Red Earth

by Tony Park

  ‘I’m pleased Lerato’s safe.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Mike gave Nia a rundown of the firefight in Zimbabwe and told her how the US Navy helicopter crew had taken the wounded anti-poaching operators, Shane Castle, Jordan Penquitt and Oscar Mpofu, to Chiredzi Hospital. Sylvester had been shot in the back, fatally through the heart, while he carried Jordan on his shoulders.

  ‘Such brave men,’ Nia said.

  ‘Yes. Tim’s looking after them.’

  ‘Where’s Suzanne?’

  ‘The last I saw of her she had a hood on her head, cuffs on her wrists and Franklin Washington was escorting her to a black Chevrolet van with a couple of South African police detectives in tow. Jed’s here with us. He wants to talk to you.’

  Nia had already told him, as soon as she’d ascertained he was safe, that she’d had no luck at the bank. Mike had been bluffing when he told Suzanne that Nia had accessed the account. Suzanne had no idea of how early Nia had left Zimbabwe for Switzerland, but the fact was that it was three in the morning when the gunfight went down near Fish Eagle Lodge.

  Nia had told him the banker she was dealing with at the bank in Geneva had confirmed the account number was valid, but the password, 828866, was not valid.

  ‘What else can we do about the account?’ Nia asked on the phone. ‘I tried giving them the number in reverse, but that didn’t work either. It’s some other sort of code, I guess.’

  Themba was finished with the police, evidently, because he wandered towards Mike and stopped a couple of metres away, waiting for him to finish the call. Mike held up a finger and Themba nodded that he was happy to wait. Jed, too, was hovering nearby, though out of earshot. ‘828866,’ Mike said aloud. ‘Assuming it’s a code, then the repetition of numbers might help us.’

  ‘I’m not a code breaker,’ Nia said.

  ‘Talk to Jed for now. He’s not a bad guy,’ Mike said.

  ‘OK.’

  Mike motioned for Jed to come over and handed him his phone. The CIA man walked away, apparently to avoid Mike overhearing. Mike didn’t care; he was sure Nia would fill him in on what the American wanted. Themba, meanwhile, had moved off as well, to the side of the hangar. Outside a crew room was a whiteboard with flight schedules on it. An airman in camouflaged fatigues stood looking in interest as Themba wrote on the board with a pen the man had let him borrow. Mike walked over.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I wanted to help. I heard you talking about a number, a code. Those sorts of things interest me.’

  Mike could tell from soon after he’d met Themba, then a surly criminal on probation, that he had an enquiring mind. As part of the rhino guard course Mike had set some challenges that he’d picked up during his own army training, and Themba had always been among the first to solve them. On the board he’d written the numbers one to nine, in three rows of three. He was busy writing letters under each digit. ‘What are you doing?’

  Themba glanced at him, over his shoulder, then went back to writing. ‘I don’t have a phone on me, but I’m writing out a cell phone keypad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Look. You know those companies that get their own personalised phone numbers from the phone companies? They make the number out of the name of their firm, using the letters on a keypad.’

  Mike folded his arms and nodded.

  ‘Your number is 828866, right?’

  Mike was impressed with his memory. Themba had only just overheard that number. ‘Don’t tell Jed or anyone else, OK?’

  ‘I won’t.’ Themba finished writing and stepped back so Mike could see the whiteboard. Themba reached out and tapped the numbers he’d written. ‘Eight comes up three times, and under it, on a phone, see here, are the letters “T”, “U” and “V”.’

  Mike rubbed his chin. ‘So we try “T” first, maybe?’

  ‘Yes. And if we look at the number that’s also repeated, six, it could be “M”, “N” or “O”.’

  ‘There are some words in English that have two of all of those letters, but if you supposed “T” was the letter designated by eight, then …’

  Mike was tired, more exhausted than he’d been since his army days or when he was on patrol looking for poachers. Tracy was good at cryptic crosswords and sudoku, but he had never seemed to be able to apply his mind to such things. ‘What?’

  ‘Look here, the number one never has letters under it – I never worked out why – but under two, the other number in your code, the first letter is “A”. “T”, “A”, “T”, “T”.’

  Themba looked at him like a patient teacher waiting for a slow child to grasp something. ‘Tattoo?’

  ‘It’s a word. Does that woman who was following us have a tattoo?’ Themba asked.

  ‘I don’t know. The Americans might, but like I said, I want to keep this between us for now, OK?’

  ‘I won’t say anything.’

  Mike had a second thought. ‘Actually I do know someone else who spent some time with Suzanne.’

  Jed had finished his call and was striding across the hangar to them. Themba picked up a felt eraser and rubbed his part of the schedule board clean.

  Banks squared up to him. ‘Mike, I know I’ve asked you nicely a couple of times, but you really need to tell me what was on that microchip.’

  ‘I’m guessing Nia wouldn’t tell you, either.’

  ‘You’re guessing right. What are y’all doing here with the board?’

  ‘Homework,’ Themba said. ‘I’ve been out of school a few days.’

  Jed shook his head. ‘That money’s not Nia’s or yours.’

  ‘Nor yours either, I would have thought,’ Mike said.

  ‘Nia could be in danger, Mike. The bank might have been under instructions to call someone if a person showed up and tried to access the account and failed. That sort of thing happens.’

  Mike thought he was bluffing. ‘Who are they going to call? Suzanne Fessey? Her husband Omar Farhat? Egil Paulsen? Osama bin Laden? They’re all dead or incommunicado.’

  ‘I represent the US Government, Mike.’

  Mike put his fists on his hips. ‘Yes, and I’m a South African.’

  Jed ran a hand through his thick fair hair. ‘OK. I told Nia that the US Government will probably offer a reward, perhaps a cut of whatever’s in the bank account. I can’t say that for sure, but our aim is to shut that account down, even if we can’t get the money, so that it’s not accessed by someone else for the use we think it was set aside for. That money was for something that history would remember forever, for all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘A nuclear weapon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mike didn’t want that either, but he did want to make sure the baby, Lerato, Themba – and Nia and himself – got out of this safely and didn’t end up in a CIA interrogation facility in some country in America’s debt.

  ‘The baby’s safe, right?’ Jed prompted Mike.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I trust y’all on that front. I understand your concerns, Mike, but I’m not going to torture this out of you.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t, Jed, but how do I know what the rest of the CIA has planned for us? I’ll tell you what, give Nia and me the night to think about this. I’ve got friends in the government, and so does Bandile Dlamini. I want some ironclad guarantees for the safety of the children and I want lawyers and senior people aware of what’s going on.’

  ‘A word in private, Mike?’ Jed said. ‘Excuse us, please, Themba.’

  Themba moved away, heading to where Lerato sat on a bench next to her father. Mike was pleased he wasn’t heading for that confrontation. ‘What is it, Jed?’

  Jed checked to make sure there was no one else in earshot. ‘If you get the money, you and Nia will be targets. The terrorists will come looking for it, eventually. I can
broker something. If you guys want to take a cut, I’m cool with that. No one knows how much is in there, anyway.’

  Mike was annoyed. ‘We’re not criminals, Jed. We don’t want to line our own pockets with terrorists’ money.’

  Jed raised his hands. ‘OK, sorry. Just keep me in the loop, all right?’

  ‘Give me some time.’

  Jed looked him in the eye. ‘I can hold off my boss, Chris Mitchell, ’til dawn, no longer.’

  Mike got the message. Jed might be a good guy, but he worked with some bad ones.

  *

  Themba felt more scared than he had at any time since his cousin Joseph had forced him into the stolen Fortuner.

  Bandile Dlamini had his arm around Lerato, holding her close to him. She had sobbed for a long time and Themba could see the big man’s shirt front was damp. Her father kissed her on the top of the head and turned his head slowly in Themba’s direction. Themba was reminded of the old male buffalo that had nearly killed him in Hluhluwe.

  ‘What do you want?’ Dlamini asked, drawing out each word.

  Themba swallowed. ‘To apologise, sir. I am very sorry for everything that happened to Lerato.’

  Dlamini scowled. ‘You are a criminal. If I so much as hear from a teacher that you have even spoken to my daughter I will have you arrested.’

  ‘Father.’ Lerato lifted her face from his chest and sniffed. ‘Themba can’t be blamed for what happened.’

  ‘He was supposed to see you home safely.’

  ‘And he did, Daddy,’ she said.

  Dlamini glared at him. ‘If I had known you were a car thief, I would never have allowed you to escort Lerato.’

  ‘He’s not a thief, Daddy,’ Lerato said. She grabbed her father’s forearm.

  Themba cleared his throat. ‘I have something to ask.’

  Dlamini raised his eyebrows. ‘You have some temerity.’

  Themba drew a breath. ‘I would like permission to see Lerato, outside of school hours.’

  ‘No.’

  Lerato let go of her father and stood. She went to Themba and stood so close to him she was almost touching him. ‘Themba, I would love to go out with you.’ His worried face broke into a grin. ‘Though perhaps not to a game reserve, at least not for some time.’

  He laughed, and then got such a shock he thought he might faint when she reached out to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

  *

  Nia walked down the street from her hotel to the bank in Zurich. The buildings were three and four storeys high, painted in subdued colours.

  It was sunny but cool enough for her to have needed to buy a coat. There wasn’t a scrap of litter on the footpath or in the gutter and the people she passed were dressed neatly and conservatively, mostly in business attire.

  She went to the door of the bank, which was located in a nondescript, modern stone building, and pushed the button on the intercom. Only a tiny plaque the size of a postcard advertised the bank’s name, Grunelius. She’d felt foolish earlier, and as polite as the bank manager had been he’d been unable to hide his disapproving look of suspicion as she had fumbled her way through as many combinations of the passcode as she could think of.

  ‘Miss Carras, how nice to see you again.’ The man’s eyes spoke otherwise as he let her into the building.

  ‘I have the passcode,’ she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  Nia read the account number to him, as she had done yesterday, and his fingers were barely audible on the keyboard.

  ‘The passcode is 30–1–16,’ she said.

  Mike had called her, in the night, and told her that he had spoken to his ex-wife, Tracy. He had remembered that Tracy had met Suzanne Fessey when Suzanne had been masquerading as a policewoman, and he’d asked Tracy whether she had noticed a visible tattoo of anything on the other woman. Tracy had told Mike that Suzanne had a date tattooed on the inside of her right arm, and that the two of them had discussed its significance. The day and month of the date, the birthday of Suzanne’s son, were the same as their daughter Debbie’s. Suzanne had explained that her son had been born in 2016.

  The banker typed in the numbers and dashes, then looked at her over the top of the computer monitor. ‘Here we are. How can I assist you?’

  ‘Can I see the balance of the account?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The man swivelled the large monitor of his computer around so Nia could see it.

  ‘Eish,’ she said aloud.

  Chapter 35

  The next day Mike parked his rented car at Johannesburg’s O. R. Tambo International Airport and walked through the undercover parking area to the terminal buildings and downstairs to Arrivals.

  The hall was busy as always. Families were waiting for loved ones while safari operators and hire car drivers held signs with the names of arriving passengers. Two security guards in blue camouflage uniforms and matching berets patrolled past Mike as he took up a position and waited for Nia.

  He checked his watch. It was 10.55. Nia had messaged him just after Swissair flight LX288 had landed, on time, at 10.25.

  Long queue at immigration, was the next message he received from her.

  All clear on this side, he replied.

  ‘Mike.’

  He turned around and realised he had messaged too soon to Nia. ‘Jed.’

  ‘I’m not here to grab Nia, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

  Mike looked around the terminal for any other signs of muscle power. ‘The thought had come to mind.’

  ‘I’ve got bad news, Mike,’ Jed said. ‘Suzanne Fessey is in the wind.’

  Mike’s chest tightened. ‘She escaped?’

  Jed nodded. ‘Franklin didn’t check in when he was supposed to, after leaving Louis Trichardt yesterday. Suzanne never arrived at Johannesburg’s women’s prison, where she was to be held in maximum custody until the US and South African governments worked out who was going to prosecute her, and what for.’

  ‘Franklin?’

  ‘There was him and two South African police officers in the SUV. The Chevvie was found burned out on a farm between Pretoria and Joburg. There were the bodies of three men on board and no Suzanne. Initial report is that all of the men were shot, and there was no sign of Franklin’s pistol in the wreck. Somehow she got the jump on them.’

  ‘While she’s alive and on the loose Nia’s at risk.’

  ‘And so are you, Mike,’ Jed said.

  Mike looked around the Arrivals hall again. A pair of South African police officers, armed with R5s, moved through. He guessed the additional security was a result of the recent bombing. ‘Do the South Africans know that Nia’s on this flight?’

  ‘No.’ Jed lowered his voice. ‘If your friend Nia hit the jackpot and emptied the terrorists’ bank account then the South African customs or police people would seize any sizeable amount of undeclared cash. If Nia doesn’t play ball with us, and collect her reward for her troubles, then I’m afraid I will call the airport police into play.’

  Mike had no idea what, if anything, Nia had found, and she had been unwilling to talk about it over the phone in case he was being listened in on. ‘I don’t know if she found anything in the bank account.’

  Jed looked him in the eyes. ‘I know that, Mike.’

  Mike smiled. He’d been right. They were both on the CIA’s radar now, he and Nia, and with Suzanne out there again Jed would be thinking, perhaps hoping, that they might lure Suzanne into the open.

  Mike’s phone beeped again. Nia had cleared immigration and was on her way through.

  *

  Chris Mitchell pulled into a short-term parking bay in the pick-up zone outside the airport terminal but didn’t turn off the engine of the hired Mercedes transit van.

  He reached ove
r and turned up the volume on the car radio. He’d heard the news on 5FM half an hour ago, but his two passengers in the back would have missed it. The timing was perfect.

  ‘The President announced today that South Africa would stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorism on the African continent following the assassination of Ambassador Anita Rosenfeld in Durban. This radical shift in national policy was tentatively welcomed by the opposition Democratic Alliance.’

  Chris turned off the radio and looked back at the man and woman in South African police uniforms.

  ‘We’re almost done here. Nia Carras will be coming into the Arrivals hall any minute now. Banks is there, as is Mike Dunn. You two good to go?’

  ‘Affirmative, sir,’ said Franklin Washington. He looked to the woman next to him.

  ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ Suzanne Fessey said. She took the Z88 pistol from the leather holster on her belt and cocked it. Franklin did likewise and the pair did a quick check of their equipment and radios.

  It had been a shame about the two South African police officers that Franklin and Suzanne had killed in the Chevrolet, and the homeless man they had killed and burned in the truck to make it look like Franklin was dead. More troubling to Chris was the death of the Navy aircrew on the helicopter that Paulsen’s men had brought down. Suzanne Fessey had told Chris she had not known that their cache of weapons included an RPG-7 anti-armour weapon.

  Events had overtaken him there for a while, Chris mused, after Suzanne’s car had been hijacked. The initial response, coordinated by Jed Banks, had been almost too efficient. Paulsen and his men did not know Suzanne had been turned by the CIA and they had brought down the Sea Hawk with deadly force, nearly killing Chris’s man, Franklin Washington, in the process.

  Franklin had done a masterful job, going undercover in Syria, and making contact with Omar Farhat and his wife, Suzanne Fessey. The couple had travelled there, covertly, a couple of times a year to talk strategy with their new masters. Over the past two years Franklin had turned Suzanne, who had become increasingly disenchanted with the way women were being treated in the ISIS-controlled caliphate.