by Tony Park
‘You haven’t spent enough time in South Africa. This is par for the course here in Johannesburg.’ Van Zyl took the Sig Sauer nine-millimetre pistol from the tool bag on the floor under his feet, screwed on a silencer and cocked the weapon. He looked at each of his men, reassuring himself the resolve was still there. ‘Ready?’
Tyrone Washington nodded. Built like an ox, but anything but dumb, Tyrone was a man not afraid to do whatever it took to complete his mission. The fact he was black – African-American – was a bonus on this job. It would have looked suspicious for a team of all-white South African electricity workers to show up to a job. Tyrone had been a Force Recon gunnery sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, but an investigation into the shooting in Baghdad of four civilians, three women and a fourteen-year-old boy, had ended his career. The way Tyrone told it, the boy would have ended up a suicide bomber, and the time spent with one of the women, before her death, had yielded the name of a senior insurgent.
‘Ready,’ said Billy Tidmarsh. Billy was from Portadown, Belfast, and a British Army recruitment sergeant had saved him from a stint behind bars as an eighteen-year-old petty thief. He’d served with the Parachute Regiment, in his native Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. It wasn’t his drinking that stopped him from making sergeant – just the number of noncommissioned officers he had knocked unconscious in drunken pub brawls. He was steady, as long as he was off the booze. These days he drank when Piet van Zyl told him to.
Ivan was a second generation Russian Spetsnaz – special forces. His father had been killed in Afghanistan when Ivan was a baby and the son had used his two tours in Chechnya as a chance to kill as many mujahideen as he could in retribution.
Van Zyl’s cell phone vibrated silently in the front pocket of his overalls. The prepaid SIM card number that flashed on the screen belonged to Enrico Alvarez, the fifth member of the team, who was on light duties because of the bullet that had passed through his right upper arm and the other one that had hit his body armour chest plate and knocked him overboard from the Penfold Son. Enrico would not take part in the raid, but instead was following the lady of the house, Lisa Novak. He was driving a small, nondescript rental car, an automatic as his arm was still in a sling.
‘Ja?’ said Van Zyl.
‘She’s just gone into the Pick ’n Pay. She’s taken a list from her handbag so it looks like she’ll be a while in the supermarket.’
‘Stay on her.’ Van Zyl ended the call and turned into the Novak family’s driveway, stopping in front of a metal sliding gate, also topped with razor and electrified wire. He wound down his window and pushed the call button on an intercom mounted on a post.
‘Hello?’ said a female African voice on the other end.
Van Zyl knew, from his reconnaissance, that there was a live-in maid. He told her in Afrikaans that he was from Eskom and that he and his men were here to trim some tree branches which overhung the security fence and were too close to a power line. The idea of posing as an electricity worker had come to him as soon as he’d seen the branches, which were very close to overhead cables. It was an indication, he’d thought at the time, of a husband away from his home for too long. Mark Novak had been a model soldier – a by-the-book Recce Commando who’d made warrant officer. He was the son of a Polish immigrant and a South African mother of English descent and that made him a damned Englishman, or rooineck, as far as Van Zyl and the other Afrikaners in the Recces were concerned. Van Zyl had been on the receiving end of an embarrassing dressing-down from Novak when the other man had been his section commander in South-West Africa many years earlier. Van Zyl had kicked a bound SWAPO prisoner and Novak had ordered him to stop mistreating the black terrorist. The visit to Novak’s house wasn’t personal, however. It was business.
‘The madam didn’t say anything about Eskom coming today. You can call her cell phone. Here is the number . . .’
Van Zyl cut the woman off. ‘I don’t have a cell phone. Let me come in and use yours.’
‘The madam will be home soon.’
‘Fine,’ Van Zyl said with an air of resignation, ‘we can trim from the outside, but it will mean I have to shut the power off for three hours. You can explain to the madam when she gets home why all the meat in her deep-freeze has defrosted.’
The gate started to roll open. Two dogs, a massive boerboel and a barking Alsatian, bounded towards the bakkie. The maid, Van Zyl was pleased to see, had made the mistake of coming outside, drying her hands on her apron and calling the dogs to heel. Van Zyl got out first and walked towards her. As he did, he extended his hand, palm down and fist closed for the dogs to sniff. Each did so and, with the tacit approval of the maid, accepted his petting and words of greeting.
‘I think you were right about calling the madam,’ he said to the maid. ‘Perhaps I should call her. Where’s the phone?’
A bridge had been crossed when the woman had pushed the button opening the electric gate. She nodded and walked back inside the sprawling house, which was painted a honey tone in what Van Zyl assumed the owners would have described as Tuscan style. Once they were out of sight of the dogs he drew the Sig Sauer from his holdall, lifted it and shot the maid in the back of the head.
The rest of them moved fast, stepping over the woman’s body without a second glance. The dogs, on the other side of the barred security door, barked and snarled at Tyrone, but calmed when Van Zyl walked over to them, making soothing noises and patting them. He decided to spare them.
He pulled on latex surgical gloves and pressed the start button on the laptop computer in the study. Tyrone pulled photograph albums from a bookshelf and flicked through them. As planned, Billy went past them and found the master bedroom, where he set to work emptying clothes drawers around the room, to leave the appearance of a burglar searching for hidden cash. Ivan checked the refrigerator door and magnetic noticeboard in the kitchen, then smashed bottles of condiments and splashed the contents of a carton of milk on the floor.
‘Hey, I found some readies.’ Billy held up several thousand rand in bundles as he entered the study.
‘Then the beers are on you,’ Van Zyl said, not taking his eyes off the computer.
‘Anything useful?’ Tyrone asked. ‘These photos are from the ark, man. Wedding stuff, baby photos. These kids must be in college by now.’
‘This looks interesting,’ Van Zyl said. The other two moved behind him. ‘Mozambique. When I spoke to the woman she told me her husband was working as a dive instructor somewhere on the coast, then she clammed up.’
‘I thought you said this guy had worked as a contractor in Iraq?’ Tyrone asked.
Van Zyl nodded. ‘No one gives up a thousand bucks a day and then comes home and leaves a beautiful wife in Jozi to go teach backpackers how to scuba dive. Here we are.’
He leaned back in the swivelling office chair so the others could see. It was a picture of Lisa Novak and six other men. They were all fit and muscled, their height and bulk dwarfing the petite, attractive middle-aged blonde. Behind them was a whitewashed building – a hotel judging by the rows of identical balconies. Van Zyl clicked on the magnifying icon and enlarged the photo, until the name of the place, in raised black letters above the entranceway, was visible.
‘Ilha dos Sonhos,’ he said. He clicked ‘print’ and heard the whir of the printer next to the computer coming to life. His mobile phone vibrated again. ‘Ja?’
‘She’s moving. She was only in the supermarket five minutes, then she turned around and left her trolley in the middle of the aisle. Before that she was checking her handbag and cursing. I think maybe she left her pocketbook at home,’ Enrico said.
‘Go,’ Van Zyl said to Billy and Tyrone. ‘Get Ivan and get in the bakkie. I’ll buzz you out through the gate. Wait for me around the corner, to the south.’ His men obeyed him immediately.
The woman would be alarmed if she opened her gate and saw a strange vehicle inside. She might try to call the maid or, worse, Eskom or the police on her
mobile phone. It was not part of the plan that she come home to find a house full of men and a dead maid. With more time Van Zyl would have found the names of the men in the photograph with Novak. There would be phone directories, or other pictures with captions, or emails which could be cross-referenced to holiday snaps.
He continued to search through the computer files and was checking her emails when he heard the metallic rumble of the gate’s wheels on its track. He’d found more pictures featuring some or all of the men again, but no names. Unfortunately for Lisa Novak there was no alternative left to him.
‘Trudy? Are you in there? I’ve forgotten my purse, please can you fetch it?’
He heard the click of her high heels on the tiles and the security door swing open and he stepped from the office into the hallway. He saw her lift a hand to her mouth when she saw the prone figure of the maid, the pool of blood spreading from one side of the corridor to the other. She looked up and saw him, recognition slowly dawning on her face.
‘Hello, Lisa, remember me?’ He would take her, he decided, and use her for his pleasure, either as part of the interrogation, to shame her, or afterwards. It would depend on her.
The recognition widened her eyes. ‘You called, about Mark.’
‘That’s right. I know what he’s doing, Lisa, in Mozambique. All I need from you are the names of the men in this photograph, and which one’s in charge.’ He held up the glossy A4 print that was still damp to his touch.
‘Why should I tell you anything, Piet? You’re only going to kill me, like you did her.’ She looked down at Trudy.
‘That’s not true, Lisa. Mark’s gone bad – he’s a pirate. I’m not a policeman, but these men took something from my employer that doesn’t belong to them. I only want it back.’
She continued to look down at the dead woman. ‘I’ve got their names and numbers in my cell phone. I’ll give them to you.’ She started to reach into the designer handbag slung over her shoulder.
‘Wait! Don’t move. Toss the bag to me.’
But his words were too late. He was disappointed, more than anything else, when he saw the chrome work of the small automatic pistol appearing from the bag. ‘Drop it,’ he said, though he knew, and respected her for it, that she would do no such thing.
‘Fuck you,’ she said, raising her arm.
Piet van Zyl did this sort of thing for a living. There was no way he could be outdrawn by a housewife. He fired twice.
12
After weeks cooped up on board the cargo ship, and the idyllic but simple landscape of the island’s white beaches and palm trees, Jane was experiencing sensory overload on mainland Mozambique.
She’d guessed her experience of Africa, if she had arrived as planned, would be limited to boardrooms, hotel beds and perhaps a trip to the top of Table Mountain. There was nothing familiar or reassuringly mundane about this vibrant country.
Colour. It was everywhere around her. The rich, vibrant greens of a lush vegetation thriving in the humid coastal climate; the multihued blues of the sky and water; the patchwork brilliance of street markets selling the ripest, reddest tomatoes she’d seen in her life; the garish prints and colours of men’s shirts and women’s wraps that would have been obscene on a tourist but seemed somehow natural on the Portuguese-and Xitswa-speaking residents of this cash-poor coastal paradise.
Alex looked at ease and happy, freed of the responsibilities that weighed on him on the island. He joked and laughed with women in the street stalls, addressed barmen by their first name, and surprised small children with his knowledge of their native tongues.
They completed their shopping for the coming road trip in a small but well-stocked supermarket, which had toiletries and foodstuffs they hadn’t been able to buy at the local market. Afterwards, he left her to freshen up in the simple bungalow in the spotless Palmeiras resort complex where they were staying the night.
Jane stepped from the cold shower, which was a relief after the intense beat of the sun on her head and the heavy air through which one waded rather than walked. She dried off and dressed in a short denim skirt and a white halter top. God, it would be good to get back into her own clothes.
She walked out onto the wooden deck in front of the hut and found him waiting at the foot of the three stairs. He was wearing jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved and she thought the stubble suited him.
‘For you,’ he said, holding out a bougainvillea blossom. She put it behind one ear. ‘Very tropical. I love these little bungalows, don’t you?’
‘Sure. They’re nice and clean,’ she said.
‘Simple, but elegant. Nice linen, clean, unpretentious. How do I take those ideals to a five-star international hotel?’
‘Don’t ask me about interior design, I’m a lawyer. Your suite was lovely, though.’
‘You think so? Thanks. The Royal Marines doesn’t exactly qualify you as an expert in soft furnishings, but I’m enjoying turning my mind to something different.’
They drove along the sandy road that ran parallel to the beach, back past the Dona Ana Hotel to a restaurant and bar that would have overlooked the bay if not for the grassy mound that blocked out the view. Jane guessed the lack of an outlook was not a bad thing during the cyclone season. The place was called Smugglers and the logo on the sign was a comical one-legged parrot dressed as a pirate and holding a tankard of beer. ‘How very appropriate,’ she said. Alex smiled.
The single-storey building had a tin roof, a concrete floor and wooden stools and tables that were probably designed to be too heavy to heft during a fight. Some of the characters that started rolling into the pub as the sun sank looked as hard as the slats Jane was sitting on. Alex pointed out fishermen, charter-boat operators, ex-mercenaries turned dive instructors, and more than one criminal.
Music blared from a music station on a satellite television above the bar and a mixed group of black and white men in mobile telephone company T-shirts played round after round of pool. Outside, floodlights illuminated a sand volleyball pitch and by eight the place was full to capacity. Soon they were shouting above the music and chat and laughter of the patrons around them, just to be heard.
Jane was ravenous, and between them they quickly demolished a platter of lobster, giant prawns, crab cakes, fish and chips. They washed the food down with icy Dois M beers from big bottles.
‘This is a fun place,’ she yelled.
Alex nodded. ‘It makes a change from the island. Sometimes it’s good to mix with new people.’
Jane looked over her shoulder and saw a raven-haired South African woman, one of a group of five girls who were attracting charter operators and divers as desperate as the four annoying kittens that mewed at their feet under the table. The woman was looking at Alex, trying to catch his eye. When Jane looked back he was looking at her, not the brunette. ‘I can see what you mean.’
At a roared request from someone in the crowd the barman turned up the volume on the music channel. Alex leaned closer to Jane, resting his hand on the back of her stool. ‘What?’ His fingers brushed her forearm and it felt like a jolt of electricity through her body.
‘I said, “I can see what you mean”!’ She gestured back to the dark-haired woman with a flick of her head.
Alex grinned and said into her ear, ‘I only have eyes for you, Jane.’
She laughed, but her heart was pounding fast. ‘You said we’ve got an early start. I think we should go back to the lodge now.’
The red sun was still sluggishly freeing itself from the ocean as they left Vilanculos and drove north on the EN1, Mozambique’s main coastal highway.
Behind them was the truck full of wildlife, driven by one of the Africans who had met the Fair Lady at the remote rendezvous site. On the bridge over the Save River they stopped to pay a toll, and then had to stop at a police roadblock. Jane couldn’t help but be nervous as a policewoman in a blue uniform took what seemed an age to check Alex’s registration paper, driver’s licence and passport. When
she started asking questions in Portuguese Alex pulled a letter from the breast pocket of his safari shirt and smiled at her. She waved him through at that point, and Jane wondered if the letter had something to do with the corrupt Captain Alfredo.
‘The women are the worst,’ he said as he checked to make sure the lorry was waved through in their wake.
‘By worst, I take it you mean the most efficient?’
‘The most honest.’
It was a quiet road and most of the few other vehicles they saw were smoke-belching trucks laden heavily with long, dark hardwood logs, which Alex said were pod mahoganies. He swore as he pointed one out to her. ‘They’re raping this country. That timber’s destined to be made into furniture in Asian countries that have decimated their own forests. Also, the locals are still into slash-and-burn agriculture, clearing the land for peanuts and other cash crops. They don’t even sell the timber they cut. It’s criminal.’
She saw the anger in his dark eyes. Where, she wondered, did he draw the line in terms of his own morality? Who was he, a man who used terror and military tactics to rob honest traders, to condemn other businessmen who took advantage of an African country’s poverty? On the other hand, his passion for the environment touched something in her.
‘Mozambique has been pillaged for centuries,’ he carried on, steering with one hand and waving with the other to emphasise certain points. ‘The province we’re in now, Sofala, is named after the original Arab name for the port of Beira, from where ivory, slaves and gold were shipped. After the Arabs came the Portuguese, then we had Russian advisers here shooting wildlife from helicopter gunships, and now Chinese merchants. Mozambique needs a chance to heal itself, to recover properly instead of being someone else’s larder, to be emptied whenever they’re hungry for resources.’
At the small town of Inchope Alex pulled three cans of Dois M from the car fridge while they waited in a garage for both vehicles to be topped up with fuel. He took one can to the driver of the truck, and handed the other to Jane as he got back behind the wheel and started the engine.
