The Fallen

by Jassy Mackenzie

  In any case, the car had stopped at the wrong angle to allow him to do that.

  They were going to grab her. Do the job by hand and, when it was done, send her and her car over the cliff at the top of the coastal road. That made more sense, Bradley had said, and Kobus agreed. Driving badly because she’s worried about her boyfriend and scared of being out on the road alone, such a thing could easily happen.

  As they pulled off the road behind her, Kobus found himself grinning like a wolf. It had been twenty years since he’d done a job this way, and he’d forgotten how good the excitement felt.

  Man, he was flying.

  Or perhaps that was the painkillers, too.

  He wrenched his door open and jumped out. Beside him, Johan mirrored his movements.

  Now to overpower the girl.

  ‘You take …’ He was going to say to Johan, you take the passenger door.

  But then two white pinpoints winked into life in front of him, and before he could think—reversing lights?—he heard the rough spin of wheels and the howl of an engine racing. The next moment something dealt him a hammer-blow and hurled him backwards. He slammed into the ground and the world exploded into blackness.

  34

  The law of thermodynamics.

  Jade was no scientist, but her father had explained a part of that law to her long ago, when they’d gone camping in the Magaliesberg.

  They’d taken along what her father had called ‘padkos’ or food for the journey; a brown paper bag filled with tender chunks of biltong, two bars of chocolate and about eight bottles of fizzy drink. They’d eaten over half the biltong before they were even halfway there, washing it down with mouthfuls of orange Fanta. They’d shared the rest the following afternoon, at the top of the steep hill that had wonderful views of the area. Then, without saying why, her father had taken the brown bag and, instead of crumpling it up and shoving it in his backpack with the chocolate wrappers, he’d folded it carefully and put it into his pocket.

  That evening, Commissioner De Jong had set about making a beef stew inside the small, heavy, cast-iron potjie that they’d brought along with them. After adding a pinch of salt and a heaped tablespoon of chilli powder to the chunks of meat and sliced vegetables, he had held his hand over the top of the campfire, testing its heat. Clearly satisfied with the temperature, he placed the steel grill over the fire, balancing it on two wide brick supports.

  Then he’d reached into his pocket and taken out the paper bag. He’d shaken the last crumbs of biltong out of it and asked Jade to pass him one of their water containers.

  Mystified, Jade had handed the bottle over to him and Commissioner De Jong had carefully proceeded to fill the sturdy paper bag half full with cool water.

  ‘What do you think will happen if I put this on the grill?’ he’d asked her.

  Jade frowned. Was this a trick question? It couldn’t be. She could see the flames licking the steel. The answer was obvious. Or so she’d thought.

  ‘The bag will start burning,’ she’d said. ‘But don’t do it, Dad. The water might spill onto the fire and put it out.’

  Her father had smiled at her words. ‘Think so?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Then he had torn a piece off the top of the bag and put it onto the grill. In a second, the brown paper had crisped and charred, flaming briefly before falling through the diamond-shaped gaps.

  ‘Now look,’ he’d said.

  Jade had watched expectantly as he’d placed the water-filled bag in exactly the same spot. She hoped they’d be able to light the fire again when the water put it out, or what would they do for supper? To her amazement, though, the brown paper hadn’t ignited.

  ‘The water inside the bag is keeping the outside cool. It won’t burn through. Not even when the water’s boiling. That’s part of the law of thermodynamics, Jadey,’ he’d told her.

  He’d gone on to explain in more detail—she remembered him talking about entropy, the exchange of energy and temperatures—but what Jade remembered best was her shock at seeing the top of the bag, above the water level, catch fire when a high-leaping flame caught it, creating a charred, u-shaped gap that ended just where the water began. But the bottom didn’t burn. Instead, the water inside the bag had started to produce little wisps of steam. Then a bigger plume of steam. Finally, she had heard it start to bubble.

  At that point, Commissioner De Jong had wrapped a tea towel around his hand and lifted the paper bag carefully off the grill, tilting it so that the water didn’t slosh out of the burnt section. Then he’d poured the water into two enamel mugs and made them each a coffee.

  That was what Jade remembered best about that camping trip. That law of thermodynamics. The bubbling water inside the brown paper bag, seemingly impervious to the leaping flames.

  And the fact that her coffee had tasted, not unpleasantly, of biltong.

  Jade had used the same principle to mislead the men into thinking her car had overheated. Knowing they would make their move on the empty road outside town, she had stopped in a reasonably safe place, under a street light where they could see her, but where they wouldn’t risk attacking.

  She’d taken the two water bottles with her when she got out. The first she had thrown onto the verge after pouring the contents away. Then she’d loosened the lid of the second bottle and wedged it between the blisteringly hot engine block and the exhaust manifold. She’d tried to be careful, but even so she’d earned another red burn on her wrist as she struggled to push the bottle firmly in place. Then she’d slammed the bonnet, got back into her car and driven like hell.

  Driven like a woman who had known she was unarmed and outnumbered, but was hoping to make it back to safety before her pursuers caught up.

  She’d timed it just right. She’d guessed the water would take between five and fifteen minutes to reach boiling point. In fact, it had been closer to fifteen, because the bottle had only just come out of the fridge.

  When it had started to boil, she’d driven on carefully, squinting at the road through the billowing steam, as if she were attempting to eke the last possible mileage from her damaged car. She’d stopped a minute later, half off the road near the top of a hill. She didn’t want the driver on her tail to be able to see oncoming traffic, and she wanted gravity on her side. Even with these in her favour, she still hadn’t dared turn off the engine in case she wasn’t able to restart it fast enough. Thankfully the Corsa idled quietly, as they wouldn’t have expected to hear her car still running.

  Then she’d waited, checking her mirrors, her hand poised over the gear stick.

  And there they were. Pulling up confidently behind her. The doors of the Mazda flew open and Jade recognised both men who leapt out; one was the security guard from the harbour and other the gunman who’d shot David that afternoon, the bloodied bandage on his right arm evidence of her bullet having almost struck home.

  They started running the ten-metre distance up the hill towards her. They were sharp silhouettes now, backlit by the dazzling bright beams of their own vehicle.

  Now!

  Jade shoved the car into reverse and rammed her foot onto the accelerator. The Corsa shot backwards down the hill and her reversing lights lit up the face of the nearer man, his expression one of total shock.

  There was a horrible, meaty thud as the Corsa hit him square on. He was knocked backwards and she almost felt the massive thud of his skull connect with the ground. Then Jade felt the car tilt sideways and the chassis bounce violently, as her left wheels ran over him.

  Sorry, Elsabe.

  Jade braced herself as her rear bumper collided with the Mazda’s bonnet. Metal screamed, and the impact slammed her head into the car’s headrest.

  Wrenching the clutch into first, she put her foot down and shot forward. There was a crunch as the Corsa disengaged itself from the Mazda’s front bumper. It was still driveable, although the suspension felt wallowy and it rattled and shook as she eased it back onto the road.

  S
he knew she’d left the shooter unconscious and, if his ribs had pierced his lungs, he’d probably be dead before long. As for the security guard, well, his car had serious front-end damage, which hopefully meant it was no longer driveable.

  Breathless, Jade headed towards the resort. She’d done all she could for now.

  35

  People very seldom changed their ways. That was one of the axioms that Jade’s father had repeated to her, over and over again. They followed their nature. Over and over again they did what they were programmed, by heredity or environment, to do. Like animals, they were creatures of habit.

  When they behaved abnormally, what did it mean? In an animal, it was a warning sign that something was wrong, that it was sick, injured or scared.

  Were people the same?

  When Jade had first met Neil, the resort owner, he’d struck her as a diligent man. An ex-surfer. A loner who kept to himself, but worked hard to make sure that everything in his domain ran smoothly.

  After Amanda’s murder, Neil’s demeanour changed immediately. His behaviour pattern had altered. He hadn’t volunteered for the search party. He’d avoided speaking to the police. She hadn’t seen him out and about at all, apart from the one occasion when he’d been striding out of the tumbledown apartments near the old station, after his fruitless visit to flat eighteen.

  Jade had wondered whether Neil was somehow involved with the criminals, although she’d had no evidence to prove it. His behaviour was worrying her. It was like a piece of a puzzle that hadn’t fitted anywhere on the board.

  But sometimes, in order to make a piece fit, you had to look at things from a different angle. Take a step back. A good way to solve the problem, in her experience, was to pay more attention to the other pieces, checking where they were placed and whether they really fitted.

  And suddenly, in the investigator’s part of Jade’s brain, the part that had been obsessing over the reasons for this behaviour ever since she’d noticed it, the solution had finally slotted into place.

  She drove into the resort, glad to see that the security boom was being manned by a guard who waved her through.

  Jade didn’t drive directly to her chalet. Instead, she parked on the grass in front of the reception area that led into Neil’s house. His car was parked round the back. She could see its yellow bonnet, so he was definitely around.

  With relief, she got out of the Corsa, noticing that on this cool, damp night the croaking of the frogs was already at its fullest—a non-stop chorus that was all but deafening when it started up, but faded into the background after a few minutes.

  She walked up to the front door and knocked loudly.

  When Neil answered, she was going to insist that she be allowed inside, because she was sure she knew what she would find there.

  Or rather, who she would find.

  Jade was certain now that Monique the scuba instructor had not in fact left the area voluntarily; nor had she been snatched. She’d done exactly what a frightened animal would do. She hadn’t made a run for it. Instead, she had chosen to hide close to home, in a place of safety.

  With Neil, the resort owner, her boss, and now—Jade believed—her lover, too.

  She had no idea what Monique’s predicament was, but she suspected that she was somehow connected with the man whose scruffy flat Neil had visited. And Jade was going to find out why.

  She heard a noise from inside, the sound of somebody coming to the door. A key turned in the lock and the door opened to reveal Neil, dressed in his usual attire of short-sleeved shirt, swimming trunks and sandals. But he didn’t have to open his mouth for Jade to know that something was wrong. His body language spoke volumes and his eyes were full of fear. He looked at her pleadingly.

  Then he stepped aside and she saw Monique.

  To Jade’s disbelief, she had her hands tied behind her back and was being held in a headlock by the blond man, who was still wearing his Metro Police uniform. He had a pistol jammed against her temple. Looking at the uniform, Jade now realised how he had got past the security guard at the boom.

  The fake cop had been too quick for her. She had arrived too late and in too much of a hurry. Two small, but crucial mistakes. She should have asked the guard at the boom if anybody else had come through. And she should have checked the chalet area to see if there were any unfamiliar vehicles parked there.

  This was a hostage situation and, whatever the outcome for Monique and Neil, the best thing she could do right now was to run.

  But before she could do that, Jade heard a voice come from behind her. A deep, smooth voice, calm and full of confidence.

  ‘Put your hands above your head and turn around slowly. I am holding a silenced weapon and, if you hesitate, I will pull the trigger.’

  36

  The sky is completely dark when the utility van leaves the building and heads out along the long, straight road.

  It’s a plain economy vehicle. Cheap, but relatively new. The one luxury that it does have, which the driver is very glad about, is a radio. Crackly, but functional.

  The driver is listening to music that would sound totally unfamiliar to me, fascinating and somehow unsettling in its strangeness, although you must have heard it before in your comings and goings.

  On either side of the road is a landscape as bleak and barren as the surface of the moon. Smothered by darkness, only its edges are visible to the man. The van’s headlights shine over reddish-brown soil and withered shrubs.

  They aren’t the only lights on this road.

  Spaced at regular intervals, the fixed lights at ground level on either side of this narrow strip of road each have a special significance. So too do the newish steel signs whose paint is swiftly becoming weathered by the sun.

  The man reaches his destination. He gets out of the van and does what he has to do.

  The early morning air is uncontaminated by the smoke, pollution and petrol fumes that are the curse of densely populated places. But something is there. He can smell it. He sniffs it in.

  Dust.

  Last night, the winds blew strongly, churning up the fine sand—because that is all the groundcover there is in most of this drought-ridden, desertified and eroded city—and whipping it into a low-lying storm that whirled in on itself for hours, before subsiding. If you had been out in that, you would have covered your face and your eyes to get away from the incessant blasting of millions of tiny, sharp-edged grains of sand.

  A few miniature dust-devils still scud over this landscape, churning up plumes of dust into an air that is already thick with its residue. He glances up at the sky, but from his standpoint the stars are only just visible—dim pinpoints in the hazy air.

  The man pays no attention to them, though. He shivers, more from tiredness than from the cold. He climbs back inside and turns on the heater in his van, which doesn’t work as well as the radio. He executes a three-point turn and heads back the way he came.

  He is driving directly east and he can see the faintest lightening of the sky ahead of him.

  The buildings are silhouetted against it; large, low, black-edged outlines against the faint, yellow-grey glow. It’s a desolate, but strangely beautiful picture.

  The start of another perfect day in Africa.

  But he doesn’t think that, of course—why would he? For him, it is just another working day in Africa, like all the others. Filled with small, routine acts that are part of his job, but are critical to the bigger picture.

  Although this day, as it turns out, will be different.

  He lets out an enormous yawn, without covering his mouth, as the song ends and the announcer on the radio starts speaking in a language that I don’t understand at all.

  And I don’t think you do, either.

  Jade felt a terrible coldness in the pit of her stomach. She raised her hands in the air and turned slowly around.

  The speaker—a tall black man in dark clothing—had told the truth. He was aiming a silenced weapon directly at Jade’s ch
est.

  Even in the soft glow of the porch light, she could see him clearly. He had distinctive, square-looking features that, though handsome, seemed to be set in a permanent frown. Full lips curving down at the corners, a wide forehead, well-defined cheekbones and a clean-shaven head.

  Familiar features. But where had she seen him before?

  ‘Cooperate and we’ll let you go unharmed,’ he said, a promise that Jade found difficult to believe. ‘Bradley, bind her arms. Quickly.’

  ‘Yes, Zulu.’

  The next moment, her hands were yanked behind her back and she felt a tugging motion as the blond man, whose name she now knew was Bradley, secured her wrists together with what felt like a thin length of wire.

  Then, holding her arms tightly, Zulu hustled her and Monique round the back of Neil’s house and over to a black Land Cruiser that was parked out of sight of the access road. He forced her into the back seat. Monique was shoved in next to her. Jade could hear her breathing, fast and panicky, each exhalation a whimper.

  Bradley bundled Neil unceremoniously into the driver’s seat as Zulu wrenched open the passenger door. A moment later Bradley was in the back with them. He grabbed hold of Monique’s hair and forced her head down onto his lap.

  ‘Drive,’ Zulu told Neil, holding his weapon low. ‘And go carefully. If you try to warn the guard, I will shoot your girlfriend first, and then you.’

  ‘Can you tell me …’ Jade began, but Zulu turned in his seat and pointed the long barrel of the silencer straight at her.

  ‘No talking,’ he warned.

  The car started up. Neil’s driving felt jerky, but the guard at the boom noticed nothing wrong. He lifted the barrier and waved them through.

  Twenty minutes later they were at the harbour. Zulu directed Neil straight to the barriered-off section, where another uniformed guard opened the gate for them. The parking lot was almost empty.

  The black man swiftly climbed out of the passenger seat. Then he pulled Jade’s door open, dragged her out and held her by her wrists.