Dead at Daybreak

by Deon Meyer

  “Bester Brits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “He wanted to see us and we thought someone knew something because we knew he was Intelligence, and we were scared and Speckle said that he would talk, that we must just keep our traps shut, but then it was another story altogether, a completely new story.

  “Every day for the past twenty-three years I’ve thought about it. Coincidence. If Brits had asked for another squad. If the Parabats had followed another route. If we could’ve distinguished an R1 from an AK in the dark… Coincidence. The Parabats. And then Orion.”

  “Orion?”

  “Operation Orion, Brits’s operation. He said he knew we were tired but it was just one night’s work and then we would get fourteen days, immediately, get onto a Hercules and go home, but we were the only experienced squad that was available and the operation was the following night. All we had to do was to ride shotgun on a Dak… that’s a Dakota, a DC 10, an aircraft… all we had to do was see that two parcels were exchanged, and he was going along. He wanted us for peace of mind—that was his phrase, ‘peace of mind.’ And then he organized a helluva meal for us from the officers’ mess and said we weren’t sleeping in tents, he had organized a prefab for us, and we could sleep as late as we liked—he would make sure no one bothered us. We had to be fresh the following afternoon, one night’s work and then we’d be going home.

  “We ate and showered and went to the bungalow, but no one could sleep. Red Verster said we would have to tell someone, suddenly, as if he’d decided. Speckle said no. Clinton said we must talk to someone, Rupert de Jager said what good would it do, they were dead, it wouldn’t bring them back, and Koos van Rensburg said no, we wouldn’t be able to live with it, and the guys began yelling at one another, Rupert and me at Clinton and Gerry and Red and Koos, until Speckle beat on a tin trunk and we all looked at him and he said we were tired, we were all tired and shocked, and it would only cause trouble if we fought about it now. We must wait. Until we came back from Orion. Then we would vote. And then we would do what the majority wanted.

  “Bushy Schlebusch just lay there staring at the ceiling. And Speckle Venter was in control. And then we all lay down and I think we slept a little toward morning and then Bester arrived at eleven o’clock and said there was breakfast and were we okay, and he was all over us, trying to be one of the boys and we all ignored him because of the Parabats and because all intelligence officers were like that, shit-scared men who sat at the base and then tried to sound like old hands who had seen contact. But he was too much, kept saying, ‘Orion is big, guys, Orion is really big. You must be on your toes. One day you can tell your children you did a great thing.’

  “And that evening he handed out live ammunition and hand grenades and we drove in a Bedford to the airfield and there the Dak stood and we got in, and before takeoff Brits said he wanted to brief us. He said it was top secret but we would see what was going on in any case, we weren’t idiots, and he knew he could trust us. We were going to a mine in Cuango to fetch stones, diamonds, and then we were crossing a border or two, flying over without permission, and we would exchange the diamonds for something Unita wanted very badly because they were struggling against the rest of Angola and the Cubans, but as far as we were concerned we had seen nothing. And then we would leave on our fourteen-day pass with a little extra in the pay packet, a little extra to make the fourteen days rich and enjoyable, and he tried to make his voice sound like some fancy radio announcer selling coffee creamer. He was a real joker, he so badly wanted to be one of the boys.

  “Generally we slept on anything that flew, but not that night. We sat there with our hands on our rifles and our eyes on one another and I think we all wondered who would be the first to crack, the first to talk. Rupert de Jager and Speckle Venter and I, who thought we should keep quiet; Red and Clinton and Gerry and Koos, who wanted us to talk; and Bushy Schlebusch with nothing in his eyes. I didn’t know where he stood. Tension, hell, there was so much tension between us you could have cut it with a panga, but Brits had no clue, he was too busy with his maps and papers and his little flashlight, and every few minutes he would check whether we were staring at him.

  “We landed at a godforsaken stretch somewhere in northern Angola. They’d lit fires to mark the runway. We climbed out and positioned ourselves on one knee, rifles facing outward as Brits had briefed us, while he spoke to two guys. And then first they brought petrol for the Dak in a tank on a small van and then a whole lorryload of Unitas arrived and Bester told us to relax, that it was part of the plan, as if he was our squad leader. They brought a wooden box that it took four men to carry and loaded it into the plane and Brits said we must get in and we took off, and I tried to keep my bearings, but in the air at night it’s impossible. I thought we were flying south or east, and we sat there again with our red eyes and memories of the Parabats in our heads, and Speckle got up and went to sit next to Bushy and spoke to him for a long time, right in his ear, and then he sat in his own seat again.

  “After two hours in the air we descended again and Brits said now we had to be alert, that this was the sensitive part of Operation Orion, and we went in and landed, somewhere—it was an endless stretch of bushveld and grass and stones. This time there were flares next to the landing strip, and Brits was the first to get out and we followed again in V formation, and then two men came driving up in a Land Rover. They got out and Brits went over to them and chitchatted. Then he looked in the back of the Landy and came back and told Bushy we must take out the wooden box and bring it. Bushy pointed to Speckle and me and we climbed back in and brought it—it was heavy—and put it down. The two strangers came across and Brits opened it and there were uncut diamonds everywhere, wrapped in plastic bags. One guy whistled and said, ‘Will ya look at that,’ in a thick American accent.

  “‘Shall we make the exchange?’ Brits asked, and the other Yank said, ‘You betcha,’ and Brits closed the box and told us to put it in the back of the Landy and load the stuff in the Landy onto the plane. Speckle and I took the box and carried it to the back of the Landy, the Americans and Brits with us. In the back of the Land Rover there were cartons, a whole load of them, with the names of tinned food on them, closed with masking tape, and I thought it was odd, diamonds for tinned food, until I picked one up and it wasn’t tinned food. I didn’t know what it was. We each carried one to the Dak, and when no one could see us in the aircraft, Speckle slit it open with his bayonet and made a long ‘Shhhh’ sound. It was packed with dollars, dollars, and more dollars, and then he said to me, ‘Do you really think Red and the others are going to keep quiet, Porra?’ That was my nickname; Vergottini is Italian, but because my father had a fish-and-chip shop in Bellville…

  “I said no. And he said if I wanted to get out of the thing, I had to keep my head because things were going to happen, and then we went out to fetch more cartons and I saw him giving Bushy a sign, covertly, with one hand, and when we reached the Landy he shot one American, and when he fell, he shot the other.”

  “Mr. Vergottini —”

  “Peter. Or Miller. Just give me a chance. If I could get something to drink?”

  “Of course. I’ll send for coffee.”

  “Coffee would be good.”

  “Sugar? Milk?”

  “Two sugars and milk, please.”

  “Just a moment.”

  “Would you like to get up? Stretch your legs?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Coffee is coming.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to take a break?”

  “I want to finish.”

  “We understand.”

  “I wonder.”

  “I’ll remember Brits’s face in that moment until the day I die. The disbelief. The fright. The surprise. It was all there. I think they were the first dead bodies, the first people he had seen with bullet wounds. There was nausea as well, which we all get the first time. But the disbeli
ef was the greatest. He looked at Speckle, at the Americans, at Speckle again, his mouth open, his eyes big and round, his hands trying to stop something, but Speckle had already turned to the others.

  “‘Now I want to know who’s going to talk,’ he said. ‘Bushy and I know where we stand. And I think I know where Porra and Rupert stand.’ And Bushy turned and aimed his rifle at Gerry and Clinton and Red and Koos. ‘The others must think very clearly,’ Speckle said, and then he walked to the plane and climbed in and we heard another shot. It was the pilot—he shot the pilot.

  “Some day someone must explain to me how the psychology of the thing worked. I know we were tired. We had barely slept in four days, we were finished. I doubt whether any of us could think any longer; we were simply a bundle of raw nerves. The Parabats haunted us—not only what had happened, but what lay ahead. For me it was pitch-dark, I knew it wasn’t something you simply erased from your life, from your head, but hell…

  “Bester Brits got his voice back. ‘What are you doing, what are you doing?’ he asked Speckle when he climbed out of the Dak, and Speckle thrust his Star pistol into his face and said, ‘Where are we?’ Brits shook like a leaf and tried to bat the gun away and Speckle hit him with the butt and he fell and Speckle held him down with his foot and asked again where we were. I think Bester knew he was going to die there—he had seen it in Speckle. ‘Botswana,’ he said. Speckle removed his foot and Bester tried to get up, got to his knees, and then Speckle asked, ‘Where in Botswana?’

  “‘North, just west of Chobe.’ And then Speckle thrust the barrel into his mouth and he fired and turned round and asked me, ‘Porra, are you with me?’

  “What could I say, Jesus, what could I say…”

  “Gently does it, Mr.… Miller.”

  “I’ll see where the coffee is.”

  “Please let me finish.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I must.”

  “Very well.”

  “What could I say? There are only two choices: you die quickly or you die slowly, and I wasn’t prepared to die quickly. I wake up next to my wife and then I’m there again and I have to choose again, and every time I choose to die there, but that night, that morning, I chose the other way. I said, ‘I’m with you, Speckle,’ and then he asked Rupert and Rupert’s mouth contorted and he looked at Brits and he looked at Speckle and he said, ‘I’m with you, Speckle’ and Gerry de Beer started crying like a child and Red Verster was the only man that night—he jerked up his R1 and then Bushy shot him and Speckle fired as well, shot Gerry and Red and Clinton Manley and Koos van Rensburg, shot them like dogs. And then it was quiet and I saw Rupert de Jager’s body jolting with shock, and Speckle said, ‘I know how you feel, Rupert, but I’m not throwing away my entire fucking life for an accident that was no one’s fault in a war where it’s kaffir against kaffir in a country that feels fuck-all for me. Not me. If you want to cry, you can cry, but I want to know if you’re still with me.’

  “He shook his head. ‘I’m with you, Speckle.’

  “And then he made us carry the dollars and diamonds back to the Landy and we drove away. We left them just like that and drove away, just as it had begun to get light in the east.”

  Q: How did you get back into the republic?

  A: We exchanged the Landy and a bag of diamonds with LPs for a ten-ton truck and civvy clothing and we drove during the night on back roads, Speckle making all the decisions, with that load of money and stones, for two weeks, buying petrol and food in small villages that didn’t even appear on a map. We crossed the border somewhere north of Ellisras, simply flattening the fence, and drove to Johannesburg. Speckle said we would share everything there.

  Q: Did you?

  A: Yes.

  Q: How much?

  A: Each got about twenty million dollars and a few bags of diamonds.

  Q: Twenty million.

  A: Just about.

  Q: Jesus.

  Q: And then?

  A: We talked. Talked a lot. About how we could change the dollars and the diamonds into rand. No one knew. Speckle went to Hillbrow, a few days after another guy and him got some of the dollars changed, and then he said we must decide. He and Bushy were going to stay together; what about us? I wanted to go to Durban, I just wanted to get away. Rupert said he was going to the Cape. Speckle rented a box number in Hillbrow and said he had paid the rental for a year, here’s the address, we must stay in contact. I bought a car, loaded my dollars and my diamonds into it, and went to Durban. The diamonds were the easiest, even if I was stupid to start with. But you learn. There was a guy at a pawnshop I showed one to after I’d hung around there a few times, and he said he’d take everything I could get. I was careful. I was scared, but after the first deal nothing happened. And the money was good. I rented a flat, met someone in a nightclub. Said I was on holiday…

  Q: Did you see Venter and the others again?

  A: Once a year I wrote to the address and gave my own box number in Durban, and then Speckle wrote after months and said we must have a reunion, and I flew to Johannesburg. He and Bushy both had new IDs; Rupert and I had nothing. He gave us names and telephone numbers, said he’d buy the dollars from us at thirty cents per dollar. I said I’d bring mine; Rupert said he’d think about it. Then we parted company.

  I brought some of the money and got my rand and went back, and the following year we were together again, Speckle bragging about his new business. He and Bushy were hanging around mercenaries but they weren’t organized and he wanted to start an agency to sell their services and he had just the name for it.

  Q: Orion?

  A: Orion Solutions. He thought it was very funny.

  Q: And then?

  A: After the third year I didn’t go back. I found a new name on the black market. I became bad. Too much money. Too much liquor. Pot. Cars, women. And seventeen dead bodies in my head. Until I woke up one morning and pissed blood and knew I didn’t want to live like that. I couldn’t change anything that had happened, but I didn’t want to go on living like that. So I packed my stuff and sold the flat and drove to Pretoria and looked for work. I started working for Iscor, in the stores. Became foreman. And then I met Elaine.

  Q: Your wife.

  A: Yes.

  Q: You saw Venter or Schlebusch last year, you said?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Where?

  A: At my home.

  Q: How did they find you?

  A: Speckle said it was his business to know where we were. He said he didn’t gamble with his future.

  Q: What did he want?

  A: Money. He was big, all those muscles. He said he’d done bodybuilding, said it was the only way to ensure respect without shooting people.

  Q: His money was finished?

  A: He said the world had changed. No one wanted to make war anymore. No one had money for war any longer. He said they had lost everything. And Rupert and I were cozy—that was his word, “cozy”—we had women, we had children, the time had come to share again, we only had one another.

  Q: Did you give him money?

  A: I had buried the dollars I still had in 1985, on a smallholding I’d bought for the children to keep their horses.

  Q: Did your wife never ask where the money came from?

  A: I told her I’d inherited.

  Q: And you fetched the money?

  A: It had rotted. Speckle was furious; he said I should’ve buried it in plastic bags. I thought he was going to shoot me. Then he told me to draw money. I told him that it was invested, that there was only a hundred thousand in cash, and he told me to draw it.

  Q: Did you?

  A: Yes.

  Q: And then they left?

  A: Yes. With a final threat. I knew I’d see them again. But then I saw Rupert’s photo in the newspaper and then I knew.

  Q: And then you came to the Cape?

  A: What else could I do? The thing just wouldn’t go away. But I knew that. From the time beside the plane, I knew
. This thing would never go away.

  59.

  Hope Beneke came in the evening. “He must rest,” the nurse said protectively.

  “She’s been waiting for a week,” his mother said.

  “She’s the last one today.”

  “I promise.”

  As if he had no say in the matter.

  They both went out and then she came in. “Van Heerden,” she said, her gaze taking in the drip, the now-dormant monitors, the bandages, and the deep, dark circles round his eyes as a worried frown clouded her face.

  He looked at her and something registered: a glimpse, a shadow. Something had changed there, in the way she held her shoulders, the way she carried her head and her neck, in the fine adjustments of facial nerves and eyes. A certain acceptance.

  She had lost her innocence, he thought. She had seen the evil.

  “How can I ever thank you?”

  “In the locker, bottom shelf,” he said, his voice not yet fully recovered from the oxygen tube. He didn’t want her to thank him, because he didn’t know how to react.

  She hesitated for a moment, surprised, then bent down and opened the metal door of the locker.

  “The document.”

  She took it out.

  “You have the right to know,” he said. “You and Tiny. But then it must be destroyed. That’s my agreement with Joubert.”

  She glanced at the first pages and nodded.

  “You mustn’t thank me.”

  Her face registered a series of emotions. She started to say something, then swallowed the words.

  “Are you… are you okay?”

  She sat down next to the bed. “I’ve started therapy.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  She looked away and then back at him. “There are things I want to say.”

  “I know.”

  “But it can wait.”

  He said nothing.

  “Kemp sends his regards. He says we needn’t have worried about you. Weeds don’t just wither.”

  “Kemp,” he said. “Always first in line with sympathy.”