"Stop fooling around Agent Rodriguez…Can you do it or not?"
"Yes Agent Samuels. I can. It won't be a problem. But what about border control? Did they make you fill in a visa form and leave it with immigration control?"
"Shit, yes, you're right…"
"No problem…leave that to me too…I'm good…Very good…"
"Then please get on with it…and maybe, just maybe…one day…"
Chapter 23
Day Fifteen
Langebaan Bay
South Africa
He watched the car speeding out of town but could do nothing but stare after them helplessly. Lifting the table with his arms, Kerrin rolled over onto his side and pulled himself up into a sitting position.
He turned to Alex.
His body lay crumpled against the wall of the restaurant. His head had been blown off, and the side of his torso had been cut open by the bullets, the white of his exposed ribs gleaming in the light of the restaurant lamps. A large pool of blood had formed on the floor of the veranda, which was already spilling over and disappearing down the cracks between the wooden floorboards. The wall of the restaurant was splattered with blood and flesh and grey material which Kerrin realized with horror was all that was left of Alex's brain.
A wave of nausea swept over Kerrin, and he retched violently, the contents of his stomach mixing with the blood on the floor and adding to the disgusting horror of the scene.
Dimly Kerrin realized that someone was screaming, and he turned as if in a dream to see the waitress standing in the doorway to the restaurant. She had dropped her tray on the floor, and was standing with her hands on her head, screaming for all she was worth. Almost as an added bizarre detail to the whole scene, Kerrin noticed that a stream of urine had started to make its way down the waitress’s legs and was gathering in a pool at her feet.
Kerrin was in shock too. Things he would see in the future would trigger memories of the scene around him now, and in vivid detail he would instantly recall the entire scene and the horror of it all. A yellow flower would remind him of the vase which had fallen from the table, the bright yellow sunflowers which it used to hold now lying on the ground, the yellow petals dipped in the bright red of Alex's blood, the colors contrasting vividly with each other.
The smell of wood would trigger memories of him lying on the wooden floor of the veranda, his nose pressed to the floorboards, unavoidably sniffing the scent from the South African pine.
And loud firecrackers would forever startle him and trigger the sensation of him falling backwards, the smell of cordite in the air, conjuring up an overpowering sense of doom and tragedy.
The associations between colors, smell and sound that had been set up in the past few seconds would never leave Kerrin. It was a moment captured in horrific detail that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Yet, through the horror of it all Kerrin realized one thing.
He was still alive.
The sound of the high velocity bullets passing so close to his head was deafening. Concussive waves of sound had assaulted his eardrums, and now they rang violently in the aftermath of the event.
Kerrin staggered to his feet, steadying himself against the wall between the gruesome sight on the ground and the screaming waitress. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he turned her gently and walked her back into the building and away from the murder scene.
People were running out of the bar, and when Kerrin recognized the manageress hurrying down the staircase, taking two steps at a time, he handed the screaming waitress into the arms of the barman and pulled the manageress into her office.
"Call the police…and an ambulance!"
He reached up to the side of his head. He felt something warm on his neck, and he realized that his ears were bleeding, the blood dark and dull.
Then the world spun around him, and the floor came up quickly to meet his unconscious falling body.
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While two of the policemen took statements from the guests, now rounded up and confined to the bar, the inspector and his colleague tried to ask Kerrin questions in the manageress's office. As they spoke, the paramedics put the final touches to a bandage around Kerrin's head.
Outside on the veranda the police photographer had set up a tripod and was in the process of trying to take some photographs of the crime scene. He had already taken numerous photographs of the rubber tire marks the breaking and accelerating car had left behind on the tarmac of the street.
Suddenly a woman ran from the road and onto the veranda of the restaurant. Her face showed no emotion, her breath coming to her in short bursts. One of the policemen tried to prevent her from entering the crime scene, but she screamed at him, protesting that the dead man had been her boyfriend.
At first not knowing how to handle her, he let her slip past the cameraman to the limp body, lying against the wall. She knelt beside him in the blood, collapsing in tears on top of the shattered torso.
The policeman looked at the camera-man and winced. This was the part of the job he hated most.
Distracted, he didn't see the woman slip her hand quickly inside the dead man's pocket, and pull out a set of keys.
After a few seconds the policeman stepped forward and touched the woman gently on the shoulders. "Ma'am…it's best not to touch the body…we mustn't disturb the crime scene…we have to photograph it all first."
He held her tightly by the shoulders and lifted her back up, her knees now covered in dark red congealing blood. The woman turned to the policeman, as if about to say something, but then thought better of it and ran from the restaurant back down the street and into the night.
--------------------
The phone rang in Cheng Wung's office, and when the Divisional Director of the CIA picked up the phone in his office in Tampa, Florida, he quickly agreed with his PA that he would take the long distance call from South Africa.
"Miss Weinbaum, it is good to hear from you again so soon. What news do you have?"
At the other end of the line, the woman paced the bedroom in her apartment, pulling back the curtains from the window and looking out into the street as she spoke.
"Mr Wung. I have bad news. My assigned contact has just been killed. Seemingly assassinated by an unknown third party."
The news was both good and bad. The good news was that Alex Swinton was now dead. The bad news was that it was not his agency that had fulfilled the brief. Another party had completed the assignment before him.
"Did you succeed in making contact prior to his death?"
"Yes…I did. As directed by yourself. I spent the last few days in close proximity with the target. I'm afraid I learned very little from him. He would not speak about the Orlando File and he never mentioned the hard-disk, no matter how hard I tried to coax him, without breaking my cover or making my questioning too obvious. However, I've just had the opportunity to go through his possessions with a fine-tooth comb and although he was not carrying any files or computer disks, I did find a locker key."
"And…?"
"I've only just found it, and haven't had a chance to identify it yet, but I would guess it comes from a left-luggage locker in the airport or the train station. I will get onto it straight away, and will report back to you as soon as we have something."
"Good. Is there anything else?" Cheng asked, irritated that the woman had let Swinton be killed before they had located the hard-disk from his computer. His sources had told him that when the fools in the FBI had raided Swinton's home and brought his computer in, it had been a whole day before they had noticed that someone had already removed the hard-disk. And now everyone was panicking that a copy of the Orlando File was still missing. It had to be recovered, at all costs.
"Yes. I have to report that Alex was meeting with someone this evening when he was killed by machine gun fire from a passing car. Does the name Kerrin Graham mean anything to you sir?"
"Unfortunately it does." Cheng was angry now. He had not been informe
d that Kerrin Graham had already entered South Africa. "Do you know how much Alex told him?"
"I'm afraid not sir. I have no way of knowing. I was not invited to be with them during their meeting this evening. I can only assume that the third party who killed Swinton was also trying to prevent the conversation taking place".
"Conjecture. Stick to the facts Agent Weinbaum. Where is the Graham man now?"
"The police are interrogating him as we speak."
"The police. No, that is not good. We don’t want anyone asking questions they shouldn't be. We need to make the body and the incident go away." Cheng paused for a second.
"What would you like me to do sir?" the agent asked her superior.
"Locate the locker and retrieve the contents, and then contact me as soon as you have something…Oh, and Miss Weinbaum…?"
"Yes, sir?"
"…What is your first name please?"
"Angelique, sir. Agent Angelique Weinbaum."
"Angelique, you are doing a good job! Thank you for your help."
In her small, newly rented apartment in Langebaan South Africa, Angelique smiled. She liked to be appreciated.
--------------------
Kerrin was getting tired. The police interrogation was beginning to annoy him. For the past five hours two officers had taken it in turn to ask him questions, questioning him over and over again about the most trivial things he said or mentioned.
Kerrin knew how to play the game. He had seen this same scene acted out in an interrogation room in Miami a thousand times before. He was only too aware of the pattern the investigation was taking, and the roles the two interrogators were playing: one of them was endeavoring to become Kerrin's friend and was trying to protect him from his colleague, who was bad tempered, demanding and probably quite violent.
"Just give us the answers to the questions we ask you!" The angry one shouted.
"Kerrin, we want to help you, but you have to help us first…" The friendly one implored.
'Well,' thought Kerrin. 'You can all just piss off.'
"So, Mr Swinton. You still say that you are a journalist from the Washington Post here to do a story on windsurfing in South Africa?"
"Yes… as I've told you before…I was down on the beach…heard a friendly American accent and got talking to the man who was killed. I was just interviewing him over dinner. How many times do I have to tell you?"
"So where are your notes?"
Kerrin pointed with his index finger to his head.
"In here. I'm good at what I do. I don't need notes."
"Mr Graham, I have no doubt you are good at what you are doing…all I'm trying to do is establish what it is that you really do? Why you are really here?"
A cell phone went off somewhere in the room, and the friendly-interrogator reached inside his trouser pocket and pulled out a small phone. He looked at the display, flicked it open, and spoke to the person at the other end.
"Excuse me please…" He said, as much to Kerrin as to his colleague, and he stepped out of the room. On the other side of the door there was the sound of raised voices, although Kerrin couldn't make out what was being said.
A second later the 'friendly' police officer came back in, whispering something briefly into the ear of the other officer, who swore loudly and stormed out of the room.
The friendly officer turned to Kerrin, all traces of amicability in his voice gone. Instead his tone was harsh and cold, his South African accent thicker than before.
"Mr Graham, or whoever you really are. You must have friends in high places. You are free to go. We are sorry to have taken up your time…" The man turned towards the door, but as he reached it he turned back and added.
"There is a flight to Washington tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you're on it."
Kerrin stood up, not exactly sure what had just happened. He walked out of the manageress's office and out into the street, just in time to see several police cars disappearing along the road back towards Cape Town.
He turned towards the spot where he had just been sitting with Alex only six hours before, and was shocked to see that already there were two people sitting drinking beer, at a table with a fresh table-cloth and a new blue vase full of bright red flowers. The two men stopped their conversation and looked up at him, almost questioningly. Kerrin stared back.
Alex's body had disappeared and the crime scene had been deliberately sanitized. The wall had been scrubbed clean of blood and torn flesh, and bleach on the floor had already begun to stain the woodwork white where the blood had been. All signs of the calamity that had occurred there only hours before had been systematically removed.
It was almost as if it had never happened.
Chapter 24
Day Seventeen
Washington D.C.
The return trip to Washington from South Africa was a long and boring one. The flight was busy, and all the seats were taken. Kerrin ended up sitting beside the 'nightmare passenger from hell'. Incredibly overweight, bulging out of his wide business class seat and into most of Kerrin's, the man sweated profusely throughout the flight and snored loudly. Even the video head-phones sitting on top of Kerrin's ear-plugs couldn't drown out the sound of the man beside him, snorting and almost choking in his sleep. He tried asking the stewardess if he could be moved to another seat, even one in economy class, but was told most apologetically that the plane was full.
After a few hours Kerrin resigned himself to the discomfort and did his best to focus on his own problems. He needed to think.
At first he had been overjoyed to be released by the South African police, but afterwards when he had attempted to catch a few hours sleep in the hotel room, it dawned on him that perhaps it was not the blessing he had first taken it for. In fact, it even occurred to him that it may have been safer to spend the night in jail. Now he had been released, he was once again at the mercy of the assassins who had killed Alex.
It was already obvious to Kerrin that the murder was never going to be investigated. There had been no further questioning of the hotel staff, and from the mute reactions of the hotel's employees the next day, it looked as if they had been warned not to talk to him.
He tried to recall in as vivid detail as possible the faces of the people he had seen in the assassin's car. The woman's face was indelibly etched on his memory, but the man behind the steering wheel had not been so visible. Kerrin knew that the first thing he had to do when he got back to the US was to try and find out from the airline who the lady in row 2B really was. He was confident he would be able to get the name from the passenger listing of the flight from Washington to Cape Town.
One last question troubled Kerrin concerning the whole affair.
Why had they not killed him?
Perhaps they had just missed him on the first attempt…but the car had driven past a second time, and the woman had seen his eyes…knew that he was still alive…and still she had not tried to shoot him again. Why?
They had already managed to kill his friend James Callaghan in the States, so why had they not tried to kill him?
So many questions. So few answers.
Alex Swinton was dead. Kerrin hadn't got all the answers that he would have liked, but he had made some progress. As he thought about it all, he realized that there was still one person alive who would still know what had happened, and why everyone had died.
One person.
Perhaps it was time to pay David Sonderheim a visit in California.
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The plane landed ahead of schedule, and Kerrin was relieved to at last escape the body heat and stale sweat of the passenger beside him. He headed straight to the executive lounge where he showered and shaved, standing in the shower with the powerful jet of steaming water pounding his neck. Refreshed and once again alert, he made his way quickly through customs. Although he knew his wife would not be here to meet him this time, it did not lessen the disappointment as he watched others being met by loved ones.
; By now it was only 7.30 a.m. He would still have to wait another thirty minutes before his boss, Paul, would arrive at his desk at the Washington Post. He had told his wife to tell Paul where she was, and he wanted to see her before he did anything else.
During the flight Kerrin had realized that he couldn't return to his own home. Not until this whole affair was over. People with the resources and power that they obviously had, would surely know by now who he was and where he lived. Worst of all, maybe they were waiting for him now?
Wandering around the shops at the airport, he stopped to pick up a newspaper and found a free seat inside Starbucks where he read the latest Washington Post and slowly savored a decent Colombian Café Late. As he turned to page three he swore loudly as he lost his concentration for a second and accidentally poured hot coffee over the edge of his hand. The spilt coffee didn't bother him. What bothered him was the large article spread across the whole page.
"Utility Company Chairman Admits Million Dollar Fraud". Underneath the headline was the name and photograph of the journalist: Ed Harper.
"Ed Harper? How come he gets the credit? That was my baby…I did most of the work on that!" Kerrin fumed. For a moment he forgot about everything else, and a combination of anger and jealousy swept over him. He glanced at his watch, simultaneously wiping the coffee of his hand with a napkin. It was almost 8 a.m. Paul should be there by now.
He let his boss's phone ring about twenty times before it was eventually picked up.
"Yes…Paul Cooper here!" His boss bellowed in his ear.
"Paul? What the hell's going on? Ed Harper's got my page three spread on the Utility Company Fraud!"
"Good article, huh? The boy's got talent!…"
"But that was my baby! My work! Where does it mention my name?…I'll tell you where…bloody NOWHERE!"
"Calm down Kerrin. The article was going stale. I found out that one of the firm's accountants was going to go public, and we'd lose the scoop…I didn’t want your work to go to waste. And you haven't been in the office for over two weeks…"
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 72