An Ordinary Day
Page 12
Within an hour of the contract being signed, a van bearing the legend ‘Star Finder Satellite Systems’ pulled into the driveway. Four men and a woman shook hands with Durant and followed him into the house.
Sam Mtshali, the technical team leader, was a well-built man whose flamboyant gold jewellery contrasted oddly with his Rastafarian dreadlocks. He had an infectious charisma about him and Durant could see he led a tight team. They wasted no time in drilling micro-holes and laying cabling in the ceilings for the nine cameras they expected would cover the main areas of the house. Four microphones would take care of the sound. The townhouse was spacious – in keeping with Dahdi’s cover story that he was a travelling millionaire; this in itself created a few problems. Five cameras had to be installed just to cover the basic living areas. Sound was another problem. Because of the large rooms and wooden laminate flooring, voices echoed and this was only solved by bringing in heavy curtains and thick carpets. There was little hope of staying in budget, and Durant was acutely aware that it was taxpayers who were funding the operation.
Although furnished, the townhouse needed some personal touches, and Dahdi was asked to provide a few artefacts to litter around the flat to reinforce the link to him. Dahdi sent a large box of ornaments and framed photographs of himself at various locations around the world, which Durant spent more than an hour arranging around the apartment. A framed photograph of a beautiful woman Durant assumed was Dahdi’s wife came out the box and Durant carefully mounted it above the dining room table. He grinned at the irony. Dahdi and his family would be watching Elhasomi in the apartment; the old spy would appreciate that. A beautiful Zulu figurine, bronzed and with multi-coloured beadwork, caught Durant’s eye; it looked particularly striking as a centrepiece on the sideboard beside the dining room table.
Durant stayed for the morning and observed the team at work. Watching Sam was frustrating; he was professional, and an utter perfectionist. It had taken him two and a half hours to match a paint colour so that it could be applied to a small section of cornice that had been removed and replaced with a built-in camera. Durant wasn’t aware that so many shades of white were visible to the naked eye.
Durant knew the deadline was going to be tight. He’d expected Elhasomi to give at least a few weeks’ advance notice of her arrival, which would have given them enough time to complete a flawless installation. When Dahdi sent word that Elhasomi was arriving in four days, Durant knew that there was a serious chance that the operation would fail. There was hopelessly too little time. It had taken the first day just dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare of justifying the entire operation and motivating for a budget. The lease was signed and the technical team arrived only the following day, and their equipment was far from state-of-the-art. The newer equipment, Sam explained, was tied up in a priority operation in Cape Town. Durant couldn’t help wondering what could be more priority than a Libyan diplomat meeting a local crime boss to discuss apocalyptic events.
Laying the cables and setting up the transmitters in the roof took longer than expected and the team worked all night on the first and second day. Early tests revealed that the transformers which drove the equipment and which were hidden in the ceiling were prone to overheating. Durant knew that Sam was under as much pressure as he was: a perfectionist with unreliable equipment, he was smoking more than the overheating transformer in the ceiling.
The most frustrating thing of all was that the transmitter wasn’t transmitting consistently; some sort of interference – possibly the Metro Police’s cctv camera – was shortening the signals’ range. The initial plan had been to transmit the video and audio signals to the operations centre at the office, but now they had to be relayed instead to a van parked in the street two blocks from the townhouse. If transmitting over this distance was a problem, Durant suggested to Sam, they could just send the signal to the target’s TV set and he could monitor himself. Sam didn’t laugh.
It was late afternoon, and Durant sat in the monitoring van with Amina and a member of the technical unit. He listened on a pair of headphones, tweaked a few dials, spoke into his radio and sipped a cup of strong black coffee. Durant had experienced this before. Everything went wrong and nothing worked, up until a magical moment when, as if some hidden switch had been flipped, everything suddenly fell into place. But this time he felt that they’d missed that moment. When he looked at Amina’s face he knew she felt the same way. She kept apologising, which made Durant even angrier; it wasn’t her fault. That was the problem in these situations – there was no one to blame.
Durant’s cellphone rang again and he shouted into it, ‘Still nothing!’ There was a soft sobbing on the other end of the line: Stephanie. Between the sobs, he heard three distinct words: ‘Come home, now.’
Durant made the twenty-minute drive home in just less than eleven minutes. With curious neighbours peering over their front gates, he made it to the front door in two strides and burst in, expecting the worst. Stephanie lay motionless on the couch. The baby was lying in her car seat, strapped in, apparently asleep. Durant felt his legs weaken; his body became incredibly heavy. He moved as if in slow motion to the car seat as a million thoughts and feelings blurred together in his head. He later remembered noticing a small spit bubble at Alexis’s lips pop and he knew she was breathing. He fell to his knees beside Stephanie and he instinctively felt her neck for a pulse. She mumbled and rolled over towards him. Durant fell backwards, his eyes wide and his heart pounding. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled before closing them again. She was alive.
‘You’re home early,’ she said.
Durant’s mouth was so dry it took him a moment to get the words out. ‘What happened?’
Stephanie looked surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You … you called me, told me to come home, something happened. I thought you needed help.’ Durant was still crouching on the floor.
Stephanie’s eyes opened and a small frown appeared between them. ‘Did I call you?’ she asked.
‘You were crying, you said I must come home.’
Stephanie closed her eyes, yawned and rolled over on the couch turning her back on him. ‘Don’t believe me then, suit yourself.’
Durant sat on the carpet. With his sleeve he wiped the perspiration off his forehead. Was he the one who was going crazy?
6
Durant was surprised that for once somebody had remembered to light the braais early; he was hungry and didn’t want to stay too long. He didn’t really have time for the monthly office social, but Masondo insisted he should be there.
Durant looked at the office staff – operational members, administrative personnel, security officers, technical experts, vetting officers, investigators and managers. They all looked pretty ordinary to him. Could this group of loud, laughing, high-spirited men and women really make a difference to the country? The answer came as quickly as the question: yes, they could, and they did.
Shezi walked up to Durant with a bread roll in one hand and a beer in the other. ‘The roll will keep us alive until the meat’s cooked. I need the meat, brother.’
‘It’s gonna hit the spot, Mike. I’m starved. Stephanie hasn’t really been Nigella in the kitchen lately. Are you okay?’
‘I’m okay now. I just think too much sometimes.’
‘Don’t. Sometimes we think stopping bad things from happening is so important. Think about it. Weapons of mass destruction. Mass destruction. These are huge words. There are some really evil people out there, but sometimes we think we’re the most evil of all in our own homes. We neglect our families. I feel guilty.’
‘It’s a cage, Kev, I know. I’m in one too. You’ll never get out, you’re locked in. Fear keeps you inside.’
‘It’s easy dealing with secrets. It’s hard to talk about stuff at home. I’m used to keeping everything inside.’
Shezi nodded. ‘Our lives are one big lie. We think we’re these supermen, but we’re actually feeble. We can’t even please our own f
amilies any more.’
‘So you don’t feel like a hero, Mike?’
‘I feel more like a failure. I’m just working to eat, not to save the universe.’
‘Pat yourself on the back for making it this far.’
A smiling Amina walked up to the two men. ‘Don’t you two have work to do?’
‘Very funny. I’d rather not be here myself. I’m out of here as soon as my meat’s cooked,’ Durant said.
‘You unsociable lot. Can’t you do anything except work these days? Don’t you have lives?’
Shezi laughed. ‘This is our life. Be a darling and braai our meat, Amina.’
‘I don’t even eat meat and you want me to braai yours?’
Durant laughed. ‘See how we’re treated, Mike? Not only aren’t we heroes, even the womenfolk don’t respect us. We’re losers!’
‘A family of losers!’ and Shezi pulled Durant and Amina in for a group hug. ‘I love you guys.’
When Durant wandered across to the braai area with his meat, he thought about what had got into Shezi lately.
Anja spotted Elhasomi first. She had seen her before and had marvelled at how beautiful she was, but she seemed more stunning than ever now as she waited for her suitcases at the carousel. Her straight black hair was tied back loosely and her light green eyes looked mysteriously transparent against her olive skin. She stood by herself, her arms resting lightly on the trolley and then looked over and smiled as Salem embraced her from behind.
Anja had identified the man before he walked up to her. He was clearly Middle-Eastern, tanned, with short, gelled, black hair, dark glasses resting on his forehead. If there was a male equivalent of Elhasomi, he was it – distinctly good-looking features, well built and dressed in designer jeans and a khaki top. Anja made the call to Durant. ‘The other package has arrived. It appears as though the two packages are very close. I’ll call you back when I’ve established their mode of transport.’
The small air-conditioning unit in the monitoring van just wasn’t coping with the 38-degree temperature outside. Sweat dripped on the small table in front of him as he scribbled notes while Anja updated him on the progress of the package. As Elhasomi and Salem neared the townhouse in their hired vehicle, Amina dared not speak to Durant. He was totally absorbed in the monochrome images on the monitors. Uptown Girl was minutes away from the townhouse.
Durant tried to determine the critical point when there would be no doubt that the target was approaching the house, and when he could stand the surveillance unit down. The closer Elhasomi got to the house, the more suspicious she would be. He didn’t want to risk the surveillance unit blowing the operation if their tail became obvious. He involuntarily raised his arm, still staring at the monitors, as if starting a race, and when Anja said they had turned off the freeway and were heading in the general direction of the townhouse, he made the call. ‘Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw!’ His hand came down slowly and he leaned in so close to the monitors, Amina thought his chair would flip over forward. There was now a strange quiet in the van, punctuated by the humming of fans in the electronic equipment and the distant whining of the air-conditioning unit on the roof.
The images on the screens were still. Like black-and-white art, they reflected an eerie beauty inside the townhouse. Every few seconds the pictures broke up into distorted lines and the sound crackled annoyingly. Durant seethed with frustration and Amina knew there was no point in saying anything. She knew as well as he did that they were lucky to have any pictures or sound at all given the short time they’d had to set the operation up.
Long minutes passed as Durant and Amina’s eyes searched the monitors for a hint of someone approaching the townhouse. A shadow, a change of light, anything. Dahdi had indicated to Elhasomi that a friend would leave the keys under the mat and Durant knew that one of the tiny cameras would catch the couple as they walked in through the front door. But they didn’t. A full twenty minutes went by before Durant spoke. The disappointment in his voice reflected in his downcast eyes. ‘Did I stand down the surveillance unit too soon?’ he asked, and then looked at Amina as if he really wanted an answer.
‘I would have called it when you did,’ she lied.
‘I thought they were close enough. Twenty-five minutes. Maybe they’re just lost. They’re foreigners in a strange city; the neighbourhood’s very confusing. Isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ Amina knew that nothing she said would console him. She put her hand on his arm and said softly, ‘Kevin, why don’t you go home? I don’t mind staying here all night if I have to. I’ll be fine here by myself. The backup vehicle’s just up the road. I’ll call you if anything happens.’
‘Thanks, Amina, but I’m staying. They’ll come to our house, they’ve just gone to get something to eat. They’ll be here soon, trust me.’
‘Kevin!’ Amina’s voice couldn’t hide the excitement. ‘Listen!’
Durant grabbed a set of headphones and clamped them on his ears. The microphones in the townhouse were picking up the distant sound of a vehicle engine idling outside. Then a car door opening and closing, and finally voices, slowly getting louder as they neared the front door. The voices were clearly male and female and Amina’s face lit up.
‘She called him “Ben”, and she’s saying next time she’ll drive and he can navigate.’ Durant was impressed by how much Amina’s trained ear could hear through the clutter of noise. He hadn’t heard a word.
The number three monitor captured the moment the front door swung open and Elhasomi and her companion entered the hall. The camera was mounted high and the angle caused the picture to shorten the figures of the two as they came into view. Despite this, the features of Elhasomi and Salem could clearly be seen. As the couple embraced in the hallway, Durant leaned back in his chair and smiled.
‘It’s going to be an interesting evening. Amina. Promise you’ll change channels if there’re any sex scenes.’
She smiled. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got to this point. It’s a miracle.’
‘It is a miracle. But we’re going to need a few more miracles before we can pat ourselves on the back.’
Elhasomi and Salem took their suitcases upstairs.
‘Amina, you like the soapies, so I’ll leave you to watch tonight. I haven’t been home much in the last few days and Stephanie hasn’t really been coping well lately, so can I leave this to you?’
‘You know you can,’ she said, and eagerly stood up to replace Durant in the hot seat. ‘I’ll call you if there’s anything interesting, which means I’ll probably be on the phone to you the whole night.’
‘Perhaps give me one call with the summarised version. Mike will join you later, and backup’s outside. We need to figure out who this guy is and what they’re doing here. The connection to Ali is obviously our first prize.’
Durant desperately wanted to stay, but he also wanted to let Amina know he trusted her enough to let her carry on without him.
A gentle breeze tugged at the tartan tablecloths at the Park Restaurant, and the breakfast regulars began to fill up the tables quickly.
The morning sun was warm on Stephanie’s shoulders and it seemed as though she hadn’t felt it for weeks. She moved out of the umbrella’s shadow completely and leaned back in her chair, letting the sun fall on her face.
‘Are you okay?’ the man opposite her asked, extending a hand to touch her arm, thinking better of it, and resting it on the table in front of him. As presumptuous and self-assured as Richard King was, he knew that some boundaries were still in place.
Stephanie shook her head without looking up. ‘Kevin and I used to come to this place often. We used to talk about our dreams, our kids, our careers, about all the things that mattered in life. We haven’t been here for months. And we haven’t spoken about those things for months. Whenever he tries, I get angry and it gets awkward and then Kevin withdraws.’
King leaned forward. His eyes held a gentleness and compassion she hadn’t seen in a man for months.
‘Childbirth’s a normal event. Women have babies all the time. Why is it just me who can’t cope?’
‘You’re coping okay.’
‘I’m not. I want to be enjoying this time. I want to be able to push a pram through the park and having everyone say what a beautiful baby I have.’
‘It’ll happen. You just need some time to adapt to this new life. It happens to a lot of women, and they all somehow survive.’
‘It’s overwhelming, Richard. I’m totally out of control when I’m alone with the baby. I worry about something happening and I can’t handle it. She has this weird hold on me, like she’s trying to control my life.’
‘Steph, she’s only a baby – don’t attribute too much to her. She has simple needs. She just wants to be loved, fed and left to sleep. And all those things are within your power.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it, Richard. It feels like I’m powerless. I can’t do the simplest things. I couldn’t give birth naturally, I couldn’t breast-feed, she cries all the time … I’m a total failure. I don’t have any control.’
‘Then you’re like a million other mothers out there. There’s nothing wrong with those things.’
‘Then why am I seeing a shrink? My mother’s spending more time with Alexis than me.’
‘I think you read too many books. Your expectations of motherhood are way too high.’
‘My expectations were the same as any other mother’s …’
‘You want a baby that sleeps eight hours a night, never cries and feeds herself?’
‘That is not funny. I just wanted everything to be the same as before.’
‘It never is. Your body’s never the same again, your social life changes radically and your career goes for a ball … You need some time to adjust.’