by Arno Joubert
Alexa accepted it, stood up and saluted the general. He smiled and held out his arms. He pecked Alexa once on each cheek and gave her a hug. “I am proud of you, my girl. I wish I could protect you, but this is your time to shine. To make the world a better place.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ll miss you, General.”
Laiveaux kissed her forehead. “Stay strong. Do good.”
She nodded and turned around, opened the door, and glanced over her shoulder. She smiled at the general and waved a final good-bye.
The Dalerians were in for one hell of a surprise, Laiveaux thought as she closed the door behind her.
The sentry at Laiveaux’s door pulled up the handle from Alexa’s Rimowa rolling suitcase and handed it to her. She nodded her thanks. Everything she owned was in there. Exactly seven items of clothing, which she could combine into dozens of outfits.
It also contained an electric toothbrush, makeup bag, and seven sets of underwear, still in the packaging.
She strolled to the gate where Voelkner and Latorre were waiting with a bottle of champagne. She was going to be drunk soon if the celebrations continued for much longer. They popped the cork and each took a slug out of the bottle before handing it to her.
“Are you excited, Captain?” Latorre asked.
“I must admit, I am.” She swallowed a mouthful of the bubbly.
Voelkner grabbed her shoulder. “Anytime you need our help, you know where to find us, Captain.”
She smiled and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t become a stranger now,” Latorre said, hugging her.
She nodded sadly then checked her watch. “I need to get going, men.” She hated these drawn-out good-byes.
They waved good-bye as she marched away, then they turned around and closed the large doors to the compound behind them.
She switched on her new cell phone and punched a number from memory. It was answered after one ring. “Hello, Dad, I’m out. When do we start?”
General Alan Laiveaux swigged the brandy down in one swallow. He grimaced. He never liked the taste of the stuff, only how it made him feel afterward. He eyed the cell phone on his desk speculatively.
He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke through his nostrils. Stubbing it in the ashtray, he stood up and pulled his uniform straight then paced around his office, his hands behind his back. He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number.
“General Laiveaux. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Perreira,” Laiveaux answered curtly.
“I have been expecting your call. Can you confirm the news?”
Laiveaux straightened his back, hesitating for a second. He pursed his lips and answered in Spanish. “She’s out.”
He disconnected the call, looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh.
It has begun.
CHAPTER FOUR
Phi Phi Islands, Thailand
Neil Allen followed two white-tipped reef sharks when the dive computer on his wrist sounded two sharp beeps to remind him he had been submerged for an hour. He glanced down at his dive cylinder's pressure gauge. He was still fine on one hundred twenty bar.
He loved diving the clear waters of Phi-Phi, a marine reserve off the mainland of Phuket. He calculated he had another fifty-five minutes of dive time left as long as he didn't average any deeper than forty feet.
Neil led the dive. The stunning French girl who was a member of his dive party swam up to him and signaled she was on fifty bar, ten to fifteen minutes away from empty. He couldn’t remember her name, Alice or Alexis or something. That was quick, he thought.
At the pre-dive meeting, the French girl's partner had told Neil he did not feel comfortable in performing the compulsory fifteen feet decompression stop without help, and he did not want to endanger his partner in any way. The entire party of eight divers had agreed they would deco together if someone was low on air. He remembered her mentioning that this was her first dive after qualifying a week before. Poor girl, she was probably sucking air like a bilge pump.
Neil sighed and regretfully bade farewell to the sharks disappearing into the distance. He rounded up his group and wound up the rope leading to the dive beacon on the surface. He gave it a couple of tugs to notify his skipper on the boat they were on their way up and the area above them should be kept clear. He glanced at his dive watch.
They were ascending from thirty-six feet. The group stopped at fifteen feet and hung around peering into the depths below them—a wonderland of black-and-yellow-striped angelfish, lacy red coral, and giant clams. A sea turtle laboriously made its way to the surface for a gulp of air, and a stingray glided gracefully past them a couple of feet away. Neil heard the incessant growl of a motorboat speeding through the water above his head and the faint crackle of coral below.
The water was so clear Neil could imagine he was floating in space. His dive computer beeped every ten seconds, counting down to their final ascent. Six beeps to the minute, thirty beeps to go.
Neil counted to sixteen beeps when he felt an urgent tug on his fin. The French girl was pointing wildly at her pressure gauge, panic in her eyes. He grabbed her gauge and saw she was below ten bar. He could see her sucking hard, bubbles streaming from her mouthpiece. He tapped the display, and it moved lower to five bar. He put his thumb and index finger together and flashed the OK sign, grabbed his spare mouthpiece from a buckle on his buoyancy control jacket, and gestured to her to remove hers so she could use his spare.
She vigorously shook her head, eyes wide, too scared to risk removing the life-giving device from her mouth. This was a natural reaction Neil had witnessed countless times before. A massive psychological barrier to overcome. Neil grabbed the girl by the straps on the front of her BC, pointed two fingers at her eyes, and pointed back at his eyes. “Look at me.”
She blinked and nodded. He lifted his spare mouthpiece in front of her face with his free hand and pressed the button on the diaphragm. A stream of bubbles exploded from the mouthpiece. He made the OK sign. “See? It’s working.”
She tried to grab the mouthpiece from his hand and started struggling. She bucked and thrashed about, knocking his diving mask from his head. He bit hard onto his mouthpiece, barely stopping her from ripping it out.
This one was losing it. His dive mask floated to the bottom of the reef. The saltwater stung his eyes and blurred his vision.
He held on to the front straps of her BC and gave her a hard shake. Twice. He felt his fist thump into her chest bone.
She calmed down. Fighting him was futile.
He pointed his fingers at his eyes again, twice, urgently. “Look at me, dammit.”
She nodded. He held the spare mouthpiece in his free hand and lifted one finger in a counting gesture. “One.” Stuck up another finger. “Two.” On the count of three, she took a deep breath, removed the mouthpiece from her mouth, and popped in his spare, breathing deeply. She visibly relaxed. He made the OK sign again, and she did the same. “All OK.”
He turned her around and checked the couplings on her equipment. Octo, BC inflator, gauge couplings—all OK. He turned her back. Air was pilfering from somewhere. He could see the bubbles rushing up from her BC jacket and escaping through a cavity between her jacket and chest. No time to worry about that now.
Neil looked at the LCD on his dive watch. The numbers were blurry and distorted, but he could make them out. The entire incident had lasted only forty-five seconds. They had another minute and a half left for the deco stop.
Neil glanced around at the other divers. They had formed a semi-circle around him and the French girl and were all signaling OK to him and the girl, patting them on their shoulders and backs.
The dive computer emitted a fifteen-second-long beep, and they completed the ascent without a hitch.
On their way back to Phi Phi harbor, Neil secured the French girl's buoyancy control jacket to a storage bay on the speedboat. He examined the jacket carefully and noticed a neat slit at
the bottom, on the front inside of the jacket. A clean and deliberate knife cut.
Alexa removed her equipment from the boat and dumped it in her diving bag. It was gone. She scratched around in the bag and sauntered back to the boat.
Neil Allen was watching attentively. “Everything OK?”
She nodded and looked around, scanning the inside of the boat.
He asked again, “You missing something?”
She couldn't place his accent. A Texan drawl with a slight Eastern European twang—Polish, maybe?
“Nope. All good,” she said and glanced up at him. “Thanks for the help down there. I owe you one.”
Neil looked as Bruce had described him. Above-average height, powerfully built. He didn't have the lanky, sinewy physique of a swimmer. His stomach was flat, and he had muscled arms and legs. He was obviously still keeping to his rigorous marine training regime. He was strong; the welt on her breastbone testified to that. His hair was shaven short, and he had two-day-old stubble on his face. His eyes bore the lines of someone who had seen it all.
Allen was still studying her intently. He had intelligent blue eyes. Not the eyes of a killer. Inquisitive. Gentle. She wondered if Bruce had been right about him. Could he become a cold-blooded assassin?
She ambled back to the umbrella pitched on the beach. She could feel his eyes burn into her back, suspicious, yet interested. She removed every piece of equipment and repacked them. Fins, octo, regulator. Not here.
Alexa tapped her lips with her finger, trying to remember where she could have lost it. “Shit.”
She scribbled her hotel number on a piece of paper and jogged back to Neil. “I’ll be staying over here. If you find out what happened, please let me know.”
He nodded.
“Call me even if you don’t find anything,” she said and smiled seductively.
He nodded but didn’t smile, his eyes squinting against the bright morning sun.
She had never received such a muted reaction to an open invitation before. Alexa hauled the dive bag onto her shoulder, turned around, and waved at Neil. He nodded. She headed toward the harbor.
Sergeant Neil Allen had handled himself perfectly down there. And she had a speedboat to catch.
Maputo, Mozambique
Pereirra rubbed his eyes and lifted his head from the drenched pillow. He had had the recurring nightmare, again. He grumbled, wishing there were pills he could take to get rid of the damn dreams.
He was a young boy, still healthy, jogging down Samora Machel drive in Maputo, his dad by his side. Cars and bikes blared and hooted friendly greetings. Everyone knew the man and the boy. They had become local celebrities; it was a week before his dad’s title-belt fight.
Suddenly people ran from a building, screaming, their heads ducked low. And then the ground shook and glass exploded from the building with a deafening roar. He went down in a heap; it felt like someone punched him in the stomach. He tried to stand up but couldn’t. He looked down and the lower half his leg was gone. His arm was bleeding, severed at the wrist.
He struggled to roll his father onto his back and then sucked in his breath. Where the man’s face once had been was only a hollowed-out cavity, like some thief had come and snatched his identity. Like he had become a ghost, a phantom of his former self.
Perreira shivered. It was only a dream. Realistic, but still…
He switched on the light on the nightstand and lifted his arm to glance at his wristwatch. He saw only a wrinkled stump where his hand used to be. Old habits die hard. Turned his head toward the clock radio on the nightstand. It said 4:15 am. The dull throbbing in his lower leg was a constant companion, like the dreams, a daily alarm clock which dutifully woke him up every morning.
He rolled his shoulders and massaged his neck. He still felt the adrenaline pulsing through his veins from the previous night's exertion. He lifted his right hand and held it in front of him. It trembled but was still steady enough.
He rolled onto his side and propped himself up. Leaning down, he felt for his prosthesis, then he took a lined sock and some ointment out from a drawer in the nightstand. He rubbed some ointment onto the stub of his left leg. He could still feel his toes. He wiggled them. Saw the muscles move in his thigh. He wondered if the eerie sensation would ever stop. He fitted the prosthesis to the stump and pushed himself off the bed.
He felt for the pack of Marlboros next to the clock radio and lit one. Inhaled deeply and blew smoke through his nose. Squashed it into the ashtray and coughed.
He waddled to his small kitchen, grabbed a two-liter bottle of water from the fridge, and walked down a passage to his gym. He glanced at his profile in the mirror. He had full-length mirrors installed around the room, one of the few luxuries he afforded himself. He stood up straight, studying his reflection, and winced. He was strongly built, muscular for a fifty-five-year-old. All except for the wrist on his hand which ended in a pink stump. Grotesque.
The room was large and fully kitted out. It had bar- and dumbbells, incline benches, and a spinning bike. A boxing bag hung in the corner. He fixed a Velcro strap to his elbow and tied the end around the stump, then picked up a forty-pound barbell and fitted it to the strap with a buckle. He picked up a fifty-pound barbell with his right hand and started his two-hour-long training session. After half an hour, he wiped the sweat from his brow and flexed his biceps; he was pumped. He took a sip of water and moved closer to the mirror.
Perreira scanned the newspaper clipping he had stuck to the mirror. It was written in Portuguese; he had torn it from the Mozambique Tribune the day before. It told the story of how Kruger National Park rangers managed to arrest three poachers and kill another at the Lower Sabie rest camp. They had found more than fifty rhino horns. He stared at the photo of four men proudly standing behind the rhino horns, all neatly packed on a plastic tarpaulin. Three were wearing ranger uniforms. The guy on the far right was wearing army fatigues.
“Bryden,” he hissed through clenched teeth. Bryden standing there, smirking like an idiot.
He shattered the mirror with his palm.
He pulled his cell phone from his tracksuit pocket and dialed a number. His accountant picked up. They spoke Spanish. “You need to dispose of what’s left of the package. And I need another mirror in my gym.”
The man kept quiet for a while. “Was the package to your liking, boss?”
"Yes, I enjoyed it thoroughly. You chose well.” He smiled. “You always bring me such nice gifts.”
The accountant chuckled.
Perreira pressed the disconnect button and started training again.
Perreira met his accountant at the Mardi Gras Street Cafe, a modest place with plastic chairs and tables with Formica tabletops. Black and white linoleum tiles covered the floor. In the back stood four booths, two on either side of the room. Perreira ambled toward the booth at the back, trying his hardest to walk without a gait. His left hand was stuck in his pocket. He hated weakness.
He took a seat in the far right facing the entrance. The place started to fill up with tourists in floral shirts and unpressed trousers and businessmen, smoking and reading their morning papers. A waitress dragged two metal poles with a chain in front of the booths. On the chain a sign read “PRIVATE.” These seats were reserved for the owner and his guests only. Perreira motioned her over. He asked her to crank up the air conditioner and bring him his usual.
Danny Costas, his accountant, was wearing a crumpled navy blue suit jacket with a stained yellow vest underneath. He had dark stubble on his face and a thick black mustache. He sweated profusely, mopping off his brow with a dirty handkerchief. He uncomfortably hauled his bulk into the booth in front of Perreira.
Perreira liked the guy. Reliable, well-connected. They spoke in Spanish, discussing the weather, Pacquiao’s loss to Bradley. Then the accountant started with his weekly report.
Business was good. The container had come through, and the shipment was delivered without a hitch. Their rhino horn supply was
good, and demand was higher than ever. “Bryden got our guys in Komatipoort,” the accountant said with a wheezy drawl.
Perreira winced.
“Sorry, boss,” the accountant said and licked his lower lip. “Our operation in Mozambique will be quiet for a month or two, but Tanzania should start delivering soon.”
Perreira nodded.
The waitress brought two mugs and a large French press with an Ethiopian blend, Perreira's favorite.
Costas handed Perreira the silver USB drive. “Callahan sent the numbers in electronic format.” It sounded like he gurgled the words through the back of his throat. “What should we do with the surplus funds? We have twenty million dollars in cash from the arms deal.”
“Where?” Perreira asked.
“Stashed at Lobera’s place.”
Perreira nodded then lit a Marlboro. “Keep half in the country, the other half wired to the Caymans.” He tapped the tabletop with his finger. “Don't tell Callahan. I need some operational funds. Bloody Bryden. I want the bastard and his whole goddamn family wiped from the face of the earth.” Perreira sucked his teeth. “How much of the shipment was lost?”
The accountant breathed a husky sigh and pushed the plunger down. “More than half. It's bedded down in Xai-Xai in a fishing boat on the dry dock. Local police have been paid off, but we'll need to get it into China.” He glanced up at Perreira. “Lobera and his crew are becoming greedy. Every shipment cleared is costing us more. They want twenty-five percent of the profit.”
Perreira slapped the tabletop with his palm. “Are you kidding me? Twenty-five percent for stamping a goddamn piece of paper?” he said, turning red. “Do they want us to feed the entire African continent?”
