is all too deep for me, Modise. I am a policeman, not a secret agent.”
“No need. If this comes to pass, you will only be asked to stall the press at the gate into the park. Check IDs or something until she is well away. The lady will presumably be on a safari drive. That’s what they will say, but she will be headed elsewhere. The press must not follow. That is all.”
“Fine, I can see to that. What is the serious thing you mentioned before, or was that it?”
“Ah. There has been an incident in Gaborone.” Modise paused wondering how much detail Mwambe needed or could handle.
“This is about the unexploded bomb in the car park?”
Bad news travels fast. Modise should not have been surprised that Mwambe had heard of the bomb. Botswana may comprise an area as large as France, but its people remained close knit. Old tribal loyalties and social connections kept people better informed than the press.
“Yes. The rumor has it that it was ordered by your missing Botlhokwa because he wanted to punish the attorney general for an impending criminal indictment. The director general does not believe what they are saying. Something else, something bigger and nastier is coming at us, I am afraid. We are looking at the beginning moves by some very bad people.”
Modise outlined the facts at hand that indicated the Bratva would be coming into the country and north to the Chobe.
“I knew that building a gambling casino up here was a bad idea,” Mwambe said. Modise tended to agree. The temptation to convert this paradise into a little Las Vegas would be too hard to resist by operators who profited from human weakness and indulgence.
“I have never met your Botlhokwa. Have you a description of him I can see?”
“Yes certainly. You wish to look for him?”
“I cannot be sure, but I think I may have found him. I must check at Sanderson’s newest tapes and inspect the park first. Then I will know.”
Chapter Fifty-one
“You see, Modise? There must be someone still in the park. The bakkie did not come out, only that broken down bush buggy.”
“I see. And you are sure this truck did not exit the park later, say after it opened. It is very close to dawn when the car exits. Could not the truck have been doing something—”
“Doing what?”
“Perhaps more orgonite, who knows.”
“It is a possibility, I guess.” Sanderson looked chagrinned. Modise had punctured her balloon.
“Mind you, I think your theory is correct, but we must consider all of the alternatives. Okay, let us say it is not more orgonite.” He twisted around in his chair and studied the cones on the table top beside him. “This is a sample of what you found out there?”
“Yes. It is scattered all over the park and in no identifiable pattern. It looks like those men just stopped here and there and dropped a few of these things off, and then moved on a few hundred meters in a different direction and did it again.”
“We could make something of that or we can assume that the whole notion is silly, so why expect anything sensible to show up in distribution patterns or anything else?”
“We can’t, I guess. Still, if I were in charge of the business, I would be thinking, ‘how can I get the most effectiveness from my things,’ you see?”
“I do. I wish I had time to dig into this further, but there are more urgent matters that must be addressed, I am afraid.”
“There are other things I do no
t know about?”
Modise nodded and reran the tape. “I cannot be sure, but the markings on that truck look like the same ones on the truck driven by the man who was shot on the Nata road.”
“It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?”
“Not likely. By the way, you can rest easier now. The man Noga, the one who threatened you, has fled the country. It is doubtful he will return anytime soon.”
“That is a big relief. You’re sure?” Modise smiled and nodded. “So what are we to make of this?”
“The only way to find out is to go and see for ourselves. Can you find the trail they made in the park?”
“It will be easier if we go into the park the way they did.” Modise stood and gestured toward the door.
Sanderson picked up her equipment, including her rifle, and led him outside to her Land Rover.
It took only fifteen minutes more or less to reach the newer opening. Sanderson let Modise undo the straps holding the fence in place and redo them after she’d driven through. They drove carefully through the forested area of the park and then out into the relatively open area defined as bush country.
“We are looking for the truck first. Once we have found it, we will see if there is anything or anybody else to discover. Will you have difficulty following the trail?”
Sanderson shook her head. The SUV bounced over the dusty ground. Sanderson scanned ahead and to the sides. Then she accelerated a little.
“You see something?” Modise squinted at the ground ahead trying to make out what trail Sanderson followed. He couldn’t see anything. No tire marks, no footprints, nothing.
“Look up,” she said. “There.” She pointed through the wind screen at the sky ahead of them. “Manong. They have come to feed. Your truck will be close by, I think.”
Sure enough, Modise saw the vultures circling immediately ahead. Vultures meant death. That meant the man, or men, associated with the truck were somewhere up ahead and either dead or dying.
“Can we go faster?”
Sanderson stepped down hard on the gas pedal and the truck shot forward, lurched through a ditch and swerved over a stretch of loose sand. Modise’s head smacked the overhead first, then the roof pillars.
