by Paul Eksteen
“Shit, Nic, you guys at State have always been lax about security. It is my life on the line. Ten years ago, half my missions were because you guys screwed up somehow, and I can see nothing has changed.”
“Have you ever heard the name Lillynn Camila Garcia? She is the PA of one of the directors at SSA.”
I shook my head. Even though we were meeting at a restaurant within five kilometres of the SSA headquarters, I have never been inside the building or even on site. I was recruited by Nic at Speskop fifteen years ago and had always met with him in a restaurant or bar. He was my only contact with the SSA.
“So, what is in my file that is of interest to her?”
“Tom Allen Coetzee,” Nic said again. “Your file is so classified even I haven’t seen all of it. I can’t give you more info, Tom. I know what you will do next.”
“I want you to stop screwing with me, Nic. Give me the info. Next time we meet will be over a beer with the traitor either dead or awaiting trial. I can’t believe you’d have a problem with that.”
The waiter arrived with our calamari and took orders for more wine. Even Nic was having a Sauvignon Blanc this time. This must be serious shit.
Nic carried on after the waiter was out of earshot.
“This Lillynn’s got a key to her boss’ office and did a search on his computer using his password two Fridays ago. She searched for recipients of the Honoris Crux Medal in 1987 and 1988 and your name matched a list of contractors currently working for the SSA.
“She entered your file, again using her boss’ password. The breach of security was immediately detected as her boss had already left the building. It took a reaction team an hour to get in place and isolate the office, but by that time she had already slipped past them and had left the building.
“His desk and computer were dusted for fingerprints and, although she wiped everything clean, a set of prints were found on the metal strip at the front of his chair, probably when she pulled herself closer to the table. The prints were a hundred per cent match to Lillynn Camila Garcia.
“I was called in on Monday morning by the director general. He thinks that it would be better if you handle this problem as and how you think fit. The SSA is planning on keeping it under the wraps for now. Surveillance cameras were installed in both their offices without their knowledge. A worry to us is that we are not sure whether he gave her his password or if she obtained it while he typed it without him noticing.”
My heart sank into my shoes. I did not have time for more problems at this stage of my life. I was already feeling too old for the job. What would she want from my personnel file?
It was as if Nic was reading my mind.
“What would she want with your file, Tom? The Honoris Crux medal is probably the key to the puzzle.”
I again could only shake my head.
“Well, here’s her file,” Nic says as he pulled a brown envelope from his briefcase. “It’s yours. Enjoy.”
We finished the last of our food and wine and both stood up.
With a, “This one’s on me”, Nic took the folder with the bill and walked towards the pay point at the exit.
I went to the men’s room to give him time to get to his car and left ten minutes later.
CHAPTER 10
Vivo — Friday, 6 March
It was Friday afternoon and I had just collected Danielle from school. She had started at secondary school earlier in the year. It was the same school where her mother used to teach. We were driving in my old 1980s’ Mercedes towards Vivo to attend Jan’s funeral the next morning.
My father passed away a year after he bought the Mercedes and, after my mother passed away later, I inherited it. Even though the car was almost twenty years old, it had less than a hundred thousand kilometres on the odometer and was in excellent condition. It was one of my most precious possessions.
We stayed over with Hendrik and Retha and had a quiet early braai in the evening. I could see that both Hendrik and Retha had something on their minds but were waiting for an opportunity to talk to me.
After supper, I followed Retha to the kitchen, after indicating to Danielle to stay put at the fire.
“You have to have a chat with Dirkie,” Retha said as soon as she had the kettle on.
“It might be a bit soon,” I replied.
“He no longer has a father, Tom,” she said. “And he is young and angry. He might do something foolish.”
“I will see if there is a chance to talk to him this weekend, Retha. We could maybe have a chat on Sunday.”
“Please Tom. Mercia asked me to talk to you. You know that you are Dirkie’s hero. He will listen to you. Tell him not to be a fool. Anyone who interferes or tries to right a wrong nowadays is a fool. It is much better not to meddle, not to take the law into your own hands. It is not his responsibility.”
***
Botanical Gardens, Silverton
The Doctor entered the gardens fifteen minutes before four in the afternoon. He was nervous and slightly irritated after the long drive from Bloemfontein. The road had been chaos with hordes of students travelling to Gauteng for the weekend. It looked like every transporter in the Free State had his trucks on the road as well.
It took him more than six hours to do a trip that should’ve taken him less than five hours. And he needed to drive the same road back tonight, as he had to do his rounds at six the next morning.
Lillynn phoned him at three sharp, to arrange the place of meeting. The call lasted less than two minutes and she sounded very nervous.
He did not sleep well after her call on Monday, and was glad that they could meet at last, to resolve the issue.
He saw her standing in the north-eastern corner of the gardens, next to a bed of strelitzias.
She was also early.
He walked up to her. “Hi Lillynn.”
She had her back to him, and he was shocked when he saw her face when she turned around. Her face was pale, and she had dark blue rings under her eyes.
She was dressed in what he assumed must be her working clothes. A dark blue dress with a broad white belt, and white sandals. She had a white ostrich skin handbag hanging from her left shoulder by a thin golden chain. Her hands were holding her mobile phone and were shaking slightly.
The dress goes well with the dark rings, he thought.
“Hallo Luis,” she said in a soft voice.
He was taken aback by her using his first name. It was the first time for her to be so familiar.
“Let’s go sit there on the bench. We have a few things to discuss.” She turned around and started walking to a park bench, thirty-odd feet away.
He followed her in silence and took his place on the bench next to her.
“Our contact in Vivo got the information mixed up, Luis,” she started.
“What do you mean? Did it already happen?”
“It did. But not the right target. Somewhere, someone screwed up.”
The Doctor could feel the lameness creeping into his legs. Luckily, he was sitting down.
“Must I pay her again?,” he asked.
“No, Luis. We can’t use her again. We will have to use someone else. Someone much more experienced, and much more expensive.”
“But where will we find this person?’
“I’ve already found him. And I’ve paid a deposit. He is a professional and charges a professional’s fee.”
“How much is a professional’s fee?” the Doctor asked.
He was thinking about the previous fee. It was much lower than what he had anticipated. So much for paying peanuts. He should have known.
“A hundred big ones. I’ve already paid fifty over. I told him that I will pay the rest once the job is done.”
“So, you trust me with such a lot of money?” The Doctor was flabbergasted. “What if I don’t pay you back?”
“I know you will, Luis. I know you will.”
“Will you be handling this new professional, Lillynn?” the Doctor enquired
.
“Yes, Luis. The guy is from Gauteng and has been doing contract work such as this for more than ten years. He is good. I will handle him. We can settle the payment once the job is done.”
“But why were you so worried then, Lillynn?” The Doctor felt as if a heavy weight was lifted from his shoulders. He did not understand why Lillynn was so nervous. And she had had him rolling around in his bed every night for the past week.
“We had a friend of the target killed, Luis. And now he will seek revenge. It is only a matter of time before he follows the trail back to us. If our new man slips up, we are history.”
The Doctor felt like there was ice water running down his spine. All of a sudden, he was very eager to get back to Bloemfontein.
“Take this burn phone, Luis. There is enough airtime on the phone for a few calls. Use it to phone me. The password is nine eight seven six. From now on, you only use the new phone when contacting me. Keep it on, for when I want to call you. Drive safely. I will inform you when something happens.”
“Do you think this new guy will succeed?”, the Doctor enquired nervously.
“Yes, I do. He acknowledged the receipt of the deposit, and informed me that he will be in position next week. If everything goes well, this will be over soon.”
She stood up and walked along the eastern border of the gardens towards the main entrance.
The Doctor sat on the bench for another fifteen minutes, his mind racing over the new information. He could not believe the trust that Lillynn had in him. She was obviously a girl with connections. He stood up and made his way to the exit.
***
The Reformed Church, Vivo, Saturday, 7 March
It was almost ten o’clock in the morning and I was sweating like a pig. The last time I wore step-outs of some sort was at Antoinette’s funeral.
Antoinette was in a fatal accident seven years ago, and six months pregnant with our son. She was on her way to Polokwane, from our small farm to the north of town, to collect Danielle from playing at a friend’s house after school.
She stopped at a red traffic light at the outskirts of the town. The driver of the copper truck who was driving behind her was busy with his mobile phone and failed to stop behind her.
The heavy haulage truck carrying thirty-six tonnes of copper ingots on the way from Zambia to Durban, crashed into the rear of her car, crushing it completely and killing her on impact.
The driver of the truck was only slightly injured and disappeared in the confusion of the accident. He was never found by the police for questioning. According to the owner of the fleet of trucks, the driver was a Zimbabwean citizen, working in South Africa with a workers’ permit. He was probably back in Zimbabwe by now driving for another fleet, or driving some farmer’s tractor in the Lowveldt, without having renewed his workers’ permit.
And overnight, it became my sole responsibility to bring up our eight-year-old daughter, Danielle. Was it not for the responsibility of raising her, I might have turned into an alcoholic, or worse. For the first few months after Antoinette’s death, I lived day to day, one of them at a time. Every day completed was a victory to me.
Our unborn son would have been seven years old by now. The fact that I was responsible, or have witnessed multiple deaths in my life, did not make my wife and unborn son’s death any easier. The older I got, the less immune or unaffected by the process of death, I became. And by having it happen to my own family, just made it worse.
The first week after her horrific death was the worst. Every inch of our home was covered with things for the new baby. Blankets and toys and nappies and tiny clothes and a special bathtub and a new cot that would stand in our room. As if it wasn’t enough to have to cope with Antoinette’s belongings, which I could not remove at first.
I was not a religious man. Not in the ordinary sense of praying and going to church and the likes. But I had enough brains to understand that the universe did not run itself. It wasn’t a machine which just suddenly sprang into being and kept on going. There was a purpose to the whole thing. And it took me a while to realise that somehow, I was a contributing particle of that universe with a reason behind my existence.
The trouble was that I felt as if I was split in two. Half of me wanted to die and put an end to my misery. The other half was more responsible and was thinking about my daughter and my sister. I had to be less selfish and break out — I had to become me again.
After months of fighting with my emotions, I decided that the only solution for me was to treat my misery like a bottle of well matured wine; instead of shaking up the sediment in the bottle, rather leave it undisturbed, drink the fine wine above and discard the bitter sediment with the empty bottle.
Another part of my misery was that initially I didn’t bury Antoinette.
We did have a memorial service in Polokwane, with her family attending all the way from Namibia. Her family accepted her last will, in which she instructed to be cremated.
She further left instructions to be interned next to me. The problem was that to be able to bury her, I needed to decide where I wanted to be buried. I offered her ashes to her parents to bury her in Namibia, where she was from, but they declined the offer. They wouldn’t go against their daughter’s wishes.
A year after her death I buried her.
And for me to be able to move on with my life, I couldn’t bury her on the farm where I lived. So, I buried her in the small family churchyard on my parents’ farm. It was the same farm where I grew up and where my sister Retha, with her family, still lives.
Attending Jan’s funeral was bringing back the worst of memories. Of Antoinette and what we could have had. It was extremely difficult to keep up a brave face. Still, whenever I heard a voice like hers in the hubbub of a shopping mall, or saw a beautiful woman in full stride, I remembered her.
I still could not talk about her for fear of turning her death into a ‘story’ inevitably altered by the telling, the way a gold coin handled year after year is rubbed smooth and effaced. And my refusal to deal with her tragic death had been a big part of my and Danielle’s demise.
I had taken Danielle to her mother’s grave the previous day upon our arrival on the farm. She took one arum lily from Retha’s garden which she put in a vase next to the headstone. Arum lilies were Antoinette’s favourite flowers.
Not a day passed that I do not think of her. It had been almost a year since I last visited the grave.
I walked around the plot, pebbles crunching beneath my soles, and stood behind the headstone, facing away. I stood, hands in my pockets, with a familiar emptiness gnawing at my stomach. I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. My whole life had been spent projecting an image of toughness. Never had I let anything get to me.
Except this.
I was shaken back to reality when two small hands got hold of my arm.
“I love you, Daddy.”
***
I was standing outside the Vivo church and, as one of Jan Steyn’s six coffin bearers, was waiting for the hearse to arrive. It would definitely not be an open coffin. The hearse was to be a horse-driven cart, with the driver being Jan’s son, Dirk. Dirk decided to use one of his father’s favourite Friesian stallions to pull the cart.
Mercia was quite adamant that no funeral parlour hearse should cart Jan’s body to the church or the family graveyard on the farm.
The hearse would travel from Polokwane, where the state surgeon had done the autopsy on Jan’s body, and stop at the outskirts of Vivo to transfer the coffin to the horse-cart.
My mind was wandering from the latest information regarding Jan’s death to the contents of the SSA folder which I started reading through late last night after my chat with Retha.
Lillynn Camila Garcia was almost the same age as me. She was a Cuban who fought in the Bush War in Angola from 1984 until 1991. She went back to Cuba late in 1985 for six months, presumably for further training. She arrived back in Angola mid-1986 and stayed on until a year after South West
Africa gained its independence from South Africa. The last Cuban soldiers were withdrawn from Angola on 25 May 1991.
She then assisted the newly formed Swapo government in Namibia as member of their Women’s Council. She was very involved with the tracking down of exiled Swapo women who were imprisoned in pits in the ground at military bases in Southern Angola. Of this she had first-hand experience, when assisting Swapo in the freedom struggle of Namibia.
Scores of Swapo women members were imprisoned and sexually abused by their male Swapo guards. The Swapo prison system was an institutionalised form of rape.
She worked with a lady called ‘Magdalena’ and submitted scores of letters to the UN, the World Council of Churches, and various sympathetic journalists in the Scandinavian countries.
She was kicked out of Namibia and moved to South Africa in 1993 after she was involved in a scandal where Norway stopped funding to Namibia due to the money being misappropriated. The funds were intended as drought relief but were used to fund a new presidential jet and two helicopters.
The Danes got hold of her in 1994 and involved her in think tanks in promoting peace and security and democracy issues in the Southern African region and the continent as a whole.
She was spotted by the SSA three years later, and started her career with the South African government in 1998 as a junior analyst.
From there she worked her way up and is currently the personal assistant of one of the key players at the SSA.
***
My mind drifted back to the murder of Jan. Directly after Retha’s call last Sunday, I phoned Kwinzee, my business partner at Papillon panel beaters in Polokwane, and my spotter years ago in the Special Forces.
I named my business Papillon after a book written by Henri Charriere, which I read on the border in one of those ‘hurry up and wait’ moments of the military. We had a basic selection of about ten books between the bunch of us, and we had to read and rotate them.