Beneath the Ice

by Patrick Woodhead

  Swivelling her whole body round, she could see that beyond the airport and the motorway which served it was a brief stretch of scrubland before the first of the corrugated-iron shacks of Nyanga shantytown began.

  Bear started moving forward, half stumbling, half running. Her legs dragged one after the other, while her whole body seemed to list to one side. She forced herself to keep moving, concentrating on pumping her arms and raising her knees high. Ten metres. Then twenty. With each step, the movement began to normalise and slowly her momentum built.

  There was the crack of a pistol shot. Then another. The noise seemed tinny and innocuous in such a vast open space. Checking behind her, Bear saw two of the men had stopped, their shoulders hunched as they levelled their pistols. Another crack. But even as she ran, she knew that the distance was far too great for a pistol to be aimed accurately.

  Further to the right, Bear caught sight of Frankie’s tall, spidery frame. He had managed to get down from the window and give chase, but the years of heavy smoking were taking their toll. He trotted forward as fast as he could, feet shuffling over the ground while his pistol hung limply from his right hand. He was trying to make up the ground between them, but even he knew the futility of his pursuit. The threat was from Predesh’s personal security team and Bear knew it. Her only chance was to outrun them.

  She pushed on, the countless morning runs making her body respond automatically. As she crossed the furthest tip of the runway and reached the sandy ground of the outer perimeter she saw the fence line directly ahead of her. It was maybe ten foot high, with a single coil of razor wire running its length. Bear sprinted towards it, raising her hands, fingers outstretched in anticipation. Checking her stride, she sprang upwards, nearly reaching the top of the fence in a single bound. Her body smashed into the metal links, sending a reverberation along its length as she grabbed on to the razor wire and pulled herself higher.

  The wire bit deep into her palms and Bear cried out in pain as she bundled herself on to the top. Teetering at the apex with her back arched like a cat, she tried to pause for a split second and catch her balance, but instead, simply toppled over, landing flat on her back with a heavy thud. She groaned, her hand reaching up to the back of her head to where a fist-sized chunk of hair had been ripped out by the wire.

  Just ahead of her now was the busy N2 motorway, beyond that the first shacks of Nyanga shantytown. Crude corrugated iron sheets had been nailed together, barely big enough to shelter a single bed, while old shopping bags and scraps of tarpaulin were patched together to form roofs. These stretched on for mile after mile, a sickening mass of poverty and human suffering.

  Nyanga – the single most violent place in the Cape Flats. It was a place ungoverned by law, where violence ran unchecked through the streets, like the streams brimming with rotting plastic and human effluent.

  Bear dragged herself to her feet. Dodging the line of cars hammering down the motorway, she stumbled into the open arms of the shantytown. She passed one shack, then another, venturing deeper into the sea of corrugated-iron sheeting until it stretched around her in every direction like an apocalyptic city of ruined metal.

  For all its horror, Nyanga had one saving grace – it was the one place where white men feared to tread.

  Chapter 16

  FROM THE FAR south of False Bay, a thunderstorm rolled in across the Cape Flats. The skies grew dark, bruising to a deep purple as a wall of rain steadily moved in from the sea and on to the parched land. Soon, the entire city became breathless and charged with electricity, everyone waiting for the release of the first strike of lightning.

  As the rain began to fall in earnest, Bear forced herself to a halt. Her chest heaved from such a prolonged sprint, while her forehead and neck glistened with sweat. She looked one way, then the next, already feeling disorientated by the endless labyrinth of shacks.

  Her clothes . . . She had to get rid of her office suit or they would immediately peg her as an outsider despite the colour of her skin. Leaning over a ramshackle wooden fence just to her right, she saw two rows of laundry still hanging on the spider’s web of electricity lines that spread out across the shantytown. The clothes flapped like prayer flags in the new breeze – the single burst of colour in an otherwise drab landscape.

  Bear hopped over the fence, suddenly noticing a woman lying on her side by the back entrance to the shack. She was rounded and porcine, with a band of indelible fat stretching across her buttocks and stomach, while her weather-beaten face was of indeterminate age. She was slumped on the ground, snoring, inches from the smouldering remains of a cooking fire, while flies buzzed from one part of her body to the next.

  Pulling a bright purple sarong off the line, Bear swapped it for her charcoal grey skirt. She then went to take off her shirt, but as soon as she raised her arms above her head there was a stabbing pain in her side. She stared in confusion, gently dabbing her fingers across the line of her ribs until she noticed a small puncture wound, no bigger than a pencil nib. It ran right through her, from just under her right breast to where it exited from her side. A piece of shrapnel from the jet engine must have hit her, and as soon as she pressed her fingers lightly against the wound, a trickle of blood oozed out and ran down her side. She stared at it for several seconds, thanking God that it hadn’t been a few inches lower and nearer to the baby.

  After a couple more gentle dabs with her forefinger, Bear decided that there was nothing she could do about the wound right now. It was just going to have to wait.

  Moving further down the line of shacks, she found a low-cut, black T-shirt that was greyed from age, followed by a short length of orange fabric to tie around her hair. The flashcard Lotta had given her was still wrapped in a paper napkin. Pulling it from the pocket of her skirt, Bear stuffed it into her bra. She then stared at her mobile phone, knowing that they would soon be tracking her on it. But she had to try and get hold of Luca one more time. Just once. For now, she told herself, it was worth the risk.

  Sliding two credit cards from her purse, she quickly counted out what cash she had been carrying. She had nearly four hundred euros, but the crisp notes were as good as useless out in a place like Nyanga. No one here would even have heard of the currency. Other than that, there was some change in South African rand, only two hundred bucks at most. It’d be enough for a taxi ride back to the City Bowl, but that was it.

  Just as she was about to leave, she crouched next to the old woman’s fire and dug her fingers into the burnt-out ash. She then rubbed it across her cheeks, greying out her clean, freshly moisturised skin and dulling the last of her lipstick. Emptying the remaining contents of her purse into the embers, she watched as the various receipts flared up in a quick orange flame and then, with a flick of her wrist, tossed the handbag into the interior of the shack. Bear only hoped that the old woman would figure out what the thing was worth. It’d buy nearly a year’s worth of groceries in this neighbourhood.

  There was a yellow jerry can, stained and old, sitting on the ground nearby. Bear swung it up. She clambered back over the fence, and balanced the can on the crown of her head as she had done as a little girl in the Congo. Arching her back, she continued down the line of shacks with the ubiquitous gait of an African woman performing her daily chores.

  A white Toyota Land Cruiser turned left out of the airport, its engine revving as it powered along the open road towards Nyanga. Inside were the four men from Hara Predesh’s security detail.

  The driver, Johan Botha, was the only South African in the group. He had joined Pearl’s usual security team as a local ‘fixer’ and to help orient them on their arrival in Cape Town. But as he had soon discovered, the Americans were a tight bunch. They were all former US marines, two of them having completed a tour of Laghman Province in Afghanistan together before discharge when they turned to close protection. Johan had learnt a great deal about them in the last two days, with the Americans talking almost as much as they fidgeted with their weapons.

  As the
y reached the outskirts of Nyanga, all four passengers stared out of the Land Cruiser’s windows, craning their necks to look down each street.

  ‘Shit!’ shouted the American in the passenger seat. His name was Darin Perez, a former sergeant in the US Marines and leader of the security detail. He was slimmer than the other two, with a pointed, rat-like face and pallid skin. His right knee bounced up and down with impatience as his eyes moved from one person to the next in the crowded streets, never settling for more than a second on each figure.

  ‘We’ve got to get closer to the airport fence line,’ he said, jabbing a finger against the window. ‘Take a left.’

  Johan hesitated, not wanting to leave the busy flow of taxicabs on the main Terminus Road.

  ‘Come on! Left!’ Darin repeated, this time banging his fist against the glass.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Johan retorted, dragging the steering wheel round and turning them into the first of the side streets. Only a few hundred yards on the brick houses disappeared and the streets grew narrower, riddled with potholes.

  ‘You guys need to understand something,’ Johan explained as the rain began to drum against the front windscreen. ‘We stay in the vehicle at all times.’

  He switched on the wipers, causing a smear of red dirt to stretch across the windscreen. Behind him, the two Americans on the back seat exchanged glances with one of them mouthing the words ‘Chicken shit’ to the other. They had seen nothing but women and schoolchildren out on the streets, with the only potential danger coming from the erratic driving of the local taxis.

  The car drove on, bouncing slowly across the potholes as a group of about ten teenagers appeared, hanging out on the corner of the next intersection. They leant against a low wall smoking old cigarette butts and wearing a ragtag collection of school uniforms and hooded tops.

  There was an air of listlessness over the entire group, all of them seemingly oblivious to the onset of rain. Their movements were slow and apathetic, heads bent low, chins almost touching their bony chests as if engaged in some kind of protracted prayer. Only two of the group were standing up straight, with the nearest teenager to the road openly holding a panga in his right hand. He waved the machete lazily from side to side, illustrating some point to his friend like a professor with a marker pen.

  ‘Kids,’ Darin muttered dismissively.

  ‘Yeah, they’re kids. But those are the Vatos gang from Zwelitsha.’

  ‘So? They got a couple of machetes. Big deal.’

  ‘There’ll be another twenty or thirty kids like that close by in the neighbourhood. And these have just scored a hit. That’s why they’re doped out like that. The tik makes them feel dizzy.’

  The American shrugged, not knowing the local term for crystal meth on the Cape Flats, but it seemed to him that a drugged-out gang like this could only be to the visitors’ advantage. They needed to get in and find the girl. If they had to step around some doped up kids, then what the hell.

  Johan jammed the gear lever into first as the front wheels of the Land Cruiser dipped into a muddy pothole.

  ‘But that’ll only last for twenty or thirty minutes,’ he continued ominously. ‘Then they’ll be fired up and awake for days. The tik makes them invincible.’

  Darin raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Johan continued. ‘It took three of us to hold down a fifteen-year-old boy jacked up on that stuff a few months back. Fucking animal sank his teeth into my arm.’ He raised a hand, gently massaging the old injury. ‘Had to have a rabies shot and everything.’

  Darin gave a snort, then half-turned towards his companions in the back seat.

  ‘Eyes open,’ he ordered. ‘She’ll have changed out of her clothes if she’s got any sense, but she’s tall and slim, and it looked like her balance was shot by the explosion.’

  The car trundled on, pausing by the narrow opening to each shack. There were few occupants visible. Women sat by weak, smouldering fires, sheltering from the rain, while grubby children with lines of snot running from their noses stared from behind their grandmothers’ backs, surprised to see such a plush vehicle pass by.

  The air felt close, the approaching thunder making the men’s shirts cling to their backs with sweat. The sky became darker still, turning the sea of metal houses into a uniform block of colour, while all around them the streets of Nyanga stretched on and on. Johan reached forward, cranking the air conditioning. Seconds later he sighed as the flow of cool air washed over him.

  They followed the same narrow track until it led out on to an open area in the middle of Nyanga where they drew to a halt. A small crowd had gathered there. Judging by the brightly coloured clothing, most of them were women. They huddled around open barrel fires cooking meat in the Tshisa stands, sheltering under old tarpaulin that had been stretched across crooked wooden frames. A few of the taxicabs had stopped en route to allow their clients the chance of a quick meal.

  The Americans stared out of the window, watching the locals go about their business. As the rain began to fall from the sky, some had raised umbrellas above their heads as they moved from one side of the square to the other, while others simply tried to shield themselves with plastic shopping bags. Along one side of the square was a line of small shops with adverts for Coca-Cola and MTN cell phones hand painted on their wooden walls. Behind the small hatches lay the shop’s entire inventory, with the shelving half bare.

  ‘This is where I’d come if I had to blend in,’ Johan said. Then, seeming to check himself, added, ‘If I were black, that is.’

  ‘What do you think the chances are she even came this way?’ Darin asked impatiently.

  ‘Fifty-fifty, but we’ve more chance of finding her here than going door to door. It’s a fucking rat’s maze out there.’

  ‘Why the hell can’t they just triangulate her cell phone?’

  ‘They’re working on it,’ Johan said, checking his own phone to see if any message had come through. ‘But you got to remember something, my China. This is Africa. Things don’t exactly run like clockwork round here.’

  Darin snorted, his disapproval a broad stroke that usually encompassed anything not American. As the minutes passed he became more and more agitated, his knee bouncing in constant spasm, while an unintelligible mutter came from somewhere between his clamped jaws. Unable to bear it any longer, he threw open the side door and stood against the vehicle’s wide bonnet while he lit a cigarette. Ignoring the weather, he breathed out a cloud of smoke directly above him, expelling it high into the air as if trying to combat the falling rain.

  Two schoolchildren hurried past the car, one boy sheltering another with the open fold of a newspaper. As they drew level, they suddenly stood still. Darin’s arm had crooked upwards as he raised the cigarette to his mouth and the younger of the two had seen the American’s sidearm under the flap of his flannel jacket. Darin spotted their expressions and, tilting his hips round a little more, held his arm aloft, allowing them a good look at his pistol. It was a Beretta M9A1, the trusted 9mm of the US military, and a weapon he had carried almost every single day since his discharge. He gave a self-assured smile, knowing how such firearms had impressed him as a child.

  The two boys didn’t react, only scurrying on under the pouring rain. They rounded the side of the nearest Tshisa stand, waving away the plumes of meaty smoke. The elder of the two saw one of his uncles in a parked taxicab, passengers already crammed into the back seat waiting to be off. The child ran over to the open driver’s window and whispered something.

  The uncle’s broad face remained impassive behind his fake Armani sunglasses. He listened to the boy before swatting him away with a flick of his wrist and letting his eyes slowly drag across to the other side of the square and the parked Land Cruiser.

  Shifting in his seat, the man pulled at the front of the dirty brown singlet he was wearing, releasing the fabric from a patch of sweat that had collected at his midriff. He always wore a singlet and it was little to do with the heat. It made sure
his upper arm was visible, in particular the number 28 crudely tattooed on it in dirty blue ink. The numbers related to his time spent at Pollsmoor prison, and signified that he had either been arrested for rape or murder. In fact, he had done both, but only been convicted of the latter offence.

  The news that the wazungu were carrying pistols changed everything. A lot of the charities and NGOs used the same kind of white Toyotas and would occasionally pass through Nyanga, especially during the day. But invariably they had nothing to steal. Pistols on the other hand . . . they were more prized than drugs or money.

  Picking up his cell phone from the well by the handbrake, the man quickly dialled a number. It connected through to another 28 from the neighbouring township of Khayelitsha and the taxi driver spoke to him quickly in his native Xhosa, telling him to bring the guns they had stashed away after a break-in, plus as many of their crew as were on hand. As the line went dead he stared enviously across at the mzungo standing outside the car smoking a cigarette.

  A crooked smile appeared on the taxi driver’s lips, revealing the gap where his two front teeth should have been. He wanted that pistol. Pistols gave a man power. Then, as the side door of the taxicab slid open and a middle-aged woman peered in, the smile faded.

  ‘You going to Philipi?’ she asked, stepping halfway into the vehicle.

  ‘Voetsek,’ the driver replied, not bothering to turn round. Get lost.

  Without a murmur of complaint, the other passengers already waiting inside the taxicab slowly got up from their seats and dispersed into the crowd in search of alternative transport. Something was about to go down and they knew enough to be as far away from it as possible.

  Bear stared through the haze of smoke rising up from the barrel barbecues. The Toyota had been waiting on the edge of the square for the last twenty minutes and she felt she was becoming more and more exposed. Predesh’s security team must somehow have found out where she was and were waiting for her to make the first move.