Vengeful: A Conspiracy Crime Thriller (The Gabriel Series Book 3)

by David Hickson

  Fat-Boy took a deep draught of his beer and belched.

  “I’ll handle it, Colonel, don’t worry.”

  “Suggest the Fidelity truck as an afterthought. Don’t push it. Mention you’ve used them, but leave it at that.”

  “You’ve told me all this, Colonel, I’ll be fine.”

  “One false move and your homeboy will walk out of here, Fat-Boy. Let’s do this properly.”

  Fat-Boy took another draught of beer and belched again.

  “I make the first bit seem easy,” he said.

  “That’s right. Getting the gold onto land and into their warehouse is the easy bit. Laugh it off, make it seem simple. Nothing to worry about. It will be his men with the Fidelity truck, eyes on it all the way to their warehouse. What are his questions?”

  “What if he doesn’t want to use his warehouse?”

  “Be open to any suggestion he has. We can always change location, but remind him about the roadblocks. He doesn’t want to leave the docks with that gold in the back of the truck.”

  “What if he wants his men to ride in the truck with the gold?”

  “No can do, it’s not even an option. No discussion – tell him the back is air tight. Does he want his men dying of asphyxiation?”

  “What if he wants to use one of his own trucks?”

  “Laugh at the suggestion. Is he going to risk all that gold in a tin can truck that carries bottles of women’s ointments? The Fidelity trucks are like military tanks. They are giant safes on wheels, that’s what you tell him. Once the gold is loaded into the truck, it is safe. Those beasts can withstand mortar attacks; you can throw grenades at them.”

  Fat-Boy drank some more beer.

  “I’ve got it, Colonel, it’s gonna to be easy as pie.”

  “Play it carefully, Fat-Boy. Don’t be overconfident.”

  Fat-Boy blew through his lips so they flapped in the wind to show what he thought of that.

  “We need a few days, but not more than a week,” said Chandler. “Don’t give him too long to snoop around and ask questions or try to dig up more of your background. It’s pretty thin.”

  “I’ll give him two days,” said Fat-Boy. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Two days is not enough. Five days is what we need.”

  Which was why we had two days for our preparations. The meeting between the two men went surprisingly well. Lebogang arrived on time, and the two muscle-bound men he had brought with him for protection were given fizzy drinks from the wet bar and waited in the corridor while Lebogang and Billy bonded in the comfort of the Presidential Suite. Lebogang was reminded afresh of how much Billy Mabele resembled his younger brother, and Billy Mabele’s eyes watered at the thought of Lebogang’s brother’s demise. The wet bar turned out to have an inadequate supply of beer, but room service promptly refreshed that supply. Billy explained to Lebogang that the handover of the gold was entirely in his hands. He mentioned the need for a secure vehicle in passing and laughed at the suggestion that one of the Dark Bizness delivery vans would serve the purpose. He warned Lebogang of the dangers of people throwing grenades, and told a surprisingly moving story of the Fidelity Cash Delivery driver who had survived two separate cash heists in which he had bravely fought to defend the cash that they were transporting – it had been Billy’s cash – only to be crushed to death by the truck when he forgot to engage the parking brake.

  Lebogang left the Presidential Suite two hours and six beers later and was supported all the way to his Mercedes Benz by his protection.

  Chandler was furious because we needed more than two days, but Fat-Boy said that was how black men rolled, and that the old white fogeys would just have to speed up. Chandler pointed out that the only thing Fat-Boy rolled was his substantial stomach, from the sauna to the jacuzzi and back again, with intermittent stops at the bar for refreshment. While Chandler, Robyn and I would do all the work. Or more accurately, as I pointed out, Chandler would instruct Robyn and me, who were the only ones who ever actually did anything.

  A Fidelity Cash Delivery representative visited the Dark Bizness offices the next morning, arriving punctually at ten-hundred, presumably with a glossy brochure of their Bulugaya armoured cash delivery vehicles under his arm, and departed a mere twenty-eight minutes later. Fidelity Cash Delivery had twenty-three identical vehicles in their fleet, manufactured locally and designed in response to the rash of cash-in-transit heists which had horrified the South African public with their brutality: the gangs behind the heists had known no bounds in their violent efforts to break open the inadequate shells of the imported vehicles, pelting them with semi-automatic gunfire, throwing grenades at them, setting them alight and even dropping them off bridges, usually with the driver and passenger trapped inside and unable to use their own weapons, because bulletproof glass works both ways. The designers at Bulugaya responded to the demand for something stronger by creating monstrous vehicles that looked like the unfortunate result of a breeding experiment between a military tank and a Mars rover. Their steel bodies were three inches thick; the windows were no more than menacing reflective slits, with the barrels of built-in AK-74 rifles bristling beside them. GP-25 grenade launchers could be fitted onto the AK-74s should the need arise. The tyres of the vehicles could withstand direct gunfire, and in the event of loss of pressure in the tyre the wheel rims had protruding spikes that would provide an uncomfortable, but effective, ride out of trouble.

  Robyn and I were given a guided tour of one of these vehicles when we visited the Fidelity Cash Delivery showroom that afternoon. The rentals representative, a snivelling man who combed his thinning hair over the bald top of his head, pulled his eyes away from Robyn’s taut top, which was being pushed forward by the wire-framed bra she was wearing for the purpose of distracting him, and assured me that the vehicles were entirely identical, before returning his gaze to Robyn’s top.

  “Except for the arrangement of the security boxes in the back,” I suggested, but he dragged his eyes away again to assure me they were identical in every sense.

  “What if we need to make changes to our booking?” I asked. “You know the movie business, the creatives are always changing their minds about something.”

  “You would phone us,” said the rentals representative. “The girls upstairs will make the changes, or if it’s a small change, they’ll just do it on the booking sheet.”

  “I see. And where are those booking sheets kept?”

  The rentals representative frowned. Robyn took a deep breath, as though my peculiar questions were driving her to distraction. She let the breath out in a heavy sigh, all of which did interesting things to the surface tension of her thin blouse, which distracted the rentals representative sufficiently for him to provide me with an answer.

  “Manager’s cubicle,” he said, pointing across the football-field of a room with the top of his bald head while keeping his eyes on Robyn in case she did any more breathing exercises.

  We climbed into the back of the truck with him and he showed us the rows of boxes of varying sizes in burnished steel with keyhole locks like the boxes of a bank vault, which were fixed to the back wall. The sides comprised larger boxes with black matte finish and bold black numbers on shiny aluminium tags. These larger boxes were of greater interest to us, there being thirty-six of them, each with enough capacity to hold a single smart Mactwinbox which the representative assured us was the best way to transport our cash safely because at the press of a button the cash could be destroyed, thus deterring thieves. Vandals not interested in keeping the cash for themselves could be deterred by the gas that would be released into the rear compartment of the truck and which damaged the nerves – in a few unfortunate cases that nerve damage had proved fatal. I knew that a Mactwinbox was a little larger than four London Good Delivery bars of gold because Chandler and I had done the math after his lunch with the Rhodesian co-founder of Fidelity Cash Delivery. So I agreed with the representative that the side boxes were the more inte
resting ones. Encouraged by this, the representative demonstrated the remote locking process for the side boxes, and showed us how the boxes could all be locked down in case of emergency, so nobody could get inside them, not even with a welding torch or a bomb. Then he jangled some keys anxiously and told me, after a surreptitious glance at Robyn’s breasts, that they allowed no one but authorised drivers behind the wheel of their Bulugaya trucks, which is why he was confused by the instruction he had received from his boss to allow us a test drive.

  “We’re making a movie,” I explained. “We’re not going to be using the truck for anything but a bit of play-acting.”

  “She the actress?” he asked me, but looked at Robyn, who kept her shoulders back, pushed her chest forward and declared that she was the actress, and needed to ensure that she could drive the truck.

  “You don’t use stunt drivers?” asked the man, but it wasn’t a question that was going to impede his climbing into the passenger seat of the truck to watch Robyn drive it. The truck started with a roar, then settled to a low growl as Robyn figured out all the levers with the assistance of the rentals representative, whose hair had flopped off the top of his head in all the excitement.

  Robyn closed the door, then showed off a little by double clutching as she shifted from first into second gear and the monstrous truck crawled towards the louvre door, which rolled open as she approached it. The truck crouched at the entrance as the afternoon sun sneaked in below the louvres. Tyres squeaked on the tiled floor as she pulled off. A startlingly bright indicator flashed, and then they were gone. The louvred door rolled closed again and plunged the vast room into gloom as I walked across to the manager’s glass cubicle in the corner. A man was sitting there with his feet up on the desk, his hands folded neatly across his abdomen and his chin resting on his chest. I knocked politely on the glass and he awoke with a start, then glared at me.

  “You have a booking for the day after tomorrow,” I said. “Dark Bizness is the company. It’s a pickup in the docks.”

  “What if I do?” said the man, as he shuffled some papers that his feet had been resting upon across the desk. His hair was an explosion of tightly curled dreadlocks, which were trussed up with an elasticized band in the yellow, green, and black of the ANC flag. His chin had a straggle of patchy hair.

  “I need to make a minor change to the location,” I said, trying not to stare at the nascent beard. I gave a small, regretful smile. “Not a big change, it’s just around the corner. We’re not able to get the yacht into the usual spot, so we have to move it.”

  “And who are you?” asked the man.

  “I’m with Dark Bizness,” I said and produced the card we had printed that morning with the Dark Bizness logo and a name I’d already forgotten. The man took the card and tested it with his thumb to see if it had hidden compartments.

  “Why are you here?” he asked. “They do those changes upstairs.”

  “It’s such an insignificant change they told me to come down here and make it on the booking sheet.”

  The man with the hairy chin looked at me. I looked back at him. In the history of Fidelity Cash Delivery this situation had not previously arisen, and hairy chin was probably searching his marijuana-soaked mind for some reference from his inadequate training as to what to do.

  “Just a tiny change,” I said, and kept the smile going.

  Hairy chin looked down at his papers and used a stained finger to page through a bunch of them in a cardboard folder. He found one that grabbed his interest and pulled it out.

  “Yacht club,” he said.

  “That’s the one. Cannot get the yacht in, so we’re doing the load around the corner. Still in the docks.”

  Hairy chin picked up a pen.

  “Address?” he said.

  “I have GPS coordinates.”

  “If that’s what floats your boat.”

  Writing the string of digits onto the booking sheet took us some time, and then we both checked them to be sure.

  “Those cardboard boxes,” I said. “The pre-folded ones we saw in the brochure, the ones that fit into the side lockers, and that seal when you close them. Did the boss order some of those?”

  Hairy chin looked down at the booking sheet and shook his head.

  “Could you add them? We’ll need thirty, perhaps a few extra in case something goes wrong.”

  “If it floats your boat,” he said, and marked the booking sheet.

  “What’s the time set for?” I asked.

  “Early,” he said, and looked up at me. “You need to change that too?” His eyes narrowed with the beginnings of suspicion.

  “Depends how early,” I said.

  “Six-thirty.”

  “Perfect,” I said, “that’s perfect.”

  I could feel his eyes on my back as I walked across the vast room and disappeared into the gloom.

  “That actress of yours,” said the rentals representative when he climbed out of the cab, his hair still hanging lopsidedly like a piece of him was peeling off, “she sure can drive.”

  “She’s not really mine,” I said, “but I know what you mean. You should see her doing it in uniform. That is truly convincing.”

  The rental representative realised his hair was peeling off, and so he flattened it back over his bald head with a practised move of the hand, and wet his lips at the thought of what Robyn might be capable of in uniform.

  “You get customers requesting particular drivers?” I asked. “Like wanting a woman or a man, you know: being specific.”

  The rentals representative had been watching Robyn walk over to us, but he looked back at me with some suspicion. “Sometimes,” he said. “More often a man than a woman.”

  “Unless they like women in uniforms,” I suggested and smiled to show how well I understood that kind of thing.

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “I guess they just call the girls upstairs?”

  “Yes. They call the girls upstairs.”

  “Speaking of uniforms, we’ll need a couple of your staff uniforms – do you provide them yourselves, or is that a separate company?”

  Regretfully, for the rentals representative, that was a separate company, but he provided us with the details.

  “Could you throw in some of those pre-folded self-sealing cardboard boxes? We’ll need about thirty of them. We’ll collect them tomorrow if we can, that way we can get everything packed up ahead of time.”

  “Sure can,” said the representative, and his eyes lingered for a last moment on Robyn’s upper portion as he marked the details on the booking sheet.

  “You should wear that bra more often,” I said to Robyn as we left him to his paperwork and squeaked our rubber-soled shoes across the tiled floor to the exits. “There would be no limit to what you could achieve.”

  “How do you think I snared you?” she said.

  “My interest in you runs deeper than your breasts.”

  “Does it?” she said, and smiled at me as she pulled her shoulders back.

  Twenty-Five

  At oh-six-thirty on the appointed day, Robyn brought the monstrous truck to a halt at the far end of the Nkwenya wharf. We were both wearing the full uniform of the Fidelity Cash Delivery driver-and-stooge pairs that risked their lives every day to carry other people’s cash around. Our uniforms included the excessive helmets worn when valuable things needed to be carried through marauding crowds, so there was slim chance that anyone would recognise us. We had provided our own weapons and substituted the standard issue Berettas with our preferred Glocks, but otherwise we looked pretty damn convincing, and I knew the rentals representative would have been impressed if he had been there to witness the sight of Robyn driving his armoured vehicle in full uniform.

  A Dark Bizness minion who carried an AK-47 over his shoulder like it was a satchel, greeted us at the entrance to the yacht club. He explained that his boss required that we remain in the vehicle while he and his colleagues did the loading, and we said th
at suited us fine. Robyn climbed out of the cab and opened up the back to show him how to fold the cardboard boxes that would fit perfectly into the side compartments and how to seal them. He said that the boss had not mentioned cardboard boxes, and she said we strongly recommended that they should place their items of value into the boxes and seal them to avoid damage. He countered by stating that their items could not be damaged, but Robyn won the round by suggesting what his boss would do to him if by chance there was any damage, such as when a passing vandal tossed a grenade under the truck. At which point he capitulated, explained where the new Nkwenya wharf for obscenely opulent yachts was situated, and then walked ahead of us to ensure that security booms were lifted and nothing impeded our path.

  Robyn turned the truck around so that the rear end faced the sleek contours of the huge Dark Maiden yacht, then she remotely unlocked the rear doors. We tilted our seats as far back as they would go, and settled in to witness the rays of sunlight dribbling down the face of Table Mountain like someone was spilling luminous pink paint from the heavy cloud settling over the top of it.

  Three Dark Bizness minions had been charged with transferring the gold from the yacht into the armoured truck, and it took them a while to figure out how to do it. There was a good deal of banging and cursing from the back of the truck as they discovered how heavy four London Good Delivery bars are when packed into a cardboard box, but eventually they figured out that carrying the bars individually in a relay style was the best way of doing things and they settled into a comfortable routine.

  Chandler called to check on our progress when we were about ten minutes into the loading, and I told him we looked to be on track to finish in about an hour.

  “Any sign of the big boy?” asked Chandler.

  “None yet.”

  “I’ll get Fat-Boy onto him. We don’t want him climbing into the truck to salivate over his gold at the other end.”

  Chandler called back five minutes later.

  “All arranged,” he said. “Fat-Boy’s speaking to him now. We’ll test the group call. You doing this through that helmet of yours?”